Port of Cull



Details
Port of Cull is HawkCity's first case, appearing as the first case of Hawk City overall. It is also the first case to take place in Heartpool, an area of Hawk City.

Plot
Being the first case of a new city, the player began by being introduced to Chief Hugh Martins and one of their partners, Daniel Wright.

 The Chief asked both of them to go to the city docks, where a murder had apparently been discovered. An initial search of the crime scene found the body of a fisherman (George Hayden) suspended from a crane by a long, woven rope, with a thin stream of blood dripping from his neck. Other clues included a soaked photograph and a key that had been dropped.

 The autopsy introduced British medical examiner Brett Ariel, who happily told Daniel and the player that the cause of death was actually blood loss from a fish hook lodged in the rope near the victim's throat. He expressed concern over the body's condition, considering that the victim had been put into a noose and dangled from a crane, but not broken their neck or slipped loose in spite of their struggling. The rest of the autopsy also revealed alcohol in the victim's system, suggesting that he was drunk, and the rope had been woven out of fishing nets. Bloody abrasions in the intricately created rope suggested that the killer could tie knots and had scratches.

 Once the key had been examined, it was sent to the technology expert- Irfan Chaudhry- for further analysis. He found that the key had gone missing from the storage room between the dock's closing time and the murder, and it proved that the killer had to have been able to operate cranes.

 Analysing the photograph found two new suspects, colleagues on the victim's ship: Alan Beverly and Tina Eaton. As the water damage was deciphered, Alan appeared having heard about a murder from the market on his way to work. He expressed concern over Tina coming to the docks to look for the photo, and revealed that she had recently been in an accident because of Hayden's drunken behaviour upon further interrogation.

 Tina admitted that she had been in an accident and her colleagues had forced her to stay at home. She mentioned working part-time in a Spanish restaurant in order to support herself and her dog, and that the owner of the restaurant had motive to kill because the victim wanted to sever business ties in their fish trade.

 Stella Pesca, the restaurant owner, admitted her distaste for the victim but allowed Rosie and the player to investigate her restaurant anyway. Disgustedly, Rosie waited for the player to search through a food waste bin to find a sickly cooked fish. This was sent to Taylor Dupree, the forensic scientist.

 The results showed that the fish had been poisoned by laxatives after being cooked, and a note hastily shoved into its mouth reading, "Good luck ruining both our jobs, if you can get off the toilet." This note had already been sent to Elphie Blumen, a profiler, revealing it to be Tina Eaton's doing.

 Tina admitted to poisoning the fish as a means of giving Stella the satisfaction of annoying the victim. From here, the player, Rosie and Daniel caught up the details before being interrupted by Chief Martins as a result of angry workers wanting their docks back from the crime scene.

 In the second chapter, Rosie used her charm to convince patrol officer Mark Samson as well as many of the workers (including the victim's boss) to settle down. The boss, Gary Milton, agreed to let the team interrogate him and finish their examination of the crime scene.

 Looking over the exterior of the crane, a torn letter was found. This letter traversed to be from Alan Beverly demanding Hayden to pay Tina compensation for her accident. During a subsequent interview, Beverly accused Hayden of disrespecting Tina by flirting with her. He mentioned that he was gay, but had a good friendship with Tina after meeting her in a mandatory knot-tying class before they were both hired for their ship. He also lampshaded taking classes to learn how to operate cranes in order to better serve their ship.

 Tina agreed that George Hayden was constantly flirting with her, especially when drunk. Upset about how she wasn't taken seriously as a fisherwoman because of her gender, she told the team that she didn't feel as though she deserved such treatment since she was so dedicated that she had learnt how to operate a crane instead of being deadweight on the team (like George Hayden allegedly was.)

(To be continued very shortly.)

Victim

 * George Hayden (Hung by fishing nets with his throat oozing blood)

Murder Weapon

 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">Fishing hook

Killer

 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">???

Killer's Profile

 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The killer can tie knots.
 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The killer has scratches.
 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The killer can operate cranes.
 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The killer has a dog.
 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The killer uses hand cream.

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 * <p class="ve-ce-paragraphNode ve-ce-generated-wrapper ve-ce-branchNode">The case title refers to the phrase 'Port of Call', with a murderous twist. The phrase refers to both the setting of the case, and to intentionally go somewhere first, both physically on a journey or because it offers other advantages (e.g: "Go to Brett if you want a body autopsied, that's his port of call." or "We need a body autopsied, so Brett's lab should be our first port of call.")