Open your eyes up, step in the ring
Float like a butterfly, bee I sting
I'm like Snow White with a gun
Shoot you down, bang bang
You're done
The Veronicas — Did You Miss Me? (I'm A Veronica)
New York had something for everyone. It was a melting pot of so many different cultures, one could feel like they've traveled to a different country by simply sharing a sidewalk with someone or turning a corner. It was also a hub of every kind of man in the world. Men who willingly cheated on their wives, girlfriends, significant others, and men who blindly followed an attractive photograph on faith. The chair squeaked under her slight weight, the smell of scented candles filled the air along with baked bread. Any ordinary woman would swoon or feel nervous about being in the terrace of Jean Georges or feel pressured into "putting out."
Not her.
A crystal wineglass of Merlot sat before her on a pristine white tablecloth, a basket of warm bread sitting between her and an empty matching eggshell white chair. Her date was running late and she found herself growing increasingly irritated. Tonight was her time schedule, not his.
Finally, he came into view. A full thirty pounds heavier and a good six inches shorter than his online dating profile suggested, significantly less hair than said picture as well. Fifteen years older. He looked more like George from Seinfeld than Ted Danson from Cheers like his picture led her to believe. She spotted the tan line on his left hand. Married. Figures.
"Alan," she greeted him, her tone a smooth, seductive purr as she stood up, her pale, corn-silk blonde hair falling around her slender shoulders.
"Linda," he responded, covering her much smaller hand in his. She tried not to cringe at the lascivious glint in his dark eyes or the amount of hair he had on his pudgy knuckles. This man was cheating on his wife. Just by looking at him, she could tell he was in a white-collar job, but lower tier. A worker bee. There was a fray in his buttonhole, signifying that he had recently put on weight. "I must say, your photos online do not do you justice."
It would be all too easy to get him alone. He was almost pinching himself to make sure she was real and not some catfish.
"Nor do yours," she lied as she took a seat back in her chair and crossed her long, shapely legs. She took a small sip of her red wine and waited until he looked down at his gaudy gold watch on his wrist before spitting it back into the glass. No drinking on dates. She needed her wits about her for tonight. "Shall we toast?" she offered.
Flack couldn't ever get used to crime scenes, not even after years of doing the job. Though if he was no longer surprised by humanity's capacity to slaughter someone, especially of this magnitude, he needed to find another career path. Someone had all but played in the blood of this John Doe and if he put up a fight, it wasn't much of one. He stood in the motel room of the Motor Inn as the team snapped photos and collected trace. The room itself was most likely contaminated, thick curtains reminiscent of a bus seat or an old woman's house, stale cigarette smoke stagnant in the room, and smelling like cheap cologne.
"I don't know what good collecting trace is gonna be in this place when it's a motel room and something tells me cleanliness is not their first priority," Lindsay remarked, crinkling her nose as she set her sample in the case.
"I'm going to cringe when I shut off the lights and turn on UV. I am never going to stay in another hotel for as long as I live," Isabella agreed in disgust from behind her camera.
"Monroe, Cross, I got news for you both. Hotel housekeepers are a formality in New York. You want something clean, you stay at the Four Seasons," Flack snorted. This was why he didn't stay in hotels and why he didn't travel. Travel was a hassle. "I'm still expecting Cross to end up on Hoarders because her place is a damn pigsty."
"Hi, kettle? This is pot. By the way, you're black," she quipped without looking at him, her already thick Southern accent dripping with sarcasm. It was unprofessional to snark back and forth in a bloody crime scene, but he couldn't help it. Isabella Cross made it too easy, that famous temper of hers that made her mouth work five seconds faster than her brain and that simple flaw had gotten her into some pretty trouble in the past.
"Do I have to separate you two?" Lindsay teased from her station by the vanity.
"He started it," Isabella protested beside Flack, nudging him playfully with her elbow. He nudged her in return and turned his attention back to his notes.
A driver's license was soon plopped on his notepad, the one left at the desk. Alan Bosenko, 45.
"Our vic's name is Alan Bosenko, 45, with an address in Midtown," he informed them, flipping over the license to double-check its authenticity.
"I've got a wallet here, beat to shit and held together with duct tape. Credit cards and cash are gone, but there's pictures and a gift card with a signature of Alan Bosenko on the back. He's married, or was," Isabella added, holding up said worn wallet. "You'd think a guy with an address in Midtown would be able to afford a wallet that's not held together by the skin of its teeth. Also, I got a picture of three kids."
"Recently separated or married. I got a tan line on his left hand and no ring," Lindsay said from her perch by the bed. Even after all these years working alongside the crime lab, he still didn't understand the whole science behind it.
"Juliette's got a gun." Isabella's random decree had Flack and Lindsay turning to eye her quizzically to see her holding up a white bottle with the plastic top smashed. "Perfume. Whoever our mystery woman is, she's got some expensive taste in perfume. This stuff goes for a hundred and thirty bucks. I get body spray at Bath and Body Works, three for fifteen."
"You thinking high-class hooker?" Flack inquired. Isabella shook her head as she dusted the bottle for fingerprints.
"See his shirt? The buttonholes along the chest where he's the thickest is freshly frayed. He's a white-collar guy but he's lower-tier and he's gained weight recently. If he's separated or recently divorced, that's likely the cause for the weight gain and he probably can't afford all new shirts. If our mystery woman is a hooker, he didn't hire her. I'm thinking gold-digging black widow and she killed him when she realized he didn't have a ton of money or he demeaned her."
Isabella and Lindsay were by far two of the most intelligent women Flack had ever met and their combined smarts often had him reeling, but the former occasionally missed a thing or two.
"She played in the blood, Bells. She knew exactly what she was doing," he reminded her.
"Fifteen percent of serial killers are women. If our mystery woman is our killer, there's no way she's going to stop at one."