Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 18

When Frank arrived at the scene he perused the apartment hesitantly at first, edging around the corners.

It was the second murder of its kind in a row. Much like the first, it was the slaying of a family. Though his first case seemed open and shut. The father was sitting behind bars, awaiting the process of a trial, screaming his innocence. But here, the father was with the rest of his clan.

In the center of the room, Frank stood amongst the bodies, gingerly stepping over them, gracefully for a man of his weight. He'd never once disturbed a crime scene. His fingernails dug into his scalp, scratching in the middle of his horseshoe bald spot. It was a habit of his that Nancy pestered him about. "You're gonna bleed if you keep at it like that, Frank!" But it helped him to think, and the job was based on thinking. Murders such as this were an irregularity in Westchester County. But Frank was an irregular man—a homicide detective who transferred from New York City for a calmer life. It seemed as if violence had finally caught his scent.

None of it added up. The upper brass knew it. The running theory was that it was nothing more than a coincidence. Two terrible fathers who had finally had enough and called it quits on family life. But Frank didn't believe in coincidence.

The apartment itself was charming, or it used to be. The white living-room couch, which looked cozy and comforting with the suede-like material and high-back cushions that Frank could imagine the family sprawled out across, perhaps during movie night, had been recolored with dark maroon stains. The leather reading chair and the bookshelf next to it had been toppled over. The glass coffee table was smashed in. Shards of glass crunched under Frank's shoes at any given point in the room. The thirteen-year-old daughter was through the table. The multi-colored rug had transformed into one deep shade of purple.

Frank hated how desensitized he'd become. It scared him. It was the only thing that did scare him anymore. In his childhood, everyday brimmed with a new fear, a new worry, a new monster. Now, at fifty-four years of age, he'd opened every closet door, peeked under every bed, and seen every horror film brought to life. Now, here he was, standing in a room full of slaughter, his stomach empty and rumbling with hunger.

A bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll would be nice for breakfast, he thought as he scanned the room again. Or maybe on a bagel. He paid little attention to the murders themselves; they didn't tell him what he needed to know. His eyes were glued to the far side of the room. Where the answer was in an empty space on the wall.

Hmm.

The door opened. Frank heard the grunts of the man before he entered.

"Oh, Mary, Mother of Christ!" Sergeant Harrigan said after he walked into the room. He regained control and spoke again. "Detective Waters, what do you got?"

The sergeant was a tall man, broad, like a knight without the armor. His hair was thin and peppered with gray, but his mustache was thick and white.

Frank despised him.

He didn't respond, he was fixated on the wall where surrounding photos hung.

"Waters!"

"What?" Frank responded, annoyed.

"What... do... you... got?" Sergeant Harrigan spoke in a slow, frustrated tone. Frank sighed before he answered, smothering the urge to strike the man as he did. Sergeant Harrigan, or Sergeant Arrogant, as he'd been affectionately deemed down at the station, was one of Frank's ex-partners, who had lasted a mere six months before his undue promotion.

"I got another photo missing," he said plainly.

"What the fuck does that matter?" Sergeant Arrogant said.

Frank went back to staring at the wall, inhaling through his nose with his lips pressed together. He was immune to violence, but stupidity, he couldn't stand.

"They're trophies, Serg. Just like the first family, someone collected a trophy."

"You can't know that. We have the father dead to rights for this, just like the first one."

Frank walked over to where the father lay, dead to rights. He kneeled down next to the man and took out the pen he had in his inner jacket pocket. Frank loved his pen. He pointed. He could see the blush rise on Harrigan's pale, Irish face.

"You see these?" he pointed back and forth between the hands of the deceased. On each wrist was a faded rim of raw skin.

"Those lines?"

"Yes. They're a sign that he was tied up, most likely with zip ties. And you see how the blood runs through certain parts but not between others?"

"Yeah? What of it?"

The fact that Frank had to take orders from this arrogant invalid was maddening. He sighed again and clawed at his scalp.

"Well, that means that what was tied on his wrists were cut off after he was dead."

Harrigan combed at his mustache with his finger and thumb, spreading it apart and back again in strenuous thought. It would have made Frank laugh if he wasn't so enraged by Harrigan's presence.

"Well, fuck. The upper echelon wanted a bow on this one. We're gonna have to keep this out of the press for as long as we can. Lieutenant is gonna have a shit fit."

Frank didn't respond. He let his silence do the talking.

"Shit. You really think he might be innocent?"

Frank stood up slowly, feeling the weight of his body unmercifully on his knees. It was in moments like these he desired to be a thinner man; a healthier one. But as he rose, his insulin dropped, and his cravings for something cheap and filling clouded those thoughts. Cheeseburger, I could definitely go for a cheeseburger, he thought as a fresh cigarette touched his lips. He lit it, paying attention to the raw details of that first drag: his lungs ballooning with warmth, the smoke dazedly escaping his mouth, rising and dancing in the stale air, the comforting feeling of the lit stick between his fingers, rolling back and forth. He did it purposefully, dramatically. He liked making people wait for his answer, especially the sergeant.