Small Moves

It was the sort of stillness that seems to smother one's heartbeat.  Walter Skellum walked

the fog-enshrouded streets in wary unease.  There was something disturbingly familiar about

this particular corner -- a feeling of déjà vu, perhaps.  The streetlights had become

encapsulated globes of cold light -- useless in the heavy, translucent air.

Something changed.  From somewhere behind him, a sound of slight stirring brought his senses

to full alert.  He backed against the building, the hair on his neck standing stiffly

against his tweed collar.  He knew better than to focus his eyes intently, that would rob

him of his night-vision.  He swiftly scanned the vacant street with the trained eyes of a

policeman.  There was nothing there.

Turning to walk again, he suddenly realized where he was.  He was approaching an alley --

the alley where young Wisteria had been gutted by an inhuman monster.  His heart began to

pound in his ears.  Why was it that this murder bothered him so much?  Being an investigator

had taken him to the scene of hundreds of such crimes.  Granted, none were this brutal, but

all of them had been solved.  He breathed deeply, forcing his body to relax.

"Ha Haaa, Hahahaha!"  Out of the alley sprang the madman, wielding a bloody knife.  A small

white hand protruded from the inky shadows onto the sidewalk.  The fiend attacked, slashing

with the knife.  In stepping back to avoid the thrust, Walter tripped on broken sidewalk,

and fell.  The dark cape billowed as the murderer straddled him, raising the knife....

"Aaaah!"  Walter awakened with a start, his notebook falling onto the floor.  His face felt

suddenly cool, as the perspiration began to evaporate.  He rubbed his eyes and looked at the

clock on the office wall.  It was two-thirty A.M.  He'd been at this case too hard, and the

stress was beginning to show.  This was no way to solve a case.  He needed to be rested.

"Perhaps," he thought, "I'll take a holiday and run up to Leeds and see Pop."

Chester Skellum met Walter at the door of his tiny uptown flat.  "Walter!  Come in, my boy,

come in."  The retired Chief Inspector pulled a pile of old newspapers off the sofa, and

gestured toward the newly vacated spot -- the only available area in the room.  The rest of

the room was filled with books and papers.  They were stacked into chairs, upon a small

desk, and even against the wall near the small space heater.  "I was just watching a replay

of the recent Grand Masters Chess Tourney on the telly.  Alexander Barburin was quite good,

there.  He took out Enders in record time."

"Wasn't he just here in England?"  Walter was certain he'd just seen the name in the news.

A look of pure glee entered the elder Skellum's eyes.  "Yes, he was, just the other week. 

Lost three straight, then went home to lick his wounds."

Walter had to laugh at the old man's egotistical self-satisfaction with his countrymen.  He

knew though, that if anyone knew chess, it was Chester Skellum.  He'd been Grand Master,

himself, in years past.

Pulling out his Meerschaum pipe, Walter began filling it with Golden Cavendish tobacco. 

Once it was lit, he settled back with a sigh.

"Must be a rough case."  Pop wasn't one for beating around the bush.

Walter sighed again.  "You can see right through me, can't you, Pop?"

Chester laughed.  "I try never to see through people.  You miss suspects that way.  I can

read them pretty well, though."  He winked in a conspiratorial manner.

"It's the slasher thing in Manchester.  There are some very good clues, but they lead

nowhere.  It's like the fiend just vanished.  It's been three weeks now, and I'm nowhere

further ahead than I was the first night."

"Small moves, son.  Small moves."

Walter knew exactly what the elder Inspector was saying.  He'd lived with this chess

enthusiast right up until he'd enrolled in the academy in Hutton.  Chester was a phenomenal

chess player.  He could usually tell you who the winner would be by the fifth or sixth move

of any match.  He always maintained that it was the small moves that won a chess game, not

the big ones.  It was also how he'd solved dozens of tough cases -- watching how the small

moves before the crime were orchestrated.

Walter grinned.  "This has such a random aspect to it, Pop, that I don't think there were

any moves leading up to it.  This creep came out of hiding, killed savagely, then went back

into ... wherever...."

"Well, then, that settles it."

Walter waited for the finish, then realized that there was no more comment forthcoming. 

"Settles what, Pop?"  He looked puzzled.

"You're going to have to open the game."  The old man turned back to the telly, just as

Barburin opened another game with his pawn.  "Remember: small moves are the key moves."

Dallas D'Angelo-Gary 01