Who was calling at 7:00 a.m.? I could hear my phone ringing as I opened the shower door and reached for a towel. With the mood of the evening a bit fragile, Michael had decided to head home after dinner rather than spending the night, and my immediate thought was that he was calling to tell me he’d had a crappy night of sleep and regretted the decision. I quickly dried off, grabbed my robe, and wrapped the towel around my wet hair. The ringing had stopped by the time I reached my nightstand, but I saw a voicemail notice on the screen from a local number I didn’t recognize. Hoping it was the receptionist from the soundproofing company, I tapped and listened.
An accented male voice said, “I was told to call you about opening the house on Pierce. I’m on my way to start demo. Are you going to open up for me, or do you want me to cut the lock? Call me back.”
What? Dammit, Lane. Did the woman have no common sense? These guys might be walking into a crime scene, and she didn’t have the decency to ask them to hold off or to pick up the phone and let me know?
I hit redial as fast as my fingers allowed. Of course the call went directly to the caller’s mailbox. Mailbox full. Shit! Contractors! I threw on clothes as quickly as I could, every plan for my morning now completely thrown out the window.
Five minutes later I was in the car with hair drip-drying onto my white shirt and calling the contractor back every few minutes. I didn’t know if he was working his way through the overflowing mailbox or having a complex phone fight with his wife, but every call I made now got me a busy signal. Knowing traffic would be a mess on North Avenue, I drove west on Grand and maneuvered north to the home from there. I screeched up behind a beat-up white van top-loaded with ladders twenty minutes after I’d gotten the message, pleased with my navigation skills.
Two guys were pulling equipment out of the back—sledgehammers, shovels, a large box of contractor-size black trash bags—while another was heading up the walkway. Didn’t he see the crime scene tape?
“Stop!” I yelled at the men before they could take out the power tools.
“You Andrea?” the taller guy asked.
“Yes. You can’t go into the house,” I said quickly, my voice a bit shrill.
“But Miss Lane said we have to start right away.” He looked at his partner, then pushed aside a stray strand of slicked back hair that had fallen over his forehead.
“I’m sorry. Change of plans. You can’t go in. The police haven’t given the all-clear yet. This is a crime scene.”
The men exchanged confused looks. “Crime scene? Miss Lane don’t say nothing about cleanup. We don’t do that.”
He yelled something in what sounded like Polish or Czech to the guy standing on the walk, who grunted back an angry response.
“No, you don’t need to clean up the crime scene. That’s not what I meant,” I said, realizing I was adding to their confusion. “I’m just saying that I don’t know if the police are done with their investigation. So you can’t go in until they say it’s okay. I’ll talk to Lane and explain things to her again.” I emphasized “again” a little more harshly than I intended to. It wasn’t the guys’ fault they didn’t know what was going on. “The police have to tell her that they’re done with their work before you can start. I’ll speak to Lane, and she’ll reschedule.”
The man shrugged. “Okay, we’ll go, but she gotta call the boss.”
The men moved their tools back into the van, laughing in Slavic at the foolishness of the situation. Or at me. It didn’t matter. While they worked, I stood on the sidewalk furiously texting Lane. My first thought had been to wake her ass up to tell her what she’d almost done, but a night of drinking would silence a ringing phone. Maybe I should have let the guys go in, and the cops could’ve dealt with her idiocy after the fact. But I hadn’t held back because I was being nice to my sister. I wanted to know what the hell had happened to this poor woman, and flying sledgehammers weren’t going to help.
As the van drove away, I stood on the sidewalk staring at the home, noting the proximity of the neighbors. Homes on both sides appeared to be occupied. Had they seen anything? The image of the basement was sharp in my mind, particularly the position of the chair and the items assembled on the dresser. I wished I’d had the foresight to photograph them. CPD had likely removed them last night.
Opening the gate latch on the chain-link fence, I walked around the right side of the home. Cement pavers rimmed with out-of-control weeds were wedged into the dirt. As I reached the back corner of the building, I noticed a basement window boarded on the exterior with a piece of plywood; its dirty beige coloring told me that it had been there for months, not years. I continued toward the back door, eyeing the grass as I walked. Whatever sod or seed might have once existed had succumbed to the intrusion of weeds and neglect long ago. I saw nothing resembling obvious footprints, and the fragments of trash embedded in the foliage could have blown over from anywhere.
I stood in front of the back door glancing up at the second-floor windows, then ran my eyes along the back perimeter of the house. Nothing I saw foretold the vignette I’d found in the basement. The excruciating loneliness of her dead body splayed in the chair haunted me, taunted me.
