135. The DNA left no room for interpretation

The DNA left no room for interpretation. Adrian was the culprit. The forensics lab ran another test, and another, just to make absolutely sure. But it showed the same thing all over again: that Adrian Woodhouse, aged five years and four days, had brutally murdered his 80-year-old neighbour using a variety of knives.

In normal circumstances he would now be arrested, brought before the judge and then executed by deadly injection. But this case was not straightforward, as detective Yelburton had found out.

At the beginning of his career Yelburton had been firmly in the yes-camp when the Attorney General had proposed taking DNA-samples of every newborn in the United States. At the time the number of solved murders and other heinous crimes was at an all-time low and falling. The privacy police had reared its ugly head of course but Yelburton was one of the 50 million who had signed a petition to push legislation through.

The DNA Archives Act only passed by a narrow vote, but four decades on, you could hardly find a dissonant voice. The amount of crimes had decreased tenfold and those who still murdered or maimed had a 88 percent chance of getting caught. Predictions were that in another few decades time that figure would rise to a perfect 100.

But now this. The DNA was wrong, surely. The injuries inflicted on the neighbour could not have been the work of a toddler. For the first time in his life Yelburton questioned the DNA Archives Act. And if word about Adrian Woodhouse got out, so would numerous others.

Yelburton had a choice to make. Continue working in a flawed system. Or put a bomb under it.

He chose the former, not realising that at kindergarten a criminal prodigy was already plotting his next murder.

 

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124. The lunar detective

The lunar detective woke up with a hangover. They seemed worse here than on Earth. Must be something to do with the smaller gravitational pull. Luckily they still weren’t quite bad enough to stop drinking altogether.

The cell-phone on his bedside table contained forty-two messages. The detective erased them all with one click of his thumb. He seldom listened to his boss, who had never even set foot on the Moon.

They did things differently here compared to Earth. Even the murders.

Especially the murders.

The latest one was a prime example. The knife of the assailant had pierced the suit of his victim in the abdominal area. The suit immediately decompressed, causing the victim’s blood to boil. It was a gruesome death but one all too common in Lunaville.

The town was originally conceived as the ultimate hang-out for the rich and powerful but the barren Moon surface hadn’t proved enticing. So the government had turned Lunaville into a prison colony. A home to murderers, rapists and criminal embezzlers. They were allowed to roam freely, in the safe knowledge they had no place to go. And if they decided to wipe each other out, that was fine as well.

The lunar detective knew he was merely an elaborate excuse to give the appearance of law and order, as did the criminals. There was an understanding between them, an uneasy truce. If the murders weren’t too elaborate, he’d let them slide. If they were, there’d be hell to pay.

A knife in a belly was considered acceptable by both parties. The detective would check out the crime scene, make a report and that would be it. Some would consider it a cushy job. God knows he did.

As long as Earth kept sending regular supplies of whisky.

 

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113. Luckily the ice kept the bodies cold

Luckily the ice kept the bodies cold. If it didn’t the putrid smell of the decomposing goons in the freezer would soon spread throughout the borough and rat out Luigi.

 

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68. The city’s veins were congested

The city’s veins were congested, clotted by corruption that ran all the way from the crime-riddled suburbs to the gilded doors of city hall. In the old days there were still some good cops to keep the festering disease at bay but now they too had given into greed and complacency.

Johnny had never known it any other way. He’d grown up in a rough neighbourhood, where each Saturday gangsters made the rounds of the local storekeepers to collect half of the takings. And half of that take went towards bribing the police. Johnny’s father never said a thing when the hoodlums rummaged through the till. Maybe that’s why he died a bitter man, aged 44. Felled by stroke. On a Saturday.

Johnny, barely 15 at the time, took over the store. He too kept his mouth shut when the gangsters demanded their cut. But at the end of every month he set aside a bit of money. Just enough so he could buy a gun by the time he turned 18.

The city’s veins might be congested, but Johnny intended to blow them open. One gangster at a time.

 

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21. You’ll be sniffed out by the plants

You’ll be sniffed out by the plants, the inspector told Lupe, before shoving her into the greenhouse and locking the door behind her. Lupe took an apprehensive first step. Her eyes darted around the glass house, which was populated by hundreds of exotic plants. There was just one bald spot: the place where the rare hammer orchid had snuffed it.

“You think they’ll recognize her?” the cop asked his superior.

“They always do,” the inspector smiled as he lifted his sunglasses from his eyes.

Indeed, as Lupe tiptoed across the greenhouse, a bustling murmur arose. The plants curved their branches and leaves ever so slightly. They all seemed to be pointing subtly towards the young woman who tried to keep her cool but broke down anyway.

“Yes,” she yelled from the top of her lungs. “It was me! I cut down the hammer orchid. I confess.”

She fell to her knees, sobbing, a broken woman.

On the other side of the TV-screen, a mother and her two sons reached simultaneously towards the big bucket of popcorn nestled between them on the couch, gripped by the story unfolding before their eyes.

CSI: Greenhouse looked to be yet another hit for the network.

 

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