Chapter 1: Third Crime Scene
Driving towards the murder scene of her case so far, Naomi Misora took the time—while her brain was partially focused on the road—to commemorate the behaviour of her former shrink earlier that day. Making faces and giggling at everything she could remember, it appeared as though she was full on mentally psycho, just sitting inside of her car, stopping at all the red lights and the rest of the drivers beside her, giving her the look of 'What the hell?' making her laugh harder. Continuing her way over to the crime scene, Naomi Misora almost had been pulled over by the police half the way due to her unstoppable giggles, until she had held her breath and kept a straight face. Granted the 'Straight face' resembled Dracula's by an uncanny match. Of course, if Naomi Misora (or any woman at all) had heard this, she would no doubt; portray her anger in a violent act.
Whilst driving down a road that wasn't filled with public help services (Fire department, police department, there was even an ice cream truck there as well), she passed by a few of the suburban houses with palm trees planted in between all of them, she caught sight of a small girl playing invisible hop-scotch on the pavement while chanting "See the little goblin, see its little feet. And its little nosey-woze isn't the goblin sweet?" Naomi Misora gave soft laugh before rolling down the window of her car and yelling at the girl. "Nina? What are you doing? Aren't you supposed to be at the crime scene?" The little girl known as 'Nina' lifted her head up, searching for the location of the voice, noticing Misora and smiling before skipping over to the car in the middle of the silent street.
"They don't believe that I am a part of some form of a detective agency or law enforcement. I showed them my ID but they threw it in my face and said 'Get out of here rugrat! don't bullshit us like that next time!'" She explained, mimicking a male voice when recapping what she had been told.
"The bastards. Wait a minute; wasn't he supposed to be there as well?" Misora's vague mention of their other partner, brought suspicion to the young girl, but just as quickly as she blinked her russet brown eyes, the suspicion disappeared. Nina gave a shrug with her small shoulders and responded with, "He wasn't here when I arrived, and when I asked a decent law enforcement agent, they said that there was no guy here when they arrived." Naomi Misora arched a delicate—and hard-worked, nicely plucked—eyebrow, pressing a button so one of the doors in the back seat opened for Nina to get inside. Believe it or not, where the crime scene was located, was much farther from where Naomi had found Nina.
Driving the extra ten miles over to the crime scene—23 Rubin Street—Nina pulled out a strange silver artefact, connected by white tangled chords to a mini portable screen and a small keyboard, Nina's small hands and fingers began untangling the mess of chords while also re-wiring the wires inside the broken keyboard and screen. She also wore a belt as well that had enough gadgets on it than an iPhone. Naomi, still driving whilst also her eyes flickering over every now and again, questioned the technologies current destroyed state, Nina replied "Adults thought it was a toy and threw it on the pavement, thus breaking it and ruining my eye sight for 3 hours before I was able to see properly again." She pulled a small screw driver out of one of the pockets on her belt and started fiddling with the tiny screws embedded in the device. Naomi was more or less satisfied by the little thingy-ma-jiggy that the young girl with flowing black hair held in her small, petite hands. The screen shaped as a rectangle, reveals the frequency of something and switches over to different channels within its commandment by the small keyboard that was connected to it. But Naomi—and their other comrade—always kept quiet whenever Nina pulled it out. This thingy-ma-jiggy was to help Nina do her job, and help them do their job, so really there was no point questioning about it, so both of the adults out of the private trio, remained silent while studying other things beside how much frequency there is in a small room.
They were passing more and more houses by the minute, each house looking pretty much the same as the last. Large, brightly painted, peaceful, and a dumpster seated out on the wide pavement. Nina had finally managed to untangle the chords and gets her device going, she smiles proudly while hooking the chords to her large ear-muff headphones and starts testing the frequency screen. Naomi Misora pretended to clear her throat as she continued to drive forward, trying not to smile as the street started to become narrower due to all the other vehicles being parked close to the place they were heading off towards. She had to unfortunately slow down, and try not to ram her car into the other automobiles just to find a parking spot, turning the wheel (or 'wheels', whichever you prefer) she raced into one free parking spot before some other person got it. And behind the windshield of the defeated opponent, the woman was not pleased, and decided to stick her middle finger up at Naomi Misora, who gave a friendly wave back and a nice smile before stepping out of her car—along with Nina, who was still fiddling with the frequency screen, her headphones on—and flicked her sunglasses on. Of course, anybody who didn't wear sunglasses in Miami was obviously used to the heat and the bright, burning sun.
