Death At Your Doorstep

Chapter 1 - Take a Hint, Detective

"Brewster! Those damn files better be on my desk Monday morning!"

"Yeah, yeah." I don't turn around, not really wanting to see the Chief's usual ugly face, now most likely, even uglier.

I push the glass door at the end of the hallway that leads me to the streets. Finally Friday. It didn't come fast enough. Especially when you spent the whole week on your ass, behind a desk, filling up stupid reports.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of how important they are, but a whole week? Come on! I suspect the Chief seriously got off on that one. The grin he was wearing when he read how I fucked up on a report last week, was disturbing to say the least.

Okay, so, I made a mistake. I'm human and sadly it happens. Nobody was in any danger but me and it ended before they could even blink. He called all the shit he made me write this week, "Prevention". What am I? Fucking 5 years old? I didn't know what the hell he was talking about but fuck me if I don't know it now.

There's no way I'm rushing in a crime scene alone without backup ever again.

So what if it takes 15 minutes for them to get there and the suspect has time to shave before we get in. It's "Protocol", always has been.

Well then, it's about time someone freaking change it.

It's kind of windy outside being in early September, but not too cold yet. The days are already shrinking and I don't really find the need to linger in nature. Not my thing.

I light up a smoke, taking the alley down the street. Can you believe this is the fastest way to get to my damn car? You think the freaking police would have their own parking. But nooo, not here.

I pass a few homeless punks sleeping against the wall on the way without paying too much attention to any of them. There's a guy talking to an older one in hushed voices near a staircase in front of me. From the way the smaller one is pressing close to him, there's no mistaking what he does for a living.

I don't really care as long as they're not making trouble. Who you decide to sleep with is your fucking business.

Our eyes meet briefly above the man's left shoulder when I walk besides them.

He's just a goddamn kid!

We really do live in a shitty world. I consider briefly taking him in and calling social services but I know better. And anyway I can bet that's exactly where the kid comes from. If he'd rather sell his ass to half the planet than be safe and warm in a nice house with nice people, then there's not much I can do.

The ride to the...modest house where I live is a short one thankfully. Okay so let's not kid ourselves, it's fukcing crappy. It looks like a damn scrap metal shack with a backyard that's easy two if not three times it sizes.

I don't know who said cops were rich but believe me, he's a fucking liar.

But while I'm not poor, I'm really far from well off. Though I admit I could have a better house than this with the money I got. I just don't see the point. It's just me, alone here, I don't need the two stories high house with the white picket fence. My roof doesn't leek when it rains and I'm not in danger of dying frozen in the winter. Although it does get a bit cold since the heating ain't so good in this old thing. Nothing a few thick blankets can't fix. My car is seriously banged up too, but so far it still works (somewhat) so why change it?

Shitty car, crappy house and all of that in an equally seedy neighbourhood.

I wasn't raised in wool and silk, this suits me just fine. And since being robbed isn't really a problem, considering most people around know I'm a cop, I don't see where the problem is. Most houses look like mine or not too far anyway. There's a few trailer houses in the dead end in front of me but so what? It's like camping all year.

All in all, it's nothing to impress the ladies. Any lady, really. Not that it's bothering me much anyway. Though I admit that in itself should be worrying. I usually just shrug it off as having fucked it out of my system in my younger years.

First it was the hormone high in high school. I was hard up at least 5-6 times a day. I sat down, I was hard, I got up, I was hard, there was a draft, I got hard again for no reason at all. Plus, since I've always been pretty tall and good looking, in a rough-dangerous kinda way I guess, add the fact that I sometimes did sports so I was popular enough, you got one really happy teen.

By college my sex drive was well into overdrive. And well, you know how's college. Tell me a day there isn't a party going on.

Then comes Uni. My mother insisted I went even though I didn't need to. She said it might come in handy later. I think she was just really hoping I'd change my mind about being a cop but I still took her advice. I majored psychology, figured it couldn't hurt.

After going through college and now the university, I was getting tired I guess of all the mindless flings and frankly I just didn't have the time. So I started dating, really dating, a bit more. Had a few girlfriends and tried doing the whole relationship thing. It was fine at first and I liked them well enough but I never loved any of them.

Not long after that came the war, so being a good citizen, I went. Lasted almost three years. Three years with nothing but a bunch of dirty guys. I meet some people there that are always gonna be my buddies. Going through stuff like that, bring people real tight together. They said I showed excellent leadership skills, I don't know but I guess that's why the guys were always ready to follow me whatever happened. So they promoted me real quick and when it was all over and I came back, they said it would look good on my resumé. It did.

Now here I am, Great Detective Jack Brewster, of the middle-of-nowhere; Age: 32; Libido? Sure. Of a fifty years old turtle. Which is kind of embarrasing really. I'm not even in my forties yet but work is pretty much the only thing I think about these days. Which is also the only good thing in my life I have to show for. That's probably why the Chief is so uptight when I mess up, since he says I'm the best he's got.

