by Sijal Aziz
Derek’s previous partner had died during an undercover sting operation conducted by their police station to apprehend criminals, who were involved in a string of murders in Washington DC.
After the criminals tortured and killed his partner, Detective Derek broke all protocols and arrested each and every one of them. After that he went to a bar and got thoroughly drunk and did not report for duty for two days.
Detective Ryan parked the car in front of D2 police station.
The station, a relatively new two storey building with red brick façade, consists of numerous departments. The robbery and homicide unit was located on the second floor in an open hall with two rows of 16 desks and chairs.
Detective Derek Markus went to his desk and sat down. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut. The same feeling, he has had for many years when the suspects were innocent, and his gut was telling him that Katherine Hawkins was innocent.
Derek had been with the MPD for the past 12 years. He joined at the age of 21. He had been working as a detective for the past 9 years and loved each and every aspect of his job.
He had learned long ago that sometimes your gut told you more than the evidence. There was something about this case that did not add up. He decided to check up Kate’s record.
As he was about to turn on his computer, Detective Carson told him that Captain Theodore Brown wanted to see him. Derek got up from his computer and went to the captain’s office.
Captain Theodore Brown or Captain Todd had the reputation of a man who followed every rule to the letter and expected everyone around him to do the same. In the office he was known as iron pants. Derek had the misfortune of angering him on more than one occasion.
As soon as Derek entered the captain’s room his booming voice said, “I think I made myself quite clear when I asked you stop working on the Elliot case. I had assigned this case to Detective Finn. Why are you sniffing around and questioning another detective’s witnesses? If you don’t stop with this right away, I am knocking you down to traffic. Do I make myself clear?
“Yes, sir”, Derek said.
“Out”, Captain Todd snarled.
Captain Todd did not like mavericks and detective Derek Markus was a maverick. Captain Todd and Derek’s cold spat had started during the Henson case.
The Henson case was a high-profile case and the mayor wanted to see results quickly. All the evidence pointed to the butler committing the murder of his wealthy employer, Richard Henson.
The police had found a gun in the butler’s cupboard. The gun was licensed under the butler’s name. The ballistics confirmed that the bullet that killed Richard Henson came from the butler’s gun. Once the butler was arrested, Captain Todd himself placed a call to the Mayor to inform him that the murderer had been apprehended.
The mayor then decided to hold a press conference to let the hungry media know that the case has been solved quickly and efficiently thanks to MPD’s efforts under his rule. Captain Todd had stood beaming on mayor’s right at the news conference.
However, for detective Derek the vital piece of evidence was fishy. There were no fingerprints on the gun, magazine or the shell casing. It was as if someone had wiped them clean. Detective Markus could not understand why the butler would be wise enough to wipe his own fingerprints from the gun and shell casings but be stupid enough to keep his own gun in his cupboard for the police to find.
And with that question nagging at the back of his mind, he had gone to Captain Todd, “Captain I think we have made a mistake in the Henson case. I don’t think the butler is our killer”
“And what makes you think that?”, Captain Todd asked impatiently.
“It doesn’t make sense that the butler would wipe the gun and the bullets but leave it in his cupboard for us to find”
Captain Todd tried to keep the anger, he was feeling, out of his voice, “Detective Markus this is an open and shut case. The butler must not have found the time to get rid of the gun. Now I want you to forget about this fucking case that has already been closed and focus on the other cases! This case is closed. Is that understood?”
Derek had nodded and left the room and then within the next 24 hours proved that the butler was not the murderer and it was Mr. Henson’s twenty five year old son who had murdered his father for the money.
When the real murderer was arrested the mayor called the captain and vented all his fury on him for making him look like a fool in front of press.
The captain wanted to fire Derek after the episode. But he knew that he couldn’t, because Derek had the highest case closure rate in the department, and it was due to Derek that the department had met its case closure goal many times over the past years.
So, the captain decided to make detective Derek’s life a living hell after that episode and assigned him case after case without any break. Captain Todd wanted to destroy Derek’s personal life, so he made sure that he spent all his time either in the field or at the station.
Derek’s personal life would have been destroyed, if he had any.
Although Derek had no shortage of girlfriends, but he never felt serious about anyone except Jennifer Crimson.
At six feet tall, detective Derek was strikingly handsome with broad shoulders and strong masculine features. He had a medium stubble that gave him a manly look. He was broad shouldered and had a deep throaty voice. Women were genuinely attracted to him and Derek was genuinely attracted to them as long as it didn’t become serious.
Derek saw an attractive new detective giving him an inviting look. He smiled back at her but decided to work on the problem at hand first.
He made his way back to his computer again and turned it on. He punched in the details for Katherine Hawkins and was surprised that she had a record.
In university, Hawkins was caught for possession of narcotics. There was an assault and battery charge against Kate. According to the charge sheet, she beat her college girlfriend and roommate Linda Rodrigues nearly to death.
