A/N : Once again, I only own the ones you've never heard about.
Thanks for the reviews :-) Chinco, I don't mind at all, I love comments ;-)
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"I missed you." The detective welcomed Bug as he was leaving his car.
"So did I, detective Simmons. What happened here?"
"One Carla Fisher, two gunshots in the back. She was a doctor and she went here for an emergency. She let her colleague because she heard someone screaming here and then there were gunshots. The other doctor tried to revive her but she was already dead."
Bug examined the body. "One bullet passed through the right lung and set off, the other one seems to be in the heart. We should find the first bullet somewhere on the crime scene." Then he noticed her armband. "Doctors Without Borders."
"And?"
"Robert Johnson, the man we found yesterday, he was one too."
Lu was taking notes while Bug stood up and walked behind the ambulance. There he saw her. Sitting on the sidewalk, she looked so weak, she wasn't the smiling woman he met at the morgue. "Miss Cherlley."
"Hi Doc."
The officer who was staying with her came near Bug and asked him, with a lower voice so the woman wouldn't hear. "She hasn't said a word before you went. Do you know her?"
He nodded. "Can you leave us a minute, please?"
"Sure." The officer moved away and Bug sat next to the woman.
"How do you feel?"
She sighed. "I don't know… she was there and she heard a noise and she went to the other street. And then…"
Her hands were shaking so Bug took them in his. "You don't have to tell this now."
She fought her tears back and nodded. "Do you believe in coincidences, doctor?"
"Doctor Vijay? Are you coming?" Lu was standing in front of the two.
"Yes, I'm coming." Bug said, not very enthusiastic. As Lu left, he turned back to the woman, whose hands were still in his. "If you need to talk, you can come to the morgue." She nodded and he followed the impatient detective.
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Woody was on the phone. "Nigel? Yeah, it's Woody. I'm behind your building. There's another dead guy. A real dead guy this time. And I'm not getting my eyes out of him a single second. So if you could come soon… Five minutes? Perfect. I'll wait." He hung his cell phone off. "Please, I need someone here. Okay, you, you don't leave your eyes from this body, and you, you don't let anybody came near unless it's me or the ME. Thanks." He told to two policemen. Then he reached the woman who found the body.
"Hello Ma'am, I'm Detective Hoyt. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"No, of course not. I'm Ellen Mallick."
"So, Mrs. Mallick, you found the body, why did you come to the backyard of the building?"
"I'm the door-keeper, I was carrying the dustbins out. Then I saw the body and I touched him to see if he was dead, then I called the police."
"Did you notice something unusual these last days?"
"You mean aside the miracle and the strange neighborhood? No, nothing."
"What kind of 'strange neighborhood' is around here?"
"Oh, I'm thinking about that guy… tall… thin… black long hair, always strangely dressed… I wouldn't be surprised if you told me he's from a sect. He's just weird. Oh, look! He's there..." She pointed to someone. "I was sure he would come around, he's always after ghostly things."
Woody tried hard to see who she was talking about. He finally saw someone who matched the description. "Excuse me a minute." He went toward the tall man. "Hello Nige. You know, your door-keeper has funny things to tell about you. Over here, please."
"That witch!" He followed Woody to the body, which he examined. The body was completely burnt. "I think he died here, there are signs of a fire over here and here." He pointed some burnt areas. "Apparently he doesn't have any ID on him. Now, what could have caused the fire?" He looked around him and his eyes stopped on the bins. "Maybe it's in one of those." He was starting to take the body when he realized something under it. "Uhm, burnt matches…"
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Bug was doing the autopsy when Lu came in.
"Any news for me?"
"It's the bullet in the heart that killed her. It's a 9 millimeter. I've extracted it and run it for a ballistic expertise, negative. But it should be a gun like this one." He pointed to the computer screen. "Also, she was facing the killer when she got the bullet in the lungs, then she probably tried to flee and got the second shot in her back and in her heart. Look, that's the entry wound and if you compare it to the exit wound…"
"Thanks, I imagine the scene, I don't need to watch that." She wasn't feeling well next to the opened body. "Okay, I'll go back to the crime scene and see if I can find witnesses. Call me if you have something new."
