String of Murder

by brett hicks

  “Evening Julia, did you get some sleep?”

  I smirked at me and nodded. I took possession of the large hot coffee mug and I blew on it several times. The rich aroma and creamy undertone hit my nostrils and I took a careful sip. The liquid was potent, and it felt like a kick to the head as the brew slowly began to awaken my senses from their lingering state of rest.

  Bobby wore a deep-brown suit with a pressed white dress shirt and a matching deep-brown tie. His glossy black dress shoes looked like they belonged in a Sunday Britannia church service. By contrast, I looked like a wild savage, which was not very far off the mark where I was concerned. I have spent as much time with Native Americans as I have my own kind in my early years. I had free passage to the Native American Nation lands and could come and go as I wished. My mother had not objected to my adoption of the Native spiritual customs and practices. I honored the land I lived on and I gave thanks and offering to the Great Spirit. Colonial born children were now viewed as fair-skinned brothers and sisters to the Natives. They were exceedingly good at rooting out any who might seek to abuse this and spy for the King’s army. Basically, don’t mess with them unless you want to get scalped!

  “Yeah, I managed to get some rest this afternoon.”

  “Afternoon?!”

  Bobby did not miss much and certainly not where it involved me. I waved a dismissive hand at him as I took another careful sip of my hot brew and I was back in heaven. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and lowly put in, “I will tell you later, but just leave it for now, Partner.”

  Bobby nodded his understanding, and he waved me forward.

  “Well, now that you have your darn coffee, why don’t you go look at this body.”

  I nodded, and my mind began to shift into another gear like a steam-cars transmission box. Bobby led me down the hall to a door three down on the right. I noticed that the locking mechanism and the hinges were intact. The door was the most likely point of entry for the culprit, so I made a note to re-examine the door after I looked at the body.

  The room we walked into was a living area with four cups of discarded cold tea on the table and enough cakes and biscuits to feed all the orphans on my block for two whole days! My partner stated, “She had been sharing an early afternoon tea and biscuits with her friends and her sister shortly before the murder.”

  I nodded, and I said, “Did any of them witness the murder?”

  Bobby nodded to the late-thirties reddish haired woman of clear Irish descent. She had a swollen left eye that was nearly closed it was so inflamed. Her lip was split on the left side as well. She appeared otherwise unharmed.

  “She got a bit of a look at the culprit before he knocked her out. Her screams drew her neighbors, otherwise, he would likely have killed her as well.”

  I nodded, and I sighed. I would speak with her after I saw the state of the body.

  “She woke up and called in the murder.”

  “Didn’t you say her screams drew out her neighbors?”

  Bobby smiled widely and rolled his eyes.

  “Heavens forbid they have to investigate something as unseemly as a potential domestic situation. The neighbors believed that the husband was finally putting some sense into his wife’s indulgence of her sister and nephew and niece. They looked outside and saw someone in dark clothing run down the hall, then locked their doors. The victim’s sister woke and then called us shortly before I woke you up.”

  I huffed in annoyance. This crime scene could have been secured far sooner had these over-privileged Brits gotten off their soft, fat asses!

  “Very well, I’ll just keep my damn mouth shut about that matter for the time being. Anything else to report before we look at the body?”

  Bobby looked around and leaned in and spoke lower.

  “The culprit was wearing all black and a long black cloak. No one could identify his skin color, so naturally, everyone is leaping to the conclusion that he’s of color.”

  I spit out a long string of explicative words that literally made a rookie blush as he passed by me.

  “Yeah, well this is a bloody right buggering, Bobby! It’s just as likely that the bloody culprit used the all-black to make these idiotic privileged wankers leap straight to this very conclusion and divert attention!”

  Bobby gave me an appreciative smile. I was not on to ever racially profile my culprits. I just looked at the facts and tried to peer into the inner-workings of the criminal mind. This logical practice was new-age, and many wrote me off as a crazy woman doing “crazy female things.”

  “Bugger all, did anyone get a decent look at the person? Height, weight, build, gender?”

  Bobby shrugged and said, “Average height for a man, about five-six to five-eight, and no discernable skin-tone or discernable hair color. More than likely a male from the foot-marks we found on the floor that do not match any of the known men to enter the apartment.”

  “Did you get the rookies to mark them off so that we do not step over them?”

  Bobby gave me a look that said, “This is not my first murder investigation,” and I held up my hands in faux-surrender.

  “Gotcha, you know your bloody job, so I’ll shut me gob about that. Anything else you can tell me?”

  Bobby shook his head and said, “Not a blasted thing, sugar!”

  His frustration was very real, and his body language was filled with tension. This case was already starting off badly for Bobby, and for me by extension. I gave him a warm supportive smile and I winked at him playfully.

  “Come on mate, let’s go view the body and see what we can make of this bugger-all mess.”

  Bobby nodded, and he led me down the hall of the opulently decorated large penthouse apartment suite. The coppery smell of fresh blood hit my nose before I even finished walking down the hall. Even fresh death smells wrong to the human nose. I felt chills prickle my skin as we entered the room.

