He starred down and the woman’s mangled body, she lie in dirty puddle at the back of a filthy alley. The walls where painted with graffiti and bird droppings. Detective Elijah calmly passed slowly around the woman. A knife lay by her side and she was dressed in fluffy Santa dress. Her legs where covered in fishnet stockings. “Gloves?” He asked, his unemotional British accent stood out like a sore thumb especially around his over emotional colleagues. A shy female officer handed him a pair blue latex gloves. “So, Elijah, did you have anything planned for tonight?”

Elijah took the gloves and pulled them up over his wrists “well it’s Christmas which meant that my hole family was over from my mother in England to my sister in Tokyo so...thank god this happened!” The young cop flinched at this remark. It was not unusual for him to say such things but on Christmas, really? The best time of the year or the most wonderful time of the year. Elijah picked up the knife. “Kitchen, planned, prepared...wait a second...behind that bin,”

“What?” The cop squinted.

“Dumpster,” he enunciated. The woman stepped out of the shadows, the name tag illuminated in the moonlight ‘Jenna.’ From behind the dumpster she grabbed a large, red, paper bag with golden snowflakes on it. She reached inside an pulled out a large cardboard box with a transparent plastic window. Inside was a row of four knifes with one missing in the middle. “So either she just randomly committed suicide on Christmas with presents bought or...someone-“ something else caught his eye. He reached his hand to the rim of her neck. Near the back he saw a large red mark. He placed his spare hand on the back of her head and rolled it to the side. Next her rushed her hair aside to ravels a row of pinkish-red circles engraved on her skin. “Grabbed,” he mutters.

“What?” Jenna leaned in.

“Pearl neckless. She had a pearl neckless, had being the key word,” Elijah replied. Jenna’s jaw dropped. She scratched her head and took a momentary glance at the knife. “But...but...but-,”

“Let, me guess...the only set of prints on the knife was her’s?”

“Yeah, whats your answer for that one?” She said with a hint of sarcasm, a dab of ‘ha you’re stuck’ and a main corse of ‘I finally have the upper hand!’

“She fought off the glove wearing criminal,” he said with a smirk

“Bu...bu...but-,” she paused “you can’t prove it!” She snapped

“Actually...i can,” he paused “our glove wearing criminal is...right there,” he raised his hand to the entrance of the alley. Stood there befuddled was a young boy with long blue hair and a black track suit. His hands masked with leather and his pocket overflowing with a pearled neckless. Elijah turned on his heals and sprinted after the boy who turned tail and ran.