Hey y'all! Long time no see! Today we have a deal on fics, two new chapters for the price of one! Double Issue, pitches. Hopefully you like it! Getting some background info for the crime that'll pay off later. Promise. J I also just wanted to say sorry it took me a while to upload. Just so you know college started, and as much as I wish I could write fic for credit I can't. :/ Cmon adulting! One job. Anywho, I've had a lot positive responses, and I just wanted to say thank you so so much for that! You guys are seriously the best and I love writing for you. There have been a couple private messages wondering if I'm abandoning the fic, and I cannot stress this enough, I will NOT abandon this fic. It would bug me too much to leave it unfinished, I could never do that to you guys. Swear. So please enjoy! Again, love yall so much and hope you have a wonderful day.
Bodies had never been Chloe's strong suit. In all reality, some agents thrived off of them. The injustice of death somehow gave them fire. A sense of purpose came with the idea that someone had been wronged, and the victim's body was supposed to be a constant reminder to the agents to catch the killer. But not for Chloe. Being around the dead only took her on a bumpy roller coaster of sadness, depression, and disgust. In the end, a body was just a body to her. An empty shell of what once was.
It wasn't that she hadn't seen corpses before. She had attended funerals and even interacted with a few cadavers for some medical credits in college, but she found that crime scenes were completely different. The junior agent could feel a nauseating aura around where the person had been killed at every crime scene she had visited. In her mind, the location where the act took place was now physically sick. Contaminated. She felt it had been infected by the individual who had deliberately caused the death of another person and left the body in such a precise manner in order to send some sort of misguided message. The entire situation made her want to vomit. Swanson had told her she would get used to it after she reached a certain number of cases, but she knew she would never grow accustomed to staring into lifeless eyes.
Chloe pulled her hunter green parka closer to her body against the chill of the morning air as the partnership waited outside the crime scene. She had tried to dress accordingly but ended up conforming to the panicked protests of Swanson invading her home at 4 AM. She had quickly traded the silk dress for a white tee shirt and a pair of thin jeans. Luckily, she had snatched a coat from the back of her chair on the way out. Now in the frigid morning air, however, she knew if she had been given more time she definitely would have layered up. A brisk wind whistled through the taped off alley way that stood hauntingly before her, causing her to shiver violently.
"Thought getting a job in LA would make it so I wouldn't have to deal with this shit." She heard one of the forensic team members murmur as they zipped their coat up to their chin. "It's like the North Pole out here."
If we wait a little longer, maybe we'll get to meet Santa.
She smiled to herself and tried to substitute her panicky death thoughts with the idea of a fat jolly man and penguins hobbling around the eerily deserted street. It was dark, and the only light flickered from a single lamp post about twenty feet away.
Ideal location for a murder.
It was dirty, and just as she had suspected, the entire environment felt stale. She had yet to see the actual crime scene, but the poisonous murder aura she knew had spread to all those there. People dressed in uniform filtered in and out of the dark passage, lugging pieces of equipment with unamused faces. An officer who was obviously on-call lingered near the entrance for security purposes, slightly dozing off but blinking himself back to consciousness.
It's like working in the morgue. With only one dead body.
She groaned at her own negativity.
Go back to Santa, Beale!
"Beale." Swanson's voice echoed her name back to her thoughts, and he placed a warm cup in her hand. Chloe hummed in gratitude, taking in a large gulp before gasping at the searing burning that traced down her throat.
Well that shit's fire.
"Oh. Sorry." Her partner realized. "Be careful, it's hot!" He feigned and attempted to appear apologetic. Chloe glared and sucker punched his shoulder, smiling sheepishly.
He let out a noise of disapproval and rubbed the sore spot. "Good to go?"
