5:07AM. For the third morning in a row, I woke up with a phone call. It was work. One of the cons of working for the New York Police Department, was the early and successive phone calls at five in the morning. I quickly scribbled the address where the body was found on the little notepad on the side of my bed and jumped out of bed. Another day, another mortal taken away.
As every morning, I got dressed in less than 5 minutes, did a quick check in front of the mirror, grabbed my keys and did a quick stop to my local coffee shop. It is almost always the same lady. Long, brown hair, blue eyes, constantly smiling, despite it being 5:15 AM. Paige, I believe. I ordered the usual: black coffee. I hate when people add milk, cream or whatever artificial flavour they have these days. This may make me look old, despite me being only 35 years old, but there is nothing better than the smell and taste of pure coffee this early on in the day. I was driving my 2015 Camaro. I agree, driving such a beautiful car in the streets of New York City is risky. But so were all the victims of my daily murders and infractions. Life is too short for me to care about those kinds of things. While I am at the crime scene, I always make sure that there is a uniform keeping an eye on it. Luckily, today was a wonderful day. Sadly, our victim will not have the chance to see this beautiful sky. I looked up one more time and entered this brand-new, modern apartment, on Central Park West.
Six floors later, I finally get to the apartment of our victim. "Morning detective," says the officer guarding the door. "Good morning..."I read the tag on his shirt, "Officer Tyler". I smiled at him and came inside. First thing I noticed when I entered the room, how clean the apartment was. No broken glasses on the floor, no blood traces on the walls, furnitures, nothing. Unbelievably clean, I wrote on my pad. "A bit late," shot my partner from the other side of the room. "Traffic," I said, without even trying to sound convincing. "Liar," he replied. I smiled and joined him. As I came into the room, the body of a young woman, clean clothes, a $200 haircut and a suit that would probably cost me my soul, was lying there on the ground beside her bed. "Zoe Novak, 26, New York Times reporter," said Jimmy. "Not bad," I said, impress than a girl like Zoe Novak, the daughter in a rich family, with a face as close to perfection as hers, could have ended up like that.
"Stop checking out the dead body, Haiden," said my partner.
"I... I am not checking out the dead body, that would be inappropriate, Jimmy."
"Yeah, whatever, no trace of infraction, no sign of struggle, a single gunshot to the chest. Everything suggest that the victim knew her killer."
"Make sure to look for prints," I said while carefully taking off the ground the cartridge and putting it in an evidence bag.
"Bring this to the lab with everything you find, I will be back in my office," I replied to Jimmy while heading back to the door.
"Oh, I said, say hi to Rebecca for me!"
Rebecca and Jimmy are married for 8 years now, which is crazy, knowing they are only 33. I was married once, too. Her name was Kathryn. She was everything I ever wanted. She once was coming back from work, when she got into a car accident. She was a part-time waitress for this restaurant not too far from home while she was studying to be a writer, or a journalist. She didn't know which one yet. But that night, she didn't make it. Since then, I promised to her to find who was responsible for this and to punish them. Sadly no evidence was find and never was I able to keep that promise.
--
While I was doing the profile at the bureau, Jimmy was supposed to stop by the morgue to collect the first analysis of the body, and then join me to present the present the current informations.
"What's up Haiden?" he asked entering the room. Jimmy was probably the only ones, excluding Rebecca and Kathryn, to call me by my first name. They were also the only one that I allowed to. For everyone else, it was Rymill. Detective Rymill. Perhaps since Jimmy and I know each others, back to the academy in '05, we had the time to develop the friendship we have today. This mutual trust. He was the only one here who really knew what kind of a man I am. After all, he is the only one here who knows about Kathryn. Kathryn, maybe she was what people call a secret garden. I would rather it to stay that way.
"Just finished the victim's profile," I replied while going back to the main room, the only place here where we can find a white board. Why? I wish I knew. Probably because of the hundreds of cuts the government is taking from the services, such as our department.
"Everyone, shoot Jimmy, as you probably know, Detective Rymill and myself are the ones assign to this case, but we would appreciate your full collaboration on this one, considering all the attention given to our victims and the reputation she had. We would ask you to remain silent about our investigation and to, undoubtedly, keep the medias away as much as you can.
"Thanks Jim," I replied. Again, it is weird how Jimmy is the complete opposite of me. Yet, we work so well together. No one, not myself nor others were calling him Detective Hardis. That probably was because he hated his last name. I remember a few years back when he asked to change the name on his tag, on his shirt, to Jimmy. I never saw someone got denied as fast as he did. Rebecca also took his last name when they got married. Both, I believe, to tease him, and because she believe Rebecca Hardis sounded great. If this isn't true love, I don't know what is.
"Right, I began, so our victim is Zoe Novak. 26, writer for the New York Times. She was found dead this morning around 4:30 AM in her apartment by her neighbour, a certain mister Arron Lamontagne, who works night-shifts and noticed her door was ajar. Estimate time of death would be between 12 and 1 AM last night. Our victim was a White-American woman, father is Alec Novak, famous businessman here in New York as well as in other parts of the world like Hong Kong. Mother, Molly Novak, is a very talented and praised cardiologist. Two brothers, Liam and Jack. All were out of town at the time of the murder."
Jimmy took the lead. "Alec was out on a business trip, Molly by his side, and they both are on a plane back to NYC as we speak. As for the two brothers, the younger was in the school library with friends. Camera videos are on their way. The other one was wasted in a bar on the other side of the city. 15 witnesses, including a waitress, already confirmed his alibi. Still, the surveillance videos should come in in a few."
"Issues," I continued, "no sign of forced enter, nor struggle in the apartment. CSU found a partial print on the scene that they are running, as we speak, through our local and international data bases. If we are lucky enough, we should have a match in less than an hour. Everything leads to the high possibility that our victim knew our killer. Jimmy and I will go to her office and see if anyone could give us a lead, while we wait for more results. Clarthon, go through her paper files. She apparently kept a paper copy of all her work. Don't forget the trash can and her receipts. The more we know, the better. Watson, please run an analysis of her computer and phone for me, and see what you can find," I said while getting ready to interrogate our victim's colleges, before Watson interrupt me.
"Detective, no phone was found on the crime scene."
"And find me her phone! She must have had a phone!" I yelled back to the officers in the room as I got into the elevator.
Direction 8th avenue, New York Times headquarters.
