2:57 am, Graham Bates’ apartment, Lindsay Circus, Los Santos
It was 3 am, when was I brutally awakened by the noisy ringing of my phone. I thought about letting it ring, but the display told me it was my boss. Already having a hunch, about what the call would be about, I got out of my bed to get dressed while I was talking. The Bulldog sounded the same as always, his grumpy, baritone voice was pretty easy to remember: “Bates? Yeah, someone have found a body in the River… So, get yourself up and come down to the station, oh and give that Jim Richards a call, he could use the experience of some night-time work.” I didn’t get to say anything, not that I planned to really, when the Bulldog is talking, it is just so much easier to shut up. While I descended the staircase from my apartment on the third floor, I phoned Jim. Jim, or James as his name is, had applied to become a detective’s assistant, eventually hoping to become a detective himself one day. Some guys up high, even above the Bulldog, had decided that I should have the “honour”, of having a young, overly-eager officer running tail on my day. I was worried at first, but Jim turned out alright, he’s got a good head and he knows when to use it.
The phone didn’t ring for long, and Jim sounded a lot more awake than me, despite being woken up in the same way as me. “Hey Jim, boss says we’ve got a 419 down in the LS River, briefing’s at the station in one hour. I’m coming by to pick you up, so be ready, alright? Be there in 10.” Jim doesn’t have a driver’s license, and he refuses to borrow his wife’s Radius, until he have a license. Not that anyone would bat an eye if he didn’t. No-one really cares in this town.
As I walked out onto Lindsay Circus, I lid a cigarette. As expected, the weather was awful, it was raining heavily, and the hot summer night made my overcoat stick to my body, like wet paper. Before getting into my car, a dark burgundy Washington, I checked the tires and the engine. just to be sure. The Korean Mobsters of Little Seoul usually wouldn’t tamper with such, instead they’d go straight to the man. However, the gangs had been on their toes recently. Apparently, shootout between the Lost MC and the Vagos happened on the parking lot next to the Del Peiro peer just last night. Of course, we got no notice from the hospitals, that someone had entered with a bullet wound.
I parked the Washington outside Jim’s house in the Vespucci Canals. I was in no mood to get out in this kind of weather, so I just honked the horn a couple of times. It didn’t take long for Jim to come, he was already in his uniform, with an apple in his one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I had told him, he didn’t need the uniform as a detective, but as Jim pointed out; he wasn’t a detective yet. Considering the size of Los Santos, there were surprisingly few cars out on the streets. I guess the weather didn’t exactly call for a nightly drive. In my job though, I couldn’t really be that lucky to have a choice. Driving through Downtown was like a haunted house, only a few windows high up on skyscrapers, had the lights on. Like eerie, yellow eyes staring down on the little man.
The bridge across from Downtown to East Los Santos was empty, looming over Mission Row, as I turned the car in and down into the parking garage below the station. The rain could still be heard, battering at concrete and tarmac all the same. I looked at my watch, we were here fifteen minutes earlier than needed, so when we got up the stairs, I went to get a cup of coffee from the dispenser. Black, of course. As we passed the homicide department, I could see through the window, that the whiteboard for putting details onto, had already been cleaned up. Knowing the Bulldog, it would likely had been the first, the best, officer, he met as he came in. I knocked a few times on the tinted glass on the Bulldog’s door. The handle turned and the door opened.
The office was fairly large and well-lid, but the presence of the Bulldog, did take the focus off of the rest of the room. Besides the Bulldog himself, there was only one other person in the room, a young, red-haired police assistant, I didn’t know her name. Then again, most of the people I knew on the force, have now retired or perished from police work in other ways. A fancy overhead projector had been set up on a table, the dim blue light fitting on a whiteboard on the wall. Must have been the girl’s work, the Bulldog was notoriously bad at anything that resembled technology. Back in the old days, we used chalk and post-it notes on a black board for these info boards on cases. The Bulldog cleared his throat to gain our attention.
“Alright, we don’t know much about the body yet, other than it’s a Caucasian male. The body was discovered by some punks, racing dirt bikes on the slopes of the river, that was two hours ago, at 2 am. Carlos is already down there, setting up, so he can give you more details, I reckon. We assume that this is not a gang crime, but we cannot, as of yet, completely rule it out. We’ve got the punks sitting in the interview rooms, their bikes weren’t registered anywhere. But head down and talk to Carlos first, see what you can figure out.”
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