The Woman Hidden

by Lucas Mattias

  “Postmortem?”

  “Ante. See the coloring here? Whatever kept him tied up was done before death, I’d even go further and say a couple of hours before.”

  Anthon kept on combing the body, observing its minimal details, the number of abrasions and excoriations across his chest and arms. The legs also had marks in it, but it all looked too confusing to define because of the natural effects of the woods and death.

  “Animals?” Anthon asked again, now showing the doctor the part of the abs in which the doctor did some weird stitching, trying to ignore the parts that lacked skin.

  “Yes. Though what kept me on my toes…” He pulled some pictures from a close folder. “Were those markings I found on internal organs.”

  Anthon didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Actually, he only saw a heap of cold dead organs with no specifics. Most were shredded, proving the theory that animals had given that man a bite, even after death. That, my friend, was a terrible way to die.

  “Here,” the doctor pointed with his finger something that looked like a stomach. “this mark.”

  Anthon narrowed his eyes and made an effort, until he saw it.

  “Pretty cut.”

  “Not natural. Animals wouldn’t do it. I believed something perforated his abdomen previous to his death, which caused some leak of fluids inside, besides the blood. The animals’ feast offered me extra work.”

  Anthon nodded and went back to the corpse.

  “Frostbite?” He inquired by seeing the dark stains on the man’s fingers.

  “Not really. The house was on fire.” Aubry reminded him and Anthon agreed again. He had forgotten that detail.

  “So we are assuming that he had been inside the house prior to his death?”

  “I have a slight suspicion he was trying to save the charred body we found.”

  Anthon shook his head and lifted his brows. He had also forgotten that detail. And after all the bodies they had found, they let the only live one and that could offer them some answers escape. The woman.

  Just then Anthon allowed himself to observe the masterpiece on the body, the most interesting part. Despite the dark hair and the unshaved beard, the face was not intact. The forehead was open, a golf ball-sized hole almost between his eyes, a little above. For that reason, the nose also seemed distressed, in an incorrect angle, while the rest of the face seemed to have been distorted along with the injury.

  “A mercy shot.” Anthon sighed, touching the edges of the wound. “Am I right?”

  The coroner agreed.

  “Yes. The exposure worked against us. Had the body been found right after the death, I could confirm it with more certainty, but we found GSR traces on the wound, yes, and the impact on the glabella and the supraorbital ridge prove enough.”

  “The projectile?”

  The doctor shook his head, a negative sign.

  “In and out. Close range shot, almost instantaneous death.”

  “Not sure either to get moved or ready to deal with a cold-blooded murderer.”

  No one replied to that. Anthon, in a glimpse, found Aubry, who stood by the door, bothered somehow. Maybe it was not only the body, but its owner.

  “Did you know him?” Anthon asked, to which Aubry denied.

  “Just a little. Family lived on the north, by the mountains.”

  Anthon removed his gloves and tossed them to the trash, returning to his suitcase and his phone. When he removed the device from the pocket, he felt his hand shake as he tried to steadily hold the phone. He could barely fixate his eyes on the object. He ignored it. Could be some effect from the alcohol.

  “Are you okay, detective?”

  “Sure, sheriff. But I’m definitely ruling out death by accident. There was struggle, the victim was cuffed before death and that was clearly a mercy shot, an execution, either to end up the victim’s suffering or for sheer despise from the killer, a way to show his superiority. Without a suspect, however, we’ll never know. Have you found the wife?”

  Aubry scratched his forehead.

  “That would be something hard to do now.”

  “But…”

  Anthon felt the dizziness take charge of his body and the room spun around him. He took a deep inhale of air and held on, trying to focus on his own breathing movements. He was calmer now.

  “It was not a hunt accident,” Anthon continued, trying to control his breath. His chest was pumping hard and he didn’t want another seizure to come. “Not when it was that point-blank like this shot.”

  “I really can’t make sense out of what could have happened on those mountains. This place used to be quiet.”

  Anthon sighed and compressed his lips, trying to offer him some support.

  “You said there was another piece of evidence I had to see.”

  “Yes!” Aubry, who up to that moment seemed distant, came to life again. “The arrow.”

  Anthon frowned, thinking that combination of situations to be extremely hilarious. He shook his head again, casting away the nausea and the numbness he felt on his brain, and followed the sheriff, who was more than ready to leave the autopsy room.

  The old man walked to a counter, where a kind of attractive receptionist answered to some phone calls, and then he got from her a suitcase similar to Anthon’, however larger and heavier. It took the sheriff a few minutes to find a comfortable seat around, open the suitcase and scavenge its contents until he found what he wanted.

  “The deputy sheriff, this boy who thinks to know the job better than anyone with my experience, you see, let this pass him by.” The sheriff said, still trying to remove the package from the case. It was like watching a grandpa trying to find a gift and telling his grandson ho he had got that. “He thought it was not that important and the bag ended up forgotten in some drawer.”

  “I see.”