"Hey kid! I thought I told you... Naomi Misora?" a tall, buff, dark-skinned man came running/stomping his way over to where Naomi and Nina stood near their car; he was instantly slowing (and reducing the mini earthquakes) when he came to stand in front of Naomi, noticeably being at least 6-foot-4, Naomi felt slightly threatened due to his enormous height and his enormous pectorals. But she stood, showing that she was also in control—on some level, she is—and slid her leather jacket off, throwing it in the car before walking up the hill towards the scene of crime. Ignoring the large, dark man and his reluctance at the idea of a child being on a crime scene, but he knew very little of what this child could do, which was understandable at some point, but the child stood her ground as well, sliding on black sunglasses as well while flipping the bird to the agents that told her to piss off before.
[I know that it looks like this young girl seems to regain confidence when around Misora, but that is not the case. Nina—NINA, is originally her name, recorded in the scientific and medical database—had put up a tiring and long fight at the beginning, threatening to castrate any agent that touches or goes near her.]
They strolled towards the door of the house; a clean, brightly coloured mansion that stood on a hill with a pool that is literally the end of the property and the house, giving a good old view of Miami. It in fact turns out, that the person that had lived here had come from Los Angeles, California. What a lovely coincidence for Miss Misora? She worked a case in Los Angeles, and for the readers, keep this in mind. Nina had opened the door first, her small polished shoes tapping on the white marble floor, she extended an arm to the hand, her fingertips pushing it down hard enough for it to turn and unlock. Nina stepped inside first before Naomi, both gasping at the sight that was to behold them and suffocate their minds.
The usual Miami house is clean and just as bright inside as on the out. Cream, white, grey, gold. But on the inside of this house, it was nothing but red. Clinging and dripping from the walls and ceilings, swishing like a pool on the floor, the TV was covered in it, the couches were stained with it, the windows were holding a dimension of it up while the rest was sliding slowly down. And when one of the forensics people was cleaning it off for samples and other evidence, there was the jackpot for all the people that had business inside this house. Two amputated arms—most likely as real as the red falling from everywhere, or swishing everywhere—that were just as covered as the rest of the room in the thick, red liquid, were nailed to the wall above the flat-screen TV, shifted and shaped into an arrow pointing 'Left'. Naomi was recounting the other two murders, the same thing at all the murders, both of the victim's arms cut off and nailed above some form of technology somewhere, and they were all shaped into an arrow and pointed somewhere. The first arrow was pointed upwards, 'North' as the police of Miami liked to refer as it now. The second was pointed 'Right' or otherwise known as 'West', and the current arrow is pointed 'East'. It all gave the obvious impression that the serial killer (it has become a serial killer now, since he made a third attack, and also the whole new setting fitted the last killings which are now known as his M.O) was relating his killings to sailing or geography and mapping work. Naomi rolled her eyes at that one and Nina almost lunged at the idiot like a ravenous lion.
Naomi walked over to the wall with the arrow, the blood staining and sticking to her plastic covered boots as she stood in front of the sickening visual. Through her black sunglasses, she looked up and observed the arms, her eyes moving from the cleanly made cut from the elbow and towards the wrist and finally reaching the hands that were clasped together, fingers threaded like holding hands. Horrific piece of work this guy was going for she thought to herself, remember that the last arms had the hands palm-pressed against each other, and not in a holding hand symbolization. When Naomi Misora held her breath and inched her head closer, she noticed that the hands were placed like that because they were holding something inside. A small money bag or pouch could possibly be the item, but she didn't want to inform the snotty law enforcement men of what evidence she has found, even if it against the law to. She pulled away and went out onto the veranda, taking a large breath before going back in and searching around the rest of the house, Nina following right behind her with a large $10,000 camera in her small, pale hands.
"You were looking very attentively at those two arms. What was there?" Nina said casually, cleaning the lens of her camera and taking a few experiment shots of the bloodied walls while they walked down the hall and leading themselves into another room, the bathroom. Or at least, one of the bathrooms that were probably the one's with the least amount of blood in it than the entire house. Sure, there were thick splotches here and there, and then maybe a few clean strips on the small, blurry glass window, and long trail running in a strip down from the shower and into the bath and down the drain. But nobody dared to open the door to the shower, for fear that it might turn on again and the blood would start pouring down the shower and into the bathtub. Nina had to give it to the guy that he was sure inventive, but she was also repulsed by him. And how messy he is, the least he could do was clean up afterwards! She screamed in her mind, but she was certain he did, and that the blood was just some red curtain for the real performance's finish. Naomi acted casual and slid her sunglasses to the top of her head, pushing some of her black locks back as well, her attentive stare returning as she observed the bathroom with a not-so-happy-look on her face.
