Chapter 1: Another Night, Another Body
Chapter 1: Another Night, Another Body
I sat in my ratty old recliner—slumped was probably a better description. I rarely made it to bed these days. The TV was on, but I was half-asleep, not even sure what show I had been watching. The glow from the screen flickered across the bare walls of my living room, casting shifting shadows that played tricks on a tired mind.
A few empty Coke cans and the remains of my pizza littered the coffee table. I usually had beer with pizza, but I hadn’t been to the store in weeks. The house was quiet—the kind of quiet that settles in when your wife and daughter have moved on. A hollow, lonely silence.
I needed sleep.
Buzzzzzzz. Buzzzzzzz.
I already knew what this was. I glanced at my watch—0130. Then at the phone screen—DISPATCH SERGEANT.
I grabbed the phone from the table and answered. “MacLaren.”
The voice on the other end was all too familiar these days. “Detective MacLaren, this is Sgt. Kline. We’ve got a shooting on the east side. Are you available to respond?”
“Yeah,” I grumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I reached for the small spiral notebook I always kept nearby. “What is it?”
“Head to the 900 block of Pruden Ave. One victim, male, appears to be a gunshot. He was not removed,” Kline continued. “Your brother is also en route, as is the coroner.”
I exhaled and pushed myself up from the recliner. “Alright, thanks, Sarge. I’m about 30 minutes out.”
I disconnected the call and flipped through the TV channels until I found the weather report. Damn. Ten degrees, with twenty-five mile-per-hour winds. Snow. Just my luck. I jotted it down in my notebook before heading to get dressed.
Ten minutes later, I was in the car, the heater barely making a dent in the cold. The old warehouse district. Strange place for an early morning shooting.
I pulled the zipper all the way up on my heavy winter coat—my call-out coat, as I liked to call it—bracing against the Arctic cold as I stepped out of my old, unmarked Crown Vic onto the snow-covered street. The wind whipped viciously down the abandoned streets like the killer, cold and unseen, but leaving just enough clues you knew it was there. The gusts were so sharp they felt like they were slicing right through the heavy layers of my call-out coat as if they were nothing more than paper. The cold slammed into my face, taking the breath from my body with a grip as tight as the reaper. It was as if the city was trying to keep its secrets buried deep beneath the snow. Dare to dig too deep, and maybe yours would be the next body found.
The farther I moved toward the body, where my brother, Detective Graham MacLaren, and numerous uniformed officers lingered behind yellow scene tape flapping in the wind, the more I was smothered by the scent of exhaust from idling police cars. It hung heavy in the air, mixing with the faint, familiar cold of winter, a silent warning that trouble was near. Whatever lay ahead would offer no comfort against the cold tonight. The street was nearly silent. Just the wind and an occasional announcement from the officer’s radios interrupted the stillness. Dead, like the poor old soul on the ground. No headlights were cutting through the darkness, no shuffling steps from late-night wanderers. I didn’t even see a stray dog digging through the garbage. Nothing, just the stillness of death settling over the block like a heavy fog. The kind that made your skin crawl, the kind that whispered that something had gone terribly wrong.
What the hell happened here? I used to shag calls out here when I was a rookie—back when this part of town had life; when it had a purpose. The constant hum of trucks, night-shift workers, light and noise kept the streets moving. The air smelled like oil, hot coffee, and the faint bite of diesel exhaust. You could find a coffee shop open at 3 AM, and see dockworkers hauling crates under sodium lights. There were parking lots full of cars, and nearby bars where guys blew their paychecks before heading home. A place that never really slept. Now? Just another dead corner of the city; hollowed out and left to rot. Boarded-up windows, rusted-out fences, pavement cracked and buckling from years of neglect.
Our city was once a center of industry and innovation. Dayton gave the world the airplane, the cash register, the electric ignition, the pop-top can, microfiche, and so much more. But that was another time. Another life in what feels like should have been another city. Now, the factories were just crumbling monuments to what used to be. Their rusted skeletons stand as silent memories of better, more prosperous times. The only things still manufactured in this town: poverty, overdoses, and crime stories no one beyond our borders ever seems to read. The city was dying, and no one noticed. They probably wouldn’t until the stink of death made it impossible to ignore.
I shook my head slightly and moved closer to the crumpled body, my breath circling my head like a ghost, silent and fleeting in the frigid night air. The only thing moving in the frozen crime scene was the slow, seeping spread of blood into the slush. The snow, once a brilliant white, was now just a crimson smear as the blood was hungrily absorbed. The streetlights flickered, casting weak cones of light onto the pavement, their glow barely touching the body sprawled beneath them. Footsteps crunched behind me as another officer approached apassed on by. No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Just another night, another body, another name that would fade into the city’s long list of forgotten dead.
I knelt beside the body on the snow-covered stoop, the cold seeping through my pants as I looked for wounds beyond the obvious. Brown-skinned—Middle Eastern, maybe. Mid-thirties. He was well-dressed, wearing a dark wool overcoat that probably cost more than my car. The fabric was thick and expensive, but money hadn’t done him any favors tonight. A single shot. Center mass. Cops and soldiers are trained that way. No sign of a struggle, no defensive wounds, no scattered belongings. It didn’t look like he had tried to run or even fight back, suggesting he never saw it coming. Just a man who had stepped outside for a smoke and died before he could take another breath. A clean, efficient kill, like a ghost had done it.
