"The Hollow Crime"

  "The Body Without a Face"

It was just past 3 a.m. when the first call came in.

A janitor working the night shift at a shipping warehouse had stepped outside for a smoke and spotted something on the far side of the service road. At first, he thought it was a mannequin — pale, stiff, and oddly positioned. But as he approached under the flickering streetlamp, the truth struck like ice.

It was a body.

Headless.

And completely real.

The police arrived within twelve minutes. Blue lights bathed the desolate road in a soft, surreal glow. Officers cordoned off the area, while the coroner’s team hovered near the corpse with sterile gloves and flashlights. There was no blood trail, no signs of struggle, and no drag marks. The body lay on its back, fully clothed, arms placed unnaturally straight along its sides — as if posed.

Detective Rowan, the lead investigator on-site, crouched near the corpse with a quiet frown.

“No ID. No fingerprints. Clean hands. No wounds except… well…” He glanced at the neck, or what was left of it. It wasn’t torn or hacked — it had been surgically removed. Clean, smooth, and almost unnaturally perfect.

“Someone wanted this man unrecognizable,” muttered Officer Dane beside him. “Or… to make sure no one would ever know he existed.”

Rowan didn’t reply. His eyes scanned the empty street, the distant mist clinging to the sidewalk like a ghost refusing to leave. There were no cameras in the area. No witnesses. No license plates. Just the silent body… and the sound of the city continuing to breathe, unaware of the mystery it had just inherited.

Zane Faulkner sat at his small kitchen table, reading the morning paper with one hand and stirring his tea with the other. His hair was slightly tousled — half elegance, half rebellion — and his long gray overcoat hung off the back of his chair like a shadow waiting to follow.

Across from him, Eli slathered butter on toast like he was trying to drown it. He had been talking nonstop for the last fifteen minutes about the idea of investing in home security parrots.

“Yes, parrots!” Eli declared with full conviction. “They scream if someone enters. They mimic voices. And imagine a thief breaking in and hearing, ‘Put the money back or I’ll call the police!’ I mean—come on, Zane, that’s brilliant.”

Zane didn’t look up. “Eli,” he said calmly, “if I ever get murdered, make sure my case doesn’t end up in your hands.”

Eli frowned mid-bite. “You underestimate birds.”

But Zane’s smile faded as his eyes paused on a column in the newspaper. The headline wasn’t bold, tucked deep in the third page — but it sent a cold trickle down his spine.

"SEVERED HEAD DISCOVERED IN RIVERFRONT CITY — AUTHORITIES BAFFLED"

Zane’s brow furrowed. He scanned the article carefully.

"A dismembered human head was found yesterday near the banks of Riverfront’s central canal. Local authorities report the head shows signs of deliberate surgical detachment. No body has been recovered. No identification found. Investigations are ongoing."

He read it again. And again.

Before Eli could comment on the article himself, Zane’s phone rang — an old secure line that only a handful of people even knew existed.

He answered without hesitation.

A distorted voice greeted him. Calm. Unhurried.

“We have a situation. Your city. The South Bay industrial road. A body. No head.”

Zane’s eyes shifted from the paper to the fog outside the apartment window.

“It matches the Riverfront case, doesn’t it?” he said quietly.

“I can’t say,” the voice replied. “But I think you should take a look. They’re not connected officially… yet.”

The line went dead.

Zane didn’t move for a second. Then he stood slowly, slipping on his coat like a man accepting a private war.

Eli blinked. “Wait. You got that face. That face you get when someone’s died but not really died and now we’re going to chase shadows for three days without sleeping.”

Zane looked at him with a glimmer of amusement. “Close. Someone died. Twice.”

By noon, Zane and Eli stood beside the taped-off crime scene on South Bay road. The body had already been moved to forensics, but Zane was less interested in the corpse and more interested in the absence it left behind.

He stared at the concrete. No blood. No dragging. Just a rectangle of stillness where something had once been.

Rowan met them near the edge.

“You again,” he said to Zane, clearly not thrilled. “I didn’t call you.”

