Not as happy with this chapter as the previous ones, but I'm not sure how to improve it, so...
(Also, I think this chapter is where the story passes the 10,000 words mark.)
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He had gone over the two apartments from which the victims had been abducted. The first had been a complete and utter mess, but the second was pristine. And while the second victim possessed a fixed table, it was almost completely occupied by one of the biggest computer screen he’d ever seen.
“So Doug was right.”
Muttering to himself, he put his ear on the eastern wall; the noise of the neighbor’s television could clearly be heard through it, something to keep in mind for the future.
The fact that Doug had been right didn’t really surprise him, honestly. They’d been partners for three years now, and he’d rarely seen the guy be wrong.
However, his second visit had also allowed him to notice a few things that they’d missed at first.
For starters, the first victim lived on the second floor of an apartment building, and there wasn’t any sort of hedges in the neighborhood to hide someone carrying an unconscious body. Their theory that the murderer had carried the victim through the back couldn’t be right, at least for the first scene.
Additionally, the neighbor of the second victim had been home at the estimated time of the kidnapping, and she hadn’t heard a commotion. Considering the fact that the victim showed clear traces of a struggle and the thinness of the wall that he’d just checked, that seemed unlikely.
Since he doubted that the lady was lying; there hadn’t been any report of disagreements with the victim, that left two possibilities.
First, the victim had been immobilized without a struggle in their apartment, but had broken loose at the scene of the murder only to be overpowered there. Second, the murderer had somehow muffled the sounds of the initial struggle.
The first seemed more probable, especially considering that the murderer had already been sloppy in leaving his fingerprints over several objects at both crime scenes. However, it was still too early to reject the second possibility. After all, he could think of several ways of silently restraining someone, although most of them would require above average strength.
Well, he’d done what he could for now, time to see if Doug’s wild goose chase had been interesting.
A flash of blue in the corner of his eyes caught his attention as he exited the small apartment, and he bent down to retrieve a small necklace. For a piece of plastic, the design was pretty elaborate. In fact, he could swear that he had seen it before…
His eyes widened and he almost dropped it as he realized the truth.
Of course, three circles forming a triangle around a crown; it was the same symbol as the one that he thought about so much recently. The change in color from red to blue must have thrown him off.
He frowned. Something didn’t feel right. Of course seeing the symbol in blood red hadn’t been a joy; actually, he was fairly certain he’d had a nightmare about it, but there was something about bright blue that made it look even more unearthly.
Well, that wasn’t important right now, he had to get his head in the game. This had to be connected to the murders somehow, and if it had been there last night someone would have picked it up.
He’d never actually believed in the cliché that the murderer would return to the scene of the crime, and until now had been justified in doing so. Still, if the evidence pointed toward it, there was a possibility that it was a cliché for a reason. It was a good thing that he hadn’t removed his gloves yet.
Rising back to his full height, he turned toward the door of the closest apartment and knocked.
The door opened soon after, revealing a woman in her late fifties that eyed him suspiciously.
“Good afternoon, I’m detective Ballard. You should have spoken to my partner yesterday?”
With practiced ease, he took out his badge for confirmation. Of course, she should have recognized him on the spot since he’d been in the corridor when Douglas had questioned her, but he knew for a fact that people had a tendency to see all police officers as the same person.
“Oh, of course.” The suspicion abated, though she took longer than usual to completely open the door. “What can I do for you? I already told everything I knew to your partner.”
Which was absolutely nothing useful, but he didn’t want to risk receiving a complaint by voicing that thought.
“Just passing by in case you remembered anything.” True enough; it was standard procedure. “I also found this, you wouldn’t happen to know where it came from? I think someone may have dropped it.”
Her eyes lit up briefly as they went over the necklace, before noticeably losing interest. If it had been actual jewelry, would she have claimed it was hers?
“Well, it’s not mine, but I think I’ve seen it before.” She frowned in concentration and he revised his opinion of her for the better; most people wouldn’t have bothered. “Oh! I think the girl who passed by this morning was wearing something like it. She must have dropped it on her way out.”
A girl? It didn’t fit the profile, but there was always the possibility of multiple murderers.
“You wouldn’t happen to have caught her name, would you? I’d like to return it if possible.”
“Well, no, she didn’t introduce herself. Quite rude, don’t you think?” He decided to not point out the hypocrisy. “She wanted to know what happened, apparently he was boyfriend.”
Her tone shifted to the fake whisper that was apparently used for gossiping, and he gave a small smile.
“I see. I might be able to get her name in another way then, could you describe her for me?”
“She had short hair, and she was one of those obviously fake blondes that you can recognize because the color they picked is far too light. I don’t understand why young people like it so much.” As a matter of fact, bleaching seemed to be falling out of favor recently, even in gangs. “She also had blue eyes, and I think she was hiding tattoos, because no one wears long sleeves in this weather. To be honest, I wouldn’t have spoken with her at all if she hadn’t caught me when I was coming back from the store.”
Hair and eye colors were pretty much useless these days since anyone could disguise them with just a few minutes, but it was always a start. The tattoos were a possibility, especially if she was the kind of nutjob that stabbed people over a ‘magic’ glyph, but he doubted the witness’ judgment; it wasn’t that hot outside.
“Thanks, I’ll see to it that we find her. Have a good day ma’am.”
A friendly smile and a nod to say goodbye to the witness, just like he’d trained to do countless time.
“Of course, I’m always ready to help.”
The speed at which the door closed behind him said otherwise, clearly the lady didn’t want talking to the police to become a habit. Combined with her slowness in opening the door, it was probably that she’d committed some sort of minor crime recently. Too bad that his instinct wasn’t considered evidence enough for a warrant.
At least they finally had a tangible lead; once he was back to the station he would be able to check the necklace for prints. Even more importantly, Doug probably hadn’t accomplished anything on his end, so he might be able to extract a pizza out of him in exchange for the details.
Absent-mindedly whistling, he began the walk back to his car.
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Originally Posted by Vagrant
