2019-11-14 - Picking up the Trail

The Kreuger double murder has consumed much of the resources of the Gray Harbor Police Department's detectives, and as one of the lead investigators, Gabriel more than most. But at the same time, there are bad guys to catch on the other files laying around on his desk, so he has brought his partner out to the boardwalk to investigate the death of the body thrown into the harbor.

"So," Gabriel is saying as they walk along. "Our guy, Raymond Marker, comes out of Two if By Sea. He's grabbed here on the boardwalk ..."

He is reading off the police file on his phone, looking over, as if trying to piece this all together.

People were dropping like flies in this town. Like. Flies. At this rate, Gray Harbor was going to have a worse crime rate than the big cities like New York or Detroit. "My question is why Raymond. He was a normal ass dude with a boring - run of the mill job. But he was heavy you know? Like. There were probably plenty of other people at Two if by Sea that night who would've been much easier to transport. Did we run like a family check or anything yet?" Esme peered over at the file. "Is he any kind of blood relation to one of the big families in town? Like distant blood relation even?" She looked out over the water.

"And clearly someone is a fan of this Gohl guy from way back. You think maybe we need to dig deeper on who might have a motive? There were other victims killed in a similar way weren't there? Throat slashed and all recently?" Esme asks, trying to rack her brain.

"No ties to the Baxters or the Addingtons. Ex wife in Portland. No one following him from Two If By sea," says Gabriel as he retraces Raymond's steps from Two If By Sea to the beach to the bay where he often washed up. "But yeah. It's like the Gohl killings, except Gohl shot his people. Murders here -- yeah. Some were throat slashings." He points over at the beach, as if trying to figure out where he might have been dragged.

Esme exhales noisily and looked down towards the sand. "Any connection that's been found between the victims? Did they all know each other somehow? Even in passing?" Esme is mostly thinking out loud as she follows Gabe's pointing. "The report says that he was dragged down the boardwalk...my question is how the hell did no one else see a body being dragged down the goddamned boardwalk." Esme looked around a moment and then back to Gabriel. "So whoever killed him has to know the boardwalk pretty well right? Spots that go unnoticed by most people? To get him down here and then toss him?"

"Don't know if anyone has looked for a link," admits Gabriel, looking down at his phone. "Something to look into, at least." It's a possibility. He sighs. "As for the boardwalk and beach ..." He thinks. "It's dark. People don't see in the light. Or our guy follows him from the Boardwalk, jumps him on the beach and makes a quick dump. We can try to do a canvass. People walk dogs, go for walks. Maybe someone saw something and just didn't make the connection."

"Well I'll pull the other case files, see if I can look into it. I know you've got a lot on your plate." Esme offered. "That's true. People are blind as bats even in the daylight" She looks around to make a note of the shops that are closest to the scene of the crime and that could possibly even have cameras facing the beach area. "Canvassing is a good idea too." She agreed, looking back to her partner. "See if we can recruit a beat cop or two to help out with the asking. See if they saw anything strange the days leading up or a couple days after the attack." She pulled her phone out to make a few notes.

"Yeah. A good idea," agrees Gabriel with a nod of his head to his new-to-him, if not new-to-homicide partner. (At least not in total.) He seems to be making note of her making notes about who might have cameras trained on the Boardwalk. "Problem is without an obvious motive, we're going to have to focus more on someone seeing something, not working backwards from the vic."

"Might try to talk to his coworkers and neighbors too. Again, if it's already been done." Esme looked back up to him. "There's got to be some busybody who may have known something and either hasn't been approached or didn't want to talk." She made a couple more notes and then pocketed the phone. "It's alright. Sometimes half the fun of a case is filling in all the missing pieces. And boy are there a lot of 'em." Esme exhaled again. "Do you know anything about the other dead bodies with similar MOs?"

"Hard to say, really," says Gabriel after a moment. "I do think the other bodies are showing signs of having been killed by some copycat of this William the Ghoul killer." It's harder when your partner doesn't Glimmer and can't be told about ghosts that inhabit Addingtons and have to be put to rest. Yet here they are. "We can re-canvass them, sure. I really think this is an attack of opportunity, though. I mean, who has a beef with a janitor that they attack him here and dump him in the harbor?"

"Yeah. It probably is." Esme agreed. Poor, oblivious Esme. It's really just a matter of time before she gets the truth shoved in her face, isn't it? "But, I like to be thorough. Because even one-offers can always strike again." She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "I'll put in the records requests when I get back to the station though. Did you hear about the dead body on Spruce? Heard it was a similar MO to that other murder a couple weeks ago. I swear we might need to change our slogan to "We can't guarantee you won't get killed if you stay"

"Yeah. We didn't grab those, but yeah. I've heard about it. I'm sure we might get pulled in if it is getting worse, though. What this town needs is not just more murders, but another serial killer." Gabriel shakes his head. "I don't know about those. Some organ-theft scheme? Black market transplants?" He purses his lips. "Well. All right. We have a plan. You're going to look for connections. We'll supervise the canvass and look for videos. What else are we missing?"

Esme offered up a wry smile. "It's going to hell in a hand basket and we're with it." She shrugged and nodded. "Its' the start of a plan. I'm sure we're missing something that's staring us right in the face. Hopefully digging up extra connections will point us to it." She shoves her hands into the pocket of her woolen coat. "Otherwise though, we're definitely missing coffee so we should get some before we get back to the office."