Smoke and Glory

•7•

Police sirens waile down the street as a few of my neighbours open there windows in pure shock at the amount of red and blue flashing lights that project through the curtains of their windows and the noises that they can hear the loud sirens projecting and echoing there noise down the street, and I see a few of the neighbours even stick there heads out of the window the curiosity of them wanting to know is sickening as I watch the lights draw sirens and the sirens get louder. The police cars pull up turning of the sirens and lights as the street is suddenly thrust back into darkness as I stand further back from my car, further back then the dead body and over walk the officers fixing up the yellow tape with its large black letters that read 'crime scene do not cross' and I watch as a few walk over to admire the sight that lays a few centimetres beyond my car; a few meters beyond my house. "Hey doc" detective griffin says as she ducks under the crime scene tape and walks over to me, "do you have any of your medical supplies with you?" She asks as she too stares at the sight of the dead body the pain in her eyes imminent despite her best attempts to hide it. "Yeah I've got my medical bag upstairs, I'll go grab it but don't let anybody near the body I don't want the crime scene to be disturbed as I don't want to lose any evidence" I say as I quickly reopen the door to my house and run upstairs into my bedroom where I grab the bag that is suitably close to the door of my bedroom before I run back down the stairs and out of the front door not even bothering to close it properly as a crowd starts gathering around the tape looking directly at the body, where i wonder over to before I open up my medical bag. "Alright I got most of what I'll need in here; I'll just do a quick examination and then I'll get it to the morgue and do a real examination there." I say as detective griffin holds up the tape as both me and her climb through it and directly over to the dead body. Detective griffin holds the torch, a single beam of light lighting up the body and all its suffering clearly defined. However It's the smell that hits me first, a strong scent, that's rather bitter and I believe I know what it is, "can you smell that?" I ask detective griffin who looks at me puzzled, "the body stinks" I say again but she just shakes her head, clearly not being able to smell it like I do as I get a big wiff of the bitter small before leaning backwards in order to breathe in some fresh air. "it smells like bitter almonds, I think we're dealing with cyanide," I say as detective griffin looks down at the body once more, it's blood covered face and panicked eyes look back at us. "How do you know?" Detective griffin asks wondering how I can tell before having even looked at something revealing such as the liver "well about 30% of the population can detect cyanide by smell, it's scent is bitter almonds and I'm getting a very strong scent of it here, I'd need to check the liver for signs of scarring first but I would say that this could be death by cyanide and a lot of it for me to smell at such a distance as I did." I say as detective griffin nods her head before looking down again at the body that once again lies between us, "but then what about the shot wound?" She asks and I wonder the same thing, "that I don't know, I'm going to check the body for other signs of trauma," I say as I put my hands around the back to feel for any broken vertebrae, that could hint at strangulation, none of which i find, I look for any stab wounds or indications of trauma on the skin but I can't find any, each kill for this killer appears to be different, which if you ask me is very odd. I feel the body temperature by holding the wrist, "it's roughly 30 degrees I would say he's been dead 3-4 hours, not a long time, also the blood hasn't full dried around the wound he was shot probably after he was potentially poisoned." I say pointing to one of the officers who is holding a notebook and writing all of this down and I check to make sure he got it all, and he smiles at me and nods his head as if saying yes continue. "The only signs of trauma are on the forehead and from looking at the body there are no signs of a struggle or anything relating to rope burn that could possibly hint at rope being tied around him if he were for-say kidnapped before he was killed." I say looking at the wrists and the ankles for any loose fibres or burn marks from this potential rope if he were held by the killer beforehand but I can't see anything. "Alright 2 minutes then the squad can take him to the morgue, I'm just going to check for loose fibres" I say as I look at the body and around on the ground but find nothing. We haven't yet found the calling card and once again I'm assuming its been placed in the shot wound. I watch as 2 paramedics pick up the body, placing it in the ambulance and driving off to the morgue, where in a moment I will head with detective griffin. "So from the looks of things are killer is toying with you" she says and I nod my head as the officer who was entasked with taking notes gives them to me and I place them in my black medical bag that blends in rather beautifully to the dark surroundings of the night. "Yeah, it's freaky but it's okay, let's just get to the morgue and deal with the current body, and by the way it is commander