Faye Kellerman - Predator

“Thanks, but I’m coming with you. Suppose there are a bunch of tiger cubs hidden in the bedroom or something. Or maybe he kept other exotic pets like a Gaboon viper or a monitor lizard. Someone has to call 911 if you get bit.”

Decker smiled as he put on his face mask. “Your loyalty is admirable. C’mon, Dunn. Let’s get this over with.”

The living room was a hurricane with putrid waves gassing up from the steamy floors. Deep claw marks striated the walls, and the furniture was torn to tatters. There were enormous piles of feces flecked white with maggots and bread crumbed with flies and beetles. Insects hummed everywhere. The refrigerator had been knocked over, food spilling out onto the wood floors turning them as sticky as tar. Butcher paper had been shredded to confetti. Most of the meat from the fridge had been consumed, but what hadn’t been eaten was gray and oozing brown liquid. It took a steady foot and good balance to avoid stepping in something toxic.

Marge felt light-headed, but she soldiered on, following Decker into the bedroom.

That scene was made even more appalling by the presence of a distorted, bloated body. The corpse had partially liquefied, vital fluids and tissue soaking into the sheets and dripping on the floor below. Blood and guts were everywhere, sprayed on the walls and splashed onto the furniture.

Marge said, “I’ll call the coroner’s office.”

Decker nodded.

“Mind if I make the call from the hallway? Even with the mask it’s still stinky.”

“Sure. Then we’ll figure out a to-do list.”

Marge fished out a pencil and her notebook. “Tell me what you need.”

Decker said, “After you call up the Crypt, call … let me think who’s on tonight.” A pause. “Tell Scott Oliver and Wanda Bontemps to come down here. We need to relocate the residents for a day or two. The apartment building is off-limits as a biological hazard. Nobody comes back until this mess is cleaned up. If you need another detective, call up Drew Messing.” Decker was still staring at the body. “Do we even know if this is Hobart Penny?”

Marge just shook her head.

Decker continued. “No one comes inside here except those with official business.”

“The tenants might want to go back and grab some clothes or a phone or a computer. What do I tell them?”

“We can probably escort them in and out. It’ll take awhile, but it’ll keep them less pissed off. I’ll also need a couple of uniforms at the door to secure the scene.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it for now.”

Marge talked through her face mask. “You’re going to stick around inside?”

“I am. I’m still not sure what I’m looking at.”

Marge held off making the phone call to the Crypt. “You know … if I ignore all the disgusting mess—and the fact that a tiger lived in the apartment—this looks more like a homicide than a natural death … all that splatter on the walls?”

“That spray was definitely the result of ruptured arteries pumping out fresh blood.” His eyes scanned the room. “This splotch over here looks like blowback from a blunt force trauma injury. You wouldn’t get these kinds of droplets and blood mist from simply dying and then having a tiger eat you.”

“If the tiger mauled you or bit you when you were still alive, you’d very well have this kind of spray.”

“That’s why I’m looking for signs of mauling and/or bite marks. It’s hard to tell because the body is so distorted.”

Marge continued to study the scene: nauseating to look at and even more sickening to smell. Still she began to think like a professional homicide detective. “The face … such as it is … looks elderly. The stubble is white.”

“I agree. It’s an older man. How old is Penny again?”

“Eighty-eight or eighty-nine.”

“The body could be that old. To me, it looks like a thin, elderly man that has bloated up with gas postmortem.”

“The corpse is decomposing by the minute. The organs are leaking out and the body’s framework has lost a lot of its integrity, but …” She pointed a latex-gloved finger. “I can make out some scratches on the skin’s surface over here … over here as well.”

“Good eye.” Decker stared at the spot. “The scratches don’t seem all that deep.”

“Agreed. Less like a mauling and more like the tiger was pawing him, maybe?”

“Trying to get a reaction from a corpse.”

“Yeah, that could be.” Marge studied the body. “It’s hard to see skin surface detail with all the discoloration. The scratches could actually be deeper, but because the body is so bloated, they appear more superficial.”

Decker nodded. “Do you see any bite marks?”

“Not so far. Wish we could turn him over.”

“That’ll happen soon enough.” Neither he nor Marge could touch the body, which officially belonged to the coroner’s office. But they still could make observations. “His forehead is misshapen. The cranium could have caved in from his brains liquefying. Most likely, someone took a whack at his forehead.”

Marge nodded. “Looks like a stellate pattern. With that and all the blowback, we should be hunting around for a weapon: something hard with a round end.”

“A weapon would be good. I’d also like to find some ID. It’d be nice to have the victim identified. Makes for a neater case file.”

The coroner’s assistant was someone Decker had worked with on other cases. A Hispanic in her forties, Gloria was perfect for the job because she was competent, cordial, and efficient. Wearing the official black jacket with yellow lettering, she was sweating profusely in the bedroom, now christened the “sauna from hell.” Carefully, she rolled the body onto its side and scrutinized the back, the skin currently colored eggplant purple thanks to lividity—the pooling of blood to the lowest gravitational spot. The skin was beginning to slough off from the musculature underneath. “Okay. Here we go.”

She lay the body back down and moved over to the other side. She rolled it ever so gently and pointed to a hole.

“Looks like a bullet wound.” She lay the body back down and studied the front of the decaying corpse. “Can’t see any exit hole. The body is very swollen, so a hole may not be apparent. Did you find any bullet or bullet casings inside the apartment?”

“Not yet,” Marge said. “But now that we know a firearm might be involved, we’ll look for something. Would the wound have been fatal?”

“Impossible to tell until you open him up.” She stood up and regarded the bloated corpse. “There was definitely blunt force trauma to the forehead.” She pointed to the lower eye sockets. “This caved-in part is caused by the eyeballs dropping down inside the head—a natural phenomenon. But over here …” She pointed to the upper brown section of the skull. “Someone hit the victim with something hard.”

“We noticed that,” Marge said. “Homicide?”

“I’m not the medical examiner, so I don’t make the determination,” Gloria said. “But don’t go on vacation anytime soon.”

Marge smiled. “I’ll call up SID.”

“Thanks, Gloria.” Decker picked up a paper evidence bag, and the two of them walked into what once was Hobart Penny’s living room. “What I want to know is how the killer got past the tiger?”

Marge said, “There was around six feet of chain on her. If she was originally chained up, she’d have a little room to move about. But possibly you could sidestep the animal. Or maybe the victim escorted the killer around the tiger.”

“If the killer was escorted by Penny coming in, how did the killer get around the tiger coming out of the apartment once Penny was dead?”

Marge shrugged. “Maybe the guy threw the animal meat laced with a sedative. There’s a lot of rotting meat … along with piles of shit, diarrhea, and vomit. Maybe the animal was poisoned.”