"Where the fuck is our other guy, he's supposed to be here to tell us what the hell this sicko is thinking." She pushed her sunglasses back down so they rested on the bridge of her nose and covered her eyes completely again. She leaned on one leg, her jeans now getting slightly damp from the blood carpet outside of the bathroom, and her mind more focused on her other partner than the one that was beside her and the scene in front of her. Nina took a wild decision and decided to play the part of their other comrade briefly, "I think the killer's giving out the message of childish laughter and is probably saying, "Guess where this is from?" judging by the shower and outside, the killer is copying off other murderers. Outside is similar to room 103 in the TV show Dexter, while the shower reminds me a lot like the serial killer in Brazil that used to ground his victims and make their blood pour from the shower hoses. He's taking off fiction and reality, to try and fool us." She expressed, taking photos of the entire bathroom. Naomi paused her colourful thoughts to consider what Nina had suddenly said. A Copycat killer? Fiction and Reality? Was this killer trying to thin the line between fiction and reality in some horrific, terrifying way? Now that Naomi was thinking about it, which had already been done. It's a big thing called Religion and Naomi was now recognizing that this killer was trying to tell them something about that. First proper clue for the actual investigation. But why for the third murder? Why not for the others? Wait... There might be something at the others, Naomi thought to herself.
At the first crime scene—the first killing—the place wasn't as gory as the third. And it wasn't a Los-Angeles-Look-Alike mansion either. It was a small unit close to the beaches, one of those houses with small porches and stairs that are two-storeys but a small in width, the unit was also made out of wood on the outside, painted a not-so-bright blue, while the roof was tiled with emerald green. On the inside of the unit, it was as small as it looked. There was a staircase leading upstairs, the wood a dark blue, the wallpapers were a custard colour with green vines and red roses painted in detail on the wallpaper, it had a dark green kitchen as well with the same wallpaper, a clean dining table with six wooden dining chairs and a few empty plates on the table. There was also a desk with a computer and office chair, the computer turned on but the screen turned off. But when they went upstairs, and entered the bedroom. There was a double bed (missing the mattress), a window with a pink polka-dot curtains, also a poster of a pensive man known as Edward Cullen and a CD collection of Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez. But nailed to the wall above of the small TV placed on the wooden set of drawers, were two arms in the shape of an arrow, pointing upwards.
The rest of the body of the victim—It was a female, and her name was Erica Errandhart whom was in fact an immigrant from Australia for two years—was found outside of her home, hidden in the rocks of the beach that was close to the house, and there was only the torso and head. They had been able to identify the victim as 23 and female Caucasian with the use of dental records, and body shapes. Horrifying, and also traumatizing for the family members as it should be, even the forensics were appalled by the murderer's creativity within the killing. They pulled the body into the morgue, got it cleaned up, and then Naomi Misora entered to take a look at it. She was just as repulsed as the rest that had gone in to take a peek at the body, but studied it with a gas mask and the constant whiff of her very special perfume bottle.
The second crime scene was like the first, except with a different location, a different kind of house, and of course; a completely different person. But the setting of body parts the same, besides the obvious fact that the arms were pointed in a diverse position from the previous killing, in effect the arms were the only clue linking the first murder to the second (and also when the bodies were found, the legs were missing too). It had only become a double murder, not so much calling it a serial killing since there were apparently 'No clues' pointing towards another murder anytime soon. Bunch of morons they were, and identifying the second victim as Penelope Grazia, didn't assist them in making the assumption appear any better under the light. Both Naomi and Nina had the idea the law enforcement working on the case were oblivious to the day count between both murders, and also the age between both girls. Age 23 and the day count were 10 days in between.
But anyways, back to the recent times where Naomi still remained inside of the third victim's bathroom, along with her co-worker Nina, and the 2 other detectives and the 3 other forensic people all squashed inside of a surprisingly small bathroom, avoiding stepping on any blood even though the forensic people already have blood splattered all over their plastic and rubber clothes, but for Naomi and Nina, they just had blood staining their jeans and boots, even if Naomi was the one that had remembered to put plastic on her boots in the first place.