“No,” Zane replied calmly. “But someone smarter did.”

Rowan sighed but didn’t argue. He gestured to a data tablet. “Nothing useful so far. No ID, no signs of a struggle, no unusual tire marks. The area’s a dead zone — no cameras, no foot traffic after midnight. The body looked… placed.”

Zane nodded slowly. “You didn’t find the head?”

“No.”

Zane held up the newspaper and pointed to the article.

Rowan frowned as he read it. “Riverfront?”

“Too clean a coincidence,” Zane said. “Two cities. Two pieces of one man. And both left out in the open like puzzles waiting for someone to notice.”

Eli looked uneasy. “So, what now?”

Zane glanced up at the sky, the clouds hanging low and heavy with secrets.

“Now,” he said softly, “we find the people who don’t look guilty — and ask them why they’re so quiet.”

 "The Faces in the Fog"

The briefing room inside South Bay’s police headquarters was cold, sterile, and filled with frustration. Files lay scattered across the metal table, photographs clipped to folders with dates and red markings. Rowan paced the length of the room, while Eli sat with his feet tucked nervously under his chair, watching Zane flip through the documents like a man piecing together an ancient language.

“Ten people,” Rowan said, rubbing his temples. “That’s all we’ve got. Ten people either near the scene, in some proximity to the South Bay area that night, or connected loosely through pattern-based data from surveillance in the neighboring blocks.”

Zane looked up. “Any direct witnesses?”

Rowan snorted. “Not one. Either they saw nothing, or they’re lying.”

Zane gestured to the wall behind him where photographs of the ten individuals were pinned. Five stood on one side — their expressions hard, cagey, or unreadable. The other five looked almost innocent — a teacher, a bank employee, a city bus cleaner, a baker, and a musician.

Eli raised an eyebrow. “We’re really considering those five as suspects?”

Rowan grunted. “They were all within a two-mile radius that night. That's enough.”

Zane didn’t say anything. He stared at the five “unlikely” suspects with narrowed eyes.

“Sometimes the ones who don’t flinch,” he murmured, “are the ones who’ve already moved past guilt.”

Later that day, Zane sat in a quiet café near Central Avenue, a white porcelain cup in front of him untouched. The reflection of cars passed slowly across the café window. The city looked normal — clean, alive, unaware.

Across from him sat Lyra.

Her eyes were tired but sharp, as always. She placed a small sealed envelope on the table and slid it across.

“This came from a contact in Riverfront,” she said quietly. “Not official. But credible.”

Zane stayed quiet.

The second set of five — the “innocent” ones — were different.

They answered calmly. Smiled. Seemed helpful.

Too helpful.

Zane’s interviews were short. He asked strange questions.

To the teacher: “How do you teach children the difference between hiding and pretending?”

To the baker: “Have you ever baked something, burnt it, and thrown it away before anyone saw?”

To the musician: “What’s the difference between a wrong note and a silent one?”

The answers didn’t matter.

It was the pause before the answer Zane listened to.

Three days passed.

Tension rose.

Rowan pressed for results. Eli started losing faith in their process.

But Zane, as always, worked in silence — his notes full of patterns no one else could read.

Lyra met him twice more, each time bringing small, overlooked details:

One parking meter that registered a car without a license plate.

A streetlight camera that blinked off for exactly 3 minutes — the only gap in hours of footage.

A broken rearview mirror found near the South Bay fence line — with no prints.

“It’s like someone knew how to erase,” Lyra said during their third meeting, her voice hushed.

“Or someone used to being invisible,” Zane answered.

On the fourth evening, Zane finally laid everything out in Eli’s notebook.

Ten names.

Five with motives and means — but all too obvious.

Five with no known links — and no reason to lie.

Zane drew two simple symbols.

A lock.

And a key.

Eli frowned. “What are those?”

Zane tapped the lock. “What the case looks like.”

He tapped the key. “What it really is.”

The following morning, Rowan called in defeat. “We’ve hit a wall. I’ve already told the Chief. We’re closing this unless something new comes up by tonight.”

