Chapter 2
"So you're telling me that we're only a block and a half from Times Square and no one heard or saw anything?" Elliot asked, shaking his head.
"It's freaking freezing out here. People probably have their butts in bed like my boney ass should be," Munch said.
"It had to be like ninety-five in the car," Fin chuckled. Olivia smirked, she couldn't help herself. Munch had originally been from Baltimore and while they did get cold weather, it was certainly colder up in New York on a regular basis.
"Time of death isn't going to be easy. She's been out here laying on the snow with practically no clothes on," Melinda spoke up, directing their attention back to the body lying on the ground in the alleyway.
"You think she was a pro?" Fin asked.
"It's hard to say because of all the damage done to her. She tried to fight back but I'd say our guy probably had at least fifty pounds on her. Every single finger is broken," the coroner shook her head.
"She only weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet and she's only five-five," Munch pointed out.
"I'll get her back to the lab and get working," Melinda nodded.
"So I'm a pro. I'm wandering Times Square, wearing only enough to cover what my momma gave me, and instead of going back to a hotel or even a car, I decide that me and my John are going to do it right here in the alley?" Fin wondered.
"Something definitely doesn't seem right about that," Olivia said as she moved deeper into the alley. It dead ended between two businesses that had closed around ten pm.
"She couldn't have been here too long. Both businesses close at ten and if she was getting the crap beat out of her, she'd have been screaming bloody murder," she pointed out, noting that the only visible footprints were from the businesses to the dumpster. Some of the snow was just tramped down too much to get anything viable for comparison.
"It's only one-thirty now," Munch said.
"Ok so we're looking at a window between say ten-thirty and when the body was found by patrol at quarter to one," Elliot told them.
"A two hour window and no one sees someone covered in blood. Doesn't hear our victim screaming? I'll get CSU to check those dumpsters," Fin motioned for one of the techs to come over.
"Our guy had to have an out. A car, keys to a nearby building, something," Olivia frowned.
"We'll have to see if the cameras back at the Square caught anything. We'll need bus and subway camera footage too," Elliot agreed.
"So back to the precinct?" Munch was hopping up and down by now, trying to keep warm. The mercury had dipped below freezing and everyone was beginning to feel it.
"You and Fin get waking people up for footage. We'll speak to the officers who found her," Olivia nodded. With that the older detective and his partner headed to their vehicle. Elliot waved to the two officers who had secured the crime scene and they nodded as the partners headed to them.
"So what made you guys stop?" Elliot asked Officers Henshaw and Yen.
"Well we usually patrol this neighborhood and with everything quite usually by this hour, when we got a call from dispatch claiming that someone had heard an awful racket. Now it's near Times Square and hardly anybody lives down here so we thought maybe someone was trying to set us up. We put on the lights and did a slow roll down through to see if anything seemed off," Henshaw started.
"What'd you do then?" Olivia wanted to know.
"We called dispatch, figuring that the call had to have been bogus but they gave us the address of Mr. El-Amin's falafel place. Not sure if it was someone trying to cause the poor guy trouble, we called for backup. While we waited we decided to make a quick check of the alley because the dumpster caught fire a few weeks back. That's when we found her," Yen explained.
"Seems like this case has more to it than we originally thought," Elliot frowned.
To Be Continued…