A Great Leap (First Draft) - Outer Realms Book 1

Chapter 2

It took almost an hour fighting through traffic for Mikayla to travel the fifteen kilometres to the crime scene. The house was narrow, modern and new, made of dark brown bricks, clean white plaster and large windows. The front yard was mostly taken up by the driveway leading to an open garage occupied by a dark grey sedan. There was a strip of grass now trampled by many booted feet and chequered tape marked the edge of the property. A number of police vehicles were parked on the street outside the house and officers were busy going about their jobs garbed in white body suits and masks. When she arrived, Mikayla took out her work phone and began typing into the app that recorded her notes to the police system.

Mikayla stopped by the front door to take booties from an officer and place them on her feet around her shoes then entered the house. She was immediately struck by how clean the place was. Under a layer of fine fingerprinting dust most of the house seemed too neat. Mikayla thought that without the police presence it might even have looked cold and impersonal, with boring white upholstery on the seating and a plain glass-top coffee table. The house barely looked lived in at all with few personal effects. It even had a new house smell.

The feel of the house changed immediately upon entering the living room at the back of the house. It was the same room Mikayla had seen in the pictures, with dark sprays of blood marring the walls and ceiling, still sticky and wet in some places and reaching beyond the living room to the kitchen and dining areas, unrestricted by the open plan layout. Seeing it in person, Mikayla felt bile churning in her stomach, threatening to rise like fire, and she had to force herself to relax and look directly into the horror, stepping carefully to avoid the carnage.

The upholstery of the lounge was scored deep into the stuffing with smaller scratches in the end that faced the entrance. Broken glass littered the floor, catching what little light came in through the shattered door door from the overcast morning outside. There was a trace of a foul, acrid smell in the air mixed with the faint metallic smell of the drying blood.

The centre of the carnage was a body. There were deep gashes on every part, ugly tears in flesh that revealed bone and organs. There was almost nothing left of the face, just shredded skin and muscle, and broken bone, pale pink brain leaking through the mess. One arm had been torn off at the shoulder and been flung across the room to hit the wall, leaving a scarlet splotch before falling to the ground where it remained. The remains of the clothes appeared to be three quarter length tracksuit pants and a singlet and through it all, Mikayla could just make out that the body was male.

Two men, alive and healthy, were also in the room. One was Joel, making notes on his phone just as Mikayla did. The other was slightly shorter than Joel and very thin. His skin was tanned, his eyes were brown and he had a short beard and mustache. Was dressed in a personal protective gear, the outline of dark clothing showing through the white suit. He was filling out papers on a clipboard that he put into a messenger bag as Mikayla entered. He pulled down his mask and lifted his glasses, and his face tickled Mikayla's recollection but she could not place him.

"Sorry I'm behind, gentlemen," Mikayla said.

"Constable Donaghue said you'd be late," the skinny man said, "I'm sorry I couldn't wait for you."

"Mikayla," Joel said, "Do you know Cameron?"

Mikayla looked more closely at the man and tried to picture him in different ways. "You're the forensics guy from the coroner's office? We worked on that murder-suicide a couple years ago? The facial hair is new."

"Not really," Cameron said, "That was the mid December, I think. I did Movember that year and shaved it all off. It's nice to work with you again, Sergeant."

"You too. My son thinks he's going to do that this year. Not sure how successful that's going to go."

"And you've worked with the Constable before?"