“They heard lots of screaming,” Sheriff’s Deputy Daly said as I tried to fix the crime scene tape. There wasn’t a good reason why it was up. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, and about a quarter mile down an old dirt road that encircled the large fields of soy.
“The farmhands?” I clarified, having somewhat heard the reason for my and my partner’s presence. It was the fact that the county line ended, and this particular dirt road was technically in the jurisdiction of the city, that we were called into what normally would be the local sheriff’s crime scene. The field back up to some ritzy hotels, and the interstate—which almost made this the state patrol’s problem. Almost.
Deputy Daly nodded. I know that, because I didn’t hear him say anything, but when I looked at him, he nodded again. “There’s lots of blood. All over the ground surrounding a campfire, only recently doused. Had to be last night—when they heard all the screaming.”
People who murdered people always seemed to have a hard time getting rid of the body. Some of the methods I’d heard and seen were downright awe-inspiringly stupid.
“They thought it was coyotes,” the deputy added.
My partner filled the bottom of his lip with his tongue. Like he wanted to fit in with Deputy Daly’s yokel appearance. He stood with his arms on his hips, ungratefully basking in the early sunlight. Then he said with a long sigh, “Coyotes aren’t really native to these parts. But I suppose a couple bad storms could push them 100 miles or so out of their habitat. It has been raining an awful bit.”
Detective Harper, had been my partner for a decade and a half. I know because he bought me an anniversary card last month… and I know, because I remembered to send flowers as well. He got a lot of shit from the captain when he saw them on his desk. Of course, I didn’t lay claim to them. I let Harper figured it out.
It didn’t take him long.
He had read my face like a Dr. Seuss book. Even formed his deduction in rhyme: Say it ain’t so, Alonso.
“And you’re sure it’s not deer blood?” I asked.
I probably deserved the irritated look from the deputy. But I also got the sense he was all too eager to pass this off to us. His patrol car’s keys jingled in his hands as he directed me further down the dirt road. I bet her couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Upon seeing the blood, I could tell why.
“You can kind of see where there was a fire, but they must’ve dug a hole, and covered it in before they took off. I didn’t dig into it, but you can see the ash there. Course I apologize for stepping on the tire tracks. I didn’t quite know what I would find down here,” Daly said.
“Show me the soles of your feet,” I said.
The deputy turned over one boot. Aside from the tracks he was making now, there were the tracks of his initial arrival, and his run back to his patrol car. He had sprinted. He feigned as smile as if realizing I had deduced his cowardice.
“What do you think, Alonso?” Harper asked me.
“I’ll wait on forensics, but I’m not sure why we were called in if there’s not body. Could’ve just been a loud party. I remember the white kids in high school coming out these parts for bonfires, pot and booze. Maybe it’s that.”
Deputy Daly snorted. “There’s not a whole body.”
“Keyword, Harper, my man just used the keyword,” I said.
“But he said, ‘whole’ implying some guy might’ve just lost his finger.”
“It’s his penis,” Detective Daly said. “A grown man’s penis.”
“Sounds like murder to me,” I said.
Harper looked at me and crossed his arm. “There was the crazed housewife in the ‘90s who threw her husband’s junk in a field. He was a live. Lost a lot of blood too.”
“It’s amazing how quickly things get out of hand,” I said.
Daly showed us just how out of hand. It was off to the side, in the tall uncut grass, just on the verge of rolling into a ditch that ran part of the dirt road. I wondered how the deputy spotted it. If it hadn’t been pointed out to me, I might’ve missed it given the distraction over the covered ashes in the center of the road. Maybe upon closer inspection I might’ve let my eyes wandered. But Daly must’ve just looked the wrong way when he stopped walking.
Then again, there was quite a bit of blood. It would’ve been obvious to start looking in that ditch for a body. Again, it was like the Easter Egg that I felt like I would’ve overlooked and found a year later.
“I wonder why they made all that effort to cover up their fire pit and then left all that blood lying around,” I said.
“Maybe it was too dark and they didn’t know there was blood everywhere,” Daly said.
“It was supposed to rain last night,” Harper said.
I nodded. That was a good explanation.
“We’ll get forensics in here on the blood. Confirm it matches the penis.”
Daly chortled.
Harper glared at him.
But the deputy said, “Look, I’m the only one on duty until 7 A.M. I really need to get back to the station.”
I nodded.
Harper held up an arm to slow the deputy’s sprint back to his patrol car.
“We’ll call you. We’ll probably have a few more questions about how you found the scene.”
As he said that our photographer arrived and dipped under the yellow crime scene. He shook his head at the tape and at me, as if I had wasted the supply marking off such an unpopular location. It was a road used by the farmers though. So it was the right thing to do.
But seeing as how we’d passed a couple of John Deere tractors on the other side of the main road, who were watching us turn up the dirt road, I had a sneaking suspicion they all knew not to come down here and do anything to the scene that might make us confuse their lack of documented status as a reason to be a person of interest.
Or maybe one of them was hoping we’d find and return his dick.
