NOTE: This is another of my short, quickly written, and prematurely posted "Cordyverse" stories. For the love of God, stop me before I strike again.
*****
Crime Scene Investigations
Don Bentley
"Hey, watch- Oh! Sorry, Ma'am, didn't see you there," Detective Kerry McGarry apologized to her squad commander and sidestepped around her as she finished videotaping the entrance way to the old Victorian mansion turned luxury apartment. Well, eighty years ago they were luxury apartments. Then again, eighty years ago this was a nice part of town, too.
Lieutenant Cordelia Chase-Gunn waited at the doorway until McGarry was finished and turned back to bring her up to speed.
"A bloody one. Two vics, I think. No bodies, just blood trails from apartment 4 down and out the door, they end here. The rain's washed the rest away."
"Apartment 4?"
"Rented to a Fred Rogers, we're running it."
"Fred Rogers?"
"Yeah."
"Who was his roomie? King Friday?"
"Who?"
"Christ, I'm old," Chase-Gunn looked at the younger detective. "No, on second thought, you just don't know your pop culture."
"Ma'am?"
"Five bucks says that nothing on the rental form is legit," she held up a coin.
"No bet. Look at this place. Think anyone's ever given their right name to the landlord?"
"I did," McGarry's partner, Detective Sergeant Walthrope, sidled through the door and sniffed delicately at the rank damp air.
"Bloody 'ell, it reeks in here," he pointed up the blood slicked stairs. "Comin' from up there. Which flat?"
"Four, but," she had to scurry to catch up with her partner as he and the Lieutenant climbed the stairs, picking their way around the pooled blood. "But the door's closed, locked and the blood trails start outside."
She caught up to them at the apartment door.
"See. No probable cause."
The two ignored her for a moment.
"Well?"
"It's from this one all right, Lieutenant," he pronounced it 'leftenant'. At first McGarry thought it was cool having a Brit as a partner, very classy. Then she got to know DS Walthorpe a little better.
It hardly ever freaked her out any more.
Chase-Gunn looked over her shoulder at the two uniforms interviewing neighbours at the end of the hall.
"Kerry, give me your cell phone."
She moved down the hall a bit before making her call.
"You lived here?" McGarry asked her partner. Not that she was surprised; she was just making conversation while the lieutenant got the warrant they needed.
"Yeah. What's wrong with it. Lights, water, mostly rainproof. Lived in worse."
"And you complain about my place."
"You live in a shoe box with a thousand cats."
"Mary Kate and Ashley are not 'a thousand cats'. You just don't like them."
"Not like they ever-"
"Got it," Chase-Gunn interrupted. "Judge Stone signed off on it, and the warrant's on it's way to the office. How long?"
This last was directed to Walthrope.
"Five bucks says 20 seconds."
"Old lock. Fifteen.
"You're on."
McGarry pulled her picks from her pocket and, kneeling before the door's single lock, looked at her companions. "I hate pressure, you know that."
"No pressure, luv. Just my five bucks riding on you. GO!"
McGarry worked the tumblers with ease.
"Twelve seconds!"
"Here."
"Ta."
McGarry pushed the door open slowly, careful not to disturb anything on the other side. The three detectives stood in the hallway and peered into the dark.
"Christ!" McGarry almost gagged as the foul odour that had been held at bay by the door escaped into the hallway.
It smelled like decaying flesh.
She thumbed on her video camera and started a running commentary.
"Okay, apartment number 4, 89 Raymond Street, entered under warrant at 0447, 16 June. No lights. No sound, or movement. Hello? Police. Anyone here?"
Nothing.
Leaving McGarry at the doorway to record their movements, the other two pulled on their latex gloves and entered the pitch-black apartment. Their flashlight beams darting about the squalid interior as they conducted their initial search.
"Boss, over 'ere. Kerry, come on in through the living room."
The dining room table was heaped with plastic sandwich bags filled with small blue and gold pills. In a plastic shipping container beside the table large chunks of meat floated in greasy water and rotted.
"Glory."
"Lots of it. Smuggled in in the meat crate. 'Angelo's Meats'," Walthorpe read the side of the crate. "From, what's that say? 'Tama-Tamaulipas'? Mexico, at any rate."
"That what you smelled?" asked Chase-Gunn.
"Hell, yeah. Do yourselves a favour."
"What?" asked McGarry.
"Don't buy your meat from this place. It was off before it started to rot."
"Like I've eaten meat since I joined the squad."
"See anything else? Anything significant?" asked Chase-Gunn.
"No, Ma'am."
"Me neither, Boss. The place is clean."
"Thought so. I'll phone the deputy chief. Kerry, stay here and turn the scene over to Major Crimes or Drugs, which ever one wins the race," then with a glance at her watch she added. "It's getting late, knock off from here when they arrive. See you both tonight. We have to finish the MacDonald Hall report."
"Which one?" asked Walthorpe as the two left the apartment.
"Does it matter?"
"Not really."
end