by K A Goodsell
I knew what crime scenes looked like. I had seen them plenty online, on TV shows, and in pictures my father had for his job. But seeing a crime scene with my own two eyes was some other feeling entirely. When I saw these scenes in pictures, it wasn’t real. It was just something that happened. Something detached me from it. But seeing it in real life felt, well, real.
A slight wave of guilt came over me as I realized how that sounded. The photos my father showed me were of real people, too. They had lost their lives, too. It was that I wasn’t affected by it personally. I didn’t have to see how the body was being dragged out of the water.
I wasn’t sure if my funk was because of the murder scene or what had happened the night before. It could have been, honestly. But what kept me grounded was the thought I would be fine, that this would be solved, and that after the crime scene, it would be business as usual.
Crew surrounded the dock in light yellow hazmat suits, walking around with evidence bags and cameras. My father parked just outside the taped-off area, cutting the engine.
One more time, he turned, asking if I was okay. There was a dullness to his usually bright green eyes, as if he was tired from the day already, but he wanted to make sure I was comfortable and ready for whatever the case may bring.
“Yeah,” My vision felt out of tune. “It’s… I rarely see the people before they’re cleaned up. Or where they died. I feel like seeing someone where they died and how they died is a whole new level for me.”
“It gets better,” my father started. It sounded like he had something else to add, but he trailed off, looking in front of us. “It’s like ripping a band aid off, honestly. It may get better, but you still have to force yourself out of the car at each scene. You have to not think about it and do it.”
I nodded. Like a band aid—covered in hair and freshly applied, so it would hurt horribly when I ripped it. Got it.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
“Just know that if anything gets too much for you, you can come back to the car and sit, okay? You’re not being forced to see anything you don’t want to.”
“I know,” I said, giving his hand a grateful squeeze. I knew that I wouldn’t come back to the car for any reason, though. I needed to do this if I was going to be respected by the mayor or anyone in the field, for that matter.
I almost tripped stepping out of the car but caught myself. I hoped I wouldn’t do that when we got closer to the scene.
Trailing behind my father, I made my way under the yellow tape around the scene.
Two deputies asked me to step to my right as I passed coned-off shoe marks in the soil. They looked like boots made them. Not large feet, but average. Next to the last mark was a small log and a slip mark in the mud as if someone had lost their traction.
My heart was already beating out of my chest, but I kept telling myself that everything would be fine, repeating that it would be back to normal after this was over. That we would be back in my dad’s office and we would work together to solve the crime—things would be fine. Great, even.
But that changed as my father walked faster, getting to the body before me. I was in my own world until my father stopped dead in his tracks. I jumped, not knowing what was going on. He was usually one to walk right up to something, do what he needed to do, and leave. But he abruptly stopped where he was, turning his head. His eyes were wide.
My heart beat faster.
He shielded me, and I tried to step around him. “Dad?”
“Paislee, I think it’s best for you to stay over there for a minute,” he said.
“Why?”
The look in his eyes sent my heart into overdrive. I could tell that it was someone I knew.
I pushed past my father, I laid eyes on the body for the first time—and my heart stopped.
There, right on the edge of the lake, lay a muscular boy in a wet, dirty sweatshirt emblazoned with a Fighting Hedgehog, the mascot of our school’s football team. His blond hair was matted with mud and water, leaves intertwined between strands.
Elgort?
My eyes stung, and I knew that a breakdown was about to happen, and I wasn’t going to do anything to stop it.
Elgort. The boy I had broken up with but still loved. He was lying face-down in the mud. Murdered.
My father closed his eyes as if in prayer. He never prayed. He didn’t believe in that stuff.
It can’t be him. But those were his clothes from the night before, when we had sat in this exact spot.
As the group looked over the body, one deputy pulled a mud-covered black notebook out of the water. I watched as he placed it into a baggie and handed it to my father.
“Someone flip him over,” I begged. The tears welled in my eyes. “Please, someone. He can’t…” I paused, my breath slipping out from my lungs quicker than I could anticipate. “What if he can’t breathe?” I nearly whispered, catching myself. I looked around, and the world blurred as I realized no one was doing anything.
I was lunging forward, stumbling in the mud. One deputy caught me as I watched one of the crew in a hazmat suit flip the boy over at my father’s order.
And suddenly I was more confused than anything.
The boy in the mud wasn’t Elgort. He was Teddy from the football team. But he was wearing Elgort’s clothes? He looked like him.
“That’s not Elgort,” I said, eyes wide as I looked over at my father. “That’s Teddy Barton. I just saw him last night, I don’t understand.”
Though the guilt of my thoughts felt like a punch in the gut, I was relieved. It wasn’t Elgort. But this boy still had friends. He had a girlfriend. I was fairly sure he was getting a full ride to college for football. He had a future.
It’s not him. It’s not Elgort.
The morgue is usually a safe space, an oddly comforting place for me. But today it was hard to breathe through the swampy haze of gossip flowing from the sheriff’s office. Conversation about the body, the murder, and why I had been called in on the job—it wasn’t just a skull, after all—swam around me. I tried to force the whispers in one ear and out the other, but that was nearly impossible. Today the morgue wasn’t full of science and possibility; it was empty. Just like the bodies that sat awaiting my father in the freezer.
