Chapter 1

"Brown, my office. Now"

Oh how I love it when my captain is in the good mood. "Right away, sir."

I walk into the old looking office, seeing my boss sitting at his usual desk and an attractive man I have never seen before.

"This is your new partner, detective Oliver Hart. He just got transferred here from Los Angeles. Show him around and take him with you on your next case."

"Is that it orrrr..."

"What did you not understand? Go."

"Right, will do, sir."

We start heading to our desks, "Nice to meet you, I´m Alexis Brown," I shake his hand, "you´re from LA. What made you move across the country to our rainy New York?"

"Too much going on over there, I guess I just needed a change."

So he thought moving to New York of all places was going to be less stressful than working in Los Angeles. Interesting.

"Right, this is going to be your desk, mine is right over there in case you need something. Most importantly, there is the coffee machine." I look into his blue eyes, they were not amused.

My new partner is a ray of sunshine.

"These are detectives Jenkins and Pierce, most talented detectives in New York. Every question you have or if you need something done quickly, these are the men you call."

I sit on Jenkins desk, "Yes, Brown usually calls us if she doesn´t want to do the work herself," Jenkins said.

As I was about to answer, the phone rang.

"Brown," I answered," yep, right... thank you, I will be right there. Someone just found a body.

Another murder. I can´t catch a break in this goddamn city.

We get in the car and start driving to the crime scene. There is that awkward silence in the car nobody wants to be part of.

"So, how do you like the city so far."

"I don´t know, I just got here," Oliver said.

I look into his eyes again, I have never seen such a colour before. Dark blue, like the ocean.

Shortly after we arrived at the scene of crime. I am standing in front of another big ass building but I already know who´s building this is.

Nate Scott´s.

The most powerful court judge in New York. Some might even consider him a scum.

I look around and see a bunch of police cars. The Pathology department was also already here.

" Do I have to guess who was killed?", I asked the policeman standing outside of the building.

He chuckled," I´m sure you already know".

We get to the elevator and I press the button that leads to the highest floor, to Scott´s office to be exact.

We walk by a women crying hysterically, I guess she was the one who found him. She must be his secretary. The long hallway that is ahead leads to his office. I look around, the walls are filled with photos of him and the celebrities he has defended in the past. Or, help them not not to go to prison.

I enter, and the first thing I see is the blood scattered on the walls. And, of course, the dead body laying on the floor. It never gets easier. I look around the office. Files and papers are laying all around the office, he must have been working on something before this disaster has happened. Then I hear our pathologist Susan talking.

"The gun was found in his right hand. I´m sorry to disappoint you all but this looks like nothing more than a suicide."

I look at Susan who is squatting next to the body," Why are we here then?"

"I guess it´s because of the status of our victim," she continued writing evidence in her notebook.

I come near the body to examine his head. " It does look like the gun was fired from a short distance. Susan, do you have an estimated time of death?", I asked.

"Around 10:25 PM last night."

"Wow Susan, you are getting good at this," Jenkins notices. This man was so obvious.

Susan laughed," I can´t take all of the credit, his watch broke when he fell on the floor. The gun in his hand is a Glock .22, the bullet found in his wound matches the weapon and there is a suicide note on his desk. I believe this case is closed, detectives"

"Thank you Susan."

" Why would a man this rich and powerful want to kill himself?", Pierce asks", nice house, beautiful wife... Something about his death seems weird."

"I am thinking the same thing, Pierce. Can you ask the uniform to take photos of anything unusual, and then have them send it to me? And take the note with you, maybe we will be lucky enough to find something."

"You got it, boss."

" Hart, you are coming with me. It´s time to interview the secretary."

We approach the older looking woman still crying in her chair. This must have been one hell of an experience for her.

"Ma´am, I´m detective Brown, this is detective Hart. We need to ask you a couple of questions regarding your boss, Mr. Scott. Do you think that´s going to be a problem for you?"

"Not at all, detectives. What do you want to know?"

I pause for a minute, looking for a question that´s not going to make her cry even more, "Do you have any reasons to believe that Mr. Scott was in any way depressed or suicidal?"

"He loved his life, and he would tell me that everyday. The cars, the vacations, the women... he lived for it. I still can´t believe he would just take his own life like that ."

It makes sense that someone so rich would want to continue to live and spend the fortune he has.

"Did you notice anything unusual about his behaviour? Did he seem stressed or panicked...anything of this sort?"

Mrs. Marshalls thought for a moment, "No he looked rather relaxed and...happy. He had a big trail coming up and he was almost never in a good mood until it was over. Which is understandable, but something about yesterday was different, now that I think about it."

"Mrs. Marshalls, where were you yesterday around 10:30 PM?"

She looked at me, and then at Hart," Why are you asking me this? I thought Mr. Scott took his life?"

Well her answer is a bit defensive. Maybe Mrs. Marshalls doesn´t want to be honest with us.

"It´s just the formalities, I´m afraid I have to ask you these questions."

She looked relieved for a moment, or was I imagining things.

"We worked till 9:30 PM, when he told me that I can go home, which was very unusual for him. I always stayed till around midnight when he had a lot of work, in case he needed something. Then I went to grab dinner with my family at "Pablo´s" which is about 3 blocks away. I was there until around 11:00 PM I think, then I went home."

Sounds like a solid alibi, but I´ll have to check just in case our secretary is hiding something. I look around her desk, everything was folded neatly. She clearly liked this job. Right then I remember Hart was also here. Why isn´t he asking anything?

"So it wasn´t unusual for Mr. Scott to be working this late then?"

"Oh not at all," she answered," sometimes he would work until 3 or 4 AM and then crash on the couch that´s in his office. As I already mentioned, he had a lot of work ahead of him."

"Thank you very much for your help, Mrs. Marshalls, here is my card in case you need anything at all. Hart, I think our job is done here.

As I was about to walk away, Mrs. Marshalls grabbed my hand, not allowing me to leave.

A few tears escapade her eyes, "Detective Brown, I have to tell you something. Something important."

Is she seriously going to confess to something?

"I am listening, Mrs. Marshalls, take your time."

"Something about this tragedy just doesn´t sound right. Mr. Scott was a kind man, he helped my husband and I when we lost our house and with some medical bills. We are out of debt because of him, but I would be lying if I said that Mr. Scott was a good man. He was only in this profession because of the money, and not because of justice. He would defend and take bribes from criminals, and put innocent people in jail. As if the money and the company he inherited from his father weren't enough, he always seemed to be wanting more. So why would he not want to continue to grow his fortune? He was about to get a lot of money for this trail, too. Maybe I´m wrong, but I have been his secretary for a long time. I know him inside and out, never once did I think that he was depressed.

So she also doesn´t think that this is a suicide case, but all evidence leads us to believe that this is not a homicide.

"I completely understand you, Mrs. Marshalls. I´m going to look over all the evidence we have received. There is a good chance that you are right. And again, thank you for your help. Hart, let´s go."

We are once again standing in the elevator, now going to down. Fresh air hitting me in the face as I´m exiting the building.

"This was one hell of a conversation. What you think, Hart?"

"It still looks like a suicide to me. I mean, the gun, the note, everything we need was right there. Maybe you´re just putting too much thought into this case. "

I start driving away, leaving the building behind us, "What about the secretary though? You heard what she said, about how he loved to be rich."

"Sure, maybe she is right, but you can never know what´s going inside someone´s head. I think he realised that he was a bad person and just decided to end it all."

The blue-eyed demon sitting next to me was right. Maybe I am putting a lot of unnecessary thought into this case. But as Mrs. Marshalls said, something about this just doesn´t sound right.