chapter 11

word count: 979

it was a beautiful, sunny day in new albany..  hot sun,, just a kiss of crispness in the air,, the kind of day the whole of the midwest had yearned for during the past few months of  pouring rain and gray skies.. well the whole midwest that is,, accept buzz miller. 

the ever drowning case load on his desk kept buzz from ever really noticing the weather.. it was dour and gray every day in his world,, fogged in as he was, beneath a stack of institutional green case files,, each one containing the dead body of yet another tragic life come to an end under suspicious circumstances.. 

his world was hurry up and wait.. it always had been.. he waded through the mire of the inconsequential cases,, the gang bangers, the junkies, the occasional victim of domestic abuse,, because he had to.. they chummed the waters,, as  it were,, while buzz trolled for his next high profile case..  

and it had been a while…  his last big case had been dubbed  ‘the little lost boy’..  now that had been a case buzz could really sink his teeth into.. a ten year old boy gone missing from a local play area in broad daylight.. he had been found floating in the murky waters of wildwood creek by a couple of transients looking for a secluded spot to set up camp.. one of whom, as luck would have it,  owned a cell phone,, and had taken numerous pictures of the body tangled in the reeds before they called 911..

the pictures hit the local news like an AK-47,, ripping deep gashes in flesh of the community.. the entire city rose up and screamed for blood. their cries reached a crescendo when the autopsy results were leaked to a the press,,  and their suspicions of sexual assault were confirmed.. 

a ten month, full blown manhunt had gone into effect,, with buzz miller at the helm.. he was on the front page of every newspaper.. he was on every installation of the nightly news. . the whole  nation was watching, as buzz slammed that fucking piece of worthless flesh into the ground and slapped the cuffs on.. 

buzz lived and breathed for another case like that.. he bided his time, most recently on local fodder in the form of some low life politian’s wife,, a death originally thought to be a suicide.. her lifeless corpse,, however,, had given up the goods in autopsy,, quickly turning the tide from a simple suicide into a full blown media circus..  

  

sure,, the press had been good,, but the case itself had left him far from satisfied.. it had been too easy to put the pieces together..  failing marriage,, cheating spouse.. from the beginning all fingers pointed to the idiot husband,, and in this case they had not been wrong.. anyone could have put this one to bed.. it had just been buzz’ good fortune to be the one doing the tucking in.. 

as he  stepped out of the sunshine and into the incandescent light of  the 45^th st. station,, buzz checked his watch.. eleven fifteen.. he smiled with satisfaction.. the day was young.. he had already bagged his wife,,  and his late afternoon hook up with trudy,, was lined up and ready to go..  he wasn’t gonna let a few hours of lifeless paperwork come between him and the testosterone tsunami  that had been building up inside of him over the course of the last week.. 

buzz punched the up button on the elevator that would take him upstairs to the cluttered third floor offices that housed the homicide division.. ’oh yeah,’ he mused to himself,, as a guiltless grin spread wide for all the world to see,, ‘i am gonna tear that shit up.. ‘

as he stepped out of the elevator and into the  cluster fuck that was the 45^th st. homicide divisions office space,, cell ringtones intermingled with the incessant ding of landlines, laid the sound track,, as a cacophony of voices filled in the lyric. buzz stepped over piles of still unfiled cases as he weaved his way through the labyrinth of cubicles filled with insignificant desk surfers  and entered the glass cage that was his office.. he spoke to no one.. and no one spoke to him.. 

his desk was buried under a barrage of paperwork.. most of it was just there awaiting his signature,, none of it was of any real importance,, yet the chain of command dictated that he be hands on with every case that came through the department..  it could honestly be said, buzz hated this part of the job..

he brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee,, poured a cup,, and dropped down in the torn leather chair behind his desk.. ‘fuck,’ he said to himself as he stared at sea of green before him,, wondering where the hell to begin..   

he waded begrudgingly thru the case files with a quick overview and a signature were required.. perfunctory phone calls were answered, punctuating the afternoon with some semblance of color, as he watched the done pile finally beginning to take shape.. his cellphone chimed just as buzz poured the last of the coffee into his cup.. 

“miller.” he barked,, into the dead air of his office.. 

“i got something for you miller.. white female, mid twenties, no head..” his captain growled unmistakably on the other end of the line.. 

buzz had one foot in the elevator,, before the caption had even spit out the address of the crime scene.. this was the third such body found in so many weeks. but the first one within his jurisdiction..  the hair raised up on the back of buzz’ neck,, as the elevator made its smooth decent.. 

his gut told him a serial killer had just been dropped kicked onto his playing field.. and his gut was never wrong..