by Nina Post
Since he was alone for now, he glimpsed peripherally, seeing flashes of a naked, pale body. For the first time since his first couple of murder cases, he was horrified, and even a little afraid.
When he could look full-on at his old friend, he saw that Jasper Stowe was not only as naked as the day he came into the world, but almost as hairless: his scalp and his pubis were shaved. But the stab wounds, stark against blank canvas skin, were the worst part.
Jasper got too close to a monster he should have been afraid of.
Chapter 2
Shawn's childhood friend faced him in a chair, no clothes on and completely shaved, eyelids open. Jasper had stab wounds on his head, his neck, and on his abdomen. A wave of nausea hit him and pinpricks of black spotted his vision. This wasn't at all like him, but this was different from every case he'd ever worked on. He took a deep breath and waited for the lightheadedness and nausea to pass. It was good no one else was inside yet -- he'd never live it down.
For a moment, Jasper's stillness reminded him of his dad sitting in his recliner, watching football, though his father was always (thankfully) clothed, and somehow, not stabbed, though they all thought about it at one time or another.
A memory invaded, sharp and brief. If his father's eyes were closed when he was in his recliner, that rendered the surrounding domestic landscape into one not unlike, Shawn had imagined, crawling on the ground past the Viet Cong, or pushing your towed car out of the impound lot in the middle of the night before the Dobermans got wise to you. You had to pass the recliner to get to the kitchen. If his father's eyes were closed and he or Melly wanted something from the fridge, it took a long time to get there, and if you were lucky enough to make it back to your room without those eyes opening, those eyes that latched onto you like heat-seeking missiles, you were exhausted from the effort and stress of it. Because if the Red King was sleeping, and you woke him up, well, your day was screwed. Everyone's day was screwed.
His mind shifted as he pushed away the past and began to photograph the scene. He started with an overall orientation photo, then photographed specific areas like entrances and exits, and then from multiple angles. He photographed Jasper's body and the immediate scene.
Shawn leaned in and stared at Jasper's head, baffled. There were two stab wounds there: one at the occipital lobe at the rearmost part of the skull, and another on the left temporal region, each with a small diameter. There was also a vicious entrance wound on the left side of the neck, same diameter, with an exit wound on the right -- and two additional stab wounds on the abdomen, same diameter.
"Christ," he muttered. It looked like someone really had it out for Jasper, but since he knew very little about his old friend, he tabled the matter for later. Was he into drugs? Gambling? It looked like a damn cartel had his way with him.
The entrance holes were round, not long and thin. The murder weapon wasn't a knife. Maybe an ice pick? Did Jasper get in trouble with the mob? Weren't they known for using ice picks? He almost laughed.
There was no blood spray or spatter on Jasper or elsewhere in the room. Not a drop, from what he could see. Was he killed somewhere else in the house then moved to the chair, or killed at a different location then taken into the house using Jasper's own keys? The lividity would tell him a little bit, when he got to that. Livor mortis started to get visible about an hour after death. There was some lividity around Jasper's legs, but he wouldn't move the body until the ME showed up.
Shawn leaned over and took in a breath near Jasper's shoulder, then his other shoulder, and then his wrist. The body smelled like cleanser over the decay, and the feet and hands practically looked manicured. The wounds were clean, too. The killer was experienced with his weapon, comfortable with it. Shaved and cleaned, and the overall affect was deeply disturbing. He had never seen anything like this. And for it to be Jasper? He considered handing the case over to one of the other detectives, but first went back to where he was before he looked at the body. A flat-screen TV was secured above the fireplace. Why did people do that? He would never put a TV over a fireplace -- or a ceiling fan over his bed, for that matter. He was averse to the notion of heavy blades whirring over the place where he slept. That was putting way too much trust in both the sturdiness of the fan's installation and the integrity of your ceiling. You might as well put a bunch of garden shears in old fishing net and hang it over your bed.
A huge slab of incomprehensible modern art loomed over an ornate antique sideboard. Maybe that came with the house, because it didn't seem like the same person would have that piece of weird folk art and the other piece. A blue sofa had its back to him and a blue and white check-pattern sofa faced him across a square wood coffee table. The table held a small cactus plant in a blue pot, and a green apple the size of a champion gourd -- more art.
The rear glass wall was where the neighbor looked in and spotted Jasper. Shawn stayed by the kitchen and strategized his approach to the room. A few minutes later, he looked over his shoulder and called out to one of the other uniformed officers, Crane, who was poking around the rear of the kitchen. "Crane. Call the alarm company, and check for any recent alarm calls. Then call in whoever's good with canvasses and have them coordinate the officers to interview the neighbors. And I want a vehicle canvass, too -- get the license plate number of every car parked within two hundred yards."
He doubted the vehicle canvass would yield anything useful, but he wanted to cover the bases.
Crane left, and Shawn went back to the body. He hadn't spoken to or seen Jasper since they were eleven, maybe twelve, so he had no idea if Jasper was normally bald or not. Though he doubted Jasper usually sported a shaved pubis, he wasn't going to assume anything. All he knew was that Jasper had left Erie right after high school -- and they had all parted ways before that, anyway.
