The Case Of The Diced, Spiced Ham

LAW AND ORDER
SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
EPISODE (redacted)

SCENE 1:  SMALL GREENWICH VILLAGE APARTMENT, SPATTERED WITH BLOOD AND GORE. 

A MAN IS IMPALED TO THE WALL, APPROX. FIVE FEET OFF THE FLOOR, BY A LONG PIECE OF METAL DRIVEN LONGITUDINALLY THROUGH THE LENGTH OF HIS BODY. 

DR. HUANG AND MEDICAL EXAMINER WARNER ARE ON SCENE WITH THREE CRIME SCENE (CSU) OFFICERS AND DETECITIVES MUNCH AND TUTUOLA.  DETECTIVES STABLER AND BENSON ARRIVE ON THE SCENE. 

STABLER (HOLDING HANKIE OVER FACE):  Wow.  What’s up?

MUNCH:  It’s a bad one.  Vic was shot 24 times with a .22 pistol.  We’ve got casings…well, all over the place.

BENSON:  How’d the killer get in?

CSU1:  Killer blew the lock off its hinges with three shots from a .44 Magnum.  We have the slugs here (points), there and there.  Vic was killed over there (pointing to desk with computer); see the blood pooled on the floor?

STABLER:  Yep.  Good job.  So he blows the door open with a big gun, but he kills the vic with a tiny little popgun?

TUTUOLA:  Look at this;  CSU found the gun’s magazine. 

BENSON:  (Examines metal object).  It holds eight rounds.

MUNCH: The perp would have had to have fired eight shots, reloaded, fired eight more, and reloaded again

STABLER:  Wierd.  (Ponders).  Wonder why, when he had the .44 handy?

HUANG:  He wanted to cause pain.  A single .22 hit hardly ever kills; it takes a hit to the medulla or heart, pretty much.

WARNER:   Look at this – all 24 shots hit the stomach.  All those nerve endings – it had to be incredibly painful.

BENSON:  That had to hurt!

TUTUOLA: Word.

HUANG:  What we have here is a deliberate attempt to cause intense pain. 

STABLER:  OK.  Perp comes in, confronts vic, fires eight shots, reloads, fires eight shots, reloads, and fires eight more times.  And then…

MUNCH:  Then, the perp dragged the body over there…

 BENSON:  Blood smears on the floor in a trail from the desk to the wall…

MUNCH: …took this (points at victim) nine-foot-long piece of rebar and used this mallet to hammer it down the vic’s mouth, all the way through and out the…

BENSON:  Spare me that detail, thanks…

MUNCH:  …and then nail the whole thing to the big beam along the wall, five feet up.

STABLER:  Like a pig on a spit.

BENSON:  A monster…

WARNER:  Judging by the lividity and the blood spattering on the floor below the body, I’d say he was alive while the perp put in the rebar.

MUNCH:  Ow.

CAPTAIN CRAGEN WALKS IN. 

CRAGEN:  Whadda we got?

STABLER: A real sick puppy!

CRAGEN:  I need a collar on this one.  The media’s camping out on the commissioner’s front door demanding answers.  Canvas the neighbors?

TUTUOLA: Neighbors heard nothin’.

BENSON:  What motive could someone have to kill someone like…this?

CSU OFFICER 1 (sitting at computer along the wall opposite the body):  Detectives?  Take a look at this.

DETECTIVES, CRAGEN AND HUANG GATHER AROUND, LOOKING OVER CSU1’s SHOULDER

CSU OFFICER 1:  It looks like our victim wrote spam and trojan horses for a Russo-Nigerian online “marketing” company.

BENSON:  (Reading) Get…A…$500,000…mortgage…for…$25 a month…

BENSON, STABLER, CRAGEN, MUNCH, TUTUOLA, HUANG and WARNER TRADE GLANCES.

STABLER:  I call it a suicide.

BENSON:  Me too.

CSU OFFICERS ABRUPTLY PACK UP THEIR GEAR. 

CRAGEN:  Bagels, anyone?  I’m buying.

AND…SCENE.

3 thoughts on “The Case Of The Diced, Spiced Ham

  1. Pingback: Shot in the Dark

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