After one more look around the yard, I put my hand on the knob and turned. The kitchen bore the marks of last night’s police investigation. Black fingerprint powder dotted cabinet doors and laminate counters, creating a record of CPD’s work. The door to the basement remained wide open. Steeling myself, I tapped on the light on my flashlight app and continued down the stairs. Any cobwebs that had spanned the space yesterday had been brushed away in last night’s police activity. The air still held remnants of the dank and musty scent, although it was lighter now. The maze of boxes still lined the room, but it appeared CPD had opened several. A cursory look showed kitchen utensils and plates inside. The body, of course, was no longer present, nor was the chair she had sat in. But I could feel her presence.
A new thought crossed my mind. Had she been placed here after her death? Images flashed into my head—the chair centered in the space, her body slumped against the wings, highlighted by a single bulb, the altar-like arrangement of items on the dresser. If this was a drug overdose, it was unlike any I had come across in my legal career.
I stood on the perimeter of the space, uncertain whether CPD had finished processing the rug for evidence. The dresser was still in situ, although the items from its surface had been bagged and removed. Again, the evidence of fingerprint analysis was evident on its surface, as well as on the attached mirror. Curiosity drew me. I stepped over, leaning close, trying to determine any particular area of police interest. As I would have expected, the remnants of fingerprint powder were clustered most heavily in the spot that had held the items. The victim, or perhaps someone close to the victim, had handled these items frequently.
The mirror, too, displayed remnants of a former life. Not as many here, but black smudges trimmed the edges. I moved my flashlight closer noting the clusters of marks. Standing in front of the glass, I observed a light trail of powder that hadn’t been obvious at first glance. Tilting my flashlight at an angle, I saw a trail through the dust on the mirrors surface. Someone had dragged their finger down the glass, forming a cross. I took photos of the markings, as well as the surface of the dresser. Instinct pinged caution deep in my brain.
Turning back toward the center of the room, I looked at the spot on the rug where the chair had been, focusing more closely on the pattern in the wool than I had last evening. I saw no obvious signs of blood, nor had any wounds been apparent on the body, but given the state of decomposition and my own shock, I could easily have missed something.
Everything I knew so far was that a life had been lost tragically to drugs. Yet her story seemed unfinished. I wasn’t entirely sure why the initial explanation of an overdose was leaving me unsettled. Perhaps it was nothing more than the remnants of a tortured soul left to die alone.
I stood re-creating in my mind every item I had seen—the position, the texture, the scale. The smell of the sage smudge stick. The glint of the light off the crystals. The position of her body as she slumped against the wings of the chair.
The lack of drug paraphernalia also seemed to be stuck in my head, as it was inconsistent with the crash pad-overdose theory.
I stepped over to the open boxes and lifted the flaps to see inside. The handful I peered into revealed nothing more than an assortment of kitchen paraphernalia. Dishes, cups, silverware, utensils, a can opener—all loose, as if simply tossed in quickly. One box containing an assortment of dietary choices that made my stomach churn. Store brand SpaghettiOs, baked beans, beef stew. All items that, in a pinch, could be eaten right out of the can, disgusting as the thought was to my inner food snob. Then again, I imagined that, given no other choices, I too would gladly eat canned goods. The privilege of my life with fresh vegetables as often and as frequently as I wanted was staring me in the face. This was her pantry. Two boxes of baby wipes topped off the collection along with a spray can of dry shampoo. All the basics.
I wasn’t a believer in the supernatural, nor was I religious, but there was a heaviness that pressed on me here, a sadness, as if her desolate spirit still remained. With an ache in my heart, I turned and left the ghost behind. Once upstairs, I walked through the kitchen to the front of the home and made my way to the second level, wishing I had done so last night. The stairs creaked, and a different type of musty scent assaulted me. Mothballs and dust. From the landing, I could see three small bedrooms and a bath. The two rooms at the front of the house were empty of furniture and contained closets holding nothing other than dust bunnies. Working toward the back, I did a quick check in the bathroom medicine cabinet, found it empty, then entered the bedroom at the back of the house.
It was a decent-sized room with a set of windows overlooking the back yard. I stepped over to the windows, curious about whether a neighbor might have been able to notice lights. At some point, the long-neglected yard must have been lovely. Orange tiger lilies fought their way up stubbornly through the weeds along the back fence, as did a few spindly peonies.
This room was also stripped of furniture, but I could see the history of a rug in the faded wood floor. I opened the closet door and initially saw nothing other than some lonely wire hangers. I stifled a sneeze, the dust equally thick here. Swinging my flashlight first around the floor and then up to the shelf above the hanging bar, I caught a glint of red in the light. Reaching up to retrieve the item, a shower of dust fell onto my hair. No longer able to hold back the assault on my nose, I sneezed and brushed the debris off my face. In my hand was a small bundle of brochures secured with a rubber band. Simple two-sided glossy cards identifying an addiction support group.
Had these belonged to the victim or the homeowner?