“The sound of the gunshot was still ringing in my ear. She collapsed to the ground, lifeless. I hid behind the stairs. My heart was racing and I had no idea what to do, I just froze, sitting there. He passed right by me. As soon as I could tell he was gone, I called you guys.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”, said Det. James Masterson. “Could you point out any specific details, such as tattoos or scars?”
“No, not really...Oh he had a rain drop or something tattooed on his forearm or somewhere near there. It all just happened so quick.”
“Thats fine Mr.Porter, we have what we need.” said Det. Mike Masterson.
Detective Mike and James Masterson are brothers that have been working a case for quite some time now. This incident is their first source of good evidence. Their suspect has a tattoo that can narrow their search down by a significant percentage. They have conclusively closed hundreds of cases that seemed impossible to solve, thats why Chief put them on this one. The detectives approached an officer going through the evidence at the scene.
“The trails going cold quick, what d’ya got?”, said Mike
“Not much, but the medical examiner should be able to pull that bullet out of her once she gets delivered to him.”
“Well thats more than we’ve had from the past few murders.”, said James.
They left the officer so he could finish his job and they went back to the car and began driving to the station. The medical examiner should have their latest piece of evidence for them by the time they get to the station.
“Its strange.”, said Mike
“What do you mean?”
“He used a gun on his victim, he usually uses a switchblade. Are we even sure that it was actually him?”
“Yeah, he always calls his victims before hand, and she had a message on her voicemail from a payphone that sounded identical to him.”
“Well I was not informed that there was a message on her phone. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were busy with something else. I figured I would tell you when it was necessary.”
“And when did you think it would be necessary to tell me?”
“Well, right now was a pretty good time.”
“Next time, tell me when you find important evidence.”
Despite the brothers bickering every so often, they were the best detectives that the NYPD had at their disposal. The most difficult of cases were always reserved for them to handle. The other officers and detectives handled everything else.
“Hey, Mastersons. Chief wants to see you in his office.”
“He must have gotten the bullet analysis back from the lab.”, said James.
They entered Chief’s office. It always smelled like coffee. The chief drank coffee everyday, sometimes for the entire day. No one understands how he can drink so much of it without being so jittery. The prevailing opinion is because he is a larger person than most, that the caffeine has much more mass to go through, so it doesn’t make him very jittery.
“We got the bullet analysis back from the lab.”, said Chief “The gun that matches the bullet is a special order .45 Colt. It was personally engraved.”
“Where was it bought from?”
“A small custom gun shop in a small town just outside Buffalo.”
“Let’s go check it out.”, said James.
The Mastersons left the station and began driving towards Buffalo. This town they were headed to is very small and is often overlooked on maps. It was only a couple miles away from Buffalo. Most people mistake it for the bad part of the city, thats how close it is.
“This case just gets weirder and weirder.”, said Mike “It doesn’t make sense that he would slip up so much. I mean, he exposed so much evidence just in one incident.”
“Lets not worry about that right now, were only a couple miles away from the shop. Lets focus on the task at hand.”
As they entered town it was easily observed that the city’s infrastructure was poorly looked after. Some people would describe it as “Pothole City”. The gunshop was the only place that seemed to have been cared for by anyone when compared to the rest of the town. They entered the shop and a man was standing behind a counter with a wall of weapons behind him.
“Are you the owner?”, asked James.
“Yeah. What d’ya need?”
“We need you to tell us who bought this firearm.”
They handed the weapon details over to the owner.
“Gimme one sec.”, said the owner.
He started looking through his sales records. Why he hasn’t updated to electronic records, we will never know.
“Ah, here we are. It was purchased by a, Matt Nickerson.”
“Did he have a tattoo of a rain drop or something like that on his forearm?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Yeah, right here.”
The owner handed the detectives a piece of paper with the address on it.
“Thanks, thats all we needed.”
They left the shop and headed to the address, which was right in town just a few streets over. James approached the house from the front and Mike went around to the back. As James was opening up the front door, the garage opened up and a car came speeding out of it. It turned left out of the driveway and headed down the street. James opened fire on the vehicle sending round after round down the street at the car. The car turned around with a loud screech and headed up the street towards James, he couldn’t get out of the way in time and the car slammed into him, luckily only his leg was broken. Mike was coming around to the front to see what was going on. He ran to James to check on him.
“Go after him!”, said James “I’ll call for backup.”
Mike got in his car and drove after him like a madman. The chase carried on for sometime before they turned into a parking garage. They continued to ascend through the floors of the garage until they got to the top. There was a woman who was walking to her car. The perp. got out of his car and ran up to her and grabbing her and turning her around to use as a human shield, pressing a switchblade against her throat. Mike stopped his car, got out and pulled his gun out and aimed at the perp. Little did he know that Mike was the best marksman in the state of New York. He Fired. Landing a hit on his leg through the woman's skirt. He fell to the ground in an instant. Mike put cuffs on him and as he was putting him in the car Mike said to himself, “Case closed.”