fiction
Mystery, crime, murder, unsolved cases. Contribute your own tales of crime to Criminal.
The Temptation
I was just notified there was a homicide of one of our brothers in blue in our jurisdiction. Everybody that was present was assigned to this case. My little black notebook with numbered pages, radio, and evidence kit were all in tow. Homicide detectives were on their way out to the scene as well. Supervisor Garcia glanced my direction, “Hey do you want to ride together?” “Of course!”
By Trysha Parker5 years ago in Criminal
Blackout
This isn't a complicated story. It's a human story, filled with senseless errors. I planned the evening a month in advance. My military days had ended ten years ago, but once a Marine always a Marine, and we don't miss the opportunity to celebrate November 10, the U.S. Marine's birthday. I took the longest shower and skipped cologne; preferring the scent of a light clean soap. I gave myself the once-over in the mirror- starched jeans, pressed polo, shiny shoes, fresh fade. I checked my phone to see if my baby brother had texted. He hadn't. Communication was not his forte. Aside from both of us being ex-Marines and functioning alcoholics, we have nothing else in common. I am four years older, married with a daughter, and the more level-headed of the two. He's a hothead with no fuse who loves to fight because... well he's good at it. I'm a talker and can distinctly remember talking my way out of an ass whoopin from him. But, that Cat knows how to have a good time and it's our tradition to celebrate this night together. I text him:
By Mischia Farrer5 years ago in Criminal
Little Black Book
Anaesthetised. The word I would use when talking to my paediatric patients – explaining how I would be using a needle to numb their nerves, creating an invisible shield between my surgical tools and their delicate outer casing. Anaesthetised. The word I would use to describe how I felt at that very moment – the catch - there were no needles in sight. My body was creating this feeling all on its own. My brain was releasing chemicals, all as a reaction to what I had just read, with my now water filled eyes. I was numb. Cold even. The blistering heat couldn’t distract me from the cold I was feeling. The sensation continued down the length of my tall, dainty spine. One would assume that the bolts in my back would discourage me from feeling anything. However, after countless spinal surgeries my nerves remained intact. My body was in shock, perspiration left every crevasse within my exterior, with scents of terror and disgust. I looked ahead to see the lines of naked, stolen children; their terrified stares puncturing my numbing frame. One girl, a small, lanky, dark creature; stood staring at me. Looked about nine. The lanky nine-year-old frame hid the aged mind of the mature woman she was within. After all she’d seen and experienced, she had the right to be regarded as a woman. Her thin, malnourished, four fingered hand, slowly swept up, past her bony hips. Moving alongside her exposed, skin lacking, rib cage. Her hand came to a halt at the height of her shoulder. She waved. My body heaved, releasing the eggs benedict I’d eaten earlier that morning, onto my freshly manicured toes and faded Birkenstocks. His little black book fell to the floor, sending the dry, brown earth flying in all directions. I dropped to my knees. Thump thump. I could hear my heart through every fissure, every artery, every cell within my numb and shaking exterior. I looked up. The girl had moved her malnourished hand from a still wave to an extended, motherly grasp. Thwack. She landed with a thump; so loud I could identify it with the fifty-metre distance between us. The stocky, big bellied man - who created the thump - let out a deep, evil chuckle. He turned and picked up the rock he had previously chucked at her head, smirking at the speckles of blood found on its sharp, rough edges. Two strangers. Both lying on the same earth - the only difference; one still had a life, the other just had hers swept away from beneath her feet. I prayed. I didn’t believe in God - science was too existent in my life to consider a make-believe creature – especially one that didn’t have the power to stop monstrosities like this happening. Regardless, I needed something to believe in at that moment. I could feel my heart in my stomach, my chest tight with anxiety, my lungs struggling for the sauna like air I felt like I was drowning in. I wasn’t sure if I was reacting to the death of an innocent child or the words I had just seen in the little black book, which sat inches away from my right arm – now covered in the brown, African dirt. The dirt of a place I loved so much. A place I uprooted and changed my life for. A home I made for my girls. The line moved on - with my newly lost friends figure trodden on and rolled as the others were forced forward. Their bare feet standing on what could be, and quite possibly would be them. The line of young, exposed women went on for what looked like miles. There was a man posted up every five metres or so, with the support of a military rifle on their shoulder. With my gut about to release more of my eggs, I picked up his little black book and began to walk. As I struggled to move, I opened the book to find what had made me violently ill before. The Twenty-thousand-dollar cheque made out to a Mr Teddy Baraka for the sale of two hundred items – silently balancing on the coffee stained paper of his little black book. Items being women. Women being the young, nine-year-old girls trudging towards the army van – with the support of armed pigs.
