Wait and See

Prologue

Prologue

By TimMcFarlane

The noise of the camera’s shutter clicking.

The welcoming music to any crime scene.

They said it was bad.

Aren’t they all?

I approached the partially built home, standing in like a beacon in the night, promising hope and security. But unfortunately, this future home for a lovely family had been rented to Death and he left us a mess to clean up.

A patrol officer nodded to me as I approached him. He stood in the opening where the last wall was waiting to be placed. Behind him the coroner was working in a seemingly empty room, snapping pictures of our newest victim.

“Detective Michaels,” the patrol officer greeted me as I drew closer. “Glad you are here. This isn’t pretty.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “Were you first responding, Officer....?”

“Phillips,” he answered. “And yes, I was patrolling the neighbourhood when I got the call.”

 “Who called it in?” I asked.

 “Guy who claims to have killed her,” Officer Phillips said hoping to draw a reaction from me. “We did a quick search the area but found nothing so we called in the coroner.”

 Intriguing.

 “Introduce me to our victim,” I said motioning for the Officer to take me into the building.

 “Kayla Daniels, 32 year old housewife,” Officer Phillips said as we entered the building. “The husband is being checked in on while we speak.”

 “Good work,” I said as I looked around the room.

 The room lay bare except for the body of Ms. Daniels lying in the middle of the room. She lay in 6 pieces: her head, body, 2 legs and 2 arms had been disconnected then reassembled on the floor with a couple of inches separating each body part from where it should have been.

I crouched down to study the body. The lack of blood made me uneasy. It meant that the body had been brought here and placed like this for a reason. But why?

 My eyes wandered and caught a thin trail of blood leading from the body to out of the room through the opening where the door should be. What really disturbed me was the fact that the blood had been painted onto the floor with a paint brush. The brush strokes were obvious.

 “Where does that go?” I asked.

 “Don’t know,” Officer Phillips answered. “It looked like a trap so I waited for back up.”

 Made sense but I’m thinking if the killer wanted to ambush us it would have been in the house. This trail is meant to show us something. Something the killer felt was important we see.

The coroner stopped taking pictures and threw on a pair of gloves. With the camera finally out of his face I could recognize the soft facial features of my old friend, Dr. James Madison.

 “Tell me something good, Jim,” I said to him as he crouched down next to me.

 “Only the bad news today, Al,” Jim answered routinely. “From what I can tell, the decapitation happened post mortem. And anyone could tell that this is a drop off.

 “Too dry,” I agreed. “For lack of a better word.”

 “Drier then the Sahara desert,” Jim joked. “The trail is the only noteworthy thing in the room.”