Swanson knew she was uncomfortable with the dead. She had told him about the first time she had come across a victim in her cop years. A teenage girl had been raped and stabbed, severing one of her main arteries. She was left to bleed out behind a corner pub. Chloe and her partner at the time had received a call of a breaking and entering on the street, and were informed to investigate. They responded to the call, only to find the limp figure of the girl dipped halfway into a dumpster. At times Chloe still had the gruesome images of the teenager's body flash across her eyelids when she closed her eyes to sleep. How broken, defiled, and empty the young woman looked. The thought of glassy eyes staring into nothingness, with absolutely no activity behind them. Over time the partnership had only seen a few other bodies, mostly constrained to desk work. Still, Swanson could recognize his partner's discomfort whenever they had to encounter a murder or manslaughter. He patted her shoulder reassuringly, and Chloe finally delivered her long overdue answer.
"Yep." She struggled to put on her usually sunny façade but failed miserably. Swanson shot her an expression of concern, obviously not convinced, but ushered her forward anyway. They entered the crime scene. The alleyway was dark and dingy, located a few blocks from the Locked venue. A rat scuttled passed Chloe's shoe, racing toward the end of the police barriers where it tumbled into a storm drain.
"Maybe he's off to cook a meal for his friends." Swanson goaded lightly, obviously trying to lighten Chloe's mood with a reference to one of the many Pixar movies she enjoyed.
If he's coming from a murder investigation I don't want to know what he'd be cooking with.
They approached the team of sanitarily clad specialists who were crowded into the corner of the alley. The specialists were all huddled around one area, strangely resembling a football team before a big game. The cramped space was between two buildings that were so tall, Chloe's neck hurt when craned her head to stare up at them. The alley itself was only about 5 feet across, and the view of so many people attempting to cram into the small area could be considered funny in any other situation.
Like a clown alley way!
Swanson passed ahead of her and snatched a clipboard from a nearby intern-looking fellow, and Chloe took a few cautious steps forward to see the damage. She curved around the group of busy observers and technicians, until she finally saw what she had been dreading.
"The victim is—"
"Ralph." Chloe gasped. Even though she had only seen him twice, in true "Chloe form" the redhead felt she had connected with him. As she tried to with all living things, and now unfortunately with dead things. It was just who she was. Ralph was wearing the same pale green polo shirt he had worn the previous night when Chloe had seen him speak with Stacie, only now the puke green color was contrasted with stark red blood stains.
Well.. At least the colors are kind of like Christmas?
She reprimanded her childish thought before taking in the rest of the scene. Ralph's tiny body appeared even smaller in the overwhelming pool of blood it sat in. The Polo was bunched near the top of his chest, and blood trickled down his bare stomach and chest. Chloe tried to breathe through her mouth so she wouldn't pass out, the killer had left the gaping gunshot wounds on full display. Yet, Chloe couldn't take her mind off of Ralph's gray eyes that were fixed on something in the distance.
Just like they had been last night.. What were you looking at..?
The thought dawned on her that though Ralph's eyes had been fidgety and distant when she saw him, they would never move again. A wave of nausea overcame Chloe, and she leaned lightly against Swanson for support. Ralph's face was composed differently than the dead girl Chloe had first encountered. Instead of unresponsive and blank, his expression was frozen in terror. As if someone had taken a snapshot of him directly before he had been killed. Her insides clenched uncomfortably. Even dead, his face was still panicked. Keeping up with the frail composure he had displayed the night before.
Guess he really did get scared to death..
"You know him..?" Swanson glanced over the clipboard at her, clearly intrigued. He distanced himself from where Chloe had leaned in and pulled out a pen to jot down her response. Chloe's attention didn't waver from Ralph's face as she spoke.
"He's the man from the club. The one who spoke with Stacie." She pulled her hair back into a hair tie that was on her wrist and distanced herself further from Swanson. She leaned down closer to study the body, and her chest began to ache.
Lock it up, Beale. You didn't even really know him. Just get justice for him like the chief said. He deserves justice.
"What happened?" She swallowed. The junior agent knelt down in order to get a closer view of Ralph's face. The tiny man's blatant terror captivated her, and she felt she couldn't break away.
Swanson pulled her back slightly at the shoulder and motioned to the intern who had surfaced again. The adolescent man was a tall and blonde, with the stature of a bean pole.