The file contained Linda’s pictures after the beating. Her face was swollen and one of her eyes was shut. The details of the beatings included a broken nose, swollen forehead, two broken ribs and a dislocated wrist. The report also said that Linda had also accused Kate of trying to stab her with a kitchen knife for sleeping with Kate’s boyfriend at the time. Somehow the charges were mysteriously dropped against Kate and she was not prosecuted.
One of the reports also said that Kate had called the police twice to her apartment in the past two months because her boyfriend was beating her up. There were charges of prostitution against her too in her record.
After going through her record, Derek made up his mind that Kate was a psychopath with a sweet disposition and there was not a single shred of suspicion in his mind that she was a murderer.
Whatever doubts he had, he brushed them aside after going through her record. He took off his eyes from the computer and looked around the room at various detectives working on cases. Derek loved his job and was happy that his childhood dream had come true.
CHAPTER 6
Detective Derek Markus belonged to a family of cops and lawyers.
His father and uncle were police detectives and his mother was a prosecutor working for the District Attorney. Derek had wanted to become a detective for as long as he could remember.
While normal kids his age discussed girls and parties with their parents at the dinner table, the Markus household discussed cases and crimes. He loved the conversation and tried to absorb as much legal information as he could. The Markus family held the notion of justice very close to their hearts and Derek Markus was no different. He believed that all the criminals belonged in jail and that he should put them there. Both of Derek’s elder brothers were studying law and his sister was married to a police officer.
Derek wasn’t attractive when he was growing up. In high school the girls didn’t acknowledge his presence. His looks were too mature for his age and he was too tall and thin for his age, almost to the point o
f awkwardness.
His body started to fill out more once he was in college and his facial features that once looked too mature for his age, now gave him the look of a handsome young man.
Girls didn’t only start noticing him, they fell on top of each other to get his attention. His first college sweetheart was the captain of the cheerleading squad and by the time Derek finished college he had slept with the whole cheerleading squad, most of the girls in his class and a great many in college as well.
Derek applied to the police academy as soon as he graduated. He was ecstatic when his application was accepted.
At the academy Derek learned about state laws, criminal investigations and patrol procedures.
He received fire arms training and learnt a bit about defensive driving, first aid and computers. Training at the academy was hard. The new recruits had to undergo intense physical training from the very first day and Derek saw most of the new recruits dropping out within the first two weeks.
He had to work long hours and was in competition with most of the other recruits to be the best. Because of lack of time, Derek stopped shaving and grew a stubble. It made him look more handsome, mature, aggressive and domineering. It gave him a macho animal magnetism that was not there before.
When Derek finished his training at the police academy, he received an Academic Award for achieving the highest grade point average and also the Top Gun award for excellent marksmanship.
He breezed through his job as a rookie cop and became a homicide detective only after three years of joining the police force.
Derek loved his job. He loved solving murder cases and testing his wits against the criminals who thought that they had committed the perfect murder. Two years into his job at the robbery and homicide division, detective Derek Markus, had the highest case closer rate in the station and was at the top of his game.
During one of his cases, that involved theft of jewelry and murder, Derek teamed up with detective Jennifer Crimson in the robbery division. A band of thieves carried out a string of heists in upscale DC areas.
The mayor got involved because the victims included some very high-powered DC lawyers, politicians and socialists. Jennifer was the lead investigator into the robberies. Derek got involved in the case when the thieves murdered a politician during one of their heists.
When Derek first laid eyes of Jennifer, his heart skipped a beat. She was very beautiful and looked more like a model than a detective. She was five feet eight, with an athletic built, brown eyes, brown shoulder length hair, full breasts and a narrow waist. She was wearing a simple white full sleeved shirt with black trousers. Her heels made her look taller than she was.
Detective Derek extended his hand, “Detective Derek Markus, homicide division. I have been asked to assist you in the jewelry heist case”
She gave detective Derek one of the sweetest smiles he had ever seen, “So the guys up there think the poor old me cannot solve the heists on my own”, she said shaking detective Derek’s hand.
Derek held it a fraction of a second longer than needed, “I am sure it’s not that. It’s just that one of your heists ended up in a murder. So here I am. Can you please share what you have found so far about the culprits? I have already been to the crime scene and the CSU has collected all the evidence”
“Well detective”, Jennifer said picking up a file from her desk and putting it in front of detective Derek, “this is what I have been able to put together so far”
Derek took the file and opened it and looked at her expecting her to continue, when she didn’t, he said, “Would you like to give me a summary on your findings?”
Jennifer replied reluctantly, “Well based on the accounts of the victims, they were woken up the thieves, the thieves tied their hands, gagged them and locked all family members in one room. All the homes that have been burglarized have had top of the line home security systems.
Only in the last case where our victim, Mr. Hensley, was murdered, the victim seems to have pounced upon the thieves when they entered his home.
