Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

The walls are covered in red textured wallpaper that’s slightly too bright for this room, making it feel, if you can believe it, even hotter. The smell of death hasn’t left. It’s soaked into the carpet pile and will probably always be there. The windows take up most of the opposite wall, and beside me is a walk-in closet. A print of some foreign landscape that could be African or Australian hangs above the bed, and I think about taking it home for Mom. A bedside table has the usual ensemble of crap resting on it: a packet of painkillers; a small, smooth jar of night cream, whatever that is; an alarm clock; and a box of tissues. The alarm clock is still keeping accurate time. There’s a similar table on the other side of the bed. Scattered across the room, as it’s been scattered everywhere else in the house, is white fingerprinting powder. It looks like Detective Schroder and his pals had a cocaine party.

I take a look at the sketch map of the bedroom that was in the file. There’s also one of the entire floor. Can’t get lost in here. The purpose of the map is to show in an even perspective where everything was found. It tells me that on the far side of the bed is a door leading to a bathroom. I follow the map and see it speaks the truth.

The body was found on the bed. There’s no tape or chalk outline of where her body was, because that’s only a TV thing. It’s a shame, because that would be a pretty sweet job to have. I can imagine the interview: Well, if you can trace an outline around this orange, the job is yours.

I pick my way across the floor, stepping over the plastic numbers and evidence bags. I sit on the corner of the bed. The duvet sags and moves a little. So far, my effort has consisted of knocking over a vase and sitting on a comfortable bed, yet already I’m sweating. When I wipe my shirtsleeve across my forehead, it comes away wet. I roll up my sleeves and rest the briefcase on the bed. I open it so the gun is easily accessible. I see the empty bottle of beer and fight the temptation to go back downstairs for a fresh one.

I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, so I decide to break my evening up into goals. Baby steps. My short-term goal has to be simple: find something to work with, work with it, then turn it into a long-term goal. Set this guy up for the entire seven killings, and the eighth one too, if she ever gets found. I still have the ticket from the parking garage as evidence that I can plant. I close my eyes and imagine it all unfolding, then open them because I’m jumping ahead. I need to reach the short-term goal first.

I begin looking around. Nice place. I could live here. A nice twenty-inch flatscreen TV in the corner that would look good in my place. It’s been turned off, though in the photographs it’s on. Maybe the killer watched TV while he was attacking her. Or maybe she watched. I wonder what was on at the time, if Walker was being raped to boring British theme music. The generic photographs of her family where they all fake smiles for the camera fill the room. There are some on the bedside tables; others hang on the walls. If their eyes are looking at me, I don’t feel it here.

A crossword-puzzle magazine sits on the second bedside table, along with a telephone. The phone is no good, though. It’s been torn from the wall. On the floor by the bedside table is the remote to the TV. It has white fingerprinting powder on all the buttons. I put the crossword magazine in my briefcase, then check out the closet. Nice clothes. Hers aren’t my type. The husband’s are the wrong size. I rummage through a chest of drawers and find nothing. Her underwear smells like fabric softener and feels soft against my face. I drop a pair of panties inside my briefcase.

There is nothing of interest in the bathroom. The husband’s electric razor, sitting above the sink, looks nicer than mine. It’s one of many things the husband has left behind. Back in the bedroom, I sit down on the same corner of the bed and put the razor into my briefcase, first wrapping it in the underwear to protect my knives. Red walls. Blue-green carpet. I’ve never known what fashion is in or out, so I’m not sure whether these colors are on their way in for the first time or are already too old, or if they’re coming back in fashion. I’m not sure whether I should like them.

Concentrate .

I think back to the autopsy report. Daniela was able to scratch her killer, and since there were marks on her wrists from being bound, she must have scratched him before he started to strangle her. Once my chest was scratched so badly I needed stitches, but because I couldn’t go to the doctor, I went to the supermarket and bought those Band-Aid stitches. Used half a dozen to close the wound. Healed up nicely. Except for the infection.

The only blood found at the scene was hers. He didn’t stab her-just punched her in the face a few times. The drops of blood on the pillow from having her face pressed into it look like tears, as if a sad clown wept into it. More droplets have been sprinkled over the floor. On the handle to the front door, accompanying one of the latex smudges, is a smudge of her blood.

I read through the reports once more, then check the statements. Putting my money on the husband isn’t looking like a safe bet-he has an exceptionally good alibi. Her body was found with her arms folded across her chest, and a sheet was pulled up over her. Her eyes were open, but the smears on her eyelids suggest the killer closed them before he put his gloves on to clean up. If so, they opened by themselves. Again I think maybe he felt bad at what he had done. I spend a few seconds wondering what that would feel like-about feeling bad-but can’t get a feel for it. That doesn’t mean others don’t understand it. Maybe the guy who did this was deluded enough to think giving her some dignity in death made up for killing her. It looks like a classic domestic homicide, except for the alibi. Plus I saw the husband at the station the morning after the murder, and he looked genuinely messed up, as if he couldn’t believe anybody could do this to his wife.

I look back down at the report. It’s getting harder to read as it gets darker outside. Nothing has been reported stolen: no pieces of missing jewelry, no missing cash. In most cases the guilty husband would have tried to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. I never take anything when I kill, and since this person was trying to copy me, he never took anything either. How did he know that? Not through the media, that’s for sure. Is it just a coincidence?

I don’t know. All I do know is that I’ve been here for nearly forty minutes and still don’t have any answers. I’m starting to think more and more of the beers downstairs. I should have opened a window. The air’s still stuffy, but the sun is no longer as strong. I loosen my grip on the thick file and the contents spill onto the bed. My ideas are starting to dissolve. Time keeps passing and I realize my mind has stagnated. I start running my eyes over the scene, imagining what happened here, putting myself in the killer’s mind. Getting inside is easy for a guy like me. So that’s what I do-I get inside his mind, I imagine her dying, and for a few minutes I can almost feel her beneath me.

Still-no great insights, no flashing sirens or ringing bells to signify a great breakthrough in the case. There are no breakthroughs, just one sloppy coincidence and a sweat-soaked shirt. I thought it would be easier. Hell, it should be easier. Only things never are. Not when it’s something you really want. I want to help this dead woman as much as I want to help myself, but does that matter? Does that make the answers any easier to find? Of course not. The only thing I feel like doing is taking my free electric shaver and crossword puzzles out of here and never coming back. Go home, feed my fish, and take a nap. Put this episode behind me, like I have other episodes in my life, like I have with all of them. Move on. To what, I’m not sure.