To Catch A Killer

To Catch A Killer (10) Blood In The Bathroom (Watty Awards 2012)

Dedicated to Molly_Malone for the amazing banner that she made for me!

“So what have we found out so far?” I asked as Turlock walked towards me.

“Well, very little, unfortunately. The woman’s name is Chloe Sanders, she's a regular guest here and according to the staff she always has a male visitor with her either when she arrives or a few days after.”  Turlock replied as we walked the long corridor from the lift to the door of the crime scene “From what has been said it’s clear to me that she wasn’t well liked here but she was a regular high paying guest here so the staff put up with her.”

“How regular are we talking about?” I asked as the Pc on the door lifted the yellow tape to allow us into the crime scene.

“At least twice a month if not more.” He replied as we ducked through the doorway into an overly red room. “She was usually seen with a tall, brown haired, Caucasian male.”

“Sounds a bit like the description that the Denver’s neighbour gave us.” I commented knowing full well that that described almost a quarter of the population England alone. Turlock was too busy to answer me as he clacked away on his phone, I rolled my eyes at him.

The door near the front entrance was open and a junior pathologist exited holding a transparent plastic bag of what appeared to be class shards covered in blood.

“I’m guessing that she was grabbed in there then,” I stepped closer to crane my neck around the frame to see into the room.

This crime scene was very different from the first. It was a large en-suite room decorated with an almost alarming amount of bright and deep reds. The furniture was tasteful and the large bed was covered with red silk sheets. The epitome of an expensive hotel with minimal security to afford its clientele the privacy that they thought they needed. It was, for a lack of better words, a policeman’s nightmare.

The room was white and the wall closest to me had finger-shaped smears of blood along it leading away from the shattered glass shower door. The rest of the room seemed to be in a similar state of chaos. Bottles lay on the floor broken, spilling their contents among the other toiletries that were strewn across the floor indicating a brief but violent attack. “Then, she must have been dragged into the other room where she was killed," I concluded, walking towards the other room.

“She obviously put up quite the struggle to have made that amount of mess. And our killer must have been pretty strong to have caused that amount of damage to the shower door,” I commented as I walked towards the body that Doctor Setwell was examining.

“Our murderer does seem to have a liking for pretty girls,” Jane commented as she rose from a crouch beside the body. “Apart from the cuts on her hand there is no other marks that differ from our first victim, but I will do a more thorough check when we can get her onto my slab back at the lab. We’re going to look for prints but I don’t hold out much hope of there being any as the MO suggests that it’s the same killer as last time. So he would probably have taken the same precautions as last time too. There is some good news, however. Along with the hair found on the body, like the last one, there was also a black thread found in her hair so we might be able to narrow the search down for you a little bit.” She then held up a clear plastic bag that contained the fiber.

I looked quizzically at it for a moment before looking back at the low cut dress that the victim was wearing. “Are you sure that it isn’t from the dress she’s wearing?” I asked, pointing out the fact that the dress that she was wearing was also a similar shade of black.

“Positive,” she said adamantly, “the dress she’s wearing is designer and made entirely of silk, whereas this thread is a cotton-nylon blend. I would bet my last penny that the dress is held together by silk thread. This most likely came from the jacket or jumper belonging to the killer. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and supervise the chimps,” she sighed in exasperation. “Hopefully they’ve found something useful this time because if I hear another “There’s blood on this glass Dr Setwell” I think I may kill someone!”