Author's Note: Chapter Three, now complete. Further chapters are being composed. Enjoy!
Chapter 3: The Davis Case
A homicide investigation is nothing like the slick drama of "Miami Vice", or dime-store mysteries full of quirky characters, like "Murder, She Wrote". The only fiction that four-year veteran, Detective Goese, had encountered that came close to the truth was a book called "The New Centurions", and only because it had been written by an ex-cop.
Activity around homicide scenes was boring, rancid, dirty, meticulous, and often peopled with the top brass. It's a very long, slow procedure where photos, blood samples and everything that might remotely be needed for evidence is taken from the scene. The rest is talking to everyone who knew the victim, and trying to piece together the last twenty-four hours or so of his life.
Davis was found with no identification, lying face down in a deserted lot on 7th between B and C, on Friday at twenty-oh-eight hours, by an anonymous tipster who claimed she witnessed the incident.
He was later identified through the finger print database on a possession charge that was later dropped.
Despite listing as his home an address in the suburbs on Long Island, his devastated parents claimed they had not seen their son for over three years, and that he had been living in a loft located near the lot where he died.
Tracking down the witness was crucial; but, actually finding her, without her stepping forward, would be one step below impossible in this area where dilapidated and abandoned buildings lined the streets. The neighbourhood was coated with the homeless.
It was literally a lost place for lost people. If he had had any sense, Goese would have long ago run, screaming from this contained, putrid ugliness.
It was starting to slowly improve now, but it wasn't that long ago when Goese would regularly drive by entire blocks that were filled with little more than rubble. It looked like the aftermath of the London Blitzkreig during WWII. Heroin was still sold in candy stores, and gunshots regularly announced the night. Shockingly, birdsong would celebrate cheap lives, as the morning regurgitated the bodies of people who had been murdered or had overdosed in the dark.
Almost without exception, the deaths in this isolated urban war zone had something to do with illegal narcotics. The fact that you couldn't see the ground beneath your shoes from all the heroin paraphernalia was standard around the EV. Despite the bullet holes, this case looked like it was no exception - probably a drug deal gone badly. Considering the environment, and his earlier drug arrest, either Davis was using, or he was supplying.
It wasn't until the dawn, when it was light enough to see, that investigators took notice a piece of graffiti, scrawled in green on the hollowed brick building that backed onto the lot. "Hope for Me. I Hope for You". Most just snorted at the irony.
Goese could feel a ripple of tiredness steadily rolling in on him as he surveyed all the junk that lapped at the deceased. Trying to find evidence that was directly related to the case, let alone was not contaminated, was going to be as easy as finding that witness.
One of the first cops on the scene approached the detective. "We've only been able to find four shell cases," he reported. "All of them that unique 32-20 WCF that you identified."
The casings would be taken to ballistics for positive identification; but, it was obvious that someone who could afford a Colt Police Positive Special, and use such an old fashioned gun to kill, was not local to this wasteland.
Gathering up his partner, they headed to Davis' last known residence, hoping that a search of that loft would yield something useful.
.
It did; but, not in the direction they were predicting. After briefly speaking with Mark Cohen, his roommate of a few years, the detectives were permitted to search the pathetic shelter.
Much to their surprise, there was no evidence of narcotic use. Davis' possessions were few – a cot, sleeping bag, an old Harmony-made Fender acoustic guitar and picks, staff paper, eight old paperback books, toiletries, and a few changes of clothes. Other than the guitar and sleep gear, it all could fit in a duffle bag, with room to spare.
Apparently, he was one of those naïve artists who was lured to this slum by cheap rent and what they kept insisting was a creative atmosphere. The Fender was the only instrument he owned at the time of his death; so, based on the fact that this musician disappeared without taking his guitar and other possessions, it was likely that he got into some kind of trouble, and was held involuntarily somewhere for the three days between when he was last seen alive, and when he was found in the lot.
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"… When things decay, it's not a sign of something gone wrong - not in nature's grand scheme of things. It's a sign that nature is reclaiming energy and materials that seem to be no longer needed by higher organisms." - Boyce Rensberger