F Paul Wilson - Sims 03 by Meerm (v5.0)

           Patrick pulled into the curb and they
both stepped out. She let him lead the way as they headed toward the yellow
crime scene tape. Once they were past that, Romy took the lead. Three of the
four cops at the scene were either in their units or leaning against them as
they talked on two-ways. Romy approached the fourth, a patrolman sipping a cup
of coffee outside the front door of a shabby, sagging Cape Cod .
He looked to be in his late twenties, fair-skinned, with a reddish-blond
mustache.
                 After showing him her ID and going
through the what-is-OPRR? and what’s-OPRR-got-to-do-with-this? explanations , and
making sure to smile a lot, she got him to open up.
                 “Got a call about a bad smell coming
from the place. ” He cocked his head toward the house
as he spoke in an accent that left no doubt he was a native. “So we
investigated. Had to kick in the front door and that’s when it really hit us.
Ain’t the first time I smelled that. ”
                 “Somebody dead?”
                 “That’s what we figured, only we had it wrong. Not some body—many bodies. And they ain’t human.”
                 Romy closed her eyes and took a deep
breath. She was afraid to ask. “How many?”
                 “Looks like a dozen.”
                 She heard Patrick’s sharp intake of
breath close behind her.
                 “How many sims were taken from the globulin farm?” he asked.
                 “Thirteen,” she said without turning.
“At least they think it housed thirteen.” That was the count the police had
painstakingly gleaned from one of the computer chips plucked from the ashes.
                 “Hey, you think these might be the
missing sims from that Bronx fire a couple weeks back?” The cop shook his head. “ Don’t
that beat all. I thought that job was pulled by a bunch of sim lovers.”
                 “These may have no relation.”
                 How could they? It didn’t make sense
that people who spray-painted “Death to sim oppressors” would kill the very sims they’d liberated.
                 The cop said, “Well, if they’re the
same, I’d guess from the stink and the condition of the bodies that they were
done the same night as the fire.” He shook his head in disgust. “Pisses me off.”
                 Surprised, Romy looked at him.
“Killing sims?”
                 “You kidding? No way. I mean, I’m not in favor of someone going around killing dumb animals,
but what pisses me is that even though they ain’t human I gotta hang around
with my thumb up my ass—’scuse the French, okay?—while everybody figures out
what to do and who should do it.”
                 “How’d they die?” Romy asked.
                 “ Don’t need no forensics team for that.” He poked his index finger against his temple and
cocked his thumb. “Bam! One to the
head for each of them. Must’ve used jacketed slugs because—”
                 “Thank you,” Romy said, holding up a
hand.
                 “Yeah, well, it was messy, all right.
But not near as messy as what was done to them after they was shot.”
                 Romy stiffened. “What do you mean?”
                 “Sliced them open from here”—his gun
barrel finger became a scalpel and he dragged it from the base of his throat to
his groin—“to here.”
                 “Christ!” Patrick said.
                 Romy swallowed. “Why on earth…?”
                 “Beats me. Dragged all their guts out and piled them in the middle of the cellar floor.
Freaking mess down there, and if they think I’m gonna clean it up because it’s
‘evidence,’ they can—”
                 “I want to see,” Romy said.