12- Seeking Connections.

Detective Yechiel Mazurka had already had a long day and had just returned to the precinct to find the coroner's report on the previous victim sitting on his desk. Tossing his jacket over the back of his chair, he sat down and loosened his tie, when a knock came against the doorframe, and a pleasant looking, woman in her mid-thirties with light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, leaned further into the office he shared with his partner.

"I looked into getting those files you wanted and had to call in more than one favor with a particular clerk, but they should be here in a few minutes," she remarked as she came in and sat on the edge of his desk.

"Thanks Ginny, I appreciate you getting that done for me so fast."

"Yeah, well you owe me Yechi. Tracking down a file that old, and getting it pulled from Clairemont storage within a day, was no small feat."

"I'll buy the next round then."

"It was already your turn to buy."

"Fine, the next three then."

"And a plate of fries from the burger joint on the corner, tomorrow, for lunch."

"You got it," Yechiel replied, watching Ginny walk away as his partner, Renford Harlowe, came into the room.

"Making a deal with the devil when you do business with that one," Harlowe gruffly jested as he sat down at his desk.

Harlowe was man a few years passed his prime but still looked older than he should; his hair long turned grey from the stress and strain of the job. Sleepless nights had taken their toll, and the constant reminder of how shitty humans can be to other humans, had long since worn thin. He was the type of man that could stare at a flayed corpse and no longer see it as a person, but just different bits of evidence to be gathered, bagged, and examined. He had been hardened to the world, and grown cynical, but he was still a good Detective, and Mazurka was grateful when he was chosen to become his partner, after he had passed his exam.

"Coroner's report on the previous victim," Mazurka said as he passed it over to Harlowe. He may only be two years on the job, but he didn't need to look at the file to know it was going to read the same as the ten previous ones, and the five still to come.

Harlowe, on the other hand, was a seasoned veteran with eighteen years in the precinct, fifteen of which were working as a homicide detective. Setting the file on his desk he opened the cover and began to go over the details.

"You read this yet?"

"No, I just got back from Rosemont a few minutes ago. Your informant tell you anything useful?"

"No, but I did manage to get one of the local brothers" he pulled out his notepad and thumbed passed a few pages, "Jathem, Detective Bill Jathem, to take me over to that homeless camp you were tipped off about. He took me to talk to one of the older guys he knows down there, and he says that there's this strange fella, a younger guy, that started showing up around two months back. Which is right around the time the second body was reported in the Grove, although the timeline makes it the first victim so far. Had he been found before our guy down at the riverfront, they'd have jurisdiction on this case. Lucky us, right? Anyways, this informant says this new guy made friends with another local named, Willy Scarlet pretty quick, and that both of them tend to be fairly transient, often spending nights away from their shelters. Willy wasn't there when we were, so I'll be heading back tomorrow to try and talk to him again. I took a look in the new guy's box, but there was nothing inside except for a couple of old blankets, a pile of candy bar wrappers and nearly a dozen packages of mints."

"Did you get a name?"

"Not from this guy. Said he steered clear of the new one, something about him gave him the creeps. Which considering where he was living, says something."

"When you say packages of mints, and wrappers, you mean like the ones you might buy from a convenience store?"

"Yeah, exactly like the type you would find, and a whole variety of them too. It's like the guy was sampling the selection."

"Could be a connection to Liebman's. Think there might be a lead to follow?"

"It's probably nothing, but it's best to check things out. Not like we have anything else to go on. Cameras are non-existent, bodies aren't found in order," he pushed the coroner's report forward on his desk, "no visible wounds or injuries that could have contributed to their death. Cause of death, unknown. This one's tox screen is completely clean, the one before cocaine and shade, the one before that, nothing but marijuana. Some are drunk, some aren't. Some have records, others don't. There's no consistency, and there's nothing that seems to link our victims, aside from the way they die. I'm telling you kid, it's a practitioner. This has magic written all over it."

"But the magic tests keep coming back clean."

"I talked to Muggs about that, and she says that the magic tests aren't very accurate, if a body's more than a day or two old. So far, none of our victims have been found with in forty-eight hours of their deaths. And even then, the test can only tell us if there is residual magic present, which may not always be the case. In all my years working homicides, I've never seen a case like this before. No one uses magic to kill like this, not without a reason, especially not with the cost involved. I've reached out to the other detectives on the task force, suggested they may want to talk to the practitioners in their areas, see what they know about shit that can do this sort of thing. Anything come up on your end?"

"No. I talked to the bartender and some of the flies, but no one saw or heard anything," Mazurka replied as he started going through the notes he had made during the day.