“This is our jurisdiction?” The crime photographer was Adam Gates. He was born and raised in the city and even the color of the dirt seemed to be new to him. He wasn’t giving the ground his full attention thought. There was an abrasive choir of birds complaining about the early sunrise. Gates glanced at them, cursed them a few times under his breath, putting on a good show of irritation.
Then he started taking pictures. Harper directed him. That’s Harper’s thing.
My thing was to crouch around and think.
There’s a narrative to every crime scene, but it’s like unfolding an onion. Even as you get through layer after layer, it’s still an onion. So they key was to find something between those layers. Something that wasn’t onion.
I walked past the scene. The deputy hadn’t taped off the other side of the dirt road. Probably because the road ended a ways down, and there was no other way in than the way we came. Still, it was virgin territory, and maybe I’d find the rest of that penis’ person on my way.
I actually don’t know much about scat. But I was sure most animal scat looked different than a steaming pile of human shit. Plus this had blood in it. And looked and smelled as fresh as our doused fire.
I whistled for Harper and Gates.
Gates took a picture of the feces, then stood up and shook his head at me and the heavens. I could tell he couldn’t believe he had to take a picture of shit. I guess that was still more disgusting than the battered and raped victims he normally had to photograph. Or maybe he thought of himself as some kind of artist and was above photographing poop.
I looked at Harper. He was cross armed and thoughtful. I didn’t bother him. “Gates, tell whoever is forensics today, to get over here. I want a sample of this.”
“You want me to just bring your gloves and bag?”
“Huh?”
“I’m pretty sure Cheryl doesn’t want to touch that pile of shit.”
I glared at him. In the pecking order detectives outranked just about everybody. Sometimes even our captains if we played our cards righ
t. Harper and I, were good at our job. We had no open cases, and even closed three cold cases in our fifteen years together. That was almost rock star status.
I didn’t have a doubt that we’d solve this one, too. But it was an odd change of scenery for us.
I stood next to Harper, waiting for him to divulge his thoughts. But after Cheryl from forensics arrived, and collected the feces into a plastic bag (with no sign of repulsion) he only said, “What do you think?”
“If it was a bunch of kids. Maybe one of them was cheating. Got his dick cut off by the jealous girl. People screamed and took off. No one wanted to be the rat that went to the police. But the ruckus is enough to wake up the farmhands living in the trailers on the other side of the main road. Probably call the hospital and find a guy admitted to the E.R.”
“Deputy did that,” Harper said. “He told me while you were out on your vision quest.”
I nodded. “I kind of misjudged him.”
“No, you didn’t. He’s still a fucking moron,” Harper said. “I know the nurse that works the night shift, if Deputy Slackjaw there didn’t sound legit, she wasn’t going to give him any info.”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m imagining him calling the hospital. ‘I done found a day-ick. A grown whole darn man peen-ass.”
Harper laughed, but it was more out of politeness.
“Something bothering you on this one?”
Harper shook his head. “Just tired. Kind of thinking maybe this isn’t one for us.”
“Not like we have anything else going on at the moment,” I said.
We wasted a couple of hours at the scene. There wasn’t much more evidence to be found. Once the scene had been properly photographed, we had an officer (who gleefully arrived on scene to help out) dig up the fire pit. It would be negligent not to send all of it off to be analyzed, but I was pretty sure it was just burnt logs. Still, we had it collected for future analysis if we started turning up dead ends.
That’s what good detectives are supposed to do.
Think ahead.
Harper didn’t want to call his friend the nurse until 8 P.M. Since she’d probably earned a night’s rest if she actually dealt with a man who had his penis cut off. So we stopped by the hospital and were answered with bulging eyes and raised eyebrows. No. No one had been admitted to the emergency room fitting our description.
“Sometimes that story doesn’t trickle down, immediately,” Harper said and assured me that he’d try his friend that evening just to confirm.
We were almost back to the station when forensics called.
It wasn’t Cheryl. It was Moody Megan. She had the voice of a chain-smoking caricature. Except I had first-hand knowledge that she wasn’t a smoker—just a bitch.
“Detective Alonso,” she said. ““The stool sample, and the blood are from two different individuals.”
“What do you mean?” I yelled because I swear she was hanging up after reporting the news.
“I mean, Detective Alonso, that this person digested a lot of someone else’s blood.”
“Like a vampire?”
Harper went pale as I made the suggestion. I shook my head to let him know I was exaggerating. But it didn’t seem to help.
“There was more than just blood in the stool, Detective Alonso. I think you will be looking for a cannibal.”
“Cannibal?”
Now Harper’s confusion shifted to one of fear. I’d never known the man to show fear. We’d talked about the things we were afraid of. That’s what partners who have been together for fifteen years do around year two or three. They break down over a beer and confess all sorts of shit.
Most of Harper and my fears were the same or variations; the most prominent one was shooting an innocent.
“Don’t you think we should pump the brakes,” Harper said. “A cannibal?”
“I’m not the scientist. If that’s the fact Moody Megan wants to give me, I’ve got to go by it. Whoever took that shit, ate a person.”
“Is that her expert opinion or is she trying to do our work?”
