Four years ago:
"That's when I heard him yellin' poor fella, never stood a chance..." said an older gentleman
"Okay thank you... what was your name again, sir?" I asked gently as I looked up from my notepad
"Gus Dawson ma'am, I live right over there" Gus pointed across the grass to a small red barn next to an even smaller red house. With that, he waddled back to his home where his old Jack Russel was laying on his back on the deck.
I ducked under the police tape around the rotting red-brown timber shed. An arm flung out in front of me to stop me from stepping into a giant puddle of blood
"Watch out, Briar. Cleaning blood off your boots takes too long"
I looked up from the arm across my chest into the blue eyes of my sergeant, Nala Holland. She was the highest-ranked in her previous precinct and was top of her class at the academy.
"Sorry, Sarge... I'll pay more attention" I adjusted myself as Nala handed me an evidence bag and smiled gently at me
"It's okay, boot, just get this evidence bagged and meet me at the shop" Nala tipped her hat at me and walked out to talk to other witnesses
I grabbed the evidence kit and gloved up, slowly pulling out a test tube with a clear liquid inside as well as a long cotton swab
"Okay so... swab the blood, place the swab in the tube, stir it in the liquid and break off the stick, when completed," I said the instructions out loud to myself as I followed them. Once the evidence was collected I placed it into a sealed and labeled bag to go into the evidence kit.
Next, I found a torn piece of fabric near the body, it looked to be denim... perhaps the bottom of the killers' jeans, the fabric had blood and paint on it, so I bagged it up, unsure as to whether the blood belonged to the victim or the culprit.
...:... ...:... ...:...
It wasn't long before I had bagged most of the evidence and the coroners came in whilst I was filling out my evidence paperwork
"Hey boot, how you doing?"
I looked up from my clipboard to see Senior Coroner Karynn Kelis smiling sweetly at me, although she was not the one who spoke. No, rather it was her underling: Oscar Choi. A chatty young man from Japan, with bright heterochromatic eyes and an even brighter smile, it always amazed me that he found joy in the most mundane and gruesome of tasks
"I-I'm doing alright I guess?" I tried to smile at him but couldn't manage to force even a small fake one. Being a rookie, or a "boot" as I'm called is never easy - gotta try to keep it down even when you can feel the vomit coming up your throat from the disgusting things that happen in this line of work.
He walked past me and immediately gloved up, looking at the body intently. Karynn stood to the side watching him, waiting for Oscar to point out what he was seeing
"Got a boot print here in the blood... not a Doc Martin but similar in pattern... I'd say size 10 - maybe 10 and a half?" Oscar reached for the camera around his neck, flicked it on, and started taking photos of the boot print when Karynn cleared her throat
"Forgetting something, Mr. Choi?" Karynn spoke softly, looking at him with an intensity I'd never seen before.
Oscar looked around trying to think of what it could be, before looking back at his mentor
"You have to put down an evidence marker and a ruler next to the boot print to show the size" Karynn was always gentle with her pupils, firm yet kind in her teachings.
Oscar flushed red as he realized he had messed up, he quickly grabbed out his markers and a ruler placing them next to the boot print in front of him.
Present-day:
"Double caramel latte with extra whip?"
I looked up from my computer in disgust at the sound of the beverage to come eye-to-eye with Oscar
"Just kidding, Latte with a half-shot of vanillaaaaa" he placed my coffee on my coaster and smiled his usual bright and dorky smile
"I was gonna kill you, Choi" I smirked as I took the cup and sipped from it, a tradition that Oscar and I had come to was always giving eachother coffee when we got to work, depending on who got there second was the one who had to do the coffee run.
Oscar pulled up a seat next to me and handed me a manilla folder labeled "Blake Stickle"
"Thank you" I smiled as I took it from him and started looking through the folder
"Why did you need that? That case was like four years ago?" Oscar then looked at my computer screen to see that I was working on a new case. I heard him gulp a little. "He's... back?"
I looked to him and nodded
"He's back."
YOU ARE READING
Happy little accidents
Mystery / ThrillerDetective Kennedy Briar of Lakeshore PD has been looking into the long history of an artistic serial killer, known as "The Painter" someone she didn't know was a very big part of her life. Speaking with multiple shrinks she comes to realize that her...