"Hey. Put those lanky arms to use and grab Agent Beale some gloves, eh intern?" Swanson directed, and flipped to one of the pages on the clipboard to find the answers to Chloe's previous question.
"Not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be," Swanson whined and puckered his lips in a pout.
"Just because someone isn't stabbed with a knife in the shower and covered in chocolate syrup doesn't make them any less dead, Swanson." She snapped as she watched the intern leave.
He shrugged submissively, then pointed to some information on the sheet. "Looks like two shots to the chest, Glock 20. 10 mm."
Oooh. Big caliber. Ouch.
Chloe winced at the excruciating hurt she imagined for Ralph. It was almost too much, but a pair of gloves dropped into her vision and interrupted her thoughts. She stood, and the intern traded the latex for her coffee effortlessly. Swanson started relaying more information.
"Based on body temperature and lividity, the murder window is approximated to be from about 2-4:30 AM." She nodded silently to this and acknowledged the blonde boy who had retrieved a plastic bag from the table stacked with equipment. She tried to flash the intern a grateful smile, but it soon turned pained.
Must have happened right after I saw him walk out.
Her heart lurched, and she recalled trying to follow the small man but ended up getting occupied with a certain crystal obsessed Asian. In a way, Ralph's death was partially her fault. She could have protected him. That's why she signed up to be in the forces in the first place, right?
Playing the blame game helps no one, Beale.
She snapped the gloves onto each hand and reached for the evidence bag in the young man's grasp.
"What've we got?" She unzipped the heavy plastic and reached inside.
"His belongings were still on him. Keys. Wallet. Money clip. And two thousand bucks was left in the wallet." Chloe raised her eyebrows and opened the wallet to count the bills out to the said amount.
"Bald and rich. At least whoever was pissed enough to kill Daddy Warbucks was kind enough to leave him some weekend spending money." Swanson joked, snorting at his own joke until he read his partner's face of horror, and suddenly becoming overly occupied with his clipboard.
"Read the crime scene, Jess." Was all she had to say.
"This guy thinks I'm funny." Swanson gestured toward the blonde intern who winced a smile in his direction.
"Seen you do better." Chloe quipped, filtering through the rest of the compartments of Ralph's wallet.
Not a hit and run.
The redhead dug further into the leather pockets though, clearly searching for something. Swanson squinted at her warily, not having a clue as to what she was doing. She appeared to not find anything and shoved the wallet under her armpit.
"So not a robbery?" She mused, and flipped the money clip over in her hands. Empty. But it was well worn, and the ends were bent to accommodate what would have been a thicker stack of bills.
Why would the killer take some money and leave the rest?
"This looks like it usually has some cash in it recently." She stated, holding the clip up for her partner to see.
"Maybe Warbucks got lucky at the club and blew all the cash?" Swanson shrugged, grinning mischievously.
Ew..
"Locked doesn't have any strippers, you perv." She replied, dropping the money clip back into the bag in disgust.
"You wish. Last night it sounded like you wanted someone to take off their clothes." He chuckled before widening his eyes at her expression and choosing a different subject.
"Hem. No. But as of right now we're assuming he must have spent whatever was in the clip earlier in the night. If there even was anything in there to begin with."
I guess..
"But Locked doesn't have a cover charge. And it's not like the drinks are that expensive.." She trailed off.
"Well not all of us get free drink vouchers because we gave the owner goo-goo eyes." He provoked. But Chloe was too caught up in her own thoughts to negate the comment.
Okay fine. Definitely not a robbery… So where is it?
"And why him..?" She muttered audibly, filtering through Ralph's ID and credit cards repeatedly, before thrusting the entire bundle back to the intern. She crouched down again next to the small man, ignoring her discomfort. Unfortunately, crime shows don't usually portray the stench that comes with a murder. Blood that has been sitting out for hours. A decaying body. Bugs that have swarmed around it. Rats.
If Smell-O-Vision ever exists, I will never watch it. Ever.
She hovered over the carcass and turned to Swanson who took a sip from his coffee and returned his attention to the clipboard. "We'll know more when the ME report and background check come in."
