by Leslie Wolfe
“Got it. Thanks, Doc.”
“I’m not done yet,” Doc replied, then stood up with a groan. “This isn’t your primary crime scene.”
“I didn’t think so,” Michowsky confirmed.
“She was moved, a few hours after she was killed. There’s livor mortis on her breasts, inner arms, abdomen, and feet.”
“Huh… that doesn’t make sense,” Michowsky said, speaking more to himself.
“Yes, it does, if you picture her bent over a table or a high bed, with her ankles tied to the posts, and her wrists tied forward. After she died, she was left in that position for at least three or four hours, judging by the levels of set lividity. The blood pooled in the areas touching support surfaces: her feet, arms, chest, and abdomen. Then she was moved in this position we see here, prior to full onset of rigor mortis.”
“You’re saying, dumped here, while almost in rigor? Are you sure?”
“Very,” Doc Rizza sighed and shot Michowsky an almost offended look. “There’s absolutely no sign of insect activity, and no sand or dust settled on her skin. She hasn’t been here long.”
“That’s ballsy,” Michowsky replied, pointing his flashlight into the thick forest stretching behind the Trask property line. “What’s that way?”
AJ, Doc Rizza’s assistant, approached with his smartphone in hand, and showed the two men the screen. They saw a satellite view of the area, with a little blue dot marking their position, at the edge of the home’s backyard.
“There’s nothing but this stretch of woods, up to the highway behind it. It’s not even that far to the road; maybe 100 feet or so in a straight line,” AJ explained. “I guess he came through there, not through the street.”
“Don’t guess, AJ,” Doc Rizza scolded him in a parental tone. “That’s not what we do.”
AJ’s shoulders dropped. “Sorry, Doc.”
“You might be right, though,” Michowsky said. “It’s the logical way to get here unseen, especially when carrying a body. You can’t just pull your car to the curb and enter the backyard via the sensor-floodlights pathway, and in the eyes of the entire neighborhood, right? It’s not even that late. People are still coming and going.” He stretched his back a little. “I’ll get a search team started; we need to go over every inch of that patch of woods.”
“Still not done, Gary,” Doc intervened. “See this ring? It’s a little loose on her finger, and it’s thinner than the tan line. Ask the husband if this was hers; I, for one, don’t think so. I’ll get prints and trace started on it anyway.”
Doc carefully removed the ring and put it in an evidence bag, then sealed it and signed the seal. Michowsky took a picture of the ring with his phone, then Doc put the evidence bag together with all the other evidence, in the collection bin.
Michowsky scratched his furrowed brow, then ran his hand over his buzz-cut hair.
“Why bring her here, Doc? Why risk it? She’s been missing for a week; this is the last place anyone would have looked.”
Doc Rizza sighed, and sadness touched his eyes. “I can’t answer that for you, Gary, but I know someone who can. If not today, then soon. Fradella told me she came out of surgery a couple of hours ago. How is Tess? Have you seen her?”
“Yeah, through a window. She’s…” His voice trailed off.
“She’s going to be fine,” Doc said. “That’s what I’m hearing. Fradella’s been texting me every hour with updates.”
Michowsky watched for a few seconds as AJ prepared the body bag, and Doc Rizza packed up his utensils. “Where’s Buchanan, do you know?” he finally asked.
“Who?”
“Gloria Buchanan, the missing persons detective who handled Lisa Trask’s disappearance.”
“Ahh…” Doc Rizza replied. “My apologies. You see, I mostly cross paths with homicide detectives in my line of work. I think she’s over there, talking with Mr. Trask.”
Michowsky turned and located Buchanan. She stood near the home’s back door, facing a young man holding a toddler in his arms. The young boy, oblivious to everything that went on, reached playfully for his father’s hair, grabbing fistfuls of it and tugging away.
