'Kevin go and get the CSU' instructed Alicia . 'See if they can get anything more out of the car'

'On it' said Kevin and went away taking out his mobile and dialling a number.

'Ryan come with me'

Both of them walked a few yards and reached the house. It was not a large one, a normal cottage, it was.

The house was two storied and was mainly made of wood and cement settings in some portion. As they reached the house and walked up a few steps to reach the door, the steps made knocking noises just as stepping on a hollow wood does.

Alicia was gonna knock the door but Ryan saw the calling bell first and pushed it.

Within a few minutes, the door opened up and they were greeted with a smell of sweaty shocks. Soon a young man came in front of them. They didn't want to ask form where the smell was coming as that might get him offended . The man wore a blue blazer and a matching blue tie, maybe it was because it was the office hours that they came in, and this man was just about to go out for work. He was in his late thirties and had a tired face.

'Yes?' he said in a common voice that everyone uses.

'Hello , I am Detective Quinn and this is my partner Detective Raglan from NYPD . We're investigating Mr. Carter's murder'

'Oh , sure. Detectives please come in' he said in a polite tone.

They were inside the house following the man, and they looked everywhere, it was nice and perfectly furnished, the ground leading to another room, consisted of carpet and they found a dining room on the left side with dining table that looked like it has never been used.

The man led them to the main living room .As they entered they saw a blonde woman of middle thirties curled up on one of the sofas with a cup of tea.

The man signalled them to make themselves comfortable on the other piece of sofa as he also entered with them, took away a cup from the small table in the middle which contained some kind of chocolate milk liquid and said to the woman 'Sally some detectives are here to see you'

The woman kept the cup which contained some sort of coffee back on the table and looked up at them. Her face showed depression as she sat up straight to talk with them.

The man went out.

'So you're Mrs. Carter, I presume?' Alicia started.

'Yes, yes I am, and you are the detectives right?'

'Yes, I am Alicia Quinn and this is Ryan Raglan'

The woman's eyes became a little more puffy as she said 'Okay did you find who killed Jade ?'

'That's what we are investigating about' Ryan said 'And we're just in the early stages of our investigation. We have a long way ahead'

'And we just have a few questions to ask' said Alicia.

'Okay, go on'

'So when was the last time you saw him?'

'Last night...'

'Last night? When exactly?'

'He came last night at maybe 9 or so...at the dinner. Yes at the dinner. That was the last time I saw him'

'You never saw him after that?'

'Not until I discovered his....' her voice trailed off.

'And after that what did he do? Went to sleep, I presume?'

'No he didn't go to sleep .He said he had some important work to finish so he remained in the room where he works, the study room. He said he will come to sleep when he's done'

'And he never came to bed ?'

'No, and there had been a power cut in the middle of the night, and I was asleep....'

'Did he say what was he working on?'

'No he didn't and neither did I ask. I don't have much interest in these things'

'And at what time did you find out that he is not present in the house?' Ryan asked.

'Not before morning.' She went on 'I woke up and found that he is not in his bed. So I thought he was still working, so I went to the study room to check on him and found out that he was not there too. Then I thought that he must have left early so I went down the street to see if his car was there or not and there I found him, like that'

'Does he usually leaves without even informing you?' said Alicia.

'I will not say that he doesn't do this. Yes sometimes he does leave without informing me when he have more pressure at work but generally he leaves a message saying when he will be back or a voicemail, something like that'

'And you were sure in this case he didn't?'

'Yes , I later checked after informing you all , if he had left any message saying where he was going , but there was none. And that's very unusual of him'

'Why do you say that?'

'He's always caring and careful. So when he goes out like this he never forgets to leave behind a notification'

'I understand that' said Alicia . 'Did he seem all normal, this few days?'

'Yeah he was normal.....no not quite normal' said Mrs. Carter changing her mind 'He was a little absent-minded and was always immersed in work.'

