Monday, the 2nd of May.
08:13am.The New York police department on 16, Ericsson place, Tribeca, was her dream work place and it had been so even before she had started working there, and so far she had been living that dream and loving it. It excited her to carry out her official duties, it excited her every time she had on that shield, every time she flashed that metal power in someone's face and every time she said, "Tia Sparrow, NYPD detective", it all excited her. The shield was her ticket to barge in to any where, screaming at the top of her voice, "NYPD! Freeze!", guns out and pointing, fingers on the trigger, but she does not get to do that often since she was a detective. The sheild was her power to silence criminals, to tell them to speak less or face the court with what ever words they decide to use at that time. The shield was her power to ask questions and demand answers but you never could use force with someone whose house you're in, but put them in cuffs and bring them to the station, to the interrogation room and she would slam her badge down on the table where you would be able to see it clearly and she would ask questions, she would demand answers.Tia did not believe in the "good cop, bad cop" method of interrogation, but when her colleagues decide to play that, she was always the bad cop. It really excited her, but Tia was not harsh in reality, she was the softest person you could ever come across but in situations where being tough was necessary, Tia would give the extra.The cab came to stop right in front of the building and Tia alighted, she pulled out a dollar note from her pockets and stretched it to the man from the passenger side window, thanking him before turning and running into the building.The Manhattan New York police department was usually a busy place when ever you walked into the building but today it was less busy, Tia checked the time on her brown leather strap wrist watch, it read 08:16am. It was a Monday, and Mondays were usually the busiest with a handful of people coming in to lay some kind of complaints, from the least important to the most absurd, once an elderly woman had come in here to make a complaint that the plants in her back garden were changing color from its natural green color to a kind of wine, brown. She had said that the growth chemical that had been sold to her were defective and poisonous to the plants.The police man on duty attending to her had been left speechless. "Ma'am, these kind of complaints should be made to the company that sold the item to you." He had tried to calmly explain but she would hear none of it."This is a crime officer. My plants are being poisoned and slowly being murdered. This is a crime against the plants and myself.""Yes I understand ma'am but...""What if I had drank it? Huh?" She suddenly asked and the officer froze, he looked around at the other officers who had heard her and they had paused what ever they were doing to look at the granny. Who in their right senses would drink a plant growth chemical?Never the less, they took the case. "Ok ma'am, here is what I will do. I will have an officer assigned to you and you will take him to your plants and then file a complaint against the company, how does that sound?""Much better officer." She smiled and the officer smiled too then he called a rookie for her.Surely they did help her out and it turned out that the plant she had in her garden was not actually a green plant but one that changed colour and the wine color of it was natural. She did apologize to the officer and they laughed about it. That event had taken half a day."Het Tia!" Some one called her out of her thinking and Tia looked up to Mark who was waving a hand in the air, a coffee cup in the other hand. She walked up to him."Hey Mark. Less work than usually I can see."Mark chuckled. "Well, what can I say?" He took a sip of the coffee. "Life should be easier." The both laughed."Where is Aiden?" She asked."Yes!" Mark replied, rushing the liquid in his mouth down his throat when he remembered why he had called her in the first place. He struggled to cough."Sorry. Take it easy Mark." Tia said.He waved a hand in the air, telling her that he was alright but he did not quite seem so. "Aiden said to direct you to the office immediately you step in." He coughed some more. The dark liquid coming out from his nose."Are you alright, Mark?" She asked, reaching over to pat his back.Mark exhaled hard, his eyes reddened from the coughing fit and he calmed down, placing the cup gently back on the table. "I am fine now." He assured her, taking in a deep breath."You should not talk and eat." She looked at the cup. "Or drink.""Well, forgive me for trying to pass out some important information." He teased and Tia laughed. "Tia, there is some big work for you though." He whispered.Tia leaned in closer and whispered back. "What work?""I do not know." He shrugged and leaned back on the chair, Tia straightened up. "You know how Aiden gets when he is excited, he never just tells until you know about it.""Ohh..." Tia said disappointed but still very eager to know."But it is some what of a cold case I think. It is a murder case." He winked.Tia eyes widened. "Ohhh..." She said, more enthusiastically. "I better get going then.""Yea you should." Mark waved her away and went back to his work as Tia made for the stairs, going up to the second floor.• • • • • •
Aiden spun around on his seat, a pen in his mouth and his eyes fixed to the file in his hands intensely. He shook the file like he wanted something to drop out of it before he turned and slammed the bundle of paper down on the table, hissing out his frustration. The door suddenly opened and Tia stepped in.
