Chapter One

"You're late. But I'm not surprised."

Joshua Mulligan smirked as he took the rubber gloves offered to him and put them on.

"It wasn't my fault this time, Tracy. You wouldn't believe the traffic I had to scale through."

"Well, you made it out alive. Right?" Tracy Morgan's sarcastic tone was really hard to miss. And it made Joshua grin all the more.

"So, what's the gig?" He asked casually.

Tracy glared at her partner for a couple of seconds, then she shook her head slightly and proceeded into the apartment. Joshua followed obediently, then paused at the doorway.

It was absolute chaos in room 367.

Joshua would've liked to believe that the apartment he stood in once looked like any other apartment he'd been into: a small, tidy space with a few artistic ornaments to spice up the appearance, perhaps a nice painting on the wall, a cute little kitchen probably facing the living room . . . and all that stuff.

Or maybe that was just the standard look of a typical apartment in his head. Probably just the picture of his own living space.

Regardless, the one he stood in may have, at one point, meet his criteria. Now, however, it was in a sorry state. A shadow of it's presumed former glory.

Also, it was crowded.

White flashing lights from the numerous cameras of the forensic crew illuminated the apartment. Several gloved persons bearing intense expressions busied themselves with brushing utensils and objects lightly, from the kitchen to the living room; obviously fishing for fingerprint tracks. Joshua recalled the dozen police vehicles he saw outside the building, and the officers patrolling the lobby downstairs. And some more officers in the apartment as well.

Yep. Just another chaotic night at a crime scene.

"Hey, Joshua."

He blinked back to reality and stared straight ahead. Tracy stood there, with a tired yet determined look, leaning on a yellow coated wall that acted as a separation between the living room and an entrance veering to the right, behind the wall. Probably leading to the bedroom.

Joshua carefully maneuvered around the busy workers, which was easy enough because they all seemed to act like he wasn't even there. Gradually making his way towards Tracy, he observed the lady delegated to him as his partner. Her short, brown, curly hair was rustled and slightly out of sorts. The white blouse on the upper half of her body looked rumpled, so did her black linen pants, like something she hurriedly grabbed from the closet. The badge that hung down from her neck faced backwards, and even her brown eyes bore dark circles under them.

Joshua imagined that she must've been asleep when the call came in.

Or she was probably going through a terrible case of insomnia, he mused.

He was actually wide awake when his phone buzzed with the call; getting some shut-eye these days was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite enduring a stressful day, which was an absolute necessity according to his job description, his body simply refused to shut down when he climbed his bed. Hours of drinking milk and counting sheep only resulted in numerous bathroom visits and an odd case of boredom.

After the 5th take to the bathroom, he was just about to head to the kitchen for a late snack when the call came in. 12:47am, from downtown.

Joshua was a little too eager to respond. Besides, he reasoned, if he couldn't get some sleep, he was better off being busy than sitting in his bed waiting for Hypnos to visit him.

"I spoke to the officer in charge," Tracy said. "It's not much, but we have something to begin with."

Joshua got closer to her and peered into the entrance. The parts of the apartment he'd seen so far were wrecked; shards of broken glass on the wooden floor at the entrance, shattered ceramic plates in the kitchen area, pieces of a broken vase and trampled flowers in the living room, even the flat screen TV was left in ruins.

But the bedroom . . . It was the worst of it all.

There were small pieces of a broken lamp close to the bed, which was being photographed repeatedly. The brown, diamond patterned wallpaper that covered every inch of the wall in the bedroom was ripped off at one point, on a side of the wall adjacent to the bed. The lamp stand at the side of the bed had it's drawers pulled out and flung all over the room.

The bed itself had it's pillows and bedsheets shredded violently, with a distinct red colour splashed over them.

Joshua stepped into the room, which was less crowded than the living room, and glanced at the bed.

The red colour was a pretty odd design on the eggshell-coloured cotton bedsheets.

Only it wasn't just any red colour.

It was blood.

"A 911 distress call was taken after the neighbors in the other apartment reportedly heard loud, disturbing noises from this apartment," Tracy began.

"Disturbing noises?" Joshua asked without looking at Tracy. He turned to face the entrance to the bathroom behind him.

"Two voices yelling, items shattering on the ground loudly, and a certain blood curdling scream that just had bad news all over it. But no gunshots."

Joshua looked into the open door of the bathroom. The last of the forensic crew walked out hurriedly, as if being chased by the detectives' presence.

The bathroom appeared to be rather small, but so did the rest of the apartment. Blood stains trailed on the porcelain tiles, leading to the bathtub, which was positioned at the end of the tiled wall.

A bruised hand with dried blood on its knuckles hung from the rim of the tub, staining it with the dark red substance. Gradually, Joshua made his way to the tub . . . until he stood over it.

