2. Kyle
CHAPTER 2
KYLE
I parked my truck in front of the double-wide trailer, squinted to see the house numbers in the beams of my headlights, then double-checked the address against the work order. Yep. This was the place.
Not that I’d had a lot of doubt—the police tape across the storm door kind of gave it away. So did the patrol officer leaning against his patrol car, eating an apple and looking bored out of his skull. I recognized him; he was blond with a stereotypical cop mustache, and he always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, especially when he was stuck on this kind of detail. I couldn’t blame him; I didn’t imagine guarding a crime scene was the type of excitement most people signed up for when they became cops.
I jotted down my time of arrival, then opened the door and hopped down from the cab.
“About fucking time,” the cop—Officer Hansen, I realized as I came closer—groused. “I thought you were supposed to be here at eight.”
“Uh-huh. And if your radio is on, then you know there was a wreck on the freeway, so…” I flailed my hand. “It took me a little longer than it should’ve.”
He scowled, but I just shoved my clipboard at him. “Can you sign over the scene so I can get started?”
After he’d signed it and handed it back, I nodded toward the trailer. “Anything I need to know before I go in there?” The work order usually had a brief rundown of what to expect, but sometimes they left out little details like “a very testy family of raccoons moved in last week” or “the homeowner displayed a lot of artwork featuring hairy naked buttholes.” Yes, both of those things had happened. And I mean, wildlife did what wildlife was going to do, and people liked different kinds of artwork. No judgment. Just seemed courteous to maybe give a dude a heads up before he strolled into a crime scene and found, in addition to everything he was there to clean up, a small army of hissing trash pandas or a tastefully-framed three-foot anus painting.
Officer Hansen shook his head. “Nah. The guy wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world, but…” He half-shrugged, then smirked. “Though, that’s what you’re here to take care of, so—lucky him!”
I made a face. Lucky him? The dude was lying on a slab somewhere after he’d killed himself. “Lucky” wasn’t really the adjective of choice in this situation, I thought.
“Okay. Well.” I motioned toward the truck. “I should get to work.”
“Yep. Have fun with that.” He clapped my shoulder, then did a double take at my forearm. “Hey, what’d you do? You aren’t trying to learn knife fighting again, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. Running my finger over the bandage, I said, “Nah. I wasn’t paying attention and Steve bit me. Again .”
The officer blinked. Then he shook his head and started toward the driver seat of his car. “I swear, kid. You’re the only person I know who gets war wounds from his pet fish .”
“Hey, the other ones don’t bite me! Just Steve.”
Hansen shot me a look as he pulled open the door. “Give it time. Those things can turn a cow into a skeleton in under a minute.” Dropping himself into the driver seat, he added, “No sane person has them as pets, never mind sticks his arm in their tank!”
He slammed the car door before I could shout after him that piranhas only ate in that kind of frenzy when they were starving, which mine absolutely never were. They made great pets, damn it! And they weren’t aggressive at all when they were happy, healthy, and well-fed.
Except Steve. God, Steve was a prick.
At least I’d had the traffic jam on the freeway to use as an alibi for being late to the scene. I didn’t need Hansen finding out—and passing on to my dad and brother, both of whom worked in the same precinct—that my stupid fish had taken a bite out of my arm. One that had bled more than usual and kept me from leaving the house on time. My family, like everyone else, already gave me enough shit over my school of piranhas. The less anyone knew that the little fuckers had made me late to work, the better.
Fuck you, Steve.
And technically, I shouldn’t have needed to come here tonight. I swore to myself as I pulled on all my PPE. The scene had been released earlier this evening, and I could’ve just as easily shown up tomorrow. Another twelve hours wouldn’t make much of a difference on my end. And in most other jurisdictions, the cops would release the scene, and crime scene cleanup crews got there when they got there.
But nooo, this department insisted on handing them off directly to us, which meant the officer posted to guard the scene had to stay there until I physically showed up and took over. And since they were cracking down on overtime, I had to get here now unless I wanted the city to decline to renew my contract at the end of the year. As long as I was here, I might as well get started.
God forbid the crime scene cleanup people had things like “social lives” and “shit to do.”
Not that I had either of those things. My only plans tonight had involved cleaning the fish tank, which I had managed to accomplish before I got bitten or got the call. A win, I guess?
Eh. It was money.
