A hole flowered out at the back of a man's skull, sat on their knees, face lay flat down onto the concrete flooring of a motel pool. A dry pool of blood could be seen caking the ground below, arms limply placed at their sides.
An older, dark-skinned detective clicked their tongue rhythmically, amused by the crime scene set before them. "Whole ass execution here... we have any witnesses?"
Another officer set right beside the man scrolls through a tablet, "Well... they heard a shot, but that's about it. Barely constitutes as a witness if nobody saw anything."
"Nobody went to look? No figures, no... anything?"
"Nope, not in this neighborhood. The instant anyone hears a gunshot here, they're either too far to look or they duck the moment the shot goes off and wait long enough for the commotion to die down."
A Hispanic blood spatter analyst slid down into the pool, leveling with the corpse. "This is like-- this is some cartel shit, y'know?"
"In Louisiana? Sure." The detective scoffed.
"Crime is everywhere, y'know? Business is universal and..." They shrug, "Business is everywhere."
"Oh, Ms. Caccia, you're here." An officer commented.
A woman in their mid-twenties hopped down into the motel pool, scanning their present environment before looking down onto the body of interest. They stood taller than most of the men there, frizzy, dirty blond hair tied up, a lollipop stuck in between their lips, sapphire-colored eyes obscured by a pair of round sunglasses. They readjusted their gloves, sighing.
The detective sucked his lips. "You're late. Uncharacteristic."
The woman rolled their tongue across their teeth, a tired expression turned now towards her compatriot. "It was far away from my place, so... not much I can do about that." She paused, kneeling beside the blood spatter analyst. "Do we know who the diseased is?"
"Philip Camereno, twenty-six, 5'6"."
"He's 5'5"."
"Hm?"
"The soles, they make him seem taller."
"I'm just reading out the info we got on his ID."
"Yeah, well, that's not incredibly accurate, is it?"
The detective shrugs. "No family of note. We're gonna aim to connect with any distant relatives he may have that are near Louisiana to maybe get some read on the kid's personality, but everyone close to him has been long dead. Maybe he got caught with the wrong people cause of that, and now he's here, simple as that."
"I'm definitely going to be looking closer at the body in the morgue... I want to participate in the autopsy."
"Don't you already? Why are you asking me?"
The woman gave a look to the detective. "I always ask."
"And you don't need to. Just do whatever you want, like you always do."
"I'm still asking."
The detective rolled their eyes. "In general, you should be asking the Lieutenant these things, not me."
"I want to be polite, so I'm going to ask."
Her blood-spatter friend points at 'Ms. Caccia.' A brow cocked. "Wait, what? Why can she do that? Don't we have a Pathologist?"
"She is the pathologist, she's just... here. I don't know, she always just comes around. She isn't the only Pathologist, granted, but yeah. She's doing her job, so the Lieutenant doesn't really stop her."
"That's... what the hell? The Lieutenant, the one with a stick up their ass, just lets this chick do whatever she wants? No offense." He quickly turned ot her, making a hand gesture as he spoke.
She shook her head in response. "None taken."
"It's not like it's illegal for a Pathologist to be out on the field." The detective commented, stepping away from the crime scene and climbing out of the pool.
"Yeah, but it's unusual-- we gotta have some decorum! Like, I'm blood spatter, and I don't have ways to just circumvent rules and shit, I get shut down by the boss!"
"Look, man, we've all had this discussion before. She's special, that's the end of it." They lit a cigarette. "Just act like she's another detective, but better."
"What's your name?" He asked the woman.
She turned to him with dead eyes, a pinched expression on her face. "Allegra, Allegra Caccia." She quickly focused her gaze on the detective. "Hey, distance, go behind the median line at the very least; we don't need you contaminating the scene."
The detective shrugged. "You smoke as well, what's the difference?"
"I'm not smoking at a crime scene, that's the difference."
"I'm not even near the body!"
A bulkier woman with bronze skin walked through the police tape, pushing it over themselves before crossing to the pool. "Jesus Christ, I can hear your fuckin' bickering from over there!"
"Lieutenant ." The detective clicked their tongue, moving to put out their cigarette, but before they could react, it was snatched straight from their grasp, the woman crushing it within her palm.
"Quit it. Caccia, what do you see?" She stepped over to a nearby metal table, seared into the boardwalk of the motel, and let the ashes fall into a tray set atop it.
Allegra sighed. "Seems pretty simple at a glance, let's get photos, and we can take the body out of here. Maybe we can find out if there was a bullet left behind or...? Either way, finding out whether or not there is still a bullet narrows down the search a little." Allegra blinked, eyes locking in on a lump within the crusted crimson blood. "Found the bullet, methinks."