  Five:

  Several figures were lurking over the body and one of them was a long curly brown-headed girl of twenty-four (a brown -haired girl with long curly hair). Her shapely form was displayed in a modestly long emerald skirt and a matching emerald blouse. She had a pencil and notebook in her hands as she scribbled feverishly.

  Jasmine turned at the subdued sound of our approach and her bright eyes widened slightly in surprise. I didn’t get assigned as many cases in the skyline as the male detectives. (Also referred to as my betters.)

  Her lightly freckled nose and cheeks were stunning with her cascading wildly curly brown locks. Her light-green eyes seemed to lock onto me as if I were the only woman in the world. I felt my breath falter and my stomach tightened at the sight of her. Then, my eyes were drawn to the glimmering diamond ring on her finger and my stomach knotted and my cheeks heated with my barely contained fury. Just a few months ago, she was mine! I might not have the “proper” equipment by “polite society” to be her lover, but that had never stopped me from making her scream and writhe in the bedroom. That had never stopped me from making her tuck tightly against my larger form after sex and murmur her love for me.

  Bobby knew about us, so it was not surprising when he patted my hand supportively. He gave me a subtle wink of reassurance. I took a deep cleansing breath and I strode over to the body. The scene before me was grotesque on so many levels.

  The victim had deep contusions on her neck that had cut down to the bone in several places. She had something sharp or extremely har wrapped around her neck.

  “Garrote?”

  I asked off-hand and Jasmine nodded in confirmation.

  “Yes, very astute observation detective. This woman was strangled with a metal cord of some variety; however, it is a thicker wire than the typical garrote I have seen in the past.”

  I noticed the victim’s posture, she had defensive wounds and one of her nails was torn free. She had clawed and fought like hell to preserve her life.

  “The killer posed her body with the hands crossed over the chest and the legs crossed after s
he was already dead. There is no natural way a woman fighting this hard would die in such a strange pose. This suggests some possible ritual conjured by a deranged mind, one with a pattern of mental illness in his past.”

  Jasmine nodded again in agreement.

  “I have concluded the same, as you will see once I can copy my notes for you.”

  I nodded, and I kept my expression professionally neutral to her. This poor soul deserved our two bright minds at their peak performance if we were to capture this culprit. Jasmine seemed to have come to the same conclusion, she was stiff in posture, but only I would notice her tension, otherwise, she was all calm-cool professionalism.

  “Have you seen any sign of sexual assault, doctor?”

  Jasmine shrugged and waved her pen in a vague gesture.

  “As you are aware, I cannot move the body until the photographer is able to arrive and capture the crime-scene on photo-image. I looked as close as I could, but I did not see any vaginal bleeding evident to the naked eye, but she is also posed in a manner that covers her vagina.”

  I furrowed my light brow deeply and I narrowed my gaze. I leaned down, and I looked up her crossed legs as best I could. I noticed there were no signs of bruising or hand-marks on her legs and I looked around the sides of her legs as best I could.

  “No bruising that I can see, I will just assume for now that she was not assaulted sexually. I see no indications present, but I know we cannot rule it out completely until you have performed a full exam.”

  “Very well, I can agree with you in this line of logic so far, detective. I too looked for marks and bruising, as you are aware, almost every rape victim will have some form of marking. Judging by how she fought her killer, I would assume he did not allow her to live long enough to force himself on her.”

  Bobby leaned in and studied the body and he calmly asked, “Why are you two so focused on rape? Don’t you think it’s a bit sick to focus so intently on a dead woman’s private parts?”

  Jasmine gave Bobby a tolerant look and mildly explained, “We must determine the motive of the killer. Was he relieving a deviant fantasy for the victim, or did he merely wish her dead? Knowing his passions and his agenda will help us narrow down the potential suspect pool in our vast city of seven-million souls.”

  I hummed in agreement and put in, “Also, it will tell us if this is his first murder, though I highly doubt it with the look of this body. We need to make calls and see if we can find any other open cases that are similar, but we also need to keep the details of this crime tightly guarded or we are going to have all sorts of bloody lunatics at our station-house!”

  Bobby frowned deeply, as if he was forcing this information into a file for later use. He did not have the same type of education Jasmine and I had, even as an orphan on the streets, I had managed to have an education for ten years. Bobby was rejected by most schools due to his color. He was an amazing detective, but in some ways, he was still learning much of what we were taught in our teens in criminal behavior classes. Jasmine had taken deviant behavior studies classes as part of her degree path to becoming a practicing medical doctor.

  Bobby often felt embarrassed, but Jasmine and I had never once judged him for any holes in his education. We calmly explained things to him and tutored him in all things we could. He never took offense to two skinny white women constantly playing tutor to him. He was in fact very grateful to us. We also kept our tones low and spoke in hushed whispers, so as not to advertise such moments while in the middle of a case. What was even more impressive with Bobby, was that he scored high enough on the written detective exams to become a black badge detective, without the advantage of a proper education. This only further proved how highly intelligent my partner was!

  I looked at her nails and they looked like they had bits of flesh hooked under many of them.

  ‘Doctor, could you scrape her nails to determine the coloring of the culprit?”

