Murder

Night

The air was muggy, I recall, that summers night, but a might bit chillier than the days before. Fog had become the constant companion of the small town of Dublin in the South West of the American state of Texas. The weather had turned dour and the clouds had bled their heavy drops upon the heads of a young boy as he walked his dog. dressed in camouflage sweatpants and a black and gray hoodie- a fair few sizes too large to cover his fatness, though the ensemble merely served to engorge his perceived girth.

The young man was a friend of mine, a bit slow on the uptake, but with an intelligence make no mistake. I liked him in spite of his black humor and depressing demeanor- due in no small part I am sure to his insecurities and self loathing. His dog was a little thing, an imperial Shih-tzu whose fur had been shaved until she more closely resembled a rat than an actual dog. It is perhaps his size that made him the target of the first murder. 

As close as we could figure, the young man- a mere week from his eighteenth birthday- had been walking his dog out of town to explore the geography surrounding the quaint town of Dublin. He had strayed in the direction of the highway, and had been kidnapped by a passing car. The dog had made its way to the residence of the family within the town- a small storefront they were planning on making into a store once the construction of their main residence was completed in the countryside. 

The highway was by no means a desolate route- being so close to a city much more substantial in size- but it was a near thing. I remember getting the call from my journalist contact in the media, that the boy was missing. It was a fascinating tale at the time, a boy with little to no athletic interest disappears without a trace, of course I had not seen the boy- Hyrum was his name, Hyrum freeman- in some time. I gained permission from the police force to examine the roadway, the forensics department had already told me their theory. It was plausible, and I did not dismiss it immediately. 

After they had examined the forest surrounding the scene in a radius of about a mile, and sniffer dogs finding no trace of poor Hyrum, they called off the search, and I was left alone. The days between the beginning and end of the true search were tedious, the despair of the Freemans was  heart-wrenching. The police filed a missing persons report, but the enormous public fervor died off within a very few days. I had not given up hope on my friend though- that was, not until his body was returned to the family, and in grotesque fashion. 

His face, disfigured from weeks of decay, was dropped off by a nondescript car with a license plate registered to another car. It was this incident that arrested my attention, and I set to work on a case all had thought long since cold. 

I want initial reactions, comments, and suggestions. This is merely a test novel, and one to write when I need a distraction from my other novel(s) so don't expect weekly uploads or long chapters.