Fishing my phone out of my jeans, I look at the number and I shake my head. No, this isn’t possible. He has to be calling to see if I looked over the reports and the files. He has to be nagging me to get on board with his line of thinking, maybe even to suggest that he’ll come walk me through this shit like I’m some sort of rookie prick. I don’t have time to be watched. God, I hope that it’s just him nagging at me. I flip open the phone and hit the talk button, holding it to my ear. “What’s up, Owens?” I turn away from all the others.
“We’ve got another,” Owens says without any greetings or hello. God, it’s exactly what I didn’t want to hear. Rubbing my head, trying to comprehend what I’ve gotten into.
“That’s not possible,” I say, shaking my head.
“I’ve got another victim that says otherwise,” Owens says to me with a hushed voice.
“Who caught the case?” I look around to see if there’s anyone missing. At any given time, there are only a handful of detectives in the bull pen. Most are roaming around the city talking to witnesses, next of kin, and suspects.
“Don’t know yet,” Owens answers. “You’ve got a half hour lead before someone gets here. Pitman is calling it in right now.”
“Goddamn it, give me the address.” I grab a pen and scribble down the address before hanging up on him. This is not what I signed up for. These assholes are going to owe me big time if I have to lose more sleep over this. I don’t want my last month on the job to be one that’s full of blood, stress, and bodies.
I hop into my Shelby and roar out of the parking lot, past the squad cars and the minivans, before I pull out onto the busy streets. The front of the building is littered with people being released, victims demanding more be done for them, concerned citizens making life harder, lawyers going to their various clients, and officers going about their business. It’s a madhouse at the front of the precinct and I’m completely fine with putting it behind me for a few hours to dismiss whatever it is that Owens is going to try and convince me of.
My half hour lead is dwindling, thanks to traffic. By the time I find the apartments that Owens told me about, there’s already a sea of people standing around, trying to get a look at the scene. I’ve always been disgusted by the people that linger around crime scenes, trying to get a hint at what’s happening across the street. It’s the piece of human nature that makes me think that deep down inside, people are really just trash. Why do we need to know what’s going on in the houses of neighbors that we never knew, that we never cared about? Why do we see dead bodies in the shadows of garages across the way or suspect everyone of sinister, devious acts? I don’t approve of people expecting the worse of their neighbors.
But what really drives me mad are the ghouls and the vultures who chase ambulances and flashing lights. They follow the defenders of the peace to the crime scenes and hope to get pictures or scoops so they can post their filth and trash online so other ghouls and vultures can read it and get their kicks. There’s too many people out there who like to hear the stories about how someone ripped apart some girl on the way home or how a mother butchered her husband while he slept peacefully in their bed because he wouldn’t let her go out with the gals. They’re perverts that feed on the carnage and suffering of people. It’s madness and there’s no reason people should like that sort of thing.
I flash my ID to one of the uniforms who leads me in, telling everyone to scatter and get out of the way while I park up at the yellow line. Getting out of my Shelby, I lock her with a nervous feeling in the back of my mind. I hate it when there are crowds like this all around. I will pull out my pistol and end anyone who thinks that it’s cool to scratch my paint job. It’ll be the highlight of my day.
“Get these assholes out of here,” I tell the uniform closest to me.
Some dick with circular glasses and curly hair overhears me and shouts back at me, “We have just as much of a right to be here as you do.” The man’s holding up his smartphone, goading me into doing something stupid. This amateur probably thinks he’s some sort of liberal fighter for the common people, tearing down the walls of injustice and white oppression. I look at him, pulling off my aviators and approaching him. He stands his ground, holding his phone up like it’s some sort of shield to protect him. Fucking smartphones. Why do people need that much shit on them all the time? I wish the common Joe and Jane had a fucking clue how many times phones and computers end up being their downfall whenever they do something stupid.