Zane was already dressed.

“Get them all here,” he said calmly. “Every single one of them. I’m going to tell you a story.”

"The Story No One Told"

The old conference hall at South Bay precinct had never seen this kind of audience.

Ten individuals sat in a semi-circle of cold metal chairs, each with a small paper tag pinned to their chest. No handcuffs. No visible accusations. Just tension. Sharp, quiet tension.

Detective Rowan stood near the back with folded arms. Lyra leaned against the far wall, watching silently, eyes constantly scanning every breath, every twitch.

Eli hovered near Zane, notebook clutched to his chest like a life jacket.

Zane stood in the center of the room, his overcoat swaying slightly with each step as he turned in slow circles, facing his audience like a professor before an unwilling class.

“No one here is under arrest,” he said gently. “You’re free to leave at any time. But I suggest you stay, because I’m about to tell you all a story. And in this story… two of you are murderers.”

The room didn’t move. No gasps. No shifting in chairs. Just silence, like the moment before a storm breaks.

Zane began to walk.

“Once upon a time,” he said, “a man tried to disappear. Maybe he had secrets. Maybe he had enemies. Maybe he simply didn’t want to exist anymore. But whatever the reason, he found people who could help.”

He paused beside the teacher, his eyes never quite meeting hers.

“Now these people were experts — professionals at vanishing without a trace. They took his name. Burned his records. Removed him from every database that ever held his face.”

He stepped away again.

“But then something changed. That man became… inconvenient. Maybe he knew too much. Or maybe he was meant to disappear forever, not just from the system — but from the world.”

He stopped beside the musician.

“So they split him,” Zane said softly. “Quite literally. Head and body. Two cities. Two messages.”

He looked at the group.

“One to make him unrecognizable. And one to make sure someone… noticed.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Zane didn’t look at him. He picked up a photograph — the one from Riverfront — and held it up.

“This wasn’t a warning. It was a dare. A challenge. A perfectly posed riddle.”

He walked to the center again.

“And like all riddles, it came from someone who didn’t want to be seen solving it — just watched.”

Zane’s tone changed, slightly sharper now.

“Let me tell you what I know: The body found in South Bay belonged to a man whose real name no longer exists. He vanished three months ago with help from professionals — and those same professionals killed him when the price of his silence rose too high.”

He turned suddenly, looking at the teacher again — but still not naming her.

“One of you helped find him a place to stay.”

To the bank clerk:

“One of you accessed his old financial data without triggering a flag.”

To the bus cleaner:

“One of you drove a route that night that didn’t match your schedule.”

He kept moving.

“And two of you — only two — were there when the decision was made that he had to die.”

Eli's pen froze mid-scribble. Lyra tilted her head slightly.

Zane continued, slowly now, letting every word settle.

“I don’t know what you called him. I don’t know what he did. But I do know this — when he died, it wasn’t just to silence him. It was to test us. To see if we’d notice. To see who was smart enough to follow the trail.”

He picked up a file and flipped it open. Inside was a timeline. A map. And a small silver key.

“This was found near the fence line,” he said. “The key opens a storage unit in Riverfront. Inside were burnt clothes, surgical gloves, and half an erased phone.”

He didn’t say who the unit was rented under.

He didn’t need to.

He was watching the reactions now — every blink, every twitch.

“I met someone who told me,” Zane went on, “that when a crime is too clean, it isn’t a crime. It’s a performance.”

He smiled faintly.

“And now we reach the final act.”

The room was holding its breath.

Zane placed both palms on the table, leaned slightly forward, and said:

“The murderers are sitting in this room. Right now.”

No one moved.

Zane looked slowly toward the “innocent” five.

He paused.

Then pointed toward the two on the far left.

“You,” he said gently. “And you. You were the final step.”

The two people didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.

For two full seconds — silence.

Then one of them bolted upright.

The other followed a heartbeat later.

They dashed for the exit — almost in sync — as if rehearsed.

But the door didn’t budge.

From outside, a dozen armed officers flooded in, weapons drawn.

