Case File: Smiler Man

I was sitting on some particularly comfortable hallway chairs in this very bare waiting room. The only thing that occupied the room beside me was this clearly fake plant. I had been asked to wait while this particularly clean yet short and stocky man prepared a room for us. After a relatively long wait time the official, who had the appearance of Barney Rubble, came to lead me to where I was going to be spending the next couple hours or so. I followed the cartoon double down a long hallway riddled with doors adorned various official's names. It was my first time being invited to such a fancy government building with such bland attributes.

He opened a door to a rather comfortable looking room. He had me sit on one of the colder looking chairs on one side of the table. It looked like a generic interrogation room minus the one-sided mirror. I planted myself down completely uninterested in reliving the events that brought me here in the first place.

"Thank you for joining me Detective Buchanan." Soon enough he sat himself down just across from me whilst placing down a recording device.

"I wasn't one with much of a choice after such an elaborate invitation." He was parked outside the hospital I was discharged from and informed me I needed to be at a certain address at a certain time for 'debriefing'.

"Enough with the sarcasm Detective, I would like you to speak clearly and in great detail about every event of your case." From the rumble of his serious tone, I decided it was probably against my best interest to continue with my attitude.

"To be honest, this was probably one of the wildest cases I was ever on. Granted, I went in with all my digits, then came out missing one with a severe need for a therapist." I exhaled, relaxing back into the cold office chair that was provided for me. The man sitting across from me leaned in ready to listen.

"Start wherever is most convenient."

*****

"Good morning, Jarred." I waved to my entirely too blonde partner. "Did you lose a bet or something?"

"My son went blonde and got bullied, so I decided to dye my hair, too." He laughed.

"Fair enough." I shrugged, "So what's on today's agenda?"

"New case. There's been a disturbance downtown in the apartments by Main and 59th. Get on it." The short, and slightly pudgy, chief of our office informed us.

"I call shotgun." I chuckled slightly tossing my keys to my partner.

"Dagnabbit." He frowned as he followed me out the door and to my car.

It didn't take us long before we arrived at the crime scene. Upon arrival, we parked nearby and did our usual greetings to the cops who were posted at the scene. They filled us in on what they knew and we went on our way inside. When we entered the apartment it was pretty apparent there was a struggle, no signs of forced entry, however. Whoever came in here was let in opposed to breaking in. There were small puddles of blood across the living room and partially down the hall. As we moved farther down the hall the blood increased in volume. The trail lead to the bathroom and the source of its embodiment. Across the floor laid a relatively aged man in a pool of his own cooled and clotted crimson life. The majority of his body was still in tacked however there were parts of him that were forcefully removed; typical sick psychopath work in my eyes.

"Our victim is 43-year-old Kevin Harper. He is a clearly single man given the conduct of the apartment in addition to the lack of feminine products or a roommate. It was a co-worker that called when he didn't show up for work. He has been dead for approximately seventy-four hours. Someone tried cleaning him up a bit but stopped midway." A relatively young looking black man informed us before pulling Jarred off to the side.