It's always hard finding a good parking space at a crime scene.

That is as true a statement as you will ever hear in law-enforcement. Everybody wants to see a dead body. That is just the nature of those left behind. We are fascinated with death. Dead bodies both scare and excite us. But it's not just death. We will all likely see a dead body at some point in our lives. But very few of us will see a murder victim. The moment those crime scene tapes go up everyone wants to know what's behind them. They want to see what few ever have permission to see firsthand. They want to know what happened and why.

So do I.

People always ask me why police rush to a call of a murder. They argue that the victim is dead and is not going to get any better so why rush and risk killing someone along the way? My obvious answer is that solving a crime is dependent on getting the best untainted evidence we can possibly get. In order to do that we have to minimize the amount of contamination by minimizing the number of people contaminating it. That, of course, means getting there first. Add to that the very real possibility that the suspect may still be at or close to the scene and we have every reason to get there as soon as possible.

The truth is, though, we just like to drive fast. There is no better feeling than racing past people on the road without the fear of getting in trouble. It's just the way we are. If we could drive everywhere with lights and sirens blaring, we would. It's in our DNA.

At the crime scene, the natural parking protocol is always the same. The rookies will have gotten there first because they want to see their first dead body and will have taken up all the prime parking area. They will have parked too damn close and will have destroyed any evidence the suspect may have left behind at the front parking are where the crime occurred.

They haven't seen as many dead bodies as the rest of us and are understandably much more interested at the sight of one. They want to see the body first. They know they need to get there first to have the best chance to see the body before they are sent off to do something boring like establish a perimeter or canvas for witnesses.

By the time I pulled up to the crime scene, parking was at a premium. I had to park across the street in a grassy, muddy field (like everyone else should have). About a half a dozen police units and a couple of unmarked ones were already at the scene and the crime tape was already up. A perimeter was set up around the compound and people that were there working at the location had been removed from the property and separated, awaiting identification and interview.

The job of the first officers on the scene is always to clear and secure it. They have the difficult and dangerous job of making sure the suspect is not still on the scene without tainting too much of the evidence the suspect might have left behind. Once they've searched the scene for the suspect they then pull back and secure it and wait for the investigation division. They also try to locate the reporting party if there is one on scene. What they don't poke around and pick up stuff like you see on TV. They don't carry little plastic baggies with them marked "evidence" and just haphazardly throw things in it. Things need to be photographed before they are picked up. They need to be inventoried. Things never really get going until you see the people with the cameras, little orange cones, and disposable blue shoe covers on their feet show up.

The shoe covers though, are just for show. By the time they get there everyone has already trampled over every inch of the crime scene and surrounding area. They just wear them so they can testify in court that they didn't do any trampling themselves. Evidence, if it existed at all, is now stuck to the bottom of about a dozen police officer's spit shined black ankle top military style boots that have trampled the area long before I even get there. Don't let any stupid CSI show tell you different. A crime scene is nearly always 50% what the victim left behind, 50% of what the first responders left behind, and 5% what the suspect left behind (I was never good at math). This is all assuming, of course, that the suspect was someone unknown to the location.

Danny got there before I did. When I got out of my car, I saw him talking to what I assume were potential witnesses. The Chief and the Asst. Chief were also there already. I rarely see them at crime scenes, and I had no idea how they beat me to this one. I had no problem with the Chief being there. He's a smart guy and stays out of the way. I once saw the Assistant Chief kick a knife across the room at a crime scene. I swear it sailed across the room like if it was kicked by a professional soccer player. He shouldn't be allowed near crime scenes.

The crime scene was a business called Monte Cristo Iron Works. It was a huge garage style structure painted the color of dark limes with a small office building attached to the front of it. The garage housed dozens of large machines designed to cut and bend iron of all sizes into just about any shape you need. Most of the work involved welding and fixing equipment used by oil companies and other business that used heavy machinery.

The property the structure was sitting on was bigger than a football field. The back part of the property was rented out to other businesses and there were mobile offices and some 18-wheeler trucks parked on the grounds toward the back. The entire area was fenced in.

A quick chat with the first officer on the scene revealed that upon arrival he contacted the person who called in to the police department. The man was an employee of a pest control company who had gone to the office to pick up a check for some work he had done for the victim. According to the officer, the man walked into the office building and saw no one so he called out, but no one answered. He walked further in and saw a body on the floor next to a desk in one of the offices. He approached the body and quickly figured out that it was the person he came to see and that they were dead. He immediately walked out and called the police. He reported seeing no one else while he was there. Poor guy. Everyone wants to see a crime scene when they know one is there. Nobody wants to stumble upon one by accident. He's never going to forget this day.

