Lodged in the man’s right hand was a .22 caliber pistol.
Mia moved back to the lounge where the technicians were finishing up. She put her hands on her hips and sighed. “Thoughts?” she asked.
“City boys and suicide. Name a more iconic duo,” Melissa said.
So far, Melissa Santos hadn’t offered much in the way of ideas. The entire plane ride here she’d been mostly silent, staring at her phone for a good portion of the journey. Now, she seemed to dismiss the scene with a simple assumption.
“Do you think?”
“For sure. Look at the arrangements. He has bullet holes on either side of his head. This guy was probably a Wall Street executive struggling with the financial collapse. This was his way out.”
Mia looked back towards the kitchen at a half-buttered knife sitting on the surface. She walked over to it, examined it, then checked the fridge and cupboard contents. Alcohol bottles, mostly expensive rums lined the shelves. Chocolate, sugary goods everywhere. On the kitchen surface was a 200-pack of cigarettes. Mia returned to the lounge and instinctively looked towards the plug sockets around the room, and after spotting two, her suspicions were confirmed.
“Tell me why this was a suicide,” Mia said to Melissa. “I mean, it looks pretty open and shut, but we need to back it up with evidence. More importantly, tell me why this was the third Manhattan suicide in the span a week.”
Suicide wasn’t contagious and in the rare cases it seemed to be, there was always something else afoot. If it was a standalone suicide, there’d be no need for FBI intervention. This was the first clue Mia was trying to sneak into her new partner.
Melissa was a new recruit, plucked from the FBI’s Cyber Security division. She was 25 years old, tall, blonde and in Mia’s opinion, dressed like a librarian. She’d shown promise, and an interest in moving into field work, so Ripley handpicked her to accompany on this new case.
Only a few hours in, Mia was already regretting it.
“There’s a gun in his hand,” Melissa said. “Bullet holes in his head. He’s obviously single judging by this apartment. Plus, this guy was a junkie. There’s some white powder on the table which I’m guessing is cocaine. Plus, joint ends in an ashtray.”
“So he liked drugs,” Mia said.
“He got high to build up the courage then pulled the trigger. Bang, ” Melissa poised her fingertips like a gun and clicked her thumb. Mia thought it was a bit distasteful, especially for a newbie.
Mia pulled out her phone to snap a picture of the victim. On her home screen she saw another missed call from Ella. Did that woman not get the message? By now, Ella would have learned of Mia’s new partner, and it would have kicked Ella right in the gut. Not her problem.
Mia had no time for sympathy, not considering everything Ella had done. She brought this whole situation on herself and for that, Mia couldn’t apologize or empathize. Consequences had actions and Ella had to learn that the hard way.
For a moment, Mia wondered how Ella might view this scene. Would she have an outlandish theory? Would she label it a suicide too? Or would she look at the clues, at the evidence, and come to the same conclusion Mia had?
Mia guessed the latter, but even so, Ella was gone from her life and wasn’t going to be invited back. Mia had molded Ella into a competent agent, and it had taken considerable time and considerable hardships. She couldn’t expect Melissa to be on the same level on her first day.
But she just wished that Melissa had a little more awareness. Maybe it was a young person thing. Entitlement came first, hard work second. Or was she just being presumptuous? Mia cleared her thoughts and focused on the task at hand. She wasn’t going to tell Melissa what to look for but decided to prompt her in that direction.
“Put yourself in this man’s shoes,” Mia said. “What was he thinking when he did it? Why did he do it here? Why now? Is there anything missing from this picture that doesn’t make sense? Put the pieces together and see what comes up. You might be surprised.”
Melissa furiously typed something on her phone. Mia glanced over and saw she was texting someone. Melissa pocketed it and glanced around the room again, looking a little lost this time.
“Stress?” Melissa asked.
“Of what? This guy seems to have done pretty well for himself. He’s young, good looking and successful. What’s he got to be stressed about?”
Melissa bent down and inspected the contents of the table. Magazine, water, TV remote. It was a perfect scene. A little too perfect. She held up her hands in defeat. “Sorry, I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary.”
Mia tried not to audibly sigh. “Have you ever heard the term staging?” she asked.
“Of course. Why?”
“What does it mean?”
Melissa looked confused. “Setting the scene. Making something look good. Like a show home.”
Mia waited for the lightbulb to go off in her new partner’s head. She’d just said the exact words she was looking for. Silence took over and they were back to square one.
“Santos, the facts are right in front of us. There are at least four pieces of evidence here that show what really happened. Look more closely at this picture. There are juxtapositions here that stand out. It’s our job to find them.”
Was she being too hard on her? Mia thought back to her first case with Ella when she’d seen the truth immediately. The Ed Gein copycat. She remembered Ella finding that skinned face in the bottom of a barrel where no one else thought to look.
Melissa sauntered around the apartment, perhaps more for effect than genuine investigation. Mia saw right through it. She gave her points for trying.
“I’m sorry, partner, I’m not seeing it,” Melissa said without an ounce of concern. “It all looks cut and dry to me.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what to look at. The butter knife in the kitchen, the plug sockets in the walls and the bullet wounds in this guy’s head. Look at them. One of these things isn’t like the others.”
Melissa moved back and forth between the things she mentioned. Her movements reminded her of one of those robot vacuums that did a sudden 360 when it hit a wall. Give her time, Mia thought. You can’t pick this job up in a day.
Mia moved over to the giant window at the apartment’s far end. It offered an incredible view of the city, almost anxiety-inducing given the sheer height they were at. Below, people and cars moved around like ants. To her, New York was only one rung below California in terms of places she didn’t want to be. She glanced back to find Melissa running her bare fingers around the victim’s bullet wounds.
“Santos. Be careful. Put your gloves on before doing that.”
“I barely touched it. Don’t worry.”
Mia dismissed the comment. “Any thoughts yet?”
“Am I supposed to be seeing something other than the obvious? Because I’m struggling here.”
Mia decided to just explain it all in full. Melissa clearly wasn’t going to figure it out. She moved over to the victim and pointed to his right temple. “You see this hole? It’s bigger than the hole on the left side. What does that mean?”
“That the bullet entered on the right side?” Melissa said with a smile.
“Yes. The bullet entered in the right and exited on the left. What does that tell you about our man?”