Just don't barf, and everything will be okay! It's just a normal day.
"Any eye witness accounts?" She choked, pulling her collar up over her nose before sticking her hand into the blood soaked front pocket of Ralph's polo shirt.
"Not yet, other than whoever found him. But they're having badges sweep the streets. So far no one's heard or seen anything."
Convenient.
"Too early in the morning. Also from the burns, he probably used a silencer." She peered at the holes and their respective burns.
More ouch.
"Wait, so who found the body?" She scrunched her nose in disgust at the blood left on her hand after her invasion of his breast pocket.
"Anonymous tip. A woman called in at 2:12 AM from a pay phone a couple blocks down, claiming she heard a fight in the alley."
"And she's the only one who saw or heard anything?" Swanson merely nodded in response.
"Hm. Check traffic cams on the streets, maybe we can get a visual on whoever our tipster is."
"Already checked. Our killer had to know this wasn't a surveilled street. We got nothing."
Of course not.
"What about the wounds?" She pointed to the cavities in Ralph's chest, accidentally grazing his chest. She tried not to gag when his blood overflowed the bullet holes at her touch.
Hate it. Hate it.
"The shots were calculated, not sloppy. Whoever killed him knew what they were doing. We think he came back to the alley to meet someone. Things went south. Bam bam. One dead rat man."
"That doesn't rhyme as much as you want it to, Jess." She readjusted Ralph's shirt to how she had originally found it, coming up empty.
Hold up.
"What can I say. I'm one of those modern century slam poets. Everything can rhyme nowadays, Beale. It's the 21st century." She scoffed at his words and pulled the polo a bit further down Ralph's body to test her new theory.
"Hang on.. His shirt was moved."
"Hm?"
"His shirt was moved. Did anyone in forensics push it up like that?"
"You're the only one who's 'moved his shirt', Beale. Which I'm pretty sure is against protocol. Take it easy." She tugged the Polo down the cold torso lightly, trying to not disturb the scene more than she already had. Her theory proved solid.
Christmas time. Nailed it, Santa.
"There are bullet holes in the shirt that line up perfectly." Swanson gave her his 'So?' look. "SO, that means the killer shot him, then moved his shirt above his chest before leaving him. They had to be looking for something."
"Okayy…" He said hesitantly. "That's what you draw from this? That they were looking for something." He clicked his tongue and pondered the thought. "OR, he was out too late partying, and got in a brush with the wrong guy."
Chloe started to rifle through Ralph's pants pockets, both front and back.
It seriously has to be here somewhere.
"Hm."
"Is that the most action you've seen all week? I mean I know Mitchell shut you down, but this is just sad." Swanson chided, furrowing his eyebrows in response to her actions.
"Did anyone happen to find a white card on him? Around him?" Chloe blushed furiously, beginning to study the asphalt around her.
"..No? Not that we've seen.." He consulted the board in his hands. "Nope. No white card cataloged." Chloe clenched her fists in frustration, to which he followed up with a "Why?"
"Last night. When Ralph spoke to Stacie, she gave him something." The redhead leaned back onto her haunches to get a better angle at the space surrounding the body.
"You think a scrappy piece of paper has to do with this?" He pointed incredulously to the massacre. Chloe rose to her feet, not spotting any glimpses of white.
"I think any suspicious behavior he was exhibiting in the hours leading up to his death is significant to his murder." She glimpsed down at Ralph and the familiar ache of empathy surfaced. Her eyes began to well up, and she shook her head in another attempt to clear her head.
Assignment. Not person. Assignment.
"Again, we'll know more once he gets to the lab for examination." Swanson shrugged nonchalantly, a passive gesture that Chloe knew was code for him begging her to let it go.
I can't.
"Sure. But doesn't mean Locked is completely unrelated. There are no coincidences." The redhead stripped off the gloves and handed them to the intern, who started to speak in a soft voice.
"Sorry, Agent, but-"
"Intern. Kind of in the middle of a conversation." Swanson bluntly cut off, still curious as to what Chloe was getting at.
