Chapter Text
☽ 1 ☾
| Chapter theme: The Walk Piano Noir Remake | by Sylvain Texier, Ô Lake, Piano Noir | Spotify | YouTube |
Crunch…
Crunch…
Shale rock, mud and grass crunched beneath the heavy too-big-boots. Rain pitter pattered through the trees, and the wind whipped the leaves into a screaming frenzy around an imposing figure trekking through the deep woods.
Crack. The tree branches parted ways for the large shadow who barely made an indent in the already pitch-black forest. No flashlight sliced through the darkness. It was an unnecessary inconvenience.
An ear splitting howl cried out through the night and the shadow paused in its hike. Coyote country. But coyotes weren’t even close to the most vicious predator in those woods. A soft wheezing noise shook through the figure before it went silent again after a low huuussshhh.
The shadow’s boots gave a tentative step forward… before taking another long stride and continuing its trek.
The figure wasn’t weighed down by the heavy roll of tarp and plastic draped over its shoulder. It hiked a steady pace, taking its time as if it were on a lovely summer stroll.
Another piercing howl, followed by a chaotic chorus of the distant coyote’s pack mates. A lone whistle sliced through the rain as if calling back to them. The pitched whistle began to take a downward step…before slowly climbing back up in a cheerful jaunt along with the raucous howls.
Hot cross buns.
Hot cross buns…
The notes shifted and sank like a firework sputtering out as the howling died down. Must’ve killed their prey. Celebration was in the air. The slow, wheezing noise… a soft, stifled laughter bubbled up from the shadow once again as the sack slowly slid down its chest.
The figure carefully lowered it to the ground, as if it were filled with fragile glass and it didn’t want a single piece chipped.
ZiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIP
The only sound in the air was the pouring rain. Not even thunder shook the night. Just the constant pitter patter of rain, whispering of trees… Whisper all they wanted. The figure knew they would keep its secrets safe.
Hot cross buns…
ZIIIPPPPPPP
Hot cross buns…
Thud.
One-a-penny
ZzziiiiiiIIIIIIiiiipp…
Two-a-penny
Crruuunnch…
Hot… Cross… Buns…
☽*☾
FLASH.
The camera shutter sang its clunky tune, its high pitched whine echoing in her ears. She’d have to be patient to see the photos, but her vision worked just as well as a magnum lens. Camera lowered, she studied the foot print, her eyes narrow as she pulled out a tape measure from her pocket and held it up taut.
Men's size seventeen. These were specially made... Standard sizes only went up to fifteen.
The pop of knees as the woman stood up with a small groan. Twenty-nine and already her body was not being kind… especially not this early in the morning. Story of my life.
“Howdy, Ms. Starling! Glad to see you made it. Coffee?”
Frisk was greeted by a warm, ginger-blonde beard wrapping up a tired smile like a present just for her. Detective Dreemurr.
She gave him a gentle smile despite her exhaustion from the other night. Up all night again Frisk? You're gonna die early.
An amused snort nearly left her nose but she quickly thought better of it. Her hand reached out for the warm, disposable cup and she nursed it close to her heart as she and Detective Dreemurr trekked through the woods.
“How's the witness?”
“Well, he's quite shell shocked for right now, but thankfully he's willing to talk… ” Asgore sent a sidelong glance at Frisk from beneath his wireframe glasses and sighed as he realized the boundaries he'd have to set. “...To the police. You are free to interview him after he's given his statement. For now just—”
“—Do what I do best. Got it,” she interrupted. Dreemurr sent her a tired look and smiled gently as she sipped at the coffee.
Her nose wrinkled. It was pitch black and bitingly bitter. No cream, sugar or anything to help wash the cheap roast down. What did you expect? A pumpkin spice latte?
That time she did laugh.
“Something funny Ms. Starling?” called a police officer. She rolled her eyes and ducked underneath the yellow police tape perimeter along with her detective escort.
She meandered about the scene, taking note of the markers, the forensic team fussing over the plastic covered corpse undoubtedly inside. She spared a glance at the witness blubbering to another detective, and noted the intense hiking gear donning his person. Bears, cougars and coyotes? No problem. But he hadn't been expecting this. Her heart went out to him.
Quickly, she readied her camera and huddled over the markers, snapping pictures here and there of anything she could find.
Boot prints.
Methodical steps. Nothing frenzied. No movement that screamed panic. Whoever this was, they knew what they were doing.
Nothing she hadn't seen before though.
FLASH
“Bite marks everywhere… God. Went for the fucking jugular.”
“Let's take a swab. See what we can identify in the lab.”
