“We’ll end up with those cases now and then. The chiefs try to rotate the detectives through those cases, because they’re among the hardest we have to handle. And we get therapy sessions afterwards. Nobody handles those cases well.”
Alec nodded, and he shuffled through the papers on his lap. “What do you think killed our victim, really?”
“If I had to make a guess, I’d say greed. If it is greed, we’ll find some evidence in the financial records. Honestly, the financials are often where we learn most of the story, especially when we have a silent victim.”
“A silent victim?”
“It’s when we have no witnesses of the crime, the victim has no close associates, and we haven’t found anybody to help offer insight on what happened and why. The cases with silent victims are often the hardest, as we have to piece together their life from the little evidence left behind, usually in the form of financial documents and physical evidence. Right now, I have no idea if we have such a victim on our hands, but we’ll find out soon enough. My job, while you’re digging through the financial records, is to figure out where he worked, who he associated with, and find out if we have anyone to question. Once we know who we need to question, we’ll hit the streets and start work on solving this case. If you’re expecting a quick process, brace yourself for disappointment. It took me a few weeks to come to terms with the idea that solving crimes is nothing like what is portrayed on television or in the movies. Sometimes, the pieces fall together, but when it can take five to ten days, at aminimumto run fingerprints, things tend to stall for a while. Our current average processing time for fingerprints on non-critical cases is two months.”
“That’saverage?” Alec blurted. “But why two months?”
“The fingerprints have to be manually confirmed. It’s as much an art as it is a technical skill. There are a lot of factors. For example, how well was the lift on the fingerprint? How clear is the print? How many people have similar prints? The last case I got prints back for, there were fifty people with similar fingerprints. It takes an expert to interpret the prints, and they can get it wrong—or can’t tell who the print belongs to. Sometimes, we can get lucky with the computer systems; every criminal’s fingerprints are registered in a special database that can be compared against the prints we have on file. It’s when we have to do new fingerprint registrations that we have issues.”
“When you have a first-time criminal or a suspect who is yet to be fingerprinted?”
I nodded. “It’s a process.” Gesturing to the stacks of financial information, I said, “Given the volume of financial records, I suspect our victim is going to have a lot of associates, which means we’ll spend a lot of time questioning people on why someone might have murdered him with a bunch of fish.”
“And whatever other fish they might find when they autopsy him,” Alec muttered. “Do you think the CDC will be able to get through whatever is holding those fish in place?”
“I hope so, else this case is going to be even nastier than it already is. What are your thoughts so far?”
“I think someone with a high amount of creativity, a grudge, and ready access to magic is responsible. If they didn’t want to be caught, they wouldn’t have killed him in such a flashy fashion.”
Okay. I reevaluated my stance regarding taking the long and slow approach to dating. A smart woman didn’t allow a smart man to wander off without at least attempting to catch his attention. “Anything else?”
“The criminal is also stupid. By using endangered species, they’ve brought in a lot more investigative power. It’s possible they thought the use of endangered species would hamper the investigation, but that’s not how things work. It elevates the type of crime, meaning we’ll receive additional resources and personnel.”
“I see someone has been briefing you regarding some of the quirks of law enforcement.”
“While I’ll admit ignorance isn’t stupidity, drawing so much attention to the crimeisstupid. It’s almost as bad as writing down your crimes for somebody to find.” Alec smiled and patted the financial records on his lap. “Or in this case, having someone else conveniently write the crimes down for us so we can discover them one line item at a time.”
I foresaw needing to drag Alec away from the financials of any future case. Usually, someone had to drag metothe financials, as it was my least favorite part of being a detective.
Some matches truly were made in heaven—and in hell.
I needed to have a talk with the various divines with a tendency to come to the precinct to create trouble for me, and every other single person who dared to seek out employment with the Chief Quinns. Rather than complain about it, I allowed myself a chuckle at the absurdity of my day. “Before you get lost in those papers, care to make a prediction on the case?”
“A prediction? You mean guess who did it and why?”
“Yes. I always brainstorm a list of motives, suspects, and so on, mostly to get it out of my system. If I’m having trouble with a case, I’ll ask another detective to review the case first and then refer to my brainstorming session. I’ve actually cracked one or two cases that way. How? Because you’re absolutely right—criminalscanbe stupid. They often are.”
“My bet is on money laundering or embezzling—or both. The high number of credit cards implies he’s spreading around a lot of purchases in an effort to hide his buying activities. A quick way to launder money is buy illegal things with legal money. Using credit cards to make the purchases, especially if spread around to a lot of lenders, is a good way to hide the activity. If he owed someone money, he could be removing his debt through buying stolen goods or massively overpaying for common goods. This transfers money to the other party without drawing suspicion. It’s a fairly common tactic. If you’ve ever seen a common enough novel selling for a few hundred bucks, I’d give it high chances of being part of a money laundering gig. Nobody with common sense will purchase the book, but someone paying off a debt or laundering money digitally will.”
I chuckled, grabbed a notepad, and jotted down his theory. “That’s better than what I have, which is basically nothing.”
“Basically nothing isn’t the same as nothing. What’s your guess?”
“The killer hated him and also hates fish, and they decided to get revenge on the fishandthe victim at the same time.”
“Okay. I can understand why you would think your idea is basically nothing, although I will admit it is frightening plausible. I have a question, though. Why would anyone hate fish that much?”
“The first time you smell someone reheat fish in the microwave, you will understand.”
While many peoplebelieved in the concept of karma, I was more of the kind to deal with consequences. While some argued karmawasfacing consequences, I lacked the general belief the universe had anything to do with the process of someone getting their dues.
Our victim, Thomas Hardy, made me rethink my stance on karma and its role in the universe.
“Can you repeat what you just said, Alec?” I asked, hoping the accountant-turned-cadet would tell me something other than the first of the secrets he’d discovered in the mire of Thomas Hardy’s financials.