Zane didn’t move an inch.

“I thought,” he said calmly, “that maybe you’d try to stay and act surprised. But some habits die harder than the men you kill.”

The suspects were restrained. Read their rights. Their names would hit the news by morning.

But the room remained silent for a moment longer — still holding its breath.

Then Eli whispered, “They were so… normal.”

Zane nodded slowly. “The best killers usually are.”

 "Shadows in the Mirror"

The interrogation room was small, windowless, and built to extract truths — not comfort.

The two suspects sat opposite each other, separated by silence and cold steel cuffs. Their names had finally been spoken aloud by the officers. But to Zane, they were still just the shadows behind the crime.

He didn’t enter immediately. He stood outside with Lyra and Eli, watching through the two-way mirror.

The first suspect — the woman — stared at the table with dead eyes. The second — the man — looked at the walls like he expected them to close in.

Rowan turned to Zane. “They’re not saying much. Neither has requested a lawyer. They just sit there.”

Zane folded his arms. “Because they’re not worried about getting out. They’re worried about what I’m going to say.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “You think they still think they’re in control?”

Zane didn’t answer.

He turned to Lyra. “Before I go in — tell me again about the apartment.”

Lyra handed him a folded note. “The place the victim stayed after disappearing. I checked. It was registered under a fake name — no prints, no personal items, no trace except one thing.”

Zane opened the note.

It was a scanned copy of a photograph — blurred, faded, but just visible enough to show the same two people now sitting behind the glass.

They weren’t strangers to the victim.

They were smiling with him.

Zane walked into the room slowly. He sat across the table, placed the photograph between them, and let the silence breathe.

“No questions,” he said softly. “Just one story. Mine.”

Neither suspect replied.

Zane began.

“Three months ago, a man wanted to disappear. Not because he was running, but because he was offered something — a new life. Clean, untraceable. In exchange for one simple thing: silence.”

He tapped the photograph.

“You two offered him that life. You trained him. Hid him. Cut ties with his past. You built new papers. Gave him cash. Taught him how to erase himself.”

He turned toward the woman.

“But he asked one question he shouldn’t have.”

To the man:

“And you both gave the wrong answer.”

He leaned in, quiet but cold.

“He wanted to leave. Change his mind. Back out. Maybe he fell in love. Maybe he got scared. Doesn’t matter.”

Zane flipped another page.

“What matters is — you didn’t let him.”

The woman’s eyes flickered, but only slightly.

Zane continued.

“You killed him two weeks ago. Not in Riverfront. Not in South Bay. You killed him in a moving van between the two. You’d planned everything — including how to separate the pieces.”

Eli whispered from the hallway, “What?”

Zane didn’t stop.

“You dumped the body in South Bay. You sent the head — neatly packed, sealed — to Riverfront. You wanted them disconnected. You wanted chaos. And if no one ever connected the pieces, even better.”

He paused.

“But here’s the part you didn’t expect.”

He slid forward the silver key.

“You left the storage unit too early. You thought the timer on the camera glitch would buy you fifteen minutes. It only bought you three.”

He looked directly at them now.

“The mirror caught your license plate.”

That cracked something.

The man tensed. The woman looked away.

Zane stood up. “You won’t confess. That’s fine. You don’t need to. You’ve already written the ending.”

He turned to leave — but the woman finally spoke.

“You don’t understand,” she said, voice brittle.

Zane stopped.

“We didn’t kill him because he wanted to leave. We killed him because… he remembered.”

Zane slowly turned back.

“He started saying names,” she said. “Old names. Names that shouldn’t exist. Places we’d erased. Details no one should’ve had.”

The man looked sick now. “He wasn’t just a client. He’d worked for someone. Someone watching us. We panicked.”

Zane stared at them.

“You were afraid he’d un-erase you.”

The woman nodded.

“It was supposed to be one clean cut,” she said. “But nothing stays clean.”

Hours later, Zane sat with Lyra at a rooftop café, the city lights flickering below them like fireflies trapped in glass.

