in the killzone
who: december and brett
where: fontain park
when: later evening
December had been called in early. Very early, even. However, when she got to Fontaine Park, she could definitely see why. She’d seen some pretty fucked up things in her time. Even before she had become coroner, she’d seen her share of messed up. But this? This was something she could only describe as ‘inspired’. Because someone had to go to one hell of a lot of work to even put something like this together.
It looked pretty much like exactly what happened. Like it had up and rained down metal fucking spikes into a whole group of people. How did you get pipes to rain down from the sky? And with the force it took to impale people, to embed themselves into the ground enough that as she stood at the edge of the killing field, she kicked one and it didn’t budge very much. Something launched them maybe? She had no idea what mechanics would go into it, but something would have had to have been rigged.
Her attention was captured by a passing paramedic, who mumbled something to her about having her work cut out for her. “...amen to that. Jesus fucking christ.” she breathed, before she started to walk forward, pulling a pen out from her hair and she started marking down details on her clip board. Body descriptions with numbers, so she could sift through and piece things together later on a bigger diagram. It was the only way she was going to be able to really recreate this later. And it was on such a huge scale that she needed to just dive in and start somewhere.
As she was strolling through the bloody mess, she spotted her cousin, and she walked a little closer, within earshot. “I can safely say I’ve never seen anything like this before.” she told him. “...I’m pretty sure only the guy who wrote Dante’s Inferno could have even imagined this.” she said. Then she paused, and shrugged. “Or maybe Francisco Goya.”
Another day, Brett may have asked who Francisco Goya as, since he didn’t know, but now really wasn’t the time. Instead he grunted a response. “Looks like a fucking warzone,” he agreed. “You guys got a tally of how many yet?” he asked. The earlier emotion was now locked firmly away again behind a thick, thick wall. It was the only way he could actually cope with all of this right now.
"Not yet. Count's up to eighteen though." December told him. "Most of which have been identified by family members or fellow church goers, but there are a few who people are unsure about. We'll likely have to try and run things down the hard way for that. And by 'we' I mean you lot. I'm going to be stuck in the morgue for like the next week or so."
“Fuck,” Brett swore, under his breath, and for the first time in a very long time, he wished he smoked. He could really do with something distracting right now. And something to hide the smell. At least they’d got most of the wounded out by now - though the hospital would be filled to breaking point tonight, that was for sure.
She looked over at him for a long moment, then stepped over an impaled arm closer. She had to lift her skirt a little bit to get it over the pipe there--she wasn't properly attired beyond the lab coat someone had brought for her since she really hadn't been expecting to get to work til a little later tonight. "One of the dead I have listed as a DiGiovanni, by the way." she added, voice slightly lower than before.
Brett took a deep breath at that, then let it go. “Noted,” he said with a nod. That didn’t make things any better. “Primary victim, or just wrong place at the wrong time?” he asked - wondering if there was even any fucking way to tell from all of this. But if all this was to get to a DiGio... Revenge for this morning’s attack, maybe? The Syndicate involved in a case of serious one-upmanship? They didn’t need a major war brewing, but they might be looking at one.
Shit, even if this was nothing to do with the mob, it could be seen that way. And even if they took the best case scenario, even if they ignored the possible street fallout entirely, there would be the political fallout on the department. There would be pressure to get this one wrapped up, and wrapped up quickly. And he was the fucking hero of the fucking hour. The press would be on his heels again. Just when he really didn’t fucking need them. Fucking hell - Brett had always hated politics, he didn’t want to get involved with it now.
No, there was no angle - and Brett could see a lot of them - there was no angle from which this could at all be considered as anything but Bad News.
