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Post by Agent Kafka on Nov 11, 2003 21:03:33 GMT -5
Quentin tried to catch his breath while at the same time removing the image of the body from his head. He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes again and saw Questor looking at him intently and Ferri realized that he had stood there for a few seconds. "Ask!", Questor said, and that helped bring Quentin back to real life.
"Were... the bodies all found in the same place?", Quentin finally muttered. "No, they were dispersed in the entire area of the bayous. It took the Sheriff's men quite some time to fish them out, with the aligators and all", came the reply, a little less harsh this time. "Why were they there?", Quentin asked and seeing the look on Questor's face quickly added, "I mean, is there any particular significance to the area?". "Well, no. I mean, the alligators seem like a pretty good reason, but otherwise, no". Questor now seemed less tense and started walking towards the elevator. Quentin tried to catch up.
"What about fingerprints?", Quentin asked. "None. No footprints either. The place was a mess. And I don't think that the Sheriff's department is much of a forensics specialist. They probably messed the whole thing when they got there".
The two men entered the elevator and the door closed. Quentin asked: "What about past murders? Has there even been anything similar?". Questor took a deep breath of air, growing impatient, "Look, I don't know. No, I haven't heard anything. Why don't you go do some research on the case? I have to do some work myself. We'll meet in the office in a couple of hours". Quentin nodded. The elevator's door opened and Questor added, while walking towards his office, "Why don't you talk to the Sheriff? They would know more", his voice growing distant.
Quentin barely managed to avoid the elevator's door closing on his face while he stood absent-minded looking in space.
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sTango
Agent SAN: 85
Hearing the Call of Cthulhu since 1986
Posts: 27
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Post by sTango on Nov 13, 2003 9:46:32 GMT -5
Sheriff Richarde Amanporte was tired. His ass hurt from those goddamn hemorrhoids and the remnants of the boil seasoning from last nights dinner.
He shifted in his chair, wincing slightly and looked out the window. The sunlight and thin breeze played dapple games with the leaves in the parking lot of the department.
He didn’t think about the fact that his window had a basic view, while those of the officers office area looked out over the water. It wasn’t remarkable to him that he delayed the departments moving into the offices by a month, so that the layout of the office area could be changed to give his boys the best possible view. These things, among many others were the reason why he was by far the most admired man in the department. He gave everything he had to his boys, and expected the same from them.
“Give me the old days, momma” He said to himself, a familiar mantra he used to comfort himself. He remembered the patrol days, picking up drunks. Fighting with belligerents, wife beaters, husband beaters.
He cracked a small smile, that was slowly dissolved by a tide of sadness.
Scattered on his desk were the files of the victims of the biggest crimminal story to hit his parrish ever. If he walked outside and looked out of the glass doors, to the far side of the parking lot he would see three news trucks from CNN, Fox and a local NBC affiliate. They had been here for two days, waiting for anything, any tidbit of information to calm the ninety-thousand plus inhabitants of this edgewater place.
He knew he was over his head on this one. This wasn’t Fred Johnstone axing his wife because he found her getting f**ked with a piece of andouille by the widow living next door. A case that even with the sheer brutality of the crime, still made him chuckle a little bit for the comical scene that must have greeted the man when he came home from work.
This was hard, the apparent randomness of the victims, the insane method of execution. This was gonna be one tough nut to crack. Payroll was up. Keeping and extra fifty bodies on patrol at all times was draining the manpower budget quickly, and threatening to eat up into the next fiscal years as well.
The feds were now involved. A lot of his men were skeptical of this development, but the sheriff had felt that from the beginning that this case was gonna need all the help it could get.
It was growing quickly. This guy was a quick worker, which was about the only postitive development he could think of. He knew that the more vitcims the a**hole took in a shorter period of time meant that someone was bound to see or hear something.
“Goddamn, I need to go fishin’” he sighed to himself, lighting a cigarette. He looked at the clock on his desk. The FBI man should be here soon, he thought.
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Post by Rick T.Nash on Jan 13, 2004 9:15:16 GMT -5
Alan stepped inside his patrol car and grabbed the mike of the radio. He pressed the switch several times before speaking. "Central, Zebra 3 back in car, heading back for the office. Over." "Rodger that." Answered a nasal female voice which belonged to Ann-Mary Guerrier, coordinator. "Erm... Alan?" She continued, "What were the Clarsons up to this time?" "Well, Buster got back home a little bit too drunk to Martha's taste... She simply annoyed him to the point he slapped her. They were both calmed down when I got here." "I see," she said almost giggling. "Over." Alan hung back the mike and turned the ignition key.
