#murder investigation

[nightmaretales]

Red Riding Hood Page 17

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[the-jason-peter-todd]

no one:

batman investigating murder:

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #71

[the-devil-is-an-author]

Villain: what a cutie~

The resolution didn’t hold up this time…

Inspired by this snippet by @epiclamer

[foreverknightalways]

Schanke answers, As soon as the judge found out it was for the Fiori case, he refused. He said it was a dead issue. You could learn something from that, partner. Natalie says, As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, after Schanke told me you were-- Schanke interrupts, Putting your whole career at risk. Those were my exact words, and guess what? I was right, again.

[the960writers]

Any idea on where to start with writing a case fic? For example, a murder investigation.

Hello Nonny! I got you.

Here is great guide for writing case-fic (based on BBC Sherlock):

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8042029/chapters/18418816

And this video series gives you all the information for writing cozy mystery (that will help for not cozy stuff too):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3KL6Jqx65DhnnJJPj4ZOEz4monf8946q

Also, go on youtube and look up forensics for writers to get an idea what they do in a murder investigation.

I'm not that much into murder fiction, but I do have some information under the tags "writing crime" and "writing mystery":

https://the960writers.tumblr.com/tagged/writing%20crime

https://the960writers.tumblr.com/tagged/writing%20mystery

Now, your question was about how to start and, if you're a discovery writer like me, all the advice of planning the murder, knowing who the murderer is, and how many red herrings you can plant, doesn't really help you.

Apparently, even Agatha Christie didn't know who the murderer was when she started writing a story, she just went back, once it was done, and added all the clues and foreshadowing. So, start like that.

Start with finding the corpse, introduce your investigator, and keep going.

[telekinesis-mind-control-comics]

[simplymariac]

From Season 1, Episode 111 Hunters - Det. Don Schanke #ForeverKnight #JohnKapelos

Just having fun with these screenshots. Sony has all the rights to this screenshot set. 😉

[easternmind]

Flyer for the HAL Laboratory 1988 game ‘Satsui no Kaisou: Power Soft Satsujin Jiken’. This graphical adventure is one of the most notable offspring from Yuji Horii’s highly influential ‘Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken’. However, its style and interface were somewhat more in line with murder investigation games of the late ‘80s such as Data East’s ‘Tantei Jingūji Saburō’, the first of a long-running series; or Namco’s ‘Sanma no Meitantei’, both hitting the market the previous year.

The player assumes the role of a young police detective by the name Akito Kashibatake, who is informed that an old friend was found dead at the Jogasaki coast cliffs, apparently as a result of a suicide. Upon examining the scene, he suspects foul play and initiates an investigation. The game takes place over a period of three days, during which the player must resolve the case and avoid a game over outcome. As the story unfolds, additional murders take place, creating a sense of urgency and tension. As each action taken by the player advances the clock a few minutes, finding the perpetrator can only be achieved by taking a strategic and sequential approach. This unique system also made the game particularly difficult, one of the reasons why it was not as popular as its contemporaries. The relatively poor market performance led to the cancellation of an initially planned sequel.

The artwork beautifully captures not only the element of time in association with death, as symbolized by the hanging rope that replaces the pendulum of the antique wooden clock, but also the shock of the initial scene in which the friend’s corpse is discovered by the sea. It also proposes an interesting rendition of the main character that turns the turn of the decade police detective stereotype on its head. The game concept and story originated at Hyperware, a small software house nested in the University of Tokyo, under the direction of Theoretical Science Group, creators of the Apple II version of the legendary 1979 arcade game,Heian-kyō Eirian. Touchingly, the HAL Laboratory website still reserves a small corner where visitors can discover more about the game.

[needcake]

day 4: catch me

Engport | M | 2,8k

@engportevents​

Warnings: Murder investigation, serial killers, mild gore, mild sexual situations, dead dove: do not eat

.

.

His day started with a severed finger being delivered to his desk. A male ring finger, with a wedding ring still attached.

