The wood floors creaked under the heavy soles of the intruder. He glanced around carefully while he adjusted his grip on his piece. The old house held many clues and secrets. Some were as obvious as the moth ball musk. Others were of the variety only veteran bloodhounds could detect.
He brushed open a paneled door and trained his iron sights on the figure sitting on a workbench in the moonlight. Eyes lit as if by candles glowered from a pale face. Despite lips sown shut with coarse stitches, the straw man cackled.
"Welcome, Investigator. Come to peruse my wares?"
The man in the shadows thumbed his revolver, "Where is your master?"
"Not my best work, I admit," the creature confessed. "You see right through me. Ever the wary prosecutor of the law."
The Investigator slipped a finger into the trigger well and a hand into his pocket. "You've confused me with someone else. I'm with the Defense."
The figure raised both hands, bleached hay sticking out in all angles in the moonlight. "Call it what you will. You caught me. I'm guilty of murder."
"I'll take that as a confession," the detective clicked something in his pocket.
The eyes in the devilish scarecrow brightened as its hands kindled into torches, which sent sheets of flames up translucent wires. The roof beams burst into flame and cracked.
"--murder of the Defense Investigator."
Story and Characters: (c)/by Corey Blankenship
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