"It's a crime ring, but no one has ever killed anybody there before." He debated. "It's all drugs and cash and the cartel."
"All I'm saying is that Ralph was super panicked when he was speaking to Stacie. Maybe he was worried that whatever he talked to her about that night could get him killed." Chloe took her coffee cup from the young man, who attempted to speak yet again.
"But sir, there's-"
Swanson coughed over the blonde boy in reply to Chloe's theory. "Well.. He might have been right." She looked to her partner sadly.
"Hey. I'm just saying the things I saw."
Swanson opened his mouth to speak but was stopped abruptly.
"Sup turds!" A stout man with a baby face strode forward between the two, shoulder checking Swanson and placing him between the partnership and the body.
"Allen. Homicide Division. I'm the lead detective on this murder." The loud detective had slicked brunette hair, a long coat that reached to his calves, and what Chloe could only describe as "crazy eyes."
Guy looks like he's had six coffees already this morning.
"Excuse me?" Chloe inquired, turning to the blond intern who stared at the ground with great purpose.
"I tried to tell you.." The boy whispered in defeat and shrugged. Allen leaned forward and elbowed the intern in the stomach, laughing harshly.
"Didn't try hard enough, did ya Peter Pan?" The intern winced in a weak grin and retreated to the entrance of the alley. Allen pulled a face to the intern's back, then surveyed the dead body in front of him.
"You are doing a wonderfully shitty job it looks like, but let's let the big boys take over from here. Shall we?" He waggled his eyebrows at Swanson and snatched the clipboard away from him. The male agent opened his mouth to protest a second time, but was met with a condescending statement.
"This investigation isn't a threat to national security, is it?" Allen proclaimed, pretending to inspect the clipboard with interest. He then opened his arms in a large gesture, and began ushering the partnership backward and out of the alley.
Huh. His voice sounds like Elmo. Who got run over by a train. Four times.
"Well not directly... No. But we have infor-" Chloe tried to reason with him, but Allen disregarded her objections completely.
"I'll be damned if I let the Feds get their dicks all over another one of my cases." Chloe cringed at the callousness of his words, and resisted the urge to strangle the dwarf detective. He folded his arms like a petulant child, and opened his crazed eyes even wider.
Wow. SO don't want to know what the metaphor is for the dicks.
"You fuck it up. That's why I said dicks. My cases are sweet sweet virgins, and you always come in and fuck the shit out them. Fuck them. Up. Fucking. Them up. So hard." Allen seemed to have heard her internal question, providing his explanation.
Okay. So can't un-hear that.
Silence filled the stretch between the Agents and the Detective. Chloe felt like they were meeting a cartoon character in real life, and the effects of it were causing her to slowly spiral into insanity. Allen waited a beat for a response, but Chloe could tell he eventually decided he didn't care.
"Sooo, why don't y'all just scoot? Skedaddle." He motioned forward with his hand, and wiggled his fingers as if he was shooing away a stray dog.
"Detective." Chloe tried a second attempt, noting Allen eyes getting progressively wider as she spoke. "I can really help-"
"We don't need your junior agent ass-dick help, Beale!"
If you say dick enough times, does it lose all meaning?
Allen wiped his mouth having spat uncontrollably from his last exclamation. "Did you not hear the thing I said about dicks?! Go back to playing house all day with the Mrs, while the rest of us get the real work done."
This muppet wants to get mauled.
Chloe's shoulders tensed, and she started to step around Swanson in order to have a proper discussion with the detective.
"Whoa! Bumper!" Swanson cut in, trying to alleviate some tension.
Chloe whirled around to her partner in disbelief, while Allen's words simmered under her skin. She knew undercover work to a homicide detective seemed like a vacation. No cases to close, holed up in a cushy apartment with no official "quota" to meet. She also knew how she had to appear to the other departments, particularly since she was so new and already getting the benefits of a seasoned agent.
Still doesn't mean he can treat me like shit.