First thing I did when I finally got inside my house, was grab a beer. I spare a glance in the kitchen window to the incredible waste of space called the backyard while downing my drink.

I leave my now empty bottle on the counter near the sink, along with all the others piled up that I just never bothered to either trash or return. I ponder on a whole fifteen seconds on wether I should tidy up my shit everywhere that I've been putting off doing for 3 weeks now. Cuz really, who the hell wanna spend his only days off cleaning crap. Certainly not me. Besides, It's not like I'm waiting for anyone. When I finally convince myself to do it another day, in hopefully the near future, I grab the stack of papers I left on the table and go to my "office". It's mainly just and old desk already filled with files and reports and a laptop siting on a pile in the middle of it.

I sit down and open the first report I brought back. "The Homeless Serial Killer case."

It says that some wacko they named the prowler is going around killing off poor homeless guys. There has been five victims so far and nothing to link them together except the fact that they all slept in paperboard houses and male. They didn't find any prints, no marks or signs of a struggle and no blood. All the victims had been cleaned with a strong sanitizer (Hmm...Alcohol most likely.) and the wounds had been sewed back post-mortem.

What a fucking neat freak.

According to the coroner the cause of death is the same for all of them. Ponctured lung by the use of a sharp object.

That we, of course, do not have as of yet.

Known suspect(s)? None. Judging by everything we got from all five autopsies, the suspect would be the same. The exact same method of killing was used for every victims. The attacker came from behind and they never suspected a thing until it was obviously too late. He never missed so far and they all died pretty quickly from severe hemorrhaging. The blood accumated in both lungs from the wound and they literally choked in their blood.

Looking at the suspect's profile that we did, the killer would be very meticulous, intelligent, medium height, rather thin, but accessing the force of entry of the weapon, definetly male.

I pause and scratched the back of my head, "Okay so, we're looking for a skinny nerd who thinks homeless person are garbage that should be eradicated or an insane freak who seeks to end their life of poor misery."

I went over those reports over and over again, trying to find even the smallest of detail that would help me start looking for this guy. There's over a hundred alleys in the city and the dead guys all looked to have been picked at random.

Three hours later I was totally drained and not anymore advanced. I just needed one small clue, just one, anything to help me get a possible location for the next one, anything to tell me what to watch for.

I was just reaching for my tape recorder to stop the pathologist's autopsy recording when I heard it.

The other thing that linked all of those murders together. It was one of the doc's own comment but after hearing it, I had to see. I quickly scatter all of the men's pictures across my desk. I stare at them for a good five minutes before I finally repeat what the doc said, barely any louder than a whisper.

"Poor pretty boys, the lot of them."

First thing I do after that sudden clue is look for the damn phone in my pile of crap.

"Yeah, Laney? Brewster. I want you to ask the Doc to check the victims again for traces of sexual assaults. And get a DNA sample."

"DNA, Captain?" he answers apparently confuse as to what I'm after exactly.

"Semen, moron."

Finally done with my phone call, I check the clock high on the left wall of the room. 10:45. Perfect. Now come's the next step. Getting into the psycho's head.

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Since our guy seems to have a fetish for homeless pretty boys prostituting, than what better place to start looking than the main alleys downtown first.

I get a few curious looks here and there but nobody is apparently brave enough to approach me.

It's like stepping in a completely different world, one that's only alive and buzzing when everyone else goes to sleep. Somehow this suits me more. My kind of people, my kind of places.

I go stand with my back against the wall of a nearby building, planning to observe a bit. I light up a smoke and watch the people passing by.

There's a drug dealer on the other side of the street on my right. Looks like he just made a sweet deal. There's a bunch of hookers on his left almost bare tits trying to entice a few business men, who's wives are probably waiting stupidly at home. There's good chances the dealer is also their pimp. An addict under a lamp post is begging the few person passing him for change. But nothing really of interest or out of the ordinary.

The druggie spots me. He blinks a few times shaking like a leaf before shouting at me, "Come on dude! Just a quarter for some food. It's not gonna kill ya."

I sneer at him not moving from my resting place, "It shows you don't eat very often huh. I really don't know what you expect to eat for a quarter other than a twinky, dude." And even then.

Thankfully he drops it.

I sense someone besides me. I tilt my head a bit to see who it is.

It's that kid from earlier.

He comes up to me swaying his hips seductively with a sly smile. He puts a hand on my shoulder and leans up on his toes to whisper in my ear.

"Looking for some company?" he purrs.

He stands back a bit and I give him a good once over. He might be just a kid but he's really pretty for a guy. What a shame.

"Let's go." I nod for him to follow me to the nearest hotel. he smiles smugly at me, sure he just got himself a client for the night.

Boy doesn't know how wrong he is.