Laura Caldwell - Red Blooded Murder

For lack of anything else to do, I tried the doorknob.

It turned in my hand. The hairs on my arms stood up. Some internal alarm went off inside my body. I pushed the door, and it swung open, making a silent, invisible arc.

What I saw inside formed the basis for another kind of moment. Not a mundane one, certainly not. But it was a moment that would crystallize and freeze in my mind.

And this one would leave a deep, deep stain.

“J ane!” I yelled.

She was lying on her side, beneath a hall table. From the position of her body, she looked, almost, as if she’d gotten on the floor to search for something-a dropped earring or a coin-and had lain down for a second. But she was eerily still, her head resting on one arm, the other arm lifeless, draped across the back of her neck.

That arm was covered with blood. And then I noticed more-her hair matted with it; spatters of red over her white suit; a puddle of it underneath her face. For a surreal second, with that pool of maroon and the bright red splashes on the white backdrop of her clothing, she looked like a piece of art from the gallery.

But then reality rushed in with a whoosh, and I heard screams of terror in my head.

I dropped my purse and ran to her side. “Jane!”

I knelt next to her, my mind careening, staggering, shrieking.

I touched her waist. As if only a hairline string had held her in that position, her body turned over so that she was lying on her back. A gurgling sound came from her throat. She’s okay, I thought.

But then blood bubbled from her mouth.

“Oh my God!” I recoiled for a moment, shocked by the blood.

I waited for a second to see if she would cough. Nothing. Her eyes were open. Tiny red flecks dotted the whites of them like bloody pinpricks. Her red scarf was tied tight around her neck, matted with blood.

I felt her wrist. Cold. No pulse. I had to be wrong. I pressed deeper into her flesh. “Oh, God, please. Jane, please!

“Help!” I yelled. My voice seemed to bounce off the taupe walls and lacquered floors and answered me with emptiness.

I kept praying out loud, kept begging in my head to feel the beat, beat, beat that would mean Jane Augustine was still alive. Nothing.

I was suddenly freezing cold. Panting with anxiety. Who had done this to her?

It hit me then-whoever it was could still be here. My head jerked back and forth, looking around. But the place looked the same as when I’d been here two nights ago-a lovely town house, everything else in order.

I looked back at Jane.

What should I do? What should I do?

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?

I began to lean toward Jane, but that sickening burbling sound arose from her throat again. More blood.

I leapt to my feet and found my purse, my hands shaking violently when I opened it, accidentally hurling its contents over the floor as I searched for the phone.

“No!” My battery was dead. With Theo at my place last night, I’d forgotten to charge it, and with all the calls and texts I’d made to Jane, I’d depleted it.

I bolted to my feet and hurried through the living room. Where was their house phone? I couldn’t find it.

I darted around the town house-kitchen, dining room, back to the living room. My heart thundered, my eyes were wild. Finally, I spotted a small cordless phone on the bookshelf next to the fireplace.

My fingers felt like unwieldy pieces of wood on the buttons. I panted, moaned. At last I dialed 911.

“Chicago,” a man’s voice said. “Emergency call center.”

“Jane Augustine,” I said. “I think she’s dead.”

H ow unbelievable that someone like Jane, someone who appeared as merely a pretty talking head, was, once you saw behind the exterior, one of the most-okay, the most-intensely sexual person anyone could imagine. To be with someone like that was intoxicating. No, intoxicating wasn’t a strong enough word. Being with Jane-being in her bed with that body, being in her head-was all-consuming, all-captivating, something you could never, ever get enough of.

And when she asked you to wind that red scarf around her neck, God that was something incredible. First, she would tell you how. Then, when you were doing it, she would sigh and murmur, telling you to keep going. She would tell you to do it harder then, do it faster. Shoot me out of this world, she would say. You did it. Happily. Because you wanted to please her, you wanted to blow her mind, because if you did it the right way, if you did it enough, maybe, maybe, maybe she would let you stay in her world forever.

The problem was there was always the sense with Jane that it would end. No, it was more than a sense. Jane had always been clear about her limits. She insisted on saying, this has to end, this is the last time, over and over and over. She would never shut up about it.

And despite how badly you wanted it to go on forever, even if you were only let into her world every so often, Jane had been right. It had ended. What Jane would not have foreseen was that it was you who ended it, not her. It was you who decided to pull that scarf tighter and tighter around her neck. It was you who, one last time, shot Jane out of this world. In fact, it was you who shot her right to heaven.

I can hardly remember the next few hours. When I think of it, I see only bursts of memories-the police lights flashing like blue strobes, the shrieking sirens as the ambulance raced away with Jane’s body, the yellow slashes of crime scene tape, the neighbors standing stiffly, arms crossed in front of them as they watched the police swarm the area.

I was questioned by one cop, then another. I know my mouth moved. I know I answered everything, recalling each detail about the night. I know I told them about the break-in Jane had a few days ago, the flowers, the scarf shaped into a noose.

I was driven in the back of a police car to the Belmont station, where a detective asked all the same questions as the others. I gave the same answers. The detective left.

I was in a square windowless room about eight feet around, painted all in white. One wall had a metal bench pushed against it, and above that, a steel ring bolted into the wall. I sat at a fake wood table in the center of the room, one chair on the other side.

Another detective came in. He was a lean guy wearing brown casual pants, a light blue button-down shirt and an empty holster and expensive-looking running shoes. Something about him snapped me out of my fog.

“We’ve met,” I said.

“I’m Detective Vaughn.” He sat down across the table.

“You and another detective interviewed me last fall when Forester Pickett passed away.” And you were an asshole, I wanted to add. Then due to my stop-swearing campaign I amended it. I mean, a total jerk.

“Yep,” he said. “If I remember right, your fiancé hit the road, right?” This memory seemed to cause him some pleasure. A little smile played over his mouth and his green eyes crinkled a little. He looked as though he was trying not to laugh, and it made me remember precisely how much I disliked Detective Vaughn.

“Yes,” I said. “Sam had to leave town.”

“You rope him back in yet?”

“He’s back.”

“Getting married anytime soon?” His delight in this topic hadn’t seemed to wane.

“Not right now. If we could get back to what happened tonight.” Suddenly a thought occurred to me. “Has anyone called Zac?”

“The husband? We’re trying to find him.”

“I think he’s in Long Beach.”

“California?” His brows, thick and brown, moved closer together. His tone was conversational, as if we weren’t here because someone had bludgeoned Jane to death.