Triple Digits

Corey Strickland

The coroner's report contained everything Corey Strickland expected, unfortunately.
'Death by impact from his windshield meeting his skull at unusually high speeds'- was what the coroner had officially written as the cause of death.
Laying the two page report down, which detailed every marking on Jaivon Carter's body, down to the mole on his buttcheek, Corey drummed his fingers on the table, his chin resting atop his other hand, the sun setting outside, giving him a sunset view of Mid-City from Claire's third-storey apartment.
Another cup of coffee, courtesy of said Claire Miles, sat untouched in front of him. He could not bring himself to so much as sniff it.
Dinner had been a pizza ordered in, the box now stuffed in the fridge.
At some point, a blue-haired man had rocked up, Claire taking him in. The male, who introduced himself simply as 'Helix', now sat on her couch, watching TV while Claire showered. He did not hesitate to drink the poison Claire had made him, or eat slabs of the cold pizza served to him.
Corey tried not to think about the sound of running water, or the soft smell of soap drifting out from underneath the door... Or the way she hummed to herself, throwing a private concert for what he only assumed was her reflection. Claire had promised to shout out if she needed help, thanks to her broken hand and concussion. He listened only to make sure she didn't slip. That's what he told himself, anyway.
Until Helix remarked curiously, "So... You two in love, or somethin'?"
The question caught Corey off-guard, and he stammered in response, "Pardon?"
The blue-haired man brandished a thumb toward the bathroom door, "You and Miles. A criminal and an officer of the law is sure to rattle some cages around here," he laughed at the blush that rose on Corey's face, and he shook his head, insisting, "Our relationship is purely business!"
"How much she payin' you?"
Gods. How was Corey to deal with this?
Lifting the coroner's report again, Corey pointedly shifted his eyes to it, Helix chuckling, "I'm only messin' with you, Officer! Miles ain't the type to turn to prostitution. More of a racer, that one." Like he didn't know already!
How many speeding tickets had he written out for her, only for them to be thrown away by his Commissioner, or by Claire herself?
With her car totalled, he supposed there would be no more racing down the streets of Mid-City at five in the morning!
How was Corey meant to get to work every day?
There was a 'BANG!' from the bathroom, Helix and Corey both shooting to their feet at the sound, and Claire shouted out, "I'm fine! I'm fine! I just dropped a shampoo bottle!"
Sighing in relief that she had not collapsed, Corey took his seat again. Helix remained standing, looking at something out of the window, a small scowl on his face as he squinted to see.
"Officer, do you see that?" Helix's voice sounded so small all of a sudden that Corey rose from his seat again, half-expecting a prank, only to spot a familiar face limping through the parking lot, toward the back entrance of the apartments, covered in blood and dragging a bag alongside her.
Maddison Birchson was out there, looking like she'd been in a crash of her own.
Barrelling out the door, Corey raced down the stairs and into the lobby, pressing a buzzer to let Maddison in, catching her when she stumbled, asking worriedly, "What happened, Miss Birchson?" A set of car keys dropped from her fingers and onto the ground, and she wiped blood from her face, which was bruised black, like one side of her had been hit by a truck, slurring in pain, "Something went wrong at the garage! It- It was like the carjack just failed. But I don't understand..." She lifted her eyes to Corey, and he swore when he saw how unfocused they were, "It was brand new? I always... I always check-" She slumped, Corey shouting out to the lobby to call an ambulance, scooping Maddison into his arms and carrying her inside, closing the apartment door again and placing her down on a couch while the receptionist called the hospital.
I always check.
Jaivon Carter always checked his seatbelt.
A shiver of unease crept along Strickland's spine, and he glanced out the apartment glass doors, worried he would spot some insane person with a knife out there. There was nobody but his reflection staring back.
Luckily, someone sent for Claire, who emerged minutes later, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, rushing to her friend's side, gasping, "Maddy! What happened?!"
"She's unconscious," Corey said as he stabilised her head and neck with his jacket. Seeing how Claire was panicking, he kept his voice calm and firm, slipping back into his training as he ordered, "I need you to go wait for the ambulance driver outside."
Given what had happened to Jaivon, and now Maddison, it was best she didn't go alone.
At the thought, Corey added, "Take Helix with you. Go." At his order, Claire rushed back upstairs, shouting for Helix before she could hit the stairs. Her voice echoed all around the building. Corey could hear people opening their doors to investigate the source of the panic.
Was this intentional? Could someone be deliberately hunting down anyone present at the races last night, or connected to Jaivon Carter somehow?
The ambulance arrived quickly, Claire and Helix leading them inside to where Maddy was. Both accompanied her back to the hospital, although Claire thankfully left her phone behind, the passcode written down, for Strickland to use.
Corey remained behind, promising to visit Maddy's house to investigate.
If this had been intentional, he needed to be as quick, yet thorough, as possible.
First, he needed to collect the keys Maddison had dropped.