The officer reported that he and a couple of other officers that arrived at about the same time did a quick search of the area in search of a suspect and cleared the scene, being careful not to touch anything. They gathered everyone on the grounds up to the front of the property, and then put up crime scene tape and waited for investigators.

I took a good look around before entering the office building. It had rained heavily the day before. The area in front of the office entrance wasn't paved. Mud was everywhere, and so were dozens of footprints and just as many tire tracks. If there was any evidence at the front of the building it was under 6 police cars.

Now I can't be too hypocritical here. When I was a rookie, I once arrived at the scene of an assault and parked right over all the evidence needed to prosecute the suspect. The guy had dropped his knife and his wallet on the way out. I crushed them both with the car. It happens.

I called Danny over and we went inside the building. The front door opened to the inside and was wide open. Muddy footprints led in and out. Immediately on left was a small receptionist area that looked like it hadn't been used in a while. Old boxes, rusted file cabinets, and dusty file folders filled this area. A few steps farther down was a hallway on the left. Old and dusty cardboard boxes lined the small hallway. We passed a small water fountain on the left. There was an open office area to the right and the Chief and Assistant Chief were standing there. They were visibly upset, and that wasn't normal because these men had seen a lot of dead bodies over the years. I could tell by the look on their face that they knew the victim. A friend maybe? They got on their phones and started making phone calls without saying a word to us.

I looked into the office on the left. I could see 2 legs on the floor sticking out from behind a wooden desk in the center of the room. I could smell gunpowder, wood, and copper. I could taste the copper in my mouth. I stood there with Danny for a moment, looking into the office before walking in. There were some empty gun casings scattered on the floor in front of the desk. There were also some unspent bullets lying on the floor. Danny spoke first.

"Well, that's strange."

"The unspent bullets? Yeah, that's different."

"What do you think? Bad gun? Inexperienced shooter?"

"I don't know, maybe both. Both gun and shooter were good enough to kill though."

"Good point."

"What's the caliber?"

"Nine-millimeter."

"Okay. Is Dave here with CSI yet?"

"No, but they are close."

"Okay, let's shut it down before other supervisors show up and want to take a tour of the crime scene."

Danny looked over at the Chief and Asst. Chief and saw that they were too busy to have heard what I said. He smiled in relief and then went outside and had officers posted at all entrances to the building with a sign in book. This would give us some privacy. Nothing stops a supervisor faster than possible paperwork and the thought of getting subpoenaed to court to testify that they walked through a crime scene for no reason other than they felt like it. We then both walked in to take a quick look around before CSI came in, making sure not to touch anything.

The office was a good size with a wooden desk and a small couch in front of it. A single office chair behind the desk was pushed back away from the desk toward the back wall. A shelf was on the back wall filled with pictures and other memorabilia. File cabinets lined the walls on the either side of the desk. A grey cell phone was on the desk ringing and vibrating non-stop. It had been ringing since we walked in the building. People were already looking for him and wondering what was going on here, I thought.

The smell of gunpowder meant the shooting had just happened, twenty or thirty minutes at the most. Gunpowder smell doesn't last long. The man that reported it must have just missed the shooter walking out. He was lucky he wasn't shot and killed also. There was a large entry hole on the desk where a bullet penetrated it. This explained the strong smell of wood. There was a fine layer of wood dust everywhere. The strong smell of copper was the blood. It is more like a taste in your mouth than a smell. Once you have been to enough fresh crime scenes you tend to be real sensitive to it. You know right away someone is dead when you can taste the blood in your own mouth. The amount of blood required to give you that taste in your mouth isn't an amount someone can lose and live through.

The unspent casings on the floor were peculiar. Either the gun was jamming after every shot and the shooter had to clear the chamber of the spent casing which might also spit out an unspent bullet, or they simply racked the gun after every shot thinking they needed to do that for some reason. It's a bit sexist but I automatically thought a woman shooter. Someone totally unfamiliar with guns.

The victim lay face down behind the desk with a large pool of fresh blood beneath him. There was an entry wound at the base of the neck. Based on the blood spatter on the lower part of the desk he was shot in the back of the neck while he was already face down dying or dead on the floor.

This was a kill shot. Someone wanted to make sure he was dead.

Danny walked past me and checked the wall behind the desk.

"Shit"

"What?"

