A crowd had gathered when Gustav arrived at the crime scene. Death had a way of drawing people in. Morbid onlookers tried to get a better look at the dead body, and little did the officers securing the scene to dissuade them, while others tried to avoid looking directly at it.
However, there was something different this time. There was a sweet smell in the air. Decomposing bodies released a lot of smells, but never sweet.
"What we're dealing with?" Gustav asked to the officer.
"We found the body of Small Mike this morning, detective""
"Who's that?"
"Small Mike," repeated the officer. "They well knew him around these parts."
Gustav reviewed some onlookers. Gustav noticed that some of the onlookers were wearing tattered clothes and looked disheveled during his review.
"Was he homeless?"
"Yeah," replied the officer. "Most of the store owners in this block knew him well. He was a little off his rocker, but kept to himself."
The murder of a homeless man was nothing out of the ordinary. These people lead harsh lives because of poor decisions or worsening mental condition. Most of the murder cases linked to the homeless were about drug disputes.
"I would like to see the body."
"This way, detective." The officer lifted the caution tape.
Gustav approached the location where Small Mike's body was found. The sweet smell in the air became stronger. He found the M.E. hunched over a large body covered by the plastic sheet.
"Detective, it was about time you arrived." The M.E. remarked.
Mila was not the one assigned to the case. But one of her coworkers. A middle-aged man with harsh facial features. Ralph Davis. He wasn't the most friendly, and hard a very harsh attitude.
"What do you got, Davis?"
Davis sighed and stood up. "We have here a man, in his late 30s to early 40s, rather stout. He shows no signs of violence and won't be able to tell you the cause of death until I get him to the lab." Then he knelt and lifted the plastic sheet. "There are these things on his body."
"Are those...?"
Over the lifeless body of Small Mike, there were flowers in full bloom. Their petals were a deep shade of red and Gustav noticed the sweet smell he was sensing in the crime scene was coming from those flowers.
"Somebody thought it would be a good idea to give the deceased flowers," Davis said. "Contaminating the crime scene in the process. Stupid traditions."
They usually offered flowers to the dead, but that was during a wake or at the cemetery, and not in a crime scene.
"I'll question the witnesses if they saw something, and I'll see you at the lab."
"Can't wait," replied Davis as he rolled his eyes.
The techs from the lab carefully set the body of Small Mike on the gurney and bobbled him to the truck to be taken to the city morgue.
Once they were gone, Gustav examined the crowd of onlookers who had gathered. But when he made eye-contact with a young woman among them, she immediately ran away, disappearing among the crowd.
**
Interviewing witnesses for a crime that involved a homeless individual was more challenging. Given their status in society, it was hard to track anyone who actually knew them enough to determine a pattern that would allow to track down their killer. Most homeless individuals would never talk to a cop, and even if they wanted to, it would be lead nowhere since most of them were on drugs or mental disorders like schizophrenia.
The only ones left to talk to were the store owners that Small Mike used to visit. Most didn't want to talk to Gustav, however, he found a store clerk that was willing to talk to him.
"Small Mike is dead, huh?" the clerk said as he set a box full of cans on the floor. "Such a shame."
"Did you know you him well?" Gustav asked.
"Know him? Not really, but the boss would hire him once in a while to move product in the backroom for food or cash."
"Why would he hire him?" Gustav commented.
"Who knows? Mike was a little crazy," the clerk replied. "But the kind of crazy you like to have around. Know what I mean?"
"Not really," Gustav replied.
Then Gustav recalled the girl he saw moments earlier.
"Did he have any friends? Or maybe a romantic partner?"
"Let me think," the clerk piled up the cans on the shelves. "There was a girl, I think. She used to come with him and share any meals the boss would give him. Can't tell you if they were friends or something more."
"Can you describe her?"
"Let me think," the clerk pondered. "She's short in stature, short hair and blue eyes. I think Mike once called her Sam. Dunno if that's her real name, though."
Gustav noticed the security cameras on the corners of the store.
"Do you have cameras in the back room?"
"Yeah," the clerk replied. "The boss is a kind man, but he's not a fool."
Gustav would request a capture of the security feed from those cameras. This time they would be more helpful, unlike last time, since Ansem wouldn't be involved.
"Thank you for your time," Gustav thanked the clerk and left the store.
Before he could request a court order for the security camera footage. His phone pinged with a notification from the city morgue. Davis was ready to give the autopsy report.
**
When Gustav arrived at the city morgue, Davis was waiting by the body of Small Mike. But he noticed something different with Davis' attitude. The man was pretty much unnerved when it came to conducting autopsies, and even Mila worked with him as his assistant when she started working at the city morgue.
But today, Davis was feeling more nervous and one of his fingers was wrapped in bandages.
"Alright. I'm here, Davis. What do you have for me?"
"About time you arrived, detective." Davis replied.
On top of a small tray besides the examination table were the flowers that were found on Small Mike's body. The sweet smell from them was still very noticeable. They seemed like normal flowers, except that the stems were coated in coalesced blood.
And under the lab's bright lights, the body of Small Mike looked paler and almost translucent.
Davis picked up the notepad and began reading the results of the autopsy.
"The victim here died from blood loss from these two puncture wounds." Davis pointed with a pen at two large holes on the Mike's chest.
"Is that even possible?" Gustav leaned to get a closer look. "There was no blood at the crime scene."
"I know that, detective. I was there."
"What's wrong with you?" Gustav asked.
"I apologize, detective." Davis sighed. "I'm just a little jumpy today."
"Does it have anything to do with that cut on your finger?"
Davis didn't respond. Not because he didn't want to answer, but he was hesitant to do so.
"What else can you tell me?"
Davis looked at his notepad again. "According to liver temperature, our victim here died between 5 and 8 in the morning. No external trauma, but his organs did show significant deterioration. Nothing out of the ordinary for the deceased. But I could find trace amounts of a strange substance on the organ tissue."
"What kind of substance?" Gustav asked.
"Well, I can only compare it to the saliva certain blood-sucking insects inject into their prey," Davis explained.
"Like a mosquito?" Gustav looked at the flowers.
"Davis, how did you remove those flowers from the body?"
Davis began acting coy again, and Gustav was starting to lose his patience.
"Tell me. Now."
Davis looked at the sides, as to make sure that no one would walk in.
"Alright, but you might think I'm crazy."
"Go ahead, I'll listen."
"When I got the victim on the slab, I began the procedure to start the autopsy. But I had to remove those flowers before I began. That's when I noticed that the flowers stuck to the victim's body. When I tried to remove them..." Davis paused. "One flower cut my finger, as if were defending itself. At first I thought I sliced my finger on one of its thorns."
Gustav could tell that it freaked Davis out.
"But there are no thorns on the stem, petals or sepals... But when I think about it, I think the flower bit me." Davis felt silly saying that.
"What do you mean?" Gustav asked.
"I know it sounds crazy, but that's how it felt like," Davis explained. "When I could finally draw out the flowers from the victim's body, the stems were coated in his blood when I ran the blood test. Never seen anything like that before."
"Did they stab him with the flowers?" Gustav asked.
"No, detective." replied Davis. "The stems slowly drove themselves into his skin."
Gustav pondered about what Davis said and stared at the flowers sitting on the tray beside Small Mike's body. What on Earth were those flowers?