But I’m beginning to understand the feeling. Beginning? Who am I kidding? I’ve been invisible for a long time.
I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t such a big event. An ordinary murder doesn’t pull the crowds, but call in a houseful of dead gang-bangers and every warm body on the sixth floor turns up. The call came in during a lull in my special duties, and I couldn’t resist the itch. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to work a fresh murder scene.
“Looks like he was trying to hold the door shut,” Lorenz is saying, miming the actions as he describes them. “They put some rounds on the door – blam, blam – and he goes reeling back. Drops his gun over there.” He points out the Taurus 9mm on the carpet, a pimp special complete with gold trigger. “Then they kick the door in and light him up.”
Lorenz stands over the corpse of Octavio Morales, wielding his air shotgun. He even works the pump, leaving out the sound effects this time. The gesture reminds me just how young this guy is to be in Homicide, how inexperienced.
While he’s talking, I edge my way alongside the bed, putting some distance between myself and the group converging around the captain. This saves them the trouble of having to shove me aside.
The house is basically a squat. The property belongs to the bank, another foreclosure. There’s no telling when Morales and his crew decided to move in, but they didn’t exactly improve the place over time. The shiny brass headboard seems brand new, but the lumpy mattress is too big, drooping over the sides. And the bedding must have been salvaged from the dump. The sheets were rigid with filth long before Morales died there. My skin itches just looking at them.
I kneel and lift the sheets off the floor, peering underneath the bed. There’s no point, really. The technicians have already been here. But I feel the need to look busy.
The window on the front wall casts sunlight under the far side of the bed. My eye goes to a dark line of filament silhouetted against the light, a length of cord hanging from the mattress frame. Probably nothing. But I circle around for a closer look, jostling Lorenz and a craggy-faced detective named Aguilar, who’s busy explaining to the uninterested captain the significance of Morales’s tats.
I crouch by the headboard, sunlight to my back, and start feeling underneath the frame for the hanging line. Once I find it – it feels like parachute cord – I trace the line back to the knot, then duck my head down for a look.
What I see stops my heart for a couple of beats. Maybe it’s just the angle of my head. But the knot is secured around the mattress frame, and the end looks neatly severed with barely a hint of fraying. A fresh cut, made while the cord was drawn taut.
“Did anyone see this?” I ask.
When I glance up, nobody’s looking my way. If they heard me, they’re giving no sign. I scoot to the foot of the bed, running my hand over the frame. Sure enough, another knot. This time it’s sliced close, leaving no dangling end. Returning to the other side, I push the sheets up and continue the search. My pulse hammering away so hard I can’t believe no one else hears it. Two more knots, one at the foot of the bed, and another at the head.
I rise slowly, examining the mattress with new eyes.
Morales lies sprawled at the foot of the bed, legs off the side, arms thrown back. From above, the blood rises like a cloud, ascending several feet above his head. The pattern in the sticky sheets is not quite right.
“Sir.”
I glance toward Hedges, who’s nodding impatiently at Aguilar.
“Sir.”
He turns to me, relieved at the interruption.
“What is it, Detective?”
Lorenz and Aguilar both turn with him, and so do the others. They blink at me, like I’ve just appeared out of nowhere. Even the technicians look up from their work.
“Come and see.”
I get down on my knees, motioning him to follow. After a moment’s hesitation, he does, careful not to get his pants dirty. I guide his hands to the knots, watching realization dawn on his face. We both cross to the opposite side of the bed, all eyes on us. He kneels without waiting for my encouragement. When his hand touches the dangling cord, he lets out a long sigh.