The Blood Market Chapter 5

Harbinger led me to a on old apartment building standing, or rather leaning, at the edge of the Market district. The building stood at a noticable angle, looking ominously down on the shacks and huts of the shantytown known collectively as The Ring that had slowly assembled around Sticktown.

Three police officers stood outside the building waving onlookers along. A female officer of Indian descent saw us and waved Harbinger over. She was short and had a sturdy build like a wrestler. She had a pleasant round face and broad welcoming smile.

"Mr Harbinger," She called to us, "The Sheriff is waiting for you. You took a very long time. Who is your friend?"

"Thank you Indira," Harbinger smiled to the woman, "You know that you can call me Freeman. I apologize for the delay. My sister needed to show me who's the boss again. This is my new partner Dahlia Crowe. Dahlia, this is Officer Indira Farash."

"It is a pleasure to meet a friend of Mr. Harbinger," She said, extending a hand for me to shake.

I took the hand and answered, "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, but it would be more accurate to say that my father is Mr. Harbinger's friend."

"It is a pleasure all the same."

A familiar voice erupted to my right, and I looked to see Constable Violetta Priest stomping towards me, "What are you doing here? This is a crime scene, you need to keep moving. Farash, why haven't you cleared these people?"

Farash looked up at Violetta without losing her smile, "Constable, you know Mr. Harbinger is here to see the crime scene. And this is Dahlia Crowe: his new partner."

"New partner? Of course." She wrinkled her nose, "But it doesn't matter. There is no way you're qualified to be here." Violetta squared herself in front of me and crossed her arms.

"I did mention this." I said," That was why I was waiting."

Violetta didn't waver as I spoke. I didn't know if Harbinger could get us past, but I also didn't want this to be my fault, and so I dropped the only ace I had up my sleeve, "Have you found time to launder your uniform since we spoke last? As I recall, after the accident at the park, we were both a little dirty."

Violetta started at me, grinding her teeth without saying anything. After forty five second of silence, she stepped aside.

"You're the Sheriff's problem then, I guess." She shook her head and turned away to look down the street in the opposite direction.

"Which room is the crime scene please?" Harbinger asked Farash.

"Room 303. On the third floor. The doorplate says the last occupant was a Mr. Brixton, but this place hasn't been fit to rent out for years. Just squatters and drug users and other unfortunate people that mercy has neglected."

We trudged up the stairs. I kept waiting for harbinger to bring up my conversation with Violetta, but he didn't. At the third floor landing a woman in a sheriff's stetson stood staring down at us, hands on hips. She looked as though she might reach five feet in height if she stood on tip toes and had a big curvaceous body and big dramatic black hair tied back into a mass of curls that was probably intended to be a ponytail.

"Who's your new friend Mr. Tardy McLater-than-he's-supposed-to-be?" She said in a loud 'mother knows best' sort of way.

"I had to go appease my sister and play nice and pretend to salute and other tiresome things. So here I am, late and brilliant as ever. What do you have for me? The boy you sent round gave a strong impression that this matched the previous suicides, or should I say supposed suicides?"

"It may match the the other ones. The victim does seem to have committed suicide, but things didn't, well they didn't excatly stop there."

"That's not the most pleasant expression I've ever heard," I said, and then extended my hand, "Dahlia Crowe, Mr. Harbinger's new partner or assistant or apprentice- he hasn't seemed to have settled on a preferred term. Maybe pet is the best descriptor."

"That's unfair. You are very probably a full partner, or likely will be."

The sheriff snorted a very unfeminine laugh, "Well doesn't that fill you with confidence. He's good when he's good, so I keep him around. So, I guess, let's see if you're good."

I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me, and looked down to see Violetta climbing the stairs to join us, "You didn't think I was letting you in here without a chaperone, did you?" She said.

The Sheriff interrupted Violetta before I could respond, "The victim is a woman, we don't know who she is. We're looking into that. A number of things make us think she's quite wealthy. She had a recent manicure and her hands don't look as though they've ever done a day of manual labor. Her skin is really pale, no tan at all, so she's never worked outside. And the make up she had on at the time of death is very fancy and looked expensive to me."

"What about her hairstyle? That could tell us a lot about her wealth and status." I asked.

"The hair has been cut, well it's actually been shaved off at the root."

"That's strange." I said

"That's not even the start of it,"The Sheriff said and opened the door.

"Hang on to your lunch." Violetta said with a grin.