Frisk glanced up and furrowed her brow as she listened to the Forensics team murmuring amongst themselves. As they pulled out sample kits from their totes, Frisk slowly approached from behind to see for herself.
Sure enough, just as they'd described… bite marks. Large and Deep. They looked like animal bites, like some kind of dog but too neat to be a mauling.
The marks had bruised to a dull purple and green. Somewhere between ten to fourteen days then… shit.
Out of respect for the dead, she let her camera hang at her stomach and instead whipped out a pencil to take notes.
“We can rule out a human as the suspect then. I don't know about you but I've never seen a human bite do that kind of damage.”
She nodded along and her heart ached a bit. A monster suspect… It was hard to ignore the fleeting glances the other police sent to Detective Dreemurr.
Jesus… She just knew that as soon as some conservative talking head got ahold of the police statement, they'd take it and run. Spin some hateful, hairbrained story about demons and hell on earth.
She could only imagine how Asgore felt about it. As if this wasn't disastrous enough. A sigh parted her lips and she glanced back at the body…
No. More than a body. The woman…
Frisk allowed her throat to swell as she took in the woman's slack form, limp and pale from the days she’d been dead.
She always hated when they just left them out naked to the elements.
The woman’s face blurred back into focus, and it was then from Frisk’s lofty perch above the forensic team that she began to notice the smudged foundation that didn’t quite match with the woman’s blanche skin tone. Her shriveled lips were stained a rusted red that had even smudged into the dead pores around her lips… and, the centerpiece of it all? Smokey, charcoal liner clumsily dusting the waterlines of the victim’s wide, dead eyes.
Brown, like hers. But, unlike hers, they were glazed over, the spark gone forever.
“Any identification?” she asked.
“None for now but… If I had to infer, I would say she's probably in her early twenties. Poor girl…”
Frisk pointed at the victim as the Forensic scientist murmured facts for them to take notes on. “He cleaned her up before he brought her out here. Made her up too,” she pointed out.
Asgore nodded, craning his head to take a look for himself. “Ah… You're right. I'm guessing our culprit is a tad finicky?”
She shrugged matter-of-factly. “You could say that. Bottom line is that he certainly doesn't leave a mess. All the tracks were precise. Like he knew exactly what he was going to do, where he was going to take her and how he was going to leave. Very meticulous. Might be too soon to say, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a one-off crime of passion.”
The words sent a hush through the troop of cops, detectives and pathologists. Shifting eyes throwing each other uneasy glances as they all came to the same conclusion that she had.
It was Asgore who broke the silence.
“So… not only do we have a monster, ” he sighed, his large, horned head shaking wearily at the very idea of the inevitable outrage, “but we have the profile of a scrupulous pervert who's littered his victim in lethal bites and dumped her body in coyote country to use as some… lazy attempt at a cover up?” he theorized.
Frisk hummed softly and forced herself to finally take another sip of coffee.
As soon as the bitter roast hit her nose however, she felt her stomach clench with nausea. She shook her head and turned her gaze to Asgore.
“I'm going to do a lap. See if our Neat Freak left us anything else,” she said with a wink.
Dreemurr nodded curtly and grunted as she pushed the cup of bad coffee back into his hands.
The crisp October air and horrifying circumstances were enough to keep her awake anyway.
She passed close enough to the witness as he continued to spew his story, picking up bits and pieces from what he said in hushed intonation to Detective Salinas.
“I was just… I was on my monthly hike through the Ebbot Mountain range… and immediately just… you know, marker fifteen. Something wasn't right.”
Why on a hiking trail? He'd wanted someone to find it.
Jesus… It’d been a while since they’d dealt with an alleged serial killer. Too early to tell, remember? But all the signs were there…
The acknowledgement sent a cold shiver slithering down her neck and coiling at the base of her spine like a snake.
Once she'd snuck past the detectives and Forensics team she let out a brief sigh, turning on her heels as the forest canopy engulfed her and muffled her breathing.
The last time she’d dealt with a serial killer, she’d tracked his movements all the way through Seattle to Montana.
She could still remember the way those girls had their limbs shredded by knife cuts so deep she could see the bone. They’d been left to bleed out. Sick.
Probably worse than this, if she wanted to be realistic.
The memories trickled through her in a slow stream of consciousness. Careful, controlled. Picked through as she needed them.
The October air sighed through the autumn trees surrounding her. Decaying leaves swirled stiffly in the breeze’s wake, clawing around her patch of dirt and whispering secrets she’d never have the capacity to hear.
But you caught him. The idiot used a library computer and you got him. This won’t be any different.
