David hated lakes. The stilled, black water fermented bacteria and disease. It was so accessible for everyone to drink, yet drinking would mean their demise. It was only fitting that a place so repulsive would have a body float down its current.

“Davy, you got any clues yet?” Tim stood a couple feet behind David, like he had been doing for the past 20 minutes.

David stood up from hours of kneeling in the mud. He groaned loudly, not trying to hide his discomfort. “Still the same answer from the other fifty times you asked; no, I haven’t got anything. Also, my name is David, not Davy.”

Tim smiled brightly. “Okay, Davin.” David only sighed.

As David stood up in the frigid morning air, he found himself start to regret his choice to be a detective. As a child, his parents had always pressured him to choose what he wanted to be. In a moment of desperation, he said he wanted to be a detective. He had watched a lot of detective shows, so he truly thought it would be a dream job. Boy was he wrong.

David picked up his backpack that was filed with samples from the crime scene. He tromped through the mud, elbowing passed a bewildered looking Tim.

“Why have you stopped looking for evidence? There is so much we don’t know!” Said Tim innocently.

David sighed. “We’ll hand the evidence back to the people at the lab.” He motioned to his bag. “But then we’re heading to see the results of the autopsy. There’s more to a detective then digging through crime scenes.”

Tim didn’t understand. Of course he didn’t understand. When David had taken Tim under his wing as an apprentice not so long ago, he had expected Tim to be like an assistant. He would be able to hand David tools and maybe remember the occasional piece of information. Not only could Tim barely multiply two digit numbers, but he refused to be of any help. He truly was a burden.

After an hour-long journey by road, and then a ten minute journey through the city by foot, David and Tim finally made it to the lab. They exchanged some meaningless pleasantries with the receptionist. It was so quick in-fact, that the evidence was being examined before Tim could even ask what they were doing, which happened almost immediately.

Seeing as he had already told him, David refused to answer. Tim seemed to realize the danger of asking again, so he kept his mouth shut.

The information from the autopsy was being held just a couple rooms down from the evidence lab, so they were there in a flash. David wasn’t a fan of death, but there was something about the thrill of the mystery that kept him going. As they entered the room, David felt his heart start to beat faster.

When they crossed the threshold, a scientist David didn’t recognize stood up in greeting. She looked glad to see them, but something felt off.

David’s brow creased in concern. “What happened? Was it a stabbing? Poison? Blunt force? Did they drown?”

The scientist shook her head. David realized she was laughing, but that couldn’t be right. The scientist handed David her report. “Trust me, you won’t guess this one.”

David took the folder, which felt looked awfully thin. He opened it to find it empty. He looked up in annoyance, breathing heavily through his nostrils. “Work with me here. There might be a murderer on our hands. Where are the reports?”

“There aren’t any.”

Suddenly, Tim began to chuckle too, which didn’t help David’s mood. He stamped his foot in frustration. “Are you knew here? This is not a job to mess around in. SOMEONE HAS DIED, and you two are LAUGHING?” He looked disapprovingly at Tim. “I’d though better of you.”

Finally, Tim and the scientist stopped laughing. The scientist looked sympathetically at David, before waving him to follow her. “I think you have got to see this for yourself.” Reluctantly David followed.

David and Tim followed the scientist through a series of hallways and into a room with a metal table in the middle. On top of the table was a body with a cloth draped over.

Before he could stop her, the scientist pulled off the cloth. David got ready to gag, but stopped. It wasn’t a pale body of a murder victim that he saw, but an open stomachs with a bunch of stuffing.

“Dang,” David said.