Dark Nights

Chapter 3

Death rarely was a peaceful, religious experience to Harry.  It was the nasty end, indifferent to saint and sinner.  But this was shocking, like a stage deliberately set to offend.  The bed was huge, slicked with what appeared to be genuine satin sheets the color of a nectarine.  The small lights from the ceiling and from the lamps on either side of the bed had all been dimed and aimed at the body.  They had turned from bedroom lights to spotlights, trained on its center where the naked woman laid out on the bed like a prop.  A main attraction.

Harry and Niall put on the blue latex gloves used for examining crime scenes.  She was gorgeous even in death.  She had a tumbling waterfall of rich black hair, smoky grey eyes that stared blankly at the mirror on the ceiling.  She had long, creamy white limbs that made Harry think of Swan Lake when his mother took him to see the ballet as a kid.  The limbs were spread in a lewd and definitely graphic, as Louis had mentioned, fashion.  She was completely naked.  She had a body of curves and softness, muscular firmness without looking intimidating.  She was tall.  Her long legs stretched to about 5'9".  The dead woman formed a sloppy X in the dead center of the bed.  The wounds were fascinating.  Not a type of fascination such as an aquarium or a painting in process, but a dark on.  One of seeing something so disturbing and sinister, that it called for attention. 

"Look at the way he left her." Harry said.  "Naked, open, practically crude looking.  There's no doubt at what she did for a living.  He wanted to bring shame to her.  He wanted there to be no question whatsoever that she was a professional escort."

There was a clean hole in her forehead and a gash that went from the top of her breast bone all the way down to between her legs.  It was not a simple cut, with just a thin line of blood, but a deep cut that made her look as though she were to be dissected.  The cut had been one before she was shot.  Blood had pulsed from the opening, completely soaking the sheets and dripping onto the carpet.  A deep crimson in the already red room.  Closely studying the opening, Harry could see some bone randomly, pink muscles that were doused in red.  There were splashes on the walls, like lethal finger paintings scrawled by an evil child.  Though the cut itself was clean, it had been done slowly.

"He did this cut a little at a time and after each movement, he shook the knife," Harry explained, hovering over the girl and thrashing his arm outward, as if getting blood from a knife.  "He was cleaning his knife each time.  He wanted to draw this out as as slowly as he possibly could."

Niall nodded along with Louis.

"We're completely ruling out the possibility of a female perp?" Niall asked.

"Women are usually impulse killers.  They don't plan it out or do it in a way of torture, not like this." Louis answered.

Harry turned his attention back to the body.  So much blood was a rare thing and he had seen too much of it the night before to take this scene as calmly as he would have preferred.  He shook his head once, quickly, forcefully shaking away the thoughts of the doe-eyed girl he had been too late to save. 

He cleared his throat before turning back around and walking to Louis, letting Niall take the crime scene pictures.

"Any security footage?  We saw cameras in the hall."

"Already pulled them, we should have a reading of them later today when we get back to the department."

"Whole apartment been dusted?"

Louis nodded.  "Not a fingerprint, a hair, fingernail, anything.  This guy was precise and careful.  The whole place is clean."

"Clean as a virgin," Niall quipped dryly from behind Harry, who rolled his eyes while Louis gave a half-grin before returning to his coffee.

Harry's eyebrows furrowed as he processed this information.

"Just careful or done this before?"

Louis gave a one shoulder shrug, his face one of utter confusion.

"Honestly can't tell.  There not being a trace of him anywhere other than the body makes me think he thought it all through, but, like you said, this may not be his first time so he knew what to do."

"Dis can't be his first time," Niall suddenly appeared next to Harry, holding the screen of the camera up for the two to see.  A photo taken seconds ago was pulled up.  It was a wide shot, looking down on the body.  Niall traced the X shape her limbs formed with his gloved finger.  "Look at da way she's been framed.  Wide and open, calling fur attention.  She didn't just fall like dat and she wasn' like dat while da bastard cut her open.  Ya tink she'd have jus' laid dare?  She'd have been movin' around tryin' to get away."

"Any marks of restraints on her wrists or ankles?"

Niall clicked a few buttons on the camera until one of her left ankle appeared.

"No-ting on any of 'em."

Louis nodded, his lips pursed, in thought.  The two waited for him to speak for several minutes before he finally did.

"Alright, Horan, keep going through the rest of the apartment.  Styles, get back to the department and do a search for any other killings within the past two decades of bodies left with these kinds of wounds or in X shapes."

The two nodded before going about their tasks.  Harry followed behind Louis.  When they got into the elevator, Louis looked at him through the corner of his eyes.

"And go to your briefing and psyche appointment too."

Harry swore under his breath and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it back into a bun. 

And he'd forgotten to get his fucking coffee.