Bayley got out of one of the two SUVs that had been dispatched from Intelligence Division to answer sergeant Rousey's call. She had travelled with commander Thorne and detective Cole, while detectives Rollins and Flair had followed in the other SUV.
The sight that greeted them was the destroyed remains of some kind of sports car, utterly destroyed in a head on collision with a big rig that was sitting in the middle of the small country road with it's front grille dented in. The sports car had been further ruined by fire crews cutting it open to extract people from the wreckage. The fire crew were still on the scene, along with three ambulances and a couple of police cars. One of the ambulances was just pulling away, lights on and siren blaring, as the Intelligence Division team approached sergeant Rousey, who was standing near the destroyed car. Bayley spotted a body lying on the tarmac, covered with a plastic sheet.
"Sergeant," Thorne said in greeting. "Why am I standing here looking at a car accident?"
A car accident didn't strike Bayley as the kind of work that the division usually handled, she had to admit.
"You're here because that body over there is Dana Brooke," Rousey said, pointing at a plastic sheet-covered corpse that was lying on the road not far from the car.
"Well, shit," Cole said.
Shit indeed, Bayley thought. Dana Brooke was probably Stamford City's most famous name. Indeed, it was a world famous name. She was an actress and a singer, although her talent for the latter was debateable.
"I know it seems like a simple if nasty case of a death resulting from a road accident, but I wanted to be able to say we had our best investigators out here on the scene," Rousey said. "An hour from now, the eyes of the world are going to be on this story, and on me when I have to give a press briefing."
"Very well, we'll have a look into it," Thorne said. "What can you tell me?"
"Brooke was driving the car at the time of the accident. She was travelling with her personal bodyguard, James Campbell. He has a nasty wound and a broken leg, but he'll live. He left in that ambulance just now. The truck driver is called Harsimran Singh. He's over in that ambulance, unhurt but in shock," Rousey said, pointing. Bayley could see the guy sitting in the ambulance with a paramedic talking to him, the rear doors left open.
"Okay," Thorne nodded. She then took charge, issuing orders to her people. "Rollins, Flair, go and talk to the truck driver and find out what he can tell us. Cole, Martinez, you're with me. Let's start by checking out the body. If this is cut and dried, we can be back in the office in an hour."
As the trio walked over to the body of Dana Brooke, Thorne took a pair of black nitrile gloves out of her jacket pocket and worked her hands into them. There was a paramedic standing guard near the body, waiting for a coroner to show up. Thorne opened her leather jacket to flash him her badge, which she kept fixed to her belt. Without a word, he stepped aside.
"Okay, let's have a look," Thorne said. Crouching down beside the body, she pulled back the plastic sheet to reveal the deceased's face.
Yep, that's Dana Brooke, Bayley thought, looking down at the lifeless blonde. There was a horrid looking injury on the side of her head, from which a significant amount of blood had leaked. The cause of death seemed clear. People tended to assume that modern cars with airbags kept people safe in all kinds of accidents, but Bayley knew that head on crashes, especially ones that happened at great speed, were often fatal. The passenger was lucky to have survived, for judging by the remains of the car, it had been travelling way too fast for a narrow road like this at the moment of impact.
"That'll do it," Cole said, looking at the head injury.
As he was speaking, Bayley had noticed something else. "There seems to be a bit of discolouration just above her top lip."
Thorne leaned over and gently turned Brooke's head to the side slightly to get a better look. Her lips were bright red thanks to lipstick, but there was a tinge of blue coming to the skin just above the top one. "Nice spot, Martinez. That does look a bit odd. We'll see what the coroner says when he gets here."
"The truck driver is pretty shaken up," Flair reported, coming over to join the group. Rollins was walking beside her.
"He said she was all over the road. He tried to avoid her, but she swerved the same way that he did, and it was all over," Rollins said.
"Said the car was absolutely flying, too," Flair added.
Driving at high speed, and erratically all over the road. Something weird had been going on in that car, or with the health of the driver, Bayley thought.
Shortly, the coroner arrived. He was a bald man with a goatee. He and the Intelligence Division team seemed to be familiar with each other, which wasn't much of a surprise to Bayley. They probably encountered each other quite often.
"Lucy," he said politely, setting his equipment bag down beside Brooke's body.
"Steve. This is Bayley Martinez. She joined my team today. Bayley, meet Steve Austin."
The coroner gave a thin smile and offered his hand. "Bayley. There's probably not much mileage in this one for a first case."
Bayley accepted the handshake. "Nice to meet you. And I'm not so sure about that. We've noticed some discolouration starting to appear above her top lip."
"Really? Let me take a look."
Thorne moved out of the way and Steve crouched down to have a look at what they had alerted him to.
"Hmmm," he said after a few moments. "That is interesting. I'll have to have a proper look when I've gotten her cleaned up in the morgue, and I'll need to do some blood work, but that could be a sign of poisoning."
Thorne looked at her team and raised an eyebrow. "Maybe there is something in this after all. Flair, Rollins, you're going to the hospital. Find out what the passenger knows, as soon as he's in any condition to talk to you. He's the only one who knows what was happening in that car in the final moments. The rest of us are going to find out Ms Brooke's address and get over there. Someone as famous as her is bound to have a staff. There also might be a boyfriend or girlfriend in the picture. Let's see if we can find out why someone might want to poison her."
Feeling good about being the one who had initially spotted the discolouration, Bayley started following Thorne and Cole back towards the SUV. Cole got on his phone to dispatch at the police station to obtain an address for Dana Brooke, while Thorne stopped for a moment to inform sergeant Rousey about what they had found. Bayley stayed close to the boss.
"Looks like there could be foul play," Thorne said to Rousey. "There's a possibility of poisoning. Austin's going to look into it ASAP."
"Fucking brilliant," Rousey grumbled.
"We're going to speak to the passenger, and we're going to go to Brooke's house to speak to the staff."
"Okay, thanks, Lucy, I'll give my press briefing accordingly," Rousey said.
"Right, let's move out," Thorne said to her team.
This one is about to get interesting, Bayley thought as she got in the back.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the opening chapter.
Dana Brooke met an untimely end. But was it an accident, or was it murder?