The Assassin Awakens

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Detective Mike Wilcox walked into the station house early in the morning. As he made his way up the stairs, he saw his partner coming down.

“Turn it around; we’re up.”

“Already? I haven’t even gotten coffee yet,” he grumbled.

Smiling, senior detective Emily Filk held out the cup she’d brought for him, complete with travel lid.

They’d been partners for almost a year. Emily had been on the force for fourteen years, eight of them as a detective. She was relatively short with curly red hair and glasses. Mike was her junior with only five years on the job. He too was short with glasses, which caused some to refer to them as the twins.

Taking the cup, Mike asked, “Thanks. So, what do we have?”

“Someone found a body on the south side. The patrol officers want us to take a look. The crime scene unit is already there. The night guys had them hold it until we got in. So, patrol won’t be too happy when we get there.”

They got in the department-issued, unmarked SUV and took off with Emily driving. Mike sipped the lukewarm coffee as they drove.

Twelve minutes later, they were in a poor section of the south side and approaching several marked police vehicles with their lights flashing. There was a van parked alongside the cruisers with the words “Medical Examiner” on the side. Next to it was a truck from the department’s crime lab.

They exited their vehicle and approached, noticing that a large section of the yard was blocked off with yellow crime scene tape.

As they approached the tape barrier, two men met them. The first was an officer from their department whom they knew.

“You took long enough getting here,” he said with unhidden irritation.

“Night guys had this held for us. We came out as soon as we arrived.”

“Yeah, they wanted to go home on time. It doesn’t matter that we’re scheduled to leave at the same time,” the frustrated patrol officer said.

“Don’t take it out on us. We aren’t the ones who left you hanging,” Emily said. “So, what do we have?”

Still irritated, the officer began his report, “We have Bobby Wilks.”

With a surprised voice, Mike said, “Bobby Wilks, really? Well, this isn’t a tragedy.”

“Yeah, very few tears will be shed over this,” the officer agreed.

“Shot?” Emily inquired.

“No, much better. Come look.”

Emily cast a questioning glance at the crime scene tech who’d approached with the officer.

“Come in. We are mostly done. There were a bunch of footprints, but most were degraded from the rain. We got pictures of everything, so don’t worry about stepping on anything.”

Mike lifted the flexible plastic yellow tape and held it up as Emily passed under it. They walked to the covered body.

The crime scene tech uncovered the corpse, which was lying on its back, “There’s a bloody puncture in the right antecubital.”

“So, the paramedics started an IV?”

“No, they were first on the scene, and he was already cold. They didn’t work on him at all.”

“So, he overdosed?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think so; we didn’t find any needles near the body. It was raining out here in the middle of the yard, which would be a strange place to shoot up, and there’s bruising on the lower arm. Like it was being held down with a lot of force before he died. We searched the body and didn’t see any other needle tracks. And then there’s the interesting part.”

“What’s that?” Emily asked.

With the help of the woman from the medical examiner’s office, they rolled the body up onto its left side and moved the shirt out of the way.

Now Emily was a little more interested. There were two distinct marks from where the Taser’s barbs hit him.

“Those are from a Taser. Anything else on the body?” Mike asked.

“That’s all we found. Any more will need to come from the medical examiner. Other than that, we have some men’s size ten shoe prints. Most didn’t survive the weather. There was also an indentation in the ground by the body. Could’ve been from a knee.”

“Did you get pictures of everything?” Mike asked.

“Of course.”

Emily looked at the woman from the medical examiner’s office. She asked, “Do you have an approximate time of death?”

“That’s tough to tell. It was raining until 4:30 am. So being out in the rain would have cooled the body faster. Best guess, based on air temp and rain, is that he died between 2 and 2:30 am.”

The discussion was interrupted by a uniformed officer, “Detectives, I think we found a witness.”