Outside Insight

Short story

Hey everyone! This is a short story I did for my school. Hope you enjoy!

Everything begins and ends, but how, when and why, now those are the real mysteries. They say some mysteries are not meant to be solved. This is a lie. Everything can be figured out, every crime solved, every lie seen through.

            I came to this particular crime scene like any other, a single face among the mob of detectives investigating the slaughter of another human being. This one was different though. This one was special. I heard no gallows humor, no jokes at the victim’s expense. Hanging from the carosel, a corpse dangled gently. A man no more than twenty. No, a kid. He seemed to be floating as the crest of his forehead was split open, an axe handle pointing accusatorily toward the crowd as if to say “You did this to me.” His eyes were aimed upward, in a vain endeavor to catch a glimpse of heaven in his final second of life.

            I scanned the body, attempting to find clues or signs. His hands were rough, and his shoulders were battered. He’s a football player. Or rather, was. He was wearing grimy sneakers and a school jacket. He was on a scholarship, but for academics. He had a bright future. Sad, really.

            Stop. Don’t make attachments to victims. They’re dead.

            He was religious. His eyes aimed upwards to meet a god of some sort. He had a slight tan line around his neck. Protestant? No. His knees were in great shape, and it was Monday. No, he wasn’t religious, a death in the family was much more likely. His necklace was a pair of dogtags on a leather cord, from the lack of scraping due to a chain. Family in the military. Father? Came back alive but damaged. A scar on the boy’s face, left by a prosthetic. Possible suspect? No, that was a one off. The boy hasn’t been beaten since. No defensive scarring on the forearms. The cause of death was intimate. Stabbing. He may have known his killer, or he may have not known he was there.

            My analysis was over. The kid had discovered who had killed his father, and he paid for it with his life.

“Do we have any leads on the murder of the father?”

A stunned uniform’s eyes widened. He clearly expected to have to brief me. When will they learn?

“We don’t even have an ID. How did you-?”

“Check all murders of men over thirty with a prosthetic arm. Last six months only. We may be able to narrow it down.”

            One hour later, I was on the phone with the Medical Examiner, listening to the report. The kid was stabbed before being struck with the axe. He had confirmed my suspicions. The DNA was similarity match to another victim with a prosthetic who had died a month earlier. The boy was his son.

            Solve one murder, solve another.

            A cursory look at the body of the father game new insight. The prosthetic had been removed and put beside the body in cold storage. Halfway down the forearm, it just ended. Left arm. Interesting. The prosthetic was less than a year old. He was mid thirties and he had among the contents of his backpack several books and a notepad. He was a writer, like I was.

            Focus. Don’t form attachments to the victims, they’re dead.

            Same MO. Stabbing. I noticed a slight detail that no one else had.

            Gotcha.

            “Dr. McCoy, could you please fingerprint the body?”

            “Why?”

            “Scrapes on his back. He wasn’t wearing a shirt when he was stabbed.”

The print matched a higher up in a gang on the other side of town who had gone to school with the father. They’d been in the gang together, and the man had gone to the army to escape.

This case was different. This one was special. For the first time I felt something for the victim. I felt an emotional connection to the dead man. I usually had no trouble being impartial. The drumming of rain clattered on the metal roof and I sat there thinking. I looked at the clock. Four hours had passed. That couldn’t be right…