Later in the day, back at the station, Allegra is spotted by various other detectives and cops who work at the police station speaking with their Lieutenant. The detective from before set down a binder of files on their desk, watching from the blinds of their lieutenant's office, a wry half-smile spread across their lips.
A more neurotic black-haired girl jumped up beside the man. "What's up? You an admirer?"
The detective scoffed. "No, definitely not. In fact, she pisses me off."
"Why's that?"
"I just don't understand why the Lieutenant is breaking so many rules just to let the crazy chick amongst us do whatever the hell they want."
"Well, it's mostly the Lieutenant, doesn't it seem like Ms. Caccia is always trying to be in a more normal position?"
"Maybe she should do a little bit more work on that. Also, she's kind of an ass."
"She's just not socially all there, okay?"
A passing police officer slapped a file onto the detective's desk. "Detective Landon."
Landon huffed, opening the file with one hand, scanning through it. "Anyway, I just don't really get what the Lieutenant sees in that chick. Actin' all dead all the time, slack-jawed, rude as fuck-- I don't get it."
"Clearly, she's skilled."
"Yeah, but we all got our positions, this isn't some stupid fuckin' show or some shit like that, this is the real world, we have our positions for a reason."
"It's not like a Pathologist can't be on site either. Not an analyst, sure, but they sure have the capabilities of one, no?"
"Yeah, and we have our own analyst, which doesn't do shit cause she's around." He motioned to the Lieutenant's office only to find that Allegra had left. "That was quick, wonder what that was about."
"Probably just discussing the case."
The blood spatter analyst crossed over to Landon. "Hey, Caccia just came up to me and stuff, pointed something out to me." He is shuffling through a file, eyes gliding over the text."
"What?"
"Eh, I noticed it too, but honestly, she just confirmed the theory. The blood spatter is all wrong."
"What's wrong with it?"
"Uh... well... from what we could see-- blood tells a story and the story is that this guy was killed somewhere else and was dropped here-- or rather, positioned.
"Wait, wasn't there a gunshot?"
They clicked their tongue. "Yeah, and there was also a casing, but judging the angle they would've gotten and the caliber of bullet..." The man sighed, motioning out as if they were on the crime scene itself. "So, the body is sitting on its knees, looking downcast. Then someone fires into their head. Head whips forward, either it fires out forward, or violently spills right next to the knees onto the floor, but that didn't happen."
"So... is whoever is doing this trying to throw us off or something, or...?"
The analyst shrugged. "I'd imagine, probably just some dumb thing they did to delay the inevitable. Sadly, they seemed to have used gloves cause we couldn't find any prints on the bullet left behind. No casing though."
"Why would they touch the-- more, rather, wouldn't the remains of a bullet be too small?"
"Well, no, they moved it. You can see here," He flipped to an image of the remaining bullet shrapnel, covered in blood, and at the sides, a very clear marking similar to someone pinching an object. "Yeah, there."
"This is so tedious."
"Well, in general, this person was at least semi-knowledgeable in what they were doing. I think they're just trying to fuck with us though and..." They shrugged again. "It's probably just one guy."
"We don't have a casing?"
"Nope, they definitely picked that up. I think it's some guy trying to come up with a 'signature' thing, or something. Some guy who did a little research, likes guns, wants to start a thing-- serial killer type."
"Well, anyhow, first things first, we look for people closest to our victim."
Allegra, in a morgue, slapped gloves over her fingertips. A coroner spoke up, notepad in hand. "This one came in not too long ago."
"Approximate?"
"Since death?"
"Time of death."
"7:45 pm."
"They were..." Allegra paused. They were admitted into the ER and died there, yes?"
"Yep."
"Okay, let's begin the autopsy, start the recording, please."
An assistant, holding Allegra's phone, tapped the record button.
"Winston Craig, forty-six years old--"
Hours passed throughout the day, and at the end of it all, as the sun dived under the horizon, leaving the sky a sickly grey blended with a slight orangish glow, she sat there atop a motorcycle, staring out at said horizon, eyes glazed over, lips slightly parted.
There was a light breeze drifting about throughout the air surrounding her. She couldn't resist taking in a breath-- a long... purposeful breath, eyes closed. As she exhaled, her eyes opened to a completely grey sky, a partial blue glow remaining as none of the sun remained.