“So it wasn’t about identity,” Lyra said softly. “It was about erasure — and what’s left behind when you try to wipe a life away.”

Zane nodded slowly. “The more you try to vanish, the louder your shadow gets.”

He pulled out the photograph again — the one with the victim smiling beside the killers.

“You know the strangest thing?” he said. “He wasn’t scared. Not even in that last photo. He looked… peaceful.”

Lyra looked down at her coffee. “Maybe he thought he’d finally escaped.”

Zane didn’t answer.

He just stared into the distance, the echo of the case still hanging in the cold summer air.

 "The Silence That Remained"

Three days had passed since the arrests.

The media erupted with headlines:

“Double Killers Caught in Gruesome Dismemberment Mystery”

“Victim Identified as Ex-Government Operative Gone Missing”

“Zane Faulkner Cracks Another Impossible Puzzle”

But none of those headlines scratched the truth.

Because the truth was still... nameless.

Zane sat alone in his apartment library, the dim afternoon light slicing across the room through half-closed blinds. His overcoat hung behind him, still dusted faintly with ash from a long-forgotten cigarette he hadn’t finished.

Eli entered quietly, holding two cups of tea.

“I figured you’d be in your brooding phase.”

Zane looked up and gave a small smile. “It’s not brooding. It’s... remembering.”

Eli handed him the cup and sat down. “So, what was it this time? Greed? Fear? Old vendettas?”

Zane shook his head slowly. “It was ghosts.”

Eli blinked. “Ghosts?”

Zane nodded. “Ghosts of information. Of secrets. You see, they didn’t just kill a man. They tried to kill what he remembered. But memory is stubborn. It doesn’t vanish — it echoes.”

He picked up the case file from the table — still thick, still incomplete.

“Even now,” he said, “we don’t know who he really was. Only that others wanted him forgotten.”

Eli looked unsettled. “You think they were hired?”

“No doubt,” Zane said. “Those two were only the blades. The hand holding the knife is still out there.”

Later that evening, Lyra joined them. She carried a small flash drive and a grim look.

“I did some digging,” she said quietly. “That photograph of the victim with the killers — it wasn’t the only one.”

She placed the flash drive on the table and plugged it into Zane’s tablet.

The screen lit up.

Dozens of photos. All from different times, different places. The same man, but always with people who shouldn’t exist. Fugitives. Deep-state ghosts. Ex-intelligence operatives long believed dead.

Eli whispered, “He was part of something bigger.”

Zane nodded. “He wasn’t running from something. He was being extracted. Protected. Until someone decided his memories weren’t worth the risk.”

Lyra added, “And now that he’s gone, no one’s left to explain what he knew.”

The city moved on.

Cases piled up. New crimes emerged.

But The Hollow Crime stayed unshelved in Zane’s mind.

Not because the killers had escaped — they hadn’t.

Not because the mystery wasn’t solved — it was, at least officially.

But because of one quiet question that still lingered:

“Who wanted the silence?”

Weeks later, Zane stood at the South Bay bridge, the same spot where the headless body had first been found. The wind was stronger now, colder. The streetlights buzzed faintly.

Lyra stood beside him.

“There’s talk,” she said softly. “Rumors in certain corners. That the man we found wasn’t the only one. That there are others — erased, lost, split between cities.”

Zane didn’t reply for a moment. Then:

“Then we won’t stop at solving one.”

Lyra turned to him. “You’re going to chase the source.”

Zane looked out at the fog.

“No,” he said. “I’m going to let it chase me.”

Back at the apartment, Eli had tacked the final photo of the case onto their wall of past investigations. He stepped back and sighed.

Zane walked in, removed his coat, and for once, poured himself a drink.

“Another case closed,” Eli muttered. “And yet...”

Zane finished the sentence:

“It feels like it just began.”

He took a sip and looked at the wall.

"The Hollow Crime,” he said, “was never about one murder. It was a fracture. A leak. A clue left by a dying man for someone to notice.”

Eli leaned forward. “So, what now?”

Zane smiled faintly.

“Now we listen more closely… for the next silence.”

THE END