  Jasmine’s eyes widened, and she nodded in confirmation.

  “Yes, I will do that first, once I get her to my lab. That could perhaps, help move this case away from any particular paths of discriminatory investigation.”

  Bobby and I nodded at the same time and he looked greatly relieved at this. I could see he was storing that idea away for later.

  “What size are the foot-marks, doctor?”

  Jasmine looked down at her paper and then back up into my blue eyes.

  “I believe they are about a twelve standard Colonial boot-size. That, along with the length of the stride, leads me to assume this is a male culprit of at least five-seven height. Judging by the way the victim fought to no avail, I would also guess that he is very strong.”

  I looked around the room and I noticed only this one section of the carpet had scuff marks from her flailing legs and none of the furniture or bed was disturbed. She had struggled like hell, but she had not moved very much, so I had to agree with Jasmine’s assessment of the culprit. I nodded in agreement.

  “Yes, I am in agreement with that opinion, and I would think we are looking for a man who spends some time in a training gym or works in heavily strenuous manual labor.”

  Jasmine furrowed her brows and said, “If he worked in strenuous manual labor, then how in the hells did he manage to have the afternoon free to strangle a woman in such a fine skyline penthouse apartment?”

  I smacked my lips together and conceded to her point.

  “Unless he was recently terminated from his job, then I would have to agree.”

  And, I should have thought of that before putting forth the option!

  I chided myself as if this were some kind of mental contest!

  I blew my hair from my eyes and I took another look at the deep lacerations around her neck and I noticed how the blood had pooled near her upper body. She had been laid back into the pool of her own life-blood carefully once she was dead. This killer was confounding. He showed signs of a manic deranged individual and signs of a cold-calculated cut-throat murderer. I had never once seen a scene so muddled up and contradictory.

  I stood up and walked out the door and I examined the stride marks and followed them back to the door. I leaned down, and I snatched a magnifying glass from one of the rookies nearby and I gave him an innocent smile that made his cheeks redden deeply. I held the magnifying glass up to the door and I studied it. I almost missed the subtle scratch near the key-hole. I noticed the fresh shavings around the tiny scratch and nothing else. This was done by a lockpick.

  Jasmine and Bobby came over and stood over my shoulder.

  “The killer peered in through the key-hole and waited for the victim to leave the room, then he picked the lock with a nearly perfect hand. He then strode in behind her and wrapped the garrote around her neck and killed her. He then positioned the body and posed her carefully.”

  Bobby frowned at me and I handed him the magnifying glass and I held my finger near the scratch. Bobby leaned down, and he studied the mark.

  “Notice the fresh metal shaving in the grove? That indicates this is a very fresh scratch and it is small, about the size of your average lock-pick when you slip and leave a mark on the key-hole.”

  Bobby grunted in confirmation and asked, “What about the waiting and watching through the key-hole part? How do you know he did that?”

  I pointed to the ground and I showed the two-deep knee-size circular divots in the deep crimson carpet of the hall.

  “Those look like knee marks to me; wouldn’t you agree, Detective?”

  Bobby nodded and said, “Yes ma’am, I would say those look a lot like knee-marks. Just to be sure, I will ask around and make sure none of the rookies left ‘em.”

  I nodded in approval and I took a sip of my coffee. I handed the red-cheeked rookie watching me his magnifying glass. He took it and he went back to doing his job, but not before casting another longing glance at me. Men.

  Bobby scratched his chin and he looked at me.

  “I think we’ve learned a lot. Not much el
se we can learn here unless you have any ideas?”

  I shook my head and nodded vaguely to the room with the victim.

  “I would like to know exactly what Doctor Bloom finds in her autopsy, but no we have learned everything we can. I believe it’s time to start asking the relative’s questions. We also need to start gathering up a list of strong men in the victim’s life who could possibly fit what we know about this killer.”

  Bobby grunted, and I turned and looked for the sister while taking another long gulp of my cooling coffee. This was going to be a long day and I also had a young house-mate to get back to as well!

  Six:

  After Jasmine accompanied the body to the morgue lab at our shared CLID headquarters, I felt greatly unburdened. I felt as if I had run a marathon to keep the farce of indifference and professionalism firmly intact. In all honesty, I would prefer to run a damn race around the skyline, then to keep that act up for a long period of time!

  My emotions were all over the place once Jasmine was gone and Bobby seemed to sense this and kept his distance. We began to interview the relatives and I waited to talk to the sister. She was still in shock and was very unresponsive. The neighbors were not any more helpful than what I had heard when I arrived. They were determined to pin this on a rogue negro criminal. In my experience, the black populace had avoided law enforcement as much as possible. Since being freed from the barbaric chains of slavery, they had spent most of their energy on making themselves an unattractive target to all people, including lawmen and women. While this general fact alone was nothing to base an entire case on, I was not feeling the itch of my gut to look too deeply into this angle. As I have mentioned, I have long trusted my gut.

  “Bobby, maybe we should split up for a bit. You can walk in circles that won’t talk to me. Just confirm that there are no deranged men of color roaming the streets and I will start looking into the victim’s life. Hopefully, we can meet back at the station to interview the sister by then.”