6. Aubree
6
AUbrEE
OH LOOK, MY SHADOW IS BACK
I walk ahead of a hobbling Fletch, carrying my own murder bag when usually, he would offer. I slow my steps, when typically, the over-energized Charlie Fletcher is the one kicking in doors. But when a man takes a bullet to the leg on the job, sometimes, accommodations must be made.
“Third-floor walk-up,” I recite for the record, glancing back as empathy beats from my every pore. He maneuvers the stairs and moves without crutches now. Not even a walking stick. But I know, beneath the brave face and gritted teeth, is a man in pain.
“The scent of old cooking oil is evident,” I continue. “Ethnic cooking that verges toward spicy.”
“You can smell food?” Grunting, Fletch breaches the top step and swipes his brow to clear it of sweat. “I smell decay.”
“I got used to that a long time ago. So now I can recognize everything else, too.” I bring my focus around to the studious Officer Clay and smile. Because he reminds me of a cute little puppy, eager to please. Excited to fetch a ball. The kid needs a partner. A detective to take him under their wing. But Fletch and Archer are already bonded, and a third is simply not workable. So he hovers instead, helping, but not officially part of the team. “Perhaps you could knock on doors, Officer? Encourage the residents to make coffee.”
His eyes flicker with curiosity. “Coffee? ”
“Trust me.” I turn to Fletch. “You ready?”
“Sure thing, Detective .” He shakes his head and hobbles past me, nodding at the other uniformed officers who arrived on scene first. Then he opens the door and steps through first. “You’re getting kinda bossy these days, you know that? Minka comes along and tells us what to do. But now you’re here too, ordering our uniform to canvas. That’s kinda my job.”
“So do it, and I won’t have to.” I toss a playful response back as I come to a stop in the middle of a messy apartment. Not messy, as in it was tossed by vandals. But messy, as in the occupant didn’t value a regular cleaning schedule. “She was a hoarder.” I sniff to escape the stench, which makes no sense at all, considering I pull more of the rancid air into my lungs. “I smell ammonia, too.”
“Victim has cats,” Officer Clay offers from the doorway, swallowing when I glance over my shoulder. “They’ve scattered since we opened the apartment door. But the litter trays are still here, and the floor is… well…”
He looks down. So naturally, I follow his gaze to find mounds of cat shit everywhere. Fresh. Old. Trodden. Eaten and regurgitated.
“Vic is this way.” Fletch walks carefully, tiptoeing over the few clear spots of stained carpet, and hopping every second step when he places all his weight on his bad leg. He gulps from the pain, but says nothing as he moves through the packed space. Towers of newspapers make a wall, and mountains of trash spear up every few feet. Soda bottles lay strewn, and cat shit—so much of it—sprinkles the apartment like confetti at a birthday party.
I wish for my boss, my friend, my colleague, if only to tease her about her cat. But Minka’s taking a well-deserved day off, so I clutch my murder bag and make my way through the kitchen—I know it’s the kitchen, because there’s an oven, the door open, and an impossible number of pizza boxes stuffed inside.
“Did the vic live alone?” I speak without inhaling, a skill I mastered in my early days on the job. But I don’t pinch my nose. I definitely don’t bring my shirt up and cover it. “Who called this in?”
“Neighbors noticed the stench.” Fletch reaches back to offer a hand when I’m forced to step over a washing basket filled with… stuff. Certainly not laundry. “I imagine everyone is used to the usual smells around here. But decomp is different.”
“Prepare yourself.” I let him help me back onto steady feet, then I release his hand and look toward the nearest door. A bedroom, I can only assume. And the source of death. “The fact she had cats tells me they feasted before they escaped.”
He swings a pair of honeycomb eyes around and stops on mine. “Tell me you’re lying.”
“All these years on the job and you haven’t pulled an unattended with cats before?” Grinning, I step past him and gently push the door wide, only to find the saddest view I’ve seen in a while.
I’ve handled murder. I’ve autopsied children. Mothers. Infants. I’ve seen enough death in my life to be reasonably confident I’ve experienced it all. But sorrow envelops my soul as I find a hospital-grade bed parked in the center of the room. Steel rails on each side, and a pull bar at the top for the occupant to grab onto when they want to sit.
There are no IV poles. No machinery that might imply medical intervention.
The cause of death, here, without testing and formally stating so, started with the victim’s morbid obesity.
“Jesus.” Fletch comes up behind me and gags. It’s fast. One time. Then he gets himself under control, swallowing the vomit I know teases the base of his throat. “What the fuck, Aubs?”
“Female,” I recite for the record. “Approximately fifty-five to…” could be a hundred. “I can’t say. I would guestimate time of death at roughly five to seven days ago.”
“You can tell already?”
“Yeah.” I set my murder bag on the floor and slowly cross the room, careful not to step on anything unpleasant. “Presence of maggots,” I narrate. “They rarely bother with the arms and legs. Not when the big, juicy organs are available. The vic has been skeletonized over the upper torso and face.”
“Cats?” Fletch questions. Though I swear, it almost sounds like ‘ barf ?’. “Or maggots?”