“You get your kicks by getting pictures of dead people?” I ask the man, who looks up from his screen to me, and then back to his screen, making sure that he heard what it was he thought he heard. I take another step closer toward him.
“This is harassment, man,” the liberal dumbass chirps like a moron.
“No, kid, it isn’t,” I tell him blatantly. “So if you’re looking to run down to the precinct to file a report against me, then go ahead. Just make sure that you fill it out properly. Make sure you tell them that you showed up at a crime scene without any true reason to help the investigation, impeded my ability to get to the scene with all these other gawking morons, and then tell them how you take your videos, go home, stick your hands down your pants, and get off on it. Make sure you tell them how you’re all about the necrophilia and that way when IA comes to have a chat with me in a year, since they’re backlogged out their ears, then I’ll be able to remember your face. I just want you to make sure and get the most out of your experience with the police department.”
“You’re an asshole,” the liberal snaps, lowering his phone.
“No, you are.” I take another step toward him. “This is a fucking crime scene, dumbass. I’m not here because I’m infringing on your rights or because I want to give you a hard time. I’m here to do a job, to put back the wrongs done upon whoever is inside that building. If there’s anyone here who is an asshole, it’s the guy who is distracting me from doing my job by spilling his liberal, whiny shit all over my shoes when I’m just trying to do right by this city. So kindly go fuck yourself and get the hell out of here.” I turn from him and look at the surrounding faces. “Get the hell out of here, all of you! There’s not a damn thing for you to see here.”
They look at me like I’ve just shot their favorite puppy and slowly start to disperse. I don’t have time for this. Traffic was a nightmare and there’s probably two other detectives already in the apartment working and I’m now left holding my balls like a chump. Owens is nowhere to be seen, but I’m recognizing a few faces that were either at the last scene or at the archives. I look up at the apartments and wonder what this killer has for apartments.
A uniform holds the door open for me. There’s a detective talking with the property manager, who has his arms crossed and his face is pale. Someone definitely died here. There’s a sort of silent reverence in the air, the kind of silence that I picture lingering over a battlefield. I don’t think anyone ever becomes immune to the silence. It becomes an acquaintance that every detective and cop comes to recognize whenever they find a body. The whole world continues turning with each death, but there’s something that holds it back for a moment. Something that hangs in the air.
I already know who the detectives who caught the case are, probably since they tossed yesterday’s case back into the suicide pot before any real work had to be done. Evans stands like a tall, skinny goon next to the short property manager. I’ve never found Evans to be a particularly effective detective, but he was an excellent box man. He reminded me of myself in that regard. He knew how to get someone to break down. He knew how to get them to spill their guts and tears like it’s Christmas day for the DA.
The apartment building is nowhere near as nice as the other one, but it’s definitely nicer than the apartments I’ve seen in the area. This is the kind of place where college students and those just graduated, trying to get a grasp on life, show up to rent, pretending that they know what they’re doing in the real world, but still completely clueless as t
o how the real world works. There’s four apartments that surround a sort of central garden atrium that could have been nicer if someone actually tried to put some work into making the aesthetics appealing in this place.
There’s a certain gravity with me as I approach or maybe Evans can feel the pressure change, but he turns and looks at me. He’s a bald, black guy who was told as a child that white folks rule the world and that he has to act like one to get ahead. He’s the kind of racist that I think the world is filled with, the silent kind that only comes out when like for like starts showing up. He’ll talk with his buddies over a beer about his imagined grievances that he thinks he’s suffered over the years. His big bulgy eyes look me over and I can see his soul withering in the depths of his heart. I don’t like Evans, I never did, but at least he knows how to do the job semi-successfully.