"Tia! Oh my God, Tia!" Aiden said and stood up, running forward to embrace her. He lifted her up effortlessly and spun around once with her wedged in his arms.Tia was taken aback by his actions and laughed, his hug had her hands pinned to the side of her body. "Aiden, what..." She began to speak but Aiden broke away from the hug and dragged her by her hand to the seat he had been in, pushing her into it and then slamming a palm on the file which laid on the table."Miss Tia Sparrow," he grinned. "Get ready for the busiest case of your life!" Then he handed over the file to Tia.Tia held the file in her hands and looked up to Aiden. "What is this?" She asked, her fingers already working on the transparent blue plastic covering."Do not ask me, just you open it first." He grinned and plopped himself down on another seat, wheeling it closer to Tia.Tia went over the first page and her eyes popped, her senses tingled and the corner of her lips twitched in a small smile, now she could understand the excitement that Aiden had felt, cases like this always had their adrenaline rushing through their blood streams faster than usual."A homicide murder case!" The last time she had to handle a case like this was almost over a year ago. Cases like these always had her on high alert."It was assigned to us?" She asked Aiden, the wide grin on his face told her his answer."Yes darling, but..!" He leaned in closer a placed a hand on one side of his mouth and whispered. "Not after some convincing." He beamed and relaxed back on the chair."Aiden you sneaky..." She made to slap him with the file.Aiden laughed. "The chief is not that bad of a man, although I had to slander some names, still... It was worth it!"Tia laughed and opened the file again, placing it on the desk and going over the information.• • • • • •VICTIM'S NAME: Pamela Neil. CASE NO: 17-2345AGED: 26. ADDRESS: 52, stone street, Tribeca, Manhattan. New York. SEX: Female. DESCRIPTION: White. HEIGHT: WEUGHT: OCCUPATION: waitress at Skyline club.NEAREST RELATIVE: Miss Trisha Neil - victim's sister. Mrs. Moira Neil - victim's mother.LOCATION OF OCCURRENCE: South cove park.TIME AND DATE OF OCCURRENCE: Tuesday, 19th of April.TIME AND DATE REPORTED: Monday, 2nd of May. 04:23am• • • • • •Tia paused here and looked at Aiden in surprise. "She has been dead for three weeks?!""According to the forensic team, yes she has. Sad is it not?"Tia nodded her head and went back to reading more information from the file. "This was reported this morning. Very early this morning, by who?"Aiden wheeled the chair closer. "It is recorded there, along with his signed statement."Tia found it.• • • • • •SOURCE OF CALL: 911 incident call reported by Benjamin Brown. South cove grounds keeper.AGED: 52.Body was found in a shallow grave, covered by dirt and dried leaves, located in a secluded part of the park.• • • • • •Tia flipped the pages. "All the information needed on this file has not been fully documented here.""No.""Why is that?" She asked him, closing the fike."Well, it is still a new case that had come in only this morning. More tests and investigations would still have to be carried out to determine all that, but this..." He picked up the file and waved it in the air. "Is for us to know what we are doing.""And the family? Has any one been contacted? I see here that she has a mother and a sister." She faced AidenAiden grinned at her. Tia's face fell. "They have not been contacted, have they?" She sighed, and although she knew the answers, she asked any way. "Who is going to have to do that?"Again, Aiden replied her with an even wider grin. Tia tilted her head back and let out a long breath. "This is always the hardest part of tangling yourself up in a homicide case. Can we not get someone else to break the news to them?"Aiden chuckled. "Relax Tia. I will handle that part."The door suddenly burst open and detective Bernard waltzed in, holding several cups of coffee and a bag they all knew would be containing doughnuts."Well," Aiden started. "Someone seems cheerful on a Monday morning."Bernard shot him a wide grin and walked over, setting two cups of coffee on Tia's desk. He caught a glimpse of the file and half laughed. "Looks like you two love birds would be busy for a really long time."Tia picked up a cup. "Yeah, looks like. I wonder if it is already on the news though.""Naaaaah.." Aiden said and picked up the TV remote to turn it on. "I doubt that. It happened waaaaay too early for the news crew to get there and the information has not been given out to the public yet."Aiden was right, there was nothing about a homicide on the news, just business talks about some major group of companies leading in the fore front in the New York business world."Now just look at that." Bernard said, pointing to the TV with a doughnut in his hand. "These are the businesses taking all the money, and how do they do that? By luring victims to their dooms."Tia and Aiden laughed hard. "Now now Bernard, when you say it like that...""But it is true! Take a look at that! How could you be charged that much for a room in a hotel?! Skyline hotels and clubs are really sucking on a lot of deep pockets." "Let who so ever can afford it..." Aiden took a bite out of a doughnut. "...afford it."Monday, the 2nd of May.12:05pm.New