writers_loft | An excerpt from my slowly moving crime-novel..

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Chapter One

Purple Thistle

I jumped about five inches off my seat as a pair of headlights zoomed past the side of my car, honking the horn louder than the law should permit. Fortunately, the act of road rage was enough to fully bring me to consciousness. I sat up straighter in my 2004 Buick Regal and looked at the clock/radio.

4:47 AM.

God damn it. Why would anyone commit a crime at this hour? It seems like, since the first day after I made Detective of the Special Victim Unit, the city of Kensington has become a much more sinister place.

I woke up forty minutes ago to the sound of my cell phone vibrating, loudly and violently- more loudly and violently than usual, it seemed- atop my nightstand-. That’s how I knew even before I answered the call that it was Captain Alden Cuyler of KPD SVU with something important to tell me… something important enough to interrupt my slumber.

“Detective Morgan,” I answered

“Morgan, I’m sorry about waking you but I need you down at Freedman Park. There‘s been a homicide and it‘s pretty obvious it‘s one of ours.”

“You aren’t sorry.”

“You’re right. Get down here, Patricia.”

I turned onto Freedman Street and immediately was bedazzled by flashing red and blue lights. Parking illegally in front of a squad car, I pulled down the sun visor and looked at my reflection in the mini-mirror.

“Oh, good. I look awkward and unapproachable,” I said; half jokingly, half not. I got out of the car and jogged up the concrete pathway until I found a Crime Scene guy carrying a white tool-box, no doubt, where he keeps his instruments. I followed him down the entry of the park.

The tall and numerous trees lining the jogging path shaded any moonlight, making the concrete black. There were a few moments when we were in complete darkness and I thought we would fall of the face of the earth into an abyss.

Finally, I began passing officer after officer, flashing them my Detective’s badge from the chain around my neck. Had I been clutching it in my hand the entire time?

“MORGAN!” I looked around for the voice calling my name and spotted my partner, Detective Nick Whitlock, jogging towards me. I’ve been working for him for about 2 months. He’s a good cop and that was a great comfort. And I have a feeling he is nicer to me than any other detective in the unit would have been to a rookie.

“Hey, what’s going on here,” I asked breathlessly as he lead me to a taped-off section of trees and earth. I ducked under the yellow caution tape.

“A body was found down here. It looks like a juvenile,” he answered.

“Captain said it was definitely one of ours; was there a sign of sexual assault?”

“You could say that,” he cleared his throat. As we approached the crowd of officers down in the deep brush of the wood, I got a glimpse of a white blanket draped over what I knew was the body. It was instinct that told me the blanket was white, but really it was so drenched in blood it was now a dark maroon.

I’ve scene only two other bodies since my promotion to detective; one was old skeletal remains of a little boy who was murdered ten years ago, and the other was a prostitute found strangled in an alley way. Each crime scene was completely bloodless.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Nick responded vaguely, but facilely. We were closing in on the group and had to maneuver though all the officers with notepads and Crime Scene Units with flashlights, trying to get everyone away form the body. Nick and I spotted the captain.

“Hey, look who I found wandering around in the dark,” Nick said, elbowing me in the ribs.

“Looks like she was the only one wandering around tonight,” the captain said, kneeling down next the blanket and lifted up a corner with a gloved hand. I clapped a hand over my mouth instantly to keep from vomiting.

Behind the blood-stained veil was what looked like a life-sized doll. A girl, no older than sixteen, was lying face-up, nude in the brush, her hands held up to her chest in a mock-damsel in distress pose. Her skin was the purest white I’ve ever seen. Her mouth was gaping open and her eyes… God, her eyes were frightening; opened wide and staring hard at me, at everyone, at everything and at nothing. I had a difficult time tearing my own eyes away from them.

When I did, they fell upon a purple piece of cloth wrapped around the girl’s neck. The color of it looked so innocent. Thistle. As though reading my thoughts, the captain spoke again.

“It looks like she was strangled with some kind of sash,” he dropped the blanket right below her hands.

“It looks like she was posed,” I stated. “This was no crime of passion. This is planned and staged.”

“You’re one hundred percent correct, Detective,” came a voice from behind us. The coroner, Dr. Greta Falke, was approaching. “Not only was the victim posed, she was also primped and beautified.”

“How long do you think she’s been out here, Greta?” asked the captain.

“Rigor mortis is just setting so, I’d say no more than 4 hours,” she said, marking something down on her clipboard “COD looks like cerebral ischemia by strangulation but I won’t know until I get her on the table.”

“…and the blood?” I asked, noticing no blood on the body.

“There’s extensive trauma to the lower body. Too many knife wounds to count right now.”

“How old is she?” I burst out slightly dramatically.

“No third molars and judging by body maturity she’s about 14, 15.”

“God damn it,” Nick growled under his breath.

“There’s something else,” Greta said, stepping closer, “about the body.”

“What is it?” Nick and I asked in unison.

“The victim is wearing colored-contact lenses, purple; I think to match the color of what the perp used to strangle her. Also…her skin has been bleached and covered in a white powdery residue.”

“This took time,” Nick said, shaking his head, “she was killed somewhere else and dropped here.”

“We need to check with Missing Persons and get her picture out,” said the captain, standing up and taking his rubber glove off. “And everyone,” he slightly shouted so everyone turned to him, “I want this under wraps so make sure I don’t see this girl on the front page tomorrow.” With that, he strode past us and disappeared into he night. I turned to Nick to get a read on what he was thinking but he was already kneeling down to take the captain’s place next to the body.

“There’s a lot of detail here, Pat,” he said, not bothering to look at me. “A lot of thought went into this.” He draped the blanket back over the girl’s face. “He’s telling a story.”

My partner has been with the Special Victim Unit for seven years. The recommended time is four. His history in homicide made him extremely savvy in detecting signatures and victimology. I could tell he already had about one hundred ideas about who this guy was and why he did what he did.

“What are ya thinking, Nick?” I decided to just ask.

“I’m thinking if we don’t find this guy, A.S.A.P, this poor girl will be known only as the first victim of one of Kensington’s most notorious serial killers.”

My stomach felt like it dropped a few inches as I took another look at the doll beneath the blood-stained veil.

I was never a fan of doll-collectors.