“Thanks, Officer Ramsey will take your statement.” Evans passes off the property manager to a man I don’t recognize from Owens’s cabal of conspirators, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the entire force was in on this with him. He was that kind of a social butterfly that wouldn’t make me surprised. When the property manager was a reasonable distance away, Evans turns back to me and looks at me with a mix of annoyance and frustration. “What are you doing here? Did Waters call you?”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Did Evans and Waters now have the loving relationship that everyone pictured them having? Hell, I never suspected that the two got along. Waters was too by the book, and prone to wanting things to be bigger and stranger than reality permitted. She was determined to find that one case that was going to bring the whole corrupt city down around them. As for Evans, he was all about blending in, putting in fifteen more years and then retiring with a pension.
“I was in the area,” I shrug. “Figured I’d stop by and see what was up.”
“I heard you weren’t catching no more,” Evans nods, buying the lie.
“Not unless I want to,” I shrug at him. “It sounded good yesterday, but I’m already itching to find something to do. Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest,” Evans shakes his head, holding his notepad like it might give him some sort of clue how to interact with me. He won’t find it in there. I turn to make my way up the stairs to where a uniform is standing at the entrance of one of the apartments, monitoring the traffic in and out. He’s the sentinel that stands at attention when you die. I start to head that way when Evans calls me back. “Did one of these assholes call you?” Evans looks at me with a studious, discerning look. He’s trying to read me.
I don’t give him anything. “Like I said,” I say perfectly flatly, “I was in the area.”
6
Everything is off with this place. I look around the moment I show my ID and stand in the doorway, looking at the little foyer. It’s a nice apartment, everything is painted in a soft hue of baby blue and the carpet is a speckled beige that seems to be in every apartment. Nothing is out of place, nothing is torn down, there isn’t trash everywhere, and there’s nothing that smells like a depressed person’s house. The depressed give up and this house is not the kind of place that has given up. This is a home that definitely doesn’t have a depressed creature lurking within.
Before ever seeing the victim or knowing a thing about what I’m stepping into, I know that this house belongs to a woman. I don’t care if it’s sexist or if I’m not being socially acceptable, but women do things differently than men. There’s a style to the house, a sort of beautiful medley of expression that all makes sense. It’s not a conglomeration of junk, trinkets, souvenirs, and cool shit that someone found, stuffed on the walls or in the corners. The entryway has the washer and dryer which aren’t full of dirty clothes. Everything is nice and folded. There’s a gym bag sitting next to the door and I feel the tickle in the back of my mind that suggests that Owens definitely is right about this one.
The living room only offers more shades of doubt as I step into the room and look at the set up. There’s a dining area near the kitchen entrance, but the majority of the living room has been cleared out especially for working out. There’s a yoga mat in front of the TV with some free weights and a bosu ball tucked in the corner of the TV stand. There’s an elliptical machine and a bench with a full line of free weights against the wall. This woman was someone who knew how to work out. The floor isn’t dirty. There’s nothing stuffed in the corners. Everything has been recently dusted and taken care of. There’s another tally in the homicide box.
Suicides don’t take care of the world around them. The depression or the guilt or the sorrow of whatever loss or suffering that they’ve been afflicted with takes control of them. There were occasional times when suicides didn’t play to this trend, but those people were rare and few. They weren’t running around all over the city, but for the most part, cleanliness only existed when the victim didn’t want to be a burden on people any longer. It was a strange sort of way of saying that they were sorry for all the pain and suffering that they’d caused in the lives of those around them. But the living room was another mark. Those who are depressed don’t work out. If you dedicate enough time to rigorously and continuously work out and define your body, you’re not going to destroy it. There’s a certain egoism that comes into play with people who work out. They like their bodies, they work hard for their bodies, and they don’t needlessly harm their bodies.
I turn away from the living room and step into the kitchen. It’s clean, just like I expected. There isn’t a dirty dish on the counter or in the sink. The dishwasher is full, but they’ve been washed. I prop open a few of the cupboards, looking at the dishes and then the neatly organized containers of dry ingredients and then the spices, then the work out powders. This girl had everything she needed in its place. Looking at the fridge, I’m given a collage of everything that’s happened in her life since college. She has pictures from everywhere she’s been to, or at least a portion of the places. There are pictures from photo booths, parties, ceremonies, events, and excursions with friends. She keeps a hundred different pictures on the fridge as a sort of honorary board for everyone she’s ever known or gone anywhere with.
