Kat Mysteries: Rookie Moves

Rookie Moves

1 "Doesn't look like she had much of a life."

"And why do you assume that" scoffed Junior Detective Katie Wyatt.

"Look at this place..." Senior Detective Chris Donovan said disgustedly. "I swear if there weren't cat calendars everywhere and a couple of bras lying around I would assume the Unabomber lived here." He kicked a stack of pizza boxes out of his way. "This is gross, half eaten food, pizza boxes, video games, and dirty clothes strewn everywhere. If not the Unabomber I'd say it was a freaking fraternity house."

"How does messy equate to not having a life?" She took offense to his comments since her apartment looked equally messy when she left it this morning. Kat was a no-frills type girl. She was bi-racial, nothing exotic, her mother was black and her father was white, but her complexion was an ambiguous shade that often led to speculation of her actual race. Not one to pass on a cookie and definitely not a fan of the gym she always had a few more pounds than she preferred but had still managed to outrun all the other cadets in her class, including Donovan.

"No self-respecting person with friends and an active social life lives like this. You'll see once you get more time on cases. We see the way a lot of people live. This place definitely screams loner loser. Poor gal."

'Condescending jerk...' she thought. '"Once you get more time on cases you'll see" Really! You've been a detective exactly one year longer than me. If this scumbag thinks he can condescend to me he can...'

She heard him barking at one of the uniforms and stepped back into the hallway. "Hey play that last message again, I couldn't hear if she said her name."

"What message?"

"If you hadn't wandered off making faces you would've heard it. Some crazy chick left a threatening message on the machine."

"I wasn't wandering off, I was checking out other parts of the apartment. As for the faces, you...."

She was cut off when the officer hit play on the answering machine. A woman's voice was screaming hysterically in the message. "...just can't believe you screwed me over like this. This is why you're a miserable cat lady with no friends. Because you lie and steal and one of these days you're going to get what's coming to you. Don't think I won't sue you. I swear Jazz if you make any money off of MY WORK I will sue you for everything you have. I will haunt you. I will make your life miserable until you own up to what you did, you lying, conniving...." The message cut off.

"Were there any messages after that? Did she call back to finish her ranting" Donovan asked.

The officer hit a few buttons on the machine. "No, that's the last message on the machine."

"I told you she was a cat lady" Donovan smirked at her.

"Caller Id," Kat asked as she ignored Donovan.

The officer turned around to face her. "No, she had an old-fashioned cord phone. I checked near all the phone jacks to see if there was a separate caller ID but there's no sign of one."

"Ok, Donovan I'll contact the captain and have him start a warrant to the phone company."

"Sounds good, I'll keep looking around the hovel."

Kat scoffed as she walked toward the kitchen. Her cousin was a uniform at the same precinct and she had seen him in the kitchen earlier helping the forensics team.

"Hey Paulie" she shouted towards the kitchen.

"Yeah, right here" shouted a young uniformed officer. Paul was the same complexion as Kat but tall with black hair and dark brown eyes. His mother always described him as 'roguishly handsome' to her friends with single daughters. He also happened to be Kat's best friend. "What's up" he grinned at her.