Even though he was considering moving away, he had stayed in the region and moved back to Erie because he liked the natural beauty, the laid-back personality of the city, and even the weather, most of the time. Sarah had a good relationship with her father, who lived in town, so that was a plus, and won out against Shawn being closer, at least geographically, to his father.
He took a few slow, deep breaths, leaving all of his personal stuff with Jasper and all other thoughts, and focused on the scene. Did anything seem out of place?
One of the techs entered from the living room side and Shawn held out his arm to stop him. The tech grumbled, but retreated. Shawn prickled with a flash of annoyance that he had to start all over again with all new people. It had been his decision to take the job, but it was a pain in the ass to train people to do things he used to take for granted. And yes, everyone at the old department thought he was weird, but they had learned, for the most part, to give him the time and space he needed.
Unlike his family.
And he had lost his focus again. He tried his Skeletor voice, a less frequently used but effective attention-focusing tactic: Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Skeletor to Shawn Danger! Focus, Danger!
Skeletor was a shitty life coach, but something about his grating voice could sometimes spur him into action.
The room looked tidy. Normal. The house had an inherent neatness to it, but he needed to get an idea of what was normal and what was out of place right now.
He took out his notebook, did a quick sketch, and took some notes on the environment of the scene -- temperature, light, smell -- all with Jasper sitting by the fireplace as though waiting to find out if Shawn would see the right things.
His old circle of friends, including Jasper, had almost never gone into anyone else's house, at least not within their group. They didn't even knock on anyone's door, because that could easily set off someone's dad if he was napping or already in a bad mood. That was the point of the five of them, that they each understood how hard it was to be home. They all had the same situation, so they'd be damned if they would experience it in a different house or make it worse for anyone else.
Shawn figured out his approach, then
walked his grid, slow. Patience was crucial.
The grid led him to the blue and white sofa. He found and bagged some hairs -- most of them short and brown -- and some short white hairs that likely belonged to the pug in the photos. He examined the sofas, and picked out a particle of soil caught in the ridge of the raised border on the middle cushion of the blue sofa.
Just under the front flap that skimmed the rug, as he examined the area under the sofa with his penlight, Shawn found a particle of something he didn't recognize. He placed it in a second sample bag, described the samples and hairs in his notebook, then drew a diagram of the evidence in relation to the body.
"What's under there, Detective -- another body?" one of the techs joked. Shawn barely heard him.
When he'd almost finished, Shawn crossed the room and stood with his back to the glass door. The most expeditious way of transporting the body would have been through the front door, but what did the killer use to wrap the body? He left the room and went back to the front door. "Who checked the garage?" he asked the techs as he passed them.
One raised his hand.
"Check again, for anything that could have been wrapped over the body."
That tech left and the others waited impatiently, but that was their problem, not his. They'd have to wait a little longer, because he wasn't close to --
He heard voices and opened the front door.
"I have a meeting scheduled this morning with Mr. Stowe. What's happened here?"
He knew the voice with the first word.
"I'm afraid that's police business, ma'am, and this is a closed area."
"Ma'am? And don't stonewall me."
Shawn chuckled as he watched the interaction that was taking place just past the tape. He had no idea what she was doing here. Why did she have a meeting with Jasper? Was her father Jasper's attorney? If that were the case, then why did she have her camera equipment with her?
"If you'll step back from the tape -- "
"Is Lieutenant Danger here?"
"Ma'am?" the officer said again.
Shawn wouldn't be the only one training the new crew.
Her voice lowered and her eyes flicked to Shawn as he walked up to the tape. She was wearing a light blue sweater, faded jeans, and cream-colored sneakers, which didn't mean she wasn't working in her dad's office that day. She worked in the back and could wear what she wanted.
"Tell you what," Sarah said, looking back to the officer. "You stop calling me ma'am, and I won't call you Flobee for the rest of your days."
Shawn wished he could have a picture of this, of the very petite Sarah standing up to a much bigger patrol officer by yellow crime scene tape while holding a bunch of equipment that was almost bigger than she was.
"Flobee, ma -- miss?"
"After the infomercial product that cut your hair. Deal?"
"Uhhh…"
Shawn decided to intervene before more blood was shed. "It's okay, she's with me." He didn't want to have her sign in as someone who had accessed the scene -- he seriously doubted she'd want to be called during a trial -- so he met Sarah just outside the house.
"But this is a crime scene," the officer said, flapping a consent-to-search form.
"It's my crime scene, officer, and she's not in it, she's outside of it."
The officer nodded and walked away.
Shawn put his hands on her shoulders. "What are you doing here?" He glanced up and saw Sarah's bulbous orange car parked just down the street, like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.
She smiled at him. Every time she smiled a light went on inside him, and he wanted to leave whatever he was doing and take her to Hawaii for a week, which could get very expensive and would certainly wind up with him out of a job.
"I'm supposed to meet Jasper Stowe here," she said. "I'm making a documentary about him. An odyssey/profile documentary."
At his puzzled expression, she said, "An odyssey is what you call a movie about tracking someone down, and a profile is like a celebrity profile."
"Okay…" He had no idea what she was talking about.
