The Blue & The Grey (Cupid & Psycho)

[kirinke]

Shannan smirked at the man. "Well, I expect our boss will be right interested to know about how hard it is for you to run a department here. He might make it easier for you. Then again. He might be in a bad mood when I hand it to him and he's got a worse temper than my buddy Ryan here." she looked at her partner. "Looks like we're on our way to the coroner's office. Hope they're more professional than these guys."

When they were well out of the cop shop she sighed. "We'll probably also need to go by where Dowling was murdered and go over the scene again. I have a feeling she was dumped there, but someone might have noticed someone out of place or acting odd." she shrugged.

 

[Barak]

"Yeah ma'am.. As it stands, ah figure we go see the coroner, then the crime scene. If that gives us nahthing, then ah guess where she worked and her apartment would be the next step."

 

[kirinke]

"And then we recomend a full investigation of that particular cop-shop to Internal Affairs. Something stinks in there and it isn't from the drunks in the cooler." Shannan said with a rather bloodthirsty grin. "That Sergeant McNulty strikes me as dirty, don'tcha think? He seemed rather too eager to boot us out and went closed mouthed on us about the Dowling case, which leads me to believe that he knows more than he lets on. I am very, very curious about that." she said with a particular gleam in her eyes, one that bespoke of high insurance premiums and lots of tums to whoever was in charge of the cleanup.

 

[Committed Hero]

ME Mark Kafesjian is tall and lanky, and enjoys the echoing sounds of his cowboy boots on the tiled floor of the coroner's office. You would expect someone who works here to have simple ways to keep himself company.

"We released the body to her mother, who drove up from Bakersfield. She left us a picture - not a bad looking gal. We had to make her with fingerprints since the killer performed some post mortem mutilation. That would indicate to me some sort of obsession with her identity, but for the life of me I don't know why - she's not a celebrity."

The picture shows a shy, pretty blonde. The autopsy pictures are less appealing.

"Not much in the way of forensic evidence. I think the killer had the corpse around for a few days, and may have tried to clean up. A few fibers, no useful prints - not much to proceed on.

I can confidently say she was suffocated, but there was no sign of struggle. My guess would be a heavy pillow, perhaps after she had already gone to sleep, so she had no real way to fight back. That with the mutilation might indicate that there was some kind of serious relationship between her and her killer. While there are no signs of sexual assault, we did find evidence that the murder may have been post coital. He - well, someone she was with that night - used a Trojan.

The post mortem wounds were probably a reaction to the death; maybe the killer feeling remorse as he realizes what he's done. I've read about similar cases where the victim's identity influences the perp's pathology. It usually takes an external stimulus - something that profoundly affects the identity obsession - to convince him to finally dump the body."

 

[kirinke]

"Did you do a toxicology on her? She may have been drugged." she looked thoughtful. "Do you have a current address on the mother? That would be useful. And it may not have been a guy with a trojan." she coughed, looking embaressed. "Toys or err.." she shrugged.

 

[Committed Hero]

"Yeah, here's the report."

With a quick glance, it looks thorough enough. No evidence of drugs or alcohol.

 

[kirinke]

"There are other ways of making a person unconscious. Certain pressure points etc." Shannan shook her head. "I'm no expert on it, but Sensei said with a master, it's possible." she looked at both reports again. "So, somebody close to her, or someone who thinks they're close to her. Let's talk to her coworkers, see if they have any valuable info. Then take a trip to Bakersfield to visit her mother. Got an address my friend?" she asked the coroner.

 

[Barak]

Mac had looked at Shannan unbelievingly, then bursted out with a quick laugh.

"Oh hell no we don't make a report, ma'am. Ya got to understand right now, we be the Feds. All local copshops will treat us this way, at first. We go to IA with that, it's chickensh.. crap. We will build a file though, and eventually, they keep acting like hicks, they'll get it."

At the ME office, he listened to his partner's chat with the ME, looked at the pictures, then shook his head.

"Now ya listen to me, you hack excuse for a doctor o' medicine, why in the holy nine hells was none of that in the LAPD copfile? Nuttin' about mutilation, nuttin' about type o' strangulation.. You just running a scam on da taxpayers, eh? No report sent, nuttin' that would flag it up there they got a psycho on da run?"

 

[kirinke]

Shannan grinned at Ryan's outburst.Bad cop... Definantly. she thought, immediately figuring out his tact. She'd be the sweet to his sour. "Or is this thing so normal around here that you don't bother to send it up anymore?" Shannan asked knowingly. "And for that matter, do you have any vic's with similar MO's?"

 

[Committed Hero]

"I don't know anything about how Metro runs things. They sent someone down here to look a my report, but honestly, you have given it more thought than them. I will look in the files for similar cases, but I don't recall anything resembling this murder. Give me your numbers down at the Bureau."

Next steps?