Donald Harstad: Code 61

“Must have been really neat,” I said to myself.

“What?” From the EMT Herb, near the door.

“Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.” Oops. Sometimes I concentrate so hard on what I'm doing, I forget other people are anywhere around.

I looked up, just like the other night up on that third floor. I learned to do that long ago. Most cops never look up. Sometimes, they wish they had. I could see a half window above the tub, and a full-sized window at the far end. Both had curtains, and both were opened, with screens.

Box elder bugs and ladybugs were moving inside the window casings. A seasonal thing in Iowa. A couple of ladybugs had flown down into the room. They're such friendly little critters, I didn't bother getting them out of the way. One of the box elders was steadily crawling across the shower curtain, appearing and disappearing in the folds.

No obvious blood marks on the walls. Nothing remarkable about that, either way.

There was a ten-foot ceiling with a four-bulb lamp suspended from a chain. The bulbs were enclosed in white glass globes that hung from the green enameled flowery ends of the brass framework. Nice lamp. Nothing remarkable about it at all. No bloodstains. It'll surprise you, sometimes, just how high they can go if there's a spray or a splash effect. The ceiling itself was either the original molded copper painted white, or one of the newer, plastic versions. Either way, it, too, told me nothing except that it was expensive.

“Well, shit.” I failed to catch myself in time.

“What?” Herb, again. The man was a good listener, I had to give him that.

“I said, Herb,” raising my voice with a bit of exasperation, “ 'Well, shit.' ”

“Oh.”

“Is Borman back with those cameras, yet?”

“Here I am,” said Borman, behind me. “The office says the ME has been notified, and will get here ASAP. And, uh, Lamar says he'll come up, too.”

“Good.” I stepped back into the bedroom, and started to unpack the 35mm SLR. “How far into the room did you guys go?”

“Which room?”

“The bathroom,” I said, snapping the 50mm lens into the camera body. I unzipped the section of the bag that contained the digital camera, but left it in place. I'd duplicate some shots with the digital in order to have them right away. The 35mm stuff was for court, if necessary. I reached into one of the bag's many compartments, and put on a pair of latex gloves.

“I pretty much stopped at the door,” said Borman.

“We got to her,” said Herb. “Close enough to check vitals. But with that wound in the neck, you could tell there was no point before you even started.”

“The neck?” The look I got from him made me add, “I haven't approached the body yet; just did a long look at the room.”

“Big, open slash on the right neck. Deep. Really deep. Got the jugular, at least.”

“Oh.” I was about as noncommittal as I could be. Neck? Two neck wounds in forty-eight hours, within ten miles of each other, in a basically rural area?

“The knife's down by the right leg,” he said. He thought he was rubbing it in. “We didn't touch it.”

“Saw it,” I said. “Glad you left it alone.” Well, at least it wasn't a fencing pliers. I had to take a moment to regain my focus. I wanted very badly to rush in and check that neck wound. But first things had to come first.

I hung both the camera bag and the camera around my neck with their straps, and straightened up, looking around the room. Neat room. As in tidy. Even the bunch of little jars and bottles on the vanity looked organized and orderly. To one side of the vanity top was a large, transparent blue plastic box, with seven rows of four doors. The rows were labeled for the days of the week, and the little doors were labeled for times of day. It was a pillbox, for somebody taking prescriptions. I made a mental note to point that out to the ME, and to get a photo.

Some photos, of mostly youngish people, adorned the vanity mirror. Very neat, in organized rows. One of those large, preconfigured frames with about a half dozen oval cutouts, filled with photos of a little kid, hung above the mirror. Maroon velvet or velour jewelry box. Queen-size bed, with what was now just about an obligatory brass frame. The bed was made, with a paisley bedspread. A nightstand, with a brass lamp. What I guessed to be a door to a closet was closed. Tidy, again. There were a couple of stuffed animals on the top of the bookshelf: a teddy bear, a little stuffed vampire with blue skin and a black cape, and one of those little troll dolls with the vertical red hair, like Don King. Boom box, stack of CDs, about a dozen books on the shelves. There was a small table and a chair against the hallway wall, with an older PC on top. Clunky, with no printer, just a keyboard and mouse pad. On the wall at the head of the bed, between the two windows, was a wood-framed embroidered sign, proclaiming in a homey way that “Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.” That one made me smile. A nice, normal room, with nothing unusual to catch the eye. Absolutely nothing. The bedroom of a neat, organized person.

The unusual part was what wasn't there. As far as I could see, there was no clothing laid out on the bed, nor on the back of a chair, nor on the chest of drawers. And no sign of the little pile of clothes you might expect to find in the wake of someone on her way to the bath. No underwear, no bra, no shoes or socks. Nothing.

“I'd appreciate it,” I said, “if you two would go out into the hall, and not let anybody in unless it's Lamar or the ME.”

“You do know who this dead girl is, don't you, Carl?” asked Herb.

“Hadn't got to see her face, Herb, so, no. Just that she's been called 'Edie.' Do you know who she is?”

“Edith Younger.” I must have given him a blank look, because he added, “You know. Lamar's sister's kid. She's Lamar's niece.”

Saturday, October 7, 2000

08:36

I thought, Son ofa bitch. I said, “Damn.” Sure it was. I'd always known her as Edith. I looked at Borman. “Does Lamar know who it is yet?”

Borman gave me a blank look. “How do I know?”

I sighed. “Go get on the phone, call Dispatch, and see if they know if he knows. If he does, fine, but if he doesn't, when he gets here, tell him I want to talk to him before he gets in here, and then come get me. Got it?”

“Sure,” said Borman, heading for the hallway.

“And NO RADIO TRAFFIC, got that?”

“Yes sir.” He did a phony pout. “You old guys are so sensitive.”

I flipped him off, in a friendly sort of way. “It's not nice to irritate your elders.”

“Tell me about it… ” was delivered as he left the room. The whole exchange was flat, forced, but you had to try. It was really getting oppressive in there. I wanted to open all the windows, but we didn't need any flies.

I motioned Herb back toward the hallway. “Stop anybody out there from coming in, will you? Until Borman gets back.”

Alone again, I took some quick photos of the interior of the bedroom with both cameras, rotating myself clockwise, and making certain I overlapped the photos. Then I stepped back almost into the hall, and took three more shots, to establish the scene. I found I had to reload the camera. The Board of Supervisors had recommended we use twelve-exposure rolls, to “save money.” Lamar had bought twenty-four of those rolls, just to give it a try. As it turned out, I had one thirty-six-exposure roll of ISA 400 left in my bag. I loaded it into the camera, and manually forwarded the film to “1.” We'd saved money by deleting the auto-wind option, as well. Thus armed, I ventured back into the bathroom.

Between working twelve-hour shifts, and getting very little sleep before getting called out four hours early today, and the semi-stunned feeling that usually accompanies having to absorb a tremendous amount of evidence and data in a very short time, I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. I stood for about ten seconds, taking a couple of deep breaths, and just sort of clearing my head. What I used to accomplish by having a cigarette. Then I started back to work.