Foul, Strange, and Unnatural

by

Daniel Davis 

            Her name was Carrie Jenson, and she was sixteen years old.  She had light blond hair, which hung past her shoulder blades.  Her eyes were a crystalline blue, the kind of blue that sparkles with youthful vigor and anticipation.

            When I met her she was naked, crumpled into the corner of her second floor bathroom, three holes in her chest and her blood-splattered cheek resting against the back of the toilet.

            The forensics men had already done their work, leaving my partner and I alone with the body.  I didn’t know what they expected us to do—they were the experts of dead bodies, we were the experts at apprehending live ones—but Jeff and I stood there, staring down at her.  I wasn’t sure what to say.

            There was of course the obligatory “it’s such a shame,” which Jeff uttered without much enthusiasm.  It was a shame, but what could we do about it?  All we could do was find her killer—and that would most likely be done by finding out who else shared the house with her, as she was the only body on the premises.

            “What size caliber do you think they are?” I asked, staring at the holes. 

            “Thirty-eights, maybe.  Couldn’t say for sure.  They’re probably still in her; I don’t see any blood on the wall behind her.”

            “True.”  I looked up at her face, blushing.  I’d seen plenty of women naked—young, old, alive, dead—but it was always more embarrassing, somehow, with the dead ones.  At least when they were alive, you usually had their permission.  I always wondered if the souls that once inhabited the bodies I viewed were looking down from Heaven or wherever we go when we die and cursing me.

            “We should probably let DuPaige dig them out,” Jeff said..

            I nodded.  I’d dug plenty of slugs out of corpses.  I’d long ago decided to leave it up to someone who was paid to do it.  Me, I was just paid to walk around in a suit, flash a badge, and make people feel safer.

*

            During my first year of patrol, I came across my first murder victim.  Fresh, too.  I blame 911 for much of the stress cops go through these days.  Crimes are reported sooner, and cops arrive on the scene before the blood has dried.

            The body was in some rundown city park, and I just happened to be the closest unit.  I probably arrived within ten minutes of the killer’s departure.  The witness—if she can really be called that—was sitting on a bench, clutching a cell phone, staring at some bushes.  She didn’t even notice when I walked up beside her and asked her what the problem was.  She just kept staring into those bushes.  I didn't like the expression on her face, and if I hadn't been wearing the badge I would've turned away, but it was my job so I went on over there.

            I first saw a face, and the kill was so fresh I thought the victim was alive.  A middle-aged woman, fairly attractive, with a bit too much makeup; a prime mark for robbery, and I felt that I should scold her.  But her eyes didn’t move towards me as they should’ve.  And her mouth stayed open in that strange, twisted position. 

            Also, she didn’t have a body.

            The torso, as I was told later, was several yards away; the head had been severed and thrown into some bushes.  We never learned why, because the killer was never apprehended, and that used to bother me—why would you rob someone, get their money, and then cut off their head?

            I didn’t vomit at the crime scene.  That came later, when I went home to my apartment.  I threw up, and then I fell onto my couch and lay there, staring at the ceiling.  I watched the fan as it made its lazy circles, and I didn’t think of the head, and I didn’t think of the blank look in those eyes, and I didn’t think of the bloody stump I had caught a glimpse of before turning away.  I didn’t think of any of that. 

            But I still cried.

*

            The next time I saw Carrie Jenson was at the place I usually see bodies for the second time—the city morgue.  The coroner, Michael DuPaige, had finished his autopsy, and was making some last-minute notes on his clipboard.

            “Three thirty-eights,” he told me, as I looked down at her face.  A sheet covered the rest of her, but I still felt guilty.

            “Two through the left lung.  One nicked the heart.  If I had to guess, I’d say it was the last one that killed her.  But I’m only guessing here.”

            His apathy towards the dead was only one of the reasons I despised him.

