Samantha, burned.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I heard the sirens go off in the car and I turned to stare at Officer Laird.

“You turned the siren on.” I stated.

“Indeed” came Officer Laird’s reply

“But it’s not an emergency”

“Officer Malte,” He sighed in exasperation. “The police force’s own head chief called us and asked to arrive at Duffield Centre as soon as possible.”

“Oh.”

The officer shot me a perpetrating stare, as if he was trying to see what exactly was wrong with me. I could see why, I was usually on top of every case we had been assigned and had never failed to solve even the most difficult. Perhaps that’s what drove me over the edge.

Laird looked extremely tired. He had bags under his eyes and his hair looked uncombed.  Earlier today, he had told me that he had been up until three am because his daughter had thrown a Halloween party at home and he had to stay up because it was too loud. I would have felt bad for him but he deserved it. In fact, he deserved a lot worse.

“Malte, I’ve been staring at you for the last ten minutes and you’re too lost in thought to notice, I’m sure everyone has their own set of problems but try to stay focused on the task, okay?”

I grunted in response and got out of the old police car. I had been driving that thing everywhere ever since my first police job down in Scarborough and it still hadn’t given up on me. Not even last night, when she was trying to escape from the backseat. She pounded on the walls; she clawed on the upholstered seats. I had to cut off her ring finger in order to shut her up and I have the blood stains to prove it.

Officer Laird and I proceeded into the shopping centre. The entire building had been secured with police tape. This was not the plan. They weren’t supposed to find out. Not yet.

The captain rushed over to us seeming extremely frazzled and shocked beyond extent.

“I just can’t….and to her…who would do this…..Samantha…” He whimpered.

I hid my smile with a sudden cough. So that was her name. Samantha. It had a certain ring to it.

I was almost hesitant to continue, I should have left when I had the chance. Maybe I was too committed; maybe that’s what drove me over the edge.

We walked into a small restaurant called “Baked Gold”; I went over to the kitchen retracing the steps I had taken a night ago. After a minute or so we opened the main kitchen doors and the smell of rotting corpse entered my lungs. Delicious. Inside the oven, lay the body of a very badly mutilated girl. Every limb had been severed beyond recognition. Her face had been stripped of everything except muscle and her eye sockets empty. I had taken such pride in making sure she looked very generic and undetectable. Unfortunately, even the best of victims can be identified.

They had left everything the way it was last night, when I left. An autopsy couldn’t be performed at the moment so they covered the girl’s body with white cloth and left her there. They couldn’t freeze her body because it might trigger the effects of the chemical that was inside her body and then they couldn’t perform an autopsy at all.

Officer Laird came up to me and told me that the captain was enraged over the death of his niece, Samantha Fieldbrooke. This came as a shock to me as I hadn’t realized that Samantha was related to the chief.

“Two birds with one stone” I muttered subconsciously

“Excuse me?” Officer Laird questioned, taken aback.

“I said, is the cause of death known?”

“Oh, sorry about that. I thought I heard something else” replied Officer Laird.

“It’s quite alright but like you said officer, everyone has their own set of problems but try to stay focused on the task, okay?”

Officer Laird shot me a glare and resumed checking the kitchen surroundings.