@jadedindreamz STARTER
mentioned @wynterlanding @anderson-residence
Killing a man was easy if you let yourself go. Tell yourself this needed to be done, and you could do anything. The hardest part wasn't letting go of pesky morals or laws. It was the struggling the other would inevitably do, a fight was bound to happen.
But, that was part of the fun in itself. However, tonight the man found it all a little disappointing. The other didn't put up any fight. Maybe he just didn't see it coming or maybe he didn't have much will to live. It was always a curious thing.
No matter, it gave him more time to move on to his next tasks. He had to set the scene and pay a friend a visit. It was going to be a long night He needed to work quickly. The sun would be up in a matter of hours.
He carefully arranged the body, with a certain scene in mind. Everything was planned out. The entire time, he was careful to not leave anything behind. Hair, fingerprints, anything. That would be the end of him. He didn't need the law catching up to him. They didn't understand him, no one did. He shoved the murder weapon into his pocket along with the balled-up gloves he had worn. The sun was shining bright by the time he finished what he needed to do. But he was done here and it was on his next task.
The man stopped off at his apartment for a quick shower, it was called for, then a change of clothes. His old outfit would later be disposed of. Then he headed out.
He pulled up to the residence and cursed. Lana was sitting on the front lawn reading a book out loud to a stray cat that couldn't care less about the human child. It licked its paw and loafed in the sun. Damn. He couldn't walk up with that brat out here. he didn't want her to see his face. There was no doubt someone else was home and nearby as well. He would have to come back later when no one was home. He drove off before anyone raised suspicion of his idling van.
Across the city, Ashton was starting her day in the field. A body had been found and as a medical examiner, she was used to these gruesome calls at all hours. Wearing coverall PPEs she took a step into the small home and let out a curse. "Damn." Not only was the areas seemingly staged, every position of every item thought out but Ashton recognized the face of the corpse even behind all the bloating and blood.
Nick West. A local reporter Ashton had seen swarming several of her past cases. She thankfully didn't have to deal with the media as much as law enforcement did in places like this. Ashton spent most of her work in the labs, far away from nosey somebodies. But even if they could be nosey Ashton didn't have any problems with reporters in general and from all her short meetings, Nick seemed like a good man. He didn't deliver this. Nobody did. The question was how did he die?
Sherif Bree Taggert was waiting for her, the one who called the ME to the scene. "I know. It's... a different kind of crime scene." The body was carefully arranged as if the body was meant to be found and the scene was a statement of some sort. But what the fuck? This was the weirdest shit and Ashton had seen a lot of dead bodies and crime scenes.
"Yeah, I see that," Ashton muttered.
"And the victim is Nick West." Bree added
"I also see that. But I'll double-check with medical identification once I get him in." Ashton like crossing Ts and dotting Is. Finally stepping into the house fully, and careful of where she stepped, Ashton went to examine the body. She liked getting a baseline examination done on the scene, how the body was positioned, the temperature, and appearance, it all told a lot about how and when a person died. Forensics would come in once she was done, a small team in PPEs already waiting outside for her word to start their own documentation process.
"Do you have a time a death on him?" Bree asked.
Rigor mortis was starting to set in but the body was still loose. The joints gave some resistance but still bent easily. It took twelve hours for rigor mortis to start to set in, twelve hours for it to take a full set, and another twelve hours to pass. It was a full multi-stage process. "Mid-stage rigor mortis has set in, but the body still has some give."
She pulled out a scalpel from a small toolbox and lifted the man's shirt. Ashton made a small incision in his abdomen and inserted a thermometer. The liver made a reliable measure of body temperature. Internal body temperature was a good way of estimating a time of death. How fast a body cools depended on the elements, outside temperature, and other factors but it could be used to help calculate a time of death. "About six hours I'd say. I might be able to narrow that down when I get to the autopsy."
Ashton reviewed the body for a bit longer behind standing and motioning for the forensics team to enter. Bree left to give them room. Forensic Tech Samantha Madsen entered to start her own job.
