The Headshot Hunter - A Gruelling Murder Case

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Friday, January 6th, 2:32am
I catch wind of a murder on Mingo street. The victim? Bowie Harris; a marketing executive at Obsidian Technologies. Shot down in an alley by a high-velocity rifle. Their body was found right under the street cameras, hidden until a passerby reported gunshots in the area. On one side, the Fathoms Zone Indigo; a windowless hotspot for homeless activity. Lots of foot traffic. On another, Layne Heights Manufacturing; a three storey building with only two residents, both of whom had window access. I rush to see if I can catch the killer in the act, but both tenants were squeaky-clean. The only other building in sight is Lovelace View; a middle-class residential block at the end of the street. Standing at eighteen storeys tall, I decide it may be helpful to investigate the victim's apartment first; 402 Zeng Terrace.

In the apartment, I found a diary entry and a v-mail describing an alleged stalker; skinny, average height, short hair, possibly male. They had been spotted outside the victim's workplace, as well as an Asian restaurant in the middle of town known as Juniper. WIthout a face to wave around, I knew talking to staff and patrons would be little help at this point, so I stuck with my second lead; Timofei Hasanov. Timofei and Bowie had some 'mutual friends' they owed money to, so I thought talking to him would be a good start. Sources told me he lived at 401 Hodge Projects; a residential slum for lowlives and criminals. After a quick conversation with Timofei, as well as some snooping around his apartment, I left with nothing other than a note;

WATCH YOUR BACK, RAT

My next step was investigating the victim's workplace. Bowie had four coworkers matching the description of the stalker; Leonardo Bush, Inga Kovalchuk, Gang Liang, and Finn Carroll. Of those four, only two lived in Lovelace View; Bush and Carroll. Bush was clean- just a receptionist trying to make an honest living. Carroll, on the other hand, was concerning. He was the Head of HR at Obsidian, and made significantly more than his peers, allowing him and his partner to live a plush life in the upper Echelon Zones on the top floor. I had to act fast. Places like this had heavy-duty security, and I knew that being caught tresspassing would mean big trouble. Without hesitation, I burst through the front door, saw the rifle sitting on the desk out the corner of my eye, and prepared to fend myself against the killer mano a mano. He was tough, but I managed to lay him out after a short struggle. Once he was cuffed, I continued searching for evidence. There wasn't much to incriminate the man, but there was no doubt in my mind that he was the killer. I knew his partner would be home any minute, so I rushed through the paperwork and then bolted to city hall to turn him in.

I was sloppy. Eager to reach retirement, I beat and arrested an innocent man, and perhaps even worse, the real murderer was still at large. My reputation was tarnished. I had failed.

Saturday, January 7th, 9:25am
DoYun Ryu; a barman at the Plaza Orchid Hotel. The second victim. Aside from place of death, these victims had nothing in common. Once again, I made for the victim's apartment. More scrawlings of a stalker; same description, but this time, there was something new listed in the journal entry;

Neighbour said they saw someone standing outside my apartment last night

Bingo. The neighbour was just arriving as I exited. She was an enforcer named Juniper Mims. I questioned her about any suspicious activity on the floor, but unfortunately, she had no memory of the stalker or anything else out of the ordinary. A shame, but we still had the camera feeds to check. I snuck into the surveillance room on the first floor and navigated through the admin account to the CCTV footage. The cruncher password might as well have been plastered on the walls. Cameras on the fourth floor were out. This guy was good.

At a dead end, I decided to rethink my approach. I went back to the crime scene with a fresh pair of eyes. There was a bullet hole next to Ryu's body, with the trajectory of the blood splatter indicating the shot was taken from the Fathoms Zone Indigo; an accessible rooftop. How had I missed it before? I rushed up to find a spent rifle casing, some size fifteen footprints leading away from it. Maybe this sniper was closer to the victims than I initially thought. Nevertheless, we had some new information, and a fresh fingerprint; type DW. It was a start.

Sunday, January 8th, 12:44am
I decided to pick up the slack on some odd jobs. A man has to eat, after all. One case led me to the basement of Etheridge Heights. It was a single-room apartment owned by a street vendor named Kamaria Mensah. I didn't think much of it at first, but as I started going through her documents, I found a scrunched up note;

Wednesday: outside Juniper for three blocks. Skinny, average height, short hair. Definitely same person.

Tuesday: nothing.

Monday: outside work for 2 blocks. Male, I think.

I had found the next victim. I rushed out to warn her, asking anyone nearby if they had seen her recently. One person had seen her on Mingo just a few minutes earlier. I was too late. She was dead by the time I got there. With no new information to go on, I decided to check out the black markets. There was a street vendor on Ashford, never managed to catch his name. You needed contraband, he could get it, as long as you knew the password. One problem; after Mensah's death, the streets were clear. Vendors stayed home, afraid for their lives, I guess. Couldn't really blame them.

A payphone rang nearby. Reluctantly, I picked up. A voice on the other end told me there was another body. $1500 crows if I cleaned it up. He was taunting me. I hung up and dialed caller identification. 394-6394. I didn't know the number, and there was no answer whenever I called. The victim was Li Li Qiao; company director of Obsidian Technologies.

Monday, January 9th, 5:32am
Another call. Same deal. 645-5743. It was a hotel room. The numbers were red herrings, and I was no closer to solving the case today than I was yesterday. The camera feed never picked anything up, and no witnesses ever came forward. Enforcers stopped responding to homicide reports. They didn't care. I now spent most of my time around the rooftop hoping to catch the killer in the act. Bethany Rothschild was the fifth victim. My outlook was bleak.

Tuesday, January 10th, 3:13am
Eliza Cerny was the sixth victim. She herself carried a high-calibre rifle. Guess she never got the chance to use it. Desperate for leads, I decided to check the cameras one last time. There were seven people matching the description of the stalker that day. Six of them were identified as part of the local homeless community. The last was an unknown face. I kept pressing anyone who was nearby at the time of the murder, and eventually, I stumbled upon someone who had seen him at Juniper's earlier in the day. He had finally slipped up. The janitor at Juniper had seen him hanging around Etheridge Heights, a residential building across town from the murder site, and a neighbour identified him as Kyan Morgan from apartment 102. I knocked on the door, and his partner answered. She allowed me to come inside and look around. Kyan was an ex-cop, awarded a commendation for distinguished marksmanship. His rifle was hidden behind the desk, and amongst his files were physical descriptions of the victims, as well as their daily movements and places of work. It was all covered in fingerprints matching the expended cartridge. There were no receipts anywhere to be found, and I still had yet to locate the ammo. The partner left for work, and I found Kyan asleep in the bedroom. I placed him under arrest, took his prints, and searched him. On his person was a box of rifle ammo. I had him dead to rights.

---

After almost a hundred hours of hunting the same man, justice had finally been served. The most grizzly serial killer in the Casablanca Quarter had been caught, and with that, I think it's time for P.I. James Cauderoy to finally retire. There is one thing I'm still caught up on, though. As I was going to close the case, I noticed that a couple of the victims had different entry wounds from the rest. Qiao and Rothschild had been stabbed. A bladed weapon was never found during the course of my investigation, and the MO didn't match Kyan's pre-established patterns... were the taunting calls from a different killer? We may never know.