Detective Malvin Rosebud took in the renovated house’s decor and furnishing: earth tones, leather and solid wood furniture, plush carpeting, hardwood floors, expensive television and stereo system. To date, other than the police tape surrounding the property, one broken glass panel on the front door, and the BPD, medical examiner, and crime lab technicians on scene, nothing seemed wrong in the middle-class family home.
Well, save for the stench. That was horribly wrong.
Decomposition had a certain pungency that couldn’t be ignored, even by those fighting the nastiest of head colds. But, chewing on three sticks of mint gum with his mouth open behind his face mask, he did his best to ignore it.
After asking a crime scene tech to document the broken glass in the entrance and getting another to dust the front door for prints, Rosebud inspected the main floor instead of joining the rest of the crew upstairs. He liked to soak in as wide an area around the crime scene as possible. As he pondered on the family’s CD and DVD collection, he remembered a handful of instances where little details like those, just outside the area where the victim had been left, had lost their meaning once he’d stared at the dead body.
But, most importantly today, he wasn’t quite sure his burrito was going to stay put once he approached the origin of the stench. Testing that new food truck no longer seemed like the smartest idea.
“Hey, Rosebud. What do we have?” Murphy asked a few feet away from where he stood in the living room.
He turned to face her. “The vic’s upstairs. I haven’t seen her yet. I just got here myself.”
She adjusted her right glove then looked back at him. “Fuller?”
“Upstairs, with the medical examiner.”
“Wang? Chainey?”
“Don’t know.”
“I’m heading up.”
He continued looking at the walls: picture after picture of a family of three blonds, and a large crucifix right above the fireplace.
Rosebud continued his inspection of the ground floor, moving into the dining room, paying attention to where his bootie-covered feet stepped, carefully avoiding touching any potential evidence. The department’s photographer had already placed numbers around various footprints that had been left on the carpet, some bigger and some smaller than his. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t sweating as much as he normally did under the one-use coveralls he’d donned minutes earlier. A glance at the thermometer on the wall explained why: the air conditioning was on, and the temperature had been set to 65 degrees.
He thanked his lucky stars. The stench could have been much, much worse. The family’s electric bill would probably be huge, though. Then he realized the killer may have played with the thermostat to mess with their estimated time of death.
After getting a tech to pull fingerprints from it, Rosebud moved along to the next room.
Just like the living room, the dining room was clean and orderly. Absolutely no signs of struggle anywhere on this floor. Or at least not anywhere he’d seen. He bent sideways to inspect the table’s glass surface and noticed how immaculate the top was. A light dusting of particles had landed on the surface, but not one smear was in sight.
“Hmm,” he said to himself before heading into the kitchen.
The stainless steel fridge grabbed his attention next. Not a single fingerprint there either.
“Really? How?” With his gloved hand, he opened the cupboard under the sink, curious as to what brand of cleaners the family used. A pair of yellow rubber gloves, a sponge, a dish rack and tray, a spray can of oven cleaner, and a bottle of dishwashing liquid occupied the space. The family’s miracle product couldn’t be any of those, so he closed the cupboard, disappointed that he hadn’t magically stumbled upon the solution for the unsightly smears on his own stainless steel appliances.
Do they use a maid service that carries their own products?
“Rosebud, get up here!” Fuller yelled from upstairs.
“I’m coming!” he answered before returning to the entrance and heading up the stairs, the potency of the stench increasing with every step.
Knowing fair well how Fuller would react if he saw him with his oversized piece of gum, Rosebud swallowed his now flavorless chunk then inhaled deeply before finally stepping into the pink room where the body was. There were already half a dozen people in there.
“What took you so long?” Fuller asked, a deep line between his bushy brows.
Rosebud ignored him for now, his eyes unable to look away from the vic’s body. Several things looked wrong here. She was lying on top of her bright magenta comforter, wearing a faded orange nightgown with yellow flowers. The long fabric was spread out symmetrically around her swollen ankles. With her elbows bent at ninety-degrees, her hands were joined in a prayer position, a bright blue rosary wrapped around them. Her fingers were bloated with a tinge of green. Just above her hands rested an open Bible, pages facing down and upright, as though she’d been reading it.
