Post by Det. Griffin Paoletti on Jul 4, 2011 17:06:25 GMT -5
Sometimes, it just didn’t pay to get out of bed in the morning.
And it was even worse for a guy, if he was determined to keep a sunny disposition around his head. Yeesh. The world was just a friggin crazy place.
“What do ya have for me, Donny?” The younger officer standing in front of the yellow caution tape jumped a foot, his thin hand flying to the butt of his gun. Blinking as he realized who he was talking to, his face relaxed and stance straightened.
Right out of the academy, this one was.
“Got a murder, Detective Paoletti.” The kid replied, blinking sleepy brown eyes at the crime scene in front of them.
Well…duh. Anyone standing in front of a practically burned out building would think of ‘murder’. But wait for it, the kid just needed a bit of steam…
“I was the first on the scene. There’d been reports of fighting and gunshots, so my partner and I headed over; we were the closest to the apartment.” The officer went on, running a hand through his hair. Said ‘partner’ was nowhere to be seen; probably off playing ‘secure the scene’ with the other greens. “When we got here, the place was smoking, and there was a…body lying facedown on the grass.” Shuffling a few steps, he nodded at the burned out lawn. Tobias Drone, the local medical examiner, was squatting down next to it doing his thing, while a gaggle of onlookers took pictures, straining against the restricting hands.
It always disgusted him; the morbid curiosity that people had. They craved violence, loved the rush of adrenaline and the pounding of blood in their ears…
Until it was their blood pouring out of various wounds, or staining their faces, seeping into their mouths to slide horribly down their parched throats. Then it was an abomination.
Standing a bit to the side with the younger officer, Detective Griffin Paoletti, the department’s newest pro, took a sip of his coffee while he gazed absently at the tourists taking pictures, the curious children inching their way forward under the yellow tape, the reporters chomping at their collective bits while they smiled and preened at their cameras. Not even the park next to the crime scene seemed to distract the gawkers too much. But that was tourists for you; never distracted by the ordinary.
Standing at a moderate height and nondescript build, the detective really wasn’t much to see. Evidence of morning shadow brushed across his cheeks and chin, his hair was a messy brown pile on the top of his head, and his clothes were a bit rumpled from being slept in two days in a row- cliché, thy name is Griffin. What was so interesting about him, however strange and quite frightening, lay hidden behind those deep blue eyes. If one were to look behind the title, the honor of being made detective so young, and the haughty smile that never left his face, they’d be thrown into a blood covered world; a colorless scene with an ever present frigid wind.
Like all men of his ilk, Griff had seen too much, too quickly. Having spent most of his later childhood in the bowels of Boston, where the Russian mob loved to show its superiority over the local white-boys, it really wasn’t a big surprise.
The lack of conscience and impending insanity, however; now THAT was the surprise in the cracker jack box.
“Why don’t you go help Reynolds keep the crowd at bay?” Griff said to the young officer- ‘young’. Ha. The guy was probably just a year younger than he was- sliding a cigarette into his mouth with one smooth twist. He had a feeling that he’d need it.
…And then, with one glance at a certain man twitching at the edge of the crowd, he was all for that feeling. Casually, keeping half his attention on the guy craning over the reporters’ heads, he lit the cigarette and took a drag. It was a rule of thumb in cases like this; watch the crowd, look for something that just didn’t fit in right, and call it a lead. Some people showed up to crime scenes looking for a story, looking for some kind of excitement in the morbid. They took pictures, they recorded things on their cell phones, gossiped over the phone…
Pretty much everything but stand at the caution tape, shifting from foot to foot, biting on their fingers and looking at the burned out lawn with eyeballs about to pop out of their head. Okay, so that was definitely a condemning point, right there.
With another drag, Griff strolled toward the tape. The reporters went nuts as he got close enough, but his eyes were on Twitch. “Hey,” He called out. “Hey, you. You gotta light?” Something in the back of his mind sighed when the man cringed. Please, God, say he wasn’t gonna…
Damn. He was gonna.
With a groan, the detective took off after the disheveled man, who’d turned around to sprint down the street as if Hell was on his heels. Coat flapping and cig falling from his lips, Griff was sorely tempted to think the same; ‘cause when he caught this damn guy, he was gonna start bashing some heads in. “Stop! NOPD! I SAID, STOP, YOU FUCKER!”
For five blocks, the game went on; Twitch ran, he chased, tourists scattered and somewhere, a gun fired. His .45 was in his free hand, but he couldn’t get a clear shot without a damn local getting in his way. Twitch’s torn shirt flashed red in a gaggle of elderly people and disappeared into a shop across the street.
With a curse, he followed. He practically spewed apologies as various wrinkled men went flying into their wives and, gun out and face turned down into a snarl, charged into the building.
The first thing he noticed was the smell…something deep and musky. Various things hung from the ceilings, and the glass cases around the room were filled with strange dolls, colored vials and other odds and ends. It was quaint, different…and aha, there was Twitch, trying to smash himself through the back door.
“Stop right there!” He bellowed. Glancing sideways, he caught sight of a woman behind one counter and motioned for her to get down. Taking sight, he aimed his gun and tried again. “I said, freeze! NOPD! Put your hands where I can see ‘em!”
He took another step into the shop, snarling and ready to make Twitch- who’d turned around to face him with a shocked expression on his face- meet a brick wall. All in all, he was picturing something akin to an open and shut case, taking some of the heat off of his desk. He’d move on to a string of prostitute murders, then take the rest of the month off so he could fight with his ex-wife over alimony.
But did anything in life ever go as planned? Of course not.
With three steps farther into the shop, thunder boomed and the ground beneath his feet shook…or was that just all in his head? Pain ripped across his eyes, pounded in his skull and with a cry, he fell to his knees, gun dropping and hands coming up to grab at his hair. Somewhere in the background, over the crash of symbols in his ears, he heard the telltale smash of Twitch breaking through the backdoor and out of trouble.
I really shoulda stayed in bed, he thought absently, the world spinning around him like some kind of warped merry-go-round. ’Cause I’m so gonna get fired for this.
TAG - OPEN
WORDS - enough
NOTES – Join. Joooooin…>D
TUNES - devil in a midnight mass , billy talent.
CREDIT - template by MUNZTAR * of caution 2.0