Procedure

Who: Danny and Jakob
Where: streets
When: very early

Their target was escalating, that much was clear to Jakob. He'd gone over the notes with Dix several times in the days before the man had been abruptly transferred, noting the increase in violence, the savagery, the boldness of each kill. Between the murders thusfar they had a profile working, but it was still loose. They had a map of the discovery sites, but it was a large city with only a handful of spots to work from. Until now, that is. Jakob wished he could appreciate that, but the thing he was witness to was robbing him of any such feelings.

The call had come in less than an hour earlier, a report from a pair of transients who'd returned to their usual alley home to find something terrible, and the report had been flagged for Jakob. He'd been woken up at home, driving straight down to the crime scene and lingering outside of it just long enough to tell a uniformed officer to call headquarters, to get him another detective to work the scene as well. Jakob was still waiting on whoever they might send, but he couldn't manage to tear himself from the grisly tableau as he did so.

Whoever she was, her nose was gone. She'd been stripped after death, her body covered in punctures and lacerations that hung open under her own weight from where she'd been pinned to the wood slats of the fence that closed off the alley. Jakob had started a preliminary investigation with their forensic handler already, noting the lack of blood pooling in her feet, the odd angle of her broken jaw that wasn't bruised. This was a fresh kill, and the bums who had discovered it may have even seen the killer on the streets. He knew there was a patrol car out there looking for them somewhere, but the odds of finding a specific homeless person in this city? Well, Jakob was a gambling man, and even he wouldn't take them.

"Maintain the perimeter," he called back from the alley's mouth to the police cars that ringed it in, and the officers keeping a light crowd at bay, "I won't have evidence getting corrupted just so the paper has a scoop for tomorrow. And where the hell is my backup? Someone get down to Nighthawk's, call in on a landline instead of the radio, and get me a coffee." Scowling, Jakob paced the entry of the alley warily, watching for any clue to reveal itself.

Danny hadn't been on the first set of cops ordered to the scene. Actually he'd been running behind on getting to the perimeter duty for the market in the park, his partner chaffing his ass when he showed up, hungover from the night before, when his Lu came in asking them to re-direct. They found another body and there was a chance they might be closer to the guy than ever before. Danny was sent to the scene, double time. He drove their car, because no matter how much his head was banging he was he senior officer and that was his right. When they pulled up to a the scene, it was still early, everyone else was being re-directed, hailed in and everything else from somewher else. Not Danny, he was the lucky sonofabitch who just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.

Shuffling out of the car, he made his way over to Hollis, who appeared to be the detective on duty. "Another one?" Danny asked. This was his first actual crime scene with this sick bastard. Street cops are assigned to work these sort of scenes based on who's where and when. So far Danny had been lucky.

"A fresh one," Jakob replied without looking back to Danny initially, taking slow steps in a circle around the alley's mouth. "He was close when the body was discovered, I'd bet my badge," he murmured, crouching low and pushing aside loose scraps of paper hopefully. Maybe there was a bloody shoe print, a bit of fibers or a chance that the killer dropped something. Jakob was playing long odds on that and he knew it, but it was better to check now than to risk someone else contaminating the scene. "There's an alley perpendicular to this one, running behind the fence," Jakob eventually said, looking over at Danny from his shoulder, "I've got officers plugging the alley, but head down and make sure no one's window-watching. Don't touch anything, we're still waiting on the medical examiner."

Danny nodded, motioning for his partner to follow him down the alley towards the fence and the body. Even with the body being fresh the metallic scent of blood hit his nose, lingering in the back of his throat as if the could taste it. What he could see of her around the debris of the alley was depressing. She was young, obviously a beautiful body before it had been ripped apart. He avoided looking at her face, not wanting to remember how marred her face would be, wanting her to be a person, someone he could think of a real and not part of this surreal dream. It would be his downfall i the end. Looking at her face it might have taken longer to recognize her with her face mutilated, but looking at her arms, he ended up spotting her identifying characteristic. When the bastard stripped her, he'd left one piece of jewelry, a simple bracelet with one heart charm on it. Danny had given it to Stella as a gift, a small token of his love and she never took it off, even when she was dancing. Feeling his world tilting out of control he looked up, seeing her beautiful face torn apart and then everything turned over. Stumbling backward he choked on his own vomit, coughing and sputtering, he staggered back towards the front of the alley, pushing past his partner, hitting his knees not far from Jakob, throwing up what little was left in his stomach.

The immediate reaction wasn't the one that Jakob showed as he watched Danny stumble and stagger, but he was amused in some twisted sense. Was the rookie too frail for this work? Did he maybe know this victim? He could be someone to twist, for certain. The reaction he did show was one of anger, his brow knotting darkly as Jakob moved on Danny in quick steps, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him farther from the murder scene. "Have you lost your mind?" he snapped, "This is a crime scene! If you've ruined one bit of evidence, I'll have your badge!" Turning away dismissively, Jakob waved to another uniformed officer and pointed out Danny. "Get him to a squad car, get him under control. We need to find out who the victim is."

