There's two people already taking pictures, a familiar dryad and human snapping away, but that doesn't stop Liam from pulling out his phone to take a few of his own. He wants to make sure he gets the right angles - gets a good enough depiction of the entire crime scene that he doesn't need to rely on his own memory, as good as it is.
Sure, the pictures the others take will be helpful, but they might not get everything.
He doesn't touch - he's very careful where he places his feet as well, dancing around anything that could possibly be conceived of as evidence.
It's… interesting.
The parts of the body are thrown around in such a haphazard way it's deeply odd. If there had been something attacking this person, ripping them apart, it… doesn't seem like it would have fallen this way. A right finger, half-crushed and ripped off the hand, is so far from it it's like they threw it. (Which, could, actually be possible.)
The body is humanoid - that much, Liam can tell. "Do we know who it is? Species?" he asks, glances back at Nathaniel.
He shakes his head. "Not yet. No one new has been reported missing, and we haven't had a chance to look at old reports or do a species examination yet."
It makes sense. The body is in so many bits and pieces that visually you can't tell, and scent-wise… Grimacing under his mask, Liam squats down and bends over, getting his face close to the left hand, which is ripped off along with the upper arm at the elbow. He sucks in and the scent is death, clogging him and he immediately stands up, coughing and hacking and nearly choking on the mints.
Nathaniel snorts but doesn't say anything, and Liam focuses on the good taste in his mouth, the minty flavor he desperately needs right now. Yeah, there's nothing to be smelled underneath the scent of dead blood.
It's the first time he's encountered a case this bloody, a body this messed up, and he resolves to stop trying. Twice was enough.
A thought occurs to him as he circles the tape and the body, looking at the blood spatters, the way everything falls. It's… barely the end of the day. It's the beginning of Liam's active time, sure, but not for everyone else, so… "When did someone find them?"
"20 minutes before I called you," Nathaniel says, which confirms Liam's suspicion.
Johnson Avenue isn't an exactly busy street, primarily residential, but that doesn't mean it's dead (heh) silent, either, or deserted. "Who found them?"
"A woman named Sam Dylan," Nathaniel recites easily. "She owns that little clothing shop a few doors away. She was locking up and heading home when she saw it."
Liam nods slowly, thoughtfully. "At the station?"
Nathaniel nods as well. "She says she didn't see anything, but Officer Matthews is talking to her. I'll have him keep her until you can speak with her too, if you want."
It's a statement - he doesn't bother to ask, because he already knows the answer.
To have such a brutal scene in the middle of the street… and to have someone find it at this hour… There's no scent of rotting, or anything like that. Liam doesn't make the stupid decision to try to smell for it again, but there's nothing visibly rotting and he would have definitely smelled that along with the blood. Plus, the blood smells fresh dead. He doesn't know if he could pinpoint specifics, not with it being this overpowering, but it's definitely not old dead.
He takes another few minutes, looking at how the blood splatters match up with the body parts, and comes to a conclusion. "I don't think the murder happened here," he says, stepping back over to the police chief.
Nathaniel doesn't argue with him, only furrows his eyebrows thoughtfully. "Yeah?"
Liam crunches on a mint. "If it happened here, it would've been noisy. Even if it was a witch and they cast some sort of silencing spell, it would've been visible - Ms. Dylan's boutique is close enough and with big enough windows a struggle would have been hard to miss."
As far as he knows - which is a lot for someone who isn't a witch, given… who he used to spend his time with - there isn't any sort of mass invisibility spell. He supposes it is possible that he's wrong, or that if it was a witch (or a wizard or a mage, but witches are eternally the most common magic users) they were clever enough to figure something else out, but that's not his only evidence. He continues.
"The blood spatters don't match up with how a body should be ripped apart like this," he continues. "If the pieces were thrown, maybe, or haphazardly dropped… but if there was someone under attack here… it wouldn't look like this."
Again, there are always exceptions. That's the issue when magic is a possibility. You never know what little things could have happened, what possible solutions there might be.
Still. It makes sense, and he thinks it's a good working theory. Nathaniel nods - their eyes meet, brown and red. "Can I have them pack it up?" he asks, gesturing to the picture takers - they're finished, now, and stand to the side in suits to avoid contamination, ready to start bagging.
"Yeah," Liam says. "As long as someone takes me to the station."
-----
Officer Reyes ends up driving him.
A young fae with golden eyes that don't do a lot to hide his perpetual nervousness, Liam doesn't know him well, but he's surprised that he was even there. Most likely, he was in the area and came when called.
Liam leans back, mulling it over. "Did you see Sam Dylan?" he asks.
Officer Reyes jolts at being addressed, but his grip on the steering wheel remains steady, at least, and the car doesn't jerk. "Um," he says, wetting his lips quickly. "I… Just a little bit. She was crying a lot. Sam doesn't do good with blood."
Sam? Liam glances at him, interested now. "You know her?" Reyes doesn't seem the type to just address people casually like that - he's always 'Detective', the few times they've had a conversation.
"Y-Yeah," he says, and he takes a breath. "She's… my partner's aunt." Huh. Alright. Before Liam can fully process that, Reyes is talking again, words spewing hastily out of him. "D-Detective, I know her. She's a really nice person, really good, she wouldn't ever do something like this, you've got to believe me-"
Liam's brow furrows more and more and then he puts up a hand. Reyes stops, immediately, glancing at him nervously but clearly trying to force his eyes to stay on the road. "Relax," Liam says, shaking his head. "She's not a suspect."
That seems to surprise Reyes. "She's… she's not?"
"No," says Liam - which… isn't quite a lie. It's intensely unlikely it's her, and he's not considering her as a serious suspect just yet, but it's technically a possibility. "It's unlikely the person was killed that long ago, and she was in the shop. Unless it turns out she wasn't, I don't really think it's her."
"Oh," Reyes says, and his whole body relaxes. "Sorry, sir, this… this is just my first murder, and…"
It's not exactly like there are many murders here. Despite what TV likes to say, murders do not just show up on every doorstep - and when they do, they're usually very obvious. Someone is shot, or stabbed, or whatever by someone they know, there's no mystery, and Liam is never called in and maybe hears about it on the news.
Something like this is abnormal. "I was surprised to see you there," Liam says, which is a lie. He hadn't even noted Reyes' specific presence until he was told to drive him.
Reyes grimaces a little. "Yeah… I was patrolling, me and Officer Matthews, and we got called…" That confirms what he thought, and also explains why he doesn't have a partner chilling in the seat Liam's currently occupying.
He simply nods at that, and the car falls silent for a few more moments. Reyes pulls into the police station, parking, and hesitates for a moment as he turns the car off. "Detective… you're gonna ask her some questions, right?"
Liam nods - that much is obvious, and the young officer chews on his lip. "Can… is it okay if I see her, first? Just… I saw her just a little at the scene, but she's probably really upset…"
He doesn't exactly expect that Reyes is some master criminal embroiled in all of this, because if so the man is a ridiculously excellent actor who is playing a very good longcon, but better safe than sorry. "As long as I'm there," Liam says.
Reyes smiles at him. "Thank you," he says, profound relief in his voice.
Liam abruptly feels a little embarrassed. "It's nothing," he says, and he opens the door. "Come on. Let's go talk to Ms. Dylan."