Blackmail in the Internet Age/Wallingford/Sun May 6/ 1:51 pm: "I have you on videotape. I want 2 Gs. You have 45 minutes to bring the money or else I'm turning the tape over to the police," a man typed into his two-way pager before pressing "send." Seconds later, a woman on the other side of town received the message on her pager. She recognized the name of the sender (he was the ex-lover of her close friend), but she had no idea what he was talking about. She typed a message to him requesting more information and pressed "send." The man received the electric letter, read it, and wrote a longer message explaining these facts: She had done damage to the paint of his car and he had captured her doing this on videotape. The police were now at his home asking questions, and he would turn over the videotape if she did not meet him in 45 minutes with two Gs. He then pressed "send." The woman received the letter, read it, and drove to his apartment.

She met her blackmailer in the parking lot of his apartment building. To help her appreciate the gravity of the moment, he raised his shirt and revealed a gun. He had the incriminating videotape in his right hand. The woman pleaded that she didn't have that kind of money on her, that she needed more time; she had to make phone calls, borrow from her family, see what she had in the bank. But she didn't have a dime on her right now. She then got into her car and drove away from the scene. Minutes later, another e-mail message hit her pager. She looked at the screen. It was her blackmailer demanding that she come back to his place with the money or else.

Real Change/Downtown/Sun May 6/5:17 pm: After arresting a man and woman for lewd activity in a public area, Officer Mark Stanely began this investigation: "They both stated that they understood their rights, and he stated that he gave her $10 in exchange for oral sex. She said that she purchased cigarettes with the money. I asked her where the change was. She said the change was in her right pocket. I searched the pocket and located $4.86 and a receipt from a mini-market. The receipt indicated that a grocery item was purchased for $1.58, and taxable grocery item was purchased for $3.50. I asked if this was the receipt for the cigarettes. She said it was. This verified her statement that she purchased the cigarettes with the $10 that she made [from the blow job]."

The Remains of a Crime/Shoreline/Wed May 9/10 pm: A Shoreline man contacted the King County Sheriff's Office after noticing large, well-fed flies clumsily buzzing inside of an empty car. The car's trunk also had a smelly odor. A few minutes later the sheriffs arrived, opened the trunk, and found no dead man, but dead maggots and human bloodstains. Everything in the funky trunk screamed murder! There was an empty bottle of Febreeze, a military pistol belt, a gray shirt, a piece of duct tape, a black-handled serrated knife, a few bloodied tools, and, most significantly, the trunk's carpet was missing. The mysterious incident was referred to the Seattle Police Department because the car was just within city limits.

The Other Crime/Central District/Fri May 11/2:22 am: Late tonight, Officer Biggs was dispatched to an assault call at 22nd and Madison. A man was down and bleeding. While he attended to the man's injuries, an unknown male approached him and gave him a black-handled steak knife whose blade was dripping with fresh blood. The stranger explained that the knife had nothing to do with him or the man moaning on the ground (he was beaten instead of stabbed). The knife came from another unknown man down the street who had just handed it off and fled. The officer accepted the knife from the other crime, placed it into evidence, called for backup, and returned to the needs of the man bleeding on the city street.