“I guess someone heard about your wedding plans, Kirkland,” his partner winced, clapped him on the back. Arthur sighed, pulling out a handkerchief to pick the finger up.

“Do you think anyone saw him this time?” he asked, turning the finger around. Definitely male, middle-aged, overweight. The purpling of the skin indicated it had been cut off a while ago, maybe two or three weeks before.

Alasdair crossed his arms in front of his chest, frowned at him. “You’re not thinking of postponing, are you? Because Fanny will kill you if you do.”

There was a note splattered with dried blood on the bottom of the box and Arthur squinted at the cut out newspaper letters.

You’re next, it read.

Arthur put the finger down. “No, of course not.”

-

There was a man that rode the tram with him almost every day. Working type, immigrant probably. He always had a folded newspaper with him, and Arthur liked watching him read the news until they reached his stop, five stops before his own. Today he started dozing off at the politics section, perhaps not interested to know that France and Britain had just won the war against the Chinese in the East. Arthur couldn’t say he blamed him. He didn’t care much about foreign politics either.

An older gentleman sat by his side, smartly dressed with a pocket watch chain that shone like gold stretched over his big belly. Arthur watched as the gentleman eyed his fellow commuter, pressed his body against his side, breathed down his neck— The man startled awake and scooted down the bench away from him. He shot an annoyed glance around the tram and his eyes landed Arthur’s. Light green with dots of gold and brown. He rolled them to Arthur and they shared a small smile. When the tram reached his stop, he watched him accidentally step on the older gentleman’s foot. Arthur had to hide his chuckle with a cough.

-

Fanny was a good woman. She was educated, quiet, polite. Her family had considerable wealth, her father owned a cotton factory in Higherford. Everything Arthur could ever want from a spouse.

But sometimes.

Sometimes when they sat in her parents’ drawing room while Fanny and mother drank tea and her father told Arthur about their quarterly earnings, sometimes he wished he was on the tram on his way home and the man with the green eyes would look up from his newspaper at him and they would share a smile and maybe a laugh.

Sometimes he even found himself thinking of coming over, sitting next to him, striking up conversation. Maybe he would ask him if he fancied a pint after work, there was a pub he quite liked just a stop before his.

Sometimes he even thought of putting his hand on his thigh, feeling the rough texture of his trousers under his fingertips, the hard muscle beneath.

Fanny’s father wanted him to quit his job after the wedding, come live in Higherford in the family manor, learn the ropes so he could take over the family business.

It would do him good. There would be no more tram rides after he moved to Higherford, no more murderers gifting him body parts. Just him and Fanny and their brand-new life together.

-

Alasdair dropped a report file in front of him. “I have two people who think they saw a man, early twenties, leaving the alley where the guy with a missing finger was found.”

“Are they willing to testify?” he asked, picking up the report.

“No,” Alasdair said and shrugged when Arthur gave him a blank stare. “They’re immigrants, most of them undocumented. They don’t want to get in trouble.”

Arthur dropped the report and rubbed his hands over his face, pressed his fingers into his eyes. Alasdair clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically.

“Have you talked to Fanny yet?”

“I’m going north to visit her over the weekend.”

“Are you going to ask her to postpone the wedding?”

Arthur looked down at the report, tapped his fingers on the desk. “Haven’t decided yet.”

-

Today his fellow commuter had a pencil with him and was jolting down something along the margins of his newspaper, resting the end against his lower lip deep in thought.

The tram passed over a rough patch and the sudden oscillation made him pierce the paper with the sharp tip.

Arthur laughed. The man looked up and smiled at him.

-

“Mr. Kirkland, it is so nice to have you. Tell us, how is London?”

Arthur allowed a servant to take his coat and his hat, forced himself to smile at his future mother-in-law. “Busy,” he said, accepting a seat at the couch in front of the fire beside Fanny. “Foggy.”

“I can imagine,” Mrs. Chapman said, pouring tea into a new cup for him.

“Anything interesting happened at work?” Fanny asked, peering at him over the rim of her cup, brown eyes attentively observing him.

