Blood Case

As I walked up the house being bathed in flashing blue and red lights, I saw a young uniformed officer bent over heaving up the contents of his stomach. It was kind of a rite of passage among officers, witnessing their first murder scenes, more so if the body had been left to rot for a couple of days. As my dad would say, "It would gag a maggot on dump truck from a hundred paces." Remembering my first one, I just shook my head and mumbled, "Rookies." Then I saw Jones, my partner. The grisly veteran was a legend and had been on the force longer than anyone and seen some pretty bad scenes. He was sitting on the steps to the home, just blankly staring at nothing smoking a cigarette. He must be taking this hard, considering he quit five years ago. His hand shook as he brought the cigarette to his lips and took a drag, and finally noticed me. All he said was, "Blood. So much blood. Parts everywhere. Oh God." He then got up hurriedly and joined the rookie.

The home was very well kept, and smelled of fresh potpourri. There were photos that had the same girl in almost all of them. Others had her with a couple different men, her family and some friends. "Social girl," I thought to myself, "Going to be hard to find a suspect, could be anyone." A pale looking forensic tech came walking down the stairs looked at me and said, "Upstairs, second on the right. Prepare yourself. I'm gonna have some nightmares over this one." I gave a quick nod of acknowledgement and proceeded up the stairs.

As I walked into the room, I knew one thing for certain. This person had no control at all once they got into "the zone" of the killing. There was blood and guts everywhere, and I hadn't even seen a body yet. There was a heart on the night stand, the lungs were on opposite sides of the room along with the kidneys, and all of the other parts meant to be inside scattered all over the room. The victim was more than likely female, considering the uterus on the bed. I looked up and saw what had gone down. The suspect had carried her innards into the room and thrown it into the ceiling fan. The hanging intestines wrapped around the fan and could attest to that. I followed the blood trail into her bathroom and saw the body or rather the parts of her body.

On the bottom was her dismembered, presumably by the looks of the other room, hollowed torso, with her two legs, arms and head stacked on top of it. How was it kept altogether? The suspect had used her rest of the intestines as rope, and had tied them in a bow on the top of the head, as if she were a present waiting to be unwrapped. But the most chilling part? The suspect had used tape to keep her eyelids opens and her mouth held up in a smile, greeting anyone walking into the room. I took some more notes and decided to let forensics take it from here, and headed back to my office.

The lieutenant placed the forensics report of my desk and told me I was lead on the case. "What about Jones?" I asked. "Administrative leave until he retires. Congrats on the promotion. Oh and before I forget, there's your new partner." I looked where she was pointing and saw the rookie who had been heaving his guts up in the victim's front yard. "You've got to be kidding." I said. She responded, "He just got selected for detective, and was first on scene. Plus if I recall, you recommended him." I sighed, and said, "Only because I had to pick someone. He seemed more normal than the rest. I really don't have time for a rookie, but I guess I have no choice." I looked up, got his attention and waved him over.

"Hi, I guess I'm your new partner. Name's Dave," he said as he reached to shake my hand. I shook it and replied, "Ben. Come on, let's go. We're heading to the crime scene." We made the typical small talk on the way to the victim's house. Turns out Dave had been trying to get out of his beat for a while, and was excited that he passed the test for detective, and knew he was only brought on this soon due to Jones taking his administrative leave. He was surprised he was selected because there were others more qualified, but he was trying to not look a gift horse in the mouth. It was about then that we turned on to the victim's street and the color drained from his face, clearly reliving the moment he saw the body. But I've got to hand it to him, he kept it together.

We walked through the house taking notes, and making assessments, talked to the neighbors and got statements. I went into the bathroom and put a toothbrush and hairbrush into evidence bags. Dave looked at me quizzically, and I told him, "DNA. These might belong to someone other than the victim. By her photos she had a lot of boyfriends." We got what we normally do from neighbors, which is a whole lot of nothing. No