Chapter Two: 10-97

Story by JuneauAugustin on SoFurry

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#2 of The Oprille Murders

Second chapter of my neo-noir piece. Comments and criticisms welcome!


The morning sun had only just begun to burn the fog from the tops of buildings when Detective Paulson's phone broke the silence of his morning routine. Staring at the phone over his usual cup of black coffee, Paulson narrowed his eyes. He wasn't even due in to work for another two hours; who could possibly be calling him? With a sigh, he set the cup down and lifted the receiver to his ear, glancing over at the wall opposite him to what could only be described as a monument to lives lost; strings, push-pins, and photos covered more than three-quarters of the wall, each photo accompanied by the gruesome crime scene photos associated with the case. These were a somber reminder of the losses of the past ten years.

"Paulson," he grumbled into the phone.

"It's Juneau," came the terse reply, "you need to get your ass to 5th and Mallory." Paulson grumbled, shifting his weight in his chair.

"Are you wasting my time with another dead junkie?"

"Just get down here. It's pretty fucking relevant to your interests, I'd wager." Paulson's eyes flicked back up to the staring faces plastered across his wall.

"... be there in five," he said, slapping the receiver back down against its cradle. In a flourish, he downed his coffee, snagged his gun in its holster from his desk, and was out the door.

Oprille was as lively a city as ever today. The combination of city lights, the smog, the roar of traffic and the diversity of the crowd that packed the wet streets as they went on about their day never ceased to stagger Paulson. He stuck out like a sore thumb in this roaring ocean of life. In every sense of the word, he was a bear of a man; just under eight feet and built like a brick shithouse. Just like everyone else, though, he was in his own world as he wove his way past the stragglers, the shoulder-to-shoulder-walkers, the cellphone-blind, and made his way to the curb to hail a taxi. It was like breaching from a sea of life, stepping out onto that curb. He felt like he could breathe again. It also afforded him a great view of the throng of people that blissfully went about their morning.

"These poor fucks," he couldn't help but think to himself, "they don't know how fucking bad they have it." With that, he lifted one massive arm and hailed one of the many yellow taxis that sped along the cut of the road that splayed the crowd to either side.

"5th and Mallory," he growled at the cabbie, and without missing a beat he was on his way. The radio blared the morning weather report.

"... wind-damage to several structures in the business district. And with the inch and a half of rain we got last night we're looking a bit above average for this time of the year, but skies are looking clear for the rest of the week. Now here's Gail Somers with our morning financial news, Gail?"

"Thank you Joe. This morning hopes to see some reversal in the downward trend of the G&H 500, most of which has been the result of manufacturing job loss in the Northeast, but there is a bright spot in all of this..." Paulson couldn't ever focus on the news much these days. There never seemed to be much worth hearing. In his mind, the city never felt clean after a good hard rain; all that water just let the filth and the garbage spread and stick to the pavement. You could see it everywhere. That shady fuck standing just inside that alley. That twacked-out junkie that staggered out of one of the condemned apartment buildings that you'd see every other block. Everyone seemed so blind to the suffering and misery that surrounded them; so numb to the fact that they were one or two bad decisions away from being that guy next to the stoop, huddled under wet cardboard. He could be fucking dead, and no one would even think to check. Times like these, Paulson got that thumping feeling in his head, the kind that just makes you want to -

"Hey buddy!" Barked the cabbie. "You've been staring at that homeless fuck for like ten minutes! We're here, now pay me and get out." Paulson shook himself from his stupor, and slapped a disorganized stack of bills into the cabbie's open hand. He stepped on to the curb and stared up at the apartment building that towered in front of him, its tan façade a patchwork that evoked shades of coffee stains and cigarette tar.

"Detective Paulson!" It was Bruno, stuck working security for the front of the building as usual. "Juneau's upstairs waiting for you. Fifth floor, apartment 535." Paulson said nothing as he slipped past Bruno and stepped into the lobby.