Velma, assistant to both my father and the sheriff, guided me down the hallway as if I’d never been here before even though she sees me almost four days a week. She’s a small woman, barely five feet tall with a pear-shaped body. The clothing she usually wears only helps accentuate her natural curves, but today she’s in scrubs. “I spilled my coffee on my dress this morning. You know how your father is with stains.”
I knew. Stains bothered him so much he’d make you change. He carried around a tide pen to help combat what he called “nasty reminder of past issues.” Something in the past had scarred him. I bet that’s why we never played soccer as kids—grass stains would have given the man a seizure. Until my brother became an all-around athlete, my siblings, and I practiced fencing, a dirt less and stainless sport. At least it taught me to wield a sword which I had to admit was cool.
“You need anything?” Velma placed her hand on my forearm as I quickened my pace toward my father’s office, a mere ten feet from us, but it felt like a thousand. “I just want to say that I’m here if you need anything. I know it must be hard to see someone you know like that.” There were looks at the scene earlier, whispers, about my closeness to the victim, but hearing it to my face shook me.
“Thanks, but I’m fine.” I couldn’t look her for fear she would see the pain in my eyes. Salt stung my eyelids. “I’m just going to head into his office now.” My voice wavered, partially because of being upset and partially because I was scared of making a fool of myself in the hallway.
“Okay, I’ll bring you some tea, though.” She took out a notepad and a shiny, red pen covered in crystals to jot down a note before walking away.
I jiggled the doorknob. Locked. I winced and jiggled it again, feeling panic c
reep in.
Tag, who was following us, nodded at Velma and gestured for me to step back. He opened the door with his key, and I blew past him.
I flopped gracelessly into my father’s oversized desk chair and sank my head into the crook of my elbow a sigh that could compete with the Big Bad Wolf. Even the brick house would have been toast.
“We’re bringing the body in now to be with your father. He’s asked for a complete lockdown where he’s one-on-one. Do you want to sit in here for now or in another room?”
I looked up at Tag uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot trying not to make eye contact with me.
“You mean that you’re bringing him in now,” I corrected him, raising my eyebrow as he continued to look out into the hallway instead of at me. “Tag, are you asking me if I’d rather sit in here or in an interrogation room?”
He quickly peeked over at me and then away. “We have to ask you a few questions, but I thought you’d be more comfortable—”
“Here,” I sighed and put my face down again. The coolness of my sweatshirt against my warm forehead was a relief. Hopefully, it would fend off what was quickly turning into a killer migraine—no pun intended.
Tag nodded and left as Velma delivered my tea and exited, closing the door behind her. Finally, I was alone for at least a moment.
I pushed the tea bag around the Pine Grove Stuff-a-Truck mug. Watching the tea diffuse was therapeutic to me, more relaxing than anything except perhaps listening to music.
I pulled my knees to my chest, I rested my chin on my kneecaps. There were so many images, questions, and thoughts running through my mind I could barely control my breathing and blinking properly.
I looked between the door in front of me and my phone. I had texted Elgort after dragging myself into my dad’s truck when we left the scene. I wanted to receive something, anything, back from him. I knew now he was alive, but for an agonizing moment earlier, I had thought he wasn’t. I needed some confirmation.
I knew the boy at the lake was Teddy, that the figure lying face down in the mud wasn’t my Elgort. But what if something bad had happened to him, too, last night? What if he was outside, buried somewhere or still in the lake? Would I have to send a search party out for him if I didn’t hear from him? Would the sheriff have to scour the whole lake for more bodies?
And why was Teddy in the same clothing Elgort was in when I met up with him?
The office door opened, and my father walked in, Tag on his heels.
“Can I ask you a few questions?” Tag asked, pulling up a chair from the opposite side of the desk.
I nodded, lifting my head up from my legs and clearing my throat. “Shoot.”
Tag glanced up at me sharply. “I’ve heard that before. Not a good cop joke.”
I quickly looked over at my father, who was shaking his head, and my eyes widened. “That wasn’t supposed to be a joke. Sorry, just a saying. I swear.”
Tag cracked a smile. “It’s okay, Grimes. Relax.”
I caught my breath again and sighed, allowing the air deep in my diaphragm to release. “How come you want to ask me questions? I didn’t mean to touch him in the water. I was just upset, I thought it was my—” I paused, looking down at my hands. “Elgort.”
“No, it’s okay,” Tag said. “We were going to move the body—him—anyway. We already took our photos and notes.” He paused, looking over at my father before loosening the collar of his uniform slightly. He was just as nervous as I was. “When we were at the scene earlier, you said you saw the victim—”
“Teddy,” I corrected him, an edge to my voice.
“Sorry.” He paused again, clearing his throat. “You said you saw Teddy earlier. When and where was that?”
“At the dock last night around eleven,” I told them. I was going to be so grounded for leaving the house so late. My curfew was ten, no exceptions. “I was there with my best friend.”
