The Dirty Nighttime (part one)

Even Joe didn't know how it had happened and that was why the police were asking pointed questions like they thought that he just might have done it. It might just suit them and there paperwork to pin it on Joe and shut the case up solved tonight. It saved having to do real police work.
Joe knew the only reason he wasn't downtown right now being thoroughly grilled about how and why he'd done it was that he was universally known in this filthy cities underworld as "Honest" Joe and when he'd handed in his badge and gun and gone private he'd left behind a few old friends that he figured owed him a few favours or the very least the respect to give him the benefit of the doubt that although "Honest" Joe was many things and not all of them good he almost certainly wasn't a cold blooded murderer. Sure he'd had cause to take a few bad folk away but that was in the nature of being on this side of the law. Joe knew as did ever copper in the city that there were enough bad guys and gals out there that you couldn't be slow or wracked with doubt with the trigger finger when push came to shove. If it was between you and a 9mil you shot first and filled out the paperwork second.
But that was the nature of standing on either side of the law. It didn't make you a cold blooded killer and what had happened here was definately the work of a cold blooded killer, and a very good one as well.
"Honest" Joe also knew that there were those downtown that wouldn't mind seeing Joe take the fall for this and what with the gruesome nature of the scene in front of Joe. Joe was certain that he'd be fried fish food before anyone had a chance to change there mind. When Joe had left his badge and gun and gone private he'd ruffled some feathers and he knew there were certain characters who would be only too happy to see him take some volts for this. He'd left some cranky detectives and the top brass weren't fond of Joe when he was on the inside. He'd never been one to take orders well and his unique take on catching serious bad guys was never part of any rulebook or manual but his clearance rate was as good as anyone so a lot of the time his methods were swept under the carpet but that was always going to be opened up when Joe went a few feet to far and that's what happened. In all honesty Joe had quit before he was pushed but know that he was available for private hire the upstairs at police central weren't anymore thrilled with him than when he was solving crimes for them in his own inimitable way.
"Honest" Joe had a canny knack of making the police look stupid when there paths should cross. The detectives he'd left behind knew that Joe was good, probably better than they were, but that didn't stop them getting their nose bent out of joint when they were working the same case.
So far Joe was playing the matter as cool as could be, any colder and he'd have been a penguin in fact and this was not helping his cause. The detectives, Murphy and Johnson were two of the most experienced guys they'd got down in homicide these days and they were getting more and more frustrated asking their questions and getting diddly goose egg from Joe. Not least because Joe didn't really have answers himself yet but also because Joe knew one false move would leave him taking the fall on this and that was a long way from happening in Joe's mind. He needed time to think. Get things straight in his head. He needed to talk to someone but the questions kept coming and they were getting more and more accusatory the longer Joe stalled.
The dics may not have had Joe's detection ability but they knew when they were being played and this was getting them proper suspicious. Joe could sense the mood being taken away from him. He really needed space. He needed out. Plus that body was starting to engrain itself in Joe's mind. It would be part of his dreams if this went on for too long. It was time to engineer an exit.
He needed to go speak to the one person he'd ever listened too, the one person who he had anything resembling outward respect for. He needed Harry.