Thread: Monster [ Burke x Arianna  ]

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, June 14th, a Tuesday. Bay City was blessed with bright blue skies, dotted with white cumulus clouds puffy enough to carry off the guise of a nice day if viewed through a window. Upon stepping outside, however, one found the world uncomfortably humid, the breeze just short of pleasant on this eighty-seven degree day. Asphalt cooked yellow paint along the city's curling streets - even passers-by in air-conditioned cars looked uncomfortable. A city baked while creatures hid in shady places everywhere. Her telephone spoke to her grimly It's me. Officer Groot was counting on the depth and seriousness of his voice to strike a chord of recognition in the younger woman. I've got something for you. He wouldn't elaborate, gave an address and the simple instruction, Hurry. Even a man so gruff as Groot was rarely as unpleasant or crass as this, but she'd never seen him on duty, only at formal functions, and men in his position do have a tendency to compartmentalize. Detective Groot stood like a mountain on the sidewalk. He was six foot two, white hair with a bristly mustache to match, broad of shoulder and thick with flesh. He had a protruding stomach, permanent at this stage in his life, and the long fingers on his wide hands were thick with callous and scarred. He had an electricity about him, the way his eyes flickered when he looked at you, and the way he shifted his weight while he spoke gave him away as unsure about something. For someone so still and solid, he certainly did squirm, at least inside. His brown work pants were creased and formal, his white pinsripe button-down collared shirt thin against the tee-shirt beneath it, a matching blazer flat and folded over his arm with shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow. A long black tie clipped onto his dress shirt, which necessitated it be closed, and he sweat, waiting for the journalist that would arrive and offer at least something to do. Until she came, he'd be standing roadside, unable to leave with nothing to do. He was tense and glad for the break, sickening images flashing in Groot's mind he knew he'd be seeing forever. He was surrounded by police officers silently counting their blessings that the reporters had't come knocking quite yet, as they always did whenever it happened out this way, however new the atrocity. Uniformed men stood in groups and agreed on the exact times and places events took place, sure to check that one-another's notebooks matched times. One such, the searching officer, clearly a new recruit, avidly guarded a wide, ugly, secured suitcase filled with individually bagged evidential items, the case itself sitting open in the back of a cruiser awaiting approval from the forensic team. Younger uniformed officers are typically shackled with the immense responsibility of said duty, convinced utterly of its importance and left to monitor the milk cart on their lonesome. The older men couldn't or wouldn't stomach the indignity of being relieved by duty scientists. He was six feet tall, visibly strong, if a little wide-eyed. Short brown hair was cut short around avid green eyes, a strong jaw and chin with prominent cheek bones, Russian in descent. You could tell from his look he was the type of cop who fears serious conflict enough that he feels the need to at least be able to compete physically. That goes away over the years, and the fittest cops tend to have the most to prove. Good looking, smart, he made up for lack of experience with sheer investment. He would stand there until relieved, and stood beside the car parked sideways across the driveway of a house in disarray. The front yard and sidewalk of 1824 Riverside Terrace were surrounded with yellow caution tape and policemen fussing about in the grass lawn wearing white one-piece coveralls and yellow gloves with suction-cup face-masks, essentially combing the yard for anything worth note. Then they'd drag it to be sure with a thin, long rake and check every cigarette butt and shred of clothing they found. The walkway was keenly picked over and viewed in different light settings, but deemed clear. The tape was not taken down, however, and there were pockets of officers standing in the way of anyone getting in. Scientists in their field walked along the house's hedgeline toward the back-gate, moving through a fenceline into the backyard and up into the house's side entrance. Once in the dining room they continued to the living room and kitchen, assessing the quality of care the forensic team dedicated to overturning the scene of the crime and contributing to the team however they were meant to. Bulky, out-of-place garbage bags sat in the side-entrance doorway, the refuse and packaging generated by the investigative team set aside while the house garbage was picked over cleanly. The kitchen had been checked, searched over and the floor tarped, the contents of various drawers emptied and organized cleanly by men in stark white uniforms reminiscent of the stereotypical hazmat suits radiation decontamination teams might wear. So far the material evidence was looking thin. A little black mark on a windowsill of the living room, somehow overlooked, connected to a cigarette of very specific design and pattern. Discarded, it had rolled under the blinds that sat bunched in either side of the window, and hid from the exploratory team's gaze as best it could. Those blinds smelled faintly of cigarettes. A couch faced a television set diagonally, backing into a corner of the room. Behind that couch was a bloody mess, obscured by the couch, ruining the carpet forever in that corner typically reserved for shoving piles of books by its former user. Across that room in the connected kitchen, a window was broken, and blood streaked in one specific quadrant of the drywall and framing, specifically the middle left. These areas are currently occupied with CSI and can be elaborated on if investigated further. Everything else was as it should be, nothing stolen, nothing disturbed. Besides the pool of a person behind the couch there were no signs of a struggle. Untouched, a television played a sports channel, the techs not permitted to inspect the household appliances and computers until all the existing matter was collected and cataloged. The place was defly silent but for the shuffle of footsteps and the filtration of masks. They were close to closing up shop and releasing the crime scene, the First Officer completing his list of objectives and clearing protocol one step at a time, his control of the locked-down scene total. People exchanged glances and muttered to one another about what a sad day it was and make tasteless humor out of desperation to cope. They reverted back to a boyish state with a head-shaking incredulous expression mixed with bouts of hushed sniggles and half-whispered jokes. All of them, waiting, another awful day at the office.