“Both, probably. Maggots would have started before the cats. They’d have opened her up, and then the cats would have come looking for their dinner and discovered something perfectly suitable. Vic’s skin has peeled away from her left ear. Her hair has moved with it.”
“Peeled, like…” Fletch stops on my right, his broad chest brushing against my shoulder blade. “Uh…?”
“She’s been here awhile, and when that happens and decomposition begins, the skin simply slides off.”
“Jesus.” He presses a fist to his lips. “Gross. ”
“Her skin has dried in some spots to a tough, leathery consistency, and her main organs—brain, heart, liver, and lungs—have provided a smorgasbord to the local fly population over the last few days.”
“Homicide?” Please , I know he silently screams. Tell me it’s not homicide .
“I can’t know until we take her to my autopsy suite. But my initial thoughts lean toward her dying of health problems. Given her size, it’s quite possible she suffered cardiac arrest. Her body was too large and her heart couldn’t cope. I’ll do my job,” I turn from the bed and collect my bag, “formally call death, then we’ll move her. You’ll need to get towels or something.”
He glances around in search. “Because there’ll be juices and stuff beneath her body?”
“That. And when you grab her arms or legs, the skin will probably peel away from her bones. We want to minimize damage. So…”
“Towels.” He spins on his heels, a little green in the face, and darts toward the door. “I’ll get towels. Thank god this isn’t homicide.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” But I set my bag on the chair beside the bed. It’s almost like a real hospital room, with a visitor chair on the left and a tall bedside table on the right where one would store a pitcher of water and, perhaps, a jug where they might pee. “I said it’s possibly natural causes. But we can’t know until?—”
“Aubree?”
I jump and wrench my head around, thermometer in one hand and a scalpel in the other, to find Tim at the door. His perfect stare, burning me where I stand. His eyes, glinting and serious. His nose… well, it’s not twitching nearly as much as Fletch’s was. “What are you…” Panicked, I grab the recorder and switch the damned thing off, then I shove it into my coat pocket and growl when he takes that as an invitation to enter. “What the hell are you doing here? This is a crime scene.”
“Looks like a natural causes scene to me.” He folds his arms, a silent promise, I like to think, that he won’t touch. “Stinks in here.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious. Is there something specific you needed, or are you continuing your let’s annoy Aubree crusade?”
“Little bit of A,” he shrugs, soooo friggin’ casually. “Little bit of B. How’s your day going?”
“It just started! Why are you awake? I’ve come to rely on the fact you won’t stalk me until at least after noon.”
“Still on New York time.” He steps back when Fletch swarms into the room. One might think, ‘ Hey, Tim is mafia—ex or current, it hardly matters—and Fletch is a cop, and we’re inside a closed scene. This might mean I can get rid of the former .’ But no. I’m not so lucky, because Fletch is friendly with Tim, too. The entire police force is crooked, if only a teeny, tiny little bit. “How long until you’re taking your DB back to the George Stanley?”
“So odd,” I sigh, turning back to my decedent and looking her up and down. “I could almost forget I’m an independent, single woman, and actually answer you. But then I remember…” I glance back, “I don’t have to answer you.”
“It was a simple question.” He watches Fletch with curious, probing eyes, so I see the way he thinks. Processes. Documents. “Towels?”
“Aubs said her skin is gonna peel off the second we try to move her.”
“Actually, I said this is a closed crime scene and Timothy Malone has no right to be here.” I meet my colleague’s eyes and lift a challenging brow. “I fail to understand why you so willingly sully your case by answering his questions.”
“For fun, mostly.” He flashes a grin at an amused Tim and steps around to the other side of the bed. Immediately, his smile dissolves just as surely as her skin. “I can see her brain.”
“What’s left of it.” I feel awful for the woman who lived alone. Died alone. She existed in filth, and in the end, ate herself to death. “I’ll require a list of all prescribed medications before I can rule natural causes. And we’re gonna need a lot more hands in here to lift her. Expect there to be a lot of sloughing. I’ll need to photograph the scene thoroughly, because once we move her, she won’t be put back together the same way. Her fatty deposits long ago turned to liquid, and when we lift her, the skin covering her back and rump will split and spill, if it hasn’t already.”
“Officer Clay?” Fletch turns back to the door and shouts across the apartment. “We need more hands in here.”
“I’m gonna call transport.” I don’t bother cutting into the woman’s torso to make sure she’s dead. Policy or not, when you can see someone’s half-eaten brain, it’s a reasonable bet to assume they’re not coming back. “Most importantly, I need photo-documentation. And get this civilian out of the apartment.”
Playfully, Fletch peeks over to Tim. “Are you the civilian, Mr. Malone?”
“I might be.” He brings his eyes my way, even while, in his pocket, his phone blasts an annoying ringtone. “I’m not leaving. I’m gonna take this call, Doctor Emeri. But I’m staying on site, and when you can clear a minute, I’d like to speak with you. ”
“Sounds kinda serious,” Fletch sniggers. “Can Tim help lift the body? Civilian or not, if I can trade with him…”
“No.”