With all my usual gear on and a pen and notebook in hand, I headed inside. No cleaning supplies yet—first step was checking out the scene and making notes of what I would need for the job and what I should check with the owner about before starting.
I pulled off the police tape and pushed open the door. Even through my respirator, the air was heavy and coppery with blood. I was used to that. In fact, this was already better than a lot of the death scenes I’d cleaned. The decedent had been found… yesterday, I thought? Might’ve even been today.
Anyway. I closed the door behind me and scanned the living room. Nothing in here that I needed to deal with, aside from a half-eaten slice of pizza sitting on top of the box on the coffee table. I always gave the kitchen a once-over and took out the trash as part of my services; it went a long way toward making a place smell a skoch less ripe.
But the pizza slice gave me pause.
That was… odd.
Wasn’t this a suicide?
And like, people who were in the state of mind to take their own lives were never in a good place. I felt for them, you know? When ending it was the only way to stop whatever pain they were living with—I couldn’t imagine.
I’d been to the scenes of a lot of suicides. Though no two were alike, there were common patterns.
I was no expert, but I didn’t think I’d ever encountered a suicide where someone literally got up in the middle of a meal, went in the other room, and took their life.
That was for people with a lot more letters behind their name to figure out. I was just here to clean up the scene so the trailer could be sold or rented or whatever.
Except it still bothered me. Even as I continued down the hall, my mind kept going back to that slice of pizza.
Halfway down the hall, I stopped, and I rocked on my feet.
I had to clear it away. It was part of my job. But what if the CSI techs hadn’t made a note of it? Maybe I should snap a photo.
Yes. Yes, that was what I needed to do.
I made a note to grab the disposable camera I kept in the back of the truck when I went out to get cleaning supplies. Like hell was I using my phone—that was how phones got confiscated by the cops. Fuck that.
For now, I continued my sweep. The hallway had some bloody shoe impressions. Small ones, like someone had a little bit of blood on their heel or something; they were faint smears that probably hadn’t gone all the way through. In theory I could just remove them, but I’d text the owner and ask if he wanted me to clean it, cut out the affected pieces of carpet, or rip out the whole thing instead.
The bedroom—that was another story. I’d been to the scenes of suicides by shotgun before, and they always gave me chills. The sheer amount of destruction someone could do to themselves with a single blast was… a lot to process.
I pulled my attention away from the all too familiar fan pattern of blood and viscera, and analyzed the whole scene. Everything in here would need to go to the incinerator. There was no salvaging the bedclothes or the mattress. The frame—well, we’d see how the wood looked after I cleaned off the blood. Sometimes furniture like that was salvageable, especially with some sanding and a coat of?—
The front door creaked and the air pressure changed.
I froze.
Aww, fuck.
The reason the city insisted on keeping a cop posted here until the cleanup crew arrived was that vandals, thieves, addicts, and bored kids—not to mention true crime influencer wannabes, God, I hated those fuckers—would break in. Sometimes in search of things they could steal (I couldn’t count the number of scenes I’d been to that had been stripped of any trace of copper) or gory images they could upload for clout or whatever.
They weren’t always friendly or lucid, especially at night, and that was the reason I carried.
The trailer’s floorboards creaked under someone’s weight.
I unzipped the pocket of my Tyvek suit so I could reach my sidearm if necessary.
“Hey, anybody in here?” a voice called out.
I stiffened. Male voice. Sounded non-threatening. Sounded lucid.
Cautiously, keeping my hand near that unzipped pocket, I moved back up the hall.
“Hello?” he called out again like a dumbass in a horror movie. “Anybody here?” Did people have zero survival instincts anymore?
Jesus. You would go right into the dark basement, wouldn’t you?
On the other hand, my truck was outside. It was a safe bet the “anybody here” would be me or someone else in my profession. Still, the victim had apparently been involved in drugs. Sometimes that meant dangerous people showing up to scour the scene for any stray pills or granules of something potent. Ask me how I know.
“Is anybody here?” he called out again. “Hellooo? Is—Oh!”
He stepped into my view, and suddenly we were face-to-face, staring at each other like I’d stared at that family of racoons. No one was hissing so far, which was a plus.
And…
Not gonna lie, survival instincts or no, he was kind of cute. He was a white guy like me, maybe two or three inches taller with that gym bro build tucked into a tight T-shirt and snug jeans. His hair was long, and he’d either gotten highlights or spent some serious time in the sun. Could’ve been either or both, given the tan.