He approached them and introduced himself. “Mr. Trask, I’m Detective Gary Michowsky, homicide. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
The man shook Michowsky’s hand. His eyes were red and swollen. “Ramos,” he said. “Enrique Ramos. My wife kept her last name and rarely used mine,” he added, avoiding Michowsky’s glance. “Her parents were, how can I put this, not happy with her ethnic choice of husband.”
“Oh, sorry about that; I didn’t know,” Michowsky said quickly.
Enrique shrugged and continued to look away, while his eyes welled up again. “She wasn’t there earlier,” he eventually said. “There’s no way she was there when I took the dog out. I came home from work, I took Buster out, but she… wasn’t there.”
“We know that,” Michowsky replied, in a gentle tone of voice. “There’s evidence that points to that fact. She was brought here very recently.”
“When did she die? Maybe if I had—”
“Mr. Ramos, there’s nothing you could have done,” Michowsky said. “Nothing. She died yesterday.”
“Oh, God…” His breath shuddered, escaping his chest with a sob. Then he forced some air back into his lungs and raised his eyes to meet Michowsky’s. “That’s exactly where she saw him, you know.”
“Saw whom?” Michowsky asked.
Detective Buchanan handed him an open case file. “The man with the rope. There was an open investigation on this address even before she went missing.”
Michowsky lifted his eyes from the file and looked at Enrique.
“A couple of days before disappearing, my wife saw a man back there. But it wasn’t the only time she’d seen him. First, she saw him in the office parking lot, when she was leaving work. She thought it was just some random creep. But after she saw him in our backyard, we called the police. No one did anything. Now she’s dead.”
Michowsky started to read the report in Buchanan’s case file, but then decided against it. “Can you tell me exactly what she saw?”
Enrique cleared his throat and sniffled quietly. “He was standing there, behind those shrubs. He was holding a piece of rope with his fisted hands, as if getting ready to strangle someone. I remember her saying the rope was coiled around his fists multiple times. He was looking straight at her. She was terrified. She screamed, but by the time I came outside, he was gone.”
Michowsky turned to Buchanan. “Any sketch? What did he look like?”
“None. Mrs. Trask didn’t see his face,” she replied, sounding a bit defensive. “We had nothing to go on. We logged the report though.”
“She said she could only see his hands and the rope. He kept his face hidden in the dark.” Enrique took a deep, shattered breath before continuing. “He strangled her, didn’t he?”
Michowsky averted his eyes for a split second. “We’ll know more once the autopsy is completed. Please, Mr. Ramos, take care of yourself and your son, and we’ll do everything in our power to catch the man who killed your wife.”
Enrique didn’t seem convinced, but lowered his head and turned toward the house.
“One more thing,” Michowsky said, pulling out his phone. “Was this her ring?”
The young man looked at the photo for less than a second.
“No, absolutely not. She wore her wedding ring every day. It had a thick, gold band and three diamonds. I’ve never seen this ring before.”
A Life
Melissa Henderson climbed behind the wheel of her red Acura and pulled the door shut. Then she let out a long sigh, and closed her eyes for a minute or two. Finally, some peace, after a long day’s hustle in the emergency room. She did catch a break that morning; she’d been assigned to care for a wounded federal agent, and that brought a nice change in scenery, the occasional break from the demanding ER shift.
She couldn’t linger too long though; she h
ad to rush home to her son. She started the engine and shifted into gear, getting ready to leave. Then she removed her nametag and let it drop into its usual place, in the center console cup holder. Not too long ago, she used to change out of her nurse’s outfit before leaving the hospital, to hang on to her individuality, her femininity. Now it didn’t make sense anymore; she was too tired, and no one looked at her anyway.
Her eyes stayed glued to the nametag; she picked it up again and ran her fingers across its shiny surface. M. Henderson, it read. How very appropriate. It was all him… all her life was about him these days, the man she’d married eight years ago, Derek Henderson. Only a single letter was about her, the M standing for her given name, Melissa. How accurately that nametag reflected the realities of her existence.