Arthur accepted his cup from her mother and debated himself what would be safe to tell two ladies whose cozy, comfortable lives were vastly different than his gruesome line of work. In the end he just smiled politely, “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Is that so?” Fanny insisted, lowering her cup to its saucer. “Have you caught the Butcher of Ealing yet? We’ve been reading all about it in the papers.”

Arthur scoffed lightly and drank his tea, “He’s not—The papers came up with that ridiculous name, we have no evidence of him being either a butcher or from Ealing.”

“But doesn’t he cut people into pieces?”

“Fanny!” her mother censured her, shaking her head. “Don’t mind her, Mr. Kirkland. Fanny likes to read too many novels, always had a taste for the macabre. I suppose it is one of the reasons she liked you in the first place,” she said, drinking her tea.

Arthur snorted softly, he and Fanny sharing a humorous glance. “I suppose it is, yes,” he agreed easily.

“Do you think you’ll be able to catch the killer before our wedding?” Fanny asked, brown eyes observing him, “Papa is anxious to have you working with him at the factory. He’s getting so fat he can barely fit through the doors.”

“Fanny Alexandra!”

Arthur coughed into his fist to hide his amusement, swallowed it down with tea. “I believe so, Miss Chapman. My partner and I have been arduously working to put this man behind bars so I can start the next chapter of our lives without any loose ends.”

Mrs. Chapman nodded in agreement, shooting her daughter a dirty look before taking her next sip with her pinky finger raised.

Fanny and him shared another humorous glance, her eyes never leaving his.

-

A cold blue heart was delivered to his desk the next Monday with a note made out of newspaper letters that read, Be mine, attached to it.

“It’s odd the number of lunatics that you seem to attract, Kirkland,” Alasdair said as he took the box away with clear disgust.

Arthur couldn’t help but agree.

-

At night his fellow commuter was looking at him when he sat down. No newspaper tonight, no pencil.

They stared at each other for three stops until he got up and Arthur did as well.

He followed him down unfamiliar streets into a residential area. The man walked slowly, glancing over his shoulder from time to time to check if Arthur was still following. And he was. His heart beating wildly in his chest, his hands clammy with sweat inside his gloves.

The man took a turn and stopped in front of an alleyway, looking over his shoulder one last time, his green eyes dotted with gold and brown watching as Arthur approached, lips parted and cheeks flushed from the cold.

There were no words spoken. Once he stepped into the darkness, Arthur followed.

-

“Someone’s chipper today,” Alasdair chuckled when he walked into the precinct and Arthur rolled his eyes at him, hanging his coat by the door of their cramped little office. “Did Fanny send you a dirty letter?” he laughed and Arthur pushed him away with a groan.

He did pull his collar up though, not wanting any prying eyes on his bruised neck.

“They found the heartless body, by the way, matches the rest of them, older male, mid-50s, overweight. Dumped in another immigrant neighborhood.”

“Let me guess, no one willing to testify for this one either?” Arthur sighed, combing his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t see how we can get this guy.”

Alasdair’s eyes lingered on him for a moment, “Are you giving up?”

He tapped his fingers over his desk, glanced at the paperwork on his desk. “Maybe. The wedding is next month. I promised Fanny I would quit after that.”

“Why?”

Arthur squinted up at him. “Because. Her father wants me to take over the family business, I already told you that.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to. You could stay if you wanted. From what you tell me, I’m sure Fanny would like London just fine. Margaret does.”

He stared at him in disbelief. “That’s not—” Arthur growled in frustration with himself, looked down at the paperwork and began to work. “You wouldn’t get it.”

-

The tram was quiet and mostly empty at night. His fellow commuter was looking amusedly at him, the older man beside him sitting too close for comfort, taking every turn as an opportunity to accidently fall over him and touch his arms. Arthur thought of intervening, but he seemed able to defend himself.

After the woman beside him vacated her seat his fellow commuter excused himself from the older man’s side and came to sit with him, folded newspaper in his hands and a small smile on his lips.

“You’re popular,” Arthur said, trying not to smile, and the man chuckled.

