Chapter Text
Stede disliked paper. It was a bit of a shame, really, considering his profession and his love of reading. Some of his worst memories involve bits of paper, fluttering from his hands and ruining everything. A bad report card, which led a much-younger Stede to know how much his father detested it when he was anything less than stellar. A letter telling him that he hadn’t made it into his university of choice, the high-quality paper grating against his fingers as he felt his future slip out of reach. And the thick envelope served to him, informing him of his impending divorce from a woman he hadn’t loved but married out of duty.
So, no. Stede Bonnet was not a fan of paper. He loved reading and would gravitate towards digital books on his e-reader more so than physical books despite loving the smell that only came from older books and the ability to disappear inside the world between their spines. It was more environmentally conscious, so that was something.
He had gone to his second-choice university, his father’s first choice, and had graduated with a degree that he had worked hard for. He wasn’t proud of it, per se—he would only be proud of something he had wanted, something he had a passion for, and something he loved. He had been able to take some English classes, studying poetry and prose and the greats who had lived throughout history. He had a minor in English, which had irritated his father to no end. ‘A waste of money,’ he had called it.
Stede didn’t mind it. He could handle a few mean words. Those classes had been what kept him going through his pre-law degree and what had inspired him throughout law school. His reward for himself when he passed the bar was a top-of-the-line e-reader so that he could continue reading anything he ever chose.
Sitting in the coffee cafe of the new beachside town he had moved to, Lockwood, he cursed to himself as his beloved e-reader died from low battery. As much as he loved it, he wasn’t the best when it came to routinely charging it. He put it away into his bag, frowning. He had been in the middle of a wonderful mystery, a real who-dun-it, and a key piece of evidence had just been revealed.
Oh, well. He could charge it tonight and enjoy it before he went to bed.
His coffee in front of him, an Americano, was half-empty. He still had some time to kill on his lunch hour. His new office wasn’t the most welcoming environment so he tended to spend his free time in the cafe in the main square. Lockwood was a small town, no more than two thousand people, and it was the perfect place for Stede to start over.
After the divorce, he left his old hometown. He had lived there his entire life and thought he would have stayed there forever. Now, in a new town, it was odd to not know every nook and cranny, every road and every business. For the first week, it had been fun to explore and see what he could find. And then he had started at his new office, working through a backlog of cases and litigations, and nothing else seemed to be that exciting.
But it was a change of scenery.
And Stede was sitting in a cafe with a dead e-reader and forty minutes to kill before he went back to his office.
A cursory glance around the cafe provided few results for entertainment. There were a few high schoolers studying in the back corner of the shop and a few other business people like him who were killing time on their breaks. There weren’t any books or magazines to read, but there was a small newspaper box by the front door.
He walked over and lifted the flap, pulling one of the papers from its resting place. It was a bit thin for a newspaper, but he couldn’t afford to be picky. He returned to his seat at the counter near the baristas, his back to the front door.
Stede didn’t like paper, but he would make do just this once. Especially with the front page headline.
Woman found dead off Main St in Lockwood.
He read the article quickly.
In the early morning hours of Monday, May 31st, a woman was found off of Main St. She was declared dead by the paramedics once they arrived on the scene and had been deceased for several hours before she was discovered. The police are currently investigating this crime and have released very little information. It has been ruled a homicide. The police chief has this to say on Monday evening: “We are currently looking into every possible lead. We are asking any Lockwood residents who might have seen something on Sunday evening to come forward with any information they might have.”
There is one more piece of information that the police have released. According to one of our sources, there was a note found on the body. It was not written by the victim. The note reads as follows:
so many things ruined
lives and loves and chances
and yet its cruel
you will never find the answers
We can only speculate at this point what the poem means and if it was written by the killer. If it was, we are unsure as to what the note could have referred to. Perhaps it was done by someone who had been slighted by the woman, referencing the ruined chances. Or perhaps it was a jilted lover. Whichever it may be, we are waiting with bated breath to see what the police find.
The woman’s identity has been found and she was not a resident of Lockwood. She was from the neighboring town of Poppyville.
So far, no one has officially been questioned in association with this crime. Many residents are shocked and on edge given how small Lockwood is. If you have any information, please call (615)555-8791.
Stede blinked. He had come from a larger city, where there was no shortage of crime, and there had never been anything like this. This was properly strange.
He looked at the poem once more, whispering it quietly under his breath. Years ago, Stede had found that he was better at solving problems when he could sound them out and hear them as well as see the words.
