The Crow: Fragile
Disclaimer: Please read chapter one for the disclaimer.
Summary: Please read the first chapter for the summary.
~::-|-::~
"Madre de Christo!" breathed Detective Elí García Ramírez, when he arrive at the location of his latest homicide. He stepped to one side when entering the ground floor apartment to avoid stepping on the strange carving in the wooden floor. Looking closely at it, he was sure it looked somewhat familiar to him. It wasn't long before he recognised it as a backwards Swastika with extra lines carved across the arms and an 'X' over it. He shook his head slowly, averting his eyes from the symbol.
Making his way into the bedroom, he had to force back the bile creeping up his throat when he focused on what he saw. A girl, no older than twenty, he guessed, was hung from her four-poster bed on a cross in a crude rendition of a crucifixion. Her chin rested on her chest and Elí could see that her eyes had been gouged out. Never in his whole career as a homicide detective had he seen anything so jaw-droppingly horrible. And he'd seen some pretty horrible things.
"Tell me about the scene, Quinlan." He said, finally tearing his eyes away from the corpse. Detective Quinlan looked up grimly from his notes. "From what I can gather, the victim's name is Raven Cuervo. She worked in the offices of the History Center."
Elí waited for him to continue, he frowned. "That's all you've found out?" He asked suspiciously. He'd been called to the scene an hour after the call had gone out. Surely the younger detective had found out more than just her name and where she worked?
"To be honest, sir, there's not much to tell. She wasn't friendly with her neighbors, she has no family that I can see, and she lived alone."
"Seems to me she was about to move." Elí mused, looking around at the half-packed boxes in the corner of the room. "And have you questioned the neighbors? If she isn't friendly with them, that makes them suspects."
Quinlan flushed with embarrassment. He'd been caught up with trying to do everything right, that he'd forgotten almost everything in his training. It was well known that Detective Ramírez was tough to please. Quinlan bit his lip. "Yes sir, I'll get right on it, sir."
"Never mind. Send Costas and Arroyo to the neighbors. You stay here with me." Ramírez said, looking back up at the crucifix. "Has anyone been notified of this tragedy?" He asked quietly. It was always a shame when someone so young was taken so cruelly.
"No sir, I'll get someone to look for family members." Quinlan said, fumbling with his notepad. "Though, one of the officers did find a journal in the office. Maybe that will yield some clues?"
"Is that a question or a statement, Detective Quinlan?" Ramírez raised an eyebrow at the younger detective. Quinlan swallowed nervously. "Go back to the office Quinlan, see if you can find me an address book or a pocket book or something." Putting emphasis on the last word, he watched as the younger detective scurried away toward the office. Looking back up at the body, Ramírez grimaced as he noticed that the poor girl's throat had been cut. Large nails impaled her wrists and feet, much like the style in which the bible depicted Christ being crucified. Even without her throat cut, she would have suffocated from lack of oxygen, if loss of blood didn't kill her first. It looks like something out of a particularly gruesome horror movie. Ramírez shuddered. It was a rare thing for a scene to affect the hardened cop in such a way. Looking up again, he noticed blood on the shirt that she was wearing. Blood that had obviously not come from her eyes. Taking his pencil and lifting the material gingerly, his eyes widened. "Quinlan!" He called. The young detective poked his head around the office door.
"Yes sir?"
"Come here." The abrupt tone was one that Quinlan chose not to ignore and scurried to Ramírez' side. Looking in the direction of the older man's gaze, his eyes widened.
"How could I have not noticed that?" He wondered out loud, his voice barely above a whisper. Ramírez chose not to answer; the younger cop still had a lot to learn.
The letters carved into the girl's soft flesh of her stomach spelled the words: Die Injun Bitch.
~::-|-::~
"Have you read through the journal to see if there's any mention of family in there?" Detective Covas demanded, leaning his hands on the desk in front of Ramírez.
"Yes sir. The only things written in the journal are letters to her parents, with a brief mention of a grandfather and an uncle." Ramírez said. "Her parents are dead, killed when she was a child."
"What about this uncle and the grandfather?" Covas asked. "Anyone tried to contact them?"
"We're looking through her address book for the uncle, sir. According to the last entry in the journal, the grandfather died a few months ago."
Covas looked at the autopsy photos of the young girl. She looked oddly familiar to him. "Who were her parents, does it say?" He asked.
"Every entry starts with 'Dear Jimmy and Lily'," Ramírez said, looking down at the journal which rested on the desk. "And ends with 'your daughter, Raven'."
"What was her last name, did you say?" Covas asked, frowning.
"Cuervo." Ramírez said, frowning. "Why?"
"Jimmy Cuervo." Covas breathed. "I remember him."
"Sir?"
Covas looked up. "What?" He asked.
"You know who her parents are?" Ramírez looked hopeful. "It'd be a big help if I knew who to contact."
"I knew her father." Covas said simply. "He was a convict who murdered a well known kid back where I used to live. He was on the chain gang. He and his girlfriend were killed by his best friend about… fifteen or sixteen years ago. The Lily mentioned in the journal must be Lily Ignites The Dawn. She was Jimmy's girlfriend. I was friends with her brother."
"That would be…" Ramírez flipped through the journal until he came to the last entry. "Uncle Tanner?"
"Yeah." Covas sighed. "Poor guy's had enough going on in his life without this happening." He muttered. "First Harold dies, then Tanner's house catches fire, his two kids were abducted and held for ransom too."
"Sir… could it all be connected?" Ramírez asked, frowning. It seemed all to convenient that all that had happened to the man as well as his niece being brutally murdered.
"Could be…" Mused Covas. "Except for his dad dying. Prostate cancer did that." He shook his head. "Look, Ramírez, I'll call Tanner. I'll give him the news. You just work on finding the bastards who did this to that poor girl, okay?"
"Sure, boss." Ramírez nodded. "I'll get it done."
Covas bowed his head slightly as he turned and went back to his office to make the tragic phone call.