“Yes, it seems older British gentlemen certainly have a type.”

Arthur shook his head amusedly, looking at the sleepy faces around them and lowering his volume. “They sure seem to like them pretty.”

A thigh aligned with his own, pressing against him on the bench. “You think I’m pretty?” his fellow commuter whispered and Arthur bumped his shoulder with his own, looked down to hide his smile and his blushing cheeks.

He nodded to the newspaper on his lap. “Do you work in finance?”

“Oh, no,” he scoffed softly, turning the folded paper in his hands and Arthur noticed a couple of letters and announcements had been cut out. “Not anymore at least. I’m between jobs at the moment. Not everyone wants to hire an immigrant in this economy.”

“Maybe one of your admirers can bank you.”

That earned him a full belly laugh that startled the old woman in the front row. Arthur elbowed him in the ribs to make him stop, but he was smiling as well, feeling giddy like a teenager. “Shush you, everyone’s looking.”

“Let them look,” he whispered defiantly, green eyes staring intensely at him. “My name’s Gabriel, by the way. Gabriel da Costa.”

Arthur caught himself staring too long and nodded stiltedly, reaching out a hand to shake his. “Arthur Kirkland, police detective.”

Gabriel grinned as he took his hand, sharp teeth glinting in the light. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, detective.”

He rolled his eyes at him and Gabriel chuckled, his hand still holding his longer than necessary.

“Are you always this… friendly with your commuters?” Arthur asked, unable to look away from his eyes, feeling Gabriel’s thumb caressing his hand.

“Only the pretty ones,” he whispered. “Is the lady in the front row still staring at us?”

Arthur surreptitiously glanced forward and nodded once. Gabriel reluctantly let go of his hand, but his eyes had yet to look away.

“I have tea in my place, if you like that sort of thing.”

He rolled his eyes at him again, bumped his shoulder again. Gabriel chuckled quietly, shifting in his seat to sit even closer to him.

-

“Your partner is not wrong, you know,” Gabriel whispered, kissing his naked back, his hands gliding down his sweaty skin.

“I know,” he mumbled into the pillow, muffling a groan when Gabriel grazed his teeth on the nape of his neck. “It's just—” he started and Gabriel hummed in question, his pelvis pressed against his bottom, bodies relaxed and spent. “It’s too late. I made a commitment.”

“You’re not married yet,” Gabriel reminded him, whispering low in his ear, kissing his hairline. “You could break off the engagement,” he said, biting gently on his ear. “Stay here with me.”

Arthur rose to his elbows and looked back at him, green eyes staring back as Gabriel kissed his shoulder. “Here on this bed?”

Gabriel grinned into his skin, sharp teeth biting him gently, “I could drag you to an alley if you want. Rip your heart out.”

He frowned, but snorted. Doing a double take at the man behind him. “How do you know about that?”

But Gabriel was taking his kisses elsewhere, mapping his back with lips and tongue and teeth. “Know about what, detective Kirkland?” he asked, perfectly innocent.

Arthur looked at the wall behind Gabriel’s narrow bed, at the old wallpaper stained with unidentifiable brown spots, at their coats hanging by the door.

Fear suddenly gripped his stomach and he pushed Gabriel away.

“I have to— I forgot something at work,” he lied, pulling his clothes back on in a haste, eyes spotting things he had missed when he first came into the small living space. The stained cabinets, a kitchen knife, muddied shoes. Gabriel was frowning at him from the bed, naked and disheveled from earlier, his hair loose over his strong shoulders, green eyes following him as he took his coat off the rack.

“Arthur…”

But Arthur was shaking his head, “This was a mistake.”

“Arthur.”

He slammed the door on his way out and bumped into a young man in the corridor, mumbling apologies as he straightened his gloves.

“Apology accepted,” the young man said. His voice sounded somehow familiar, but Arthur didn’t stay long enough to find out who it was, heart beating fast in his chest as he took to the streets, away from the cluttered houses filled with nosey Portuguese immigrants.

-

“His name is Gabriel da Costa. Mid-twenties, Portuguese. Unemployed.”

