Bladed Cross

INVESTIGATION

Owen Collins drove quickly though the Canadian forest.

Pink sunlight filtered through the coniferous trees and shown through the passenger side window. The air outside was fresh and clean but there was no time to relish it. Owen's mind was on a more important matter. He finished his coffee and pulled the visor down to shield his eyes. He was quite distressed about the situation at hand. These kind of cases always distressed him. And why shouldn't they?

The grief, the crying and seeing the bodies which looked so different from the people they once were, all took a dreary toll on him. But even though he disliked it, he was used to it, and somebody had to do it. And it was not like these cases where uncommon.

Just two months ago, Owen had to deal with a robbery that turned into a gunfight that occurred in one of the food markets in Red Leaf, which resulted in two casualties, a man and woman. It was a high and unavoidable cost to finally subdue and arrest the shooters. The family of the murdered man tried to sue him for in their own words, "not getting there on time." Luckily he had an attorney to back him up, and eventually they dropped the lawsuit. Regardless of the context, remembering those events would still spark his guilt, no matter how many times he was told it wasn't his fault.

And last winter, he'd investigated the possible murder of three men, two of which had been ice fishing and came across the third man dead in the ice, unexpectedly drilling into his chest. The postmortem examination had revealed that the cause of death was a bleed-out from wrists, which had been vertically slit. To this day, it is unknown whether or not it had been suicide or murder. Besides the wrists and the drilled hole in the chest, it was also unknown what had caused the other damage. As for the other two men, they were both gone, their blood surrounding a large shattered hole in the ice, and a piece of fleshy rib stuck to a drill bit. Owen had spoken to the parents of the two young men, and their story was as simple as this; they left at 3PM, and were supposed to be back before sundown, but they never came back. Their father had gone out looking and found the sight where they were killed. Owen could still remember the father's exact words. "Losing your children like that, or anyway at all, it's more painful than dying yourself."

Owen didn't have any children yet, but regardless, he knew how the family felt, remembering the first time he saw a dead body.

He drove out of the forest and onto a hill that sloped down to Demon Lake, the ground flattening as he slowly descended down along the grassy, paved hillside. He was dressed in his law officer's uniform, with his 45 sidearm, two loaded magazines, handcuffs, taser gun, all his other gear all clipped to his belt and driving his work truck. He took the time to look across the other side of the corner of the lake, and saw his destination. A small house built partway up a hillside that overlooked the lake, a pathway leading down to the shore. To the left was another house also on the hillside, possibly a guest house. And to the right, lower down on flat ground was a green painted barn with pens—which was vacant of animals—installed on both sides of the outer walls. And in front of the property, built into the shore, was a dock. The road led down along the lakeside, dark green grass growing three feet tall on both sides of the pavement, which kept going alongside the lake. Owen slowed and turned, going Northwest, toward the house. He could see the other police and forensic vehicles about a quarter mile ahead of him. He accelerated just a little to catch up.

The main road went up and behind the Freeman's property before leading back down along the lakeside, there was a dirt road which led from the pavement. The moment they all pulled up to the property, the investigation immediately began. Owen got out and saw that his deputy and long time close friend, Ted Walker was approaching him.

"Good morning." Ted said as he reached him. Owen was glad to see him, but with no time to lose, he immediately got down to business.

"Where's the body?" He asked, looking Ted in the eye.