York had always been boasted to be the best place in the world to spend your spring break at, and so far it has lived up to the expectations and maybe even surpassed it by a whole lot. From flower festivals to the food fest, art fairs to relaxing boat rides, one could choose to enjoy the New York spring and engage in many exhilarating outdoor activities.And as the flowers bloom in the New York spring season, so does the business world,. And although only a few businesses need the help of the different seasons on New York to boom and bloom as they work with the weathers, like businesses in the clothing line and occasionally tourism, a lot of other businesses boomed no matter what season flowed through New York.As spring time was a time to enjoy the outdoor activities, and the night time coming alive more with longer days and relatively shorter nights, people had fun in as many ways as they possibly could. And one of s
Monday, the 2nd of May.03:13pmThe coffee shop on Hudson street was not a really fancy one but it was one that many people loved to come and get a cup of coffee and some snacks, because the customer service there was top notch, rated a plus ten out of ten. The coffee shop had been on Hudson street for only two years but its customers spread further than that. The coffee shop had its must busy times in the morning when people going off to work would stop by for a cup of coffee and some snacks. In the afternoons like this, it was not as busy as that as most people placed orders over the phone and in the evenings it was almost empty, people only came by for the snacks. No body wanted to drink a cup of coffee right before bed time."One with extra cream Gabby?" He beamed and winked at the elderly lady as he decorated her cup of coffee. Gabby winked back and laughed out loud, placing one hand on her chest as she did so."You are such a silly young man." She a
Tuesday, the 3rd of May.11:06am.The detective office was a lot busier than it had been in the last couple of days and the busiest people were detectives Aiden and Tia. They had been to the Coroner, William Martin, on several occasions, joining him in studying the body of Pamela Neil. Seeing and touching a dead body was not so much of a task for Tia but Aiden did not exactly like it, and to make it worse, her body was three weeks old. Aiden could not stand it so he stood afar off, holding in his hands a note pad and and a pen, jotting down the things that Tia and William discovered while studying the body.“So she died from bleeding out from the cut in her neck?” Tia asked as she leaned in for a much closer look at the wound which had long been cleaned but the cut was still very much visible as it was very deep.“Could be.” William said, adjusting the glasses to sit properly on the bridge of his nose. “We sent some sam
Tuesday, the 3rd of May.05:33pmGrand father was rarely ever at home, except on some rare occasions like maybe he was tired or sick or maybe he just wanted to be away from every one else, and that was about the only time you could find grand father at home and he was always mostly in his office too, and this time, grand father was at home because he needed to relax and be away from people for a while but right now, grand father was doing neither of that.Grand father Hunt sat behind the huge, custom made, polished oak desk in his office, a ton of files lined one side of the table and in front of him was one open file which he was working on, reviewing and signing. The office curtains were mostly drawn, allowing only the littlest light from the outside to filter into the room.The furnitures in the office were all dark coloured, from the dark brown wooden ceiling, to the deep red rugs, nothing in here could reflect the light and it was all how grand fathe
Wednesday, the 4th of May.10:05amSkyline travelling agency was usually a busy place, attracting a whole lot of people and occasionally, the media, but today was not like the normal busy days, today the media and the people who flocked outside the building were more and the news that brought them here was the rumor of the returning son of the Hunt family, the one that was always referred to as “The Heir”. The first grand son of Mr. Colin Hunt, grand father of the Skyline group, was returning today after years of being away.The head lines were juicy and some were just exaggerated, it would be the talk of the business world for a couple more days; The Return Of The Prodigal Grand Son.From a distance, they could see the escort cars racing to the front of the building and every media personnel got their cameras and micro phones ready, struggling to be at the front of the crowd to get a better view and better chances of briefly interrogating the
Wednesday, the 4th of May.01:02pm“Tia!” Aiden called out excitedly as he was stepping into the office, frantically waving something in the air. Tia lifted her head up from all the paper works on her desk and turned in her seat to see him coming towards her and waving a brown envelope in his hand. She smiled a little, glad for the distraction and little break, reclining in her seat and watching him.“You have good news? Because that is your look of ‘I have good news Tia’, so please tell me you have something.”Aiden beamed and grabbed a chair, wheeling it closer to Tia, he looked at her straight in the eye and said. “I have good news.”“Good!” Tia exhaled. “Now, lay it on me, what is the good news?”Aiden slapped the brown envelope on her desk. “This!”Tia quickly grabbed the envelope and tore it open, studying the paper in it. It was a DNA test resul