Alasdair was squinting at him so hard he could barely see his eyes. “And how did this bloke come up again?”

Arthur ran a frustrated hand through his hair, looking anywhere but at his partner. “Anonymous tip.”

“Right,” Alasdair drawled. “I’ll have the guys look into it. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” Arthur hurried to say, “I’m fine. I just want to catch this guy and be over with this case.”

“Because you can’t wait to get married.”

“Exactly,” he mumbled, looking down at the ring finger on his left hand. “Exactly.”

-

Their searches came back with nothing. No one had seen Gabriel the day after Arthur had been with him. He must have realized Arthur knew about him and ran away.

There were no more strange murders and body parts on his desk either. Which somehow only made him feel worse.

He quit the force after his and Fanny’s wedding. More than a little happy to never set foot on his and Alasdair’s little cramped office ever again, taking with him only the guilt of not realizing Gabriel was the killer sooner.

All those nights riding the same tram together. He should have noticed the signs. How many lives could he have saved if he had.

His father-in-law greeted him warmly into their family. He was getting too old to run the factory, he confided, couldn’t keep track of things like he used to. Fanny helped how she could of course, going to London whenever necessary, but he was glad to hand that responsibility over to him now. He never liked the idea of his daughter in such a dangerous city.

Arthur only smiled politely.

A life of monotonous work was more than he deserved. He had a beautiful, pleasant wife and a home to go to after work. No more tram rides, no more strangers in dark alleys.

And if he sometimes thought of Gabriel’s hands on his skin, of Gabriel’s lips on his, no one needed to know.

-

“Don’t be mad,” Fanny said with a smile, putting a small box in front of him on the breakfast table. “But I got you a little something for your birthday.”

Arthur snorted softly, dabbed his lips with the napkin. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I know,” she said, observing him. “It’s just a little token of my appreciation. I want us to be forever happy, you and I.”

He forced a smile and pulled the ribbon from the box, the smell of formaldehyde hitting him as soon as he opened it.

“Fanny, what—”

Inside the box a single green eye dotted with gold and brown stared back at him, accompanied by a note made out of cutout newspaper letters.

Watching over you.

.

.

[mountain-time]

Night Puppets, Retreat!

http://mountaincomics.com/comic/mt1204/

[nightmaretales]

Red Riding Hood Page 14

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[lifewithaview]

Elisabeth Röhm in The Mentalist (2008–2016) Red Brick and Ivy

S1E10

At Leyland State University's prestigious, lucrative Stutzer Institute's annual neurological symposium, cosmonaut Alex Nelson dies after drinking water poisoned with hydrogen cyanide. Patrick pushes Lisbon to take the case when he hears his former psychiatrist, Alex's ex and still research partner, reported the case and is a suspect. The CBI also investigates Alex's present wife Emily, research assistant Kerry Sheehan, animal rights extremists and the Stutzer project for moral mind re-calibration by electric current.

[barnbridges]

cloke rayburn when he thought he was OUT of the corcoran matrix but hes basically the 6th sibling.

[foreverknightalways]

Nick says, Two in the chest and one in the head. Large caliber, hollow point, judging by the exit wounds. Daryl says, Whoa, two car garage. Natalie says, Huh, in like sports car, out like a semi. Nick asks, Leave any casings?

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"KILLED CHILD WHILE TEMPORARILY INSANE," Kingston Whig-Standard. June 29, 1933. Page 4. ---- Verdict Returned at Niagara Falls in Case of Mrs. Fella ---- NIAGARA FALLS, June 29 - A verdict of murder, committed by Mrs. Annie Fella, now dead, while temporarily insane, was returned by the coroner's jury investigating the death of Stephen C. Fella, aged three.

Stephen and his mother were found dead at their home by Frederick Fella, the father, last Friday when he returned from work. The throats of both mother and child had been cut.

Evidence showed that for some time the mother had been worrying over possibility of losing the home owing to their inability to meet principal payments. It is thought that this made her temporarily despondent and led her to kill herself and her son.