Deep Water
"I hate cops," Joe grumbled to himself. "Make the whole place antsy. Bad for business is what they are!"
The man was right. A thick fog of anxiety had enveloped the diner on that early February morning. All because of the dark figure sitting stiffly in the booth at the end of the diner.
Jack smiled to himself as he sipped his morning brew.
This "cop" wasn't a cop at all. In fact, he wasn't even an official member of the police force. Jack Dorian was the guy the police called when they needed assistance on a particularly difficult case. And for being the largest task force in the state, the NYPD needed a lot of assistance.
The early morning sun pierced through the smog outside into the small diner, blinding the few customers inside.
"Time to be off. Don't wanna miss all the hype at the station." Dorian slid from the booth and dropped a couple dimes on the table to pay for his coffee.
Five different pairs of eyes followed him as he trudged to the exit.
"Thanks for the coffee. Best I've had in a while." He mumbled to barman.
"Yuh-huh. Anytime." Joe replied, giving Jack a look out of the corner of his eye that said he wasn't meant to accept that invitation.
The bells above the door jangled as Dorian left the establishment. Five patrons let out deep sighs of relief. They didn't know that man, but they were glad he was gone.
As Jack stepped out onto the sidewalk, he breathed in the smells of the Big Apple. No matter how gruesome the war in Europe was reported to be, he could always rely on Uncle Sam to protect his beloved city.
"Jack! Jack, over here!" A voice rang out over the hustling crowd of men off to work.
Dorian peered in the direction the voice had come from and saw a chubby boy of fifteen jumping up and down, struggling against the wave of people.
"Ricky? It's 9:00a.m. You should be in school right now." Jack admonished.
"I know, I know. But once I heard the news I had to come and tell you. It's just luck that I happened to come upon you here." Rick said excitedly.
"Well what's so important that you would skip out on morning classes?"
The boy frowned. "I'd skip morning classes for anything, Mr. Dorian."
"Don't let your mother hear you say that. She'd give you a good lashing if she found out you did." Dorian smirked, ruffling the youth's hair. "But what is so incredibly important?"
Ricky's eyes lit up again with the afore mentioned excitement.
"You won't believe what they've found down by the East River last night. Bodies everywhere. They aren't letting any ships through and they say it looks like a mass h-...hom-...a lot of people were killed."
"Mass homicide?" Jack inquired, surprised.
"Yeah! That's it. My uncle told me this morning. Said the medical examiners were out all last night trying to find a cause of death. You should get down there quick, Mr. Dorian. The police need your help. Again." Ricky informed, looking up at Jack admiringly.
"Thanks, Rick. I'll do just that." Dorian hailed a taxi cab and climbed in. But before the cab could pull away, Jack rolled down the window and spoke again to Ricky. "Now get to school. I don't want to have to inform your mother."
Ricky grimaced, but waved to Jack and started towards the high school.
The taxi's old breaks squealed as the car came to a stop at the top of the embankment of the East River. Jack had seen the yellow police tape two blocks away.
He traversed the steep incline with much desired grace.
"What's happened?" Dorian asked the closest official.
"What does it look like? Ten dead bodies pulled out of the river at 11:00p.m. last night with no explanation." The man shrugged as he jotted notes down on his pad of paper.
"Cause of death? Identities? Anything?"
"Listen. I just started here last week. You want answers, go to the top." The rookie gestured to a big man standing with four others. His bulbous stomach was barely contained by his sagging belt.
Jack strode over to the group of men and cleared his throat for attention.
"Ah! Dorian! Just the man I wanted to see at a time like this. Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce the pride of this police force. Jack Dorian." The big man slapped the slender man on the back with immense force.
"Gentlemen." Jack acknowledged with a slight nod. "What's the problem here, Chief?"
William "Chief" McClerick tugged at his sagging pant line.
"The problem here, Jack, is that we've got ten unidentified bodies without a cause of death. Medical examiners checked 'em all and couldn't find a scratch on any of them. Seems they just kicked the bucket on their own accord."
Dorian let out a gust of exasperated air.
"And they were all pulled out of the river?"
"Yeah. How do ya figure that, huh? All this time these people have been floatin' around in this river without any of us knowin'." McClerick hefted his belt up again.
Jack studied said people from where he was. There wasn't much to them. Only shallow corpses with dead, sunken eye sockets peering out at the living world.
One corpse caught Dorian's attention. Or rather, something around the corpse's decayed neck.  
"Sir." He motioned for Chief to follow him to the line of bodies. "I-...I know this woman." Jack freed the rusted chain from around the neck and brought it closer for better inspection.
"How can you know this person just from some trinket?" William inquired, doubtful of Jack.
"I gave this "trinket" to my mother when I was 16. She wore it everyday until she..." Dorian trailed off, still staring intently at the small, round disk attached to the chain.
"Until she what? What's wrong with you, Dorian?"
Jack snapped his attention to McClerick.
"My mother killed herself when I was 18, sir. Jump of that bridge." He pointed at the narrow bridge spanning the river a couple feet down the river from them. "That corpse is her."
Chief's thick eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"I believe I've solved your case, sir. Not mass homicide. Simply, mass suicide. And by the number of people that kill themselves everyday in this city, I'd say we have half a days worth of victims." Jack said icily. The look in his eyes proved he had long ago suppressed his emotions concerning this matter.  
He slid the tarnished necklace into his pocket and started up the embankment towards the street.
William stared after Dorian for only a moment until his police instincts kicked in.
"Okay, people, case closed! Let's bag and tag, gentlemen. Gotta get these people to the morgue."