  “There you go,” The sheriff announced, handing Anthon an arrow inside a plastic forensic sealed bag, the plastic wrapped up around it just like a flaccid tube. “It’s amazing how young people can do these foolish mistakes. I told him to be careful, I tried to be careful and…”

  Anthon ignored the rest of that speech, he was already feeling that the sheriff was apologizing too much for someone who was not even guilty on the matter. He unfolded the bag and observed the arrow. He knew too little about those things, he was the type of guy who venture himself in hunting expeditions, but Monica’s brother was nuts for those type of adventures and, once, he had even tried to introduce Anthon to that world. It was not very successful.

  The arrow was approximately twenty inches long, solid metal head and flexible feathers. Expensive stuff, carbon structure, just like the ones his brother-in-law used. They were more stable, he said, and faster. This one, however, was covered by blood, including the feathers in its back, and the blood was quite dry. Nothing that could prevent him from getting a decent DNA analysis.

  “This arrow…”

  “The only evidence left by the missing lady. Apparently, she had it stuck in her shoulder when they found her.”

  “Have they already traced the DNA? No.” He himself answered to that as the sheriff’s little story came back to his mind. He definitely didn’t want to hear to that once more. “I’ll ask my forensic boys to do that for me, we have a more advanced lab and I can even cross the data with broader databases.”

  “You do that. What we want is for this killing spree to end.”

  “Killing spree?”

  “Yes, not so long…”

  The sheriff stopped talking when he saw Anthon fall down, as if affected by pressure drop. He ran and offered support, trying to bring him to a nearby chair. Although he showed advanced age, the sheriff seemed quite fast and strong for someone so small.

  Anthon accepted the aid and tried to ignore the disturbance he caused to the room, and even the cute receptionist came forward to help.

  “Detective, I’ll ask again: are you okay?”

  Anthon shook his head, but slowly. It hurt in way
s he couldn’t describe and he still felt nauseated, besides his extremely dry mouth. For a few seconds, he had to retrace his steps to understand where he was and what he was doing. Police station, ME office, dead body, investigation. He was where he was supposed to be. Right?

  And the sheriff suddenly grabbed his face and looked deep into Anthon’s eyes, trying to find something he was not seeing himself.

  “What are you feeling, son? Fast heart? Hallucinations?”

  “I… no. Not hallucinations.”

  “Any weird symptom? Disturbances? Your pupils look dilated.”

  Great, a law officer trying to capture him on drinking before work. The man could even suggest he had drugged himself or snorted some shit out there.

  “Sheriff, I’m fine. It’s stress. I had some seizures on the past weeks, nothing too serious, just…”

  “Have you done a blood screening?” Aubry asked, moving up and handing Anthon the cup of water he had just received from the hot receptionist.

  “They must have done one at the hospital. Any special reason for this question?”

  “Seems like the case of an old friend.” He cleared his throat and tried to conceal something. Suddenly he felt as if he had found the answer to the world’s greatest question. “Might be intoxication, poisoning. Well, if you say you’re fine, you’re fine. I gotta go, detective, have some urgent matters to worry about.”

  “I heard you’re retiring. Some news about an apology statement, I didn’t really understand what…”

  “Old cases, son.” The sheriff stood straight and removed his hat, tapping its long brims distractively. The head, although presenting some hair, was almost completely flat. “There was some turnaround and I decided to apologize to the family, the best option. We always need to humble ourselves, detective.”

  “Always.”

  The sheriff left. Anthon knew that the whole intoxication talk should probably be some old people talk, trying to raise concerns on the mind of someone who was well aware of what was happening. He even expected the sheriff to blame it on alcohol or the ‘trash young people eat nowadays’ as regular old people did, but he got surprised with that hypothesis. Poisoning, alright.

  With the evidence in hands and all he needed, Anthon decided he wouldn’t linger around. He would spend the night somewhere near, since the snow didn’t seem ready to stop anytime soon, and then he would leave at the break of dawn, ready to set the case moving from his office and to deal with the two women in his life: the one he truly wanted back and the other one.

  He hit the brakes and took a moment for himself. The hours he spent driving had taken all his energy and he didn’t want to think that it was only the beginning of the day. The weather was more of a mild feel, although there was still the damn snow. He was at the big city again at least, with the civilization. He glanced to the hotel on the other side of the street and felt his head shrink around his brain, amplifying his anxieties once more.

  He didn’t have many options anyway. He would have to face at least one of those women, mostly because he hadn’t been allowed home yet and that last scene had granted him a suspension, not the scene itself, but the whole accident thing. Although he had decided to go balls deep into the Derby case, he wasn’t allowed to go to office either. Banned from home and work, what was left for him to do?

  Georgia.

  Anthon mindlessly crossed the street, ignoring the traffic, and entered the hotel. The lounge, rich, felt less busy than the last few times, maybe it was already packed for the season. Or maybe it was empty because of the season. He cared too little about it.

  He took the first elevator and headed to the floor he already knew where to go, to the room he already knew, to the woman who already expected him in room 1304. If she were there after all. Georgia had her own mysterious escapades, about which he also didn’t pay that much attention or wanted to know about, for what mattered. Had she been there, it would be fine. In case she wasn’t, that would be even better.