She had driven here, injured like that! How desperate for help had she been to have risked herself further attempting to reach her friend?
Strickland found himself looking both ways as he exited the building, striding out to where the keys were laying in the gravel, scooping them up and frowning. They looked oddly familiar.
That was because they were the keys to Quickshift's X-Class Delta. How could Maddison have gotten a hold of that car?! It should have been locked up in the police precinct parking lot as evidence!
He needed to speak with Dunfield at once.
Heading back upstairs to the apartment, he was careful to lock the door before dialling the police station number, hearing Dunfield pick up.
"Mid-City Police, Commissioner Gregory Dunfield speaking, how can I assist you today?"
"Dunfield!" Corey cried out, "Miss Birchson has been attacked, I believe."
Before he could ask any questions, Strickland explained the situation, and the scene he'd been greeted with downstairs, as well as how Maddison had been in possession of Quickshift's car keys. Which was where he was cut off by Dunfield, who said, "We gave the car to Miss Birchson to investigate, since she is a talented mechanic. We were hoping she could find whatever had been used to tamper with the car in some way."
That had to have been why the carjack, which was brand new, failed all of a sudden. Someone must have done this to cover up their crime, knowing that Miss Birchson would be underneath the car, looking for faults or changes. But that meant whoever had sabotaged it knew when it would be in Miss Birchson's home- which meant they were listening to the police radio... Or a part of the police force.
"Do you know where Miss Birchson lives?" It was imperative that Corey get there as quickly as possible. If this had been intentional, and someone had attempted to kill her, they could still be there, destroying valuable evidence.
On the other end of the line, there was the clicking of a keyboard while Dunfield brought up the address, repeating, "Twenty-Seven Longwick Street. Shall I send a police car out?"
"Keep them quiet. If someone is there, they might hear the sirens and run," Corey instructed, heading toward the bowl where the spare set of keys were. He was still in his uniform, thank the Gods, since he hadn't had time to duck home and grab any other clothes.
If this person knew where the police were sending the car, did they have any other information? Did they know what clues to erase? The trails they were hunting down?
What about Jaivon's autopsy? Did they know about that?
He would need to keep this as quiet as possible. If the killer was listening to the police radio's, or worse, worked within the force, then the fewer people who knew about it, the better.
Mid-City had never had a killer before.
Corey hung up the phone not long afterwards, calling a taxi to take him to Miss Birchson's home. He had the driver drop him off down the street, walking the rest of the way. When he reached her home, which was a single-storey, working-class house painted a pleasant sky blue, he discovered two interesting things:
One, which was the more immediate problem, was that Miss Birchson's garage was on fire, her neighbours desperately trying to put out the flames before they could spread to their own homes.
The second thing, which was equally alarming, was that Quickshift's car was missing from the garage.
Flames licked the sky, sending a plume of smoke up, and cursing, Corey ordered, "Someone call the fire brigade!"
They arrived within minutes, along with a police car of Corey's colleagues. He ignored their curious looks, wondering why he looked so dishevelled, no doubt, to interview the neighbours about what they'd seen.
Corey carefully listed everyone's names and contact details, in case he needed to ask further questions. He told nobody about Miss Birchson's condition, if she'd lived or died, carefully avoiding their prying prompts as to her wellbeing. Nobody seemed to have any information. All of the neighbours had come out only after they smelt the smoke, long after whoever had been here was gone.
Giving up, Corey placed his notebook back in his shirt pocket, heading back to call another taxi, or perhaps wait at the bus stop at the end of the street, only for one neighbour, an elderly woman seated on her porch across the street from Miss Birchson's home, to wave him over. He jogged down her path, carefully avoiding the neat row of roses in her yard, and stepped up onto the porch she sat on.
Leaning forward, she revealed in a conspirator's whisper, "I saw it all, Officer."
Corey's heart leapt into his throat at the statement, and he pulled out his notepad, flipping to a fresh page and requesting, "Please tell me everything you saw, as detailed as possible."
The elderly woman pointed one trembling finger toward the burning house, croaking out slowly, "Maddison is always working on cars. New ones, old ones- always something."
Practicing his patience, Corey breathed slowly and quietly through his nose, writing it down so the woman knew he was taking her seriously. She blinked up at him, continuing, "But that car, I knew it the second I saw it. That car is cursed, Officer."
"Cursed?" Corey's pen poised over the page, "How so?"
He was a man of the law. He did not believe in curses or ghosts. Superstitions were nothing but that; stories told to scare children.
"I saw her take it into the garage, when the police dropped it off. She closed her door, like she always does, but someone went up to her house. I only noticed because I was in my living room, knitting. I happened to glance out and saw them open her front door. I thought it was her friend, that Claire girl, but then when they came back out with the spare garage key, and opened it, I realised they were too tall." Finally, something of note!
"Tall? How tall was this person? Were they a man or woman?"