Naomi shook her head, grabbing a black velvet hair tie from her pocket and lifting her long black hair up into a high ponytail and she stepped out of the bathroom, leaving Nina to continue her grotty and gory photography of the bathroom, expecting her to go back out into the living room where the front entrance door was, and start taking photos of everything. At times, Naomi Misora did wonder if Nina ever got exhausted or agitated from just taking photos in great detail of a room full of blood and weapons. But she never bothered to ask her, always minding her business no matter how large the curiosity took over, or overwhelmed. She walked down the hall, resisting the urge to run her fingers along the wall and be afraid that one of the other contestants in Capture the Blood on Film First would scream out that she was tampering with the evidence. She stepped carefully on the bloody wood of the floor, stepping into the bedroom. Large in size and windows, it looked like the rest of the house, cream, apricot, white and gold, stained with red. She moved over to the large window, mentally noting to herself instantaneously that the large window of the bedroom led out onto the front yard, she took in a much better view of all the cars and vans parked out in front of the house, she even noticed the yellow tape that keeps people that are not a part of law enforcement from entering the horror mansion that is sitting right in their neighbourhood. But it wasn't the cars that she was focused on, oh no, her concentration was much rather making her eyes zoom in on the mysterious person circling her car like a vulture.
As she continued to watch this stranger inspect her car like it's supposed to be in some sort of dazzling car competition, Naomi Misora had the urge to open the window and holler at the weirdo to back away. But then she realized that the window did not open, and there was air conditioning only for any cooling down, and an overwhelming depression and annoyance washed over her. Who the hell has windows like these? And is it soundproof and tinted? She thought to herself, partially focusing on the windows while the other half was still looking down at the guy. Her mind went blank when he turned around, and the only thing she could process was his appearance, and when she did, she gave a devious smirk. Black hair that's messy and neat at the same time, pale meets tan skin colour, and the memory of her telling him to "Wear black, so that I can recognize you," oh yeah, she knew who this guy was.
'Bout fucking time...
Her other partner turned, no longer his back facing her, and looked around the area, the obvious look of disgust on his face whilst he continued to search for something in the front yard. Naomi crossed her arms over her chest and gave a small wave with her fingers to see if his 'Six Sense' would pick up her sudden action at the window. He did. Because then his head shot straight over to where she was, and a smile rose upon his face as he waved back. Naomi—if she would ever admit it—used to be scared of his smiles, but she guessed that living with him, and sharing the creepy thing in common together, would be the reason why she had grown to actually like those smiles. So she gave one back (seemingly that her returned smile, was consent to enter the crime scene and reach his two partners. She could just imagine the smug grin he would put on the minute he entered through the front door and see what was waiting for him. Was it natural to actually want to go back out there, into the blood room with the cut-off arms hanging on the wall, and watch his expression? Well, whatever the hell it was, she went out anyways, walking back down the hall and past the bathroom and the study (Nina switched from the bathroom to the study) and into what she now called 'The Arm Room', because she couldn't decide whether it was the living room, the lounge room, the TV room, whatever floats the boat. But she was walking a little too quickly—Was she really that desperate to see him?—and found herself into the arm room, her eyes shooting all over, searching for his location. She continued to look around, seeing tons of detectives around, but no partner of hers. She couldn't say that he was a detective, because that wasn't his job. And it wasn't his job when she had first been acquainted with him.
But she didn't care, like she did before. She just wanted to find him, so she checked the porch, checked the other rooms of the house—that were clean from blood—checked upstairs, checked outside on both ends and yet she still could not find him. She gave up in front of the arms again, looking back at the clasped hands, the pouch still visible to her. And soon, visible to him. "I must question you Naomi Misora, was that the first thing you perceived when you stepped inside of this place now known as Satan's home?" His voice came around the corner of her ear and smacked her eardrum to confirm that he was only mere inches away from her. Naomi Misora fought the urge to smirk and reply with some witty retort, but instead she kept her attitude to a minimum and replied in a professional voice. "I'm afraid not, the blood on the ceiling, floors and walls was actually the first thing I noticed when I walked through the door. What about you?" she crossed her arms again and continued to look around the gruesome wall decoration for another clue the killer might have left. "When I had come through the door, the first thing I had noticed was one of the forensic analysts known as Ellen who was eating a hot dog like she was giving a blowjob." He replied casually. She bit her lip while her shoulders were shaking, trying incredibly hard not to start giggling in front of the other detectives, and not push her co-worker's rude observations. But Naomi was surprised by what he had said, and also that he would take notice of woman eating a hot dog, rather than the blood scattered around the room like it was the room, or that the arms are still nailed to the wall.