She sucked in a long sigh as she pulled her outdated flip phone out, deciding she’d like to hear that reassurance from someone whose voice didn’t sound as cut and dry as her own.
Only two bars… She seethed and held the phone over her head in an attempt to check for a better signal. Nope… I mean, two bars should be enough… right?
A painful grimace that tried to pass itself off as a smile cracked across her face while she tediously clicked through her contacts and hit send.
She hoped it wasn't too early…
“Mm… good morning,” croaked the warm voice from the other line. Her pained grimace softened at the sound of his warmth, her heart skipping a beat like it always did, even though she had been with him for four years now. Six, if she counted their friendship in the beginning…
“Yeah, it definitely is a morning … I didn’t wake you up, did I?” she hummed into the phone.
“No, of course not… ” His voice trailed off… calculating her even tone and everything hiding behind it. “I was actually just making myself a cup of coffee… or well, cleaning my mistakes from making the coffee.”
She snorted at the words. “Oh?”
A gentle chuckle, that sounded the way a church bell sang, coaxed a smile back onto her face. Her breath came a bit easier, less forced, with each beautiful note of that laugh…
“Yes! Let me explain myself…”
Frisk nodded along. “You’ve got five minutes,” she teased.
“Okay, okay! You remember when I took you to South India to meet my extended family, and we went to that one coffee bar? You know the one?”
The words were like a ray of sun catching on the edge of the peridot gem sitting on her ring finger. Her eyes glimmered at the memory. A much better memory than those lashes to the bone. Than the dead eyed gaze of the victim behind her… “Yeah. The one where they pour the coffee at an arm’s length to get it all frothy?”
“That one. See, I’m trying to do that. My hand eye coordination is worse than I thought it was. Think I spilled more coffee than what got into the cup. Don’t worry, it’ll be spotless before you get back, love.”
The story and the promise brought a bubbling laughter out deep within her belly. Her dark eyes sparkled with admiration. How could one person scatter the clouds so easily?
“Well… you’ve definitely had a more stressful morning than I have, then,” she teased. Ibrahim laughed along at the absurdity of that statement.
“I wouldn’t say that… speaking of, am I cutting into your detective time or? Oh wait, yooouuu called meee … I guess they’ve already taken the body, then?”
She nodded, her smile faltering only slightly at the stark reminder. It was hard to dampen her mood now with Ibrahim smoothing the furrows in her mental brow.
“They're about to… Honestly, I wanted to see what you thought.”
“Oooo… You've gotta stop telling me this stuff, honey, you'll get us in trouble.” he teased. Frisk giggled quietly and shook her head.
“But, babyyyy, you're my biggest helper!”
“Babbbyyy, we’re in serious violation of the chain of custody!”
“Right, right… Anyway, the suspect—” He hummed his intrigue at her leading question and she hummed back, doing her best to stifle the playful giggle begging to erupt, “— Super meticulous. Cleaned up her body and then put makeup on her. Asgore called him finicky, which is a great way to describe what I saw,” she explained.
Ibrahim gave a knowing grunt. “Look into Carol Bundy and Clark,” he mentioned and she groaned at the reminder of that specific case.
“Yes, the murder couple who killed those runaway girls… put makeup on a severed head and… yeah. This is more in line with the other Bundy. Bite marks. Everywhere. And they're monster bites. Have to be.”
Ibrahim tisked at the idea and she knew without him having to say anything he had the first thought she did upon learning that.
“I know.”
“Fox News is gonna have a field day with this.”
She rolled her eyes at the idea and grunted. “And somehow, conspiracy theorists will still find a way to blame the Jews,” she snarked.
Ibrahim snickered before giving a sigh. “So. Bite marks. Makeup. Meticulous footprints. Sounds like we’re dealing with a control freak.”
“That's what Dreemurr said, although he worded it more like the guy would go into a cleaning frenzy given the opportunity.”
Ibrahim laughed at that and Frisk chuckled along.
The shadows in the trees were long from the morning sun. Pine needles just a bit too cramped. Frisk brought her hand to rub her neck as she continued to listen to Ibrahim's voice. A soothing distraction from the claustrophobia that loomed over and around her.
“Yeah, he also pointed out that he brought her into coyote country. Some half assed attempt at pinning the bites on the coyotes I guess. Lazy. Contradicts the profile to be honest,” she muttered once the jokes had passed.
“No it doesn't. Not really.”
She furrowed her brow and swayed on her heels. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“He doesn't think the coyotes are a cover. It might be some kind of… metaphor for how he sees himself.” Her eyes sparkled at the words. Of course.
“A predator.”
“Exactly.”