Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 20

"Another day, another dollar, another corpse," Panda said, as they pulled up to another crime scene. It was in an apartment building, tall and impersonal, towering over the surrounding community, a dilapidated rectangle.

Sanford sat in the passenger seat, inwardly buried.

The thought of Eric had grown like a cyst in his mind; he was all Sanford could think about. Every motion felt like it occurred in a dream. Eric's face was everywhere. The face of a child on every stranger rounding the corner, on every actor on TV, in every picture he'd see.

I need to find him. Would he even remember me?

"Yo, man!" Panda snapped his fingers in front of Sanford's face. "You're not going bonkers on me again are you?"

He looked at Panda and wondered if Eric might've gained weight. He was always scrawny as a child. He could've grown to look like anyone. Was his hair long? Was it shaved?

Does he have a beard like me?

"Hey, am I talking to myself here?" Panda asked and Sanford heard the concern in his voice.

"No, sorry, I'm here. And I'm good."

"All right then, well good is good enough for me. Let's get to work. You wanna go in first? See if you could solve it?"

"Nope, I don't think I want to do that anymore," Sanford weakly laughed.

They gathered their equipment from the back of the van. Cars idly drove by and watched. Pedestrians walked along and speculated. The massacre had been in the news. It was all anyone could talk about.

They walked into the building. The lobby was bland. Prints of city buildings and nature scenes. Ahead of them was the elevator. Fake plants surrounded it. A sign was taped to the elevator doors.

Out of Order.

"Gonna have to take the stairs," a man behind a desk to their left said indifferently.

"What floor?" Panda asked. Sanford could tell by his tone that he wasn't in the mood for exercise.

"Sixth floor. Apartment 631."

Panda grunted. They walked towards the stairwell.

When they got to the door a tall black man came out and held it open for them. He towered over them with his long skinny physique. A black leather jacket clung awkwardly to his skeletal frame.

"You boys got your work cut out for you." He smiled, revealing a mouth full of rotting teeth.

Sanford only nodded as he walked through.

"Crow? You coming?" Panda was already up the stairs on the next level.

"Yeah," he said, and began his ascent, "what happened here anyway?" Sanford's voice traveled up the stairwell with a faint echo.

"With our line of work, you should start paying more attention, man. There was a straight-up massacre here."

"A massacre? Jesus. In Westchester?"

"Yup, a whole goddamn family."

Sanford felt his heart drop to his stomach.

A whole family?

"Wait, then why are we here? If it were something like that they wouldn't want the crime scene cleaned up yet. Unless..."

"They have the father nailed for it, covered in their blood like a sick fuck." Panda's voice was getting further away as he talked. Sanford slowed his pace.

"Of course the guy is saying he's innocent, but he won't stand a chance on trial. There were even words written in blood on the wall, used by his own fuckin' finger. It said something like..."

Sanford knew the next words that came out of Panda's mouth before he spoke them. He saw them drawn in imperfect letters; he heard the genuine threat.

"Nothing is perfect," Panda said. "Can you believe that? It's like, no shit man. Who the fuck thinks anything's perfect?"

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

"Jesus, Crow, you don't look too hot," Panda said waiting at the top as Sanford finally appeared.

"I'm fine, just a little lightheaded... all these steps," Sanford managed to say. His breath was shaky.

"You don't look fine, dude. Maybe you should sit this one out. We don't need what happened last time again, huh?"

Sanford ignored his suggestion and continued to walk down the hall.

631.

He stared intently at the bronze numbers on the door.

631, why is that so familiar?

He rifled through all the meaningful numbers in his life in his head. Old phone numbers, lock combinations, passcodes, birthdays, his social security number, but none of them lined up.

Panda opened the door. The apartment was dark, besides for inches of light creeping through the sides of the drawn shades.

Panda flipped the light switch. Nothing.

"Shit," he whispered to himself. "They must've turned off the power. Hold on, I'll open those shades."

He walked off into the darkness; Sanford watched him dissolve into it until his body completely vanished. He waited in the hallway, holding the bucket of cleaning supplies. Readying himself.

Light pushed into the apartment as Panda ripped open the curtains. What Sanford saw hadn't surprised him. He had already seen it in his mind before his eyes had the chance.

There was blood... everywhere.

"Holy fuck!" Panda screamed as he looked down to where he was standing. The whole room around him was maroon.

Sanford felt strangely calm. In his mind, he saw his parents sprawled about the floor. The Christmas tree was in the corner, decorated with ornaments. Then he saw himself, huddled in a ball with little Eric in his arms.

He shook his head free from image and looked up at the pictures hanging on the wall. Portraits: tiny photos of the two children, some by themselves, some of them together. There was the husband and wife on their wedding day. One photo was of the father and his baby boy, another of the father and his eldest, and the same went for the mother with each of her children.

At the center of it all was a vacant rectangle. The blank area was filled with a white two shades lighter than the rest of the paint. Sanford didn't need to be a real detective to know what was once there.

Sanford stared at that empty rectangle on the wall and saw an image forming. It was of him and Eric, sitting calmly with their hands on their laps and smiles on their faces, just as the photographer instructed. She came next, his mother, standing behind them, with her hand on his shoulder. He remembered her touch, like a warm blanket, settling his persistent chill. He put his hand on his empty shoulder. Then out of the haze, Jonathan Crow. He stared at Sanford, bringing his pointer finger up slowly and pressed it to his mouth.

"Shhhhh," he hissed with his sadistic smile.

The bucket fell loose from Sanford's hand and crashed on the floor. He saw the number again.

631.

He shuddered. It was a mailbox... it was their mailbox.

The address was the same as his old house.

"Nothing... Is... Perfect."

Involuntarily, and uncontrollably, he began to laugh.