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CHAPTER FIVE NED

Ned was about five minutes from the station when his phone started buzzing.

"Yes?" he answered tensely, keeping his eyes on the road as he held the phone to his ear. The caller ID said Scarlett, which meant that something was up; otherwise she would have just waited till he got to work.

"Ned!" the coyote's voice chirped. "Pick me up at the door; there's a floater down on the beach somewhere and we're supposed to go check it out."

"Will do" Ned said. "See you in five minutes." Why would Lennox be sending he and Scarlett down to investigate this new death....they were supposed to be focused on the Fincher homicide. Not that he was complaining, necessarily; he didn't have the adversity for floaters - bodies found in water, which were often bloated or partially unrecognisable - that some officers did. Plus, if this person was a victim of non-homicide related drowning, they wouldn't even have been under Lennox's jurisdiction anyway; so the responding officer must have determined that foul play was involved.

Scarlett was waiting outside the door just as she'd promised, looking snazzy in a denim jacket. "You have to tell me about your date" she insisted, "but first let's get headed in the right direction."

He grinned. "Tell me where to go," but when she explained which particular beach access point they were being called to, he frowned. "That's where I was last night."

She looked at him strangely. "Really? You see anyone?"

He shook his head, pondering. "Just a few random people strolling the beach. A couple of surfers who got there just before we left. Who's the vic?"

"Dunno" she shrugged. "Diego and Montoya got to the scene first. A couple of girls found the body when they went out to swim."

Ned snorted. "How predictable that it's those two who respond when girls are involved." He sobered. "Any news on cause of death?"

Scarlett's ears lowered uncertainly. "I think they said he got stabbed? We haven't heard from the guys yet so I really don't know." She punched him on the arm. "Now enough stalling; we can talk about the corpse when we get there. How was your date?"

He smirked. "It was sweet. He took me down by the ocean for Chinese food and wine and we talked for a couple of hours." He turned the car onto the road that led down to the beach, switching the truck's headlights on. Typical for San Fernando, the weather had shifted from the sunny warmth of the past few days to a seeping fog moving in from the coast.

The coyote whistled. "So he's gorgeous and a romantic!" Her eyes widened. "Then what? Did you totally have hot illicit sex on the beach? If so, I want pics."

Ned gave her a dark look. "Your mind is more rotten than a Detroit trash heap."

"You just now figured that out?" She waved a paw carelessly. "So? Did you?"

"No, we did not."

"Wasted opportunity" she muttered. "What good is having a hot gay best friend if he doesn't share the details of his escapades with his hot actor boyfriend?"

"He's not actually a particularly famous actor" Ned said, and immediately felt guilty for making Garrett seem less important. "Carmen Barbosa is his first big show, and he's not a main cast member yet."

The fog was thicker now that they were nearing the shore, and Ned focused on the white line as Scarlett chattered on. "Sigh. I guess I'm just not much of a fag hag, no more than you're a gay BFF."

That made him roll his eyes. "Do I look like I enjoy mall shopping or singing show tunes?"

"Pfff, far from it. The way you dress makes me think your mother still buys your clothes" she muttered doubtfully.

"......sometimes she does" Ned admitted.

Scarlett looked at him curiously, then laughed. "Ned, you are a total failure at being a stereotypical gay. Thank God for that."

"Just don't ask me for fashion advice and we'll still be great pals" Ned agreed, and then they pulled into the little gravel parking lot above the beach.

It was barely twelve hours since Ned had last been here, but the place looked strangely different. Where the previous evening had been only a couple cars, was now crowded with an assortment of police cruisers, media vans, and a few odd civilian vehicles. How had the media found out so quickly? Yellow crime scene tape had already been strung across between two of the police cruisers to keep people from taking the path down to the beach, which itself was not visible due to the fog. Opening the car door, Ned glanced around, finally spotting Montoya talking with a couple of CSP cops.

"Parker!" The jaguar called, jogging over as Ned and Scarlett held up their ID cards so the CSP cop would let them through. "Bout time you were here."

"Any news on our vic?" Ned asked, following the spotted feline down the beach path.

"He's one of my own hermanos" Montoya said mournfully. So a jaguar. "No ID, though. Some kind of surfer dude."

"Stabbed?" Scarlett clarified.

"Nope. Slit throat" the jaguar told them. The beach was incredibly foggy, and Ned could just make out Montoya's dark form ahead of him.

Diego was standing over the body when they reached him, his green eyes almost glowing through the fog. The jaguar had been dragged up onto the dry sand, out of the reach of the surf, and a tiger and a lynx were preparing a stretcher to carry him out. He'd been a big tall guy, and athletic, too, with the ordinary jaguar spotting like Montoya had. Maybe early twenties, if Ned had to guess. He didn't seem as waterlogged as floaters often did, but then again, he probably had only died the previous day at the earliest.

"Damn" Scarlett muttered. "He was a nice looking guy."

"Eh, too skinny" said Montoya, who was not as tall as the dead jaguar. "If I had a bod like that though, you can bet I wouldn't have been out here swimming. At least not without half a dozen chicks in bikinis."