We stepped into the room and I gagged involuntarily. I've been to war, and in my time in the service I saw many people die- several of them unpleasantly. The scene before me had a thoroughness that disturbed me in ways that corpse of somebody killed in combat did not have. The same filth covered this room that covered the rest of the building. A corpse belonging to a caucasian woman lay in the center of the room. The body bore an alien appearance that I struggled to unravel. I noted the gunshot wound on the left temple, clearly an entrance wound. The condition of the rest of the body, however stunned me. The body lay on it's back, face up to the ceiling. The body wore no clothing, and the torso had been opened up and - for lack of a better word- unpacked. Somebody had removed the organs in the chest cavity. I stepped forward, drawn by a horrified curiousity, and looked up into the chest cavity. The chest had been split open in an inverted Y shape. The chest cavity lay empty. The lungs and heart, the intestines and stomache and liver all had been removed. The eyes had likewise been giving the corpse the horrific appearance of an empty eyed corpse staring into some netherworld. The body appeared bizarrely emaciated, as though the woman had died of dehydration. I could see no other signs of dehydration such as skin tenting. The body was pale on top and, I quickly confirmed by dropping down and tilting my head to look under the body without touching it, an even purple on the back side of the body. The body lay in a serene position on it's back, stiff from rigor mortis. Somebody had cut the word 'JUNE' into the right forearm with some surgically sharp implement.

harbinger stepped forward, "How does this compare to the violence of combat? How's the stomach?"

"It's not pleasant, but I'm not going to get the vapours- if that's what you mean."

"Excellent. You were a combat medic as I recall. What's your diagnosis? Cause of death?"

"You mean besides the bullet wound to the head?" I asked.

"There's a lot of damage here, you're certain that was the deciding blow?"

"The head wound is the only wound from which the blood spurted," I pointed, "Everywhere else, the blood merely pooled out by gravity. Also the position of the body when rigor mortis set in is really odd."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that they had the woman on an autopsy table before she was cold, and had her opened up before she was stiff. The blood has all pooled on the back side of her body. by the time rigor mortis set in they already had her flat on the table in this position and opened up. The gun shot wound killed her, but I've never seen a person die and fall cleanly flat backwards and lands with their arms by their side ready for a post mortem examination."

"So she was executed for the purpose of the autopsy?" Harbinge asked with a far too happy smile on his face.

"She wasn't executed," I corrected, "This was definitely a suicide."

"It definitely wasn't." Harbinger corrected.

I shook my head, "Look at powder burns on the left hand, that only comes from firing a gun, and there's powder burns on her left temple as well. The gun was fired at close range and she fired a gun recently. Unless they put the gun in her hand and forced fired a round to make it look like a suicide, she did this to herself. And given how fast they had her on the autopsy table, I don't see how that would have been an option."

"She could have been forced." Harbinger said.

"To commit suicide? How do you do that?" I asked, "What are they going to say, 'We'll kill you if you don't kill yourself?' Let's be realistic. There are no bruises on her wrists, no rope rope burns or any injuries to suggest that somebody restrained her."

"They might have threatened to torture her to death if she didn't comply. They might also have held the gun in her hand while she was alive and forcibly pulled the trigger for her. Let's not limit our options. And what about the word carved into the arm. It show healing doesn't it?"

"Yes it does, which means the wound was inflicted a little before she died. And it being carved into the right arm suggests that she did it to herself, since she was obviously left handed."

Violetta stepped forward, "So what the hell happened last month that was so important?"

I shook my head, "Well, she was still alive in June. She hasn't been dead more than a week, let alone two."

"This definitely has the same look and feel as the Cholera Patient Suicides," Sheriff Hurley stepped forward, "You two should has a look at those bodies back at the station house. How long do you estimate she has been dead?"

"Sheriff, this is getting out of hand," Violetta stepped forward, "We don't need the help of a lunatic occultist. And we certainly don't need a known killer walking around our crime scenes. She's a liability, she's dangerous- a loose cannon who goes off her companion's faces."

The sheriff looked back at me, "How long did you say the victim had been dead?"

"I hadn't yet."

"Sheriff!" Violetta started speaking again but Sheriff HUrley raised a hand to silence her.

"Well?" Sheriff Hurley said.

I looked at the woman and tried to gauge her intent, everyone seemed to be trying to test me.

"Well, I'm not a forensic pathologist- my training is as a field medic. But at a glance from the state of the rigor mortis, I would say between eight and twelve hours. The rigor mortis hasn't begun to dissipate yet. Without a more thorough examination, I can't make more than an educated guess. The autopsy performed on the body makes it harder to guess. Somebody seems to have removed the bllod from the body surgically, which will confuse matters. Rigor Mortis is generally fully dissipated after about seventy two hours, so that's the absolute outside window."

"Constable," Sheriff Hurley said without looking at Violetta, "I don't know what your problem is with Ms. Crowe, and I don't personally care. Harbinger has consistent proven to be a useful asset to the police, and everything I've seen tells me to give his new assistant a decent change to prove herself. So shut your hole unless you have something useful and relevant to the investigation."