  As the automatic door granted his access through the magnetic keycard that had the room number imprinted on it in golden colors, he walked in and found the mess he had left behind: evidence boxes, all the paperwork related to the case, all his belongings that flashed that someone had been kicked out home with only a few pieces of clothing and personal items. And, of course, Georgia. Sitting on the bed, phone in hands, she looked extremely distracted by something she had been reading.

  “Hey.”

  She smiled before even turning to look at him.

  “How was the trip?”

  “Exhaustive.”

  Anthon placed his suitcase on the glass coffee table in the center of the room, near the bed, and sat by Georgia’s feet, not directly looking at her. He didn’t even know how. He was in the middle of a crisis and seeing here in such attractive bed wasn’t his ideal scenery in that moment. He’d have to take a decision, he would need to organize stuff and life and, the last time they talked, they had argued over the phone before he passed out. After that, nothing besides monosyllabic and boring talks before he left to Derby.

  Now, since he was not in working hours, the sips from the whiskey bottle had been deeper and he could already feel the heat of the liquor in his face and hands. That’s what he needed to relax.

  On the corner of his eye, he saw Georgia’s handbag nearby. Some papers, a dark leather wallet and something that looked like the needle of a sealed syringe. He frowned, unsure of what he was seeing, aware he shouldn’t touch anything without her permission.

  “Syringes?”

  “Diabetes,” she replied behind him, in a tedious voice. “Family ill.”

  Anthon felt Georgia move on the bed, her dark hair surely moving along as silk over her shoulders, but he didn’t turn. He just opened his suitcase and took his stuff from there. He removed the pictures of the found corpse he had taken from the medical examiner and the autopsy reports as well. He also took from there the arrow, he would soon take it for further analysis as soon as he was officially authorized to go back to office; also removing his gun and his… where was the wallet? He needed to put everything in its place and establish a study routine.

  “Did you get the answers you were looking for?”

  “Georgia, I… I’m not in the mood.”

  The words went out as cold as the day outside. Or Derby. His mood was vanishing little by little, and he feared exhaustion was the reason for that. And he wouldn’t be able to have a good peaceful moment of sleep if Georgia kept on there, asking him questions.

  “Anthon, what…”

  She put her hand on his shoulder, but Anthon pulled away as if burned by her touch. Actually, for a few seconds, he actually felt she had burned him with her hands. He jumped and put himself on his feet, between the coffee table and the bed, facing her as if she were a monster.

  “Anthon, you don’t look good.”

  “Should I? Tell me, should I look any good?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re being so…”

  “Aggressive? Right, now you too with this bullshit talk about being aggressive. I’m done.”

  Although his words were harsh and heated, he felt surrounded with dubious feeling at seeing Georgia’s glare, puzzled, senselessly blinking while she tried to understand that attitude. She slid to the edge of the bed and just then he realized she was wearing one of his shirts, which looked huge on her.

  “At least you have the evidence and…”

  “Georgia, shut up.”

  She slowly licked her lower lip, it was obvious she was holding things back to avoid showing a similar aggressiveness. They could fight and he was not up to considering the consequences of that. She was a lawyer, after all.

  Anthon rubbed his face, trying to bring himself down. He couldn’t feel his face anymore and he blamed it on the whiskey, despite that trembling in his hands he didn’t understand. Anger, maybe?

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “You…” He dropped the idea and laughed i
n disbelief. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “I am.”

  “Everything was fine, Georgia, then you came. Who are you? Uh? What are you doing here? Wrecking what’s left of my marriage? I don’t…”

  She stood up, it was clear her eyes were burning in rage. A bottled-up rage, but still present.

  “I didn’t wreck your marriage, Anthon, the merit is all yours and yours only.”

  “Do not act like…”

  A strong vibration halted the argument. Anthon turned to the glass table, where he phone rang with a face on the screen. Monica. He sighed and let a muffled roar out of his throat, something guttural and scary. Exhausted.

  Anthon grabbed his phone and lifted it, unsure to answer to it.

  “We’re talking, Anthon, please…”

  “It’s my wife.”

  “I didn’t ask who it is, I just…”

  The phone kept on ringing and he decided to decline it. Silence, at last. He started looking for his keys inside his suitcase, he had them in there, somewhere…

  And Georgia touched him again, this time trying to come closer.

  “I asked you to be quiet!”

  Anthon’s yell echoed in the room and startled the woman, who took two or three steps backwards, almost falling again onto the bed. Georgia seemed scared, but he couldn’t manage to worry about her, not at that moment.

  The pictures returned to his mind. The information his wife had, all he had risked for her and for a stupid coffee spilled all over an avenue.

  “I already have too much shit to deal in my life to have to deal with your hysterical attacks without--”

  “Anthon, you’re going a little too far. I’m not demanding anything--”

  “Do you mind shutting up for a while?”

  Another yell. Georgia shook her head and Anthon, for a second or two, though she would cry. It didn’t matter. He was still shaking, he couldn’t find his keys and that nauseating feeling kept on affecting him He wouldn’t fall, not now.

  “Anthon.”

  He shook his head and searched for the source of that voice. Georgia. It was not Monica. For some seconds, though, it looked like it. His heart froze and then returned to its beating when he looked around and saw that no, Monica was not there, she would never be there.