I smirked. That happened quite often actually. Most of the time, people were just really eager to help. Everyone loves playing armchair detective—just look at the primetime TV line up. But that’s where things get tricky for a detective. Sometimes, unknowingly, a person trying to help can plant the wrong seed, and as those primetime shows will remind the audience, timing is everything in solving a murder. Chasing the wrong path is the worst thing we could do.
“All lanes open, pal. What do you think?” I asked.
“I think I like the party and angry girlfriend storyline you were throwing about.”
“Me, too. I feel like that’s something we could laugh about later.”
Harper nodded, then added with his traditionally dark humor. “It’s pretty funny that they didn’t eat the dick, though, right?”
“Didn’t even take it home for leftovers,” I added.
Harper slunk back into our office. I’d strung up all the crime scene photos and received the full report on the fecal matter. I laid it on Harper’s desk so he could see, with what detail Moody Megan had confirmed her suspicion.
He glanced at it, but didn’t get into the details, since he needed to sigh and groan and wiggle his tushy into his desk chair. None of this was abnormal, but it was always annoying. Fifteen years together, and of course there are things we do that annoy each other. There’s even things we do on purpose to annoy each other. I was sure Harper did this on purpose. If I had handed him the results, he would’ve read them. But I think he told me one time that he hated things just thrown on his desk, like his wife leaving him a Honey-Do-List taped to the beer fridge in his garage.
I asked him if he ever did all the chores on the list, he told me, he’d buy a six pack, stick it in the fridge in the kitchen, and pretend like he didn’t go out into the garage for a beer or two for weeks. Then do one of two chores but then find the list after the fact so that she thought he did it out of thoughtfulness.
Harper was a great source for managing one’s marriage. He’d been married straight out of high school, so he had eight or so years’ experience on top of my first mistake, and seemed so sure in his ways that I was convinced he could guide me through my second marriage.
He told me that the key to a good marriage is that both sides had to realize that the other person has things they prioritize differently. Be it, a husband who loves expensive cars, and a wife that things they should be more frugal, but loves to look her best with an assortment of $100+ handbags that match the outfit, occasion, and season. They have to respect that they want to spend money differently. If you can get over that, he says, a marriage can brave any obstacle.
He sure sounded right. My first marriage ended because I liked to spend my money on a few beers at bar and a couple of shots for the cute bartended, and my wife wanted to spend it on her yoga instructor’s get rich scheme. For some reason, I just couldn’t tolerate her priorities and she couldn’t tolerate mine.
“You don’t put Pirelli’s on a tractor,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The tire tracks, I matched them to Pirelli’s.”
“So, back to your first theory, this says we’re looking for some rich kids who like to party out in the country.”
“Not far into the country—remember, it’s our case,” I said.
“I saw a set of Pirelli’s on a Ford Focus once,” Harper said.
“Woman driver?”
“Young and pretty,” he said.
“Fucking mechanics.”
Harper didn’t drink coffee. It upset his stomach. He liked teas. He had an electric teapot plugged in at his desk. And despite it being something he was quite aware of. He always touched it on accident.
“Shit,” he said, and shook his hand. He groaned and asked, “Anything else?” He kept cursing, quietly, so I let him finish before I said more.
“I got a ti
p from a C.I. from the university. Says he knows about that spot. Says lots of people like it because it’s close to the hotels. Thing is you get a hotel room, and get trashed out in the field, and then wander back through the woods late at night. He thought we might find some clues between the field and hotels. Care to let me drive?”
“I’ve got to take a huge dump,” Harper said. “We going right now?”
“It can probably wait five minutes.”
Harper laughed. “Give me ten.”
Forty-five minutes later. We’re wandering the woods over spent cigarette butts and beer, wine and liquor bottles with faded labels. There wasn’t a fence to get into the Hotel parking lot, just a guardrail, maybe eighteen inches off the ground. Gray spray paint had been used to blotch out quite a bit of graffiti, and that added to the fact that it seemed like this trail path hadn’t been used recently.
It felt like a dead end, until I saw Pirelli’s.
The BMW’s tinted windows weren’t legal. It felt like the best mistake a person of interest could make. I was feeling real good about myself, until I saw another set of Pirellis, and then another and another. In total, 5 cars and one SUV adorned the high priced tires.
Harper patted my back. “And here I thought you broke the fucking case.”
“It’s 6 vehicles. Not a fucking haystack,” I said.
He nodded and we inquired within the three hotels, they matched the plates to room numbers. It was nice to deal with people so cooperative and while we didn’t go knocking on the hotel doors, we staked out our 6 vehicles in the parking lot, and tried to narrow our search by getting some analysis on the wheelbase from our crime scene photos. While our teammates back at the station figured that out I got dinner.
Harper said he’d lost his appetite.
I was doing fine until I gave his loss of appetite more thought and then suddenly my meatball sub seemed like a bad choice. I get mad on more than just a daily basis, but I probably only get drunk and angry on a weekly basis. When I do that, I’m usually pissed off about something that just seems too stupid to be going on in this day and age. And that’s how I felt now. We live in the future with smartphones, 3-D printers, internet porn, and grocery stores of every variety serving food from across the globe. People shouldn’t be eating people. This is the future, damn it.
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