“Mike!” Detective Jake groaned upon seeing his colleague’s car.
He had been beaten to the house and playing second fiddle to anyone on scenes weren’t his thing. The prospect of seeing everything in pristine condition and untouched had just been tossed out of reality. The house looked modest and barely able to hold its own against the other houses around. It was without doubt old with its garden overgrown.
Neglecting the crying instincts within him urging him to turn around and chase other leads, he veered forward, climbed up the front porch and looked into the living room. The room looked nothing like the surroundings; it was neat, tidied up and like the owner still lived in there. In low cough and hopes of dragging out his colleague wherever he might be, Detective Jake proceeded towards the center of the living room.
The startling sound from incoming footsteps suddenly aroused his worries, before the familiar voice came through. “I don’t think you’d find anything here”.
It was Mike Rondon at his usual best. The one tagged “know-it-all” by fellow officers had swept every inch of the room and found nothing.
“And the pictures?” Detective Jake pointed to the empty frames on the walls.
In shrug and soft sigh, Mike replied, “Looks like our cop was a really private one… the empty frames on the walls are the closest thing you’d get to seeing any personal items in this house”.
It sounded strange; to Detective Jake at least but not to Mike who seemed content with his discovery.
“Do you have a picture of her with you right now?” he asked.
Mike shook his head, turned to give the living room another look and sighed. “She must have lived in here like a freaking ghost… even the dishes look clean or at least not too dusty and the police database only gave me a blank image when I tried accessing it”.
“Which means her identity is being covered for some reason”, Detective Jake thought to himself. “What makes our Jane Doe cop similar to the other victims?”
Mike paused, frowned and thought long and hard but gave no response immediately as his colleague began looking through the room. He watched Detective Jake pick up vases and familiarize himself with the house without any luck before halting to think some more.
“She was never one of my victims”, he thought to himself. “I’m sure she wasn’t but who would intentionally add a cop to my list and even more, one I know nothing about”.
The conundrum didn’t settle nicely with the somewhat baffled detective. Mike wasn’t getting anywhere either as apparent by the startled look on his face. He wasn’t used to not knowing things and he definitely wasn’t one to enjoy being stuck.
“What of the other victims? Are their places this neat too?” Mike Rondon asked.
In a groan and disgruntled tone, his colleague responded. “How the hell do I know? This is the first victim I’m checking out since they placed you as my sidekick”.
He got a good kick out of the word and smiled the way through while Mike looked displeased.
“From what I understand, the Captain really needs us finding out what happened to this cop or we are screwed… something about her doesn’t add up and I can feel it”, Mike noted.
Detective Jake couldn’t agree any less. They shared the next few minutes pouring through the house once again but nothing was in there. All the clothes were gone and the rooms were sparkling which was rather bizarre. Detective Jake paused just as they exited the inner bedroom and raced out the door as though he had an intent.
Puzzled and lost by his colleague’s actions, Mike followed him immediately but stopped when the detective stopped just outside the door to take in deep breaths and exhale them intermittently. The action he continued with for the next minute enraged Mike who waited for his time to yell and vent in frustration.
“That’s odd”, Detective Jake pointed out ambiguously.
Mike whispered with a note of sarcasm, “Yes it must be… taking in fresh air must be a challenging thing for you my friend”.
Detective Jake brushed past him rudely, walked over to the kitchen and gently leaned his nose closer to the dishwasher and the tap before picking up a glass cup and sniffing it irritatingly for Mike who had no choice but to watch.
“Is this how you work? Sniffing things and weirding yourself out?” Mike queried.
It didn’t stop the detective from having a good lick off of the mug in his hand before spitting out the residue in disgust.
“You have to be kidding me… are you nuts? Is this some kind of mental issue you have going on with you which the department knows nothing about?” the baffled Mike continued.
Detective Jake finally let go of the cup and turned to look at his colleague. “I knew something was off from the first sniff of air I took in that living room but it is even more apparent here”.
He still didn’t make senses or wasn’t making any as Mike Rondon continued to cast him a bewildering glare.
“Bleach! Can’t you perceive it even if it’s almost worn off?” he asked. “Someone bleached the darn house and I can bet the forensic team will find enough here to prove me right”.
Mike remained skeptical while he looked around the room for signs to prove the crazy man’s theory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary asides the exceptionally clean room and items. He helped himself to a good sniff of one of the mugs and got nothing close to the pulsating stench of bleach.
“Dust has settled on it and possibly dulled the stench but I assure you that this house has been wiped clean”, the rather persistent detective tried to make his notion stick.
Mike nodded but wearily. “Let’s say the house was wiped clean and that bleach was used. Might the killer have done the same thing to the other houses too?”
Detective Jake shrugged, smiled at his forced
