Detective Patrick Gray entered the antiques store and took in the scratched and weather-worn interior. A number of New York’s finest were cataloguing evidence and speaking quietly amongst themselves. Those who noticed his arrival ceased their hushed conversations and eyed him with a mix of suspicion and sympathy.
I guess that’s fair enough, thought the detective. Everyone in the 1-2-1 knew he needed a win and this would probably be his last chance. Another failure and his brief detective career was done.
A uniform, Officer Reed according to the very fresh and polished name tag, hesitantly made his way over to the detective.
“What do you have for me Reed?”
“Steven is fine, sir.”
“Continue, Reed.”
“Okay. We have a deceased male, approximately 40 years old, no ID. Medical Examiner believes blunt force trauma to the base of the skull is the most likely cause of death. The assailant appears to have exited via the skylight.”
The inspector found it faintly annoying that the officer pointed upwards as if there might have been one at ground-level too.
The detective looked at the skylight, still ajar from the assailant’s likely overnight escape. A narrow band of early-morning light entered obliquely and highlighted dust motes gently moving through the higher reaches of the store. The killer would have needed to use the same point of entry as well as escape; there was an absence of shelving or any foothold that could have been used in place of a direct line to the floor. The shop’s door had been locked from the inside when the first uniform arrived. He imagined a well-trained gymnast ascending and escaping.
“Thank you, officer, that will be all.”
The uniform was cast from his mind and the body now drew his attention. The familiar sweet and pungent smell of death beckoned him further into the dim space.
Beside the victim was a selection of personal items that had been placed into individual plastic zip-lock bags: an ink-stained note with writing in a language he did not recognise and a shiny, silver coin, featuring a hole in the center.
Cold and greasy blood pooled beneath the fractured skull and lifeless eyes seemed to be forever staring after the murderer.
A shrill, piercing scream drew the inspector’s gaze towards a person being restrained at the shop’s opening. She was late-teens, lean, emaciated even, feverish and wild-eyed; her whole world was now the deceased. A loved-one? A young lover perhaps?
“I didn’t mean to kill my father. I didn’t! Daddy!”
Well, that answers that question. And a painfully convenient confession in front of a room full of police officers.
This was not going well already. There was no way she was the killer, which meant things just got a lot more complicated. Finding the killer and avoiding reassignment now seemed unlikely.
“Damn.”