'Was he working on anything special that needed more attention than the usual?'

'As I said I never asked him what he is working on ,be it special or not . I always trust him and I don't wanna push him about anything and irritate him. Because I know that he will surely discuss it with me if he thinks he needs to'

'Hmm' Alicia shrugged. 'And did he have any friends?'

'Not that I know of, maybe a few friends from his office'

'Do you know where he works?' asked Alicia to check that if Kevin's information was correct .

'Yes ,of course' she said 'He works at the NY times .But don't ask me in what position does he work'

'No problem, and did he have any enemies ?'

'I don't think he will have such kind of enemies who will want to kill him. And why would anyone want to kill such a kind man? He didn't do any harm to anyone .I can't think of anyone who can kill him, and also I can't clearly say if he had any enemies'

'Ok Mrs. Carter one last question' Ryan asked this time 'Who was that man who opened the door for us?'

'Oh that's my brother Jacob .After I discovered the body I was too nervous, I didn't know what I should do. So the first thing I did was to call him .He came and later instructed me to call 911'

'Okay Mrs. Carter' said Alicia 'that would do it for now .We would either show up here or call you downtown if we need any more information from you. At the moment this will do. Thank you'

'Anytime Detective Quinn, just make sure you get the murderer behind the bars' she said and stood up.

FOUR

'Here's out victim Jade Carter' Alicia took out a copy of his picture form a folder and stuck it on the white bulletin board , and wrote the name over it. 'And as for now we know that someone strangled him last night and he is male and so so...' Alicia wrote the remaining bio data under the name, mostly in short.

Henderson seemed to be free today sitting and looking at the board , and was hearing things that Alicia was saying to others , and also giving an occasional glance at Ryan who was intentionally looking the other way to avoid his eye.

'How are we doing with this case , Alicia?' Henderson asked her as he didn't want to talk with Ryan yet. And he always have a tendency to refer this kind things as 'we' although he plays the smallest part possible in helping them.

'Not much yet' she said 'We only know that his death occurred between 3 to 4 am last night and later in the morning his wife discovered the body .The body is at the morgue with Dr. Taylor for autopsy and the car is with the CSU as they are checking it looking for some more clues. We also questioned his wife , she said that Mr. Carter was a little ''too busy'' these days , but other than that we don't have any more valuable information as of now'

'We are making progress, it's good' said Henderson appreciating that his junior detectives were doing quite excellent .

'And I heard that he works in New York Times ?'

'Yeah , right'

'He must be quite affluent'

'No' said Ryan ' It seemed like he was quite a middle class and a normal person. Didn't earn much money from the NY Times, I guess'

'But NY Times is a popular building and also a famous newspaper company, they ought' to give him a handsome sum of money' inquired Henderson.

'Maybe he works in a lower position'

'That can be it' Henderson understood that Alicia's reason was solid.

'Oh, the other thing' Henderson went on 'Do we know what exactly was he doing in his car at the edge of dawn?'. Then Henderson chuckled and added 'I am just curious , because if I'm not wrong people generally sleep at that time'

'No we don't know that' said Alicia 'We only know that he was doing something essential other than the daily work and it was damn important for him to leave the house at that time and go somewhere because it could not wait till the morning .But his car didn't move and the killer was in the backseat .Then we all know what happened'

'Okay , ya'll carry on and keep me updated'

'Sure , sir'

Kevin just entered the room as Alicia turned to him quickly and asked 'Kevin, got any results?'

'Not till now' He said 'They are yet to finish with the car , let alone giving any verdict on it. I checked with them and found some parts of the car are at the crime lab . They will hurry if we need them to'

'No don't do that' replied Alicia 'Let them take their time if they needs to. We don't wanna hurry and get the wrong results'

'I was wondering about something' suddenly Ryan said.

'What ?'

'If he was working on something , why would he want to go out suddenly?'

'Perhaps this is premeditated' Kevin gave his suggestion.