There was something off about the article, the poem. He reached into his bag, retrieving his favorite red pen. He loved red ink, loved the color filling the papers he wrote on, and how it helped make cases stronger. He viewed it as a positive in contrast to the many people who associated red ink with failing grades in academia. It was just one more way in which he was different from those around him.
He circled one of the words in the poem.
Ruined.
He scribbled a small note in the margins, sipping on his Americano as he thought about this mystery. It was like something straight out of a novel. This almost made up for his e-reader’s battery dying and making it impossible to read his original mystery.
Behind him, the bell hanging above the front door tinkled as a patron entered the cafe. Stede dimly registered it, not turning around or looking away from his newspaper. He circled another word, making another note. He heard a voice speaking but didn’t bother to pick apart the words, to make sense of the consonants and syllables.
He didn’t pay it any mind until he realized the stool beside him was being pulled out and occupied by a man he didn’t know.
Stede glances up once, briefly, and gave a perfunctory smile with closed lips, inclining his head. In his two seconds of looking at the man, he registered long dark hair with an accompanying beard, deeply tan skin, and tattoos up and down the man’s arms. The man nodded back, his face remaining emotionless.
He looked to his other side to understand why the man had chosen the seat directly next to him. In the time that he had been enraptured in the article, the cafe had become more crowded than it had been before. A quick flick of his wrist made him note that he had only twenty minutes left in his break. When it reached the ten-minute mark, he usually walked back to his office.
He looked back down at the paper, spread out in front of him, and lifted his red pen to underline another word. Why was this one underlined? Was it more important than the others? It was so bloody interesting, to pick apart each word and analyze them on their own. Each word, independent from the poem, could be construed in a litany of ways, even when they were beside the others that composed the stanza.
So bloody interesting.
“What do you mean by that?”
Stede jolted slightly, surprised by the voice so close to him. He looked to his neighbor who was eyeing the paper with a scrutinizing gaze. He was looking at one phrase in particular, emphasizing his question by pointing to it with his left hand.
He had circled ‘ruined’ from the poem and had written next to it: this was interpreted wrong.
“Um, what?” Stede asked intelligently.
“What do you mean by that?” the stranger asked slowly, tapping the paper where it had been scribbled lightly with his finger. “Interpreted wrong how?”
Stede had always been a curious person. He had always sought out things that he didn’t understand so that he could, so that he could know how things worked and what made them tick. Not many other people in his life had ever understood it, so he was surprised at the insistence of the man he didn’t know.
“Um,” he said again, clearing his throat softly. “I think it could have been interpreted wrong.”
“Yeah, mate, I can read,” the man said, not unkindly. “Why?”
He was silent for a moment, wondering why he was so interested to know. It was an unusual case, sure, but he didn’t know why the man had been reading his annotations.
Well, he might as well go all in.
“It makes me think of The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy,” Stede explained, eyeing the stranger to gauge his reaction. “It was a poem written in 1866. It was about a woman who was looked down on by others in Victorian society for sexual promiscuity.”
The man gave him a slightly dubious look. “That was your first thought when you read ‘ruined?’”
“In the context of poetry, yes,” Stede replied, pointing to another note he had written. “See? The word ‘cruel’ makes me think of Cruel Beauty by Siddie Joe Johnson in 1931. ‘I am a girl who has never rested easy, so has my bed been made of shell and shard.’ It was underlined, so it seemed important. She was found just a few streets from the beach, wasn’t she?”
The man blinked twice, his expression showing how deep in thought he was. “She was,” he said quietly. He refocused his eyes and looked at Stede, narrowing his eyes slightly. “But that can be just a coincidence—who are you?”
“Stede,” he said, offering the man his hand as the years of manners instilled in him demanded it.
The man shook his hand once, his hand warm, and his grip firm. He withdrew his hand quickly, narrowly his eyes at Stede as if he was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. “Those are very specific interpretations.”
“I suppose they are,” Stede conceded. “But it makes sense. The victim was a young woman, found near a beach. The killer is saying that we’ll never find the answers, it’s a bit of a taunt. The poetry is the common link, I guess. The dots can be connected.”
The man, who still hadn’t given Stede his name, thought about it for a moment. One of the baristas wordlessly handed the man his drink. Stede couldn’t make sense of the writing scribbled on the opaque cup, but then asked himself why he was curious what the stranger was drinking.
“You don’t think like other people,” he said after a second.
