040 Good Riddance
Character: David
David looked down at the bodies on the ground. He had to work to keep his lunch down, not wanting to lose face. This was his murder case and he wanted to show he could handle it. The man was lying on the ground, his pail skin the only real outward sign that he was dead. Other than that he looked so normal.
A coroner was leaning over the body, examining a wound. "Gunshot wound, but I don't think that's what killed him." The woman looked up to David and the officer that he was partnered with. "There are marks of a blade so I think the guy shot the wounds with a gun to try to hide them."
"Got a gun," another officer spoke up. David's partner put on a glove and took the weapon.
He looked over the gun and nodded. "As I expected, it's the victim's gun." He sighed and passed it back to the officer to put into a bag. "Probably wiped down as well." He then turned to David. "All right, Hutch, what do you think happened?"
David ignored the nickname and thought. "Motive isn't clear yet but likely he was stabbed, the perp took the gun off him, shot the wounds, cleaned the gun, and took the knife before fleeing." David paused for a moment. "How did you know it was his gun?"
"Spend a bit of time on these streets and you get to know the local sum community. This guy had been searched a few times, always found that gun on him." David's partner looked down at the man. "There are people who will die that will cause you to feel sad, but guys like this at not those kind. Good riddance to bad scum." He scowled and looked to David. "Likely his killer is someone who's life he ruined. This guy was a drug dealer, arms seller, and a part time pimp. He'd get women hooked on drugs and then have them work for him, get good honest kids hooked on drugs early, and probably was a source of the weapons that cause a quarter of the violent activity on this street. There's a long list of people who might want him dead. A prostitute that was tired of owing him money, a druggy wanting a high, victim of violence, or even a family member of someone who was hurt by the things he did."
"So then how do we narrow down that list?" David asked. "Is there any way of telling which possible motive to start with or at least narrow down the possibilities?"
David's partner moved away from the body, back toward their patrol car, and motioned for David to follow. Once they were a distance away he answered. "Listen, there isn't any way we can narrow it down. No evidence is going to give us a clear reason why a man like that died. Besides, we'd be wasting time that would be better spent on solving crimes where good people die, the innocent."
"So we're just going to let whoever did this get away? We're supposed to uphold the law and you want to ignore it." The idea of not doing their job fully was odd to David. "I mean, I'm not exactly complaining. There would be so much work to do and so many people to talk to. It would take us weeks, probably over time, to even come up with a suspect."
"If whoever did this is actually a danger than we'll catch then when they kill someone who'd death isn't a favor to the community. It's not like we don't have enough work do to as it is." David's partner moved to the driver's side and opened the door. "Come on, they'll have everything back at the office for us. I'm sure there's some robbery somewhere that we can respond to." He got into the car and David joined him.
David wasn't sure how he felt about just letting someone get away with killing someone. He knew they should have been looking for the killer but at the same time he didn't think that the man was worthy of their energy. He just sat back in the car, knowing that there was nothing he could do about it. Maybe this was just how the experienced people did things and he just needed to roll with it. David turned his gaze to the streets as the car started to move, looking for any signs of trouble.