"Yes, Sheriff." Violetta galred at me as she answered.

Hurley turned back to me and spoke, "So the body was dumped here? Based on what you've said, I assume it must have been. If they did the autopsy immediately after the death, meaning they couldn't have spared the time to move the body, and this place has no sign of blood spatter from a bullet wound or a falling body with a gun shot wound. So this can't be the site of the murder? Correct?"

"Very correct Sheriff. Yes indeeed." Harbinger said.

"So we have," Sheriff Hurley said, "Is somebody who commited suicide or was killed in a way that mimics suicide, in the presence of a medical team who conducted an on site autopsy immediately on the body and then dumped the body without internal organs here, a few hours after the whole grisly affair? Why remove the organs? What were they trying to hide?"

"And what happened in June," Violleta said again, and louder.

I turned to Harbinger and whispered, "When did you sister say that inciting event occured at the warehouse?"

"She didn't, and on purpose I suspect," Harbinger said.

"What was that whispering?" Sheriff Hurley said, "I don't want you holding back on me."

"Sadly I have no choice in this matter, as it concerns work I am performing for my sister. And she would lock me up and throw away the key if I disclosed priviliged information to anyone without permission."

"If it relates to this case, I want it."

"I understand. I have no reason to believe that the two cases do relate at this time, but if they do- I bring it up with my dear sister and will still use whatever information I have on your behalf whether or not I am permitted to talk about it.

"I don't like that Harbinger."

"Well, that makes two of us. I don't like how my sister goes about her business either. But I don't have the ability to stop her, and she does have the ability to stop me."

The Sheriff was silent for a moment, "You don't like your sister much, do you?" She finally said.

"I love me sister,"Harbinger said, "And I have the utmost faith that she believes she is doing good work. I don't like her methods."

Violetta laughed, "Her methods? You treat rules like their other people's problems and use ouija boards to find serial killers. You just don't like that she can put you in your place."

"I only used a ouija board once, and that was to trick a criminal into exposing the lie in their alibi- and it worked. As for my sister, you're right that I don't like being put in my place- but that's not my primary objection."

"All I'm hearing is 'bla bla bla, you're right Constable Priest', so why are you still talking?"

"I'm not sure why you're still talking," I said.

"Enough," Sheriff Hurley said, raising her voice, "We are going back to the station house to view the other bodies. Harbinger is going to keep me informed as much as government paranoia will allow. Ms. Crowe will be given the same courtesy as Harbinger until I say otherwise. And Cosntable Priest, you will keep your tongue in check or I will chop it off and mail it to you ex-girfriend."

"I wouldn't sign for it." I said.

Sheriff Hurley turned sharply to look at me in disbelief, and then turned back to Violetta, "I'm surrounded by children! Everybody out! Back to station house before I ground you all and send you to your rooms!"

The Sheriff marched us back to the Sheriff's office after leaving instructions for handling the crime scene to the officers, including Violetta.



The Police Station had been built long ago, probably within fifty years of the Founding of New Jericho. The building stood two stories tall with a facade of brick and stone. The building had stucco plastered on in great swathes, apparently to keep failing brickwork in place. The building looked at once ancient and precarious. Inside, the large windows on the south side gave ample light for most parts of the main office, and large white linen sheets on the north wall helped to maximize the effect of the incoming sunlight. A few incandescent or flouescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, but none were lit. Likewise there were oil lamps or hand crank electric lamps on most desks, also unlit.

I noticed a wide range of expressions on the faces of the police officers as we entered, raning from broad smiles to outright sneers directed towards Harbinger as we entered the building. The Sheriff waved a young deputy over as we continued through the main office of the station house.

"Nguyen, go get the keys to the morgue." The sheriff said to the deputy, who quickly ran to the duty officer at the front desk.

We continued to the back of the station house and down a narrows set of stairs into the basement, and then the sub basement to a large metal door marked 'morgue' on a painted steel plate. Deputy Nguyen caught up with us, carrying a large ring of keys which he handed to the sheriff. She thumbed through the keys and inserted one into the lock and then turned. She pushed the heavy steel door open and the smell of alcohol and something dead stormed out through the opening in the door and threatened to knock me over.

We stepped into the darkness of the morgue. A bare light bulb actually hung in the morgue just barely visible in the light from the stairs. The room sat entirely below ground with no windows to provide light. Sheriff Hurley reached out and pulled the hanging twine to light the bulb and an eerie white spot light illuminated most, but definitely not all of the room.  the The expense of active refrigeration requiring electricity meant that such devices rarely saw use unless absolutely necessary. The morgue instead contained cast iron tubs with alochol, inside which the bodies floated like translucent corpses.

