A POUND OF FLESH

RAINING ON PARADE DAY

RAINING ON PARADE DAY

23

"That's great news!" Emma exclaims. Now they just had to hope that the lab was not too backlogged and that the killer is in the system. Not too much to ask, right?

"I have already made a call to the lab. We have been told that this case gets priority...Now there are still a few things that need to get taken care of first but hopefully it will not take too long to process everything." Laurie beamed at Emma. Pride was written all over her face, both women knew that this was significant to the case.

"Of course, I completely understand." Even though Emma felt herself feeling slightly envious of Laurie and her team, she smiled broadly at the woman.

"Is there anything else that you can tell us?"

As Laurie goes over some more minute details, everyone checks their pocket at the sound of a telephone ringing. It belongs to Todd, who takes the call and apologizes. After he has stepped away, Laurier continues. The group does its best to listen intently as she speaks.

For each detective, the case meant something different.

For Mick and Todd, both were in line for a significant promotion. It would allow Mick to spend more time at home with his family and focus on that work-life balance he so desperately wanted to achieve. The long hours often meant missing important life events, and as his children grew older, he felt the strain and an emptiness he could not quite place.

Todd was motivated by something much simpler - the pay cheque. The promotion would mean an increase in pay, which would help towards getting himself out of over draft every month. Even without any dependants he found himself spending everything that he made and then some. Part of that had to do with covering the costs of his mother's medical care.

Ron wanted to catch the guy and close the case. There was something that felt innately personal too him, something that he could not quite put his finger on. A small element of it was vanity. He did not want to be outsmarted by a perpetrator that felt the necessity to treat women in such a manner and as the case had progressed, he was starting to feel that he might be the only one who truly cared about getting some sort of justice for them.

For Emma, she wanted to see it through. They were so close she could practically taste it. Emma needed this. Needed to know why.

"Hey guys?" Todd calls. The foursome snap their heads in the direction of Todd's voice. A furrowed expression cloaks his face.

"Ya?"

"Phil's night was more eventful then we thought. Some joggers found something."

Ron shakes his head in frustration. Obviously their plan of deterrence had not been successful.

***

"That vomit belongs to the guy who found her." The officer on the scene, is a young man named Neil. In the fifteen minutes that Ron had been there, he has already told him his life story. He is thirty two years old, it had taken him a few tries but he had gotten onto the force two years ago. He has a wife and two daughters with whom he thankfully resided in Waterloo. It was a long drive to work but with everything going on, it now made it worth it. Elizabeth was the "grossest thing" he had ever encountered. Neil's exact words, although judging by his gait Ron figures it is also the most exciting.

Ron does not bother to tell him that people did horrible things to each other all the time; geographics have nothing to do with it.

Ron and Emma stand at the top of the embankment and take the scene in from that angle. The body laid on its side with her face turned away from them looking into the wooded area behind her grave. Her left arm is extended away with the right strew across her abdomen. In stark contrast to the graying skin, a bright red silk handkerchief is wrapped around her neck. As with the others, her legs are drawn up and spread in a humiliating fashion.

In the cold of the early morning the dew surrounding the area is crystallized, adding an almost enchanting element to the scene. The leaves, still clinging to the trees, are all trimmed white while the dirt on the ground sits firm beneath their feet.

They stand to the perimeter and watch as the technicians walk about taking pictures, videos, and scribbling endless amounts of notes and images. In that moment, Emma longs to be down there with them - to find that one little detail that might be the most crucial element to the case, tying everything together. She laments at how easy it had been to dissociate herself from the victim. When she was in the field, everything was evidence, a piece to the larger puzzle. Now, they are women - souls deserving of an answer.

***

After talking to the joggers, Ron and Emma wait to speak to the medical examiner.

"Shit," Phil huffed as he strides up behind them, exhaustion marking his features. "No one saw anything last night. No one even reported anything unusually. We checked everyone coming in the park..."

"It's okay. This isn't your fault," Ron gave the man a pass. With the previous body discoveries, it had been flashy, arrogant - this was hidden in the shadows. It might have been days before she was found.

Ron watches as Emma shifts her weight from one foot to the other, the tension clearly visible in her shoulders. Thinking of the ache in his own back, he mulls over how the case is affecting everyone.

"Great." Out of the corner of his eye he watches some of the suits make their way towards the alcove. Before anything can be said, the examiner waves him over. Ron, thanks a god he does not believe in and, makes his way down the slippery bank. Emma follows clumsily behind him. At the bottom, she runs into his back nearly falling over before she catches her balance.

The demeanor of the examiner cannot have been more polar to the one that Emma is used to working with in Whitby. He reminds her of what Santa would look like during off season. Jolly, yet not as rotund as during the Festive season. He is clean shaven with small circular spectacles sitting on the bridge of his nose. His eyes, a piercing blue like the morning sky, and his cheeks just the right shade of rosy. Emma cannot help but smile at the man. Even as he delivers the sordid details of the young woman's demise, the grin remains on her lips.

As he goes through the findings from his examination, there is little that comes as a surprise to the pair. She had been quite dirty, likely pointing to the fact that she had been there for a few days. The liver temperature indicated she had been deceased roughly twelve hours and his preliminary findings suggest cause of death as a hemorrhage caused by the left carotid artery being severed. Her teeth were also missing, post mortem.

It is nothing that Emma and Ron did not come to otherwise suspect.

"There is this. I thought I would show you before it goes to the lab." The examiner walks over to his kit and produces a small bag, containing a piece of paper five inches long and one inch tall in rough shape.

"The message is a little blurry. However I found it very peculiar."

The black inked letters written in a thick slanted cap read MY SINS OF THE FLESH PAID POUND FOR POUND.

A/N: I added some more information regarding the detectives in this chapter as well as what they saw looking down upon the body. Please let me know what you think and remember to vote!