ANGEL BLUE [1]

LEAD 2: hit-list

      “FED credentials don’t work,” I shoulder him out of the way and swipe my ID and enter my pin. The LED bulb blinks green and the metal doors open. I sweep my hand in an ‘enter’ gesture. Sam ruffles his suit jacket and rolls his eyes. “Nothing personal but none of us at the NYPD likes the FBI.”

      “Oh I can tell from the hour-long argument I just had with your father,” Sam grumbles and then raises an eyebrow when he sees the bag of Doritos in my hand (they were for Snag okay?). “To be fair, the FBI thinks very lowly of your police work as well.”

    Just because they have more resources and can pull a suspect out of a hat doesn’t mean anything, it requires skill to catch a killer. I glance down at Sam’s dress shoes that he keeps checking, I notice that there are a few scuffs on the polished leather and I can’t help but snort. He’ll still never be able to run three blocks in those.

      I reach past Sam to press the ground floor where the morgue is located. I call it Snag’s Den because the man practically eats, sleeps, and lives in the refrigeration room. He breathes autopsies and feeds off his reports, I won’t be surprised if he makes his assistants live down there too to keep his sane.

     I step out of the elevator with Sam close behind me, when we reach the glass doors of the morgue, Sam swipes his ID again―forgetting that we weren’t in the vanilla latte hub of the crime unit. He steps aside for me to swipe my card and the door’s airlock releases.

      Sam surprisingly opens the door for me since I’m juggling my ID and a bag of Cheese Supreme Doritos. I nod my thanks to him and see Joseph put the sheet over Jane Doe’s body and closing the refrigerator door, indicating that they’d finished autopsy. Snag, on the other hand, sits in the centre of the room between two metal tables, wearing a sombrero and glaring wistfully at the guacamole on the steel bench.

      “About God damn time Akira,” Snag ruffles his white lab coat and pry’s the Doritos from my hands. He opens the bag and scoops one into the avocado mix, humming with every bite. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you, the Tox-Report is on the bench.”

      “Isn’t this strictly against protocol?” Sam says and picks up the file, flicking through briefly. “Everything comes back negative, the woman was clean.”

      “I finished autopsy an hour ago,” Snag passes the bag of Doritos to Joseph who grins and takes a handful. “I’ve been Chief Medical Examiner for about twelve years here, I think I know what I’m doing,” Snag tightens the cord on his sombrero and sighs. “Cause of Death was pretty self-explanatory with the gash to the torso, however, there was no substantial blood at the scene apart from the drops concerning the lost hands.”

      “Just because she had a clean bill from Toxicology doesn’t mean anything, if this really is a warning to those that know of Angel Blue then a creature murdered her, but it was not by Baines,” Snag grabs another file from the small stack next to the guacamole and hands it out to me.

      “I have an ID; the victim’s name is Dianne Hemming. Born on December fourth, nineteen-ninety in Jacobi Medical Centre, the Bronx,” I dictate.

      “But we have one large problem,” Snag announces with a mouthful of corn chips. “Dianne Hemming died five months ago. She was gunned down on patrol when booking two men in possession of cocaine. Her body is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, and I’ve already called the precinct up there and there have been no break-ins by Necrophiliacs or any other deranged person,” Snag plucks the file from my hand and replaces it with a fresh one. “That being said, I took tissue samples from the body and it comes back to Dianne Hemming.”