Page 40 of Wicked Deceptions
“Yep, that’s right.”
“Don’t you find it odd that it’s my first Halloween as chief investigator?” Daniels asked.
He shrugged. “Not particularly. It’s just another night to the murderer.”
Daniels wasn’t so sure he believed that line of thinking and kept his mind open on the subject. He couldn’t get out of his mind that there had to be some significance to the copycat murdering on this particular day.
The woman’s body was placed in a body bag by the coroner and loaded into the ambulance. “I want a full autopsy on her,” Daniels instructed the coroner as he got into his vehicle.
***
Two days later, Daniels left for work early. But instead of going straight to the office, he took a drive to the Colchester Overpass. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he might have missed something.
There was now roughly two feet of snow on the ground. Thankfully, it was a wet snow, so the brine and salt trucks that had prepared for the storm had helped the plows get the main road cleared and now the streets were basically wet and slushy.
When he arrived at the overpass, he pulled his car to the same spot he had parked two nights before. The whole atmosphere was different in the daylight, and it helped him see things more clearly.This bridge isn’t so scary, he thought to himself.
He walked through the tunnel several times and found nothing. There weren’t any cars on the road because of the storm, so he really wasn’t very worried about traffic. He decided to give up and head back to his car. When he approached the tunnel opening on his way, something small and red near the inside right corner caught his eye. He walked over to it and looked down. It was a broken red fingernail—a very long red fingernail. He walked back to his car and pulled a rubber glove and a plastic bag from his glove box. Once he had the glove on, he walked back to the fingernail and placed it in the plastic bag. No stone went unturned, and even if it was nothing, it was good practice to check it out.
He walked back to his car, got in, and proceeded to the station. When he arrived, he took the bag directly to the forensics department. He handed the plastic bag to Brady and said, “Get me anything you can on this.”
“What case?”
“The Halloween homicide.”
“Oh, the Bunny Man case.”
Daniels paused. He refused to allow them to call this the Bunny Man case. It was not the Bunny Man. “Brady, it’s not the Bunny Man Case. Change it.”
“Yes, sir,” Brady replied and took the evidence and placed it with the other findings from two nights before. “We’ll get a report to you as soon as we can.”
“Thank you.” Daniels walked back to his office and closed the door behind him. He was anxious to get the forensics report. The answer had to be there. He turned to his computer and looked through Google for urban legends and the Bunny Man Bridge. He was afraid his reluctance to believe the stories might cost him the case, so he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss something.
After an hour of going through all the stories about the Bunny Man, Daniels’s opinion on the case hadn’t changed. This was surely someone who wanted notoriety and fame all gift wrapped around an urban legend. He grabbed his coat and walked out of his office. “Susie, I’m going out for a bit. Call if you need anything,” he said as he briskly walked past her desk toward the door.
He wanted a drink, but drinking on the job was frowned upon, of course, so he settled for his next addiction and walked into Starbucks. He walked up to the line and waited. There were three people in front of him: an elderly man at the counter who had no idea what he was ordering; a lady, roughly in her mid to late forties trying her hardest to be patient with the man in front of her; and a woman, tall and slender, who was directly in front of him. The woman in front of him had long dark hair that hung straight down her back. He was six foot one, and measuring himself next to her, he had to guess she was either five foot nine or five foot ten. It was hard to tell. He wanted to make small talk with her, but she never turned around or acknowledged him. The only glimpse of her face he got was when he had entered the store and she had turned toward the door to see who walked in. From that glimpse, he had determined that she was a very stunning woman.
The lady in front of him was now at the counter so he waited patiently, realizing he now had lost his chance to chat with her. She would get her coffee and be gone, just like most of the women in his life. He really didn’t know why he wanted to talk to her, perhaps her beauty had overwhelmed him to the point to make him think he was interested. Daniels didn’t date. It had been years since his wife left him. They hadn’t had any kids, and thankfully the breakup was amicable. Since then, he had decided that dating and marriage were just not worth the effort. But this woman could definitely make him rethink that decision.
After she had paid for her coffee, the barista filled her order. The barista handed it to the beautiful woman, and she turned to leave. Daniels must have been standing too close because when she turned, she bumped into him and dropped her coffee on the floor, spattering it all over their legs.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” She bent down to pick up the empty cup at the same time Daniels did. Their heads collided, and when they glanced at one another, they began to laugh. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Are you?”
“Yes. My mother always told me I was hard-headed. Now I think she may be right.” She laughed.
He got up and said, “Here, let me buy you another cup of coffee.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“I insist.” He reached for her hand and helped her up. He took the empty coffee cup to the trash and walked back to the counter. “Can you get her another…”
She finished his sentence when he hesitated. “Mocha chi latte.”
He repeated, “Mocha chi latte, and I’ll have a quad flat white, venti please.”
“Yes, Lt. Daniels.”
