The clock on the nightstand said it was three in the morning, and there was a chill in the air from the September winds that had been blowing through the city for days. He wondered why Brenda hadn’t turned on the heat before she left. Probably trying to save pennies again. They’d been saving for a vacation, three, no four, years now. So far they hadn’t saved much. Not enough to get away to – where was it she wanted to go again? She had wanted to relax a little. Someplace with water and a beach, he thought. The Cayman Islands?
He shook his head to clear it and reached for his trousers, which lay hanging over the chair by the door. Flipping on the light, he pulled a shirt from a hanger in the closet. It was wrinkled. He frowned as he slipped it on. Brenda usually didn’t miss things like that. It wouldn’t look professional to report for duty in a wrinkled shirt, even if it was early in the morning. He skipped the tie and grabbed a dark jacket from the back of the closet. It smelled of mothballs.
He turned to the nightstand, where he always put his badge and gun before going to sleep. He reached for the drawer and saw that there was no drawer to reach for. What was going on? Maybe Brenda had bought a new nightstand. He’d been working lots of overtime, at least it felt like it, and she’d had to run the household on her own this year. But then he always worked overtime. He searched around the edge of the bed on both sides. Maybe she had put his badge and gun in the lockbox they kept under the pile of old clothes in the closet. He looked, sifting through pairs of men’s shoes, stacks of shirts still in their wrappers, and behind a clutter of umbrellas. No lockbox. No pile of old clothes. Brenda must have been doing some cleaning.
A part of his memory suddenly recalled where he’d stashed his old badge: in the pocket of his overcoat. He slipped the coat on and fished around in the pockets. There it was. He stared at the badge, thinking it didn’t feel right that it was tucked away in a pocket way back in the closet. He should be carrying it with him always. But what about his new badge? The one they’d given him to replace the old one. Where was it now? He’d have to ask Brenda later what she did with it. Slipping on his shoes, he pushed the badge back into a side pocket and left the room. The sirens were fading now.
He followed the dying sounds out his front door. Sunlight was just beginning to mark the sky with bands of pink and purple and gold. He stood on his lawn, his shoes untied and wet from the morning dew, trying to track the sounds. Somewhere to the south. He reached into his pants pocket for his keys as he opened the door to the sedan parked by the curb. No keys. He searched his coat pockets. Nothing but the badge there. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he wondered where his keys had gone. Then he saw them stuck in the ignition. He shook his head and started the car, looking out at the beams of his headlights as they shined down the road. Which way had the sound come from again? South. He turned the car around and headed down the road toward the crime scene.
It took a bit of driving to find it. Finally, after circling back and forth down endless blocks, he saw the bubble lights of the police cruisers parked ahead of him. Lots of people were milling around. Many seemed to be just passersby, but a few were in their robes or pajamas. He hoped Darby had cordoned off the area. Lots of patrol cops trying to corral a crowd of onlookers and witnesses meant evidence was likely being tramped over or destroyed. They’d have to sift through what the crowd had left behind as well as any traces left by the criminal they were looking for. That was a sloppy way to investigate a crime scene.
He saw that one of the cops was questioning someone by the open back door of a patrol car. Probably a witness. Someone he would need to talk to as soon as possible.
He parked his car behind the last cruiser on the scene and stepped out into the chilly air. The sky was beginning to brighten. Daybreak was coming. That was good. You lost too many things in the dark. Too many things you couldn’t get back. He glanced around and spied an irregular shape beneath a sheet farther up the hill from where the cars were parked. A couple of plainclothes policemen were standing over it. He could see that the ME had arrived and was taking preliminary measurements around the body. He couldn’t see Darby anywhere. Maybe his partner had missed the call. He’d have to tell one of the men standing around – what were they called? Officers, that was it. He’d have to have an officer call Darby at the precinct and get him over here. Or was Darby at home in bed now with his wife? Did Darby have a wife? He’d have made the call himself, but he saw that his radio was somehow missing from his car.
The officers were busy keeping the curious passersby away from the scene and talking to potential witnesses. One patrolman was laying flares across the road while another redirected traffic. The second officer watched him with a wary eye as he walked away from his car and tramped slowly up the hill toward the body and the two detectives. He waved and fished out his badge, flashing it in the patrolman’s direction. The officer nodded and went back to motioning to cars.
The detectives had stepped away from the body and were comparing notes at the top of the grassy hill. They stopped talking when they saw him approach. He stopped in front of the sheet and showed them his badge, then bent down with an effort and lifted the edge of the cloth. The girl who lay there on the wet grass couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She had long brown hair with red streaks in it, and her face was round and smooth and delicate, like a doll’s. He thought she looked a little like his daughter. Karen, no, it was Shannon, wasn’t it? Shannon had always reminded him of one of those porcelain dolls. Her skin was so clean and smooth, like glass. He’d been afraid to hold her when she first was handed to him in the hospital. Shannon, no, no, Karen, had looked at him with big round eyes. Blue, he thought when he stared back at her and smiled. They were blue. He stared down and wondered what color this girl’s eyes were.
“Excuse me, Detective?”
The girl had been stabbed in the stomach. There didn’t seem to be any other marks on her. There wasn’t much blood, but he figured it might have seeped into the soft ground beneath her. He looked around for bloody footprints but didn’t see any. There were no stains on the grass leading away from the body. Perhaps the perp had killed her somewhere else and dumped her body here. He doubted it. This little hill was a popular place for young lovers to meet. There was a park nearby, and plenty of trees to hide it from the main road. Maybe they had known each other. Well enough for the killer to get close enough to stab her without a struggle and run off before anyone could see him.
“Detective?”
He bent down further and saw a small piece of thread near her left arm. It was small, very small. He didn’t pick it up. He’d leave that for forensics, but noted that it was two-tone, red and blue together. It looked like the kind of thick thread that he pulled regularly from the sweaters that his wife – Brenda, was it? – always made for him. He could have used one of those sweaters now. He smelled something now too. Something lingering in the air. It was almost like cigarette smoke, but not quite. This was a bit heavier than cigarette smoke, even those high-tar brands some of the older men smoked. He thought maybe a cigar, one of those smelly little ones he’d seen the teenagers and twentysomethings smoking on the streets these days. Or was that back when he was just a young patrolman himself? No, they hadn’t been available back then, had they? He stared down at the girl again and sighed.
“Lieutenant, can I speak with you please?”
He stood up, expecting that they would give him all the information they had and let him and Darby get on with the job of finding the killer. He looked around, studying the grass, the sidewalk below, and the street. There were lots of people still hanging around. He wondered if one of them might be the killer. Sometimes they hung around to see what the police were able to figure out. They feared being caught by something they left behind. Sometimes their guilt prevented them from keeping away. There were no signs of a struggle. He was sure of it. If the girl was killed here, then she knew her attacker, probably a boyfriend. Had they argued? About what?