"Seargeant! Get over here, will ya?"

David Miller surpressed the urge to let out a groan that would have at least raised an eyebrow on his lieutenant's face and obeyed the order. It nullified the order he had gotten when they had arrived at the crime scene in the first place, an order he couldn't care less about. Stay in the background, don't touch anything! As if this was his first murder investigation and he was still a rookie on the force. But he was one to obey orders, especially with such a "colourful" and ill-tempered individual as his direct superior officer. So he had kept in the background, with his eyes open, watching the crowd that was held back by cops and the yellow tape, while the lieutenant took care of the actual investigation.

And then Lt. Wilks called him over. "Now, youngblood, let's see how much you have learned so far. What can you tell me?" He pointed to the ground and at that awful mess that once was a human body. A few months ago the sight of such a crime scene would have turned David's stomach upside down, but by now he had a whole bunch of other issues to worry about. Besides, it seemed like Wilks was really interested in his opinion. Or he just wanted to shock his partner whom he still treated like a newbie.

He took a closer look. Then he pulled out a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on before he started examining the body. Next to Wilks was the coroner, a pretty young and gloomy girl with black hair and some holes in her facial skin that showed where she had worn piercings before she had started her work and had to take them off. A pretty large number of little holes, as David thought. It reminded him to have a long and stern talk with Angela when the time had come and she had grown up enough.

Speaking of holes... The body on the ground was male, caucasian, about forty to fifty years old. The body looked like it had been run over by a car, but the most horrid detail about it was the big hole in the upper torso, like someone had drilled a tunnel right through the victim's chest. Not too far away on the ground there was what undoubtedly represented the murder weapon: a round wooden pole of about two feet length, like a fence post, with a pointed end, covered in blood. The hole in the victim's chest matched the shape and size of this pole.

"Well, someone was having a really bad day..." Lt. Wilks never had a sense of tact or empathy, as far as David remembered. Even the coroner looked disturbed by his words. David looked around. That "ran over by a car" idea wasn't too far off, since he found some skid marks a few yards away from the body. It was an alleyway that had a dead end, and it was pretty narrow to navigate it with a big car, as the tyre marks indicated that this had in fact been a pretty large vehicle. At some points the tyre marks came close to the walls left and right, but unfortunately not close enough for the car to touch them. So no scratches of paint to narrow the search down.

David voiced all of his observations out loud, and the coroner confirmed some of it with her own report. Traces of rust, oil and metal on the body showed that he was in fact hit by a car, at least twice. After getting hit by it first, then the pole was violently forced into the man's chest, pulled out again and thrown aside. "Why would the killer pull it out again?" the coroner then wondered.

David shivered. "To cause more pain. And to have the victim bleed out quicker. To make sure that this man would die."

When the car went over him the second time, the victim was already dead - that pole through his chest had taken care of it. David's guess was as good as any other's - that the killer just ran over the body to get the car out of the alley and back on the street. That that also meant that this car would have traces of blood and DNA all over it, so it would be easier to make it out and maybe identify the killer.

Lt. Wilks stood by, listened in on all of this, and for the first time since he got this partner, David had the feeling that the lieutenant started to take him somewhat serious. That look of appreciation on Wilks' face was a really rare sight. He nodded towards David, telling him to take a look at something else. "Over here. What do you make of this?"

As David joined him, Wilks pointed towards the murder weapon on the ground. It was covered by all the blood, so David had not seen it at first glance, but then he noticed what Wilks was on about. There was a symbol carved into the pole, a strange marking that reminded him of horror movies about occultism that he had once watched. He brushed over the marking with his gloved thumb. It was really carved into the wood, carefully, with a knife or something similar. The killer had taken great care of it beforehand - the carving had been done before the pole had been used to implae the victim.

"What do you say, David?" Lt. Wilks stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. David couldn't recall him ever using his first name when he referred to his seargeant. "Does it look familiar?"

David looked up to him. "Should it, sir?"

"Well, maybe not to you. But didn't Hartman mention something similar while he was working on the lower East Side? I recall having a talk with him about it."

"I think you're right." David tried to recall it, since he had looked at the files concerning a murder on the lower East Side of the city, at which the homicide department had yet to uncover any valid leads. In that case, a strange looking symbol had been put on the murder weapon which, as David recalled, had been some sort of butcher knife. Since Lt. Hartman had been on that case, David hadn't shown much interest in it. Hartman was one of the better cops, very thorough in his work, but he could get annoying in his attention to detail sometimes. Wilks didn't like him much either.

"I hope I'm wrong," Wilks stated gloomily. "Because if I'm right, then we might have a serial killer on the loose."

David thought instantly of Lauren. And Angela. He frowned. "You should talk to Hartman to see if there is any other connection between those cases."

"No, David." Wilks shook his head vehemently and put a hand on David's shoulder. "You should do that."

"Me?" David was completely surprised.

"Yes, you. You have learned enough to handle this. I will be there whenever you need help, but this is your case now. Time to shine, son! Make me proud!" That was all Wilks said before he turned around and walked down the alleyway like a mysterious hero from a crime novel. David stared at him, trying to grasp the gravity of what he had just been told. His case. His own investigation. He turned around to the coroner who was still doing her job, wondering if she had noticed any of this that had been going on. But as she looked up and into his face, he knew that she had listened and knew now that he called the shots.

"Can you send the report to me as soon as you're finished?" he then asked her, trying to hide the excitement from his voice. After all that had happened, his lieutenant finally put him front and centre of a murder case.

"Sure thing, boss," the coroner rsponded. "By the way, I'm Stella. Stella Ortega."

"David Miller. Pleased to meet you." Both refrained from a handshake, for obvious reasons. But David gave her a respectful nod. "Well, I'm gonna see if I can find any witnesses for this. We stay in touch."

But first of all, he needed a coffee. He might have seen some bad things in his days with the homicide department, but the sight of someone run over by a car and run through with a wooden pole did not go by him without any effect. He was not that cold-blooded. Especially when he had a family at home waiting for him, and a serial killer in the city who might not be too picky about his next target.

The sun was barely up. It looked like it would become just another bloody day in Malthorn City...