Murder in area covered by senior detective? (8)
I believe the answer is:
dispatch
'murder' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'area covered by senior detective?' is the wordplay.
'area' becomes 'patch' (patch is a kind of area).
'covered by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (on top of in a down clue).
'senior detective?' becomes 'dis' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'patch' after 'dis' is 'DISPATCH'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dispatch that I've seen before include "Send with speed" , "Communication" , "Execution" , "alacrity" , "Send promptly; murder" .)