Paper Clues

CHAPTER 5-- Paper clue

The next morning, I was early to the precinct, drinking rot gut coffee while pouring over my notes and the recent forensic reports. It was before dawn when I arrived and I relished the temporary quiet of the squad room. Usually, phones are ringing non stop, people are shouting or calling out for their partner to get a move on, copy machines are humming. In short, days in the squad room are crazy loud make for difficult brain work. You either get over that quick or move on to other fields. Personally, I like to get paperwork done in the mornings and leg work the rest of the day. Quinn had filled in some more on the murder board, noting that Rocky had confirmed that the woman was killed by dogs. What a way to go... Her hands and arms were covered in bites and scratches. Her clothes, all period dress, were torn and shredded. She had put up a fight, she didn't want to die. She had something to live for and she was going to do all she could to keep it. In the end, she lost. I felt proud of her, she didn't give up in the face of such a death, she was brave. I know that I should try to remain above, be objective, but when I see a victim that fights that hard to survive I want to catch the killer even more, almost as though I am validating their battle to survive.

“You're early,” Quinn yawned. “Didn't you sleep?” I shrugged, my usual response. “And you're drinking the junk this place calls coffee?” I raised my mug in salute. Sure, the coffee was lousy, but I've had worse. “What do you think, Ross? What happened here?” His gaze followed mine to the board.

I shook my head, “She was a fighter, Matthew. She wasn't ready to die.”

“Did what did they say about that paper in her mouth?”

“You aren't going to believe me.”

The forensic report on the paper was on my desk when I got in that morning. I was right, it was from a book, a mass produced paper pack to be exact. Bad news meant that it would be readily available to anyone that wanted a copy. There was seriously nothing at all distinct about that paper, not a thing at all. There was print on both sides, a story by the looks of it. One that was very familiar to me. I was still reeling a bit because I didn't think it was right at first, but there was no way it could be anything else.

“Do you remember yesterday? When I said that it looked familiar?” I asked, showing him a photograph of the page.

“Oh you have got to be joking?”

Shoved down her throat post-mortem was the title page to “Little Red Cap”, retold in 1857 by the Brothers Grimm under the title “Rotkäppchen”. You know the story better as “Little Red Riding Hood”.

Author's Note

Unedited for NaNoWriMo