When had things turned so bad? She couldn’t remember, no matter how hard she tried. He’d been her very own Prince Charming, her own dark, tall, and handsome Mr. Right, sweeping her off her feet when she was a young nurse’s aide fresh out of school, and he was an accountant, finishing up his CMA certification. In a matter of days, they were seriously in love, and she still recalled his burning gaze as he undressed her, wanting her, craving her like a drug. She missed that heated gaze, the things it did to her body. She missed the man she’d fallen in love with.
Where does love like that disappear?
She felt a rebel tear form at the corner of her eye, and wiped it away angrily with the back of her hand. Too late for that. What was gone, was gone, but it hadn’t vanished overnight.
Between chores, work, long hours away from home, and raising their son, Charlie, none of that passion had survived. That’s how love dies, buried among recycle bin duty, folding lingerie, dishwasher cycles, and grocery shopping. PTA meetings, play dates, double shifts in the ER, taking a screaming kid to the dentist, and then finally home, after a shower, curled up in a ball on the couch, wishing she could sleep forever.
It wasn’t entirely her fault. Derek was ambitious, and she’d loved that about him, many years ago, before she understood that ambition would make him want more and more out of life, while giving less and less to their family. It started gradually, soon after Charlie was born, when she fought chronic sleep deprivation, more painful to bear than a physical ailment. He started staying in the office later and later each day, working more, dreaming of that big promotion he was going to get. It came, eventually, more than once. He was a forensic accounting investigator now, an expert auditor, making almost three times more money. He wasn’t happy though; it still wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
He was never there, not for her, not for Charlie. Even when their son was an infant, Derek nudged her to do all the chores, invoking her professional nursing skill as a mandatory qualification to change a diaper, or wipe a runny nose. He sat in front of his computer, working, and beckoned her whenever Charlie needed anything. “Melissa, he’s crying,” he’d say, without even looking in Charlie’s direction. “Melissa, he needs a new diaper. It stinks of shit in here. But you’re used to that, aren’t you?”
Yes, she got used to that, and soon stopped expecting anything from him. She was happy just to see him come home, smile briefly in her direction, pretend to care about Charlie for a minute, then disappear into his home office. For a while, she’d missed sharing life with him. Now she didn’t anymore; him out of the way meant she could move faster, go through chores quicker, and maybe, just maybe, catch half a movie with a TV dinner.
Soon there was no trace of passion left in their middle-class, boringly dysfunctional couple. Family life had stolen it away, eroding it day after endlessly overworked day. Outside of reading the occasional trashy novel during her hospital lunch breaks, there was no romance in her world anymore; all gone.
Still it was all acceptable to her, in some twisted way. Too tired to even assume she deserved better? Maybe… She sometimes wondered about that, what her life could have been, or could still be. What if she started over? What if…? But no, she couldn’t, not ever, do that to Charlie. That’s what she’d promised herself.
However, something had changed the day before, something causing her to wake up from her self-abandoning lethargy and see things differently. The night before, when Derek had come home from work, late as usual, he slapped Charlie across the face. Hard. So hard, he sent his little body tumbling across the room. It didn’t happen out of the blue; Charlie had spilled some OJ on his father’s white shirt, but that didn’t matter; there was no excuse. She would have washed and dried that shirt in no time, but Derek didn’t even ask. He didn’t make a sound, or say a word; he just turned toward his son, then his hand came down and delivered the blow without warning or precedent. His face was scrunched in anger and his eyes shot daggers of hatred and irritation. All she could do was get Charlie out of there, and eventually put him to bed, after two hours of inconsolable sobs.
That was the line she wasn’t going to let anyone cross. Not Derek, not any other man.
She hadn’t even noticed when she’d arrived home. She looked around out of habit, and didn’t see Derek’s car anywhere. It was too early for him anyway; these days he almost never got home before nine or ten at night.