"He slapped her," Alan thought grinning. What an under-statement! Buster Clarson had beaten up his wife, punched her several time in the face and kicked her in the belly when she had fallen on the floor. Alan had spent quite a long time convincing Martha not to lodge a complaint against her husband. And then spent a few minutes talking to Buster, making sure Buster would kill Martha the next time he will get drunk. Alan grinned again. The thought of allowing Buster to take The Test came to his mind. He dismissed it, Buster was not worthy. He turned on the radio, tuned it on KNAC. The guitar solo of 'I'm Broken' by the Texan Metal band Pantera filled the car. Alan drove back to the Sheriff's office, strumming on the wheel.
He was a block away from the building when he saw the CNN van on the parking lot. Alan turned left and stopped his car. He watched as the news people were recording their evening news intervention. It was not the right time to enter the parking if he wanted to avoid the media. He simply waited until they were packing their gear, started the car again, made a forbidden U-turn and drove to the parking.
Entering the one story building, Alan nodded to Ann-Mary who was sitting behind the reception desk. He was about to walk to his 'office', nothing more than a cubicle with waist-height partitions on three sides, when he saw that a man in a dark business suit was talking to the Sheriff in his office. Alan took a few steps towards the reception desk and leaning on the desk whispered to Ann-Mary. "Who's talking with the boss?" "He's FBI. He's supposed to take over on the Guillotin case" Alan frowned; he hated that nickname given to him by some half-wit. He suddenly realized that Ann-Mary was staring at him with a puzzled look on her face. He smiled, "Hope I won't have to baby-sit the Yankee!" "Sure understand you", she said, giggling.
Alan walked to his desk and sat down, pretending to write his report while thinking. The FBI was on the case now. He would have to be even more cautious...
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Post by Agent Kafka on Jan 27, 2004 17:47:56 GMT -5
Quentin took another sip of his coffee and looked outside the window. The meeting with the sheriff was a lot less hard than he thought it would be. In FBI basic training, whole chapters of textbooks are devoted to such encounters, and truth is that in the past he has had some pretty rough experiences when it came to dealing with the police. But Sheriff Amanporte was more than eager to share his information with him, even when that meant going through backlogs and filed reports in order to give Quentin the exact information.
The sheriff closed the tightly-packed closet holding an envelope in his hand. "These are the reports that you asked for. I'll have Ann-Mary make a copy for you", he said.
Quentin looked at the envelope and opened it. He found a pack of neatly written pages. It seems that the sheriff ran a tight ship. "When did you make the connection between the first victim and the other five? There was a period of one month between the times that they were discovered, right?", asked Quentin.
"Correct. We are still not sure about the connection. In fact, we considered the first one an isolated event until after the autopsies came, which proved that during the one-month period the killings were still taking place", answered the sheriff who momentarily looked away at the corridor and nodded. Quentin turned around and saw a man walking by. "That's my deputy, Alan. I have him working overtime with this case, which is pretty much what everybody's doing in this department. And it seems we're still miles away from finding the killer". The sheriff sighed and fiddled with some papers.
"Sheriff, the FBi is going to do what it takes to help you. We have a lot of experience with such cases and we're gonna put it to good use". Quentin glanced at the reports in the envelope and continued: "Did you have forensics called in when the first body was discovered? We have no report for that at the bureau."
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sTango
Agent SAN: 85
Hearing the Call of Cthulhu since 1986
Posts: 27
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Post by sTango on Jan 28, 2004 14:49:55 GMT -5
The sheriff looked intently at the Agent seated across the desk from him.
“Yes we called Forensics in. We had a liaison from the State boys over within three hours.” He shifted in his seat, “The report is inside the file I gave you. “
Thumbing through the documents, Quentin said, “Okay, I see it. Just give me a moment here if you don’t mind.”
He concentrated for a full minute, digesting the contents of the pages, and then looked up at the Sheriff.
“Doesn’t seem to be much information here on the scene the body was found in. Were there problems in securing the site?”
The sheriff smiled an easy smile, expecting this line of questioning.
“It’s hard to secure a crime scene that is mostly underwater, but my boys did the best they could.” Amanporte blew smoke out from between his teeth.
“Hold on a sec,” He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and dialed three quick numbers on the phone. The speaker buzzed to life and then the Sheriff spoke, “Deputy Warwick, can you stop on by my office when you get a sec?”
“Sure thing, Sheriff” came the reply from the speaker.
Looking at the agent, “Warrick was one of the deputies who responded to the first call and helped secure the scene. He’s been heavily involved, like the rest of us in all aspects of the case.”
“Great” said Quentin, watching through the glass as the large man the Sheriff had pointed out earlier get up and begin walking towards the door. He glanced back down to the papers in his hand just as he thought he noticed a shadow pass over the Deputy’s face. Looking back up quickly, he saw the man reaching his hand to the doorknob with an easy expression on his face.