Stede furrowed his brows. He had been told that his entire life—ridiculed for it, really—and it stung slightly that this complete stranger was so quick to notice and call him out on it. Stede shifted in his seat, prepared to go back to reading his newspaper in lieu of speaking to the man again.
“That’s what they tell me,” he said lightly, feigning disinterest.
“No, don’t take it that way.” There was something about the way that the man spoke, the musical lilting as his words rose and fell. “Most people are incredibly fucking dull. It’s a good thing to not think like them.”
Stede looked back at him, a small smile blooming. “Oh, alright, then.” The sting in his chest was gone. He felt a swell of pride at the compliment.
He glanced at his watch and cursed under his breath. He folded the newspaper up roughly and put it in his bag, grabbing his now-empty Americano. He hesitated for a split second before telling the stranger, “Have a nice day.”
“Enjoy the new law office,” the man replied, which made Stede stop short.
“What?” he asked, knitting his brows. How on earth had this man known—
His eyes glinted as he turned on the stool to face Stede. “Your shoes are new; the treads aren’t as worn. You’re wearing business casual and have a professional bag. You didn’t pull out a car key, so you probably walked here. There are only a few businesses within walking distance—and a new one that recently went up. Since you just moved here, it was an easy deduction.”
Stede blinked, processing what the other man had said. Holy—
“That was amazing,” he said earnestly. “How did you do that?”
The man blinked then, his expression morphing into slight surprise. The right corner of his mouth twitched. “See you around, Stede.”
“I’ll see you around—wait, what’s your name?”
“Ed.”
Stede nodded. “Alright then, Ed, I’ll see you around.” He turned on his heel and left the cafe, throwing out his empty cup as he went. As he walked to his office, he thought of the murder and the captivating man.
Maybe Lockwood was going to be more interesting than he had anticipated.
*****
Ed remained at the cafe after Stede Bonnet had left, finishing his tea. He had watched the man walk towards the new law offices, a small skip in his step. He was bloody interesting to Ed. He had made a series of deductions about the man before they had even spoken.
He was from one of the larger cities, based on a number of factors. New clothes and new shoes implied a new start and there was a small document that had been peeking out of his bag—notes about a subpoena. He was one of the new lawyers in the office, then.
Which made it all the more surprising when he had made the notes in the margins of the newspaper. They weren’t just errant scribbles like Ed had expected when he had first seen the man writing. They were intelligent remarks, looking at the poem from every angle. Ed had known about the crime before it had been published—perks of sometimes working with the Lockwood police department—and wanted to kick himself for not thinking of that earlier.
Stede had strolled in, on his fucking lunch break, and noticed things about the case that Ed hadn’t even considered while he was actively trying to solve it. It was humbling.
How did a lawyer come to be so interested in poetry, well-read enough that he could name the poems and their authors and the years that the poems were written at the drop of a hat? It seemed like more than a hobby and Ed wanted to know more about the man.
The murder had been a surprise to Ed. He hadn’t expected anything of this severity to ever come to Lockwood, given the size of the town, but at least it was something different from what he had previously been working on.
Hadn’t he just been lamenting about how bored he had been?
Being the sole private investigator in Lockwood meant that there was always going to be business—it just so happened to be boring. The last five cases had something to do with missing pets or stolen items. Cases that were resolved quickly, but were overall dull and menial.
This case promised something new, something exciting. Ed was supposed to meet Izzy at the police department in an hour to discuss everything that the police knew. He was seen as somewhat of a consultant for the police department, someone that they called when they were stumped (or out of their league). It was a good way to break up the monotony that Ed felt he was drowning in.
But maybe he won’t be bored anymore.
Not with someone like Stede Bonnet around.
When Ed had shared his deductions, Stede hadn’t reacted in a negative way. He had been impressed. It was a bit of a shock for Ed, someone who had been shunned and ignored and disliked for his uncanny ability to notice things and deduce the truth quickly. Ever since he was younger, people had told him not to do things like that, to be quiet and keep it to himself.
As he got older, he simply ignored them. He was almost always right and now used his intelligence for good, by solving different crimes and mysteries around Lockwood. There was a moment of pride when one of his former bullies had asked for help with some items that had been nicked from their garage overnight. He had said no.
Ed liked to think of himself as simple. He would see something, he would make a deduction, and he would share it. At the core of who he was, he knew he was someone who could solve almost any puzzle put in front of him.
Which made the poem on the victim’s body all the more intriguing. He hadn’t known what to make of it, what it meant. And then Stede waltzed in, handing Ed the potential meaning behind it on a silver fucking platter.
