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  “Tangled”

  Uc Amalu Jr

  Copyright© 2012 by Uc Amalu Jr

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locale is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "It’s another girl. She’s all cut up and her breasts…"

  "What about her breasts?"

  "They’re gone!"

  The conversation replayed in Jay’s mind. Surely it

  couldn’t be right? There had already been one murder like

  that in Showsdale. Not a month ago, a young woman

  bearing that same mutilation, was found. Now it sounded

  like a second girl had suffered the same fate. How he

  hoped that the Captain had been misinformed of the

  details, but in his heart Jay knew that he hadn’t.

  Jay pulled onto the side of the road and cut the engine.

  He scanned his surrounding. To the right lay crude

  asphalt road, full of pot-holes large enough to swallow a

  small sedan. On his left was dense bush land, nothing but

  square kilometres of Eucalyptus, Grey Gums and the odd

  Tallow Wood. The crime scene unit, three marked cop cars

  and their flurry of red and blue flashing lights, served as

  an unwelcome intrusion upon the otherwise picturesque

  backdrop.

  Smoke escaped the interior of Jay’s cruiser when he

  stepped outside onto the loose gravel, stones crunched

  loudly beneath his R.M. Williams boots. The cleansing

  scent of eucalyptus filled the air. Jay drew a long, deep

  breath savouring the purity of the rural setting. It had

  been a long time since his lungs had experienced

  anything other than the toxicity of city living. He turned

  his head to the sky, amazed by the clarity and how very

  different two environments, only ten kilometers apart,

  could be. Just five minutes drive away was the hustle and

  bustle of Showsdale, a city of eighty five thousand,

  spoiled by pollution, progress and careless littering. Yet

  here, well this was nature at its best. Untouched.

  Further up on the shoulder of the road, he saw an

  ambulance. Two uniformed officers were standing by the

  open back doors, their note-books in hand, speaking to a

  man and a woman. Jay assumed they were the

  unfortunates who had made the gruesome discovery.

  The young man had a blanket and his arms around the

  young woman, rubbing her arms and shoulders so

  vigorously, it looked as though he was trying to shake the

  life back into her. Jay stared at her eyes. They had the

  vacant stare he had come to associate with shock. It

  appeared that she was incapable of speaking at this point

  in time, as it was the young man who seemed to answer

  all the questions. Behind the couple, in the ambulance, a

  medic was preparing a syringe. He held a bottle upside down and had the

  syringe embedded within the small clear vessel. He pulled

  the needle from the bottle, tapped it a few times with his

  fingers and then leaned in between the couple and said a

  few words. The woman held up her arm, without so much

  as blinking. The medic wiped her arm with a tiny, white

  swab and administered the shot. He then handed her a

  small bottle of water before disappearing deeper into the

  ambulance.

  Jay reached into his coat pocket and withdrew his

  notebook before making his way toward them. Beside the

  ambulance, he noticed the couple’s backpacks lying on

  the ground. Clipped to the front pocket of one of the

  back-packs were a pair of short-range walkie-talkies and

  an updated map of Postman’s Bay, sealed in a clear

  plastic slip. He looked back at the shocked duo, their

  heavy duty hiking boots, wide brimmed hats and high

  visibility T-shirts told him they were seasoned hikers. Both

  parties sat in the back of the ambulance. The woman’s

  eyes were wide and stared blankly at the officers as they

  fired questions at her and her male friend. One of the

  officers walked over to Jay.

  "Hey, Detective Marnotti. Look, I don’t think we’re going to

  get too much more out of them at this stage." The

  officer’s name badge read Paul Mitchell. Jay’s eyes

  narrowed as he read it.

  "Mitchell?" he queried.

  "Yes, Sir," replied the young officer.

  "Weren’t you the kid who was at the Hunt scene a few of

  weeks back?'

  "I sure was, Sir. My fortunes haven’t improved much, as

  you can see."

  Jay grinned at the young cop, admiring how well he

  appeared to be coping with having attended two major

  homicides within the space of a month. "So, Paul, what

  have you been able to extract from our witnesses?"

  Paul flipped through his notebook. "Well, their names are

  Lance and Julia Sanders, ages twenty-eight and twenty-

  seven. They live in Showsdale and hike here every long

  weekend. Apparently, they’ve done so for the last two

  years." He looked up at Jay.

  "Every weekend, eh?"

  "Every long weekend," Officer Mitchell corrected Jay.

  "Seems it’s their hobby, Sir. They like to keep fit I guess."

  Jay grinned at the idea of people actually exercising as a

  hobby. His idea of a hobby was a Saturday night at Bluey’s

  where he exercised his biceps by lifting a frosted glass of

  ale from the bar to his lips and back to the bar again. Jay

  dug deep into his coat pocket, produced a cigarette and

  lit it up.

  "Apart from that, Paul, what else did ya get out of em?"

  Once again, the young rookie referred to his notes before

  replying. "Apparently they had only just begun their hike,

  when about half a kilometer into the scrub, they saw a

  whole heap of birds gathering near a clearing just off the

  track a ways. Julia went over for a closer look; she thought

  it might have been an injured animal or something. As

  you can imagine, it didn’t take them long to figure out

  that it was no animal."

  Jay drew back on his cigarette. "And then what?" A gust

  of smoke escaped with his words.

  "Well, her and Lance high tailed it out of there," Officer

  Mitchell nodded over towards the scrub. He then pointed

  to a small, silver sedan sitting on the side of the road and

  said, "They got back to their car here, and called us. They

  say that’s where they stayed, with their doors locked, until

  Officer Newcombe and myself arrived."

  "What time frame we lookin’ at?"

