Detective Rashida Heyes slowly crossed under the police tape blocking off an entire section of Eden Avenue near Balk Street. As she stood back up, her already throbbing headache morphed into a steady pounding, as though her heart had suddenly relocated to behind her eyes.
Rashida gently squeezed at the back of her neck as she unzipped her brown leather jacket, prominently displaying her Detective's badge to anyone who might have had the instinct to inquire about her presence. The last thing she needed right now was some headstrong beat cop, over-playing the bouncer role.
Admittedly, Rashida did love pulling rank on any "cock-nosed" male cop with chauvinistic tendencies, but the urgency of the call told her there wasn't time for ego smashing. Besides, the intensity with which her head was pounding made Rashida wonder if she would even be able to put a sentence together at this point.
Suddenly, a familiar voice cut through the white noise of the active investigation, "You're gonna love this one, Rash. Weird-as-fuck."
Rashida's partner, Travis Virgil, handed her a coffee with two milks already stirred in. The coffee had cooled off just enough that she could take big, bitter gulps from it, just the way she liked. Before she could even ask, Travis pulled a bottle of ibuprofen from his pocket, shaking it like a package of Tic-Tacs. Travis was good like that. He always had been.
Travis and Rashida had been partners for five years now, and despite what people assumed based on their natural chemistry they kept their relationship professional... mostly.
There had been one night early on in their partnership that they nearly succumbed to drunken temptation. Had they followed through, they very well could have ruined everything that night, however before they could cross that line, Rashida had received the phone call from the Hospital.
"He was found with a total of eight gunshot wounds. We did everything we could." said the cold voice on the other end of the line, in a poor attempt to emulate sensitivity.
Rashida couldn't say anything; she just hung up on 'Dr. Whatever' and sat quietly as she desperately clung to the memory of her younger brother, Jacob's face.
Rashida had been putting off seeing Jacob for months now, not necessarily by choice, it was just that work had kept getting in the way. As she stared a hole into the floor that night, she tried to come to terms with the fact that she would never see Jacob again, all the while, Travis sat silently beside her, staring at the same patch of carpet until sunrise.
Neither of them ever spoke of that night. Frankly, Rashida preferred it that way and Travis seemed to understand. It's not like Travis wasn't much to look at. Sure, she hated his greasy-spiked hair, patchy excuse for a beard, and second-hand suits, but what he lacked in style he made up for with instinct and focus.
Travis was a good cop, and a good man. Yes, his default nature could have been described as 'Alpha behavior', but when Rashida looked into his eyes, she saw so much more than what was on the surface. Deep within, there was a twinkle of vulnerability and pain that he never talked about, nor would Rashida ever mention.
Since their night together, there had been occasional moments that Rashida would catch herself wondering what could have been, but each and every time she would hear that fucking phone ring, shattering the hypotheticals with a bitter dose of reality. In the end, it was probably for the best. The less said the better.
Rashida and Travis walked through a parted mass of officers standing outside what looked like an eight-foot shower stall that had been put up in the middle of the sidewalk. The whole 'structure', if you could call it that, noticeably leaned to the right, visibly shifting with each gust of wind.
The curtains surrounding the crime scene were black and heavy, as made evident by the arching metal rods that barely held them in place. While the weighted bottoms of the curtains remained stubbornly on the ground, the wind continued to circulate within the cloth chamber, almost making the whole structure look as though it was breathing.
As the wind picked up once more and the pipe and drape set rocked back and forth, Rashida shot a look to Travis, who smirked back at her with shared cynicism before flashing his badge to the large Officer standing guard, "Detective Virgil. This is Detective Heyes."
The large Officer remained still, his immense arms crossed in front of his bear-like chest asserting his authority as though he were working security at some sort of exclusive club. Slowly, the cold, steely eyes embedded in the large Officer's box-shaped skull glanced towards the two badges, then to Travis and Rashida's faces.
After half a second of consideration, the box-headed Officer then curtly nodded his head towards the curtain behind him before resuming his emotionless thousand-mile stare into nothingness.
As Travis put his badge away he couldn't help but say, "Thanks Tiny."
Rashida attempted to mute her smile in response to Travis' comment. Partly due to Travis' typical need to assert himself in the presence of a larger man, partly in the complete lack of reaction that it had elicited in return.
The entrance to this abstract structure was pathetically labeled with a post-it note, upon which it appeared as though an illiterate child, possibly with a box-shaped head, had sloppily scrawled the word, 'Door'.
In one last attempt to get a reaction, Travis turned to Officer Box-head and asked, "Is this a push or a pull?"
Before the Officer even had a chance to react, the wind changed directions again, this time taking the post-it with it causing Officer Box-head to scramble after the twisting parchment like a young child chasing after a rogue balloon.
With a shake of their heads, Rashida and Travis parted the curtains and made their way inside.
There, before them, was what seemed to be a sculpture of a headless human body, standing upright in the middle of the sidewalk.
Rashida stared at this display, initially un-impressed with the macabre image, until Travis started reading his notes, "I know what you're thinking. What the hell are we supposed to do with a sculpture in the street? Get this... it's biological. This guy was caught on a traffic camera up the street from here just before 1am."
Rashida paused, "...That's six hours ago. What is this? Some kind of hyper-aggressive rigor mortis?"
"That's nothing, check this out," Travis guided Rashida up a stepladder and pointed at the neck, "I believe the words you're looking for are, 'What the Fuck'?"
Rashida froze, "... He's hollow."
Leaning in to take a closer look, Rashida slowly reached out with her gloved hand and touched the edge of what used to be the victim's neck. On contact, a chunk of the victim's neck crumbled away, sending small pieces of 'Human Gravel' to the ground.
Rashida got down off the ladder and bent over to pick up the pieces that had fallen, "This doesn't make sense. It's like his skin is plaster."
Rolling the crumbled bits between her fingers, Rashida looked at the substance with intense confusion in her eyes. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. Everything about it structurally, right down to the sub-dermal layers suggested human flesh, but she had never seen it just crumble like this.
Still working the substance between her fingers, Rashida sniffed, noting its almost smelt like sulfur. As she attempted to wrap her mind around the situation, she asked, "So what the hell happened to him?"
Travis shrugged, "Nobody knows. No eyewitnesses. Not even any surveillance footage after what we got from up the street. Even the geeks are stumped. Only thing we've got is a laminate ID badge with the name, 'Terrance Michaels'. We already looked into it, he's a low level manager at Beta Home Systems, just up the street."
Travis handed an evidence bag to Rashida that contained Terrance's laminate ID badge, verifying the information he had just given.
As Rashida looked at the ID badge, she inhaled as if to say something, but Travis was quick to cut her off by saying, "-I already dispatched a small army of officers over there about twenty minutes ago."
Rashida turned her attention back to the consistency of the victim's skin, "We should send a sample to the la-"
Travis cut her off, "-Already did that too. You know, some of us show up on time. Or, you know, sober."
Rashida brushed him off, "It's not a hangover, asshole. It's a migraine, thanks to three hours of sleep."
Travis looked up from his notes, with concern, "Bad dreams again?"
Rashida continued scanning what was left of Terrance Michaels as she scoffed at Travis' inquiry, "That's one way of putting it, sure. Though if were to be a silver lining, the nightmares are making twisted shit, like this, seem normal by comparison."