Reflections
--Garret--
He had left the body on the table for me in preparation for an autopsy. He had gone to get the identification from the next of kin.
Determining cause of death didn't take long, I figured that finding the bastard who did it would be the real test. Matt Seely was the detective in charge. He stood, salivating for information, over the body.
The body was found in a warehouse that had been abandoned for years. He was found by a homeless woman who reported the body to the next person she saw. She disappeared before she could be questioned by police.
I deduced that the body, now identified as Mr. Jonathan Ronny Campbell, was severely beaten with an unknown weapon suffering bodily and head trauma before he was strangled with a thick braided wire found at the crime scene. His hands and arms didn't bear signs of self defense so I assumed he was caught off guard.
I wondered what he'd done to piss the murderer off.
--Bug--
Now I understood why the drapes were closed. Now I understood why nobody came to the front door. Now I understood that flighty feeling in my stomach, like catching yourself before falling down the stairs. Uncertainty crawled up my spine.
I was thankful that Dr. Macy was performing the autopsy. He would inform the police of the details of the murder and officers would, hopefully, arrive at the house at any moment to question the family.
The one thing I couldn't shake was how I had brought Lily into all of this. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her.
--Matt--
The guy was a pro. Macy couldn't find anything on the body that tied him to any one person. I had my men combing the crime scene for anything that would give me some answers. I had two officers questioning the big wig that owned the place. And I had a desk junky digging up anything that he could out of the system. I found his criminal record, a short list of offenses like assault, robbery, a few drug charges. He had served his time for all of them. The last one, the drug charges, had been six years ago. Afterward, his name disappeared from the system.
When I was finished with what little Macy could give me, I went to the address on Campbell's license.
What I didn't expect to find there was Lily Lebowski.