Chapter 1: The Case

It was like any normal Tuesday in Van Baldwin’s office; he sat low in his chair in a pair of kakis and a white button down shirt, with his brown hair neatly combed back. He stopped wearing suits because of the lack of customers and the Ft. Lauderdale summers made it hot enough. Van tried no to let his eye roll into the back of his head from a lack of sleep; there wasn’t a customer in for the past two weeks. Van was starting to become worried that he wouldn’t be able to pay the bills once again this month. Van was a private investigator; he was always giving odd jobs such as to see if a spouse was cheating or some small corporate corruption, but he missed his real love homicide investigation.

About one year ago Van was a homicide investigator for the Miami PD. It is there where he started to follow a crazed serial killer for 3 years, 18 deaths. The same signature death at each one; the killer would take the victim while they where still alive and nail them on to a wall. The killer would then gut them while they where still breathing and take their beating heart. Even thinking about it Van would get a little sick.

Just as Van’s will gave up and his eye shut for sleep his office door flew open.

“?” said the mysterious man, he was in his early forties started to bald and was over weight.

Van sat straight up and shook his head awake. “Yes, that’s me, and you would be?”

“Oh, sorry I am Henry Shanks.” as we shook hands, and Henry sat down.

“And how may I help you ?”

“Well it’s about my wife.” Henry began to say.

Van sighed and thought to himself, not another one of these, “And you think she might be cheating on you?”

“No not at all, I think someone might be trying to kill her.” Henry said shaking.

Van jumped for joy in his head as he though of maybe being after another crazed murder again but had to ask Henry one thing first, “Shouldn’t you go to the police on this matter?”

“Well, I have and they said they couldn’t do anything, those stupid cops.” Henry mumbled.

Van pulled out a note pad and a pen, “Now why do you believe that someone is trying to kill your wife?”

“The other week my wife was out and was attacked by someone, and managed to escape, and now for the past week are alarm has ‘accidentally’ gone off two times in the past week.”

“Do you know anything else?” I questioned.

“That’s it, by the way how much is this going to cost?”

“My normal fee is $250 upfront, once I know what I am dealing with we can set up a fee for the rest.”

Henry then went into his pocket and pulled out $500 and a business card, “Take this and give me a call when you get something.”

Van then said thank you and walked Henry to the entrance of the building.

“Oh, one more thing” Henry said, “Would you know where I could get a good body guard?”

“Actually I have a good buddy; I will give him a call and have him call you.”

“Thank you ” Henry said as he walked off. That’s when Van looked down at the business card which said “Henry Shanks CEO of World Corp.” the largest transporter in the world and also once of the riches man in Ft. Lauderdale.

Van was finally pleased to finally have a case that would be fun to work on. As he took out his cell phone and made a call.