Graham crouched beside me, flipping open his notepad. His breath curled in the air as he read from the pages. "Hassan Al-Khatib. No warrants, but he’s got some FI’s in the system," he began. "Vice has stopped him a few times on Keowee and N. Main. No convictions that I can see yet, but I’ll dig deeper when we get back to the office." I exhaled, looking down the dimly lit street with a practiced eye. A few lights glowed weakly, but most of the neighborhood sat in darkness. No movement. Nothing but the slow drip of melting snow from awnings.
"So far, we’ve got nothing," Graham added, rubbing his hand across his forehead. "It’s clean. No casings, no prints, no tracks leading in or out." "Do we have ANYTHING?" I asked, my voice low and steady. "Please tell me we at least have the bullet." "The e-crew’s on it," Graham said, flipping through a few more pages. "It’s stuck in the frame of the door." I looked past the body to the splintered hole in the wooden frame. A gaping black hole against chipped white paint. This was a tight shot, precisely controlled. Whoever did this didn’t feel like the usual gang shooter. Is it possible, here in Dayton, that this was a professional?
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it at first, but finally pulled it out and glanced at the screen, Jenkins. I groaned slightly and ignored the call. Graham glanced over, smirking. “Sarge?” I nodded and slipped the phone back into my pocket. “He can wait.” Graham didn’t argue. He knew as well as I did—Sarge called before there was anything worth reporting. Before the scene was processed, the evidence bagged, or the first witness even questioned. He wanted answers but we had just started to dump out the puzzle.
"Chris our e-crew tonight?" I asked. Graham nodded. "Yeah, and so far, it’s just pictures and the bullet.” I exhaled sharply, shaking my head. "Ghost or not, someone saw something. Nobody vanishes in this city." I turned my attention back to the scene. The snow-covered ground was untouched except for Al-Khatib’s body and the dark stain of blood spreading beneath him. No footprints. No shell casings. No scuff marks from a struggle. The execution had been precise. The shooter was disciplined. One shot. No hesitation. No overkill. That wasn’t luck—that was experience. A street shooter would’ve emptied the mag, spraying rounds in all directions. This was different. Controlled. This wasn’t some junkie looking to make a quick score. It also wasn’t the usual street beef. This was something else. Something worse.
Graham smirked, watching me. "You planning to open a gallery?" I didn’t look up, just kept snapping photos, framing the scene through the scratched viewfinder of my old camera. "When we get back, I’ll study these," I said. "Sometimes a picture catches what the eye misses. This way, I won’t have to wait on Chris’ copies." Graham shook his head, amused. "You know, you would get much better pictures with your phone." I let out a short laugh. "Yeah, and then my entire phone would get subpoenaed." I turned toward Graham with a smirk. "And then I’d have some punk defense attorney enjoying my family photos. No thanks." Graham laughed, but we both knew it was true. Defense attorneys might look at all of my personal stuff, but the real concern was how they’d pick apart every little thing, twisting the evidence to make a jury doubt the truth. I wasn’t giving them any extra ammunition.
I walked over just as Chris finished digging the bullet from the wooden frame. He held it up for us to see, turning it slightly, and inspecting the mangled metal under the little bit of light we had. "Pretty damaged," he muttered. "But I think the lab can identify it." "Good," I replied, sliding my hands into my coat pockets, hoping for a little warmth. "What about trajectory? Any thoughts on where it was fired from?" Chris glanced down the street, his expression thoughtful. "Not from a rooftop—too level. And too high to be from the street." I frowned. "So what are you telling me, Chris?" He exhaled, looking back at the hole in the doorframe. The shooter had elevation. Not much, but definitely above ground level—something in between," he said. "Maybe even a vehicle—something with a high vantage point. The roof, or maybe the back of a truck. The thought settled in my gut like a stone. A moving shooter meant precision, planning. It meant they were dealing with a pro.
This wasn’t a deal gone bad or a moment of rage. This seemed much more like a targeted attack. It was calculated. Methodical. Merciless. I let out a slow breath. The night was still—too still. It felt like the city itself was holding its breath, fearing for its life. No sirens, no murmurs from a gathered crowd—only the quiet hum of idling engines and the occasional squawk from a police radio, the same as when I arrived. I turned back toward my car, the promise of warmth pushing me forward. I’d seen enough for tonight. The scene wouldn’t tell me anything else—not yet. We needed lab work, traffic cams, a reason. But there was one thing I already knew. Whoever did this wasn’t just lucky. They were good.
I walked toward the yellow crime scene tape, lifting it as I ducked under. "Hernandez!" The uniformed officer turned, rubbing his gloved hands together for warmth. "Yeah, Detective?" "Check all the parked cars on this block.” Hernandez hesitated. "Anything in particular?" I spread my arms. "Anything out of place." He nodded and moved off, sweeping his flashlight over windshields and license plates. I didn’t expect much—whoever pulled this off wasn’t sloppy. But nobody was perfect. If they used a vehicle, they had to park it somewhere. Maybe a neighbor saw something, maybe a camera caught movement, maybe there was a roof with no snow where there should be.
Graham was already moving toward the group of officers, reminding them to show some damn respect—there was still a dead man on the ground. The coroner had left him there longer than necessary. Everyone knew this wasn’t a rescue job, but it still felt wrong, leaving him out in the cold like that. Blood had stopped spreading, the dark stain freezing into the slush beneath him. His coat had fallen open just enough to reveal a crisp white dress shirt beneath it, now ruined by a single, perfectly placed shot. I turned back one last time, looking down at Al-Khatib’s frozen face. His eyes were still open, locked in permanent shock. He never saw it coming. Neither did we. But we would soon.