No, Ed thought, he most definitely wouldn’t be bored.
*****
The rest of the day was a drag compared to lunch. Stede took care of the things he needed to take care of, trying to ignore how dull the tasks were. He worked almost robotically, not even having to think too hard about what needed to be done. When the clock struck five pm, he packed up his bag and went to his car parked behind the office building.
His new apartment was furnished, which was a godsend when he first moved in, but now seemed drab and lifeless. There was only one painting on the walls, a lighthouse that Mary had painted for him before the divorce. It wasn’t until two months after the whole proceeding that Stede knew it had been the right thing to do. He still spoke to Mary weekly, along with their children. He missed them, he truly did, but it was needed for him to go. He hadn’t been happy with their life, and Mary hadn’t either.
He had his clothes, both new and old, packed away in the closet. It was a one-bedroom apartment, the perfect size for him. Since he didn’t like paper, he was able to keep hundreds of books on his e-reader without having to worry about the space they would take up in his living room or his bedroom.
And then he remembered what he had to do. He went to his bag and pulled out his e-reader, carrying it to his nightstand and plugging it in. The screen flashed at him, informing him that it would be an hour or so before it reached full charge.
Oh, well. He could finish his mystery tomorrow.
He passed the time by thinking of the newspaper article and Ed. The murder was so unexpected, he had thought that living in a tiny town would make it harder to hear about different crimes being committed. And Ed—the handsome man who seemed to appreciate the way that Stede thought about things. That was new.
Stede rarely solved problems in the way that others would, and that was partly why he was a good lawyer. He thought outside of the box more often than not. One of the downsides was that others at his law firm didn’t see eye to eye with his solutions, which was why he was working through a backlog of cases rather than working with newer clients.
Despite knowing two of the founding partners of the firm since they were all in boarding school together, Stede never got any preferential treatment. It may or may not have something to do with the fact that he and the Badminton brothers very rarely got along, even when they were children.
Either way, they had allowed Stede to move to the new office in Lockwood, for which he was grateful. It was a chance for a new start, a chance that Stede was going to make sure he took.
*****
Lockwood’s police department was much like its town: small. Ed didn’t spend much time here, even when he was helping the force with a case. He much preferred his apartment to the cramped station. There were colorful memos hung up all around the building, informing everyone of the upcoming workshops or city events. It smelled of stale coffee and the lighting almost always gave Ed a bit of a headache.
Behind the front desk, Fang caught sight of him. Fang was one of the police officers, and one of Ed’s favorite people in Lockwood. He and Ivan were the closest thing Ed could call friends. He was a bit of a loner, but those two would always make time for him when he felt like he wanted to be around people.
“Hey, Ed, come on back,” Fang said, gesturing with one hand.
He walked past the partition and followed Fang through the police station, towards the back conference room. There wasn’t too much crime in Lockwood, but when there was, they would have everything related to it in the back conference room. Ed was proven right when Fang led him there.
There were no less than three whiteboards in the room. The first one held all of the crime photos, one of which Ed recognized from the paper earlier today. The second one had handwritten notes about everything they knew. The third whiteboard was dedicated to the poem. The piece of paper in the center of the board had to be the original or at least a photocopy of the item found with the victim.
“Right,” Fang said, coming to a stop in front of the third board. “We wanted to see what you noticed.”
Over the years, Ed had found a routine that worked well for him. He would examine all the evidence he could, scrutinizing every angle and iota, before trying to come to a conclusion.
“Fingerprints?” he asked, leaning in closer to look at the letter. There were small ridges on the left side of the paper—not a photocopy, then. It must have been in a book or a notebook and ripped out, based on the tears along the side.
“Nothing,” answered Fang. “We suspect they wore gloves.”
“Course they would,” Ed muttered. “How stupid would it be to commit a crime like this and not wear gloves?”
There were some small notes pinned to the board as well, in handwriting that he recognized. The cramped writing was from Izzy, the all-caps scrawl was Ivan, and the slightly loopy script was from Fang. They had each taken a stab at trying to decipher the poem and what it could possibly mean. Many of their guesses were similar to what the newspaper article had written.
None of them followed Stede Bonnet’s string of logic. Ed felt a small surge of pride on his behalf. He had seen something none of them had, including Ed.
“Any other contact or clues?”
Fang shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Do you suspect it’ll happen again?”
He pinched his lips together. “I don’t know. The poem makes it seem likely, like it was thought out. Planned.”
Ed nodded, silently agreeing with him.