Rosebud closed his eyes for a second and concentrated on breathing through his mouth. But it didn’t help. Behind his mask, he inhaled his own bean and spicy garlic breath.
He knew from her stench and the bloat of the extremities that she’d been dead for at least a week, so bugs had most likely begun feasting and reproducing in her mouth, nose, and eyes. Looking up past her hands wasn’t going to be pretty. Mustering his mental strength—and pushing down his burrito—he finally glanced at her face.
But it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. It seemed very flew flies had managed to get to her in the closed home. He turned to her bedroom window and noticed the typical gathering of bugs on the other side of it. Those insects sure had a strong sense of smell.
Very few of them had sneaked their ways into the house, or the air conditioning had slowed her decomposition rate quite a bit. But her skin was discolored and bloated, well past rigor mortis. Her blonde hair was tied and orderly. No visible signs of struggle there. However, her glazed over eyeballs, sunken sockets, and open mouth did not offer a pretty sight, nor did they suggest a peaceful passing. When he spotted a few squirming larvae in the corner of her mouth, he turned away, swallowing the recycled sample of food that had darted up his throat.
His eyes met Murphy’s. She seemed to handle the stench much better than him.
“Her name’s Lori Davis. Twenty-two years old,” she recited, looking at her pad. “Her driver’s license confirms she lives here. I found it in her wallet, in her purse, over there on the desk.” She pointed to a piece of vintage, solid-wood furniture.
Rosebud headed over to the desk, eager to distance himself from the vic’s body and its new occupants.
Under the purse and neatly arranged books and pencils, the desk looked like something his own parents could have used when they’d gone to school. The light wood—birch or maple—surface was scarred from decades of overuse. An uncomfortable-looking wooden chair with a straight back completed the set. His gloved fingers perused through the contents of her purse. He retrieved a cellphone, its battery dead.
Once he ensured his stomach was okay, he spoke up, his eyes still aimed at the desk. “She must be the daughter of Doug and Francine Davis,” he said. “Lots of photos with her between two older adults downstairs and lots of mail addressed to them as well. It seems the last batch brought into the home was dated Friday, June 1st. The mail overflowing out of the box on the porch is dated Wednesday, June 6th. That’s probably a good start on the time of death.”
Fuller walked over to him. “Rosebud, since the Sarge is on holiday, I want you to take the lead on this—”
“With all due respect, sir,” Rosebud started, then paused once again, swallowing more acid reflux.
“What? Quick. I wanna get out of here.”
“You and I both. I’d like Murphy to lead this one.”
“Why? Not up for it?” Fuller asked, his fist bumping against Rosebud’s shoulder. “About to toss your cookies again?”
Rosebud shook his head, sick and tired of his sensitive stomach being made fun of. “No. I just think Murphy’s ready. I’ve been working alongside her for nearly a year now. She knows what she’s doing. Just give her a chance to prove it to you.”
Fuller looked to Murphy, who stood right next to the vic. She was speaking to the medical examiner and taking notes.
He turned back to Rosebud. “At least her gut’s stronger than yours. You’re as pale as a ghost. Get out and breathe some fresh air. I’ll give her the lead, but you stay right on her ass. I want this case solved ASAP. This looks like a young woman from a good family. We’re not talking about a drug deal or a B&E gone bad. We’ll need to find out if this was random or not. The district commander’s gonna ride my ass.”
“Got it,” Rosebud said, nodding vehemently as he dashed out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door just in time to empty his gut behind a thorny green bush.
Shit, he thought after wiping his mouth, his eyes meeting those of Detective Gabriel Chainey who’d just ducked under the police tape, laughing.
Even though Rosebud had almost reached a two-year, vomit-free streak, Chainey wasn’t going to let him live this down.