The first thing I do after seeing a fresh body is meet up with Anna at NYPD Headquarters. It's a great place to be. Many work there but they all mind their own business.
"So, what do we know so far" Anna began.
"Well..." I began, pulling out my red notebook which I had written detailed notes in regarding Rachel "We can confirm that she wasn't murdered where she was found. Not even a fool murders a woman and sews her mouth together in the middle St Pauls Avenue"
"We also know she was murdered after coming back from a party" a voice chipped in behind me.
I turned to see a young man, blonde hair and stocky walking towards me. He extended a hand
"Blake Johansson, intern at the NYPD" I shook his hand "I'm on the case with you.
I didn't have time to put in my ten cents, he went on with an obviously rehearsed line.
"She went out to a club with some friends." Blake began taking a seat next to Anna "She took a separate route to the rest of her friends, none of them knew why. We have security footage of Rachel that night coming in less than five minutes – it's our best chance of finding the killer"
Blake was right. The footage showed Rachel walking home in the same outfit, yet no sign of the brownish stains, and was wearing red high heels. It showed her walking into an alleyway, and security footage of the other side of the alleyway did not show any sign of her exiting. So, as any man would assume, she would have been kidnapped while entering down the alley. Classic.
"So, I guess we're going down to the alley way" Anna said standing up and moving towards the door
"Hold on" I said, looking closer at the footage. Something didn't make sense during this footage. I started looking at the background – white car parked in the background, people walking here and there.
"The car" I said "It just disappears at one point – it shows no sign of driving away. It just, vanishes"
"Your point?" Blake asked as he began to also stand up
"This footage was edited, someone got a hold of this camera and erased I'd say around 5 minutes of the video"
I closed the video file and looked at the source. It was unidentified.
"Well that confirms it I guess" Blake exclaimed
"So since the video footage is unreliable, what do we do now?" Anna asked
"We meet up with Rachel's friends" I demanded "They will know more about Rachel's social life – maybe she had enemies..."
"Whatever the case...." Anna declared "...our killer is one step ahead of us"
The hardest part to solving a murder is the lies. Everyone tells them in a confession – just, some lies make more impact than others. This is why Anna is on our team – she's incredible at reading people's faces and depicting lies from truth.
We met with her three closest friends who were with her at the party. We met them at the office – as usual.
"We were shocked" one of the girls said. Her name was Clara – and appeared to be the most vocal one of the three "She had been happy all night, in fact she seemed a lot happier than usual"
"Had she said anything odd to you that day?" Anna questioned
"Yeah, she said something about seeing an old friend." Clara answered cautiously "But she had a very large circle of friends – so I just shrugged it off"