"He was hard to find, but here I am. And now it's a crime scene. What happened?"
He held out his hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Wait, what? Who was hard to find? Jasper? You want to make a documentary about Jasper?"
Jasper was stuck in his head as a skinny, towheaded kid who was always excited to show off his new Marvel comics. The Jasper who loved to catch crayfish in the ravine, name them, create a whole backstory, then carefully place them back in the water. Shawn thought of one like how Jasper would have put it: his name is Finn, he likes making model cars, he works as an official with the Department of Cat Tax Law, and his favorite food is tacos.
All of those images had turned into one of a shaved, naked man with a fatal icepick wound.
Shawn angled his head toward her. Where to start with this. "How do you know Jasper Stowe? Why didn't you tell me you started a new movie? Is living together not a reliably sufficient condition for the exchanging of important personal information?"
She waved this off. "I was doing some preliminary work on it, gathering material. I didn't even know Jasper Stowe had moved here until a few weeks ago. But then his name popped up on one of my searches and he actually returned my call." Her eyes brightened with excitement, proud she'd found him, and he hated to let her down.
"His name popped up where?"
"Local tax records, when he bought the house."
"When was that?"
"More than a month ago."
"He took that long to get back to you?"
"Hey, I was surprised he got back to me at all. Stowe's a famous recluse. He hasn't given an interview in a long time."
Chapter 3
He laughed. "Jasper Stowe, a famous recluse?"
Sarah gestured as though Jasper Stowe's status as a famous recluse was of no significance.
"When he did get back to me, I told him what my approach to the material would be. I guess it worked. It's not like a lot of people haven't tried."
"Haven't tried to what?"
"Interview him," she said. Like it was obvious.
His mind blown, Shawn dutifully wrote all of this down in his notebook, even though he was missing crucial information he'd have to draw out of her eventually. He considered himself pretty good at drawing information out of people, but Sarah was different. Sometimes she reminded him of Comet in their occasional intractability, but soon enough, he would remind her that this was a homicide investigation and any information would be helpful.
Someone who must have been the ME showed up, and the techs descended upon the scene. "Tell me more later, okay?" Shawn picked up her camera equipment and carried it to her bubble of a car. She opened the trunk, which creaked like a front door in The Pit and the Pendulum. He carefully placed the Canon 60D and its accessories on the bed next to a white banker's box of files, a large red silicon oven mitt, a beach towel, a jug of water, a set of jumper cables, a pair of pink Mechanix gloves, a slab of wood, and a tournament chess set in a box. The usual.
"Are you going to tell me why his house is a crime scene?" she asked.
He closed the trunk, kissed her, then opened the door for her.
"He's dead."
She put a hand on the top of the door and he watched at least a dozen responses flit across her face.
"He's dead." She looked away, then back to him, a furrow between her brows. "You're sure?"
He nodded slightly.
"Well… shit," she said, then noticed the officer who stopped her at the perimeter. She pointed two fingers to her eyes then pointed the same two fingers at him.
"Go before I have to post your bail," he said.
She got in the driver's seat, raised her oval face for another kiss, which he gladly obliged, then turned on her stereo to Gene Vincent ("Be-Bop-A-Lula," Shawn identified) and drove away with a hand up to Shawn. Thankfully, with all of her fingers up.
"I'm gonna marry her someday." Shawn gave the officer
a light punch on the shoulder before he handed back the clipboard, then turned to the compact man waiting by the tape. "Are you the ME?"
"I'm the death investigator," the man said in a dry voice. He was wearing gray chinos, plain black walking sneakers, a tucked-in white short-sleeved polo shirt with a pen inserted on the placket, and a gray windbreaker. His head was slightly over-large and his hair was thinning. If he was going for the look of 'quietly angry engineer who will one day explode,' or 'DI by day, super-villain by night,' he had succeeded.
"May I access the primary scene, please?" The DI's politeness was taut with chronic resentment. Shawn extended his arm to welcome him forward and the DI went inside, a little huffy, his shoulders laden with more equipment than Sarah had been carrying. Shawn checked that the DI had signed in -- J. Beers -- then called the ME's office to verify his credentials. When he got back to the room, the DI was taking photos. A lot of photos.
Shawn felt more confident with him for that, though he had never met him, wasn't familiar with him, and had never worked with a DI before. The only thing Shawn knew about a death investigator was that they would learn as much as possible about how and why a person died, and would determine if the on-duty ME needed to go to the scene. Beers used a digital camera to document the victim and the surrounding area, getting very similar coverage to his own, but the more the better. Starting with a tripod, Beers took some 360º shots. When he switched to photographing the body, Beers added measurements.
"The palms of the hands are somewhat abraded." Beers held Jasper's hand in his like a palm reader about to give Jasper some bad news about his life line.
"He fell forward. Put his hands out to break it."
"Yes, I suppose he might have," Beers murmured, then covered Jasper's feet and hands with crisp paper bags. Shawn had seen bags used like that before, but not with one of his best friends from when he was a kid. The sounds those bags made…every time he used a new paper bag, he'd picture this. Already, he knew this scene would haunt him more than any other.