'Maybe, but I think as he was doing some work and then he went out....perhaps he was going to meet someone...to show his work?'

'Right , right' Alicia's face became thoughtful as she considered what Ryan said 'This work he was working on was out of his daily routine , we know that , it might be that someone gave him some important work to do and asked him to finish it as soon as possible ,and return it to him. That's why he worked for the whole night , and when he was done, he went out to visit the person and to show his finished work'

'Sounds to me like he was writing a fiction novel and when he was done completing the first draft , he went to a editor to present it' Kevin laughed.

'Shut up Kevin, it was much more important than just writing a novel and presenting it to the editor. If he was really doing that he would have waited till the morning .It was something that made him go out on a rainy night. Something much more unusual than any common things.'

'Hey one minute' said Kevin as he remembered something 'If he was going to show his work to someone then should he not carry a briefcase or some papers, files anything , for the documents ?'

'Good point' Alicia said as she picked up the marker pen again and wrote it down in short on the white board again.

'NO BRIEFCASE' Alicia spelled it.

'That means' Started Ryan 'The murderer stole the briefcase or whatever was with him .What else can it be?'

'Maybe he emailed him the documents.'

'No he didn't' Ryan disagreed 'If he emailed the documents then it's done. Why would there be any need to visit the stranger in person that too in the middle of the night?'

'Right' Alicia also agreed with Ryan.

'Maybe he wanted to make sure if the person have received his mail'

'Couldn't he just call him and ask , like "Hey dude, you got the freaking email?'' '

Kevin laughed.

'Whatever he says' said Ryan 'I am pretty sure he will not start the sentence like "Hey dude'' , this person seems like his boss , so he will surely show some respect, isn't it ?'

'Yes that's right' said Alicia 'This person have quite gravity in him , otherwise why would Carter work for him , for the whole night ?'

'What if he blackmailed him ?' Kevin showed them another possible reason.

'Why would he' Ryan took the other way to prove Kevin wrong again 'This person seems to be quite innocent. So why would anyone choose to blackmail him? I think that's improbable'

'Why wouldn't he?' Kevin countered again 'As he is a simple and innocent man, it's easy for others to blackmail him for something and get a job done'

'If it is so' said Alicia to keep the conversation in control 'Then we should think this person was not a normal boss but some high quality criminal who Mr. Carter had a relation with and did the jobs for'

'It's getting complicated' said Kevin .

'Sure it is' said Ryan 'You see we got a murdered man , a murderer and a criminal , so it's got to get complicated'

'Yeah , but we are just speculating, so just calm down okay?' Alicia really wanted them both to be calm and think rationally 'We still don't know anything for sure .If Mr. Carter really worked for someone or did the person really blackmail him or not....well what we just know is that he was killed and the killer is out there'

Ryan made a thoughtful face and said 'We need more proof to prove these things'

'Yep'

'But if our deductions are correct' Kevin looked interested about this 'Then it stands like this – Our victim Jade Carter was working on somethin' that night .Later in the night when he finished his project he went out to show it to someone because it was essential and not a minute could be wasted. But as he went inside the car , the car didn't move, the killer also was ready. The killer strangled him, took the briefcase and escaped'

'That is likely'

Ryan's phone buzzed suddenly.

'Raglan' Ryan answered. Then after a minute later , he said 'Sure'

He hung up and said to others . 'It was Dr. Taylor. And he wants us to meet him'

FIVE

The morgue was in the back side , another medium sized building more or less looks like the main precinct building. It didn't take much time to reach there.

They entered the main hallway and saw doctors and other medical staffs roaming around.

They knew the room where their body was getting operated on and they entered it.

They found Dr. Taylor picking up something from a plastic bag and two other staffs and a junior doctor taking care of the post mortem. They waited in the door as Dr. Taylor quickly saw them and said 'Here you are'

He then kept away the equipments and cleared his hands before coming to them .He said 'I was waiting for you all.'

