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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Horror
- Subject: Crime
- Published: 07/01/2025
Dysprosium
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66
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Dysprosium
Lieutenant Mackenzie, Mac for short, arrived at the crime scene in the Trump Tower. The luxurious hotel on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan catered to the rich and famous. Mac ducked under the yellow, crime-scene tape, careful not to spill her espresso-filled Starbucks cup.
The CSI unit had already started their meticulous work. Camera flashes filled the room, and the crew dusted for prints. The vic, short for victim, lay naked on the luxurious king-size bed with a beautiful view of the new Freedom Tower. Not that he’d ever see it again.
The ME, Dr. Damon, examined the vic with gloved hands. “Our vic is a sixty-year-old, white male. I place the TOD between 1 and 3 am.”
“What’s the COD?” Mac asked the Medical Examiner and took another sip of her espresso.
“No GSW, no stab wounds, and no signs of asphyxiation. I’d say he either had a heart attack or was poisoned. But I won’t know for sure until I get this guy back to the CO and run a toxicity test,” Dr. Damon referred to the Coroner’s Office.
“Do we have an ID on the vic?” Mac asked.
With gloved hands, Detective Bryan flipped through a brown leather wallet and said, “Our vic is Yogi Scarsgård, a Swedish citizen based on his passport, and an investment banker according to his business card.”
“Can we get anything off his laptop?” Mac nodded towards the laptop.
“I’m already on it.” Detective Roma sat at the laptop and typed away. “It looks like Yogi wired ten million Euros to a Swiss bank account at 3 a.m. EST, which is 9 a.m. in Switzerland.
“That’s probably our MO. He either died right after the wire transfer, or the perp obtained his password, killed him, then wired the money. See if you can follow the money, Roma,” Mac ordered.
“I’ll try, but you know how the Swiss are—very protective about the privacy of their bank accounts.” Roma shook his head.
“Any prints, guys?” Mac asked the CSI team.
“Place was wiped clean.”
“What about the hotel’s security cameras?”
“We have the vic entering the hotel lobby at midnight. There’s a woman with him, tall and blonde, but she hid her face.”
“Trying to find a tall blonde in New York City? That narrows it down.” Mac shook her head, incredulous.
“Uh, lieutenant you might want to come look at this,” Dr. Damon said.
“What is it?”
Dr. Damon combed through the vic’s pubic area and pulled out a long, blonde hair with a pair of tweezers.
“Great work. Bag it. We’ll run a DNA check and see if anything pops up in the database. Run it through Interpol, too. If our vic is Swedish, then perhaps the perp is, too,” Mac rationalized.
A few hours later
Mac walked into the precinct. “I just heard back from Damon. The COD is some sort of poison, but we’re not sure what kind until the tox report comes back. Any luck with our DNA search?”
Bryan shook his head. “Nothing. Our perp isn’t in the system. And without a fingerprint or an ID, it’s….”
“It’s dysprositos,” Mac said.
“Dysprositos?”
“Greek, meaning, ‘hard to get,’” Mac said.
“As in, it’ll be ‘hard to get’ an ID on our perp.” Defeated, Bryan shrugged, defeatedly.
Racking her brain, Mac struggled for a way to find the murderer. She sat at her desk and stared at her laptop. The Ancestry.com shortcut beamed at her. Then she recalled her recent DNA specimen she’d sent to Ancestry.com to check her genetic markers. It’d surprised her to learn that she was over 30% Scandinavian. But that gave her an idea, a great one.
“Let’s subpoena Ancestry.com. We’re going to tap into their DNA database and find our killer.”
The next day
“Your hunch paid off, Mac. We got a hit on our perp’s DNA through Ancestry.com, including her address, right here in Manhattan,” Roma said.
Elation filled Mac. “Let’s go get our killer.”
