Beyond the City Lights

Chapter 4

Lieutenant Reynolds yawned fiercely as he stood up to address the room of officers and detectives.

"Long night sir?" one of the officers asked jovially.

"You have no idea," the lieutenant answered, taking a sip of coffee from his foam cup, and getting right to it. "There's been a double homicide on the outskirts of our city. I'm assigning detectives Carter and Graves to run lead on this. You two can see me after we conclude to get the case files. The rest of you I want on high alert. We're increasing patrol at night on all of our red streets," the lieutenant pointed to a map of the city behind him that had been color coded to show each block with high crime activity.  "Including the suicide at Sky View Bridge, we've had three dead bodies in the past two days. That's three too many and I'm hoping an increased police presence not only deters criminals, but also helps people avoid making bad decisions. That's all. Now get to it. Business as usual," the lieutenant finished with one final yawn and a long pull on his coffee.

There were two case files the lieutenant handed over. Both male victims. Carter took one and Ghost took the other. Then they sat at their desks and read over all the details. Carter could hardly believe what he was reading. Apparently his victim had been torched at the pump. Ghost's victim had been shot point blank.

The bodies were transported already and now sat in the Medical Examiner's care.

Cold air drifted from the doors just outside the morgue. The detectives could see Spencer through the small glass window in the doors. He was hovering over a charred body. What was left of the body looked shriveled and was frozen in a state of agony. Whoever this man was he died in a lot of pain.

The other body was covered and laid on a table next to the burn victim. The detectives sighed simultaneously and geared themselves up for a closer look.

"Spencer," said Carter as he pushed open the door.

"Detectives," spat Spencer.

"Think this one's a suicide as well?" Ghost asked sarcastically, throwing the first jab.

"Very funny, don't insult my intelligence or my professionalism. You know very well I'm competent and extremely good at my job," Spencer said with arrogance.

"Okay then, tell us what you know?" said Carter.

Spencer started with the burn victim, "As you can see from the severity of the burns, this guy here made it quite challenging to identify him. Luckily for you two, I'm the best in the business and I was able to extract the pulp from his teeth to identify him as Craig Barnes."

Ghost rolled his eyes everytime Spencer mentioned how good he was at his job, "Any correlation to the other victim?"

All three of them moved to the next body. A younger gentleman with a single bullet hole in his forehead.

"Execution style," muttered Carter.

"Yeah, pretty much," replied Spencer. "COD, a single gun shot wound to the head, but that's obvious isn't it? Whoever shot this gentleman, who's been identified as John Henley, the clerk at the gas station, shot him point blank."

"So we've got a person shot in the head and another torched. Two completely different murders, why? And, what did the killer use to torch this man?" Ghost wondered aloud, trying to process the information he was given.

"I can't answer the why, I've done my job, that's yours. I can, however, answer how he was torched. Gas is extremely flammable, light a match in front of the gas pump, point it at the thing you want to torch, and... Wallah," explained Spencer.

Wrapping things up as quick as possible with Spencer, Carter and Ghost drove over to the crime scene.

As the detectives drove, they attempted to work out a game plan.

"You think we should start with relationships the two victims had, family and friends?" asked Carter.

"I don't think so. Based off what we know so far, these seem like random murders. Let's see what we can find at the gas station and go from there,"  replied Ghost.

The first thing the detectives checked at the gas station were the tills to see if they were dealing with a robbery gone wrong.

They'd already checked both victim's personal items and both had their wallets on them and both had some cash left in there, which made Ghost believe this wasn't a robbery, but he checked the tills anyway.

The till was full with yesterday's earnings.

"Cash is still here. I don't think this is a robbery gone wrong. I think we're dealing with something else entirely, but what?" Ghost wondered aloud to Carter.

"That I can't answer," responded Carter, scanning inside the convenient store to see if he could find anything out of the ordinary.

Carter walked around the counter to the side the clerk, John Henley, would have been standing on when he was shot.

The crime scene cleaners were told to hold off until the detectives were done with the scene, so dry blood splatter was all over the counter and floor.

"I don't think I'll ever be desensitized to a murder scene," Carter announced.

"Probably a good thing," Ghost replied. "Means you're still human. The day you stop caring about this stuff is the day you should hang up the badge."

"Amen brother, amen." Carter rubbed a gloved finger over a hole in the wall, "Check this out."

Detective Graves joined Carter in analyzing the hole in the wall, "Bullet hole?"

Detective Carter had one eye closed and the other opened wide right up next to the hole, "The shot was through and through, so this definitely could be where the bullet ended up."

"I guess Spencer was right. In order for the bullet to burst through skull and brain matter, the killer would have to be close," Ghost said with a disturbed look on his face.

"Why do you have to say it like that?" Carter asked. "Burst through skull and brain matter?"

"You're right, that sounded insensitive. However, the question remains, if that's where the bullet ended up... Where is it now?"