The lobby was fairly nice for this part of town. Checkerboard marble floors sprawled across the length of the foyer, the concierge tucked away behind his desk being spoken to by two officers who were trying to calm him. He was quite agitated, his voice peaking here or there before the officers managed to bring him down to an acceptable level of volume. He obviously knew something had happened. Something big, something important. Paulson knew that the two officers were only there to babysit him and make sure he didn't talk to the press before the precinct could get a handle on this. He made his way to the bank of elevators, and punched five. The doors opened and he stepped inside, turning around to glance at the concierge once more. He was whipped into a panic now, but it was what Paulson heard as the doors closed on the scene that let him know what he was in for.

"I've never... there was so much blood! How could there be that much blood?!"

The elevator chimed and revealed to him a new scene. The smell hit him first. It was so thick he could taste the iron. His nose crinkled up as he stepped out into the hallway, and headed to the left where a small cluster of officers and crime-scene techs were gathered in front of the partially open door. He flashed his badge, even though everyone was too busy whispering their thoughts about what had transpired in the room in front of them to even notice his presence, and shouldered his way in. He wasn't quite prepared for what he saw as his eyes scanned from the ivory carpet, to the massive crimson stain, to the deer suspended in front of him from the ceiling fan. His jaw hung slack as he stared, wide-eyed. Juneau slowly sidled up to Paulson, having apparently already adjusted to the horror in front of him.

The doe, tragic figure she was, had apparently been bound and hoisted up by her wrists to the ceiling fan of her own apartment.

"It's kind of amazing that the fan didn't get ripped out of the ceiling," the husky mused. "I mean, sure, she probably weighs a buck ten at most, no pun intended, but that's some fucking craftsmanship," he quipped while taking a sip of his coffee. Paulson's head whipped around so fast that it almost broke his neck.

"Are you seriously making jokes about this shit? Are you fucking SERIOUS, Juneau?" He was practically foaming at the mouth. Juneau threw his hands up in a plaintive gesture, both being free after having dropped his coffee in response to Paulson's explosive retort.

"Shit, man! Calm down, it's not like we don't see dead bodies every fucking day," he said facetiously, leaning down to pick up his coffee which was now mostly soaked into the carpet. "You're an asshole, man, that latte was fucking delicious," he muttered as he elbowed his way through the crowd at the door. Paulson stared after Juneau for a few long moments, his face frozen in a scowl. With some trepidation, he once again turned to the crime scene.

It wasn't the blood, the viscera, or the body that got to him; it was the intensity of the violence employed. That familiar nagging feeling tugged at his guts like a meat-hook. He'd felt it before at each of the scenes that came before it over the last ten years, and he knew it was the same perp. The method employed had changed, mutated, but the intent was clear to Paulson. As he surveyed the immediate surrounding of the strung up carcass, he noticed a pink-cased phone propped against a few books on the coffee table nearest the couch. He glanced back over to the victim, and goddamn if the angle wasn't indicative of something much more. Each flash of the tech's cameras captured the horror that unfolded in this room at some point last night, but Paulson knew now there was a fresher record of the violence. He hastily pulled some gloves from his jacket pocket as he made his way over to the coffee table, about fifteen feet from where the body still hung.

"Hey, someone get a shot of this!" he practically barked at the techs as he frantically tugged the gloves over his massive hands. A few quick flashes from a nearby camera and Paulson snatched up the phone so quickly he nearly fumbled it. His hands were shaking. This could be it, the bastard could have gotten sloppy. Signed his own death warrant with a cocky, cruel display. He hit the side of the phone with a thumb, revealing the image of a lovely young doe, smiling so innocently at the camera. Just a random beach selfie from the look of it; garbed in a t-shirt and a tie-dye sarong. She looked happy. Probably had a boyfriend, a family that loved her. She could have been anything, or anyone, Paulson thought. He lifted his eyes once more to glance at that silent, staring face. It's always in the eyes, he thought. Death was in the eyes. You could just see the warmth leave them. You could see the exact moment that flame was snuffed out, and those marbles in your head became a gateway to the void. She was nothing now. Just meat, strung up and field stripped by some sick fuck. Paulson felt a chill run down his spine, and tore his gaze away from her lifeless body back to the phone.