We suspect that there was a woman with Mr. Hensley. We have so far been unable to locate that woman.
According to the previous victims we are looking for three men about average height and average body structure and the all wore leather gloves and woolen ski masks”
“Hmm. What about the security systems? Were they from the same company?”
Jennifer smiled, “This is not my first rodeo detective. Security systems were the first thing we checked. These were not installed by the same company and nearly all the alarm systems were from different companies as well”
Derek looked at Jennifer for a moment before responding, “Detective Crimson, you know I am here to do my job. I am not here to imply that you are not doing yours or that you do not have the expertise to handle this. I am a homicide detective and your insight into the case will help me get a head start on these cases. If anything, I am here to seek your help not the other way around. I hope you understand my position and agree to help me with this?”
Jennifer calmed down a little bit and shrugged, “ok”
“So, regarding the victims, is there a link between them?”
“Well, we have had ten robberies so far. From what we have found so far, the victims have nothing in common, they belong to different social circles, operate different businesses or work in different places. Only two of our victims, lawyers, worked in the same office. The rest have no commonality. There are, however, two things common amongst all of them. They are rich and had high end jewelry lying down in their safes”
Derek was impressed with Jennifer’s knowledge and work on the case. As far as he could tell she had done nearly all of the ground work on the case, “So the only link we could work on in the case would be how the burglars knew that the victims owned high end jewelry, where they lived and had knowledge of how to disable their security system”
“Yes, but there is no link there. The victims didn’t know each other except for the two lawyers I have already mentioned. Their work places are different”
Derek was looking at the pictures of the stolen jewelry in the file. Each piece that was stolen must have cost more than a hundred thousand dollars each if not a million. Jennifer went back to work, she was typing a report on her computer. Both were quiet for half an hour, when detective Derek broke the silence, “How did the burglars know that the victims had jewelry?”
Jennifer replied impatiently, “We have been there before detective, as I said before, the victims were not friends, they did not share jewelry information, they had maids from different companies, and they worked in different offices. So, I just think that the burglars were betting their luck on raiding a rich household and stealing the jewelry from the safe”
“No, I understand that, what I am trying to say is, look at the figures on reported stolen jewelry. In each case the burglars made away with at least a million dollars’ worth of jewelry. They were in an out of the house within 45 minutes. So, my question is how did they know if the victims owned the jewelry? Look at Hensley for example he is not married or engaged. Yet there was jewelry in his house. I mean they had to have seen the jewelry somewhere. I have never seen any burglars that had been this lucky with each heist they pull. Look here, they have never failed in scoring less than a million in all the 10 heists. How can they have been so lucky? Scoring millions with every hit. They had to have had knowledge of jewelry. What about the insurance? Was the jewelry insured?”
Derek saw a spark of excitement in Jennifer’s eyes and they twinkled with brightness.
“I cross checked the insurance companies, amongst the ten of them, the victims’ jewelry was insured by four insurance companies”, Jennifer said excitedly.
“The insurance companies will have to have knowledge of the security systems in the customer’s homes. Right?”
“Yes!”
“So, let’s start there”
Over the course of the next month Jennifer and Derek
solved the case and fell in love with each other.
Jennifer was everything Derek had ever wanted. She was smart, she was beautiful, and she was a tigress in bed. It was as if Derek was waiting for someone like her all his life.
They never bored each other and whenever they were together, they would run into each other’s arms like two people, hungry for each other. They complemented and completed each other, where Derek was a stay at home guy, Jennifer was gregarious. Derek had not been much of a talker, but Jennifer made him share each and every detail of his life with her.
She made him love the company of other people. For the first time in his life, Derek felt that there was more to life than being a detective. There were people around, people he had worked with, people he had never bothered knowing before he met Jennifer.
It seemed to Derek that Jennifer was friends with everyone in her office. Detectives and officers will come up to her just to say hi. She lit up the room when she entered, and she was the life of the party. Derek was smitten by her and mesmerized by energy.
Six months into their relationship Derek was seriously thinking of proposing to her. One day he said to her in a serious tone, “Jennifer, I have never known anyone like you in all my life and I think I have fallen in love with you. I do not think there is anyone else for me in this life but you”
Instead of reciprocating his feelings, Jennifer had turned to him and said jokingly, “I am sure that there will be tons of people in your life beside me, so don’t say that. I love being with you too. What’s with all the seriousness? Now let’s go out and get some coffee”
Derek felt like a fool. He was heartbroken but then he calmed himself by thinking that maybe Jennifer was not ready for a serious relationship yet. He loved being with her, so being with her was enough for now.
A week after the incident Jennifer started working on a high-profile corporate espionage case, where a corporate spy managed to steal millions of dollars’ worth of data from a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical corporation. The corporation was owned by a womanizer and one of America’s most eligible bachelor, David Sheen.