Legacy of the Wolf

Crash

A CSI had already processed the scene when Barnes arrived, nearly an hour after Sam called for homicide. Once the shock wore off, the detective did a walkthrough of the scene. Another uniformed officer stayed by the vehicle while Sam guarded the body. Not long after Barnes showed up, the Blackrock Coroner, Stacy Getz, arrived.

"Abe Froman," Detective Barnes said. "Same name the vehicle's registered under."

He was standing to the left of the hanging corpse, wearing latex gloves, viewing the driver's license he had removed from the victim's wallet, which he had found in the left pants pocket.

Stacy had pulled the victim's jacket aside, pulled the shirt up, and made an incision in the upper right portion of the man's torso. She was now measuring the liver temperature with a thermometer she had inserted into the cut.

Barnes said "I'm gonna go out on a limb here... ha! I didn't even plan that." He smiled and shook his head at his own cleverness. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this license is a fake."

"Why?" Sam asked.

"Didn't you ever see Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago?"

Sam answered with a blank stare. Barnes sighed heavily.

Stacy removed the thermometer from the man's liver and said "he's no longer in rigor. Judging by liver temp and lividity I'd estimate time of death at thirty to forty hours ago."

One of the first thoughts that had crossed Sam's mind was that this latest killing might be the work of Kronin. If the murder happened some time after Sam shot Raggedy Man last night... that would be cause to think Kronin survived. But the coroner was putting this homicide at sometime the night before.

Maybe Raggedy Man really was gone. Maybe Kronin had killed this man but now maybe she ensured he would never hurt anyone ever again. If Raggedy Man had committed this murder, he hadn't left a message for Sam like he did with the Eclipse Killing. Unlike that homicide, it didn't seem like this one had been meant for Sam specifically.

Barnes was staring up at the corpse. "Whatever happened, this guy was up to no good," he said. "Fake ID, out here in the middle of nowhere, middle of the night..."

"I saw another set of tire tracks," Sam said.

"Yep. Ol' Abe here met with somebody. Conducted some kind of shady business outta the trunk of that vehicle. We'll get a cast of the second set of wheel tracks." He looked up at the corpse.

"Man if the press gets hold of this they're gonna have a field day. Oh, by the way I spoke to that mechanic, Elias, this morning."

Sam's heart quickened. "Oh?"

"Yeah. No alibi for the night of the Rest-In. And remember that silver bullet? The cross?"

"Yeah."

"The guy's got religious tattoos all over him."

Despite the cool air, Sam felt heat rising. "Lot of Christians in Blackrock."

"True. Not enough to bring him in, yet. But if he's part of all this..." Barnes passed by Sam, putting "Abe Froman's" wallet in an evidence bag.

"I'm gonna' find out."

Sam had spent most of her day at the murder scene and still had paperwork to fill out before her shift ended.

Driving back into the town proper on her way to the station, she spotted two vehicles involved in a minor fender-bender on Elm Street. The drivers were outside their cars, waving their arms about, engaged in a heated exchange. One of them, a heavyset woman, was on her phone. She seemed the most aggressive out of the two. The other motorist, a thin man with glasses, was red-faced but didn't strike Sam as a threat.