Joshua had overseen dozens of murder cases over the past few years, seen multiple dead bodies with the worst kinds of expressions imprinted on their lifeless features. You'd think a person could get used to such morbidity after years of exposure and experience. Unfortunately, that wasn't always the case. Joshua had learned that no matter how hard one tried, no matter how much you prepared mentally, nothing could ever prepare you for the stare of the dead.

Just like this one stared at Joshua, and into space.

He looked to be in his late forties, or early fifties. His neatly trimmed beard had flecks of gray follicles in between black ones. He wore a gray NYC Bulls T-shirt with blue striped shorts, a combination that suggested he was probably prepared for bed.

But, alas, fate had other plans.

"I see a couple of bruises and cuts, but no knife wounds," Joshua observed. He crouched low, narrowing his brows as he scanned the body.

"Notice how pale he looks?"

"He's been dead for a couple of hours, Joshua." Tracy replied rather impatiently. "Of course he'd look pale."

"That's not what I meant." Joshua beckoned her to get closer.

Tracy folded her arms across her chest and took two steps closer to the tub. She bent over slightly, and her eyes widened at what Joshua pointed.

"Rope marks," she muttered.

"Could have been anything, actually." Joshua pointed out. "Electrical cords, a belt perhaps. But, yeah. He probably died from the strangulation. The bruise on his neck indicates that."

Joshua rose from his position and turned right into Tracy, who was standing right behind him.

"Sorry," she murmured.

Being taller than she was, Joshua looked down at her while she averted his eyes. Joshua grinned. It was the closest he'd ever been to his new partner, and he enjoyed breathing in her fragrance.

"How 'bout we check out the rest of the room?" He suggested quietly.

"Good idea."

★

"So, you're saying it wasn't a forced entry?"

They were out on the road again, just after making a quick stop for burgers and sodas. Considering how late it was, Tracy was just surprised that they'd found a food kiosk still taking orders. Joshua had explained that there were simply people that didn't believe they'd make money in their sleep, so they did what they knew would bring in the 'greens': they hustled day and night.

"I doubt that," replied Joshua. With his eyes fixed on the road, and a tight grip on the steering wheel, he reached for his soda can and took a long gulp. Moments later, he quickly swiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"A forced entry would've meant breaking the locks. And the doors around the apartment were all in perfect shape. So, that's out of the list of possibilities."

He tossed his can through the window.

"What if the intruder had a key to the locks?" Tracy inquired. "That would have been much easier than smashing the door wide open."

Joshua veered to his right, just getting past the traffic signal before it turned red. They drove past a few cars also plying the same road, otherwise it was a pretty quiet night. Like most small towns in the suburbs.

"That was a 3-piece door lock, Tracy. Even if the intruder had the keys to one, the others have to be manually opened from the inside. Which still brings us to square one."

Joshua slowed the vehicle until it came to a halt. Just before another traffic signal that displayed the commanding red light. He frowned at the pole. For a small town with barely above a hundred cars, this town sure had a lot of traffic signals.

"Okay. So what do you think? How do you suppose the perpetrator got in?"

Joshua looked at Tracy. She still had her burger and soda neatly packed in the white plastic bag, clearly she wasn't interested in getting messy in someone else's car.

Or, perhaps, she just didn't want to get messy in front of her partner.

And she was looking at him now, not shyly shifting her gaze. Like she really wanted to hear his own view on the matter at hand.

"Well," he cleared his throat, feeling a bit awkward. "What if it was someone he knew?"

"Someone he knew?" Tracy sounded surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it." Joshua adjusted himself on his seat to face his partner. Being the fanciful type, Tracy could see the yellow bulbs of ideas and possibilities flickering on above his head.

"Since none of the locks were broken, it's safe to assume that the door was opened naturally. And given the kind of locks available on the door, we could also say it was most definitely opened by the victim, from the inside. I'd like to assume that he only opened that door because he was visited by someone he knew, someone he was familiar with. And that person, whoever they may be, is our number one suspect in regards to solving this case."

Tracy stared blankly at him for a second or two. Then, for the first time since that night, she smiled.

"You've got this all figured out, don't you? Makes our job much easier."

"Not quite, I'm afraid." Joshua replied, giving her a charming smile of his own. "We still have to narrow down on all the people he contacted in the past few days or even weeks. The results from the forensic team will also dictate a huge part of the investigation. We'd need to reach out to people close to him. Friends, family, colleagues, play buddies, and whatnot. The next couple of days are going to be very hectic." He tried a laugh that didn't quite come off.

"What about the laptop we found under his mattress?" Tracy asked suddenly.

"I handed it to the officer in charge. It was taken as part of the evidence needed to be analysed."

"Oh."

Tracy ran her fingers through her brown hair and sighed. Joshua looked at her again, this time with a little empathy.

"What we can do now is to get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll begin the questioning. Starting with the closest circle he had."

After what seemed like an eternity, the green light finally flickered on.