Just another homicide...

Sometimes, it just didn’t pay to get out of bed in the morning.
And it was even worse for a guy, if he was determined to keep a sunny disposition around his head. Yeesh. The world was just a friggin crazy place.

“What do ya have for me, Donny?” The younger officer standing in front of the yellow caution tape jumped a foot, his thin hand flying to the butt of his gun. Blinking as he realized who he was talking to, his face relaxed and stance straightened.
Right out of the academy, this one was.

“Got a murder, Detective Slame.” The kid replied, blinking sleepy brown eyes at the crime scene in front of them.
Well…duh. Anyone standing in front of a practically burned out building would think of ‘murder’. But wait for it, the kid just needed a bit of steam…
“I was the first on the scene. There’d been reports of fighting and gunshots, so my partner and I headed over; we were the closest to the apartment.” The officer went on, running a hand through his hair. Said ‘partner’ was nowhere to be seen; probably off playing ‘secure the scene’ with the other greens. “When we got here, the place was smoking, and there was a…body lying facedown on the grass.” Shuffling a few steps, he nodded at the burned out lawn.

Tobias Drone, the local medical examiner, was squatting down next to it doing his thing, while a gaggle of onlookers took pictures, straining against the restricting hands.
It always disgusted him; the morbid curiosity that people had. They craved violence, loved the rush of adrenaline and the pounding of blood in their ears…

Until it was their blood pouring out of various wounds, or staining their faces, seeping into their mouths to slide horribly down their parched throats. Then it was an abomination.

Standing a bit to the side with the younger officer, Detective Kevin Slame, the department’s youngest pro, took a sip of his coffee while he gazed absently at the tourists taking pictures, the curious children inching their way forward under the yellow tape, the reporters foaming at the mouths while they smiled and preened at their cameras. Not even the park next to the crime scene seemed to distract the gawkers too much. That was New Yorkers for you; never distracted by the ordinary. Standing at a moderate height and nondescript build, he really wasn’t much to see. Evidence of morning shadow brushed across his cheeks and chin, his hair was a messy brown pile on the top of his head, and his clothes were a bit rumpled from being slept in two days in a row- cliché, thy name is Slame.

What was so interesting about him, however strange and quite frightening, lay hidden behind those deep blue eyes. If one were to look behind the title, the honor of being made detective so young, and the haughty smile that never left his face, they’d be thrown into a blood covered world; a colorless scene with an ever present frigid wind.
Like all men of his ilk, Kev had seen too much, too quickly. Born and bred in the bowels of Bensonhurst, where the Russian mob loved to show its superiority over the local white-boys, it really wasn’t a big surprise.
The lack of conscience and impending insanity, however; now THAT was the surprise in the cracker jack box.

For the past six months, he’d been on the brink of taking that offer for leave and flying half around the world to the beach where a certain close friend of his had been murdered. God…the mere thought of his partner made his hand clench spasmodically around the Styrofoam cup, causing the steaming liquid to come pouring out of the newly made cracks. Dropping it with a curse- and earning a nice glare from Drone and his henchmen- he shook his hand, biting back a few choice curses that would have the reporters crawling around the scene to start snapping pictures of the scandalous detective working the latest crime.
…Hot damn, did he wish that Balto were there. The guy just had a way with the press, and damn if he didn’t need another head in on this one. Sure, there were some good guys in the office that he could count on, but c’mon. 23 years old, and he’d been promoted to Detective, First Class. ‘Jealousy’ just couldn’t begin to describe things back in the bullpen, and he wouldn’t want to put any of the good guys at odds with those idiot whiner-babies.

They already had enough to worry about, with those pension cutbacks and dickhead Sergeants running the show.

Slipping a hand out of his pocket, he rubbed at his forehead, where a very familiar ache began to set in. Good God…not now; he did NOT need this right now. A stinging started to pierce his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, willing the little dark stars dancing around his irises to pack up and go home.

Every cop on the force, especially those in Homicide and Vice, have their problems. There are nightmares, PTSD, antisocial behavior, alcoholism, and in some cases, drug addictions; all things in which the body and the mind tries to cope with seeing the septic tank of polite society. And in the first year that he started working the major cases, Slame seriously thought that he was immune to such things, given his background; the things he’d already seen…and already done.
But, just like in his love life, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Blackouts. It had to be BLACKOUTS, of all things.

Opening his eyes again, he was just in time to be on the receiving end of one of the most irritated glares on the face of the earth. It was almost enough to make him fall to the pavement and start beating his head against the floor right then and there.

Standing behind the caution tape, a tall, dark skinned woman stood very unhappily with her hands planted on her hips. Dressed professionally and looking as if she belonged on the other side of the officer currently trying to convince her to back off, she was definitely a sight to see…especially when one chanced a glance down at her feet, which were covered in a pair of very pink, very sparkly cowboy boots.

Arry Valerian, Assistant ME and one of the most crazy ladies he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Great. Blackouts, AND insane southern women. Just what he needed right then.

“Why don’t you go help Reynolds keep the crowd at bay?” Kev said to the young officer- ‘young’. Ha. The guy was probably just a year younger than he was- sliding a cigarette into his mouth with one smooth twist. He had a feeling that he’d need it. Without waiting for an answer, he moved forward, those dark eyes looking down at the body of his latest vic; his latest obsession.
Jenny Myers; pretty, hopeful, and covered in blood.
She was only 8 years old.
What a freaking waste.

"What do we have, Tobs?" Slame asked the reigning ME, chewing on the end of his cig thoughtfully. Arry had yet to make her way over to them, thank God, so he had only a few minutes to get the finer details before that Southern twang started messing with his brain.
He had enough freaking problems, without having to squint his eyes in an attempt to hide that 'HUH?!' look. Cajuns. It was like they spoke an entirely different language.

"I won't know for sure until we get her back to the morgue, Detective," Drone replied, not looking up from the liver probe he'd pushed into little Jenny's side. "But what I can tell you now is that COD is probably asfixiation," He air-traced the dark purple marks over the vic's throat with his forefinger. "And she's been dead for about 10 hours."

Slame nodded. This would make a grand total of 4 little girls in the past week; all around her age, same hair color, and found in pretty much the same way.
Serial killers. The bane of his damn existance.

The sounds of a 'hey miss, you can't go there' stabbed at his already very frayed patience, and the young detective turned around to snarl something obscene at what he expected to be yet another stray reporter. Hot damn, didn't these people understand the words 'stay behind the tape?' Just close your eyes, pretend you're Dorothy and stick to the freaking yellow brick road, people. Jeeze, all he wanted was a freaking...

Blinking in surprise, he stared at the familiar form walking over to their little gaggle of good feeling, the loud sounds of her heels hitting the pavement making a muscle in his eye start dancing a jig. Lathalia? Balto's Latha? Here?
Something told him that life as he knew it was just about to start rolling down hill again.

"Latha?" He said around his cig, squinting a bit against the headache lurking behind his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"
A man of few words, our Slame was.