Without looking, Allegra took her phone out of her pocket. She opened it, scrolling through and finally finding something set within her notes. Almost like crazed scrawlings, drawn with the pen that came with said phone, were her notes. At the center of those present notes was the face of a woman with jet black hair, sharp eyes, and a freckled face.
Allegra sighed, deleting the note, lips pressed together. And before long, she went on her way, riding off on her motorcycle.
The next day, the station's Lieutenant received a resignation letter from Allegra, the reason for her leaving remaining a mystery. That doesn't mean that she was going to accept this lying down, though. Allegra left it-- it wasn't even discussed with the Lieutenant beforehand, and in her eyes, there was no reason to accept this letter.
Whilst this was happening, Allegra had already left Louisiana.
From here, this story moves to New Mexico. A short, freckled-faced young woman with short black hair that met her shoulders with the sharp eyes of a huntress, holding a deep brown color, eats on her lonesome. Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The girl stuffed her face with a burrito loaded to the brim, barely able to hold together all of the meat, beans, and cheese contained within its wrapping, plump lips wrapping around each bite.
Her eyes flickered in satisfaction, smiling to herself.
"Carmen Alora Garra, twenty-two years old, 162 centimeters in height. She weighs nearly three hundred pounds, even though she doesn't look like it; she carries an exceptional amount of muscle that could only be considered unnatural for the average person. Along with that, her bones are exceptionally dense to compensate for their unnatural muscle density in turn. A human anomaly, only previously seen in the infamous Bull King, ironically, of my family line." Allegra spoke into a recorder, sat across the street, casually watching Carmen from afar.
Two men, Hispanic, stopped near Carmen as they were about to pass by. "Oh, shit! I've never seen you around here, chica. What's your name?"
Allegra continued. "She is experienced in martial arts, having started at the age of six, and persisted in the arts till the present day. Carmen specializes in Karate as their primary Martial Art, mixed with Boxing and Judo."
Carmen cocked a brow at the men. "Do you two need something?"
"Nah, I was just wonderin'. My boy and I come here often, so I was wonderin' if you were new around here?"
"I guess?"
"You mexicana? Like the food?"
"Raised in Mexico, but I'm Portuguese."
"Oh, so you got that mexicana spirit~."
Carmen blinked. "Do you need something, chico?"
"Nah, nah. I just wanted to get to know what brought a fine young thing like you all the way out here?"
"Fo-" Carmen cringed at his comment. "Food."
"How old are you, gata?"
"Twenty-two-- Could you fuck off? I'm trying to eat?"
"Well, where I'm standin', it looks like you're almost finished with your meal." He gestured to the burrito clutched closely to her.
"Yeah, and you're fuckin' ruining it. I'm trying to enjoy the last bit of my meal, and you're here chattin' away on some bullshit. Fuck off!"
"Damn! I just wanted to have a little fun, chica!" He laughed, pointing at Carmen. "¿Esta niña se cree que es muy dura, eh?" He spun to look at her, "What are you gonna do, huh? You think you can do shit?"
"Vete a la mierda, perdedor. No necesito que el olor a queso de polla siga impregnando mis fosas nasales." Carmen gestured violently, continuing to finish off her meal.
"You hear what this fuckin' bitch is sayin'?"
Allegra, from a distance, continued her recording. "Recording punching speed, fifty-five miles per hour, comparable to that of a mantis shrimp, if not even better-- that's just the top speed through, it isn't their consistent speed. If it were, a lot of people would've probably been killed by her by now. The force of her kick is also comparable to that of a horse's, which isn't as unusual for a trained martial artist, that being about two thousand pounds of force. In this case, it's a bit more literal when compared to Carmen, who, with those two thousand pounds of force, has a kick speed similar to her punch speed, around fifty miles per hour."
One of the men, with a wide smile, swiped at what remained of the burrito in Carmen's grasp, smacking it out of her hands. "Puta estúpida." They laughed audibly.
The burrito slapped limply against the ground, the inner contents spilling across the concrete. For a moment, Carmen sat in shock, looking down at her hands now caked in the mess of her meal. The two men mocked her moment of distress, and in an instant, smack! The sound echoed out across the boardwalk.
The man's head rocked back, blood spraying out from their nose before falling limply onto the ground. His friend looked out in shock, a half smile remaining on their face. By now, Carmen is standing, flexing her fingers.
"She had a sister before; it seems that's where she got her middle name. They passed away at nineteen years old, while Carmen was eleven."
The two men were now rendered flat on their backs in front of this restaurant. Carmen stood before them, looking down at the men. She huffed, leaving the scene.
"Suspected of the murder of Daniel Emilio Diaz."