He pulled a framed picture down from a shelf.

"I think he was law-enforcement."

The photo was of a graduating class from the local Sheriff's Office Academy. The assumption was that he had the photo up there because he was in it. Though it was more likely he was ex-law enforcement if he was running a business. There is little time for anything else if you are a cop. That and he was face down so we couldn't see his face and find him in the photo. I thought to myself if he was ex-law enforcement where was his gun?

We heard others coming up the short hallway. It was the CSI team. David walked in and immediately caught site of the empty casings and unspent bullets on the floor.

"Well, that's new."

"Yeah, you ready? We'll get out of your way. It looks like he's been shot at least 3 or 4 times. Can't tell until you move him."

"How can you tell if you haven't moved him?"

"Five spent casings on the floor. One bullet in the desk for sure. There might be other bullet holes here in the office, but I don't see them. The bullet to the back of the head doesn't have any blood coming from it. That means he was dead when they shot him on the floor. The victim looks like a big strong guy. I'm thinking it would take more than one bullet to take him down. That means the rest of the bullets are all in him."

"Well, okay then.

David nodded and started his own quick look through the office so he could make a quick assessment of the crime scene and find a good starting point for the room. He had a couple of other guys both outside and inside the building looking for evidence already. Danny and I stepped out into the hallway.

The open office area opposite of the crime scene had a desk and computer on it and various family pictures. One of them was a picture of a man and a woman together smiling. The man could be our victim. If the woman was his wife she was not on scene. I assumed the Chief and Assistant Chief were already making notifications of the next of kin. There was also another picture of three girls. My guess is they were his kids.

Fuck. This is going to hurt.

As an investigator we try hard not to think about emotions during a case. Lives get torn apart and flipped upside down in just moments after a bullet gets fired. But that is not anything we can focus on if we are going to catch the killer. You only get one shot to do the job right. Nothing else matters.

Just then the Chief and Asst. Chief walked back in from the garage area. The Chief said they knew the guy and that his name was Jorge Salas. I asked about the picture and they said the woman was his wife and she worked with him here in the office also. He said the two have owned the business for years. They then asked if we needed anything. I said no and they walked back out through the garage area and left the building.

Danny and I walked out of the building through the garage also to get out of the CSI's way. They have a job to do and we'd only be in the way. Unless the killer dropped the murder weapon, or wallet with an identification in it, they won't need to contact us for a while.

We walked past all the machinery and exited out to the back area behind the business. It had been cleared of all people by the first officers on scene. Given the distance, and if there was any machinery on in the large garage, there was a good chance no one would have heard shots coming from the office, especially if the doors were closed. My bet all witnesses would say they heard nothing.

We walked back around the large garage and down a long dirt driveway that extended from the back of the property to the front of the property where it meets the main road.

When we got back to the front of the office building it was jumping with people. Officers were running back and forth holding people back who wanted to come on the property and other officers were holding back people who wanted to leave. Some patrol supervisors had arrived wanting to go in and take a look but were thwarted by my guy at the door with a pen and a crime scene sign in sheet. They just stood around with their hands in their pockets.

I looked around. It was wet, muddy, and cold. The wind had picked up a bit and it had started to sprinkle. An ugly day all around.

I stood and watched this scene for a while. I had seen it so many times before, but this time it was different somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it. Someone's life had just ended violently. But that happens all the time. I got a chill up my spine.

I looked over at Danny and he was standing on one foot (the one he had been limping on all day) with one hand up against the building and scraping mud off his other boot with a stick. He looked up at me.

"Looks like you're all healed to me." He noticed his mistake and put that foot down and leaned up against the wall as if he was in pain. I laughed.

"Shut up. It comes and goes."

"Yeah, I'm sure it does."

"So, what's the plan?"

"You know the drill. Same as always. Track the guy back every minute of his life in the last 24 hours and find out what killed him. The answer is always there. You know that."

"Yeah."

At that moment a large red truck rolled up from the street and almost hit the police cars parked up front. A woman jumped out of it and ran right up to the crime scene tape. An officer stopped her before she could go any farther. We both recognized her from the picture on the victim's desk.

She looked scared. She got on her phone and started making calls when the officers did not let her through. I wondered who she could be calling. I looked over at Danny and he was giving her a hard look.

"What are you thinking?"

He didn't answer. He just looked at her in disgust.

"Do you know her?"

"Nah."

"Then?"

He picked up the stick again and started cleaning his other boot. Then he spoke, still looking down at his boot.

"Fucking bitch did it."