Disclaimer: I don't own FAKE… that simple.
Long Winter Nights
Chapter One
The cold January air wiped around Ryo as he proceeded to rush down the street toward the comforting warmth of his apartment. The precinct was a little short handed lately with everyone either going on leave, having to take time off for an emergency, or in two cases a birth so he was working an extra shift on the beat, in the cold, and he hated every minute of it, but they needed help and Randy "Ryo" McLean was not one to say no.
It had been snowing on and off for the past three days. A huge North Eastern was due to hit the city by nightfall and Ryo wanted nothing more than to get in before it happened. Worse case scenario included him being called out to help deal with traffic lights going out, car accidents on the slick city roads, or even a homicide. He prayed that if he got called in it wouldn't be the latter of the three.
His breath formed little wispy clouds of white as he exhaled. He pulled his coat just a little tighter around him as he rounded the corner to his block. Before he knew what was happening he had landed flat on his ass and a little girl, who was also sitting on the wet cement, looked at him and began to cry. Obviously feeling horrible for almost taking the poor kid out he helped her up and wiped the tears from her face.
"Hush now." He said softly as he continued to sooth the girl. There were trails running down her face from where the tears had cleared a path in the dirt. She smelled of urine and sweat. Her clothing was tattered and nothing matched or looked like it fit her right. "Where are you going?" he asked, hoping that this kid wasn't from the streets, but knowing she was. It was too cold for a child of no more than six to actually survive.
"Ma, where is my ma?" she sobbed. Ryo took a breath and sighed inwardly. How was it that he and Dee always managed to attract the children missing their parents?
"Where was the last place you saw her?" he asked holding onto her hand and preparing to walk in whatever direction the child told him.
"She was sleeping, by the river." She tried to keep from crying any more. 'Great' he thought 'the river is only stretches from here to upstate.' He started walking with the young homeless girl in tow towards the closest part of the Hudson he knew. It wasn't far and the closer he got the worse he felt. They had to walk through several areas that were nothing more than small towns and communities of cardboard houses, those that lived a little better had plywood which kept them a little dryer.
Many looked at Ryo like he was crazy for entering this part of the city, and perhaps he was. There were plenty of people who lived here who were either mentally unstable or just not a fan of people who had it better. It wasn't as if Ryo could blame the latter for feeling that way. After all, he knew plenty of people who took for granted the fact that they had food in their stomachs and a roof over their head.
Once they reached the edge of the river Ryo asked the girl which way her mother was last seen. She pointed off to the left and they headed through the two and a half food snow drifts. Within minutes Ryo's shoes were soaked straight through and his toes began to tingle as the cold shocked his system. Not wanting the little one to go through more trouble than she already had to, he stopped and motioned for her to get on his back. He wasn't all that surprised to find that she weighed next to nothing.
They continued through the snow for about another quarter of a mile until they came across as cardboard hut. The girl pointed to it and told Ryo that that was home and where he ma would be. Ryo placed her down and the girl ran to the hut. He watched as she knelt next to a woman and began shaking her. He didn't have to look at the woman for long to know what had happened. The cold winter, perhaps sickness as well, had gotten to her. The woman, from a forensic point of view, was more than likely dead for at least a day. Her hair had been coated in ice, her lips were stained blue, and rigor mortis had set in long ago.
Ryo promptly removed the girl from the dead woman on the ground. The girl began kicking and screaming, drawing the attention of others that were in shelters nearby. Although others looked on, none interfered which lead Ryo to believe that perhaps this family was an outcast of their own society. He had heard stories of this kind of thing happening. You anger too many people, and the people that are normally protective of one another, no longer wish to have anything to do with you. It was the unwritten law of the homeless cities that were within the city.
"Listen," Ryo tried to calm the girl down, "listen to me, your mommy isn't feeling so well right now so I am going to call some doctors to come and pick her up and take her someplace that is warmer." He hated to lie, but it seemed so inappropriate to tell a six year old girl that she was just shaking her dead mother.
"I want to go with her!" the girl yelled and began to throw punches at Ryo's chest as he held onto her.
"I know pumpkin, but right now you can't." He sighed and picked her up, walking away from the hut, but remembering noticeable details that would help the coroners find the woman's body. "We are going to go up here to the road and wait for the doctors OK." He said as he ran his hair over her tangled hair. The girl continued to cry but agreed to wait with Ryo.
"Hey Marty, it's Ryo. Listen we have a homeless female, looks to be about twenty eight to thirty years old, she is…" Ryo paused knowing that the girl was still with him and not really wanting to say that her mother was dead in front of her, not yet at least. "She's stiff." Ryo said low, "Homeless, has a daughter but no sign of anyone else in the area. Can you send the coroner down here, about three blocks south of 21st street by the river's edge?" He thanked Marty and hung up.
It wasn't long before the black and white coroner's van pulled up. Ryo talked for a moment with the doctors and asked one of them to watch the girl while he went to take a look at the site one more time. He followed the other two through the snow for the quarter mile again, toes numb to the cold at this point.
Ryo hadn't really looked at the woman's body; he just knew that she was dead. Upon closer examination he cussed, the- can't-do-wrong, never-a-bad-word-coming-out-of-his-mouth, Ryo cussed. She wasn't just a homeless stiff, she was a vic.
The fresh fallen snow had covered the blood tracks, the wound, and half of the vic's body. The only thing that had given it away to Ryo at this point was the unnatural body position.
"Don't touch it." Ryo called out right before the first man went to touch the body. "Wait a second and step back." The two did as they were told and Ryo moved forward to take a look at the body. Her skin, which he had first dismissed as discoloration from the cold, was painted in blacks and midnight blues, one of her arms was folded under her body, but once Ryo had cleared away some of the snow it looked as if it was pulled from socket. The worst of it was burried under the snow, three stab wounds, one apearing to have punctured a lung. There was no way the woman didn't suffer while dying. She either bled out, or suffocated, both were bad ways to go.
"Fuck" he said again before pulling out his phone. It rang several times before a voice on the other end picked up. "Hey Marty, it's me again, on second though we need homicide down here." Ryo sighed, it was going to be a long evening. But there was no time to waste as the first few flurries of snow reached the ground, it was going to be a battle to beat the storm.