The Case of The Criminal

The Corpse in The Garden

"Detectives, a man called Dave Simmons claims he saw body parts in a junkyard garden," Chief King informed them, "go investigate and solve as fast as you can!"

"On it!" they said rushing out of the room.

They drove to the crime scene and found the area taped off with cars guarding the house. A man in a beige business suit was standing by a squad car talking to an officer. Jones parked the car by the coroner van and after climbing out, they found Nathan sitting on the back of his van doodling in a sketchbook.

"Well don't you look busy," Jones smirked leaning against the van.

"I would be if you guys inspected the house already," he answered, not looking up from his drawing.

"Yeah, yeah, don't get your scrubs in a knot," he said, "come on Abbie, let's go get Nathan a body."

They entered the garden and canvased the ground. Abbie spotted the hand sticking out of the car hood and felt her stomach do a backflip.

"Nathan!" she called over, "I found something for you!"

He came over slipping on a pair of gloves, he lifted the hood while holding the hand encase it turned out to not be attached to a body. There wasn't one under the hood so he removed the hand.

"Need a hand?" he grinned waving the severed appendage.

She grinned awkwardly, "no I'm fine . . ."

Nathan shrugged and left to put the hand in the body bag. Abbie headed into the house and found Jones standing in the hallway outside of a room.

"Found the body," was all he said. Abbie stuck her head inside and saw the cut and bleeding body in the tub, "I'll go get Nathan."

Abbie nodded and entered the bathroom slipping on her own pair of gloves. She found a bottle of flammable liquid, a handsaw drenched in blood and the victim's clothes in a pile by the tub. She fished through the clothing and found a gold tooth hidden in the fabric. She popped it into a small bag just as Nathan and Jones entered the room wheeling a gurney behind them.

"Way to go guys," Nathan praised, "you found the rest of the body, I'll have him loaded in a second."

After taking pictures Jones helped Nathan to load the body into the black bag and up onto the gurney. The ME steered the body out of the room as the detectives finished bagging up the rest of the evidence.

"I found the victim's wallet in his pant's pocket, his name is Ned Dillard and he was a mortgage broker," Abbie held up one of the business cards.

"That's good, at least we have a name to the body," Jones said looking sad. "We better send that tooth off to Grace, unfortunately, the barcode on the bottle of flammable liquid is smudged."

"I can decipher it," Abbie pipped up.

He raised an eyebrow, "you can?"

"Yes!"

"Alright, let's go talk to the man who phoned this case in."

They left the house and found Dave Simmons still standing by one of the squad cars. He was carrying a briefcase and had a bandage on his cheek.

"Dave Simmons? I'm Detective Jones and this is my partner Abbie, we need to ask you a few questions," he said as Abbie flipped open her notepad, "what did you do once you saw the body parts?"

"I call the police as soon as I saw the hand," the man responded.

"Do you know a man named Ned Dillard?"

"I do, I send my clients to him first for mortgage advice, is he the one whose hand I saw?"

"Sadly yes, Ned is dead," Abbie informed him.