Bloody Diamond: an ongoing story
By Kazette Chan - Guest Contributor Chapter One"Certainly I do! We used to share a bowl of noodles because we were so poor." Ivan says. "But now, we can each order ten bowls of noodles!" Then he laughs.
Sam says, "Ten?" He shakes his head and smiles. "Ivan, I missed you a lot when you went to America." Ivan and Sam are best friends. They've known each other since they were 13 years old. Ivan was sent to America to study when they were 17 years old, while Sam has stayed behind to become a medical examiner. Ivan returned to his hometown, Wohs, recently. Now, they both work for the local government.
Sam kneels down to tie his shoe. "Sam!" Ivan yells.
"What now? Do you see another UFO? Or is the money flying off the sky this time?" Sam chuckles and stands up. He examines the direction that Ivan looks; there is a bloody arm dangling from the balcony on the second floor of the house next to them. They immediately run upstairs and find four bodies lying on the floor. Ivan informs his boss, Tom, that something has happened. Tom brings along a few members of the forensic team and some Wohs Police Department officers. They are processing the scene while Sam suggests the police officers help look for survivors; however, Shawn the Sergeant concludes that everyone is dead.
Suddenly, Sam yells, "Here! He's alive!" Immediately, the paramedics rush him to the hospital. Shawn swears that he checked on the man earlier and that he wasn't breathing. He asks Sam how he knew that there was a survivor. Sam explains professionally, "The blood in the body becomes coagulated after death. Before we ran into this building, there were a couple drops of blood dropped on the ground. I touched it, and it wasn't too congealed yet. So, I was almost certain that there is at least one survivor, although I was not sure who."
Tom, the director of the forensic department, adds, "Also, we can look at their eyeballs. The cornea will dehydrate after death and thus increase the turbidity of the cornea."
Sam continues, "Don't feel bad about it, Shawn. No one expects you to gather technical observations like these."
"How is it going, Shawn?" Beth, the new SIP of the Regional Crime Unit, asks. Shawn then reports to Beth and introduces the forensic team to her. "That lady with short hair is Eve, the SEO of the forensic department. The guy with black hair is Marco, who belongs to the chemical department. That young lady there is Linda, the junior technician. That lady with glasses is Terra, who belongs to the biochemical department."
Eve finds two diamonds on the floor and, judging by the transparency and the color of them, she says that they are very rare and expensive. She also finds a torn jewelry bag, which has a label that indicates there were 33 diamonds in the bag. "So, this is a potential burglary homicide," Linda says.
The victim is the Harts family. The father, Adam, was 49 years old, the mother, Jasmine, was 47 years old, and the daughter, Lera, was 18 years old. The survivor is the older son, Fredy, 23 years old. According to Sam, the daughter's liver temperature is slightly higher than the parents', so her approximate time of death was two hours later than them. "Why?" asks Sam.
"Excuse me?" Beth asks.
Sam looks at the wounds and explains, "There are multiple wounds on the victims. This girl is so young and vulnerable; one stab in the chest is enough to kill her. This level of violence is extreme overkill."
Tom presumes, "This is not just a burglary homicide; it's a vendetta."
The team then goes back to the police station and starts to process the evidence. Kony, the senior forensic technician, goes through Lera's cell phone and finds some pictures of her and someone that seems to be her boyfriend. He sends the pictures to Beth and she remembers seeing him outside of the police line the other day. "He didn't even bother to ask or come forward when he saw his girlfriend's house was surrounded by the police? That's what I call suspicious," says Shaq, a police officer. They then go to the victim's boyfriend Ken's working place - a construction site. The boss says that he is out for lunch right now. So, Beth and Shawn decide to check his personal locker, and they find $13, 000 in cash. At this moment, Ken walks in. Beth yells his name, and he starts to run. Although Ken is a strong man, Beth is the best of the best in the police department; she takes him down within three minutes.
They bring him in for interrogation. Ken says that he won that money from gambling, but he can't tell where he went to gamble. When they ask how he got all the bruises and cuts, he says, "Madame, I am a construction worker. We get hurt at work all the time."
Shawn says, "We found your finger prints on the hammer and knives, which are the murder weapons, in your girlfriend's house. How do you explain that?" Ken tells them that he was there earlier to cook for his girlfriend for their third anniversary, and he borrowed the hammer a few months ago but returned it last week. When asked why he borrowed the hammer, he claims that he had lost his own hammer, which he was using at work, so he had to borrow one from his girlfriend for work until he got a new one.
"So, are you saying that you have nothing to do with these murders?"
"Yes, I am, and you either charge me now, or let me go." Everyone is frustrated because the evidence they have now is not enough to put Ken in jail.
As everyone is becoming depressed, Wilson - who has been working with Beth for five years - walks in and screams, "Fredy is awake!!!"
To be Continued...
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