*****
This is 1 of 118 short stories in my Elements Of Mystery Collection. Each story is titled after an Element from the Periodic Table. All my 20+ published books are available everywhere eBooks are sold worldwide. Print books are available on Amazon. Free shipping with Prime. Please visit my website https://www.elementsofmystery.com/
Dy
[Xe]6s24f10
Dysprosium
Lieutenant Mackenzie, Mac for short, arrived at the crime scene in the Trump Tower. The luxurious hotel on 5th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan catered to the rich and famous. Mac ducked under the yellow, crime-scene tape, careful not to spill her espresso-filled Starbucks cup.
The CSI unit had already started their meticulous work. Camera flashes filled the room, and the crew dusted for prints. The vic, short for victim, lay naked on the luxurious king-size bed with a beautiful view of the new Freedom Tower. Not that he’d ever see it again.
The ME, Dr. Damon, examined the vic with gloved hands. “Our vic is a sixty-year-old, white male. I place the TOD between 1 and 3 am.”
“What’s the COD?” Mac asked the Medical Examiner and took another sip of her espresso.
“No GSW, no stab wounds, and no signs of asphyxiation. I’d say he either had a heart attack or was poisoned. But I won’t know for sure until I get this guy back to the CO and run a toxicity test,” Dr. Damon referred to the Coroner’s Office.
“Do we have an ID on the vic?” Mac asked.
With gloved hands, Detective Bryan flipped through a brown leather wallet and said, “Our vic is Yogi Scarsgård, a Swedish citizen based on his passport, and an investment banker according to his business card.”
“Can we get anything off his laptop?” Mac nodded towards the laptop.
“I’m already on it.” Detective Roma sat at the laptop and typed away. “It looks like Yogi wired ten million Euros to a Swiss bank account at 3 a.m. EST, which is 9 a.m. in Switzerland.
“That’s probably our MO. He either died right after the wire transfer, or the perp obtained his password, killed him, then wired the money. See if you can follow the money, Roma,” Mac ordered.
“I’ll try, but you know how the Swiss are—very protective about the privacy of their bank accounts.” Roma shook his head.
“Any prints, guys?” Mac asked the CSI team.
“Place was wiped clean.”
“What about the hotel’s security cameras?”
“We have the vic entering the hotel lobby at midnight. There’s a woman with him, tall and blonde, but she hid her face.”
“Trying to find a tall blonde in New York City? That narrows it down.” Mac shook her head, incredulous.
“Uh, lieutenant you might want to come look at this,” Dr. Damon said.
“What is it?”
Dr. Damon combed through the vic’s pubic area and pulled out a long, blonde hair with a pair of tweezers.
“Great work. Bag it. We’ll run a DNA check and see if anything pops up in the database. Run it through Interpol, too. If our vic is Swedish, then perhaps the perp is, too,” Mac rationalized.
A few hours later
Mac walked into the precinct. “I just heard back from Damon. The COD is some sort of poison, but we’re not sure what kind until the tox report comes back. Any luck with our DNA search?”
Bryan shook his head. “Nothing. Our perp isn’t in the system. And without a fingerprint or an ID, it’s….”
“It’s dysprositos,” Mac said.
“Dysprositos?”
“Greek, meaning, ‘hard to get,’” Mac said.
“As in, it’ll be ‘hard to get’ an ID on our perp.” Defeated, Bryan shrugged, defeatedly.
Racking her brain, Mac struggled for a way to find the murderer. She sat at her desk and stared at her laptop. The Ancestry.com shortcut beamed at her. Then she recalled her recent DNA specimen she’d sent to Ancestry.com to check her genetic markers. It’d surprised her to learn that she was over 30% Scandinavian. But that gave her an idea, a great one.
“Let’s subpoena Ancestry.com. We’re going to tap into their DNA database and find our killer.”
The next day
“Your hunch paid off, Mac. We got a hit on our perp’s DNA through Ancestry.com, including her address, right here in Manhattan,” Roma said.
Elation filled Mac. “Let’s go get our killer.”
*****
This is 1 of 118 short stories in my Elements Of Mystery Collection. Each story is titled after an Element from the Periodic Table. All my 20+ published books are available everywhere eBooks are sold worldwide. Print books are available on Amazon. Free shipping with Prime. Please visit my website https://www.elementsofmystery.com/
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