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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/LordsOfJoop on 2024-10-28 08:19:34+00:00.

The place was a grisly misuse of space and money before the ravages of crime were involved. Spires of pure, uncut excessive money-as-virtue painted the scene in bright, garish colors - neon-tinted blasts of light shone through the perforated grill that used to be an armored window with coverage enough to conceal a respectable housing development. A half-dozen primary-colored body-bags lay in what might be construed as neat, orderly lines, artificially introduced to the moment by dint of the earliest of the crime-scene ghouls, prepping it for the next round of thinkers and future drinkers.

One of them, a detective with eighteen years behind his badge and eleven behind a serious bottle, surveyed the casualty list and gave a low, almost-appreciative whistle. His partner, a newcomer to the murder resolution business, arched her upper eyebrows with concern before voicing hers.

“Something about this is amusing for you?” she asked, and he simply shook his head, doing a quick headcount on the uniforms milling around in semi-productive modes. After snapping his fingers twice in succession, their heads turned to him and he began to speak. “Thanks for coming out,” he said, “We’re all good here, it seems. Walk the rope, photo anyone who takes too involved of an interest, and turn in your notes to the watch commander when you head back to the house. Again, thank you for your help, officers - they’re in our hands now.” He gave a half-smile as he received the usual and expected half-waves, half-dead-eyed stares from the departing uniformed officers, soon enough leaving just the technicians and his partner in their wake.

She once more spoke to him. “This amuses you?” she asked, and he shook his head. “No, not particularly. This is just the start of something terrible. Seen the names on these folks yet?” To this, she shook her head. “I got this call about six minutes before you got here, so I caught just a few details; walk-in, possibly a robbery, then it went sideways, followed by an eight-way shootout indoors that spilled onto the balcony.” She then gestured to the upper tier of the establishment, a full five stories above them, still with blinking lights from the broken barrier’s illumination strips shorting out every few seconds, spitting sparks that died on their way to the ground, landing as ash and dust.

“Observant, detective, just not for the right part of the details,” he offered, his tone warm and kind. “Fight didn’t happen until someone stopped their exit. Then it got nasty in a hurry. This is a worker, that’s for sure. We’ll probably find a body in the bathroom, likely upstairs, and their head will be a lot misshapen.” He snorted softly. “Then someone in a closet, strangled with a zip-tie, or choked out with a section of wiring. They didn’t bring many tools and improvised.”

She held her hand to his bicep, squeezing it firmly. “Wait a minute,” she said, shaking her head. “How do you know all of this, and how could I be that far off of the mark? My observation skills, they’re in the upper ninety-sixth percentile. You… you don’t even take those assessments.” To this, he simply pulled his arm free from her grip, shaking his head. “You need them; I don’t. Math doesn’t solve a case. Instinct, skill, and a strong knowledge base. You get that from guessing wrong a lot. Anyone who says differently should be smacked until they agree.” He smirked, then motioned for her to follow him inside of the scene itself.

As they entered the living room bodies became obvious: two perched in chairs, facing each other, a table broken in half between them, a scattering of gun fragments in all directions around them, laying next to a spilled food delivery box and warming sleeve.

“First impressions, detective.”

She stopped, examining the scene.

“The shooter came in, took a pop to both of them, one of them hit the table, then the shooter destroyed the gun before … leaving this room to go upstairs?”

He shook his head.

“Shooter came in, probably dressed as a food delivery driver, then crossed the room before either of them got their gun into position, although after they’d drawn their sidearms.” He then mimed the motion, moving to stand over the bodies. “Cracked one in the head with the other’s gun, then shot the second man’s gun in his hand, which caused it to shatter. After that, yeah, they then switched to the next floor.” He then looked straight up to the landing of the stairs adjacent to himself.

The other detective, making notes, walked the same path, mimed the same action, and then walked behind him on his way to the next floor.

A body lay at the top of the stairs with a chunk of masonry in his head, his jaw malformed by a sharp, sudden impact, and a ring of mottled bruising around his throat.