As she left the room, Emmy came by the other door. "There's someone for you in the conference room."
Bug went there and found a woman. "Miss Cherlley. Hi."
"Ann. Hi. Do I bother now?"
"Not at all. Coffee?" She nodded. After talking about casual things, he told her. "I do believe in coincidences, but not on my job. And I think Robert was murdered too."
"Murdered?" She was shocked. "But you said there wasn't anything suspicious…"
"Except for the place where we found him. He didn't go there alive. And if he wasn't murdered, who would get rid of the body? Also, I can't explain why he was suffocating and had only peanuts in his stomach."
"Peanuts?" She was now thoughtful. "That's impossible, he was allergic."
"Who knew that?"
"Everybody. And he was very careful about it, he always checked if there wasn't any in his food."
Bug was thinking. Now everything made sense. Someone forced him to eat the peanuts, that's why he had those marks on the jaw, and then dropped the body down the alley. "By 'everybody', you mean…"
"The whole team. We are… We were seven. Robert, Carla, Tom, Eva, Jack, Marilyn and I.
"Do you think someone could bear your team a grudge?"
She nodded. "Since I've joined the team, two years ago, I don't see anything we did that could have made someone mad at us."
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"Robert Johnson, he was murdered."
"When I told you to call me if you had anything new, I meant about the Fisher case. And I'd be gratefully if you could finish your report on the Johnson case so I could close it."
"The cases are related. Look, they were both Doctors Without Border and murdered. I'm sure it's not a coincidence."
(One hour later)
"Remind me what we're doing here." Lu still wasn't convinced that it was necessary.
"We'll ask the staff if they know where Robert could have been that day so we may find the real crime scene and if they're suspecting anyone of wanting to kill them." Bug was trying hard to persuade the woman to go in the house.
Inside, they met a woman with black hair. "Hello, I'm Eva. Sorry but we're closed today."
"I have a master key." Lu flashed her badge. "Detective Simmons. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about Robert Johnson and Carla Fisher?"
Lu was very carrying and nice with Eva. Yes, Carla was her best friend. Yes, she has been with them since the beginning, nine years ago. No, she didn't think someone would have wanted them dead. No, they never did something that could have made someone mad at them. No, she didn't know were Robert was the night he had been killed. He was supposed to stay at the office with Tom and Ann in case of an emergency. But those two probably went out having fun and let Robert alone. Poor Robert. She thought he was in love with Ann but she never looked at him like she looked at Tim. Broke the poor man's heart. "Look, it's her." She pointed at the woman who just entered the building.
"Thanks for all." Lu thanked Eva and went toward Ann Cherlley. "The night Robert was killed, you were supposed to stay here with him, weren't you?"
"Yes. And that's what I did, until we were called for an emergency. Robert offered to stay here so I went there with Tim. But the strange thing is that when we reached the location of the call, there was nobody injured. When we went back, Robert wasn't there anymore and I assumed there was another emergency while we were outside. Then Tim went to the general hospital to check if one of his patients was recovering well."
"May I have a look around?" Lu asked.
"Sure, come." She led them through the building, explaining what each room was used to.
"And what's being this door?" Lu asked as she saw a door locked by a fingerprints system.
"It's where we stock the medicine. It reads fingerprints so only the seven of us can go in."
"Can we inspect it?" The detective asked.
"Sure." Ann put her finger on the locket.
"You are not going to loch us up, are you?"
"No. There, I put the security. The door won't close."
The detective and the ME entered in the room. Bug, who had reminded silent, finally said.
"Detective, the floor pattern match the lividities on Johnson's back." And he saw a few peanuts under a cupboard. "This is the first crime scene."
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