She parked in the driveway and waved at the next-door neighbor, who smiled back and nodded her way. He seemed like a nice man; she wondered if he could hear their arguments through the closed windows, and cringed at the thought.
She rushed inside and hugged Charlie, putting a happiness in her voice she didn’t feel.
“Hey, there, young man, you know what you’re doing today? You don’t, do you?”
“No, Mommy, what?”
“You’re going on a big trip, baby. You’re going to visit Grandma, all the way to Arizona. You’ll go on a plane, all by yourself. Only grownups do that, you know?”
Charlie frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unsure what to think.
Melissa paid the sitter and sent her off with a thank you and a promise she’d call when she needed help again. Then she started putting a small suitcase together, with the bare necessities for her son’s travel.
Charlie stood in the bedroom door, watching her. “Are you coming with me, Mommy?”
“No, sweetie, not this time. Mommy can’t leave work just now. But Grandma will be there, waiting for you at the airport.”
She stopped counting underwear to give him another long hug, and swallowed a sob.
Charlie remained confused. “Are you sending me away because I made Daddy mad?”
She froze for a second, feeling her heart break. “No, Charlie, that’s not why. Grandma misses you, and she wanted to spend the spring and summer with you, before you go to school. She already bought you a lot of presents.”
A timid smile appeared on his lips.
“Yep, she’s got you a Batman action figure, and a Transformers robot too.”
“SpongeBob?”
“Absolutely!”
His smile stretched out, showing his missing teeth and making his eyes sparkle.
“I have a Transformer, Mommy. I want a Hatchimal now. I’ve seen one I like. It’s blue, with big, yellow eyes.”
“Well, tell Grandma when you see her, okay? She’ll take you shopping.”
“Cool,” he replied in an excited voice, proceeding to stomp his feet rhythmically in a dance of simple joy.
She zipped the small suitcase and took his hand. “Ready, baby? Let’s go. We don’t want to miss your flight.”
Melissa called her mother from the car. Hearing the sound of her voice made her want to cry, but that wasn’t the time nor the place for a meltdown. She took in a sharp breath of air.
“Mom? We’re on our way to the airport. Make sure you’re not late.”
“I’ll be there when the plane lands, don’t fret about it.”
“Call me when you have him, all right?”
“I will, Mel, I promise. He and I will get along just fine.” Silence took over the conversation for a second or two. “Are you all right,
honey? I’m worried about you.”
She couldn’t answer. She was too busy fighting back her tears. Eventually, she was able to articulate in a low, strangled voice, “Not now, Mom, okay?”
Half an hour later, a flight attendant took Charlie’s hand and walked him through the boarding gate onto the jetway. Melissa waved at him, although he couldn’t see her anymore, long after the gate had closed.
Cat
The man approached in a determined stride, walking so quickly it made his shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair wave with each step. His half-undone, Hawaiian shirt partially revealed a tribal tat, a stylized drawing of a tiger’s face, with hypnotizing eyes and long whiskers, imprinted on his chest. Somewhat faded by the passing of time, that ink job still drew everyone’s attention, turning heads, especially women’s. He wasn’t young, but he had an ageless, timeless quality that made him stand out. That, his military gait, and the look of fierce determination on his stubbly face made everyone he encountered on that endless hospital hallway move out of his way, then turn their heads to stare a little longer.
He stopped abruptly in front of Tess’s room, making both the uniformed officer guarding it and Fradella hop to their feet. The man grabbed the door handle and whispered in a low, menacing voice, “I’m going in.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that,” the officer replied. “Let’s see some identification.”
Fradella approached but stayed silent, observing, ready to intervene.
The man turned to Fradella and asked, “Didn’t you call me?”
Fradella hesitated for a second, then correlated the earlier call his partner had made in reference to Tess’s mysterious cat, with the tiger eyes staring at him from the man’s hairy chest. He took a step back, getting out of his way.
“No, that was my partner, Gary Michowsky. I’m Detective Todd Fradella, homicide.”