And he was standing in my crime scene without a stitch of protective gear.
I shook myself out of my startled stupor. “What the hell are you doing in here? Don’t you know this is a—well, it’s not a crime scene, but it’s a death scene!”
“Oh, I know.” He nodded. “That’s why I came back.” He lowered his voice a little. “I think it is a crime scene.”
The urge to roll my eyes and tell him to get the fuck out wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been. It wasn’t nearly as strong as the urge to glance at the pizza slice on the coffee table.
Something prickled along the length of my spine.
I opened my mouth to ask what he was thinking, but then I remembered the scene had been turned over to me and my company, which meant I could be liable if this guy inhaled a stray fentanyl particle or tripped over his shoelaces or something. Especially since a downward glance revealed that one of his Chuck Taylors was, in fact, untied.
I huffed into my respirator. “Let’s go outside. And tie your damn shoes.”
“Tie my—” He looked down. “Oh. Shit.”
Then he crouched, and I waited patiently (sort of) while he tied his laces. I was annoyed—by his presence, by the delay— but at least now he wouldn’t step on his laces and go ass over teakettle down the porch steps.
Once he was securely shod, we went outside and down the steps of the tiny porch. That was when I noticed the car that had parked next to my truck. And I used the word “parked” loosely—the gravel driveway didn’t have stripes indicating parking spaces, but most people would at least try to pull in parallel to the next vehicle, right?
This guy’s car was at almost a forty-five degree angle to my truck, with the passenger side front tire perched precariously on top of one of the railroad ties surrounding the tiny lawn. Behind the car, in the blanched glow of the floodlights, the gravel had been disturbed in that way that suggested a high speed and not very controlled turn. In fact I was surprised I hadn’t heard him come skidding in, but I did get pretty hyper-focused when I was working.
I eyed the car, then the stranger. “Did you… drift into the driveway or something?”
“Huh?” He glanced at his car, then chuckled and gave a dismissive shrug. Before I could ask which cereal box he’d pulled his driver’s license out of, he gestured at the trailer and repeated, “I think this is a crime scene.”
I sighed, pulled off my respirator, and pushed back my hood. It was too muggy out, even this time of night, to be wearing that damn thing if I didn’t have to. “How do you figure?”
“I—” He paused and did a double take, staring at me.
“Um.” I shifted under the scrutiny. “What?”
He stammered a little, reminding me of my fish, though he wasn’t sporting the menacingly sharp teeth they had. Then he shook himself and cleared his throat, and though it was hard to tell in the porch light, I though the might’ve blushed.
“The scene,” he said again. “I—there’s something weird about it.”
So it wasn’t just me.
“Okay, but what are—” I flailed a hand. “Who even are you? How have you had access to the scene?”
“Oh!” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Everett Mulligan. My family owns Mulligan’s Mortuary Services. I was the one who picked up the body.”
“Ah.” My glove was still clean, so I accepted the handshake. “So you were here when the scene was fresh.”
He nodded. “Yeah, and it was fucking weird, man.”
I leaned against my truck and folded my arms. “Go on.” I had my suspicions too, but I wanted to hear his theories first.
“The body had a bruise.” He gestured at his midsection. “Big one. And it was a footprint. You could see the tread and everything. It was an Air Force 1. It had to be.”
I blinked. Maybe I’d been too presumptuous, thinking this guy was a dumbass. “So a suicide… had a distinctive shoe impression on his body.”
“Uh-huh. And there’s a smear of blood in the hallway. But like, how’s a guy going to get blood on the wall in another room after he’s blown his head off?”
“A smear of…” I peered at the trailer as if I might be able to see through the cheap siding and into the hallway. I’d been focused on the carpet and distracted by the pizza, and I hadn’t even noticed blood on the wall. Not yet, anyway.
“I tried to tell the cops,” Everett went on. “They wouldn’t listen, but—I don’t know. I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I came back to take another look. I was hoping to get here before you did.” He laughed. “Didn’t quite beat you here, but at least I got here before you’d started cleaning!”
I nodded. Yeah. Yeah, he had. If I’d gotten here on time…
I absently scratched at the bandage on my arm through the Tyvek sleeve.
Maybe Steve wasn’t such a bastard after all.