'So you got something for us ?' asked Alicia coming straight to business.

'Sure, but the full autopsy is yet to be complete' He said 'But I have seen the main things ,the things I need to see'

'Then why are they still carrying on the autopsy?' Ryan asked.

'Just to put some more words in the post mortem report. That's what we do. Anyway, come along.'

He led them into the room, as they came near the body Dr. Taylor asked others to put a cloth on the body as it was completely naked and the stomach was half open with a portion of pancreas dangling out.

As the body was covered with a white cloth up to the waist portion he ushered the other staffs to leave and said 'Be back in an hour'

The junior doctor nodded and left, taking both the staffs with him.

'Yeah' Dr. Taylor started as the room became empty. 'As for this strangle case what I can see is that the carotid arteries are completely damaged'

'And that signifies anything?' asked Ryan curiously.

'Look here' Dr. Taylor came towards the head of the body and held the neck . 'These marks are quite deep as you see, and a person dies when this hyoid bone of the neck is totally broken. This is a ligature strangulation case, so in this case the bone is partially broken while the arteries are more or less damaged. So we can easily conclude that the victim fought for a while –'

Alicia interrupted 'So you say that it wasn't an instant death?'

'Obviously not' he looked at her and made a face as if like saying "why do you even need to ask this?'' but continued to say 'He was alive for two or maximum three minutes after which he became unconscious and eventually - dead'

'Did you find anything more?' Kevin didn't have any interest in all this useless explanations.

'Yes' said Dr. Taylor looking more energetic 'He was killed by a thin cord or a nylon thread. You may even consider a garrotte'

'Killer had a cord. Okay that confirms that our killer was all ready to kill him'

'It seems so. And you see our victim was nervous before his death, he didn't know that someone would kill him , but he was nervous about something else, and that too from the past few days , maybe' he said this carefully.

'So another point. He didn't know that he would be murdered, still he was nervous' repeated Alicia.

'Wait, wait' Ryan interjected 'How can we even say that he didn't know he would be murdered. How can we be sure about that ? He may as well know that he might get killed by someone, and that's why he was nervous'

'If he knew that he is in danger then surely he would have called the police and informed them.' Said Alicia 'At least that's what people generally do'

'Right' said Dr. Taylor.

Ryan left it to that.

Dr. Taylor gave another suggestion 'Or maybe that he was threatened and he was in a panic state'

'Who would threat him ?' asked Kevin.

'That's for you to find out'

'But still he should have informed the police'

Dr. Taylor asked Ryan 'Can you tell if this guy is a pro ?'

'Yes I can. And I would say that, no ,this guy was not a pro, but still he knew how to strangle a man. The vascular obstruction here' he pointed at the throat of the body where there was long cut 'is usually the main mechanism. Complete blood flow is associated with irreversible neurological damage and death'

'Seems like a professional killer to me'

'I will not say he was a professional killer neither will I deny it. But as it seems a professional killer would know the amount pressure to be applied in this critical area, but this killer just tried his luck which let the victim live for a few more minutes. A professional killer will take just a second to kill him and complete the whole process.'

'I see'

'And apart from that everything is okay' said Dr. Taylor 'Well he consumed foods....well normal foods...no problem with that'

'What kind for foods?'

'Caffeine , junk foods some high calorie foods....other than that he is clean. We found nothing more till now.'

'Then maybe he went to some restaurant that night'

'Must be so' said Kevin.

'Or maybe he had these leftovers from the previous day in his fridge , and ate it home' Ryan always wanted to go in every detail.

'That's possible too' agreed Alicia.

'I will check the body and the intestine areas for one more time , and will inform you if I find anything new, ok?'

'Yup' said Alicia.

They were turning to leave when Dr. Taylor called them again and said 'Oh, and another thing'

They turned back as Dr. Taylor gave them a plastic bag and said 'Here it is. Some things we found from his clothes'

ҁUzv!