She’s Mexican or Hispanic or whatever you want to call it. Latina, I think they’ve changed it to now. She’s got bright, big eyes and a smile that could charm the hardest heart. She looks like she’s got the kind of smile that has been taught, the kind they teach baristas and bank tellers. I don’t trust the smile. She’s definitely been taught by someone how to do her make-up because she has plenty of it on. As for her body, she’s gone through a sort of metamorphosis over the years and I have to admit that I’d pay my share for a lap dance from her. Hell, I’d pay to do a little bit more with her. She’s beautiful and I don’t understand why someone who is gorgeous would consider killing herself. That’s another mark. She’s socially active and outgoing. She has friends. You don’t think you’re alone in the world and kill yourself if you’re constantly out and about with people.
The only remarkable thing about the fridge is that there are several pictures of her with a man whose face has been removed from existence. I look at the pictures and study the scribbles, trying to get some sort of semblance of who the man is that has been so permanently taken out of her life’s moments with a Sharpie. That’s a major mark in the suicide box. Lots of people who have their lives together break up with their beloved, perfect soul mates and decide that life’s not worth living. I look at the pictures of her and her vacant man and decide that Waters and Evans are already constructing the suicide case. It’s a compelling argument.
Opening the fridge, I look at the contents within and look at nothing that doesn’t look like it was brought up from the earth. There’s milk and cottage cheese, a container of plain Greek yogurt, and that’s about it. Everything else in the fridge is either chicken or the bounty of the garden. Carrots, leafy greens, radishes, asparagus, green beans, and cucumbers. I close the fridge and look at the freezer, hoping to find the depression food or at
least the break up food. But the freezer is full of smoothie kits that she’s assembled herself, and the only thing unhealthy that I can find is a pint of Hagen Daas that has only sparingly been picked at. I shake my head. This isn’t the fridge and freezer of someone who has just gone through a break up. I watch the freezer door close and search the surrounding cupboards and the pantry. Again, there’s nothing here outside of some half drunk bottles of alcohol that would indicate that there was even a break up happening here.
Flipping open the garbage can, I take a look at the contents within, hoping to find a chip bag or take out containers, but there’s nothing here. There’s absolutely nothing here to make me think that there is a suicide case living inside this house. I shake my head and turn back toward the living room, listening to the voices coming from the bedroom. I think that they’re the only other people inside this apartment with me.
In the tiny hallway there’s the bathroom and the bedroom tucked away off of the living room. The bathroom is immaculate, no pills on the sink, nothing tucked away that isn’t expected. She’s taking medication for acne and that’s it. Other than that, she has a whole bunch of vitamins and supplements that she must take in the morning after she showers. I open the cupboards under the sink to check, just in case there’s some dark secrets tucked away, but there’s nothing except for stock for her toiletries if she runs out. I don’t understand. Why would this girl commit suicide? At this point, I’m desperately trying to see it from Evans and Waters’s point of view.
When I finally leave the bathroom and head for the bedroom, it’s the first time that I actually see anything that would make me think that this is actually a crime scene. The layout of the room is slightly strange to me. It’s built like any other room with a large closet tucked onto the side. The one thing that makes it strange to me is that there’s a pair of glass long doors that open up directly into a railing. It’s not even a small balcony, just a wrought iron railing. I get the idea behind it, that it’s supposed to open up the room and make it feel larger, but it’s just strange to me. The queen-sized bed has been pulled from its position against the wall and dragged all the way over to the pair of glass doors that have been flung open. The corner of the bed is jammed against the railing and the bed post has a set of kinky handcuffs attached to each other. One is fuzzy and pink, the other is leather and studded. Well, she was definitely getting some.
The Monster Within Page 5