Danny only heard half of what Jakob said, but it was enough to get him off his knees even if he wasn't steady. "Fuck you Hollis," he scowled taking a few steps towards the other man. "Stella," Danny growled, grabbing other man's arm to turn him around. "Her name is Stella. Was Stella." The bile came up again, but Danny managed to swallow it back. "She worked at the Kitten Club. Left early last night, walked home from her shift. She lives a few blocks from here." Jakob was taller but Danny wasn't a force to be reckoned with.

Jakob sighed with a sense of deep remorse, looking Danny over pointedly as he shirked the other man's grip on his arm. "How is it that you know all of this?" he asked in a somewhat gentle manner, "And why does it sound like you might've been the last person to see her alive?" In truth, Jakob was curious now. He hadn't thought their killer might be a cop; the profile he and Dix had worked on suggested a boastful nature, and that'd be hard to maintain if it was a fellow cop working so closely on the case. "I'm not accusing you, but you know the procedure. You'll need to give a statement, fill in details about how you know the deceased."

He took a step back, his eyes unable to look away from the grizzly scene. "I...she..." Danny stammered momentarily and it wasn't until he looked away from her that he was able to string together a sentence. "We were having an affair. I didn't see her last night; I went by the club to see her but she'd already left, headed home to take care of her mom. The girls there will be able to pinpoint when she left." Danny's voice was sullen. It was obvious he was traversing through the levels of grief quickly.

"Alright," Jakob said plainly, turning from Danny for a moment and grabbing an officer from the cordon that had been set up. "Head down to the Kitten Club, check with the floor manager and the performers about an employee, Stella. Confirm the time she left last night." He waited for the cop to move off before stepping back to Danny. "Daniel? I'll be frank, this doesn't look good for you. The roster at the station should remove all doubt, but until I've cleared everything with the brass, you can't be here. Give me the day to get the examiner's report. Punch out, go get a drink. Maybe... maybe go see Stella's mother, if you knew her." Jakob glanced back to the horror in the alley briefly, then to Danny again with sympathetic eyes. "Come in early tomorrow, we'll get you back in on this. I promise, we'll find this bastard."

"No." Danny wasn't leaving, not now. Not with her there, like this, exposed like that. "I'm not going. You said it yourself, this is a fresh case. If we don't move now we could lose the sick son of a bitch." He met Jakob's gaze head on, anger flaring in his eyes at the prospect of being sent home. "We don't have time for bureaucratic bullshit."

There was the sigh again as Jakob hung his head, making sure he'd pushed any urge to smile away before he looked to Danny. "It's not a request, officer. Until I have compiled evidence that you were elsewhere at the approximated time of death, leaving you on this scene is asking for trouble." His voice lowered as Jakob canted his head slightly at the scattershot reporters beyond the police line. "They will accuse you in the press, evidence or no. They'll accuse us of a cover up, they'll sully her memory with your very name. If you need some way to stay involved?"

Jakob's lips pursed for a moment in thought before he nodded, seeming to reach a decision in that moment. "Head back to the station, pull up the files again. Create a grid on the map of the discovery sites, as we know they aren't where the murders take place. Pin down any and every residential neighborhood within reach of all of the sites. Do not begin any field work until we speak again, understood?"

Danny seethed with anger, his short fuse burned completely out. Hands clenched in fists, he bit back the urge to hit the detective. Hollis, as much as he was pissing Danny off was right. If he didn't take the necessary precautions, they would waste valuable time while Stella's killer was out there, chasing after him. The press would slander him and of course Stella would be painted as trash and not as the victim she was. "Last night, I had drinks with another cop, Jackson Haas, at The Hanged Man. I went by the Kitten Club after which is when they told me she'd already left for the night. I followed that up with a few drinks at One More Round. I haven't seen Stella in a few days. For your damn report." Danny stalked off, pulling the keys out of his pocket and headed back to the patrol car. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck at a desk when he could be out hunting after the killer, but that wasn't an option. Not an option if he wanted his personal life to stay out of this.

Watching him go, Jakob nearly smirked. Nearly. This was like a gift-wrapped present; an angry cop with someone to avenge? It was beautiful. All he needed now was to put the last puzzle pieces together, find the real killer, and let everything else do as it was bound to do. "Jackson Haas," he murmured to himself as he watched Danny retreat, "I think your friend is going to need your help. I may as well." Without another word, Jakob turned back to the alley. There was still procedure to tend to, and who knew? Maybe a few more pieces to uncover. Not that Jakob needed them at this point.