Detective With a Touch of Magick-Chapter 1 Part 4

"Yes, certainly looks that way. Suspect ran off and we're looking for clues as to what happened. No one saw anything. Wanna give it a crack and have a look around?"

"Been a long time since I've been challenged, I'd love to have a look around." Dexter walked over to where the body was laying he noticed that there were small footprints leading away from the body. However these footprints were heading the opposite direction from where the witnesses has said the murderer had fled to. And they were small, not from a large man as Kelly had described. Of course there were a lot of people out here and they could have been from anyone, but these particular foot prints were close to the body with even one of them being half underneath the body. No, these were made before the body fell to the ground. Almost the size of a child. Newspaper boy maybe? Probably there and gone before the murder happened.

The ambulance crew were making preparations to remove the body now. The body had been placed in the body bag and moved to the stretcher. Some of the police officers were studying the the surrounding area trying to gather more clues.

Before the body bag was zipped up Dexter saw that the man had been stabbed in the chest. The stab mark looked particular, as if it was done with something other than a normal straight knife. The wound was wider than that of an ordinary knife. Perhaps a jagged edge blade? He happened to look down and see something shiny embedded in one of the footprints. Taking out a pen from his shirt pocket, he leaned down and stuck it in the mud under the item. Looked like some sort of button. He carefully picked it up from the mud and examined it. It had the initials "JBC" on it. The dead man had been wearing a black T-Shirt without buttons. JBC....Dexter thought. Then it came to him, those were the initials for the bus company that Mr. Peabody had worked for. And since Mr Peabody hadn't been wearing a uniform at the time of his untimely death, it stood to reason that this was probably committed by one of his co-workers. He or she must have lost the button during the struggle between the two people. Time to get someones attention and point these things out.

Dexter looked around and found Danny. He was talking to some more of the crowd. He walked over to talk to him. When Danny was finished with what he was doing, Dexter said, "I think I have some things you might be interested in. Not too much to go on though."

Looking back toward the now empty spot where the body had been, Danny said, "We tried to find the suspect that took off after he was murdered but came up empty. Looks like it was caused by some sort of fight or something. What do you have?" Danny looked at him expectantly, remembering how Dexter could walk into a room and see things that nobody else could. Dexter had often amazed Danny by the level of detail he saw in things and how his mind was able to put even the smallest things together to come to a reasonable conclusion. Even his best detectives now weren't as good as he remembered Dexter being. It was shame Dexter never did anything with those valuable skills. What Danny never knew was that Dexter just wasn't very observant but was very sensitive to other things no one else could feel or see. They call it magick, but it's not the 'pull a rabbit out of your hat' magick. It's just being more in tune with what is going on.

Dexter said, "Come here for a moment," Motioning for Danny to follow him over to where the body had been in the yard. Danny followed Dexter over to the yard. Dexter pointed at the foot marks he had noticed earlier, "See these footmarks there?"

"Yes, but they could have been made by anyone by this time." Danny said

"Your right except for the fact that one of them was actually under the body before the body was removed", Dexter pointed out. "And they are heading in the opposite direction from what the witnesses noticed the suspect running. And these footprints are from a child or a small adult. I was thinking maybe the paperboy, Mr Peabody doesn't really like children and has none in his family. At least I've never seen them. And these footprints are leaving the scene." Dexter paused to see if Danny saw what he saw.