            “She wasn’t on drugs or anything, which is a bit of a shocker.  Most of the little punks we get in here are so doped up, they probably didn’t even know somebody was holding a gun on them.  This little sweetie-pie, though, she’s not a doper.  And I’d guess she doesn’t drink much, if ever.  Healthiest fucking kidneys I’ve ever seen.  And her liver should be put in a museum, it’s so good.  She wasn’t bad to look at, either.  Alive, I mean.”

            I wanted to punch him.  His routine bored me.  He only went through it because it made him feel important—which he was.

            “Any idea who killed her?”

            I didn't answer him.  He would've ignored me anyways.

            “If I had to guess, I’d say robbery.  You know?  She wasn’t raped—I swabbed her out, every hole, even did her ears and nostrils just for shits and giggles.  Nothing.  So I guess she’s lucky with that, you know?  Girl as pretty as her, they’re usually raped.  Lot of sick fucks out there, like to get their kicks raping little girls.  Little boys, too, some of ‘em.  This girl, I suppose she got off easy.  Heard a story of a girl her age kept in a cellar, raped and tortured.  Kept her in handcuffs, fed her just enough so she didn’t die.  Did horrible things to her.  Horrible things.  Our little girl here got off easy.”

            He was right, in a way.  The things that happen these days, Carrie Jenson did get off easy.  She was shot, three times in rapid succession, died before she was even aware that she was dying.  Kind of like going in your sleep, but noisier.       

*

            I met Christine, my wife, four years ago at a police function.  She had moved to New York to be a model; I didn’t have the heart to tell her she wasn’t cut out for it.  I think she found that out for herself.  She’s pretty, beautiful even, but she doesn’t have the stage presence that models typically possess.  I wonder if anyone ever explained it to her; I wonder why no one ever suggested that she pursue a different career path.

            She was dating a patrolman at the time, someone I didn’t know.  I worked patrol as well, and it scared me shitless; the city isn’t the kind of place you like to drive around, especially when your uniform is one giant target.  A surprising number of people resent you for carrying a badge. Apparently, if you drive a squad car, you’re a racist, a bigot, a jackass, a communist, and a Jew.  As far as I know I’m none of those things, though one of my best friends growing up was Jewish.

            When I saw her she was wearing a green dress that looked awful on her.  That was how I noticed her—the dress brought out the color of her eyes, but even the most beautiful eyes can’t make up for the most horrible dress.  It showed a bit too much cleavage, and she had plenty to show.  Her auburn hair was pulled back in a tight little bun, and you could tell she hated it.  It wasn’t until a week later that I found out she was from southern Illinois, and had actually heard of the Indiana town I grew up in.

            She and the patrolman she'd arrived with had a falling out, and she wound up with me.  Simple as that.  I had introduced myself after one too many shots; she had reciprocated the introduction after one too many glasses of wine; and we made out in the parking lot, sneaking glances to make sure her date wasn't watching.  When she ditched him, she came to me, and we’ve been together ever since.  We still make out in public, sometimes, just for the hell of it.  It helps us pretend like we’re still dating, and not married.

*

            There’s something about a morgue that makes a detective feel out of place.

            It has nothing to do with the dead bodies; in fact, a morgue is convenient in that way—you always know where the bodies are, who they are, and usually how they died.  They’re all there, each in their own little drawer.  All you have to do is flip a latch, open the door, and slide out the tray.

            No, what gets to you is how overdressed you are when you walk in there.  The coroner always wears a white smock with a doctor’s gown on underneath it.  The walls are bare, the floor clean, the tables stainless steel.  Everything is a shade of white or gray.  Even the bodies are pale.  Standing there in my black suit and slacks, I couldn’t help but notice how much I stood out.  A detective doesn’t like to stand out.  It’s a good way to get shot.

            Of course, in this city, being alive is a good way to get shot.

            “I guess the first clue that she wasn’t raped was the fact that she’s still a virgin.  You believe that?  She’s what, sixteen, and still a virgin?  In this city?  Shit, Anderson, you believe that shit?”

            I nodded.

