The Chippewa Courts Inn was your typical no-tell-motel. The building itself was an unremarkable, twenty-four unit, one-story structure in the shape of a lopsided, block-style letter “U”. At the truncated end, which was farthest from us at the moment, was the office. Behind that there were four rooms. The two longer expanses housed the remaining eighteen less-than-spacious accommodations, ten in one section and eight in the other. Each had a double window, exterior door, and a single parking space in front of it.
Across the almost deserted expanse of the parking lot, a timeworn marquee stood in front of the office, near the street. Its mismatched backlit letters proclaimed “FREE IN-ROOM ADULT MOVIES.” Beneath that bit of visceral marketing, a pinkish neon pretzel struggled to announce “VACANCY,” occasionally blinking into darkness, only to eventually issue a loud buzz and snap back to something less than brilliance before flickering off yet again.
Room seven, where we were now entering, was itself your typical hourly-rate special-rectangular, not quite clean, and poorly lit. The streaked windows next to the weather-beaten door were covered inside by heavy drapes, which were themselves a good decade out of style, if not more. In keeping with a basic configuration, there was a dressing area and sink at the back of the room. Over the basin sat a large mirror that was now reflecting the flicker of lights from outside as they bounced in through the open doorway. To the right of that area appeared to be a smaller room, most likely the bathroom and shower.
Ben pointed to the smaller room as if he’d been reading my mind. “Body’s back there in the john,” he offered, thereby confirming the suspicion.
Wafting on the chilled atmosphere was the usual unsavory blend of odors one encountered in such a room-stale smoke, musty carpet, and old intimacy. However, in this case the olfactory aura of bygone lovemaking was merely a subtle backdrop to the unmistakable odor of recent, unbridled sex. In fact, the very charge of extreme passion hanging in the air would have been enough to provoke arousal were it not underscored by the less than commonplace, but just as palpable, funk of death. As if that weren’t enough, pulling the unlikely melange together was a cloying watermelon-like scent.
“TV assholes are here,” Ben called out to the lone crime scene technician inhabiting the room. My friend swung the door closed behind us then stabbed a finger toward the silvery back wall as he instructed, “We better keep the door shut, or one of the fuckers’ll be bright enough ta’ try pointin’ a camera into that mirror.”
The dust-mask-wearing technician gave a nod as he took a few steps toward us. “What about the plate on the car?”
“Covered,” Ben replied. “Got a squad parked behind it.”
From all indications, the tech had simply been milling about and leaving the scene untouched, presumably waiting for us to arrive and create the visual record that was the next step in the chain of evidence. I was getting ready to ask about the mask when he quickly turned away and pulled it down. Slapping a handkerchief up to his face, he broke the near serenity of the interior with a resounding sneeze.
“Jeezus, Murv,” Ben said. “You really that sick?”
“What the hell gave ya’ that idea?” he replied, a slight Southern drawl affecting his raw voice. Still, even his obviously heavy congestion didn’t hide the sarcasm tainting the words.
“Well why didn’t ya’ stay home then?” Ben asked.
“Oh, maybe ‘cause you told ‘em ta’ get me outta bed.”
He finished wiping his reddened nose then pulled the mask back up to cover the lower half of his face.
“You shoulda said you were sick.”
“I did,” he returned through the disposable cup-shaped shield. “But, then I got told, ‘Storm says don’t be such a wuss’.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Yeah, well my ass. You’re gonna owe me for this one.”
My friend nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Booze or cigars?”
“The way I feel right now? Booze.”
“Bottle of Jack?”
“Screw that,” Murv huffed. “This is worth Maker’s Mark. The big bottle, not the little one.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ben agreed. “So, listen, this is Felicity and…”
“Yeah, we’ve met. It’s been…” he interrupted then abruptly ended his own sentence with a repeat of the earlier sneeze. “Look, no offense,” he finally continued, gazing back at all of us with bleary eyes as he repositioned the mask once again. “But all I wanna do right now is go home. Can we just do this so I can get a team in here to work the scene?”
“You got a team? I thought everyone was out sick?”
“I’ve got three techs,” he replied. “And two of them are as bad off as I am, so can we get moving on this?”
“Yeah.” Ben nodded.
“Can you smell that?” I asked, grabbing at the opportunity to interject the question.
“I couldn’t smell shit if I was neck deep in it,” Murv replied, shaking his head.
“Yeah. Ya’ talkin’ ‘bout the sickly gag-a-maggot reek?” Ben asked.
“Yeah.”
He pointed to a nightstand next to the twin bed. “There’s a tube’a crap over there. Some kinda novelty eat-me gel or somethin’. Smells like a whor…” He caught himself mid-sentence, casting a quick glance at Felicity. “…Reeks don’t it?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Is there anything in particular you want me to concentrate on, then?” my wife asked.
“You get the outside already?” Murv asked.
“The door and a few shots of the lot leading up to the entrance. I didn’t see any markers, so I just shot mid-range.”
“Yeah, nothin’ out there in the way of evidence we could see,” he agreed. “Except the car. It’s the victim’s, so we’ll want it covered in and out before we start tearin’ it apart.”
“No problem. I still need some overalls of the lot and sign too,” Felicity offered. “But I thought I might wait for daybreak since it’s not far off.”
“Makes sense,” Murv told her with a nod. “Then just play it by the book. I’ve got a few markers down in here. Not much, but go ahead and shoot every angle just to be safe. We’ll sort it out later.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Cover all the bases. Two of everything.”
“Aye,” she returned. “No problem. Digital okay?”
“Hi-res?” Murv asked.
“Six megapixel, raw.”
He nodded. “Go for it.”
“You got gloves for ‘em?” Ben asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, rummaging around in his coat pockets for a second then extracting a wad of latex. Just as he was handing them to us, he let loose with a third explosive sneeze. This time, however, it exited well ahead of his reflexes, containing itself within the mask.
“Crap,” he exclaimed then shoved the gloves into Felicity’s hand as he headed out the door muttering, “If y’all ‘ll excuse me for a minute.”
“You couldn’t get someone else, Ben?” Felicity admonished as she picked a pair of gloves from the wad then handed the rest to me. “That man should be in bed.”
“Don’t let ‘im fool ya’, Felicity,” he returned. “He runs the CSU. He would’ve insisted on being here anyway. Besides, he’s the best there is.”
“Aye, well I still say he needs a tottie and a good night’s rest.”
“I’ll tell ‘im you said that.”
She cast a quick glance between us then handed me the camera bag she had been carrying slung over her shoulder.
“All right,” she announced, moving on to the business at hand. “We’ll work the main room clockwise, including the dressing area, then we’ll do that bathroom separate. Row, there’s a logbook in that bag. Just stay behind me and write down whatever I tell you. Ben, I hate to tell you this, but you need to be somewhere else. Because, right now, you’re in my way.”
A blinding flash of illumination burst forth, painting the corner in its harsh glow, then dissipated almost as quickly as it had presented itself. The steady whistle of the thyristor on the flash unit started squealing through the otherwise quiet room, rising in pitch until it was almost imperceptible.
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.