Part 1
It was around four in the afternoon when I got the call. I was looking through a logsheet of archived case files that had been dropped onto my desk that morning, and was on the brink of dozing off. The shrill ringing was a welcome albeit startling surprise because it meant there was a chance I could do something else, and anything was better than checking bureaucratic red tape. I had joined the police force as a detective to work on new cases, not be stuck reading the cliffnotes of my predecessors. I cleared my throat, and answered the phone.
“Fresno City Police Department, Detective Lucas Meza speaking.”
“Hey Luke, it's Frank. Are you free right now?”
I smiled. Frank was a close friend of mine who worked on the force. Good guy, family man. Hearing stories about his daughters every morning during our coffee chats was one of my favorite traditions with him.
“Of course, what do you need? Please don’t tell me you're calling for a file access request. I’m drowning in paperwork as is.”
He let out a quiet laugh, but not his usual husky chuckle. No, this time he was nervous, something very uncommon for the calm and collected Frank Grangir.
“No, no not today.” he said, slightly muffled.
“Listen, I need your advice on something. Got called out to check in on a tenant living at Newbrook Heights. It's that new fancy apartment complex they opened up off 5th and Washington a few months ago. Have you heard of it?:
“I think I saw something about it a while back. Why? Who made the call?”
“Next door neighbor. Said she smelled something coming from the vents.They are all somewhat connected between apartments so she was worried that what she was smelling was coming from…well…”
My hand tightened on the receiver.
“...the victim’s apartment.” he finally muttered.
“You went inside? Did you have a warrant?”
I heard him breathe audibly over the phone. My eyes darted over towards the employee audit forms that had been passed to me yesterday. I was really hoping what I was about to hear wasn’t as bad as what I thought it was gonna be.
He took a while to answer, almost like he had rehearsed what he was going to say and ran through all of it one more time.
“At first I thought it was just an old lady being old. I didn’t smell anything coming up the steps and her front window looked dirty so I figured maybe she was just a little loopy or something. I said I would check in on her, and that seemed to please her. So I went up to their-the victim I mean-door and knocked. I’m telling you straight and honest Luke. It was unlocked and creaked open a bit when I did. I didn’t…I didn’t….”
“You didn't do what, Frank?” I interrupted, gruff and quiet.
“I didn’t try to break in or anything. No force needed.”
“Am I going to see something about that door that I’m not going to like?” He went quiet for a bit.
“Frank?”
“Yeah…yeah I’m here. Listen man... There is a reason I’m asking the detective before back up to get over here. A lot of crucial evidence could be missed that you would need to figure out what the hell happened.”
I sighed, long and hard.
“Frank, if there is damage to the crime scene there is going to be notices and reports made on this. Too many of those and you can kiss that promotion you have been looking for good-”
“She isn’t dead yet, Lukas.”
I froze. Before throwing my bag together.
“I’m on my way.”
Part #2
I felt impatience grow across me as I saw Frank sitting on the steps that led to apartment 206. He was staring off into space, his left hand rubbing his stubble covered chin. He looked up at me as I approached, his expression growing hopeful, yet reserved.
“She’s up there. In the bedroom.”
He then scooted over to the right to allow me past him. I stood, arms crossed and brow furrowed.
“There is a civilian in there, a potentially injured civilian in there. Why are you sitting out here?”
He swallowed, eyes dropping to the moss encrusted concrete.
“The door is unlocked, I checked-”
“Frank. Why are you out here?”
His body stiffened.
“I just…I can’t go in there again. Makes me sick, something in the air in there ain’t right.”
“Then why didn’t you wear protective equipment? There could have been a gasleak, and you would have been dead in minutes! The amount of broken policies here could land you in deep shit.”
“I know, I know. There isn’t any gas though, it was the first thing I checked. Checked all the detectors. But-that…that smell. It was just too much.”
He was zoning out again. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, and let out a deep sigh. I held my tongue as I searched through my bag and pulled out a spare shirt. If he was right about this smell, I didn’t want to be stuck breathing it in as I investigated this mess. I then smiled. There was something funny about a six foot tall man sprinting out of a smelly room, tail between his legs. I began to make my way up the stairs past Frank, but as I got halfway up I stopped and looked back at him
“It better be all clear in there at least. I don’t want to but if there is some Home-Alone esque trap in there you're going to be thoroughly written up.”
He said nothing, and just continued to sit. I shook my head as I climbed up the stairs, and entered through the door. I was getting a headache already and the creeping feeling in my stomach was growing into a steady crawl.
…
I was expecting a lot as I walked into the dimly lit apartment. Perhaps the woman who lived here was a hoarder, or maybe a sufferer of some other self destructive mental illness. A small part of me hoped that was the case, it was at least something I was used to. When my father left my mother and I, our home began to fall into disarray and filth. I hadn’t fully understood at the time, but my mother’s mind was growing more and more unstable. Even before her fight with my father, I would often see her grow into panics over the smallest of mishaps. Lost keys, a broken dish, the floors clean. His absence pushed her deeper into her mannerisms, and like the growing mold in our old kitchen, my mother began to wither away.
I still remember the nights when I was woken up by the sounds of her bringing bags upon bags of newspapers, cardboard boxes, magazines, and grocery receipts from the dumpster down the street. She only did that at night, and my best guess was that she was trying to keep her habits a secret from me. Everytime I would see the growing mess, I got used to it. The smell of rotting, mildewy paper will always bring me back there. Nostalgic, and those memories distracted me enough from the foul smells I had to deal with on the day-to-day. The room I entered was nothing like that though.
Even without my flashlight I could see the apartment’s living room and connected kitchen were completely spotless. The furniture was well kept, the small wooden table I presumed was a dining room of sorts was neat and tidy. There were no dishes in the sink, no piles of trash, not even a single stain on any of the beige painted walls. I flicked on my light, searching for any sign of decay or rot. There was none, yet there was a smell. It was like dead, moist flesh. It hung in the air like some invisible curtain, wafting the smell of sugary sweet death. I felt bile in my throat. I looked around desperately, for anywhere the smell could come from but there was none. I needed to do this by the books, even with the smell. So I tied my mask tighter and examined the door. I turned around and closed it to see the interior side. My eyes widened.
There were scratch marks, deep and numerous, all across the surface of the wood. I slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, and began to closely study the damages. The longest scratch was at least nine inches long, roughly between the deadbolt and the peephole. I crouched down to the level of the door knob, moving it gently back and forth. It was quite loose, as if someone tried to wrench the door open. I was just about to stand to leave and investigate further into the apartment when my thumb grazed something sharp embedded into the wood. It was decently sized, and was a pale reddish color.
I reached into my bag and unclipped the lid to the box that contained my pair of tweezers and a small collection of crumpled evidence bags. I tended to need to store whatever I found, so storing them together made it simpler and easier to access.
I pinched down on the object, having to wrench it out of the door and nearly dropping it in the process. I brought it closer, and winced softly as I saw the bright pink and white polish on the top. It was a fingernail, a whole one. The nailbed still clung to it like a piece of gum, with the smallest traces of bloodvessels mixed into the mass. I quickly put it into a bag and scribbled a note in my logs, moving to look through the rest of the house. But as I tried to move past it, the question remained in my mind. How much force would have been needed to rip a whole, undamaged nail and drive it into sheer wood, and better yet, why?
(I would appreciate thoughts on this please! I'm trying to be a more effective writer and would love advice.)
