Burn the Evidence #ONC2023

19| no body, no crime

THE FACE OF what I could only assume was Jamie's son stared, unblinkingly, at me.

That explained the smell.

HIs eyes were, thankfully, closed. HIs skin was beginning to turn gray. I had watched a True Crime documentary once, and they mentioned a body didn't start to smell until two to five days after the murder or death.

I had no doubt this was a murder.

Jamie came running over, and I turned, trying to shield her from her child, who had been killed and then hidden underneath raccoon bodies.

I think she knew who it was before she ran over. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks in rivers of silence.

"No no no no," she said, dropping onto her knees, "get these stupid raccoons off of my baby."

I did so as fast as possible with my stick, feeling guilty I didn't just pick them up and throw them somewhere, but these animals had lives too. I could only hope they were already dead before someone had needed a temporary hiding spot for Tyler's body.

How had the Beckhams not smelled the body? Especially Tate, who had gone out on errands this morning.

When I had removed the animals, Jamie picked up Tyler's head and began rocking and wailing her grief into the sky.

I had never seen one person harbor so much grief.

Jamie dropped her forehead to rest against Tylers, her tears beginning to run down his face, too.

I watched solemnly, making sure no one could sneak up on us. Whoever killed Tyler was still loose, and it wasn't Kamron. That, I was sure of.

If he had wanted to hurt Tyler or Jamie, he would have done it while they were captive. Granted, he did abuse them, but never to the point of death. At this point, I had a pretty good picture of the ast ten years, based on fragments of different conversations and such.

But I never did get the real relationship between Jamie, her sister, or Tate. Those two women were wild cards. I didn't know if Shelby and Jamie had some sort of major falling out that would push Shelby to murder her own nephew, though she did seem like she loved him.

Tate, on the other hand, had reason to be suspected. Not only was the murder so close to her house, but it had happened the day Tyler was told to go to her house. Plus, I had been told that Tate and Jamie got into a huge fight before her disappearance, proved furthermore by Jamie's reaction to Tom and the trailer his family lived in.

Her old friend lived in.

Tate had become suspect number one in a list of no other suspects, and I felt the need to get out of there as fast as possible.

Could she be the reason Luke went missing too?

"Jamie," I whispered gently, not wanting to startle her. "Jamie, we need to go. We need to get the police. We can't be here when Tate gets home. We have to go, Jamie."

Jamie only sat there and rocked back and forth, back and forth, heaving air into her lungs like she couldn't get enough, Tyler's upper body held tight against her midsection.

When I got closer to her, I could see her lips moving. 

"No no no no," she was saying, over and over and over.

Panic attack.

We weren't leaving anytime soon.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the police station, putting it on speaker phone so I could multitask and help Jamie too.

"Jamie, it's gonna be okay," I said, wincing at my own words. "Calm down. Deep breaths, please. In and out, in and out. That's it."

Jamie was nodding along with my instructions, and her breaths became a little more calm.