Blood is Black in the Moonlight
guy ganked in the city of Tampa. Definitely our guy.I kneel down and study the victim in a puddle of garbage with cigarette butts floating on the surface. His throat was slashed open, shredded arteries and muscle tissue in his neck look like grounded hamburger. The jagged wound reeks of the telltale coppery smell of blood. I turn out the tag on his black suit jacket.
Armani. The guy has excellent taste in suits I’ll give him that.
By the victim’s size, I would say he was a weightlifter. So unless the killer is a trained martial artist, the Moonlight Killer blindsided the victim. That being said, it doesn’t require much effort when your killer ambushes you with a barbwire garrote. Even if he had fought back, he would’ve bled out before he got the attacker off him. He was fucked forty-two-ways from Sunday.
Something catches my eye I didn’t pick up on right away, must be the whiskey or the pills. For someone who had their neck sliced open with barbwire, there’s not a lot of blood at the scene. The killer must’ve garroted him somewhere else and dumped him here. The contents in the victim’s wallet are bagged tagged and numbered on a folding table under a tarp. A brown Leather bound wallet with seven hundred bucks, a black Master Card, and a receipt for the nightclub called Dark Desires. Damn, a Goth bar is the last place I’d expect a guy like him would be getting his drinks although it’s a brothel as well. He probably went there to get his dick wet. This is a lead to follow up on, but in the past, we’ve always got the last place they were alive, so not really a big break in the case, unfortunately. I mark a packet of Nicorette gum.
A hopeless struggle.
“Lobos!” A man with an Arabic accent calls out.
The clean-shaven bright-eyed Detective is Jason Sadir. The brass stuck him with me. It shocked me; they put him on this case. Usually, they gave the noobs the open and shut murder cases, but instead, he landed the Moonlight Killer case. I know the brass only put him with me to appease the nagging mayor and the shit-eating vultures with the media to make it look like we’re doing our best. However, I’m skeptical of his investigative skills. He came from the beach area where his biggest concern was drunk drivers, bar fights, underage drinking, and writing tickets for littering.
Despite his lack of experience, my LT says he’s a sharp kid. So I’m going to give him a chance.
I walk over to the wall, his eyes fixed on Moonlight Killer’s usual poetry. “What is it, Sadir?” He points to the wall where the bastard inscribed his blood poetry.
Well, it’s plain to see this isn’t gang members. The writing is on the wall literally.
“Just like the others, MK left a verse from the bible written in the victim’s blood.”
It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Well, sir. I think you can tell Anti-Gang to back off. I’m willing to bet money it’s the victim’s blood like the others. This guy is an oil executive like the last three.” “Detective.” I turn in the direction of the voice, and a patrol officer is standing next to a young security guard his eyes burn with fear. “Be right back, Jason.”
“Detective, this is Thomas Rickman. He’s the one who found the body and called it in.”
The poor kid is shaken up. Hell, who wouldn’t be; you work third thinking it’s going to be a quiet night, and all a sudden, you stumble upon on a dead body, and your blood runs cold. Your mind starts to play out all kinds of scenarios like is the killer coming for me next?
“Hey there, Mr. Rickman. How are you tonight?”
He exhales nervously. “Well, I’m pretty fucking freaked out right now, officer. I think I’m done working this creepy fucking harbor,” he says, shaking.
I flip open my notepad with my pen at the ready. “I don’t blame ya. Listen, I know you’re freaked by what you saw tonight, but I need you to ask you a few questions. Are you able to do that?”
Some officers use IPads, but I prefer the old school notepad over the hinky touchscreen that, for some reason, hates me.
“Sure, whatever. Just hurry up; I wanna get outta here.”
“What time did you find the body?”
“12:50 am. That’s when I called 911 on my cell after finding… the corpse.”
The body had to have been dumped a few minutes before that time. It’s a ten-minute drive from the club to the port. That puts the time of death roughly at 12:40
“Did you see any suspicious vehicles or persons?”
“No, officer. I didn’t. As I said, I just found the body on my patrol. Look, c-can I go home? This place is giving me the creeps,” he says, growing agitated.
“We’re almost done. How long have you worked here?”
“Only a month. Geez, what the hell does that matter?” his voice raises.
I would ask has he tampered with the body, but judging by how pale he is, I highly doubt it. He probably ran away, screaming back to his guard post. I’m just glad he didn’t vomit on the body and contaminate the crime scene.
“You can go. Leave your contact information with the officer here in case we have further questions.”
I return to the body. “What did you get from the rent-a-cop, Lobos?” LT asks.
“He says he found the body at 12:50 am. The Vic was killed at 12:40, and Dark Desires is ten minutes from here. We have a possible location of where he was murdered.”
“And what’d you gather from the contents of