A Study in Gas - Ch. 1 (January 2025)

Never in her twenty years working on the force did Detective Margo Layne see something this weird. It was not grotesque, it was not bloody, it was not even murder. Just plain fucking weird.

            The victim, thirty-two-year-old Tisha Reems, laid sprawled on the hotel bed with her ankles and wrists tied to the bedposts. She was alive, but in a lot of pain moaning and groaning from a grossly distended belly that had broken through her jeans. Margo had thought the woman was pregnant but when the EMT came, he said that was not the case. It was all gas. EMTs tend to be really jaded. Despite Tisha’s pleas to be easy, the EMT patted her belly and said, “Never seen anything like this. She’s filled up like a balloon. She should be dead…or…maybe her intestines are about to burst as we speak. Dunno. We’ll see.”

            Tisha started weeping. Margo grimaced. Somehow this was more disturbing that anything she had seen, and she had seen dead bodies in bloody bathtubs. The casual manner in which the EMT discussed her potential death was downright insensitive.

            The other EMTs brought in the stretcher. They cut the ropes gently and fumbled a bit trying to figure out how to best place Tisha on the stretcher. The other cops in the room were busy scanning the room for any clues. Margo was the only one not doing anything, just staring at the awkward endeavor in front of her. They laid her on her side and three people gently slid her off the bed onto the stretcher. Tisha immediately hugged her belly and moaned and moaned. They needed to strap her in but she fiercely rejected the notion of having a belt around her belly. The EMT had tried anyway, and Tisha suddenly let out the grossest fart that Margo had ever heard. The entire room fell silent, and even the cops glanced behind their shoulders and snickered. Margo put a handkerchief to her nose – the smell was deathly. The fart dragged on for a full minute. Tisha laid in a fetal position, lifting one leg for maximum expulsion.

            The EMT blinked and his eyes teared up. He coughed and went, “WHOOO-WEEE. Wow.” He fanned the air around them.

            Tisha finally said her first words since they found her. “Ohhhh my God. I feel so much better. Oh. Ugh. Ugggghhh. Sorry about that.”

            The EMT laughed. “Don’t worry. Better out than in!”

            They were able to buckle her up and finally wheel her out.

            Margo watched them leave out into the parking lot.

            “Detective?”

            Sergeant Harry snapped her out of her musings. He was a young cop who nonetheless looked like he was aging fast with gray hairs on his chin and the sides of his head. Must have been working in such a fast-paced city with an out-of-control slums and greedy politicians who promised too much and gave too little.

            “You alright?” he asked.

            “Yeah. Just tired. How about you? Find anything?”

            Harry grimaced, slowly shaking his head. “Nothing.”

            “Prints? DNA?” When Harry still grimaced, she added, “A strand of hair?”

            “Nada. I mean, the team is going to be scrubbing the place inch by inch, probably until dawn, but so far it’s just like the others.”

            “This guy really covers his tracks well.”

            “All the victims who can recall something did say he either wears a mask or covers himself up a lot. Typically wears jumpsuits. That's when you know it's serious. Jumpsuits are professional”

            Margo bit her lip. “And they never meet in public. Else we could try to narrow things down with security camera footage. It’s all this online shit. This Discord bullshit and crypto crap.”

            Harry sighed. “Yep. Everyone’s hurtin’ for money these days. You tell people they could make a quick buck by doing something as weird but simple as farting – someone’s bound to bite.”

            The victims were always found in hotel rooms alone. This mysterious “mad gasser”, as some people were calling him, would contact people online and proposition an idea to make a quick handsome buck if they farted on camera. He’d goad the idea by giving them money before they even did anything as proof that he would pay them more if they would fart on camera. Of course, these people were piqued but embarrassed to go ahead with such a proposal. He would give them tips on how to be anonymous so that nobody could find out who they are on the Internet, namely suggesting a hotel so that the background was as generic as possible, and he even paid for their room ahead of time online. They had already tried checking IP addresses but everything led to dead ends through VPNs and no smoking gun on a stable location. He kept making screen name after screen name, deleting each previous one. Margo theorized this guy did all his work on public computers in libraries. That was one possible lead she had on her backburner. She had actually planned to visit a local library and ask for security camera footage, but then this victim showed up after the hotel maid called the police.

            Another possible lead she touted was that the perp clearly had a lot of money to throw away. He could have been upper-middle class or filthy stinking rich. It was always the rich people who did the weirdest shit.

            “Let me know how Tisha does,” Margo said. “I want to talk to her when she’s feeling better.”