By Eleni Thorn5 years ago in Criminal
The Sick Stag
He sat up, adjusting himself in the driver’s seat. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. The deep drum of wiper blades echoed in his ears like a heartbeat; fast but consistent. It was uncomfortably close to his own. “I’ve never seen this side of town,” he thought while peering past a rain-drenched windshield onto a narrow street. Shops, either boarded up or closed, stood along the derelict one-way road. Hours of rain had soaked the concrete and stained buildings but sparse neon lighting gave false warmth to the area. Scanning the glow, it was there: The No Tell Motel. His grip tightened on the steering wheel before peering across his shoulder to the briefcase in the passenger seat. The raindrops became white noise.
By Jeramey Gillilan5 years ago in Criminal
Room 712
Everything is a memory, distorted and made of pieces trying to weave together their own selfish story. He had worked with the woman before but could not piece together their full relationship in his head. It felt like he was trying to see an old photo's details through the tarnished lens of a magnifying glass. A fear awoke in him.
By Jacob Spjut5 years ago in Criminal
My Mother's Secret
The sun shines through a pink and white sheer curtain and lands on an alarm clock blaring music and flashing 6:00 a.m. As soon as it began the alarm ended with a petite hand smacking the snooze button. A rustled, black haired girl emerges from underneath a down filled comforter, she heard from downstairs “Lealah it’s time to get up and get ready for school. Lealah finished up and headed downstairs to meet her mother for breakfast as she always did. She saw her mother holding her head and asked her was she okay, her mother answered her saying, “I just have a bad headache dear, hurry up eat your breakfast before your late!” Lealah made it to school on time and she had an amazing day, she couldn’t wait to get home to tell her mom about the college scouts that stopped by from her Alma Mata, Harvard. She arrived home and was horrified to see her father in tears, flashing lights, and EMT’s loading her mom in the back of an ambulance, she screamed “NO,THAT”S MY MOM... WHAT HAPPENED TO MY MOM,DAD! Lealah and her father rush to the hospital and the doctor says, “I’m sorry Mr. Taylor, your wife was DOA and we couldn’t revive her she suffered a Brain Aneurism”, Lealah and her father both sank to the floor as if quick sand took it's toll on them, holding each other in tears. Lealah felt so lost after her mother’s funeral, she sat in her mother’s beautiful garden in their back yard, and as her eyes followed a bird who flew away suddenly, they landed on a tin can poking out of the dirt in the flower bed. She rises from her seat in the garden and wipes the tears from her eyes to clearly see what is in the tin can, she opens it to find a little black book filled with numbers on the inside, and she wondered what did the numbers mean, and why did her mother bury it in her garden? Just as her mind wondered, a very well dressed Italian gentleman approached her father, she had never seen him before. He leaned in and whispered something to her dad, and whatever it was it sent him into a rage, he demanded that the man leave immediately! Over the next few days strange calls started coming to the house, first they would just hang up, then they started demanding my father to give them my mother’s belongings. I kept asking my self what could all this be about? One day I answered the phone and I heard a man say, “This is Mr. Brambilla and you have Seven days to turn over your wife’s belongings or you and your daughter will be six feet in the ground with her!” I was terrified, and I knew it had something to do with that LITTLE BLACK BOOK of numbers my mother hid. I started studying the numbers, then I remembered my mom was a Financial Accountant from Harvard, the same field of study I was going to take up. I had to save me and my fathers life! I found out that the numbers were longitude and latitude degrees to many locations all around the world, under different companies, with different bank accounts equaling $275 Million dollars, and they all belonged to Mr. Brambilla! I rushed to explain everything I found to my father, just as I finished there was a knock at the door, my father shushed me, told me to hide, and slowly walked to the door, and opened it to find a note on the ground and it read, “You have 72 hours to return what your wife stole!” I told my dad if we give it to him, he will surely kill us both! The next day we went to the Police Department and they couldn’t help us, so my father took the information to the IRS. The calls stopped coming into the house and one night me and my father were eating dinner while watching television, a “Breaking News Report” flashed across the screen. It read, “ Just in, corporate millionaire Vince Brambilla has been arrested and indicted on multiple counts of fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion, and the list just kept going on. I just wanted what was left of our lives back, and I was so happy now that me and my father were safe again. I just kept thinking if mom was still here she would be so proud of me.
By Vita Kyles5 years ago in Criminal
Resignation
Lia was afraid of the black-bound book that rested on her passenger chair. A life of crime and misandry and the first time her soul felt dripped in dread came from a familiar friend, a notebook she once briefly owned. Her arm poked through the shattered car window, and it weighed heavy in her hand. Debt. Obligation. Mistakes.
By Mitchell Chambers5 years ago in Criminal
The Investigation Of The Bang
He was fast asleep in his nest when the abrupt bang cut through the stillness of the forest. The evening was cold and damp. Squirrel had curled up in his safe place, high up above the ground where many a predator tend to forage after the sun went down. Alarmed by what awoke him, Squirrel felt suddenly unsettled, for he had never heard such a sound before.
By Bethany Hill5 years ago in Criminal