“Killer took out this guy with a snap kick to the neck, then hit him with… brick?”

He shook his head. “Killer grabbed him by the throat, slammed his head into the ceiling, then cracked his spine before he dropped him to the floor. We can check and he’ll have a shattered hyoid bone, dislocated jaw, and at least one popped vertebrae. Suffice to say: this guy dying was a priority. Didn’t even get a chance to draw his gun.” The holstered weapon under his left arm, still sheathed, told a tale of horror if had managed to clear the leather enclosure.

“Killer then walks to …”

The detective shook his head.

“Ran. I don’t think the stride depths you’ll draw from those footprints are indicative of someone who walked anywhere in this place. All of this happened at high speed.”

“Correction: killer then ran to the office, taking out two more of the bodyguards.”

The pair of bodies in the doorway, their bulky masses almost blocking it, had wide-eyed stares that only corpses can muster on demand and maintain indefinitely.

“Walk me through how they died.”

She then knelt next to them, examining them closely.

“Puncture wound approximately an inch across at the base of the jaw,” she said. “On each of their throats. Looks like a quick, brutal stab. The bruising says it wasn’t sharp, just a fast-moving object. I’m unfamiliar with the weapon type, though.” She then looked to him, shrugging in confusion.

He then nudged her to a standing position, using just his index finger, angling her to look up and away briefly. Then he pressed his index finger into the same position. “Fingertip. That kind of strength and focus, it’s not incidental. That’s someone with a very specific goal in mind. Could have used a gun, brought a knife, whatever. Still chose to use their bare hands. Visualize how angry that person is at any given moment.”

She paused, shaking her head, shuddering briefly.

“Then they… went into the office and… butchered… the man behind the desk.”

The detective nodded sagely.

“Not even going to look and I’ll tell you it was as brutal as it was thorough. Snapped bones, probably at least one organ literally ripped out of their body, enucleated eye, there’s a laundry list of atrocities.”

She leaned in, scowling for a moment.

“Yes, probably, both of them, and I’m thinking that we should look for anyone who worked as a mortician for a suspect. That or there’s a doctor with surgical skills operating without anesthetic. A new cause for concern, that.”

The detective then gestured to the balcony. “We have three more floors of this place to go, and I’ll tell you now: this is the guy who was the target of interest. Everyone else was just in the way on the route outside, really. If they had any sense, they’d have hidden, waited for it to be over, and then called us.” To this, he shrugged and continued.

Five more murder scenes with eleven more bodies, and still, the carnage was as speed-oriented as it was horrific. Two bodies found in proximity were killed with the same method, while a triple-play of them were each killed with a different means: a section of metal piping from an art display; a railing for a nearby staircase; a single glove shoved into a windpipe hard enough it tore the fabric on their trachea, in addition to tearing the trachea itself.

As they progressed, she became more and more ill at ease, looking queasy. A veteran of a full score of homicide investigations, reduced to a boot recruit, green and tender.

He kept her company, guiding her conclusions to their accurate landings, until they were at the top of the structure, looking down at the still-gathered masses of cruisers parked outside of the building’s lobby doors, the other police looking up at them with squinting eyes and baffled expressions.

“So, the killer is on the roof,” he asked, then gestured to the absence of bodies. “What happened next, detective?”

She leaned on a railing, shaking her head. “The killer,” she began, “Moves like a track star. Crosses a room in under a breath’s time, punches like a cargo hauler, then does it again and again, for a total of… twenty-six kills, not counting the bathroom suicide?” To this, he nodded. “Even then, I think that the killer forced that girl to shoot herself with the pistol. No wounds to her, just some old dope scars. Doesn’t seem like the sort to top herself off, really.”

To this, the detective then asked the question again.

“What happened next, detective?”

She squinted, rubbing the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. “Honestly,” she said, “I think that he just jumped off of the building and ran away, because… because.” She looked to him with an almost-accusatory expression, which rapidly shifted to surprise.

“Wait,” she said. "You… you th…

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