The owner of the motel had arrived just after we began working through the main room and per one of the uniformed officers, was asking to speak to the person in charge. Ben staved him off for a few minutes, but as soon as Murv had returned from replacing his ruined dust mask, my friend had left to address the situation. The flu-stricken crime scene tech walked the room with us, only once interjecting a question about a particular angle, but other than that he left Felicity alone to do her job. I assumed that was a good sign.
“That was forty-eight, correct?” my wife asked without turning.
“Yeah. Forty-eight,” I replied.
I watched over her shoulder as she peered at the miniature LCD on the back of the camera.
“Evidence marker B,” she called out as she kneeled down and put the viewfinder back to her eye. “Men’s wallet, floor, mid-range. Fifty millimeter, strobe.” The flash popped again, and she continued. “And, forty-nine. Marker B, wallet, floor, close-up. Fifty millimeter, strobe.”
I backed out of her way as she stood, but I continued scribbling the notes she had dictated.
“Got it,” I finally said.
“All right then,” she replied absently as she inspected the top display on the camera then deftly ejected the flash memory card and handed it to me. Once she had popped in a fresh card, she looked up and handed me the small protective case. “That’s it for the main room. Let’s move to the back.”
Thus far, the process had been nothing more than routine. Admittedly, since this was a homicide crime scene, and with knowing that the victim’s body was awaiting us in the next room, it lent a surreal quality to each shot taken; but even that didn’t prevent it from approaching abject boredom.
Still, I had to say I was more than just slightly impressed by my wife. With every passing moment, she was demonstrating just exactly how much of a pro she truly was. Even though she had never said exactly how well she did in the courses she had taken, I was willing to bet she had aced them. Watching her now, if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she’d been doing this job for years.
“Rowan,” she asked, looking up at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I returned with a shrug. “Why?”
“You’re kind of quiet.”
“Just tired,” I replied, not wanting to embarrass her here with a gush of praise. I’d wait until we were alone for that.
“No headaches then?”
Her query suddenly made more sense. “No. Nothing to worry about,” I answered then added as an afterthought, “Yet.”
“Aye, yet. That’s what I’m afraid of,” she replied with a sigh then after a brief pause, cocked her head toward the back of the room. “Come on, then.”
“I’m gonna go ahead and get a coupl’a guys started on this stuff out here,” Murv told us.
“Sounds good,” Felicity replied. “We’ll be another half hour, maybe forty-five minutes, back here.”
“That’ll work,” he answered. “Take all the time ya’ need. By the way, rumor has it the Feebs are on their way.”
“That was quick,” I offered.
“Storm wanted ‘em in the loop,” he replied to my unasked question. “Federal judge, all that jazz.”
As crime scenes go, Ben’s assessment had been for the most part correct, up to and including the fact that Felicity and I had both seen much worse. For instance, when you’ve viewed the remains of one of your friends who’d been eviscerated by a madman, you’ve pretty much pushed the envelope.
Still, even though the horrific visions of that, and other things I’d witnessed, would never be completely erased from my mind, they had at least dulled with time. Unfortunately, that familiarity had also served to desensitize me to the offensive sights, or so I had come to believe. The simple fact was that there were even times when I found myself wondering about my own capacity for compassion after everything I’d seen.
On this particular morning, however, upon reaching the doorway of the bathroom, it became painfully apparent that not stopping and grabbing a quick bite for breakfast had been a wise choice.
As we had worked the main portion of the room, moving systematically around the clock face just as Felicity had prescribed, we had made sure to include the dressing area just outside the bathroom door. But my wife had been doing the actual shooting, not me. Since the area was too small for the both of us, I had remained back and out of the way in order to allow her ample space to work. Because of that, I was only just now witnessing the abomination that had been patiently waiting.
Maybe it was the fact that it had been two years since I’d been directly involved with a homicide investigation. Maybe I had finally managed to simply forget. Whatever the reason, I had been forced back across the line between callousness and humanity. I had been living in a calm, safe world long enough now that in a single instant I discovered I wasn’t nearly as jaded as I had once feared.
Unfortunately, that realization was forced completely out of my mind by the acrid tang of bile on the back of my tongue. I heard Felicity call out a description followed by a focal length and light source just as she’d been doing earlier. However, I was completely unable to write it down, especially not now that I had my head hanging almost between my knees, and I was struggling to control my breathing. The bright stab of the strobe flash flickered red through my tightly shut eyelids, and I heard my wife saying something again, but I was still unable to respond.
In some small way, I suppose I should have found it comforting that the reason for my preoccupation was the fact that, at the moment, I was desperately trying not to involuntarily expel my morning coffee.
CHAPTER 6:
My mouth was still somewhat watering from the nausea, but the major wave seemed to have passed for the most part; at least I hoped that it had. I was still keeping my eyes closed, but the image I’d seen was freshly imprinted on my retinas, so I suppose it didn’t really matter. I was going to see it one way or the other, and I suspected that my rampant imagination was probably coloring my memory of the sight to appear much worse than it actually was.
“Rowan?” Felicity’s worried voice filtered into my ears, and I felt her hand softly pressing against my back.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled after puffing out a heavy breath.
“Keep yourself grounded,” she told me, her tone wavering as I heard the note of concern begin to rise.
“No,” I slowly shook my head. “That’s not it. Don’t worry.”
“What is it then?”
I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, then as I slowly brought myself upright, I pointed past her through the doorway. “Just a little queasy, that’s all.”
The first thing that had caught my eyes was the very point that now had me transfixed. A large splotch of blood intermixed with what was presumably brain tissue and bone fragments formed a hideous blot against the dingy tile of the bathroom’s back wall. My suspicion, in this case, had been dead wrong. My imagination hadn’t even begun to do justice to the horror that now fell directly in my line of sight. It was all I could do to keep from staring at it, and truth be told, even that wasn’t enough. I was losing the battle with each passing second.
I tried to calm my churning stomach by forcing myself to detach from the reality of what I was seeing and view it from an analytical standpoint. It wasn’t easy, considering the circumstances, but after a moment I managed to invoke the thin delusion out of self-defense. It was no panacea, but it helped, even if only a little.
Judging from the density of the smear along with the shattered tile, the point of the matter’s impact appeared to have been just over halfway up the wall. From there, it continued to spread heavily along its vertical path. Above that, the splatter arced outward in a wide pattern, eventually becoming a light spray of rusty red upon the dull surface. Below the broken squares, blood and bits of flesh trickled downward, streaking the ceramic and eventually pooling on the bathtub ledge. I finally allowed my gaze to roam as I followed the drizzles of crimson downward, inevitably coming to rest on the victim himself.