Leaves In A Forest

by A.E. Pittman

About the Author: A.E. Pittman is an emerging author, and a member of Capital Crime Writers, with a passion for reading and writing mystery fiction. While his stories are entirely fictional, they are influenced by his life experiences as a lawyer and a police officer.

Excerpt

Conrad Fitzgerald looked at his watch, it was 8:30 on a Monday morning. In his former life, he’d have been drinking a latte with his PhD students around now—catching up on gossip, giving feedback on research proposals, debating the latest theories in criminology. He had fond memories of those days, but no regrets. Because today, after paying his dues on patrol for almost five years, his dream was finally coming true. 

He adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses, retrieved a notebook from his tweed jacket, and began sketching a diagram of the room. As a professor he had studied dozens of police files, and had always maintained a certain professional detachment as he scrutinized every detail. Yet that same scientific curiosity—examining an actual corpse as part of the puzzle he was supposed to solve—felt inappropriate, even ghoulish. As if he was somehow subjecting the victim to yet another indignity. 

But this was his job now. So he crouched by the body, grounded himself with a silent prayer, and got to work. A switchblade protruded from the base of the dead man’s skull—a single thrust, upward into the back of the head, at exactly the right angle. 

Why, he wondered, was the victim dressed like that? Conrad’s left knee crackled as he stood up. The hotel room was small, and the wallpaper was a bit dated, but the antique furniture might have given the place a certain charm under different circumstances. Not the kind of place where bodies were discovered in gritty Harry Bosch novels, more like the setting for a cozy Poirot mystery.

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