Morgan let out a grunt and finished with a thrust of his hips. Kelly climbed off the spent man. She tugged the condom off him and tossed it out the window of the black sedan where it fell to the curb. 

He stared at the long pink bunny earrings dangling from her earlobes. He’d told Kelly he had a fetish for big earrings the first day he had picked her up. Now she always wore them for him. He reached up and caressed them. 

“You quit shaving, Morg?” She rubbed his chin. 

Morgan watched while the young redhead pulled up her black panties. They had matching pink bunny ears on the front of them. Next came her skirt. She was cute for a prostitute, probably because she was fairly new to the game. He guessed she was maybe nineteen, twenty at the most. 

“Not that I don’t like it, Morg. Kind of rugged looking, but you gotta take care of yourself. You look like shit.” He slipped her a fifty before she climbed out of the car.  

He watched the cute ginger walk away, her shapely young hips swaying seductively back and forth. He had been with Kelly a handful of times. He preferred to stick with the same prostitute because it somehow seemed cleaner. 

Morgan leaned forward so he could get a look at himself in the rearview mirror. At six foot, he was lean and had lost about thirty pounds over the past few years. Most men his age started gaining a few pounds every year but he was heading in the opposite direction. 

Still, Kelly was right. He looked like hell. His blond hair was unkempt and he bore the first layer of what was growing into an equally unkept beard. The facial hair was completely unintended. He just hadn’t cared enough to shave.  

What really caught his attention were the sunken, hollowed out eyes staring back at him. The green orbs looked haunted.  Yeah that’s a great word for me. Haunted. 

Morgan was a good looking man, but he had started paying for sex to avoid unwanted attachments. He just couldn’t handle the small talk and attention that needed to be put into dating normal women. Yep, that’s it. He was also aware that he liked to lie to himself.  

“Hey, Morgan, you on air?” His radio came to life. Shit, what now?

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Captain wants you to head over to sixth street. They got a body behind O’Ryans.”

“Copy. En route.” He quickly sucked down the rest of a nearly empty bottle of Gentlemen Jack, then pulled up his pants. 

Morgan exited the car and, and went to the trunk to retrieve his tweed jacket. It doesn’t look terrible with my blue jeans. 

He climbed into the front seat of the unmarked police sedan. Great. I may be on duty, but work's the last thing I want to do. 

Ten minutes later he pulled in behind the seedy pub. O’Ryan’s was known to serve a shady clientele. Whores, pimps, drunks, and drug-users frequented the bar. Morgan was no stranger to the place himself. My kinda people. 

When he exited his car, an older grey-haired Asian man with a pot-belly broke away from the usual throng of cops and looky-loos and approached him. “What do you know, Detective Harper?”

“Aww, come on, Mac. You saw me just pull up.”  Morgan frowned at the inquisitive reporter.  

“Thought maybe you heard something over your radio.” The older man scratched his chin. 

“Nada.” Morgan pushed past the man. 

“You know, you look like shit,” Mac called after him. 

“So I’ve heard.” Morgan Harper shook his head while he crossed over the yellow police tape he hated. It usually signaled death. 

“Here, Morgan.” A short dirty blond-haired women waved him over. Her name was Tamra and looking at her pained him. Morgan tried to avoid eye contact with the crime lab technician. 

Tamra wore a white HAZMAT suit. The technicians used them to prevent cross-contaminating crime scenes and also to keep blood and other body fluids off themselves.  

“What ya got, Tam?” Lying at her feet in the weeds was a dead woman. High heels, tiny skirt, and fishnet stockings gave away her profession.

“Dead hooker. Looks like she’s been here for a couple of days. Most of O’Ryan’s customers park up front, so she wasn’t seen until this morning when the trash guys came back for the dumpster.”

“Any ID?” Morgan noted the dead woman was still fully clothed, including panties that could be seen thanks to the combination of her incredibly low mini-skirt and one of her legs being propped up at an odd angle. 

“Yes. Driver’s license identified her as Jennifer Collins. Looks like she’s a local girl. Thirty-one years old.”

“Jesus, much too young to die. Was she sexually assaulted?”

Tamra stared at the black-haired victim. “Hard to say at this point. I’ll know more when we get her to the coroner.”

“Okay.”

“Wait. She has piercings but isn’t wearing any earrings.” Tamra pointed toward an exposed left ear. “Don’t street-walkers usually bling-out to attract the Johns?”

“Yeah. Killer may have taken them as a souvenir.” Morgan rubbed his stubbled chin. 

“Maybe. Not a hundred percent it’s a homicide yet.  No visible injuries or bruising.”

“You thinkin’ OD? I don’t see any drug paraphernalia.” Morgan studied the ground around the body.”

“That’s going to be another mystery for the coroner to solve.” Tamra shrugged, then held one of the dead girl’s arms up for Morgan to see. “She does have needle tracks along both arms.”

“I’m the lead on this, Tam. Get everything to my desk as soon as you have it.” He took one last sad look into the dead girl’s glazed over lifeless eyes, then turned to go.  

Tamra grabbed his arm.  “We should do dinner. Talk.”

“I just can’t. I don’t need to talk right now.” Morgan still wouldn’t look the technician in the face. 

“It’s not always about you, Morgan. Maybe I need to talk for once.” She let go of his arm. 

“Okay. Sorry. Call me.” He sighed. “We’ll set something up. I’ll come by for dinner.” 

“I will.” She gave him a half-smile. “You should shave that, by the way.  Doesn’t look great.”

Morgan shook his head and walked back to his sedan. The dead hooker’s face joined the many other deceased faces rattling around inside the homicide detective’s head. 
 

Character/Suspect List: 

Homicide Detective Morgan Harper - The heavily faulted main character who never recovered from the suicide of his wife.  

Kelly Pierson - a young, new to the game, prostitute who is frequented by Detective Morgan. 

Tamra Burns- a crime scene technician.

Mac Yung- Aggressive reporter. 

Jennifer Collins - The first victim prostitute.