A Dallas Suite

Chapter Thirteen

There was a crowd of people, including plenty of camera crews from local stations behind a barricade set around the parking garage. Dallas had its fair share of crime, but two murders in a wealthy area in the same day didn't happen very often. This would be front page news for days to come. Hopefully no more murders would be added to the papers before all was said and done.

I made my way to the top floor of the parking garage. It was completely empty, besides one shiny white Mercedes Benz surrounded by about 20 cops. There was a pool of blood around the back of the car and I could see a person inside the open trunk.

"Detective Madison, do you ever sleep? How are you always to these before I am? Also, what do we have?" I asked as I walked up to the car. I recognized a few of the faces around the vehicle. Hope was already working the scene by taking pictures of the area. I doubt she had even left the office.

"Well not much so far. We've positively identified him as Michael Caping and this is his car, but that's about as much as have. Looks like he was killed the same way."

"Yeah, it sure does," I agreed as I got closer to the car. Michael was practically folded in half to fit inside the trunk. His throat was slit, from one end to the other and he had multiple stab wounds in his torso. Exactly the same as Diggs. "Is this how he was found or has anyone moved the body?"

Hope grabbed the trunk and gently closed it. Michael's left arm was extended straight out, sticking passed the rear of the trunk so it wouldn't close all the way. "This is how he was found, besides opening the truck and ensuring he doesn't have a pulse, no one has touched the scene or the body."

"Who found him?"

"The janitor who cleans the garage at night. He's over there giving his statement right now."

I looked a few parking spaces down and saw an older white man speaking with a detective. He looked pretty shaken up and seemed to be struggling to speak. I couldn't blame him, dead bodies bother me too.

I've gotten used to it working around them so much, from this job and the amount of them I saw overseas. But they still bothered me. Movies and TV don't do it justice. A dead body in person is an unnatural thing to see. The lifeless, glazed over eyes staring into nothing. The pale skin. It wasn't an easy thing to look at, and Michael looked about as bad as a dead person could.

I glanced around the parking garage. It was a 24 hour garage, but this floor was deserted. Besides the $100k car, the dead body and the group of cops, it was empty. I saw on the ceiling there were cameras pointing to just about every area of the floor. "Have we checked with security yet for any footage from these cameras, Hope?"

"Yeah, cupcake, and there's no luck on those," Sergeant Moore said in his always friendly voice as he walked up to me and Hope. "I just got done with the owner. He didn't want to tell me, but he was apparently paid off by Jason Diggs years ago to have his security cameras disabled. He also closes this floor of the garage every night so that Jason's guests could park and be shuttled to the hotel here without being seen by the public. So once again, we have nothing."

"I would say Jason was a smart man, but if he didn't take all of these privacy measures then him and Michael probably wouldn't have been murdered where they were. I've already photographed everything here. If you don't need me Sarge, I'll see if I can find any cameras in the area that may have seen anyone entering," Hope said as she was already walking away from us.

"Get after it, Detective. Seeks, you and me are going to go down and talk to security at the hotel. Hopefully they'll be able to tell us more about who used that damned room. It had to be someone who knew about all of these security measures to know they could kill where they did and not be seen," he took a few steps then turned back to look at me. "Unless you want to stay here and stare at another dead body all night?"

"Negative Sarge, I'm coming with you."