With a quick swipe of his thumb, the lock screen slipped away, and revealed nothing but a black window with a play symbol stamped in the very center of the screen. With bated breath, he tapped the button and watched as the recording shakily panned from an innocuous shot of the coffee table to the soon to be victim, hands bound above her head. There was a slow pan from her terrified face, down across her naked body, chest heaving as she whimpered barely audible pleas. Her feet could barely touch the floor.

"Oh darling, my darling," murmured the satin-voiced cameraman. "You've behaved so far, but I hardly think you'll manage to keep your voice down for my next trick. Thankfully, I've come prepared," he mused as the camera tracked back to the coffee table before roughly being forced into position, framing the helpless doe suspended from the ceiling fan. A few moments time and a figure, clad in black and wearing an obscuring mask of black cloth stretched taut over his head, wandered into the frame, a gruesome looking hunting knife held in one hand. The framing only captured the figures from the waist up. Paulson silently cursed his luck; a tail would have helped him in some small way, at least determining a species. He watched, fully understanding the helpless nature of his observance, as the killer forced a ball gag into the doe's mouth. "Ahh, there we are. Now, darling," cooed the masked man, "I want you to look over at your phone. This is the last living moment that you'll have to share with the world." The doe's eyes went wide, and as helpless as it was, her eyes pleaded, begged, for anyone to intercede on her behalf, staring directly into that camera. As she reached the height of her panic, the flashing blade of that hunting knife plunged into her belly at the edge of her ribs, ripping downward, only to rise back up across the other side. Her frantic screams were but muffled, raging breaths against the gag as her innards spilled out onto the floor beneath her. The killer stepped back, fading into the shadows of the room, until the pouring blood was reduced to but a trickle and the doe lay dead in her bonds. The video cut off after recording a few somber minutes of her fresh corpse still suspended from the ceiling. Paulson, anger rising in his blood, snagged a passing crime scene tech by his coat.

"Put this in an evidence bag RIGHT FUCKING NOW. It's got video of the murder," he hurriedly explained. Terrified, the tech complied and rushed out of the room. Paulson once more looked upon the doe. She wasn't gagged anymore. He cursed his luck once more, but knew that if he acted quickly, decisively, DNA could still be intact. This wasn't exactly a clean crime scene. The knife alone would likely be some thoroughly damning evidence at trial, regardless of how much it was cleaned or cared for. He leveled one massive paw, finger pointed, in the doe's direction, barking at yet another crime tech.

"Check her face for fibers, and swab her mouth. All of it! The video showed she had a gag in, we might find some material or a trace of the perp." Paulson knew that his killer was clever. Though he had no conclusive proof that it was the same killer for each of the renowned Oprille Murders, he could never shake the gut feeling that it was all a part of the sick game one man was playing. Every crime scene, and the evolution of the killer, played out chronologically in Paulson's head. One gruesome image flashing after the other. He stared, transfixed, upon the deep red stain at the doe's feet, contemplating what could be the next step in this game. He could scarcely begin to contemplate the horror that lay ahead of him before Juneau snapped him from his fugue.

"HEY!" the husky barked in an irritated fashion, as if he had been saying it for several minutes at this point. "Fire department just called. A house off of Queensland a few miles outside of town just got torched."

"So?" grunted the bear in response, trying to gather his thoughts.

"Well it looks like the man of the house killed everybody before he burned the place to the fuckin' ground, so I figure you might be interested."

Paulson sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose betwixt thumb and forefinger.

"This is gonna be a long fucking day, isn't it, Juneau?"

His partner scoffed and shot him a whimsical look, the corners of his mouth tugged into a smirk.

"Like you've got anything better to do?"