Thursday, the 5th of May.07:22am.The Manhattan spring morning was chilly and cool and oddly quiet, maybe it was because he had woken up too early or maybe it was because he was not used to waking up from this part of the city, he was not used to waking up in this house. It had been eight years and a couple of months since the last time he had slept in here. He laid still in the bed, unmoving, with the covers pulled all the way up to his chest, he breathed softly, listening to his surroundings, the house was quiet. Throwing the covers off of his body, he slid his feet into the flip flops and casually strolled out of the room, he quietly descended the stairs and headed for the back door leading out of the house.He stepped out onto the terrace and stood, shoving his hands into the pockets in his trousers. He had slept in his suit trousers and his singlet because he had not brought any other clothes. He had not even planned on spending the night here but he did a
Thursday, the 5th of May.08:31am“And here are the autopsy reports on Miss Pamela Neil.” Aiden announced, setting the file on the desk and pulling a chair closer as he did so.Tia looked a bit worn out, she and Aiden had come to the office a little earlier than normal because they wanted to dive fully into this investigation. Neither of them ever liked to have their cases turn cold, but the two cups of coffee on the desk in front of Tia had already turned cold. She wrapped a hand around the cup and when she did not feel the heat any more, she shifted the cup to the far corner of the desk.She yawned.“Tired already?” Aiden asked out of concern. Tia looked at him and smiled, shaking her head slowly while picking up the file. “When last did you have a decent sleep?” He asked again.“The same year I became a detective.” She replied and they both chuckled. “Now, let us see what we have got h
Monday, the 16th of May.01:12 pmThe pain was minimal but he felt it, it was the first thing he felt when his eyes opened because it throbbed, and so did his head. It was a little too bright in here so he could only open his eyes slowly until they could adjust to the brightness. He took in a deep breath, enjoying the flow of air through his lungs but what he did not like was the smell that flowed with it, it smelled of drugs and medicine. He moved his arm and only then did he realize that somebody’s head was resting on it, he turned his head and the person lifted hers, he was surprised seeing her there beside him but he was also happy. He smiled.“Chester,” She said, standing up close beside him and holding on to his hand. “Are you alright? Feeling much better?”“Tia, you’re here?” He wanted to sit up but she held him down to the bed, he winced.“You’re hurt, stay, don’t move.&rdquo
Saturday 14th of May02:02 pm.Chester did not look surprised at all by what Aiden had just revealed, although he had not known it before hand but he had made a guess, there were only two boys in the Hunt family; himself and Michael, so it was not that difficult to figure it out, but he story behind that, behind how Michael had come to live with them was a surprise no doubt, and he wondered if Michael already knew about it.Aiden got up and walked towards Daniel. “Well now that you all know the story and the reason I had to do this,” He turned directly to Tia who stood rooted to the ground in utter disbelief. He smiled. “You cannot leave this house alive, I’m afraid none of you will.”“Aiden,” Tia called him with a shaky voice. “My… my daughter Aiden… she’s only a child…”He waved a hand in the air to stop her. “I had no intentions to hurt her and I was not the o
Saturday 14th of May12:52 pm.The tension in the room weighed down on all of them, most of all Chester, who was on the ground with his grand father in his arms, he was pained and he was angry, the surprise of seeing the detective Aiden come into the room in support of Daniel who had shot his grand father, had vanished from his eyes, in its place was anger. Raw, mad anger and he was struggling to contain it. His eyes never left the detective as both of them glared at each other. More than anything, Chester wanted to storm over to him and rip his heart out and then he would deal with Daniel later.“You both look surprised.” Aiden said with a chuckle, glancing over at Tia who stared at him like she wanted to put a bullet in the middle of his head. “I know it is a lot to take in.”“Why are you doing this Aiden? You are a police detective.” Tia said.“This is the only reason I had become a detective Tia,
