Keith Larson swore under his breath as he ducked under the police tape and failed to notice the puddle of slush he had planted his left foot firmly in. The last thing he needed was another reason for his senior partner Tom Mullard to humiliate him.
Keith had recently finished training and joined the Toronto Police Force as a rookie. He had been assigned to work with the ruthless sonofabitch Tom who had been on the force close to thirty years. Despite graduating among the top of his class, Tom was incessant at making Keith's working life a living hell. Apparently the last three cops assigned to work with Tom had requested transfers within the first week. As a rookie however Keith did not have that option, he was fortunate to have a job at all. The story around the precinct was that ten years back Tom had been on duty when a call came in for a standard noise complaint in an area of town mostly inhabited by college students. A kegger had gotten out of control and several neighbours had called in complaints of excessive noise, kids urinating on the street and roman candles being shot at passing cars. Most people scattered as Tom and his old partner showed up with their lights flashing. As they entered the house to find the owner they discovered a girl passed out on the couch with a half a line of coke still on the table. Story was it was Tom that turned her over to check her vitals only to realize that it was his daughter. Despite his frantic attempts to revive her she never came back. Turned out a bad batch of cocaine had made its way into the Toronto downtown and seemed to be responsible for at least three deaths. Although Tom had returned to duty six months later he had become so bitter and angry that even his closest friends couldn't stand being near him. He had become a cold shell of the once lively cop he used to be, dragging out his last years on the force as a lonely and miserable old man.
Fortunately the police issued boots Keith was wearing seemed to be waterproof enough to keep out the frigid water. Not that it mattered, Tom would find something else to ruin Keith's afternoon.
Keith had been patrolling a nearby neighbourhood when he'd been summoned to the north east end of High Park where a body had been located. Apparently an elderly lady had been out walking her Yorkshire when suddenly fluffy returns to her owner with a human finger in her mouth. Keith couldn't help but grin. As morbid as the situation was, the thought of granny's face after prying the stick out of fluffy's mouth only to find out it was a human pinky finger was slightly humorous.
“What in the fuck are you smiling about? Something funny about homicide to you?” came the familiar raspy voice of his partner Tom.
Keith hadn't noticed him standing with a group of forensics. He wasn't sure how Tom had gotten here so fast, he only had to travel a couple blocks
“No sir, I just...”
“Save it, I really don't give a shit what goes on in that fucked up head of yours. What took you so long to get here?”
“Sorry sir, won't happen again.”
Keith had long since learned not to argue. There was no point in asking Tom for a rundown of the situation, he was more likely to get information out of the squirrels than he was Tom. Keith moved closer to the scene to find out more for himself. Toby from forensics was taking pictures and nodded to Keith as he approached. Keith had taking a liking to Toby. He was fairly new to the force as well and seemed to recognize the shitty situation Keith was in with Tom. A couple of times he had tried to give Keith a leg up by sending him early results of any forensic reports that came in.
Keith began to survey the situation. The victim was a lanky African American male, Keith estimated at 6' 3”. He was laying facedown, just off the paved path that ran through the park and a couple of meters before the treeline the marked the beginning of the expansive High Park forest. He was wearing faded baggy jeans and a Georgetown Hoyas crest was slightly visible on the shoulder of his grey sweater. Two bullet wounds were visible, one apparent exit wound on his right shoulder and one entry wound in the centre of his sternum. The blood pools that had formed around the wounds were fairly small. Probably froze before they could get any bigger, thought Keith to himself. Although Keith had only been on the force for six months this was his third homicide he had been called to. Most people he had talked to had gone their whole careers without seeing as many bodies as he had. The deceased was still partially covered in snow, probably from the storm they had three nights ago. Most of it had melted since yesterday and Keith caught a nasty whiff of the body starting to decompose in the sun. Even after growing up in Toronto it still amazed Keith how it could go from -20C and have a foot of snow dumped on the city to +6C and sunny two days later.
“Looks like he was shot once in the shoulder, turned and started to run and then was shot again in the sternum,” said Toby. “Second shot was what killed him.”
“Trying to escape into the forest?”, replied Keith.
“Most likely,” answered Toby.
Keith continued past the body in the direction he would have been heading before being shot in the back and came upon the tall bare maples that lined the path. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for. Five meters into the forest, the entry point of a small bullet hole was easily visible amongst the tree's coarse bark. Despite being new on the force, Keith was not naive enough to believe that a fingerprint could be extracted from the spent shell, however knowing what type of gun was used could at least prove to be a step in the right direction.