“Raimy?” Tag asked. His tone changed into older brother mode. He would worry if Raimy was there late at night. Good thing he doesn’t know about the nights we went swimming after midnight.
“Elgort,” I clarified.
We had been right there, right on the dock my car’s headlights lights shining so we could see each other. It had been almost like daylight. Why hadn’t we seen anything weird?
“Sheriff O’Moore’s son?”
I nodded and watched as Tag’s eyes widened while he jotted down the name.
“I know,” I tell him, and he pauses. “So scandalous.” I couldn’t help that my tone came off snotty. Many people treated Elgort in that fashion, either because he was the star quarterback or because of his father’s status in town. It didn’t make him any different, did it? No.
“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary?” Tag asked.
I’d been wrapped up in my own world, but everything had been so silent. Even the frogs seemed to have been giving us space. I never heard any rustling of leaves, no sounds of any kind, really.
“No,” I said, realizing how terrifying it was that that the killer may have been nearby. “No, I have absolutely no idea if anyone else was there when we were. Other than you.”
My father’s head tilted toward Tag, and he immediately blushed. “I was there because we got a call about a noise disturbance.” My father didn’t break his eye contact with Tag, who shrugged at him. “A noise disturbance which was a bunch of people my age that I broke up and they left. It’s all documented in the paperwork, Max. Look it up. It’s also on video footage from my body cam.”
“What about earlier that night? When you got there, was there anyone around?”
“When we got there, some people were leaving, I guess your noise disturbance, and we saw a guy packing up his work truck. I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him doing handy work at the White Manor Inn. Your mom may be able to tell you who that was.”
He continued to jot down notes.
“There were a few other cars, but I didn’t see anyone else.”
“When did you end up leaving?”
I remembered the clock when I turned on the car. “I left around two in the morning and drove home. I can prove it.”
He stopped writing and looked at me over his glasses. “How?”
“She has a dash cam with a timestamp.” My father said, half smiling. I had pleaded not to have a dash cam installed in my car when he gave me the Volkswagen for my sixteenth birthday two years ago. I’d told him it was an invasion of privacy, and he’d said it was for my safety. I guess he was right.
The deputy nodded at my father. “If you could, get that footage to me as soon as you can.” His dark eyes met mine once again. “And Elgort?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what time he ended up going home. We haven’t talked since we were at the dock. He was still on the dock when I pulled out of the parking lot.” I looked down at my phone. “I tried texting him earlier to see if he was okay, but he hasn’t answered me.”
“Don’t contact him until we speak with him first.”
I squinted. “What?”
He stopped writing and looked at me. “You shouldn’t speak with him until we interview him. We want to get his complete side of the story.”
“Do you think I’m not telling you the truth?” I shake my head and look to my father for support. “Dad?”
The deputy put his hand out, trying to calm me. “That’s not it at all, Paislee. We just have to get everyone’s side. He may have seen something else after you left. I don’t want him to tell you and maybe not tell us.”
He wouldn’t do that. He’d tell them the truth. His father would kill him if he didn’t.
“Can you tell me about the clothing? You said it was the same at the scene.” He looked at his notepad again.
I nodded. “Yeah, they were wearing the same clothing. I mean, I know they’re both on the football team and could have the same sweatshirt but, they had on the same jeans, same shoes, everything. Maybe it was the stress of the scene and
my eyes were playing tricks on me, but you’ll be able to see what he was wearing in my dash cam footage. I was parked close enough you’d be able to see that.”
The room fell silent for a moment.
“I’m sure it was a different sweatshirt,” my father said. “Well, the same one, but his own. They all have the same ones, don’t they?”
I nodded.
“Paislee, don’t you even have that sweatshirt?”
I nodded even softer. Almost everyone who had some connection to the football team does.
“A sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers are a normal outfit for a teenager,” Tag said matter-of-factly. People think all teenagers are the same. Just like every adult is the same, right?
“Elgort hasn’t texted me back,” I said again dully. “Can you please have someone just confirm he’s okay?”
“We will have someone do a wellness check,” he assured me before flipping his notepad shut. “I know this is your friend, and I promise you we’ll make sure he’s well. But please do me the favor of not talking to him until we do. If something happened last night after you left, or even before, we need to know first.”
My eyes widened. He’d said he was at the lake beforehand. I looked between my father and the deputy, I tried to calm my racing heart. “Okay.”
The deputy stood up and turned to my father, shaking his hand. “May I send an officer to pick up her car for an inspection and to remove the dash cam temporarily?”
“Of course.”
“Wait, will I not have my car? I thought my dad was just going to give you the footage.” I stood up from the chair. “I need my car.”
“It’ll only be a day or two, Pais,” my father said. “You can use the truck for around town if you need it.”
“I don’t know how to drive stick,” I reminded him, nearly pleading. I wanted to go out to Yale this weekend with Raimy to walk around the campus together, since we’re both applying.
“Then you’re out of luck right now.” He shrugged. “We’ll deal with a mode of transportation later. This is more important.”