She had expected Swanson to come to her aid, not to try to reason with the idiot that he apparently knew. For some reason, that infuriated her. Chloe was usually pretty easy to get along with unless you really managed to piss her off. Not much had the capacity to do so, besides betrayal, lack of justice, and screwing with someone she cared about. Then she was a woman scorned times a thousand and could burn cities to the ground. Swanson had only encountered angry Chloe a couple times, but that was enough for him to know when she was reaching the brink.
I'll fucking run over this Elmo eight times if I have to.
She glowered at Allen, and felt Swanson push her further behind him in order to break the glares that were being shared between the two. At the mention of his ridiculous name, Allen had tensed. His face slowly contorted into something Chloe had only seen in a fun house, and it took all she had to not laugh.
"Beale's mission directly overlaps with your victim-" Swanson tried to continue, progressively holding Chloe back.
"Mmmkay." Allen hissed as if he was speaking to a child and increasing his already high tone up a few levels. "So DON'T call me that, unless you want me to kill you where you stand." Swanson held his hands up in a mock surrender. "Secondly, if this case does lead to the greenie's plead for herpes, then we'll be the ones to trace it there."
Chloe opened her mouth in outrage, but Swanson interjected. "Alright. Well. Give us a call if you need anything."
He smiled cheekily, and Allen scoffed back in disbelief. "Right. Sure. That'll happen."
Swanson pulled Chloe closely behind him to the SUV where they had parked. "Pulled" here having the definition of "dragged." When they arrived, she wrenched her arm from his grasp and shoved him angrily against the side of the car.
"What the hell, Jess?!" She had hit him harder than she intended, and Swanson scrunched his face into a small painful smile.
No. No guilt, Beale!
She stomped around to the front of the vehicle, and slammed her hands in outrage onto the hood.
"Whoa! Watch the goods!" He used his sleeve to rub the spots where she had assaulted his baby.
"Watch the goods?!" She fumed, sensing the panic in his expression. "We could help with that case.. And you're worried about the goods!?" He shrugged casually, and gave no effort to argue.
Good.
Chloe continued her tangent, temper boiling. "You just let him walk all over us! We're the Feds! We're big brother! I thought the upgrade meant I wouldn't have to deal with shit like this!?" She threw her arms into the air for emphasis.
"It's not like he was actually going to let us stay on! It's not our jurisdiction!" He defended, though he was clearly distracted with polishing the abused spot of his car.
"Ralph is directly linked to our assignment!"
How is he not getting this.
"Take a step back, Beale. A lot of people go to that club. A lot of people club on Friday nights. It's all circumstantial. It could be completely unrelated. We wouldn't know."
He's right. It's all circumstantial.
Chloe felt her heart rate begin to return to normal and she leaned against the car in defeat. "But he won't find anything! I could totes give them leads." She murmured.
Swanson sidled up next to her, admiring the light of the lamp post in the distance. "Do you really think if you told Bumper about a dinky piece of paper you may or may not have seen be given to our vic last night, that he would believe you? Or care?"
"Well.. No.. But-"
"But nothing. As much as we hate it, he's right. Minus the dicks. And fucking. I hope. We just need to focus on our mission. By doing that, maybe we can solve Ralph's murder if it really is related."
Before the Oompa Loompa who fell in radioactive waste does.
"Fine." She turned and tugged at the passenger's side door impatiently until Swanson unlocked the SUV. He looped around her to his side of the car, and they both hopped into the cab. She faced him in disbelief.
"But also. Bumper?" She emphasized the ridiculousness of his name. "Really?"
Swanson chuckled lowly. "You can't blame him too much for being a jerk. His mom hated him enough to name him that." He put the keys in the ignition and started the engine, and Chloe let out an uncontrollable giggle.
"Now let's go pay Ms. Mitchell a visit." He announced, and smiled wildly in her direction to get a reaction.
Chloe could feel his eagerness though, and shrugged indifferently. She still couldn't seem to let go of one thing.
"But.. Cmon. You seriously know that guy? Like from before? He's a complete ass!"
It was Swanson's turn to laugh. "You know I actually do. He dated Amy for a while."
He glanced over his shoulder and backed out of the space.
"What?!"
But yeah. That makes sense.