"Do you always watch people eat hot dogs whenever you go somewhere?" She asked, her eyes flicking over to him, discerning his appearance sideways. He stuck by her rule to wear black, wearing a black dress shirt and black trousers with matching leather shoes that were shining more than the sun. But away from his feet and looking more into his face, she admired his smooth skin and his black hair falling in front of his face. If she looked harder, she could see the thin line of his contacts pressed against his eyes.
"Not very much, and I wouldn't be able to watch them for very long. These contacts itch terribly..." he muttered the last sentence whilst he rubbed his eyes.
"You didn't rub them so much when we first met, and for those four days." She noted, continuing to observe.
He pulled his fingers away, and his slightly reddened eyes turned to look at her. "I did not rub them so much because you were with me for the whole time." He gave a grin before wiping his hand on his trousers. Naomi pursed her lips, resisting an equal smirk, her cheeks slightly flushing before she reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small wallet, opening it up and going to the cash.
"That was smooth, real smooth..." She pulled out fifty dollars and gave it to him; he plucked it out of her grasp and pulled his own wallet out, sliding it inside while folding his wallet and putting it back inside of his pocket.
"Thank you." He gratified. Both of them were pushed out of the way by two detectives, a tall female with long brown hair tied into a low ponytail and glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. The other detective was an even taller male, a handsome one as well, dark brown hair, a strong angular jaw and dark blue eyes that were hypnotizing. Misora couldn't take her eyes off the male, the flush from before getting redder. The female pulled her badge out from her pocket and held it up to the both of them. "Sergeant Carmen Rowa and this is my partner Eric Sheen. We are investigating the Jaeger Cassidy Murders." She told in a quick and professional tone while her partner, Eric Sheen, stood with his hands in his pockets watching and listening to her, oblivious to Naomi's gaze at him.
"If you are investigating these so-called Jaeger Cassidy Murders, then may I ask what you are doing here?" Her partner had suddenly asked, looking at Sergeant Rowa, whose eyes turned to stare at him but then a slight pink tinged her pale cheeks, but she remained professional and answered in a strong voice.
"These are the Jaeger Cassidy Murders. Haven't you—
"No, this is my first official crime scene of the serial killings themselves, and also, I don't believe I have introduced my title and name in such a professional manner," he held his hand out to the female sergeant and gave a fake polite smile. "Hello, I am Detective Rue Ryuzaki. My entranced and numb-minded-at-the-moment partner over there beside Sheen is Naomi Misora. We were hired as private investigators by the detective N for the serial killings." He spoke in a formal voice, his introduction sending a slight shiver through Naomi, because the slight tone to it was cold and lifeless. While considering this in Naomi's mind, the memory of what he said flashed through.
"I'm dead. I'm a living corpse."
It sent a shiver throughout her core, and she shuddered in front of the other three. Sergeant Rowa acted oblivious to this sudden action, Ryuzaki gave a sideways glance and a slight twitch of the eyebrow before returning to his one-sided conversation/argument with Rowa, but Detective Sheen seemed to detect this as well. Because then he suddenly asked her if she was alright, and placed a hand on her upper back. Misora nodded her head vigorously and kind of wiggled his hand off, and hopefully it restrained itself and stayed off. But as Naomi looked up to see Ryuzaki staring at Sheen intently sideways, his ear twitched—or at least that's what it looked like it did—and his mouth slightly curved in distaste with a glint of pearly white fangs. This face was something she has seen before, but with much less savage and viciousness to it. She wasn't completely sure if it was, but it looked like Ryuzaki had a sort of possessiveness over her, with jealousy wrapped around it in a green ribbon with a bow on top. Most women would be flattered, and some of them would push the level to prove their man would fight for them, but this is a different situation. Rue Ryuzaki is a serial killer himself, one that's only working on this case because this killer's ideas are slightly similar if you deem it. But the other differences on it are also the fact that she isn't romantically involved with him. What a scary thought...
"... What is an adolescent doing on the premises?" Rowa's voice had abruptly entered Naomi's train of thought and she snapped out of it, focusing on the question and the people circling around her in the arm room. She noticed that Nina had suddenly joined the party additionally, and she was glowering up at Rowa with a hard frown and a twitching eyebrow hidden behind her thick, black fringe. "I don't like you." She growled at Rowa, whom didn't flinch at all. Ryuzaki on the hand had his hands in his pockets and from the ruffling in them, fiddling with something. Since all five of them were so wrapped up in this conversation of glaring and growling they didn't realize that one of the forensics people had taken the arms down, pulled the pouch from the hands, opened it, and revealed it on a plastic covered coffee table.
The pouch was open, spread out like a cloth on the table with the artefacts that were inside it, in full frontal view.
Teeth...