Nightmares - Short and Sweet before you Sleep Read online

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  James, upon arriving at the park, reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another pair of the plain latex gloves, he glanced over at his partner giving her a knowing look. Lily copied her partner and pulled on a pair of gloves, still wondering just what the hell was going on.

  “You look in those bushes over there, I will look at the ones on this side,” James said indicating to the bushes that lined each side of the children’s playground they stood at. The bushes were located on each side with an covered seating area located next to the water bubbler, a grassy area for the children and families to kick a ball around and a small array of play equipment such as swings, a slide, and some sort of plastic helicopter mega toy which was the parks highlight taking up the remaining space the little park had to offer.

  “James what are we looking for?” Lily asked, curious and confused as to what exactly they were doing there.

  “To be honest I don’t know,” James admitted.

  “But when we will know when we find it.” James said as he headed towards the bushes he indicated he would search through earlier.

  Shrugging her shoulders Lily walked towards the line of bushes that James had directed her to, and using her hands brushed some of the branches of the bushes back, looking at each branch and the ground that held the bushes in place as she went.

  James followed the same progress as his partner, looking through the bushes, this process continued for the best part of fifteen minutes as both ensured they checked every aspect of the line of bushes until he saw it.

  Pulling one of the branches back he almost over looked it, and it wasn’t until he pulled the same branch back a second time trying to work out whether he had imagined it that he realized he was staring at a women’s purse.

  “Here,” James shouted excitedly to his partner, who immediately stopped her search and ran to where James was standing with a broad smile on his face.

  Lily looked in to the branch that James was holding, and sure enough in the branch system was a ladies purse, knowing that everything needed to be documented Lily immediately pulled her cell phone from her pocket and snapped a couple of pictures to have on record where exactly they had found it.

  Once she confirmed to her partner that she had the required photos James reached in and carefully picked up the brown purse, it had some sort of design on the outside of which Lily photographed before James carefully unzipped the purse, exposing the secrets that it contained.

  Inside the purse James slowly, yet excitedly, pulled out a small number of bills – thus ruling out a robbery gone wrong – before pulling out what he believed to be the Holy Grail, a driver’s license for one Cindy Barnsworth.

  The information on the driver’s license matched with what they knew about their most recent victim, a smile grew across his face, had they finally made a breakthrough and had a name for one of their victims? He knew they truly wouldn’t know until they had forensics go through the purse properly and compared it to the latest body to join the morgue, but surely this was a start.

  “James how did you know?” Lily asked her partner, confused about how he knew to look in the park, to look in the bushes, but at the same time growing as excited as what James while thinking the same thing that they had finally picked up their first real clue in the case that was driving not only the two detectives working it, but the entire department and the city crazy.

  “I don’t know, I guess my gut instinct is kicking in,” James replied, not wanting to sound crazy or to tell her that he had been tipped off by a complete stranger to whom he had received no details at all from.

  “Let’s call it in,” Lily said picking the phone out of her pocket and making the call back to the station to let them know about their discovery, and potential case breaking lead in the serial killer murders that had plagued everyone.

  Uniformed officers attended the scene and immediately started door knocking to see if anyone in the surrounding buildings saw or heard anything strange overnight, or earlier that morning – all of the people that were spoken to claimed they hadn’t seen or heard anything however another piece of good luck fell the way of the police when one man stated he had just installed security cameras around his property after a number of vandalism incidents.

  The officers seized the tapes, placing them in a clear re-sealable plastic bag before returning them to the investigators that stood close by directing the investigation. Receiving the plastic bag and being told what was contained inside both of the detectives grew a smile with their minds racing as to what could be on tape – could they actually catch something on the camera’s that could lead them to the identity for their murderer do many ideas and possibilities had just been opened by the first break through in the case.

  James had a hard time coming up with a reasonable, or even believable excuse as to why they he was so passionate about the pair returning to the scene, however when confronted by the Super Intendant back at the station he stuck by his story that over breakfast he realized the park was down the road and if the victim had come from that direction that there could be evidence in the park.

  Deep down he knew that he had been tipped off by a complete stranger, and that he was just following through – there was absolutely no guarantee that they would actually find something near the original crime scene, they hadn’t at any of the previous ones.

  Sitting back at their desk in the police department it seemed an eternity for James and Lily as they awaited word from forensics, and the medical examiner in relation to the potential evidence that they had found.

  Staring blankly at his computer screen James jumped for the phone the moment it started ringing later that afternoon, through comparing medical records obtained on Cindy Barnsworth the medical examiner was able to determine that she was in fact the victim they had discovered that morning.

  It was a bitter sweet moment for James, they for once had found a piece of evidence and was able to finally identify one of the victims, however it at the same time meant another young woman, who was just 22 years of age, had lost her life to a serial killer that he to date had failed to catch and lock up for the crimes he had committed.

  Lily sat at her desk watching the security camera footage the uniformed officers had taken possession of earlier in the day, while both she and James had hoped there would be additional evidence on the system all it showed was the young victim entering the park before going out of shot, she had gone back a number of hours and even gone forward an hour or so on the video looking for anyone to have entered or exited the park but there was no sign of any sort of movement.

  This meant that whoever attacked their victim had entered the park from the same entrance that they had and was unfortunately out of camera range. Residential buildings surrounded the far side of the park and uniformed officers had already door knocked there and struck out with any sort of footage from that side.

  It meant that while they had identified one of their victims, unfortunately they at this stage were left in the same boat as previously with no real evidence as to who the perpetrator was, or any sort of clue towards who their other victims were.

  Both Lily and James agreed to call it a day, they had already worked for fourteen hours, and uniformed police officers were already on route to the next of kin for Cindy Barnsworth to make the death notification. With no new evidence there was nothing more that they could do.

  After waiting what felt an eternity for his computer to shut down James reached forward and turned the screen off, Lily by this time had already retrieved her coat and was waiting for him by the door heading into Homicide room.

  The pair began walking towards the exit, which considering homicide was located on the second story of the building meant they had to walk through the main foyer of the station to exit.

  Making small talk as they walked James suddenly stopped in his tracks as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  There in the lobby of the station, handcuffed to one of the seats was the young red head wh
o had given him the one line tip off earlier in the day.

  “I’ll catch you tomorrow morning,” James said to Lily as they walked towards the exit. Lily looked confused but it had been a long enough day and agreed to meet him at six the following morning as she pushed opened the doors and exited.

  James made his way to the clerk on duty.

  “What’s the story here?” he asked the clerk motioning towards the red head that sat in the chair.

  “Sadie Williams brought in for fraud,” the clerk on the desk responded, as James turned and looked at the red head again.

  “Why is she handcuffed out there?” James asked.

  “Edwards and Jones are busy with another interview about a different case, with all the drunks and stoners this was the only place we had that we could keep her.” The clerk responded.

  “I need to speak to her,” James said to the clerk who looked a little confused and uncertain.

  “Sir with all due respect are you not homicide?” the clerk said breaking the awkward silence that had developed after the unusual request. James thought for a moment then replied.

  “Yes and she is a key witness to our latest case,” this time speaking with a little more authority. The clerk, not one to argue, knew that any homicide case took priority and handed over the file and the key that allowed James to unlock Sadie Williams