“Sit down Alan” The sheriff said calmly, “This is Special Agent Ferri, here from the FBI to help us with the case. But I’m sure the rumor mill out there,” he nodded towards the office area “has already informed you of that” he remarked, smiling.
“Sure has Sheriff.” Alan smiled at the sheriff, and shook hands with the Agent, sitting himself down next to Quentin.
“What can I help you with, Agent Ferri?” Alan asked. His mind was a trap. But his stomach was roiling.
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Post by Rick T.Nash on Feb 19, 2004 8:24:39 GMT -5
Alan felt really uneasy when the Sheriff asked him to come in his office, he somehow feared that the FBI guy would guess the truth at first glance... He swept that idea aside. It was just another cop after all, being with the FBI never granted anyone a sixth sense.
As soon as he stepped in the office, Alan somehow felt relieved, the FBI man looked more like an insurance representative than like a member of the inquisition. He smiled at the thought. The man, called Ferri the sheriff said, apparently thought this smile was a welcoming one. If he could have guessed! This brought another smile to Alan's face. "Be careful what you say, don't be over-confident." said a voice in Alan's head that was not his own. It brought back the uneasy feeling.
"What can I help you with, Agent Ferri?" he said, fearing his voice would reveal his anxiety. The FBI agent didn't answer immediately, he started shuffling through the files instead.
Waiting for an answer, Alan watched as the inquiring blue eyes of the agent were shifting through the pages. He felt more and more impatient, he didn't like that guy, not at all! The more he stayed there waiting, the more he was sure this guy meant troubles.
Ferri was finally about to answer, his finger pointing on a page in the report, when the phone rang. The sheriff picked it up and started to say "I told you I didn't want to be bothered..." but he left his sentence unfinished, listening to Ann-Mary. "It's for you," he finally said, handing the phone to Ferri, "it's someone from your forensic lab."
Ferri put the files aside and took the phone. "Ferri" he said, apparently amazed to receive a phone call here. "Hello again agent," answered the voice of Mickael Luder, "I've got some news for you..."
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Post by Cannibal Monkey on May 16, 2004 8:04:24 GMT -5
Mike wiped his ashen face with a cloth. When he'd first joined, he'd been able to juggle the workload. Hell, up until earlier he'd thought he could. But now he saw the point of all this. There was none. He could help put away one, two, ten, twenty criminals, but more just kept turning up. Wouldn't it just be better to leave them... let them take each other out... The damn sickos...
Perhaps it was this latest case. It was jading him. Nothing he'd looked at before seemed so bad any more. He'd better tell the team. Once this case was over, he could throw it all in. Yeah. Just this one more case.
He picked up the phone. Dialled the number. Yes he'd hold.
"Ferri." was the response. Hearing a friendly voice put him back at ease.
"Hello again agent," he said. "I've got some news for you."
Mike found himself gabbling out the details now, as if they'd been barely contained and were now flooding from him, desperate to be shared. He told of how he'd had time to do the in depth testing now. Of the facts it had revealed. How the woman's blood was awash with choloroform, probably used as a restraint. How her last meal had been human flesh - unidentified human flesh - that had been kept frozen. He spoke about the oil under the nails and in the stomach, about how it was normal crude oil that had been mixed with something, some unknown polycyclic carbonate chemical. He ended his spiel with the fact that death was due to heart failure, brought on by a heart attack.
Without waiting for a reply, he hung up and sat down heavily. Just this last case.
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Post by Rick T.Nash on Jun 16, 2004 18:11:19 GMT -5
Alan listened hard, trying to overhear what the man from the FBI lab was telling, but he could only hear a constant hum coming from the phone's speaker. Ferri listened silently, only aknowledging to the information given to him with the same onomatopoeias people have been using since the telephone was invented.
Alan's mind quickly drifted away from this room, to picture the raped body still lying at the bottom of the well in his backyard. He would have some work to do tonite before getting some rest. He'd have to make room in the freezer too, it was barely large enough to contain a second body...
Alan was poundering upon the possibility of feeding the alligators with whatever he could not stack into the freezer when Ferri's voice took him out of his reverie.
"What do you mean by 'they died from a heart attack'?" Ferri said before listening again. "No apparent cause? But what could be the cause of heart failure? Chemicals?" The voice at the other end of the line came stronger, it seemed feeri had pissed the guy. Alan thought he understood a word of the answer out of the indistinct buzzing... "... fear..."
He felt the corner of his lips moving up, but immediately refrained from smiling. Ferri was looking straight at him, had he seen his reaction? No, it didn't seem so.
Ferri hung the phone back and just stood there, silent, his hands massageing his temples. Something on Ferri's face had changed, like if he had just realized this case was not going to be an easy one, was the case of his life...
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