December arched an eyebrow then looked at the mess around them. "...yeah, I'm pretty sure this is possibly the most inefficient way to take out a primary target ever. So I'd guess 'no'. Whatever did this--and by the way I'm not even going to pretend to venture a guess on that--seems like it kind of just wanted to fuck up an entire group of people's faith in a higher power, while simultaneously spitting in the eye of irony. So far no one I know of has reported actually seeing anything that wasn't spikey death raining down from the sky so it must've been from a distance, and I'd say that definitely means the poor bitch was just standing in the wrong spot." She was quiet for a second. "...who the shit rains down metal from the sky at people? Seriously now."
They were pretty much alone on the field at the moment. There were others around, of course, a fair number, but none within immediate hearing distance. “We got one in this morning,” he told her. “Name of Vladivostock - floor manager at the Kitten Club. Staked, from a distance. Different type of stake, but we can’t ignore the connection. And I can’t rule out that this was the Syndicate’s idea of a revenge attack for someone targeting one of their own this morning.” It was pretty damn quick to put something like this together, but that Syndicate had resources and they could be ruthless when they chose to be. Even so, Brett thought this was out the other side of ‘extreme’. Or, maybe he just hoped it was.
December echoed his thoughts aloud after a long moment of considering. "...this whole mess seems like something someone really had to have. You don't put something together like this in a couple of hours. I get that they could be connected, but I don't think it's a cause and effect type of thing. I mean, I'm not a cop, but...yeah. Whatever did this wasn't something someone could just whip up in short order."
“Really hoping that’s right,” Brett agreed, looking around the field. If this did turn out to be something that could be put together in short order, they had a really, really huge problem on your hands.
Nodding, she agreed with that. "...yeah." she said. "...so this sucks." she added. "Annnd I'm not going to be getting through this for a long ass time. And I'm betting neither are you. But we should keep comparing notes. Like...generally more than usual on your average murder case. I'm pretty sure that this is going to take a whole lot of people putting their heads together to even pretend to figure it out."
“I’ve got every uniform we can muster up at the hospital taking statements,” Brett said, not disputing anything she said. “Just can’t help but think that, even with that, what we’ll get back is a whole lot of fucking nothing. Group of people standing around in the darkness singing kum-by-fucking-ah by candlelight. I’m betting nobody saw a damn thing but death raining down on them without warning.” Yet still they’d talk to everyone they could find - because that was how you caught a break. You worked the case until something gave.
"Oh, I'm not thinking any of them knows anything useful. And call me cynical but I think all they're gonna be able to do is cry 'oh the horror!' and that's pretty damn unhelpful. I'm thinking figure out what actually did this. What's capable of something on this scale. The mechanics of creating this specific crime scene, that's what needs to be figured out." she said. "...and again I'm not even venturing a guess because fucked if I know."
“Only thing I know is that this is trouble. With a capital T. Whoever did this, what happened this morning - the fact that we have dead from both the Syndicate and the Di Giovanni connections...” he didn’t mention anything about the other issue - the fact that the force was still in a mess since the untimely death of Commissioner Jackson. He couldn’t bitch about that - after all, when it came down to it, that was all because of him, and if he had his way, the sooner people forgot about that, the better. He certainly wasn’t going to go reminding them about it.
"Means blood in the streets, really fucking soon." December concluded. "...well that's just fucking fabulous. I'm going to have to move into the goddamn morgue." she said with a heavy sigh. "...I have to get moving, keep marking down all the bodies and where they were impaled and all that really gory shit. Not that in this case it's going to be anything but 'hit with a pipe going really fucking fast, died anywhere from instantly to a few pointlessly agonizing minutes later'. Nothing I write down here tonight is going to help."
“Never know what’s gonna help,” Brett told her, words of what were meant to be encouragement, even though they sounded pretty damn hollow right now. This didn’t feel like a police investigation. If felt like a massacre. But she was dead right - there would be blood in the streets. “None of us are going to get much rest in the coming weeks. You try and take care of yourself,” he told her.
"You too." she said, giving a little wave over her shoulder. "Peroxide should get most of the blood off of your boots." she added before she was wading back through pipes and corpses, to write down more information that all led to the same thing--'death from above, no cause known'.