“Yeah. Just waiting on CSI,” Amy answered, not looking at him. She was focused on the body.
The more I looked, the more similarities started to jump out at me. The fact that he was in a semi-secluded location for one, was like two other crimes in the last four weeks. His attire too, business like.
“This look familiar to you guys?” I turned to Max and Nate.
“Yeah. But you don’t.” Max chided. I frowned as he nudged Nate and laughed. They did their jobs well, but still found time to jok
e.
It was my first official day as Detective Jordan, so I should have prepared myself for their shit.
“Save it.” I sighed.
They stopped laughing slowly and took long looks at the body. As they walked around, they were safe to not contaminate anything the CSI was working on.
“It looks a lot like the ones from four weeks ago. That guy in the alley and the one in the abandoned garage. Especially the gun shot and strangulation marks,” Nate said.
He was the one that always noticed the big correlations. Max was good with the details, and worked most of his cases on missing children, so that was why he was good with patterns. When we were all in blues, we closed the most cases. Come time for the test, they opted out, even though they were just as qualified as me.
“The gun shot is the COD, but the others were from strangulation, your guy is changing his deal.” Amy said.
The four of us exchanged looks.
“Then we have our work cut out for us.”
Chapter Four: Alex
I talked at length with the responding officer. Apparently, it was called in by a passerby. After all my years on the field, it was very rare for someone to witness a crime and call it in. Usually, witnesses had to be tracked down and begged for information or to testify if need be, but this time I had the person’s address and phone number. I didn’t want to scare them off by showing up at their house though; it would be better to just have them come into the station.
“What do you guys think?” I went back to Nate and Max, who were still keeping reporters back from the body. Even more had showed up in the past thirty minutes. I could already tell this would be one hell of a media circus.
“I want to say serial. Because of the pattern. We have specialists on it already.” Max had his hands in all the important people’s pockets. I was sure he got them on the phone fast.
“Sounds good. I’m heading back to start the paperwork,” I responded.
“And you wondered why I didn’t take the exam.” Nate shook his head and scoffed. I rolled my eyes, dreading the paperwork and the fact that he was right.
It was hell getting past all the trucks and people crowded around the crime scene. I started thinking about his family. Did he have a wife or kids? Would anyone notice or care that he died? That was the hardest part of the job. Identifying the family and such, and having to talk to them if need be. I knew once he got to his autopsy, we would have his prints and be able to ID him.
I wasn’t even back at the precinct before I knew this case would be hell. And it was my first one as detective. Great.
I got to my desk and was already called in by Harold.
“What have we got?” He stood up, coming around his desk. He looked like he had already gone through the day, and it wasn’t even noon yet.
“A shit storm, sir.” I sat down and leaned forward on my knees.
Harold and I had grown comfortable over the years. He gave me my first shot way back when, and I guessed he had kind of been a surrogate role model to me. I want to be where he was one day.
“I guessed it. What do we know so far?” he said with annoyance lacing his voice. I was just as annoyed, but to be honest, he wouldn’t have to do nearly as much work as I would.
“Next to nothing. He had no ID on him. Working class. We won’t know the exact cause of death until the ME does the autopsy, but so far it looks like the third murder like this.”
“So, it is a murder.”
“Yeah. For sure. Definitely not an accident or anything.” I added.
“You start the paperwork?” He almost sneered with the way his smile creeped in.