While the scans were made and pictures were taken I made my own investigation.
It's a one way alley.
Why would the victim be here?
At first I thought it would be because he must live there, but the lab found out later that that was not the case.
Small plastic bags had been found in his pockets.
Right I might have forgotten to mention, but most of our victims were dismembered whilst being fully clothed.
An interesting fact, but it makes sense. They all died from blood loss.
There isn't much else other than the tiles being removed in this alleyway... Wait no!
As I looked at the drain a bit further, I could see something floating in there.
"I think I found something."
"It's probably just trash." My colleague shared, but helped me anyway.
With the help of a trash picker we took the surprisingly heavy object out of the drain.
Most likely it used to be white, but it had dark brown stains on it and the fabric... It felt like that of a shower curtain.
We got it analyzed in the lab immediately and the results later showed that it was the missing shower curtain from the Peper couple.
This isn't something that you leave outside, not like this.
It felt like the killer wanted to leave a message with it, something like: 'You won't catch me'
Are they playing a game with us?
Do they know more than they let on?
Could it be someone working with us?
Dark thoughts started appearing, but I tried to remain level headed.
It's a homicide case and we need to find out who did it and stop them.
They will most likely spend life in prison after this, no I'm certain.
And that's for the best.
Two of our other colleagues had to tell the family of the deceased about what happened after the lab results came back.
Those results go very fast nowadays, they can have an entire hologram constructed of the victim in a matter of minutes.
Then finding the person in the database isn't that difficult, since it doesn't just include criminals anymore like before.
Aaron Hill had only his grandmother left, she lived alone and when she heard it, she supposedly couldn't stop crying. Telling my colleagues that she knew that he was going to end up that way, but she just couldn't stop him from going down that path.
They stayed very long with her and even had some other colleagues take over to care for the woman, since she too didn't have anyone else to care for her.
For us back at the station, we had found out about the man's history and his work and had to look for his network of 'friends'.
YOU ARE READING
Artificial Tears
Science FictionIn the year 2037, Edith, a recent university graduate, starts working at the place of her dreams. She makes new friends and learns more about the world. Unfortunately also about what a dark place it can be, as she gets the feeling of someone followi...