The Murder Of 1998

Chapter Twenty-Two

(A/N) Finished with testing. During these couple of days my story has reached over 300 reads and I'm so happy! Thank you to all who read this story. It means a lot to me. Anyways, I won't babble any longer, please enjoy and make sure to vote and comment, it helps me out a lot :)

Nancy Davis looked up from the dead body she was examining to see who came into the morgue.

"Ah, detectives."

Walter put a hand up and smiled. "Hello, Nancy," He said as he slid his hand into his pockets. "We never got the report of the unidentified man who was the first one in the Gunshot Murders. Mind telling us what happened?"

Nancy tilted her head. "I thought I already gave it to you guys."

"Well, we don't have it," Walter stated. Seth looked over at the dead body on the table. The body of a woman. Her skin was pale and blue while there were stab wounds in her neck. It made Seth scrunch his face up in disgust.

"I gave it to you. Maybe you misplaced it."

Walter crossed his arms. "Or maybe you didn't give it to me at all."

Nancy raised a brow. "Detective Ottoson, are you calling me a liar?"

"Maybe."

Nancy rolled her eyes and took off her gloves, throwing it on the tray and walked into the lab. "You're lucky I keep copies." She looked through the files, trying to find the one regarding the unidentified man in the Gunshot Murder. "What the hell?"

"What's the matter?" Seth questioned.

"I–its not here," Nancy said, checking again. "I was sure that I put it in here."

"How sure are you?"

"Hundred and one percent sure." She sighed and slammed the drawer shut.

Walter could tell how genuine she was in believing that she truly did put the mans file inside the cabinet. He didn't question her memory.

"I know I put it in here. So that means someone took it." Nancy faceplamed herself in frustration. "Ugh!"

Walter pulled out his trusty red notepad and a pen, clicking it. "Was there anyone walking around who looked or acted suspicious?"

Nancy shook her head. She was frustrated. She was always organized with her work and now she felt like everything was out of place.

"Bastards."

"What about the other medical examiners, did they take it?"

"No of course not! They wouldn't do that."

Seth crossed his arms. "Well what do you remember?"

Nancy tapped her fingertips to her lips, thinking back to what she read in the file about the unknown man. "Well, he had a GSW in the center of his chest. He was a white male between the ages of thirty–five and fifty. His dental work indicated that he is from Europe, born and raised. He was found floating in a lake near Creekside Park, still alive but then died soon after his discovery. He had a scar on the right side of his face. Uh, that's all I can remember."

Walter nodded his head as he moved his pen over the pages of the small notepad. He wrote down all the details from Nancy's memory. "Thank you."

"What now?" She asked.

"Nothing we can do about the folder. We can try asking your co–workers but other than that we'll just have to make a new folder of the man. For now, we're gonna see how this man and Joe Robinson are connected."

Nancy placed a hand on her hip. "Aren't you guys investigating that woman's murder?"

Seth nodded. "Yea. But Robinson is connected to her. Walter thinks there's some shady shit going on with the LaBelle family and Joe might have known something."

"Hm, well good luck on that. If you need anything else just let me know. Meanwhile I'll be cutting bodies open and on the search for that folder." Nancy waved goodbye at them before walking back inside the morgue to finish her work. Walter looked at his partner and sighed. Seth was exauhsted from all the running around. He'd never worked a case this bizarre.

-x-

Richard looked out the window of his spacious apartment. Down below he saw all the busy cars driving by. The pedestrians weaved through the crowds, rushing to get to their destinations. He wondered if he were to fall out the window if the people down below would cushion his fall.

"Babe," Richard looked behind him to look at his girlfriend, Ashley Mindler. In her hand was a hot cup of tea. She held it out towards Richard and he took the cup after a moment of hesitation.

"Thanks," He whispered. He wasn't really in the mood for tea but he drank some of it anyways. It was warm and sweet like honey. "Nice."

"I put a bit of garlic, some lemon, and of course, honey." Ashley smiled at him. "All in the name of love."

Richard was grateful for a girl like Ashley. She was caring and always by Richards side. He smiled at her as she leaned in to give him a soft kiss.

"I love you,"

Richard looked down at the cup of tea in his hands. She made it just for him with all her love poured into it. He looked back up at Ashley.

"Love you too."

-x-

His eyes wondered over the paper as he read all the details. A GSW in the center of his chest. European man. Aged between thirty–five and fifty. He pulled out the picture of the man laying at the crime scene. The scar on his face was his way of branding him for betraying him.

He heard the whimpering behind him which brought him back to reality. He lifted his head up and looked over at at the girl that was restrained. The fire in her eyes burned bright, letting him know that she wasn't giving up life.

"Let me go!" She screamed. The tall man placed the folder of the unidentified man down onto the table in front of him. He had stolen it successfully last night from the lab, including the original file. The girl kept trying to free herself but there was no use. She was tightly bound the same way that the woman before her was. The man walked over to her and just stared down at her, the neatly designed mask covering his identity.

Blood dripped down her lip from the punch he delivered to her when she managed to rip off his mask. However, she didn't even get to see a glimpse of what he looked like. So even if she managed to escape, she'd have no way to identify him.

The man titled his head. He began to think of what he could do to the girl. He didn't want to cause too much harm to her. All he wanted was to understand.

"I just wanna go home. I won't tell anyone."

Understand why things happened the way they did.