I was alone in my office with the dead man's bag.

The drive back from the hills outside of Corona had been excruciatingly long, despite the fact there had been no traffic. Excruciating, because I was itching to see inside the bag. The bag, I knew, was key evidence. I also knew that I should hand it over to Detective Sherbet ASAP. And I would. Eventually.

After I had a little looksee.

With the kids asleep and the babysitter forty bucks richer, I sat in my office and studied the still-closed bag. It was just a white plastic trash bag with red tie handles. The handles were presently tied tight. The bag itself was half full, which, on second thought, said more about my outlook on life these days than about anything in the bag.

I was wearing latex gloves since I didn't want to ruin perfectly good evidence. To date, there had been five bodies located. Five bodies drained of blood. Sherbet had brought me on board after the fourth. Unfortunately, I hadn't been given much access to the actual evidence, despite Sherbet's high praise for me and my background as a federal investigator. Ultimately, homicide investigators still saw me as a rent-a-cop, someone not to take seriously, a private dick without a dick, as someone had once said.

Anyway, Sherbet had mostly gotten me caught up via reports and taped witness statements. Sadly, the witnesses hadn't witnessed much, and the four previous bodies had yielded little in the way of clues. And what clues the police had, they weren't giving me access to.

So, this little bag sitting in front of me represented my first - and only - direct evidence to the case.

And I wasn't about to just turn it over. At least, not yet.

So I photographed the bag from all angles, noting any smudges and marks. Once done, I carefully used a pair of scissors and clipped open the red plastic ties. I parted the bag slowly, and once fully open, I took more photos directly into the bag, carefully documenting the layout of the items within. Then I painstakingly removed each item, setting each before me and photographing them as they emerged.

All in all, there were fifteen items in the bag.

Most of the items were clothing: jeans, tee shirt, socks, shoes, underwear. There was jewelry, too, a class ring and a gold necklace. The necklace had some dried blood in it. There was blood splatter on the tee shirt, too, and the running shoes.

But, most important, there was a wallet, complete with a driver's license, credit cards, folded receipts and even a hide-a-key tucked behind the license.

"Well, well, well," I said.

In a slot behind one of the credit cards was a private investigator's wet dream: his social security number. With that, he would have no secrets from me.

His name, for starters, was Brian Meeks. He was 27 years old and even kind of cute.

But most important, the moment I began extracting items from the bag and then from the wallet, I began receiving powerful hits. Psychic hits. Haunting, disturbing, horrific hits.

I saw his life. I saw his death.

I saw his killer.

And when I finally put the items away, back into the wallet and back into the bag, I sat back in my chair and pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face between my knees and sat like that for a long, long time.

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