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Chapter 3

Rowan

It’s tough to pull away from the girl with the dark eyes, but I still have a job to do, and I don’t trust Detective Ashton to his own devices. So I walk around the building and one of the uniformed officers lifts the yellow tape so I can climb under. The first thing I notice about the body is that it looks staged.

“There you are, rookie! Take a look at this. He died screaming.” Ashton says with a chuckle. “I’ve seen a lot of bodies, but this one takes the cake.”

He’s wrong. To me, it doesn’t look like the man is screaming at all. It looks like he was shocked to see the killer and was in the middle of saying something. It should be impossible for someone to look like this when they’re killed. It’s as if his body went into rigor second after his death.

“Did they find a weapon?” I ask before I crouch down and look the body over a little closer.

“Nope. Who ever killed him took it with them. Although it’s pretty obvious if you got eyes. He was stabbed.” Ashton sounds annoyed and ready to leave, but this case feels different.

This doesn’t seem like a simple death by stabbing case. Especially with the other marks on him. For instance, there is a kiss mark on his neck that looks as if it was branded on his skin. It looks fresh too.

“What do you make of that?” I ask, pointing to the mark.

“People get weird shit tattooed on their bodies all the time. What’s the big deal?” When I turn my head to look at him, I see him on his phone.

“This isn’t a tattoo, it’s a burn.” I point out, but he ignores me.

“You’re right.” A woman comes walking toward me from further down the alley.

She’s dressed in a suit and carrying what looks like a medic's bag. “Stacy Steal, coroner's office.” She says with a nod.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m detective King.”

“Good to meet you, detective. So we got ourselves a weird one here. I can see what is obviously a stab wound and yet the amount of blood doesn’t match the injury.” She explains, pointing at the pool of blood underneath the body.

“How so?” I ask her.

“Well, the weapon looks to be fairly large and yet he this is all the blood that came from the body. Even the entry mark should have produced more blood and yet it didn’t It’s as if, like you said, rigger kicked in too quickly.” She goes on.

“How would that be possible?” I ask her and she sighs.

“I don’t know. It should have taken hours. Right now, you guess is as good as mine.”

That doesn’t sound promising.

“If you’re done with the body, I’d like to take it back to the morgue and get some more answers.” She says.

“Of course.” I don’t bother asking Ashton if he would like to examine the body further.

He’s checked out already.

I look around and see CSI waiting and wave them in so they can get started gathering evidence.

“Check all the doors for finger prints. I know it's a long shot, but maybe we’ll get lucky.” I tell them. They assure me they will gather any finger prints available, so I leave them to it.

My phone goes off and I see an email from my hacker friend. It’s titled: A LOOK INTO WONDERLAND.

I roll my eyes at how into this he seems to be, and open the email.

**FROM:

Weaver

TO: Detective Rowan King

Hey man, so there isn’t much out there on this place, but here are a few social media mentions of it.

*@conspiracybuff231 ITS REAL! The rumors about an illusive club has been proven true everyone! Look at this video. (Video)

@letsbefriend67 LIE! This video is blurry and doesn’t show enough to claim it’s true.

…. attachment.*

So as I said, there isn’t much to go off of and there is a lot of debate on the legitimacy of the so-called evidence. But if you think the fact that it’s being mentioned at all is enough, then yeah, people are talking about it. That’s about it, but I’ll keep looking.

Weaver out!**

Great. A whole lot of nothing. I send him a quick reply, thanking him for the effort and to keep me posted about any other information he can find. There isn’t much we can do here, so I figure we would have better luck finding witnesses.

I stand and look around the area. This place looks like it would have homeless people camping around, but there’s nothing. There’s no sign of life at all except for the body and who’s inside the club. This case isn’t going anywhere and we’ve only just started.

“I don’t think there’s much more we can do here.” I tell Detective Ashton.

He finally looks up from his phone and scoffs. “I could have told you that, rookie. This sin’t the fist time a case has gone cold because of this place.”

“Do you have any information on these other cases?” I ask him.

“I think VICE had a case related to this place.” He says it like it wouldn’t help at all, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to put in the effort. “Let’s kick this to someone else a find something better to do.”

He spits out a piece of gum on the ground that I hadn’t seen him chewing and saunters off toward the car. I catch the CSI guy scowling in disgust at what Ashton just did, so I give him an apologetic look before following my partner.

“I don’t think VICE will have much to add to a murder case.” I mention when we both climb back into the car.

He sighs like he’s already tired of me. “Look, kid, there are thousands of murders in this city. This case is a dud. I’m not going to waste time on this.”

Just like he did at the precinct, he revs the car and peels out of the parking lot and onto the street without a hint of worry. He might kill someone himself. I wonder how many accidents he’s caused and swept under the rug. There has to be far more complaints about him that what I’ve found, otherwise why would they send me here? Maybe he’s right about this case, but solving murders isn’t the reason I’m really here. He is, and to learn more about him, I need to follow his lead like a good rookie.

Still, there’s something about his place that makes me want to find out more. There has to be more about this place. Maybe I need to start from the ground up. The city has all building blueprints open to the public. They sell alcohol obviously, so they would need permits for that.

“I’d like to gather some more information about the club. You can drop me off at city hall.” I tell Ashton.

“Sure kid.” He laughs like he thinks I’m ridiculous, but I don’t care.

We’re quite the rest of the way until we arrive at city hall and Ashton slams to a stop in front, throwing my body forward. I want to throw a few colorful curses at him, but I bite my tongue. Actually, the action allows me to plant the device that’s been burning a hole in my pocket. It’s a simple bug, but it will have to do until I can plant the more advanced stuff later.

“I’ll take a taxi back.” I tell him and he waves me off.

I don’t linger and he pulls off with a screech, nearly colliding with a minivan full of kids. As if sensing my annoyance, a text comes through.

**334-624-7823: status

Me: bug placed

334-624-7823: confirmed. Location?

Me: city hall

334-624-7823: why are you not with the target?

Me: because I have to give the illusion that I’m here to work, and we caught a case.

334-624-7823: not your concern

Me: I’m still a cop

334-624-7823: with an assignment to watch Ashton. Nothing more**.

I don’t bother replying after that. They don’t give a shit about the fact someone is dead under suspicious circumstances, but I am. I’ve never walked away from a case before they pulled me in and I’m not about to start now. The bug is in place, and I can always catch up with Ashton later. There isn’t much I can do not but to wait until he does something worth my time. Until then I’m going to work this case.

City hall is set up like a large circle with three layers. Along the inner areas, there tables set up with sectionals for privacy and lamps in each space for reading, even though there is a good amount of natural light coming from the large window at the top of the building. There are rows and rows of books everywhere. I’m going to have a hell of a time finding what I need.

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