4. - – Detective Hill
CHAPTER FOUR
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DETECTIVE HILL
I grumbled as I pushed through the overgrowth, Detective Miller following close behind. I can’t believe anyone would want to live out here like this.
It was a few minutes before he broke the silence.? “There’s something off about him, but why haven’t you mentioned anything to him about his daughter?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Elias’ daughter was murdered four years ago and it was never solved.” I paused. “I feel very strongly he was involved somehow. I just need the evidence to back me up.”
Miller paused. “How did you manage to get the warrants anyway?”
I didn’t respond, leaving him to invent a scenario in his head.
We stepped onto the porch, moving with the hushed urgency of people who probably shouldn't be there.
Miller tested the lock, expecting resistance, but the door gave way with a heavy, ominous creak.
A draft of stale, cold air bled out from the interior.
“Like a damn horror movie,” he muttered.
We shared a jagged, nervous laugh, the kind of sound people make right before they realize the nightmare isn't a script.
Once inside, I looked around slowly, half-expecting a jump scare to pop out from behind the baby grand piano.
Miller shivered. “Well, this place gives me the creeps.” He aimed his flashlight at a doll cabinet which was loaded up with porcelain dolls.
I crept toward the cabinet, feeling their glossy, fake eyes follow me and hoped none of them started speaking. I needed to stop watching so many ghost and horror movies. “It’s almost like they are… alive.” I flipped the clasp holding the glass doors shut and pulled them open.
My eyes locked on a single, jarring detail: the hair. This wasn’t the coarse synthetic fiber my grandmother used to use. It seemed too real. I traced the fine, split ends of a blonde braid with my eyes, a cold knot forming in my stomach.
Sure, human-hair wigs were common enough, but as I moved the flashlight, I noticed the subtle variations in color. Natural highlights - no factory could replicate - and they seemed to be poorly attached to the dolls head. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
It looked like it had been harvested.
My stomach churned. I wanted to throw up and Miller looked like he had seen a ghost. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he tried to brush it off. “There’s no way.”
We both knew the drill. The moment you find biological evidence, you freeze. You don't touch it or bag it yourself, at least, not if you want the conviction to stick. I stepped back, ushering Miller toward the front door.
"We’ll wait for the forensic unit to get here," he muttered, as he ended a call I hadn’t realized he had made. His eyes never left the doll’s unsettling, human-like scalp. "If we touch that thing, a defense lawyer will have my head on a platter before the lab even runs the sequence."
When the forensic team finally arrived, they didn't rush.
They never did. They moved with an agonizing, methodical pace, setting up their tripods and snapping flash photos turned the dark corners of the room into blinding white voids.
They were looking for more than just hair; they were looking for the ghost of the woman who had lost it.