Plague Rising

File #3

I finally arrived to the designated location I was asked come to. I had come across a cordon a ways back on the road, who upon learning my name, told me to proceed. I stepped out of the Cumulous, a Wawa coffee with a quad shot of espresso in hand. There was a fair amount of police in the area and I scanned the crowd until I saw a familiar faux leather jacket.

"Detective!" I called as I walked up. She was hesitant for a moment, but upon receiving a hug from me, she reciprocated.

"Glad you came, Jay." She said, regret in her voice.

"So, what have we got, sister?" I queried with a bit of my sassy flavor, likely brought on by the three sips of coffee I already had.

"Something you may recognize." Mowery led me over to where the CSI team was gathered. "You didn't have breakfast, did you?"

"Please, I never get up this early, I haven't had breakfast in like seventeen ye-Woah!" I was cut off, mid self-deprication when I saw what we were here for. It was a body! I rather figured as it didn't take a veritable Sherlock Holmes to realize that a whole team of CSI gathered on a back road in the middle of nowhere was indicative of someone being dead. The true surprise, however, was the who and the how! The man that law on the side of the road, nearby to a mangled car wrapped around a tree, was one of the two men who tried to break into my house during the last debacle! It was the tall skinny guy and his face was contorted into an expression of sheer terror. "Hm." I handed my coffee to Mowery as I approached the body and knelt down by it. "Nice to see you again. Shame I couldn't make it to this party. I'd have loved to be the one to put that look on your face."

"Jay, stop talking shit to the victim." Mowery handed me a pair of gloves.

"This guy tried to victimize me first." I said as I put the gloves on. "Several times, as a matter of fact." I began looking at the wounds, which were admittedly hard to actually look at. It was gruesome, but also very familiar. As in, body in the woods near an old Syntec facility kind of familiar! "I recognize these wounds."

"I know, that's why I called you..." Mowery sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't take you seriously, Jay."

"You took me seriously, you were just in denial." I stood up, still looking down. "I don't hold grudges on my friends though... unless you hit me with a +4 in Uno, then I'll hold that over you until one of us dies." The detective tried to hide it but she was smiling, either at my joke or that I didn't hold any contempt.

"So you say you know the victim?" She asked as we both looked at the body.

"Never caught his name, but he was partnered with this shortly portly fellow by the name of Burke." I explained. "This guy here was one of the people that sealed up my car when Syntec kidnapped me."

"Hm. And these wounds look just like those photos you were testing when we first met in your shed." Mowery recounted the time I was tearing up some steaks to compare the methods when I had found that late Syntec thug in the woods.

I left the body and turned my attention to the car. This wasn't the same red car that the victim and Burke tailed me with. Most likely this was his personal vehicle. I took notice of the marks on the broken driver's side door. There were bent tears in the metal. I glanced in to see if there was anything that could offer some answers. I carefully crawled in, avoiding any of the broken glass. It took me longer than I'd have liked but I finally came across what I was hoping for! A dash cam! It was one of those designs that relied on a suction cup to hold it on the windshield. It fell to the floor of the passenger's side in the crash and rolled under the seat.