Chapter 29 – Full Circle
A new dawn, a new day, a new dead body. Everytime he turned around these days it seemed like someone was getting the axe. Then again, as a detective, that wasn’t so terribly strange in his line of work.
This body though, yeesh, he wasn’t excited to be the lead on this one. Detective Caviliery started at the covered corpse. Whoever had killed him had left him for dead in an alley, but strangely enough had left his wallet on him. Lousy killer that one.
Caviliery flipped open the wallet and extracted the ID again, just to make sure. “You know Skoontz, the Aquitaine’s really aren’t having a good week are they?”
“They certainly are not Cavi. Didn’t they just bury that big guy yesterday?” His partner looked over his shoulder at the ID.
“Who Henry? Yeah, it was all over the news. Seems like someone did the same to him as his nephew.” Caviliery flipped the wallet closed and handed it off to be bagged with the rest of the evidence.
“You think it’s a family thing or a business thing Cavi?” Detective Skoontz looked towards the entrance of the alley way where a small crowd had begun to gather.
“Hard to say at this point. The Aquitaine’s are far from anonymous in this City. Surely they’ve made their fair share of enemies. Though if rumors are to be believed the internal politics are none to pretty either.” He responded, looking in the same direction as Skoontz. The small crowd was growing.
“Flip a coin who tells the press. Heads it’s me, tails it’s you.” Skoontz pulled a quarter from his pocket.
Caviliery looked pensive for a moment, watching as the crowd. “Tell you what, let’s just say it’s a John Doe for now. Only person who saw him was the truck driver, and he probably didn’t recognize the face anyways. Might be good to play this one close to the chest for now. Buy us some time.”
Skoontz nodded, returning the quarter to his pocket.
The two turned around to look back at the covered body.
“What do we know about him anyway? Hell until you pulled out his ID I never would have guessed it was an Aquitaine. Especially in this part of town.” Skoontz asked.
Detective Cavaliery looked around the empty alley. Skoontz wasn’t wrong. They’d found the man between two abandoned buildings. All the opening’s were boarded up, though someone had clearly tried to get inside at least a few of them with little success. Graffiti covered the walls, while weeds grew where the asphalt had retracted from the edge of the building, littered with sparkling shards of shattered grass. Decrepit was the word that came to mind for Cavaliery.
Without responding to his partner, he proceeded to walk further down the alley. Taking in the aging brick walls, battered dumpsters, and detritus that littered the alley.
The killer had been smart, he thought. This area of town was nothing but shipping yards and abandoned buildings. Had it not been for the driver, it would most likely have been months before the body was discovered.
That begged the question however, what was an Aquitaine doing out on the fringes of the City? He didn’t know much about the family, but knew enough from the charity events and newspaper articles that this was the last place you’d most likely find one of their kin.
And what of the killer? He was smart enough to dispose of the body in an alley? But not so thoughtful as to take the man’s wallet? This obviously wasn’t a robbery. Someone wanted the man dead. Caviliery shook his head. There were too many unknowns.
Turning around he walked towards his partner, who was in the middle of a conversation with one of the technicians. “Skoontz, lets go. There’s nothing left to do here.”
Skoontz nodded and wrapped up his conversation with the technician. Trailing after Caviliery as he strode towards the crowd.
Soon as the detectives reached the yellow tape, the questions came flying out of the crowd
“Who was the man? What happened?” Faceless voices called out of the crowd.
Caviliery stopped for a moment to address the crowd. “We have no information to release at this time. Other than a man was killed and left for dead. Thank you”
As Caviliery and Skoontz approached the car, Skoontz asked his partner where they were headed.
“We’re going to inform his next of kin,” Caviliery replied, putting the car in drive.
An hour later and far removed from the landscape of decrepit brick buildings and overgrown weeds. The two detectives found themselves parked at the gate to the Aquitaine estate.
Having rung the buzzer several times. They were patiently waiting for someone on the other side to open the gate. .
The voice on the other side of the intercom, had sounded haggard and more than half asleep. Surprising given it was eleven in the morning. Then again, Cavaliery thought, the widow’s husband had only been laid to rest yesterday, so maybe that’s not surprising.
“Cavi” Skoontz tapped his partner’s arm. The detective looked up to see the gates had finally started to roll open.
Caviliery took one last sip of his coffee before placing it in the holder. He put the car in drive. The widow’s husband had just died yesterday, and here they were to inform the woman her nephew was dead as well, most likely murder also. “Here we go.” he muttered under his breath as the car began to roll forward.