The Jogger Who Didn't Want The Attention

 




The Jogger Who Didn’t Want the Attention

The jogger’s name is Evan Pike.
Thirty-two. Accountant. Wears neon shoes like guilt might chase him faster in the dark.

He’s sitting on the curb now, wrapped in a foil blanket that crinkles every time he breathes. Hands still shaking like the river hasn’t let go of him yet. A patrol cop crouches nearby, asking gentle questions that don’t land gentle at all.

D. Less clocks him from twenty feet out.

He’s not traumatized.
He’s edited.

She steps in before the uniform can scare the rest out of him.

“Morning,” she says, voice low, neutral. “You’re the one who stopped running.”

Evan nods too fast.

“I—I thought it was driftwood. I swear. Then it turned.”

“Bodies do that,” she says. “Anything else turn with it?”

He swallows. Looks past her. At the river. At nothing.

“There was a sound,” he says. “Not a splash. More like… something being let go.”

That gets her attention.

“Let go how?”

He frowns, searching for the right lie or the right word. Hard to tell which.

“Like when you drop keys into water,” he says. “On purpose. You hear it once. Then it’s gone.”

D. Less lets that sit. The river agrees by doing absolutely nothing.

“Did you see anyone else?” she asks.

Evan hesitates. Long enough.

“I saw headlights,” he says. “Not on the road. Down closer to the bank. Parked wrong. Like they weren’t worried about tickets.”

“What kind of car?”

He closes his eyes.

“Black,” he says. “Old. Sounded expensive.”

Of course it did.

WBCB — Before the City Puts Its Face On

By the time D. Less pulls onto Riverside, WBCB is already whispering.

Not shouting.
Not speculating.

Just telling the night crowd what the morning doesn’t know yet.

“…sources say the body recovered near Hustler’s Alley shows signs of prior injury. Authorities decline comment. If you’re just waking up, Bluff City did not sleep well…”

The radio voice is smooth. Too smooth. Like it enjoys being first more than being right.

D. Less flicks it off.

WBCB only knows things when someone wants them known.

The Body Gets a Name (But Not Yet a Story)

At the morgue, the fluorescents hum like they’re tired of watching people arrive this way.

The ME peels back the sheet.

Male. Mid-forties. Well-fed. Well-dressed. Not well-finished.

“Water did the cosmetics,” the ME says. “But the bruising? That’s a conversation that started elsewhere.”

“Cause of death?” D. Less asks.

The ME looks up. Just long enough.

“Drowning,” he says. “With encouragement.”

She nods. Writes nothing.

“Prints?” she asks.

“Working on it,” he says. “But his hands tell a story. This isn’t a guy who works for a living.”

“Neither do most of the ones who end up here,” she says.

The ME smirks. They’ve had this dance before.

As she turns to leave, he adds, “One more thing.”

She stops.

“There’s river silt in his cuffs,” he says. “But not enough. Like he didn’t fight the water much.”

D. Less exhales through her nose.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sounds like Bluff City hospitality.”

Elsewhere — Where the Engine Never Stops




The satin-black ’55 is parked now. Engine still running. Always running.

Vince “Viper” Malone leans back, watching the river through bulletproof glass like it owes him money.

Jack “The Snake” Rourke checks his watch.

“She’s circling,” Jack says.

Vince smiles. Thin.

“She always does.”

“You think she knows?”

Vince shrugs. Takes a drag. Doesn’t ash it.

“She knows something,” he says. “That’s her problem.”

Jack chuckles. “River’s gonna keep secrets?”

Vince looks out at the water.

“Rivers don’t keep secrets,” he says. “They just move ’em.”

The Chevy eases back into gear.

Bluff City wakes up another inch.

D. Less Tracy Writes One Line

Back in her car, D. Less finally opens the notebook.

She doesn’t write much. Just one sentence.

Body entered the river already finished.
Someone wanted the city to see it anyway.

She clicks the pen shut.

Somewhere in Bluff City, a door opens that shouldn’t.
Somewhere else, a song starts that doesn’t sound dangerous yet.

D. Less pulls into traffic.

“Alright,” she says to nobody.
“Who wanted the river to talk?”

And the city, mean and honest in the early light, starts answering — slow.

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