"Oh, they would have had to be smaller than you, dearie. Taller than that Claire woman, but not by much. Stockier, too. Built strong, like a draft horse." Taller than Claire, shorter than himself. That was many people in Mid-City. Claire was a petite woman, and he was of an average height. Short, stocky people were everywhere here in the city.
Frowning, Corey wrote 'draft horse' on his page, underlining it.
"Do you think it was a man or woman? What were they wearing?"
"A man, I should reckon. When I saw him reaching for the carjack, I thought he must have been a friend of Maddison."
How had she not heard him? Before Corey could ask, the elderly woman answered his question for him, "Wearing earphones, that one. I didn't even think to call out, but I should think she wouldn't have heard me, anyway. When the carjack fell, the man ran. He dropped this." Reaching into the pocket of her knitted jumper, she held out a tiny pin of the moon beginning to cover the sun. An eclipse.
Plucking the pin up, which was as small as a ten cent piece, Corey lifted it to the sky, studying it under the street lights flickering to life around the street. Someone within the elderly woman's house turned the porch light on with a 'CLICK!'.
"Luckily, Maddy had the car only clip her. She must have heard the metal groaning, or felt it shifting. She got out just in time. Would have been squashed dead, otherwise. By the time I made it out to help her, she was driving away in that car, bleeding everywhere, and this pin was on her driveway."
"Do you know what started the fire?"
"I didn't see anyone do it, if that's what you're asking, dearie." It was possible the fire had started because of something Maddy left on in her haste to get out- a piece of equipment, for example, or a tool of some kind.
Corey checked his notes again, making sure he'd gotten everything the woman had said.
He didn't have an evidence bag on him, but considering the woman had picked up the pin first, he doubted there were any useful prints on it.
Still, it was something. A pin, a fire, a murder, and an attempted murder.
That was... Well, it was really damned bad. The presence of the pin could be a mistake, or it could be a calling card, which meant this murderer might not be your every-day, run-of-the-mill murderer, but a serial killer.
Corey would start by finding out where this pin came from. That was a start.
"Thank you for your help," he told the woman, who smiled warmly at him, reaching forward and patting his hand, murmuring, "You take care, dear."
By now, his colleagues were long-gone, and the fire was out. Maddison's house was fine, even if her garage was a smoldering wreck. Hopefully she had insurance.
Deciding he would come back tomorrow, and wanting to check on Miss Birchson's progress, he turned and made his way down the path once again, turning to face the street.
Darkness greeted him, pierced only by the street lights that illuminated a small cone of light every twenty feet, giving plenty of space between that was pitch-black.
He was a police officer, gods damn it, he would not be afraid of walking down the street at night!
Placing the pin in his pocket with the notebook, Corey bought himself some time in the safety of the elderly woman's porch light to tie his shoelaces, not wanting to trip in the dark, before setting off. The gravel and loose stones in the tarmac crunched beneath his boots, and he found himself whistling to stave off the feeling that he was being followed. It was a ridiculous notion. He was just feeling paranoid from the recent attacks.
He would need to walk to the bus stop thirty minutes down the road, and use the payphone there to call yet another taxi- this no-car business was costing him a fortune- and hope Miss Birchson's attacker was not lingering around, waiting to strike again.
In the houses around him, people went about their daily lives. A family watched TV with their front window open, their two young children laughing at the characters.
In another house, a couple were arguing over a stovetop over how best to cook the family recipe.
The next one was dark and silent, but a dog barked at him from the yard.
Saluting the pooch playfully, Corey managed to calm himself. He was fine. Perfectly safe.
When he reached the bus stop; a weathered piece of tin held up on two rusting poles that were stuck into the concrete with a laminated sheet on it depicting the bus times, he reached into his pocket, pulling out the last of his change to call for a taxi. Once he got back to Miss Miles' home, he would grab the last handful of bills he had left from this fortnight's pay, and use them to pay the driver.
He slid the first two coins in, reaching for the third, only for it to slip and roll away. Corey dove onto the pavement after it, shouting, "No!" when it rolled into the gutter and toward a drain. Without that coin, it would be a long walk home!
A black boot clamped down on the coin before it could fall, nearly squashing Corey's fingers alongside it, and he looked up, startled, to see a young man smiling down at him.
Corey rose to his feet again, studying the young man, who looked around seventeen, and with a nod, said, "Thank you very much."
The boy nodded, continuing his walk down the street, his hands in his jean pockets. He had a lazy, casual walk, like he had not a care in the world.
Worried that he might run into trouble, Corey called out, "Be careful out here! There's a murderer on the loose!"
The boy glanced over his shoulder, waving goodbye, arrogantly calling back, "I'll be fine, mister!" Oh, to be young and confident...
Shaking his head in disbelief at the boy's lazy attitude, since at that age, any mention of a killer would have sent Corey scuttling back home at high speeds to be with his mother, he slid the final coin into the payphone, calling for a taxi to take him back home...