Dead Presidents (An Aria Raymond Thriller Book 3) by Thomas Ransom (that summer book txt) 📕

stepped into the elevator and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the building.

Chapter 6: Presidents Are Falling

“Did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“There has been another murder.”

“What?!! When?”

“They have just called it in. The team left a while ago. So, we don’t really know when it happened and … well, who it is. Yet.”

“Damn.”

“’Yeah…”

“Who is leading the…”

“Sergeant Jake.”

Sanjay nodded and thanked the policeman for telling him. He went to his desk, and sure enough, there was a note from Jake asking him to come to the location. Just then, he received a message on his phone. It was Jake, asking him to hurry. Sanjay left immediately.

Within thirty minutes, he was at the crime scene… which turned out to be gruesome. For the first time, Sanjay found Jake speechless. The body was found in an apartment which was supposed to have an open house the next day. Sanjay’s jaw dropped when he saw the body. The face was bruised beyond recognition. One eye was swelled, but the other one was almost out of its socket. If that wasn’t enough, the man was also shot right in the middle of the forehead. That explained the splash of red on the wall and on the cream-colored carpet. The rest of the place looked sparkling clean. Aside from the face and the pool of blood around his head, his clothes looked untouched, clean. The man was wearing a well-fitted, branded black suit, indicating he was an influential man.

Sanjay stared at the body in shock. The poor man clearly suffered painfully before the bullet took his life. Sanjay looked at Jake, who just shook his head and walked out of the room.

Everyone was quietly at work, without any chatter, trying hard to avoid looking at the body. The forensic team was already at work making arrangements to transport the body to the lab for further tests.

Sanjay walked over towards Jake, who was talking to the realtor who had discovered the body when he arrived at the apartment to do one last check before the open house. His face was pale, eyes wide, and he was stammering. Sanjay felt a pang in his heart. These are the kinds of things that stay with a person for life. It won’t be easy for the realtor to get past the trauma of finding a dead body, that too in such horrific condition, at an apartment he was going to show to potential buyers.

Jake seemed to be consoling the realtor in low tone, advising him to get in touch with a therapist to get over this shock.

“Oh, no, no. I uh… I am… fine. Yeah. I am fine,” the realtor stammered. He looked completely lost. He was clearly shaken to his core but trying to assure Jake that he was fine.

Sanjay scribbled a number and a name on his notepad, teared the page, and handed it to the guy. “Take this. She is a good counselor. It won’t hurt to just get one session with her. You can then see if you want to go ahead with it or not.”

The realtor looked at him, confused. Then, stared at the piece of paper in Sanjay’s hand. Jake silently took the paper and put it inside the realtor’s coat pocket. He nodded to a police officer, who took the realtor outside the apartment.

Jake turned to Sanjay, “They are going to take him to the hospital and get a checkup done, just in case.

Sanjay nodded, “Did they find an ID on the body?”

“Yeah. His wallet and phone were still in his pockets. The name’s Fredrick Brown, the president of a finance company. They are trying to contact his family. I think the wife. Not sure if they got through. They are also getting in touch with the owner of the apartment. The woman has been living abroad and the apartment had a few renters in the past few years, but she had decided to sell the place.”

“A finance company? Again?” Sanjay raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Could be a coincidence? Although, I am starting to believe that there aren’t any coincidences anymore.”

Just then Jake’s phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call. Sanjay looked around the house. Everything seemed to be in place, ready to impress the potential buyer.

“Sanjay?” came Jake’s voice. The panic in his voice startled Sanjay as he turned around. The second he saw Jake’s face; he knew there was another one.

“Yeah. There’s another one. We need to go right now.”

“What the hell is happening?” whispered Sanjay as he rushed out of the apartment.

The second crime scene turned out to be a parking structure. The body was found in a parked car on the seventh floor. A police officer was waiting for them at the entrance with a wide-eyed security guard.

The officer nodded at Jake and Sanjay and tilted his head towards the guard, “He is the one who called it in. His shift starts in the morning and around noon he was parking a car on the seventh floor and noticed someone on the seat of a parked car.”

Jake nodded, and looked at the guard, “Can you tell us what happened? What did you see?”

The guard cleared his throat, “Well, I was parking the car… like the officer said. There were a few of us working since it gets busy with offices nearby and restaurants. Around noon is busiest time… because of the lunch hour. People start coming in for brunch or early lunch and then it continues till about 2pm to 3pm. It’s often constant rotation. So, sometimes the workers get tired… they sneak into a car… usually on the top floors for a quick nap. They are good people… just overworked… umm…” the guard hesitated.

“They won’t get into any trouble, don’t worry about that,” Sanjay assured him.

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