A Lead

As we arrived at the crime scene there were a few officers stationed around the house. It was a small stone bungalow with a once lovely garden that was now ruined with foot prints. The forensic team had come and gone, but we always send the cops working on the case to the scene anyway, even if forensics didn't find anything. But today the team had found something, hair and skin under the fingernails of the little girl, and residue in the woman's stomach from her rape. They had been taken to the lab for testing.

I, of course, had a theory of who it was, a team called the Basement Creepers, or just the Creepers for short, called that because they break into the basement of a house, then work their way up and kill everyone floor by floor. So I went around the house to check the window wells, as suspected the plastic covering had been cut into and broken. I showed this to Sam,

"Huh, good find," he paused then said, "but this wasn't in the pictures."

"No" I replied "it probably was, but I just showed you the victims, they were what mattered"

"Meaning you already suspected the Basement Creepers?"

"Ya know, you're sharper than you look" I smirked, amused, "but let's go check the chalk out, see if we can find anything Forensics missed"

We went into the house and were immediately overwhelmed by the stench of blood, it didn't bother me much, but Sam had a rather sensitive nose to any body fluid, so he gagged. When he was finished acting like he had a hair ball, he stood up and followed me up the stairs to the second floor hallway. There we saw three chalk out lines of people, two adult and one child. The some what larger one, I knew was the father, was in the door way of a bedroom, probably his and the wife's. It was right across the hall from a nursery, I peaked inside, nothing but blood splatter stuffed animals. I just had pulled my head back into the hallway when something caught my eye.

"Hey!" I said "look at this" picking up a small gold skull charm from a pool of blood, I had gloves on of course, "I doubt this is the child's,"I put it in a small baggie "let's take this to the lab."

At the lab I flashed my ID to the guard and got the lab number for the investigation. Once in the lab, I showed them my find. Needless to say, we had a sort of friendly rivalry going, so they congratulated us on our find and said one point for the cops, etc. But one woman kind of put me off, she just sat in the back glaring at us. One investigator noticed my unease and looked over her shoulder,

"Ah, don't mind Ms. Beckman, she does that to everyone. She was the intern on the team last year, you remember." He said.

"Oh yes" I replied recalling the younger version of the Colombian girl. Her first name was Charlotte, she had been quite perky and kind with bleached ombré hair. Now her skin and hair were noticeably darker, and so was her mood. I had quite liked her, she had been on one of my cases that year as well. It had been an armed robbery, I was surprised that a woman of just twenty was on the team. She had found a good number of clues and was a credit to her team. "She seems rather moody now, though. I wonder why?"

"Oh" the man I was talking to looked uncomfortable "the family that died, those were her cousins, and the big murder by the Creepers, in the city, that was her parents and little brother. But get this," his voice dropped to a whisper "she was in the city the day it happened, and the next gone, no one could find her. And the next town the Creepers struck there and gone the next day, and finally here, I'll bet she's joined them, either kidnapped, or bought, she's with them. I'll bet anything, even my life."