COMING SOON!

Black and red lights flashed against the buildings. Police cars blocked off each end of the black and pedestrians from the nearby club stood behind the yellow tape that separated them from the crime scene in front of them. Random pilice officers questioned the bystanders while crime scene investigators took samples from the body covered in the middle of the street.

A dark blue Crown Vic drove up to the scene and parked behind the black and blue cruisers. Detective Bernard Williams stepped past the other officers as they started for their own cars and stepped under the crime scene tape. A twenty year veteran, Williams had seen everything possible in the streets. He started on the streets, moving past narcotics and finding his niche in murder/homicide.

At forty-five, Williams was long from his youthful days. Years behind a desk doing paperwork had caught up with him, showing around his midsection as a portly belly that could barely be contained in his steel gray slacks that he wore. The matching suit jacket covered his badge while his dress shoes sloshed through the puddle on the wet street. The youngest African-American officer to make narcotics in his district, his graying temples were started to tell his age. As he walked up to the body on the ground, he said to himself that he only had a couple more years in his. Five more years and he would turn in his gun and badge and retire. Williams walked up to the medical examiner as she scribbled on a clipboard. She stopped when he approached her and closed the remaining gap between them.

"What do you have for me, Wong?"

Leslie Wong had been the Chief Medical Examiner for the last ten years. When Williams transferred he realized that he and the small Asian examiner would probably spend time over a lot of dead bodies. She walked him through his first case, showing him how much she cared about the victims even before the ended up on her table. She looked down at the clipboard and back to the detective.

"Honestly, I can say," Wong said as they walked back to the white sheet.

"Well, what do you have so far?"

"This is a young male, at least twenty two years old with serious trauma." She looked down at the sheet. "Poor thing is losing his intestines on the concrete."

Williams knelt down as his knees popped, lifting the white sheet that separated the body from the viewing world. Staring back at him were eyes with no lids and a face of muscle. Two front teeth with a gap in the middle were still intact while other teeth seemed to be missing. Holding the back of hand to his mouth, he could feel the bile rise to the back of his throat. He lifted the sheet further past the chest to see, in fact, intestines lying next to the body and disappearing to the back asphalt. The chest cavity was ripped open and exposed the broken ribs that use to house his vital organs.

Williams stood and took a few deep breaths. He'd finally seen it all. Whoever did this was insane. He couldn't imagine slicing the face from a person. He caught a glance of what he assumed was a shoe and turned away.

"What the hell happened here?"

"I have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say some wild animal was responsible but we're not in the middle of a forest. My only other explanation would be a Mack truck. It just looks like someone did this with their bare hands," Wong replied as she looked at the clipboard again.

"And the autopsy?"

"It's scheduled for first thing in the morning."

"Good. Give me a call if you find anything."

Williams was about to walk away. He knew that he would be saddled with the paperwork and he wanted to get a head start. Walking past CSIs as the continued to pick apart the scene, he moved under the yellow tape and back to his car. Standing beside it was his partner, Issac Hall, talking to one of the other officers from the scene. He was young and new to the homicide department. Almost twenty years his elder, he could have passed for his son with their dark chocolate skin and matching goatees. Williams had shown him the ropes when Hall got in the department and their captain liked the way they pulled cases together and made them partners.

"Took you long enough." Williams said as he leaned against his car.

"Sorry. I had to make sure the wife was taken care of before I left," Hall sighed. "What exactly do we have here?" Hall asked as he acknowledged the cop as he walked away.

"Coroner doesn't know right now. She'll get back to us," Williams said as he watched the body get loaded into the back of coroner's van.

"What do you mean? How is the a homicide?"

Williams stood upright and headed for his driver side door.

"Looks like someone tore off the guys face."

As he got in, Williams knew that somewhere in the city someone was missing their son; maybe their father. Now he was lying in a body bag and it was up to them to figure out what happened to him. Hall got into his own car and drove off, allowing him to back up and leave the scene. He analyzed the body in his head and couldn't help wondering where were his legs.