"Flack. Leave a message."

---

Detective Don Flack
[AIM] NYPD Don Flack

"You aren't doing this because you actually like the job. You're doing this because somewhere deep inside you lives that scared little kid that got the shit beat out of him in school. Now that you have a badge and a gun it allows you to get even with all of them with no repercussions. Right?"

"You don't know jack shit about me, Detective. Plus, you weren't even there."

Don nodded. "Yeah. But here's the thing, officer. I didn't need to be there to know what happened. Your partner filled us in with the details."

"Look, the kid pulled a gun on me. What the hell was I supposed to do?"

"How about you weren't supposed to shoot him."

"That's bullshit--"

"So let me get this straight. A thirteen year old, who you were pursuing, panics, gets scared, pulls out what looks to be a toy gun and you're allowed to shoot him twice at point blank range?" Flack rested his forearm on the edge of the table and stared Whitman in the eye. "You wanted this kid dead. Why?"

Anger had a way of destroying a person's ability to think in a rational manner. One minute, Jake Whitman was a man of goodwill and reason, and in the next, he was a good cop turned bad; guilty of a crime he'd never planned on committing.

"All I wanted to do was scare him a little. But I never meant to kill the kid. He'd been picking on my son and I needed to protect my boy. My nine year old thinks I'm a hero. I couldn't disappoint him."

"Man, I can assure you, is a nasty creature." - Jean-Baptiste Poquelin ( Molière)

Detective Don Flack's gaze moved from the hairline of the man to the twine stitching a three-inch incision on the left side of his neck.

"Embalming," Dr. Hammerback explained.

"They all have it," said Flack, shrugging toward Table 11; victim number four. "Think what we might be dealing with here is a body snatcher." He returned his gaze to the corpse.

Tall in stature, the man had a prominent nose, large ears and a receding hairline. The eyes were shut tight as was the mouth. Pursed lips were definitely preferable to a mouth contorted in a "death scream".

Flack watched as Sid reached for a surgical tool and he took a step back. He pressed the back of his hand over his mouth. It wasn't the sight of the cadaver or a touch of the flu that made Don want to retch. It was the odor of the body. From the moment of the first incision, it was obvious that something, either the cadaver's metabolism or a chemical imbalance triggered by the embalming process had prevented the phenol-glycerin from properly saturating the tissues.

Flack, who was hardly prone to being squeamish about dead bodies had to look away as the chest was exposed. The smell was overwhelming. "How do you know if you're going too deep?"

The medical examiner shrugged as the saw broke through, exorcising a whole rib in order to facilitate the removal of the breastplate. "Maybe he'll scream."

[RP] A Decent Cup of Coffee | vivo_per_ardua

"How did that happen?"

"Well, it all started when this dog started barking and it flew past my window-"

"It flew past your window?" Flack tucked his chin against his chest and peered down at the suspect.

"Yeah. It flew past my window. A damn dog!" Ray shifted in his seat and moved to rest his forearms on the table. "Look, man. You gotta believe me. If I hadn't actually seen it with my own two eyes - and I should tell you, I got perfect twenty twenty vision right here - I wouldn't have believed it myself. Now I know you don't. But you gotta trust me, alright? I didn't kill nobody. I was just there. Wrong place, wrong time, ya know?"

"I gotta trust you?" Don was looking less and less amused. It was a quarter past seven in the morning and he'd just returned to the station after chasing Ray 'Chicken' Kolwinski down the back of a stinking alley and through a storm drain. His shoes and his clothes were damp; his three hundred dollar shirt was ruined and he stank like garbage. A week's worth of it.

"You know what? Today's your lucky day, Kolwinski." Detective Flack placed his hands on the table and leaned in close so that he was face to face with the guy. "I'm going to give you some time to think." He cocked his head to the side. "And I suggest that you start dishing out truths when I see you next, 'cause from what I can see, with my perfect twenty twenty vision right here, your future, it ain't looking too bright."

"Oh, come on, man." Ray was sweating and his hands were shaking. "I'm telling you-"

Don Flack gave Kolwinski a look of warning before he slammed the door shut on his way out.

"Great start to the mornin' eh, Flack?"

"Get him cleaned up, Norris," Flack ordered, looking non too pleased as he headed straight for the men's locker room. Fifteen minutes later, after a quick shower, he put on his black tracksuit; the only spare change of clothes he had left, and walked over to his desk to grab his keys. He was going to go home, get changed into more appropriate attire, and maybe; supposing he got his appetite back, grab some breakfast before heading back to the station.