“Any tips from civilians?”
“Ivan’s following up on a few calls. Nothing of substance yet.”
“Shame,” muttered Ed as he moved to the board with the crime scene photos. “She was strangled with a rope?”
“Yeah. Common enough rope, almost every store carries it in town.”
“So they’re clever enough to cover their tracks.”
He stood in front of the board silent for a minute as he took in all of the information. She had been fully clothed when found, and there was no sign that the clothes had been altered after her death. No personal effects. No wallet, no keys, no phone. She had been identified by her fingerprints, confirmed with her dental records.
It didn’t make sense. The cops had asked her friends and family what she had been doing in Lockwood and they didn’t have an answer. As far as they knew, she hadn’t left Poppyville in months.
So how did she end up on Main St? Where had she been taken from? Why did the killer choose her? Was it random, or was it premeditated? What was the reason?
And why had the killed written a poem?
Stede’s ideas held some water in the grand scheme. There could be a sexual aspect to the crime, but—no, Ed dismissed the idea. Her clothes hadn’t been touched and there were no signs of assault. The poem about the ruined maid didn’t fit.
But the second idea he had shared…
‘I am a girl who has never rested easy, so has my bed been made of shell and shard.’
Ed pulled out his phone, quickly googling the entire poem in full.
I am a girl who has never rested easy,
So has my bed been made of shell and shard;
So have my feet gone cut and torn for beauty—
Oh, I have taken it hard!
I am a girl who has thrived on thirst and hunger,
Knowing a bitter herbage in my mouth;
Mumbling, for my heart’s comfort, fruit of cactus
And the harsh husks of drouth.
I am a girl who has grown thin and wary,
Looking for beauty where no beauty lies;
Who has grown stooped and eager, seeking magic
In a peon baby’s eyes.
I am a girl who has never rested easy—
Beauty, a pebble in every shoe I’ve tried.
Oh, I have never been rid of this sting of seeking—
This thorn of song in my side!
Siddie Joe Johnson had written it in 1931.
Ed absentmindedly scratched at his beard, a half-formed thought on the tip of his tongue. He focused for a moment, allowing it to flesh out.
“Were there cuts on her feet or anything in her shoes?”
“What?” Fang looked at him in surprise.
“Or was anything found in her mouth?”
“Uh, no, not in her mouth,” answered Fang. His tone was unsure, the words slow to fall from his mouth.
Ed grew impatient and turned to the man. “What about her shoes? Anything there?”
“A small rock,” Fang told him, eyebrows high, moving to the second whiteboard. “Oh, here it is.”
He took a sticky note from the board and handed it to Ed. On the note was a small scrawl: Rock found in shoe. She was wearing low-cut shoes, it could have fallen in. Not seen as evidence.
“Wrong,” Ed declared, handing the note back to Fang. “I need to see the rock.”
Fang gave him a look that told Ed exactly how confused he was by the request, but still led him towards another room. He pointed to a point that had all of the woman’s things. Her clothes, her shoes, and a photocopy of the poem. Ed donned the gloves he kept in his pockets and rifled through the items carefully, checking the pockets as he did so.
“What are you hoping to find?”
Ed ignored Fang as he kept going through the box. There! A small grey rock, no larger than the fingernail on his pinky finger. It was a small thing and it was entirely possible that it had ended up in the woman’s shoe by accident. Happenstance. A coincidence.
But Ed didn’t believe in coincidences.
*****
Stede phoned his assistant who was sitting at the desk in front of his office.
“Hi, boss,” Lucius Spriggs answered easily. There was a sound in the background, like paper being moved.
“Are you reading magazines again, Lucius?” Stede asked, looking towards his closed door as if he could see past it.
The papers didn’t stop rustling. “Of course not. What’s up?”
“Have you heard anything about the letter coming in from Mr. Edelman? It was supposed to arrive today.”
“No, it hasn’t—oh, my God.”
“What is it?” Stede furrowed his brow. Lucius sounded..not scared, that wasn’t the right word, but definitely surprised. “Lucius, are you alright?”
Stede heard two noises simultaneously. There was the sound of the dial tone in his ear, informing him that the phone call had ended, and the crash of Lucius’s phone slamming into its cradle outside the office.
He didn’t have time to think about what it could mean before he heard Lucius’s voice, saying something, and then the door to his office opened, his assistant slipping inside.
“Lucius, what’s going on? Are you alright?”
“Stede,” he said breathlessly, his face a bit pale, “why the fuck does the Kraken want to speak with you?”