QR Code Murders

Shots rang out and no one cared. Another shooting in Wilmington, Delaware surprised the wind. Rapper CoolBreeze Go Yo laid in his own blood pool. His phone illuminated with his girlfriend attempting to reach him.

Lead investigator on the team, Kim Jergerson took the phone as evidence. She slid the plastic bag into an even larger one and left it for the forensics team.

After the forensics team had left, Yawquisha Hudlin, armed with her smartphone and a butterfly knife approached the crime scene. The body was still laid out until the coroner showed up. A few officers stood by the body laughing and cracking jokes. Yawquisha ventured up to the body and looked at the right bicep of the rapper. She snapped the code and darted away from the scene.

She found her apartment and looked at the attributes of the slain would’ve been hip hop star. Her eyes pored over data as if she were sifting sand in the desert for precious metals.

She noticed that he was seventeen-years-old. His name was Jermeis Goler. His latest track was all over the social media scene. He was in line to sign a major deal with a music label based on the nine hundred thousand streams he had received for his hit single “Shooter Story.”

“You couldn’t quite get to a million, huh,” Jermeis.” She said to herself. Then she started turning on the lights and preparing her microphone. She donned a mask and turned on her VPN. She distorted the voice levels of her desktop sound system. She leaned into the screen.

“Tonight, we lost another warrior in the field. Jermeis “CoolBreeze Go Yo” Goler was forever silenced this evening. He was not even twenty. I matched the QR on his arm with the graffiti down the street. Everything checks out. This looks like a Speedthrough Gang hit. He had formerly been a member of the gang but had since committed his life to his music endeavors. Someone wanted to be among the growing list of Wilmington rappers put into the grave. I’ll have more as I gain more information.” She shut off everything and went to bed.

At the offices of the Delaware State Police Detective Kim Jergensen looked at the photos of Goler on the computer screen.

“Zoom in, please,” she directed.

“It looks like a QR Code.”

“I’m going to the morgue to see the body,” Kim announced.

Once she viewed the corpse, she snapped the same shot as Yawquisha but then Kim got an alert on her phone of an anonymous tipster in the area that had sent the Daily Delaware screenshots and information pertaining to the case.

“What the hell?”

More shots. Did anyone care? This was Killmington, Hellaware where nobody cared until it was their aunt, uncle, brother, sister, mother, father, daughter, or son. Another dead rapper. This time it was Kaynon “Lockdown” Withings. He was a bit more successful than Goler. He had over six million views on his song “Jungle Waiting.” Again, a QR Code was tatted on his right bicep.

Yawquisha waited once again for the right moment then…Kim popped out of the shadows.

“Let me see your hands!” Kim shouted, her service pistol held steadily in her hand.

Yawquisha was cooked. “Okay, okay. I’m going to place my phone on the ground.”

“You do that…hey! Slowly,” Kim commanded.

Yawquisha heeded the directive.

“Turn around slowly,” Kim was more reserved now.

Yawquisha looked straight at the detective.

“What are you doing at a crime scene? Do you have any credentials?”

“Just my butterfly knife and my smartphone.”

“Jesus. What are twenty?”

“Twenty-two.”

“And you still haven’t answered my other question. What are you snooping around here for?”