Saturday 14th of May12:12 pmThe ward was empty, the crumpled sheets suggested that she might have not been gone for so long but the fact was that she was not here and even the nurses did they know where she had gone to, and neither did they know when she had left the hospital. All her items were gone; the gun, her badge and her phone, Aiden was furious, how could a patient have left the hospital without anyone taking notice of it? But he did not bother to remain in the hospital after that, what was the use? She was not here.As he drove back to the station, he reasoned to dial her number, he needed to know where she must have gone to and what would have made her leave the hospital, she was still hurt and needed care and rest and it worried him. Maybe she had gone back to the station to talk with Chester to ask for her daughter’s whereabouts, she was a mother after all and if that was the reason she had left then it would make total sense, he understood t
Saturday, the 14th of May.10:34 am.The whole thing had gone south and totally not as how they had envisioned it to turn out, they had gone there just to make an inquiry and an arrest and had ended up not making any inquiry, arresting Chester Hunt and a police woman down. In the whole frenzy that had ensured earlier with Tia ripping out the face mask, one of grand father’s body guards had fired a shot in defense of Chester and that had hit Tia in the shoulder, bringing her down.Aiden sighed and paced the hospital room Tia was in, the nurse had said that she was unconscious and might be for a while, this was not how it was meant to go, he brought out his phone and placed a call to the one person whom he would blame for all this.“Where are you?” He asked in annoyance as soon as the person picked up the call, he was pretty upset as to how every thing had gone down.“In the house, with grand father.”Aiden seethe
Saturday, 14th of May 07:46 am. It was much too early for a face off and maybe a little bit too early to be angry but Chester could not care less, he was angry, he was upset, he was boiling, he was fuming and he could not keep calm. Not any more. Yesterday, Tia had been attacked and hurt when her daughter had gone missing and then it had been topped off by her partner who had called her to tell her that her daughter’s DNA sample had been found in the crime scene of the recent victim. Although he did not know what that meant, he knew it was pretty serious. He might not know who the killer was, but he had a suspect on who would have dared to kidnap Zara. The hotel had a twenty four seven hour service so he was sure that he would meet his grand father there whenever he went to his office in the hotel and right now, that was where he was headed to. He walked swiftly, his half hidden face contorted in a deep frown and every one was wise to stay clear off his path,
Friday, the 13th of May 07:43am. He knew what time they would be leaving the house, he had studied them, taking his time to map out their schedules and time. He also knew what time the bus left the station there to get here and he had been right on time. He saw the bus pull up from the comfort of the car he was sitting in, and he watched it come to a stop with a low whistle, he watched the children get down and he waited until the bus started again, easing off the side and joining the traffic. He saw her, the little detective girl, skipping happily to school and accompanied by her friends, her mother did not come drop her off today, which meant that the girl would also be going home on her own as well. He smiled devilishly, every thing was just going way too smoothly for him and he could not be any happier. This would be all too easy for him to do and he knew that there was no way he would ever be caught. He looked on as the girl disappeared into the sc
Friday, the 13th of May 04:06am. The CCTV footage had come to them even earlier than they had thought that it would and Tia could not be any happier, it was the CCTV footage from Wagner park, the particular footage showing the entrance of the park where they had seen the tire marks and the police men had said that they had seen Trisha come in from that direction. Tia’s heart was in her throat as she watched the footage, she was so jittery that she could not sit, so she stood behind Aiden, her eyes wide open and her eye brows furrowed in a slight frown, focusing intently on what played on the screen. A black car had pulled up by the entrance to the park and entered only to stop still close to the entrance, a man got down from the driver’s side of the car, his face shielded by the mask he wore. Tia frowned even deeper but kept on watching. He went around the car to the other side and opened the passengers’ side door and got in, they were unable to see or
Friday, the 13thof May.12:22amNight time was always fun because it was as mysterious as it was thrilling, you just never could tell what night pop out of the corner but tonight, he knew what would be popping out of the corner; he was, bringing with him yet another victim, another body for the police to find, only that this time, she was still alive so he could not yet refer to her as a body. He chuckled as he drove quietly and slowly crawling the car along the road. He needed to do this as quietly as he possibly could, he had enough time on his hands to do this and he knew.The girl was tied up in the back seat and she did not struggle, he glanced at her through the rear view mirror and he could smell the fear in her eyes; he loved that, he looked ahead and continued driving. He had chosen Wagner park this time, it was closer to Skyline clubs than all the other parks were and so he had a good feeling about this one. He tried to imagine how the scen