The Killer

Chapter 2: The First Body

Church:

The stench was overpowering. Rotting flesh. Rotting human flesh. God. I flipped open my notebook, and started taking it all down. Curled body, deep cut in the back of the head, a quick death, not instant, and not painless, but quick. From the marks on the shoes and clothes, the body had been curled into the position after death. I noted it down, but I don't know why, we all knew exactly how they'd died, exactly what position they'd been put in and exactly what had happened. But I guess it was necessary. I took out my camera and stood up. I skirted round the yellow tape and zoomed in on the cut to the head. It was neat, precise, but not exact. I stepped back and drew up the older pictures from the original six murders.

All cuts had been placed precisely below the skull, halfing the arteries exactly. Because of this the amount of blood was at least double the amount from this body, this was not the same, it was similar, but not the same. The police had already searched the place, and being a private agency we'd had to bend over backwards to be here, and I had no way to get hold of evidence until I got back to the agency.

Even so, I didn't need to see any of it to know this had been rushed, it may have been planned, but it hadn't been planned well. There were trauma marks to the victims head, showing they had been knocked out, and that too was inaccurate to the originals, with the original murders it had been done with chemicals. They had been hit on the back of the head, an effective way to knock someone out, but not true to the original murders.

I laid down the camera and drew out the files from the police inspection of the murder, the agent had given me a copy of the photos. Inevitably in their search, they had moved objects, and taken even more in for evidence. There was nothing useful they'd changed in this side of the room. I moved round to the front of the body.

It was clear, nothing was distrubed, no marks, it was clean. I moved around again, to the feet. There was nothing on the soles, they hadn't gone outside. They were also clean. I moved back to the chest, picked up the camera snapped three shots of the upper torso, lower torso and the legs. I took three shots of the feet, one of the left shoe, one of the right shoe, and one of both. I pulled out my phone and punched in the agency number. Snow picked up.

"Hey Church, what's up? Any clues on the body?"

"It looks clean, it follows the pattern, but the cut to the back of the neck was imprecise, they didn't bisect the arteries, they were off by a long way. It wasn't clean, we're definitely dealing with a copycat." I said, walking back to the front of the body.

"Come back to the agency if you've got all you need, we should have access to the police files by the time you get back"

"I'm comi- wait. I'll be back in a second"

"Take all the time you needed"

I'd noticed it when Snow was talking. The hand had been grasped when they were killed, but when the body had been dragged the hand had come open. A small thin strip of plastic was hooked around the fourth finger. I followed the strip back, it was easily missed as it ended in the shadow of their body, and the hand was angled towards their chest. It was torn and left open at the end, someone had ripped whatever it was off. I drew up the camera and took three quick snaps. I laid the camera down again and pulled up the police photos.

I flicked threw them and found the right shot. There was something on the end of the plastic. Someone had tampered with the crime scene.

Turner:

I slid my bag off my shoulder and slung it over my chair, I was feeling even more dizzy than before. I looked over to Snow, but he was absorbed in a phone call, with Church I guess, he's normally the one down at the crime scenes. I guess I could tell him about Natalia's deal when he gets off the phone. I pulled off my blazer, thre it over my chair, and went over to Hansen.

"Hey, I heard there was another murder." I kept cool, but this was seriously unsettling. We'd dealt with this case before, I didn't want to deal with this kind of case again.

"Yeah" Hansen replied. I waited for more, but he said nothing.

"How're the Johnson's taking it?" I asked.

"Not well, they're threatening to sue" He replied, his eyes not leaving his computer screen

"How much?" I asked peering over his shoulder, I looked away quickly, they were the pictures of the newest body. I'd seen enough corpses in the last few weeks.

"Twenty-five thousand" He zoomed in on the body, flicked his mouse and changed pictures like they were pictures of friends on facebook, casual, normal no at all disturbing.

"That's half of what they paid us in the first place" I said worriedly "We could go out of business if they do, have we even got that much?" I walked back over to my desk and turned on my computer.

"No, we've only got about ten. They think we got the wrong person with Natalia, now the murders are continuing" He said, swivelling round to face me.

"You tried explaining?" I replied

"They won't listen, they're pretty pissed"

"Understandably" Snow piped in, coming off the phone "Church says the bodies clean, but the cut was untidy. He must've noticed something else, he hung up kind of suddenly"

"When were they killed?" I asked turning round to him

"Only two days ago" Hansen replied, not noticing I was talking to Snow, completely absorbed in his work.

"What did Natalia want for her cooperation?" Snow asked

"A retrial" I replied, turning to him.

"What the hell for?" Snow asked, just like Church.

"She wants bail time" I said rubbing my eyes.

"Well that's never going to happen" Hansen muttered

"Yeah, we can't let someone like that get out of prison, even if it is for a short while" Snow agreed

"I'm going to go get some coffee, anyone want any?" I asked standing up.

"I'm fi-" Snow began to say when I realised I'd stood up way too quickly as the world clouded and the ground rushed up towards me

Church:

It felt good to be outside. I'd spent too long with a dead body for one day. I pulled out my laptop and sat down on the doorstep. I pulled the USB holding the photo's out of the folder and plugged it into my computer. I drew up the police files and pulled up the image with the broken cord. I magnified the image and honed in on the end of the strip. Crap. It was an ID card, I could tell that much, but all this ID card consisted of was a cluster of white, red and black pixels.

I guess it's something to work out another time. I took a screenshot and saved it as 'ID Card?' I dragged it out into my files, if this had been tampered with, I didn't want it going back to the police. Maybe there was someone helping this copycat in the force, and if there was, I didn't want them knowing I knew.