"Then what are you still doing here?"

"Waiting on some files I requested."

"Connected to this case?"

"Maybe. Something strange happened today when I was at that convenient store with one of the potential witnesses. A young woman named Quayleigh Vershinin. She's the one that tipped me off to the homeless camp and the bar. She's got one hell of a scar on her face, from the top of her forehead to her lower jaw, straight through the center of her left eye. To be honest, I was a bit surprised she still had one. It's all white and she's blind it in it, but then she tells me it happened to her when she was just a kid. So, I had Ginny track down the case file for me."

"Any particular reason?"

"Yeah, I haven't been able to get her off my mind since we spoke. I found a picture of her in one of the victims' pockets, and another in his wallet. Then it turns out that she not only works at the store across the street from where the five bodies were found, but she was the one working that night. At first, I thought the pictures were candid, but after I saw the scar and the way she keeps her head turned to the left when she speaks, I figured that it's possible that maybe she knew these guys. So, I showed her the pictures on my phone, asked her to identify them. Not only does she examine the pictures up close, and identifies the victims, but she doesn't even flinch. It's like she was completely unaffected by the entire thing."

"So, you're thinking it's either the trauma of her own experiences, or she's hiding something."

"Exactly, and that's not even the strange part," Mazurka added as Ginny came back into the room carrying a sealed box, the word 'CLOSED' stamped across the face.

"Here you go Yechi. It just arrived."

"Only one box?" he asked as she set down the box on his desk.

"Yeah, all the files connected to the Vershinin case are in there."

"Thanks Ginny."

"Not a problem, it's what I'm here for."

"Glad to hear it, because I need you to pull another file for me," he remarked as he scratched some information down on his notepad before ripping out the paper and handing it to her. "No rush."

"Good, because I'm supposed to be out of here in ten. I'll put in the request though before I leave, but fair warning you're looking at tomorrow night at the earliest."

"That's fine."

"This one's really going to cost you, Yechi," she smiled as she read over the information.

"I figured as much."

"You shouldn't take advantage of him like that Ginny. He's still a kid, hasn't yet realized he doesn't have to pay extra for you to do your job," Harlowe remarked as he closed up the coroner's file, tossing it on top of the box.

"And see that?" She pointed over her shoulder at Harlowe, "That's why it takes me longer to get whatever he asks me for. As for you, I'll let you know when I have something."

"Thanks again, Ginny."

"No problem Yechi. Night fellas." She waved over her shoulder as she left the office.

"She's the devil. Watch yourself around that one. She's got half the guys in here owing her favors, and I swear she doesn't spend a dime on food," Harlowe warned as he knocked on the top of his desk. "What exactly are you hoping to find in a case that old, and closed?"

"A connection."

"To do with the weird part you never got to?"

"Yeah, the weird part. When I was leaving, Dylan Kirkwood showed up at the store, looking for her," he said with a distinct tone of skepticism.

"Kirkwood, as in the K in DKL?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"He used to be a friend of yours, right?"

"I used to think so. We lost touch after I joined the force, and he started working at his dad's investment firm. I tried to reach out to him last year, after I heard that his fiancée had died in a car accident, but he didn't want much to do with anything or anyone. Eventually, he stopped answering the phone all together. I hadn't seen or heard from him in over a year. That is until today, when he came into the store, acting like he had run the entire way there just to see her, and then he acted like he knew who I was, but it was obvious that he had no idea, even after I introduced myself."

"Could it have been drugs?"

"Doubt it, he wasn't acting like someone who was on something, but he was acting entirely different from who I remember. It wasn't just the lack of recognition either. The Dylan Kirkwood that I knew, never would have stepped foot in the Downs. Not for anything in the world. And Quayleigh Vershinin, wouldn't have even registered on his radar; even without the scar. So, I can't help but wonder, where the hell could the two of them possibly have cross paths? What's the connection? How does one the sons of Sayer Kirkwood, end up slumming it in the Downs with a convenient store clerk?"

"And what exactly does this have to do with the case we're working?"

"I don't know. I just have this feeling that I can't let go."

"Look kid, I get it. You got to follow your gut on somethings. But do yourself a favor, if you come up blank, put it bed. She may not have told you everything, but that doesn't mean she's guilty of something either," Harlowe offered his advice as he patted the top of the box. "Take this and get out here. Try and get some sleep. There's no way this is over yet, and I need you with a clear head."

"Yeah. See you in the morning at the task force meeting. If no one calls first."

Grabbing his jacket, box and file, Mazurka left the office to Harlow shouting, "And don't forget to eat something!"