Tick Tock Part Three - Dock

The Right Bait

Progress was as slow as he'd expected, especially since they'd picked up their fourth victim. After their shower, they'd driven to the scene. It was a miserable, grey day. Cold and damp, but not raining. Reed shrugged his jacket higher as they walked across the old docking bay for the Jericho, which now sat in a rusting heap on the bottom of the canal. There was no point in raising it. The area was abandoned, and it had been a floating pile of derelict rust anyway. It was now an educational diving spot for those curious about android history. A new topic that was being developed for future study. Their victim had been left lying carelessly on the cement, red staining the ground beneath his body.

"What do you think?" Reed asked as he crouched beside the body. A middle-aged human male. Pretty rugged looking, but not unattractive. He was casually dressed, though the material had been stained with blood. He also looked pretty battered, with dark welts clearly visible on his skin. It could have been from fists, or maybe something harder, like a bat. Could be both...started as a fistfight, moved on to something worse...His long hair had come loose from its tail, a matted patch of crusted red signalling the possibly fatal strike on his skull.

"Randy McDowell. Aged forty-three. Unemployed since twenty-thirty-seven, and a known member of the AAL," Nines reported from his initial scan as he joined him. He certainly fits our victim pool...Reed waited as Nines made a more thorough scan, silvery eyes unblinking as he eyed the stained clothes and various injuries. "I can see no fingerprints or trace DNA from the assailant. It's possible it was android related...The bruising here was most certainly a fist. See the knuckle pattern?" Nines continued as he held his own fist just above the reddened mark on McDowell's stubbled cheek. As Reed squinted and leaned closer, he could vaguely make out the pattern Nines was pointing at. "The fatal blow was to his cranium, but whether deliberate or accidental, it's hard to say." Nines moved his hand to indicate the bloodied patch on McDowell's skull where his hair had clumped.

"Any idea what caused it?" He wasn't sure Nines would be able to guess from this angle. The injury was mostly hidden, and they couldn't move him until forensics had done their thing. Nines did his best to oblige anyway, leaning close to the ground and scanning what he could see of the impact site.

"I can say with certainty that it was a blunt object...My guess without a full scan would be a baseball bat or some form of metal piping...It was relatively thin. No more than three to four inches wide." He was clinical in his response, watching Reed huff as he'd looked around. Those warehouses were full of possible murder weapons, and they were conveniently close to the water. If I were the killer, I'd have picked up a random bit of scrap from around here, pummelled the guy, and tossed the evidence into the old wreck...There was no way Fowler would let them search the wreck for a weapon. Not unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. It would be a waste of time to dive in and pull out any old bit of scrap that was down there. It would disturb the heritage site, too. There's a whole phcking ship down there! It would be like finding a needle in a phcking haystack!

"Alright, we'll let forensics finish up here and look at their findings later. We're not likely to get anything else right now. Our best bet will be to retrace his steps for the past week, like the others. It can't be a coincidence that all four were AAL members." Reed got to his feet and was soon joined by Nines as he nodded his agreement. It did seem unlikely for four members of the same group to be found dead under suspicious circumstances. The deaths were all different. Different ages, different places, different causes, but that didn't mean they weren't connected. Each case had a distinct lack of physical evidence, which suggested android involvement, and their victims had all been extremely vocal and active members of the AAL.

Back at the precinct, Reed made a few calls about their latest victim. He managed to speak to a few family members and scheduled them to come in for interviews. He also got a few details for known friends and made a call to the AAL directly to see what they knew. Talking to the AAL was uncomfortable. It was hard to believe now that he'd ever been part of that group. Luckily, the call was short and not with anyone he knew. They had no idea what McDowell had been up to recently, and there hadn't been any AAL activities during that week.