Greg Davis, he's dead, another victim to this master killer. But also an  out her member of the police force. Why is this killer targeting them? I guess we won't know until we catch him" I say and detective griffin nods her head, already knowing the identity of the body but not quite wanting to believe it. "Right and we will catch him but we can drive my car to the morgue, yours is technically still part of the crime scene and until csis have done there work you can't use your car." She says stating what I already know, my car and the front of my house remains a crime scene until we can clear it up and collect any viable evidence that could be used to help track down this psycho who keeps killing people, this one being his 3rd victim and therefore begging the question of whom will be the 4th. We walk over to detective griffins car, it's a black Mercedes and looks pretty new and fancy, it's a under cover police vehicle as well, noticeable by the small blue and red light she places on top of it during a pursuit or on her way to a crime scene such as my house and she takes it down to avoid unwanted attention because these killer cases are all over the news, everyone wants to know the truth behind these brutal killings and we don't actually have an answer for it and when we respond with no comment, all it does is create news stories such as, 'the victims all had there left big toe cut of' of which isn't true and when the public including the killer reads this kind of thing they get inspired to do the very thing the press simultaneously decided that the do. Suddenly my phone goes off and I anxious take it out of my pocket as detective griffin looks at me anxiously in return waiting for the deceleration that's it's the strange number that belongs to someone who claims to be the killer and whom I now am starting to believe may actually be the killer but as I look at the caller ID I breathe a sigh of relief upon realising that's it's actually my brother sam. "It's just my brother I'll be 5 minutes" I say as I walk away from detective griffins car and press the green accept button as I place the phone up to my ear and my hand to my other ear in an attempt to block out the noise of the sirens and the angry neighbours. "Hey sam" I say and I smile, I like hearing his voice, he's my older brother and I can't help but completely adore him, and his husband Ezra and there adopted daughter, my niece, Mia, whom I love very much and I always love it when she comes and visits me and I know she loves it just as much as I do and it's always quite nice for her to be around another woman since she lives in a house with 2 males and no one else. "Hey Lucy, sorry if this is an inconvenient time I just wanted to check in on my sister" he says as I let out a small yawn despite my best efforts to stiffer it, "yeah it's Umm like midnight here but I'm at a scene hence the police sirens if you can hear them through the phone they are very loud, I do need to go in a few minutes though because I need to get to the morgue to do my doctor shit, anything in particular you wanted to ask or talk about?" I say knowing sam well enough to know that he wouldn't just call me out of the blue for no logical reason, "I was just going to ask when we can come up and see you, Mia really wants to come and see her aunt Lucy again and Ezra and I would really like to see you again it's been ages, also have you heard anything recently from Leia or Katie?" He asks quickly, mentioning the other 2 members of our family, our 2 sisters, leia and Katie, of whom I haven't seen in around 2 years and should really consider making plans with, because after all they are my sisters, "umm Leia called me a few weeks back to wish me happy Birthday and Katie texted me a few days ago to ask a question about something or other but I never got around to replying" I say and I can hear sam talk to ezra over the phone and I smile, I love their relationship and the fact that they are married and have there daughter just shows what 2 gay guys can do despite society's views and expectations and I admire them heavily for that. "Alright it's just I heard that Leia was sick a few weeks back and I was just wondering if that's correct or not," he says and I think to myself, "I haven't heard anything but I don't know, also about coming over we're dealing with a major case right now, like a psycho killer, so it would be best to not come over for a few weeks, sorry about that but it's quite prominent right now and speaking of that case I really do need to go and get back to the morgue, we found another body by the same killer and I need to deal with it before I lose anymore valuable evidence or something that may be able to help me figure out who this killer is." I say a bit sad that I won't be able to see my niece nor my brother for a few weeks because of this wreckless killings that have left the entire city of New York paralysed by fear over who will be next and when they will finally be safe, a question I am beginning to wonder myself. "Bye sam" I say "bye Lucy" he says as we hang up the phone and I run back over to detective griffins car and I slide inside the open door and close It with quite a bit of force as detective griffin puts the pedal to metal and we start driving quite quickly out of my neighbourhood and down the dark roads heading for the dingy place that is the morgue.