"Maybe he did, and they took a knife to him" Diego suggested, gesturing towards the dark cut in the victim's neck. Ned bent to study the wound. It had been a clean, quick kill; one easy slice. But there were no signs of violence elsewhere on the body; no blood, although that was hardly surprising since he'd been soaking in water.

"Any sign of a scuffle on the beach?" Ned asked, rising.

"No, but....you find something?" Montoya glanced at Diego curiously.

Diego nodded and held out a Ziploc bag. "I think you'll find this interesting" he predicted. He glanced at Montoya. "Though it does complicate things."

Ned pulled on a pair of gloves, and standing next to Scarlett, opened the plastic bag and extracted a single piece of printer paper, folded into quarters.

"Oh" Scarlett murmured.

"This does complicate things" Ned repeated, looking up.

The list of Eleven Commandments was almost identical to the one found with Conrad Fincher's body, except that it was the second commandment which was highlighted, and that the name _HUGO SOTA_had been typed next to it.

"It was in his swim trunks pocket" Diego explained. "Found it while you" he looked at Montoya "were up talking to the CSP."

"Well that gives us an ID, at least" Scarlett observed. "Hugo Sota."

"Name means nothing to me" Diego said. "Maybe a friend or contact of Fincher's?"

Ned shrugged. "Either way, looks like the same killer. Different method of murder though, but the list is identical except for a being a different victim."

"Bastard killed Fincher cause he was gay, or so we assume....what did this cat do?" Scarlett wondered.

They checked the body over again, but there wasn't really anything else that could be learned from it, so it was hoisted onto the stretcher and carried away. Just as the two felines carrying it disappeared into the fog, one of the CSP cops appeared, leading two scantily clad otters. "Hey. You're the guys from Metro, right?" the vixen asked.

"Yeah" Diego nodded. "Can I help you?"

"These two say they're friends of the victim. Guy named Hugo Sota."

The sound of the dead jaguar's name seemed to bring the two otters to life. They were both pretty average looking, one taller than the other, dressed only in swim trunks and unbuttoned shirts, and based on the way they were acting Ned was pretty sure they were high on weed. "Totally, brah!" the taller one said. "Hugo's our bruddah. Where is he?"

"The only friends of his we can find are a couple of druggies?" Scarlett muttered sardonically. "Isn't this our day."

The shorter otter shook his head wildly. "No, wahine, dat ain't right. We're not drugged, just stoned."

"And drunk!" the taller one added.

Scarlett gave Ned a dry look, rolling her eyes, and Montoya chuckled. "You say you know Hugo Sota?"

"Know 'im? We came all da way from Oahu wid 'im." The otters' stereotypical happiness seemed magnified by their drug-and-alcohol-addled euphoria. "Big surf competition down LA way; next weekend."

"Wait, he's a surfer?" Ned asked, shivering. A chilling dampness had settled in with the fog, permeating everything. "I was down here last night with a friend and there were a couple surfers just getting ready to go out. That you?"

"Your brah drive a fancy yella car, yeah?" the smaller one asked.

"Yes, a Mustang."

The otters nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, dat was us. Dats a nice car yo girlfriend has." Despite the situation, Ned grinned inwardly. In the darkness the otters had mistaken Garrett for a girl coyote.

"I'm sorry to break it to you" Diego lowered his ears sympathetically, "but Hugo has been murdered. His throat was slit and he was found dead in the surf."

The otters stared at them. "Ya tellin' me somebody done killed him dead, yeah?" the taller one asked incredulously, mouth gaping.

Scarlett nodded sadly. "Yes, Hugo's dead. When did you last see him?"

"Was he stoned too?" Montoya scribbled in his notepad. "Or under the influence of alcohol?"

Of course, Ned thought, they could be looking at the killers right now. But that seemed unlikely. These two carefree Hawaiians didn't seem like the kind of people who'd kill someone and then stick the Ten Commandments in his pocket....that took a different kind of scheming.

"Totally, brah!" the taller otter said, scratching at his head. He had big plugs in both his ears that made them appear larger than they actually were. "Hugo always smoked a joint before he went surfing; said it helped 'is concentration."

The officers shared a four way glance. Extra concentration hadn't done the jaguar much good this time, for sure. He glanced around. The foggy atmosphere made him look over his shoulder, just in case Hugo Sota's killer was still nearby, sneaking up to add another victim to his list of crimes.

"We left to get some booze" the smaller one added. "He wasn't done yet, so we left him out on the water."

"And you just now got back?" Ned clarified.

The otters smiled simply. "We totally got drunk, brah!" the taller one said enthusiastically. "You Californians make some sick tequila!"

"I done think we're s'pposed ta tell a cop we're drunk" the other otter whispered, as if Ned and the others weren't standing right in front of him.

Ned cleared his throat. "So let's get this straight. You two went surfing with Hugo; then you left. You never saw him again."

"No, brah. We done never." With that, they suddenly seemed to really realise the meaning of this; that the jaguar was dead, and they started gasping out questions. "But why? How you figga? Hugo never done hurt nobody. Didn't drink, neither, real quiet guy."

Scarlett smiled sadly. "We think someone killed him for religious reasons. Do you know if he was religious?"

The otters shrugged. "Dunno, maybe? Probably not, him being a fag."