Harbinger commented, "The alcohol changes the bodies of course, but we make do. The dry season has an especially harsh effect upon the dead."

"Nguyen," HUrley said, as Harbinger began to inspect the floating bodies, "Man the switch."

The young deputy dutifully stood beside the lightbulb ready to turn it off as soon as we finished our inspection.

"Who are we here to see?" Harbinger asked.

The sheriff pointed to the back three tubs and their inhabitants. We walked over to the nearest one, occupied by a latino gentleman of roughly middle age with long hair floating like an inky halo around a thin face with sunken cheeks. The body wore no clothing, likely due to the effect the alcohol would have upon fabric.

"They were all residents of the ring," Sheriff Hurley said, "Poor folk who caught Cholera from contaminated water same as everyone else does. The medical treatment available in the ring is appalling, we occasionally hear word of blood markets springing up- black markets for medical treatment where people pay by donating blood. It's rarely pretty and we break them up when we find them, because they do far more harm than good. Suicides aren't uncommon when people get something nasty and can't afford proper treatment or even proper sanitation. What makes these three strange is that they all shot themselves. A bullet is isn't expensive, but a gun can be for a person in the ring. Most suicides in the ring are either drownings or slit wrists, poor devils."

Harbinger leaned over so far that I expected him to fall into the tub. After a moment he looked back at me and waved me closer.

"What do you think?" He asked as I stood over the first tub.

I looked, "The powder burns are present on the hand and around the wound, again indicating self inflicted wounds."

I stared at the gaping exit wound on the left side of the head of the deceased latino gentleman. Exit wounds rarely look pretty and are generally larger than the entry wound. I looked at the other two tubs, occupied by an African American male and a Caucasian male. All bore the same powder burns and exit wounds, save for the Caucasian man. Instead of an exit wound, the right side of his head was distorted, bugling out visibly.

 "I assume none of them left suicide notes or you'd have told us. Did their clothing show anything odd?"

Sheriff Hurley shook her head, "The clothing was not pleasant. I don't think any of them had laundered their clothes recently, and of course Cholera causes fluid to evacuate body in unpleasant ways, so the trousers in particular weren't salvageable."

I grimaced, "Charming. It puts one's own troubles in perspective. 'Hey, at least I didn't shoot myself in the head because I was dying of fluid loss brought on by involuntary explosive diahrea, while also being so poor that I could afford neither clean water during the dry season nor medical treatment when I got sick.' That's enough to make me feel grateful for my recent troubles."

"The powder burns are odd though, bigger burns than I've seen before." I continued, Did you recover any of the rounds used?" I asked, the exit wounds meant that this was unlikely, but it would help substantially if they had managed.

"We did on the white boy over there. The bullet didn't survive the impact with the other side of his skull and shattered. We picked what would could out. One half of the round was intact."

"Do you have the capacity to perform a ballistics test?" I asked. Sticktown wasn't a big city, but by the standards of post fall Olam we were big enough that the Sheriff's department might have some forensics capabilities.

"Wouldn't matter," Sheriff Hurley said, "The round was a smooth bore lead ball, from a black powder weapon of some sort. Looked as though it were cast from hand made molds."

Harbinger nodded, "Perhaps that's the reason. Buying a cheaply made Rodenstock rifle, or any professionally made firearm, from a licensed dealer would still require registration and a waiting period. There is a black market for cheaply made black powder weapons."

"But why would you commit suicide with a black powder pistol? They aren't common. A Rodenstock would be cheaper. A kitchen knife would be more reliable if you'd never used a black powder weapon before."

Sheriff Hurley nodded, "The weapon makes no sense. Nobody uses black powder except a few desperate criminals looking to wave a gun when they can't afford a modern pistol on the black market."

"Black powder weapons aren't only available on the black market," I pointed out, "They've become very fashionable for the rich and noble and very bored. Illegal dueling is back in fashion, like the aristocrats of old. I think my father even mentioned that the elite have campaigned against legalizing dueling because they like the feeling of doing something forbidden. it's embarrassing what these people will do to stave of boredom while the rest of us scramble to get by."

"If we can recover a weapon then, that would be a place to start. Cheaply made and off the black market or fancy custom job for a nobleman looking to risk life and limb to stem his boredom. Why not just hire more prostitutes? It'd be safer."

"You'd have to ask the nobility for an answer there," Harbinger said, "But if could confirm, all of these poor devils have been identiified, correct?"

"And their next of kin notified, Most weren't happy to hear they'd died. These people all had substantial debts their family will inherit."

"Indeed, but more importantly, this means that our current victim is the only one who is unidentified. So perhaps identifying her will provide some answers? Perhaps she can tell us what happened in June."