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A knock on glass, and then the creak of an opening door. “M’am?”
“Yes, come in. What is it?”
“Something you need to see. A new case."
"... yes?"
Hesitating. "Sorry, m'am. It's, uh. It's a weird one." Pause. "Triple homicide and a suicide."
"... why don't you have a seat, Baker."
"Oh-- I don't need--"
"You don't need to be standing to deliver a report. And besides, it'll be easier for both of us to hear each other. And you can drink that coffee before you drop it."
"Right," relieved. "Thank you." A chair scrapes back over thin carpet. The folder rustles as its set onto the police chief's desk.
"So. Triple homicide and a suicide."
"Yes." Inhaled, more determined.
"The call came in late two nights ago from the old campus that’s been closed for renovations. Three men and one woman, all in their early to mid twenties, although two didn’t have any ID on them. One man suffered blunt force trauma to the head. A chunk of brick was found nearby covered with blood. Another was shot in the abdomen and bled out. The woman died from a self-inflicted bullet to the head.”
“But you said there were four victims?”
“That's where it gets strange.”
“Well, please explain.”
“Yes m'am. It looks like there was some kind of cult influence on the crime."
(Muffled, "Oh, Lord.")
"Two masks were found at the scene, both with some amount of blood on them, and there was a placard referencing an ‘ark’ in the basement of the building when the officers searched. The room was covered with some sort of occult symbol, as well, that'd been drawn or painted or-- um, scratched into the walls. There was also recording equipment found— two handheld video cameras. One was still running on the floor on the scene when the ambulance arrived, and one with a dead battery was beside one of the male victims.
The live camera had been running for a long time. Belhassen's trying to convert it to a video now, and we have the camcorder in the evidence locker. The officers were able to watch it once they'd secured the scene.
Most of the useful footage was of the crime itself. It appears that the fourth victim was another man who'd been tied to a chair but got free somehow. The woman had the gun— she was the one who’d been holding the running camera— but he’d pushed her over and grabbed it himself, then shot the first male victim.
The woman hit the gun out of his hand, and he retaliated, which knocked the camera to the ground. When it landed she couldn’t be seen, but the two male victims were still in the shot— the fourth victim dived for a brick, just as the second had a coughing fit strong enough to double him over.
The fourth victim wrestled the other male victim to the ground and choked him before attacking his head. He, um. He didn't hesitate at all.
When he was done he stood up and turned toward the female victim, based on where we last saw her. But he was shot before he could advance. The origin of the bullet is unclear before the first victim crawls into the shot. He was holding a hand to his abdomen. He kept crawling toward the other male victim, the one who got strangled-- the sound quality is not great, but we think he was saying 'J'. Maybe the start of a name-- we're not sure yet.
Then there’s a-- a sort of shadow at the upper corner of the frame, and after that the tape bursts into static until a couple minutes before it runs out." Slightly shaky exhale. "Sorry, m'am."
"It's understandable. Hell of a first case you walked into." Pause. "Do you need a second?"
"Ha. I guess." A bit more composed, "No, thank you. Um. Belhassen said that the tape was probably damaged when the camcorder fell, which would account for some of the glitching.”
“I see. … so, this fourth victim was the one who killed the first two.”
“Yes, m’am.”
“Did the shot the fourth victim suffer look to be fatal?”
“It’s hard to tell. He didn’t immediately collapse. The footage was blurring and breaking up badly at that point. And, as I said, there were only three bodies found, and although there was enough blood for a fourth person to have bled out there were no drag marks or blood droplets anywhere else on the floor to suggest one had been moved. It was like he just vanished.”
“Well, corpses don't usually vanish.”
“I know, m’am. The officers on-duty haven't found another body in the building, yet.”
A low sigh. “Were there any drugs in the victims’ systems?”
“A pill bottle full of seizure medication was found on the first male victim’s pocket. He and the female victim both had traces of it in their blood. It isn’t known to be a stimulant or induce a high."
"Hm."
But there’s still more, m’am. The three victims we found... they all had lesions on their brains that were discovered in autopsy.”
“Lesions?”
“Yes.”
“Are you telling me I have to call Disease Control?”
“Well-- Bannatyne thinks they aren’t caused by disease, they look more like scars."
"Scars. On the brain."
"Yes, m'am. The woman had them more heavily than the other two, although it was a close call. The first male victim’s lesions looked to be the oldest. The second male victim’s were the most fresh. Bannatyne-- as I said, she seems certain that it's not a symptom of a disease. She isn’t sure what caused them, though. Her first thought was childhood surgeries, maybe, except-- there weren’t marks on their scalp to support that. She’s in conference with some of her colleagues at the moment, we'll have a full report as soon as we can.”
“Lord.” A short pause. “And you still look like you have more to say. What else?”
“… one of the men had ligature marks on his wrists and ankles, and the woman had bruises all over her body as if she’d been bodily tossed around. Like a rag doll.”
Grim. “Signs of sexual assault?”
“None on either of them. But the woman's ribs looked like they’d been broken several times, and-- and there was a spinal mark on the x-ray that suggested the same. Bannatyne said that it wouldn’t have been compatible with survival in most people, but the healing— it suggested they were years old.”
“Wait."
"M'am?"
"You said she committed suicide? These injuries didn't affect her before?”
“Yes. It-- it doesn’t seem possible. But she, the female victim, she called the whole thing in, m’am. She left the line open as she, as she shot herself, and the angle of blood at the scene was of a standing person. The gun was found in her hand. Plus the footage found at the scene— there isn’t anything clear until the end of the tape, but the woman’s shoes are visible. You can hear her end of the 9-1-1 call, then the gunshot, and she collapses.”
“Were the other two dead by that time? No one else could have moved the body?”
“They were visible in the background, neither of them moving. The shot stays the same until the tape runs out twenty minutes later. No one else comes into or out of the frame.”
A long silence. In the background, muffled by thin walls, phones ring; intermittently there’s the sound of raised voices.
“Do we have any leads?”
“Nothing that actually helps us, so far, m’am. We have the names of two of the male victims— one of them lives in the area, we’re trying to find out more about him, but it's like no one's heard from him in years. The other’s last listed address was an apartment that burned down two years ago. But we have no idea who the female victim was, or the first male victim, or the motive for any of this. Belhassen hoped that the second camera would help but she says so far its footage is so heavily distorted it’s difficult to see or hear anything.”
“What about the woman's call to Emergency?”
“Just the address of the college itself, and then she said ‘It’s done’.”
“ ‘It’s done’.”
“Yes, m’am.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“… thank you for your report, Baker. Tell everyone I’m going to request federal support. We’ll need all the help we can get with this.”
“Right away, m'am.” A scrape of the chair across the thin carpet, and a couple seconds later the door clicks shut again.