  Paul flicked over to the next page of his note-book and

  then back again. "They got here at roughly 8am,
saw the

  body at about 8.15am, we were called at 8.34am and

  arrived on the scene at approximately 8.57am. We called

  for back up at 9.10am and they got here at 9.30am, a few

  minutes before the coroner and crime scene unit."

  "Did they touch or disturb the body?" asked Jay.

  "According to them, they laid nothing more than eyes on

  it. I have to say that I believe them. They’re pretty shaken

  up, Detective."

  Jay crushed out his cigarette and picked up the butt.

  "Okay, Paul, make sure you get all their personal details

  and ask em to come in to the station for a more detailed

  statement tomorrow, if possible." He then handed his

  cigarette butt to officer Mitchell and said, "Here, kid, take

  care of this for me before the C.S.U collects it as evi-

  dence!" With that, Jay turned in the direction of the crime

  scene and walked off.

  He followed the lead of the iridescent yellow crime scene

  tape that cordoned off the area, scanning for any unusual

  footprints, tyre tracks or drag marks along the way. There

  was nothing out of the ordinary that he could see, but

  then again after all the cops that had traipsed through in

  the past hour, it would be difficult to tell who made what

  trail anyhow. As soon as Jay entered the scrub, the

  sunlight dimmed through the canopy of the trees,

  causing the temperature to drop somewhat. A few

  hundred metres further down the track, Jay saw three

  more officers scouring the area for clues, and over to his

  left were the coroner and one of the ambulance medics,

  crouching beside a white sheet.

  Careful to watch where he was stepping, Jay weaved his

  way through the ferns, twigs and leaves scattered about

  the ground, until he reached the grisly scene. The medic

  stepped aside and allowed Jay access before nodding to

  the coroner and walking back toward the roadside.

  "G’day, Jay,” the coroner greeted him. “I was hoping I’d be

  seeing you today."

  "Oh yeah? And why is that, Seth?"

  Seth Pierce had been the attending coroner in a majority

  of the cases Jay had caught over the last ten years. The

  man, whom Jay thought had about as much personality

  as a turnip, even resembled one. His balding head

  sported just a handful of thin hairs and his face looked as

  though it had seen better days. Personal appear-ances

  aside, he was a likeable fellow. Jay often wondered if

  Seth likened his position of Coroner as the next best

  thing to being a serial killer. It did allow him the luxury of

  feeding his morbid fascination with the dead, and their

  cause of death, while remaining safely within the con-fines

  of the law.

  "Well, you and Ben are working that Hunt case right?"

  "That’s right, what about it? ‛

  Seth leaned in closer to Jay. "I wouldn’t like to say this

  too loud, or have it spread around, it’s just my personal

  observations you understand…"

  "Spit it out already," Jay interrupted, his patience fading

  fast.

  Clearly taken aback with Jay’s hostility, Seth spoke

  quietly. "Well you have another female victim, late teens to

  early twenties I am guessing, but like the Hunt girl, she’s

  cut up pretty bad. Both breasts are gone and her

  abdomen… talk about a mess."

  "Any estimate on the time of death yet?" Jay asked,

  realising the Captain hadn’t been misinformed.

  "At a rough guess, I’d say sometime in the last twenty

  four hours. She’s in slight rigor mortis. Her toes and

  fingers are stiff. The lower temps in here could have

  slowed things down a bit," Seth said, looking around the

  scrub. "But the pooling of the blood on the underside of

  her body tells me she’s been here at least eight hours.

  Time of death may be between ten and midnight last

  night."

  Seth lowered the sheet from the victims chin and showed

  Jay exactly what had hap-pened to the girl. Jay saw a

  cut over her temple, so deep it was actually gaping open.

  Her neck was red and bruised, as though she had been

  strangled or choked at some point during her attack.

  Jay crouched down beside the body his eyes fixed on her

  chest; he couldn’t believe the ferocity of the attack. Her

  breasts had been hacked off with such savagery that all

  that was left was jagged and torn pieces of skin and

  exposed flesh. He peeled the sheet back further, exposing

  the rest of the victim’s naked, muti-lated body. When his

  eyes reached her abdomen; he felt he was going to be

  sick. It was so torn open and cut up, that he saw what he

  was certain were her intestines spilling out of the cavity.

  "I’ve seen enough," he said, pulling the sheet back up to

  her chin. Seth placed bags over her hands and kept them

  in place with tape, to secure any trace evidence that may

  be there.

  "C.S.U have been combing the area for evi-dence," Seth

  informed Jay. 'So far they’ve come up with squat! No

  personal effects or identification. It’s almost as though

  she just fell from the sky."

  "Well it’s a pretty fair bet that didn’t happen." Jay rubbed

  his forehead.

  "They’ll keep looking, but it’s safe to assume that they’re

  not going to find anything. They’ve been here for over an

  hour now and they’ve turned up nothing."

  "You’re a real breath of fresh air, Seth. You know that?"

  Jay was annoyed at Seth’s negative attitude. "Would it

  hurt to show a little positivity?"

  "Sorry, pessimism comes with the job. There’s never too

  much to be positive about."

  Jay stood up and placed his hands on his hips.

  "Are you leaving already?" Seth asked.

  "No, just gonna go check in with Ben. Gimme a yell when

  you’re ready to move her, okay?" said Jay, already

  making his way back up the hiking track.

  "Will do," Seth waved at Jay and returned to the body

  lying at his feet.

  Jay slid into the driver’s seat of his cruiser and laid his

  head against the steering wheel, his breathing shallow

  and erratic. He flipped his phone open and began to enter

  Ben’s number. It was then that he spotted the barrage of

  news vans and reporters converging on the site.

  "Parasites," he scowled.