Cup of Crime

Chapter 10 : We Meet Again

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Operator : 911, what's your emergency?

Caller : Hello, I'm on 7th Street in Ceasar Heights, Queens. There's a dead body in front of my cafe, 'Cup of Crime'.

Operator : Alright sir, may I have your name? Afterwards, I'll send someone over immediately.

Caller : My name's Howard Blake. Can you hurry up? I need to open soon.

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From the inside of the cafe, Howard hung up the phone and leaned against the locked glass door and stared at the bloodied corpse on the otherside. Was he surprised to find a dead body at his door? Yes. But was that going to stop him from opening his cafe? Definitely not. With a determined look, he unlocked the door and flipped over the open sign of his cafe.

Howard's first customer of the day was the ever familiar Jay who worked a couple buildings down. The gang member had been sheepishly rubbing his eyes as he made his way to the familiar cafe when he noticed the bloodied body in front of it. The scene suddenly jolted Jay awake and put the black man on high alert. Seeing the cafe owner who was intensely staring at the corpse, Jay hurriedly asked him.

"Did you kill someone? Do you need help cleaning up? I know a guy, want me to call him?"

"Oh calm down, I'm not the one who killed him. Because if it was me, nobody will ever find the body," Howard claimed.

"You're joking about the nobody will find the body part, right?"

Howard raised his brow. "What do you think?"

Howard pulled on the door and stepped aside to make way for the gang member to enter. Getting on the tip of his toes, Jay proceeded to carefully maneuver around the body and dive into the cafe and sat at the closest table to the door. The metallic scent of blood still lingered in his nose when the cafe owner came over to take his order.

"You want your regular?"

"Give me a couple minutes," Jay worked on controlling his gag reflex.

Next to come were the unit of patrol cars that blasted their blaring sirens and flashed their blinding red blue lights. In less than 10 minutes, five vehicles parked themselves on the side of the street where the body was. And coming out were the neatly dressed police officers 911 sent over.

Among them was a 6ft black haired man wearing a thick black leather jacket and an indigo scarf wrapped around his neck. From the way he walked and ordered the other officers around, Howard could immediately tell the man was the one in charge.

Roger Austin was your average homicide police detective. He had just clocked in for his shift when a call came informing him of a body being found in the neighbouring district. Though Ceasar Heights, also known as the 'Crime Zone' was famous for its high criminal activities, there had been little to no murder cases until that morning. So, the detective was surprised and suspicious when he got the call but nonetheless treated it as any other case and immediately set off with his team.

Standing in front of the dead body, Roger crouched down to take a closer look at the body. As the detective used his gloved hands to to turn the dead man's face to meet his, Roger gritted his teeth. The familiar face of one of his comrade struck the hearts of Roger and the officers around him. Recognizing the dead man as one of their own, the mood of everyone at the scene couldn't help but somber. Not wanting to stimulate his colleagues any more, Roger quickly instructed the people around him to work. Only when the body was sent to the forensic lab did Roger let every stop to mourn.

"Okay everyone!" I know you guys are upset about Kennedy but now's not the time to feel down. Now all of you follow me to question the people around, see if they saw or heard anything!"