            DuPaige clucked his tongue.  “A girl lookin’ like her, and still a virgin?  She must’ve been religious.  Did she go to a Catholic school or something?  I tried getting into a Catholic schoolgirl’s pants when I was a kid.  Wasn’t easy.  Took me three weeks and a lot of liquor.”

            I clenched my hand into a fist, let it go.  Did the same with the other.

            “You see any crosses in the house?  Any Bibles?”\

            I shook my head.

            “I guess our little girl here must’ve been a good kid, huh?”

            “Seems so.”

            “Damn.”

            Damn indeed.

*

            I once saved a kid’s life.  I saw a little boy prancing across the road, in some anonymous business district, taking his own sweet time about it, lost in whatever song he was singing.  There was a truck coming up, and that instinct that comes as part of the job told me the driver couldn’t see the boy, or didn’t care, or was too drunk to realize what was about to happen.  So I ran out into the street, scooped up the boy, and jumped for safety.  The truck clipped my foot; I was off-duty for a week and a half.  I landed on my gun, and it left a bruise that lingered for several days.  The kid got a cut on his elbow and cried a lot.  I can’t blame him.  I almost cried too.  My foot hurt.

*

            Jeff  came in after about fifteen minutes.  Ignoring DuPaige, he approached me, the blank expression on his face telling me everything I needed to know. 

            “They caught him.”

            I just stood there, but DuPaige perked up.  “Who was it?”

            Jeff didn’t give the coroner so much as a side glance.  “It was the father, Chris.  It was the goddamn father.”

            I just nodded.

            “They found him in a hotel room just ten minutes ago.  Probably shot himself with the same gun.”

            DuPaige tossed his clipboard down on a nearby table, then turned to Jeff and me.  “Why the fuck would he kill his own daughter?”

            We ignored him.  I said, “So it’s finished, then.”

            It had taken less than five hours.

            Jeff nodded.  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

            DuPaige was scowling at us.  “But goddammit, why?”

            Jeff shrugged, turning to him.  “Who the fuck knows?”

            That shut him up.

            I turned back to Carrie, laid out on the tray.  The sheet had drifted a little; she was still covered, mostly, but I began to blush anyways.

DuPaige was now staring at the girl, too; I wondered how her soul, up in Heaven or wherever, felt about that. 

            I wondered if she was born here, in the city.  I hoped not.  I’ve lived here several years now, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to live in the country.  To grow up there, to be raised there, to know what it’s like to have grass under your feet on a daily basis.  I sometimes question why I came to the city in the first place.  I wonder why I chose this career.  Christine was lucky—she wasn’t cut out to be a model.  Me, I’m a damned good cop, and I can’t help it.

I looked into those lifeless blue eyes, imagining the intelligence that had once sparkled within them.  I didn’t know much about Carrie, not yet; but I figured she was a bright kid, a straight-A student, a go-getter, a cheerleader maybe, or class president.  Something, anything, other than an ordinary girl shot in her ordinary home by an ordinary handgun.

*

I found a dead sparrow once.  It was lying just off the little cement patio, in the small bit of grass Christine and I glorify as a yard.  How it had missed the patio, I don’t know.  It had either fallen off the roof, and been pulled by some breeze, or had dropped dead from the sky.  Or, perhaps, it had dropped alive from the sky, and had died upon impact.

            I grabbed the shovel we keep in the little storage bin.  It’s a heavy thing, with a wooden handle that’s prone to splintering, and a blade that rusted over several years ago. We hardly ever have cause to use it.

            I walked back to the bird and used the shovel to turn it over.  The bottom side of the bird and the ground it had been laying on were covered in maggots.  They writhed ceaselessly, a pool of rippling white.  The bird must’ve been there a while.

            I stared down at those maggots for I’m not sure how long.  I leaned slightly on the shovel, somewhat stooped over.  I didn’t throw up.  I’d seen maggots in worse places.

            I eventually dumped the bird in the dumpster and shoveled some earth over the maggots on the ground.  I then washed the shovel off with the hose and put it back in the storage bin, and that was that.