Shadow Man

'monster in the closet' thing I had sometimes as a kid. Something scratching on the other side of that door, wanting out. Something awful.'

'Tell me about the smell.'

She grimaces. 'Perfume and blood. That's what it smelled like. The smell of perfume was stronger, but you could smell the blood underneath it. Thick and coppery. Subtle, but kind of . . . aggravating. Disturbing. Like something you could see out of the corner of your eye.'

I file this away. 'What then?'

'We did the usual. Called out to the occupants, cleared the living room and the kitchen. We used flashlights, because I didn't want anyone touching anything.'

'That's good.' I nod, encouraging.

'After that, we did what made sense--we went toward the bedroom door.' She stops and looks at me. 'I told Charlie to put on gloves before we even entered, Smoky.'

She is telling me she knew, felt, that murder was on the other side of that door. That she was going to be dealing with evidence, not survivors. 'I remember looking at the doorknob. Not wanting to turn it. I didn't want to look inside. To let it out.'

'Go on.'

'Charlie turned the knob. It wasn't locked. We had a little trouble opening it because there was a towel stuffed along the bottom of the door.'

'A towel?'

'Soaked in perfume. He'd put it there so the smell of your friend's corpse wouldn't come wafting out. He didn't want anyone finding her until he was ready.'

And just like that, part of me wants to stop this. Wants to get up, walk out the door of this coffee shop, hop in the jet, and go home. It is a feeling that surges over me, almost overpowering. I fight it back.

'And then?' I prompt her.

She is quiet, staring off. Seeing too much. When she begins to speak again, her voice is flat and empty. 'It hit us all at once. I think that's what he wanted. The bed had been moved so that it was in line with the door. So that when we opened it, we could see it all, smell it all, in an instant.' She shakes her head. 'I remember thinking of that white, white front door. It made me feel so fucking bitter. It was just too much to process. I think we stood there for at least a minute. Just looking. It was Charlie that realized it first--that Bonnie was alive.' She stops talking, staring into that moment. I wait her out. 'She blinked, that's what I remember. Her cheek was lying against her dead mother's face, and she looked dead herself. We thought she was. And then she blinked. Charlie started cursing, and'--she bites her lip--'crying a little. But that's between us and the uniforms we had there, okay?'

'Don't worry.'

'That was the first and--I hope--only fuckup. Charlie just ran into the room and untied Bonnie. Trampled all over the scene.' Her voice sounds both hollow and bemused. 'He wouldn't stop cursing. He was cursing in Italian. It sounds very pretty. Strange, huh?'

'Yeah.' I'm gentle in my reply. Jenny is there, completely in the moment, and I don't want to jar her out of it.

'Bonnie was limp and nonresponsive. Boneless. Charlie untied her and whisked her right out of that apartment. Right out, before I could even think to say or do anything. He was desperate. I understood.' Her face twists. 'I sent the uniforms out to call EMS and CSU and the ME, blah, blah, blah. That left me there with your friend. In that room, smelling like death and perfume and blood. Feeling so angry and sad I could have puked. Staring down at Annie.' She shivers again. Her fist clenches and unclenches. 'You ever notice that about the dead, Smoky?

How still and quiet they are? Nothing alive could ever fake that kind of stillness. Still and silent and nobody home. I shut off at that point.'

She looks at me and shrugs. 'You know how it works.'

I nod. I do. You get over the initial shock, and then you shut down the part of you that feels so that you can do your job without weeping or puking or losing your mind on the spot. You have to be able to give horror a clinical eye. It's unnatural.

'It's funny to look back at it, in a way. It's like I can hear my own voice in my head, some kind of robotic monotone.' She mimics this as she speaks. 'White female, approximately thirty-five years of age, tied to her bed in the nude. Evidence of cuts from neck to knees, probably made by a knife. Many cuts look long and shallow, showing probable torture. Torso'--her voice wavers for a second--'torso cavity open and seems to be empty of organs. Victim's face is twisted, as though she was screaming when she died. Bones in her arms and legs appear to be broken. Killing looks purposeful. Appears to have been slow. Posing of the body suggests prior thought and planning. Not a crime of passion.'

'Tell me about that,' I say. 'What's the sense you got of him from the scene, at that exact moment?'

She is silent for a long time. I wait, watching as she looks out the window. She turns her eyes to me.

'Her agony made him come, Smoky. It was the best sex he ever had.'

These sentences stop me. They are dark, cold, and horrible. But they are some of what I was looking for. And they ring true. Even as they empty me out, leave me hollow, I begin to smell him. He smells like perfume and blood, like doorways in shadow, outlined by light. He smells like laughter mixed with screams. He smells like lies disguised as truth, and decay seen out of the corner of your eye. He is precise. And he savors the act.

'Thanks, Jenny.' I feel empty and dirty and filled with shadows. But I also feel something beginning to stir inside. A dragon. Something I was afraid was dead and gone, amputated from me by Joseph Sands. It's not awake, not yet. But I can feel it again, for the first time in months.

Jenny shakes herself a little. 'Pretty good. You really put me in it.'

'It didn't take much skill on my part. You're a dream witness.' My response sounds listless to me. I feel so tired right now. We sit for a moment, quiet. Contemplative and disturbed. My mocha no longer tastes exquisite, and Jenny seems to have lost interest in her tea. Death and horror do that. They can suck the joy from any moment. It's the one thing that you have to struggle with, always, in law enforcement. Survivor's guilt. It seems almost sacrilegious to savor a moment in life while talking about the screaming end of someone else's.

I sigh. 'Can you take me to see Bonnie?'

We pay the check and leave. The whole way over, I'm dreading the thought of seeing those staring eyes. I smell blood and perfume, perfume and blood. It smells like despair.

11

I HATE HOSPITALS. I'm glad they are there when they're needed, but I have only one good memory of being at one: the birth of my daughter. Otherwise, a visit to the hospital has always been because I am hurt, or someone I care for is hurt, or someone is dead. This is no exception. We have entered a hospital because we need to see a young girl who was bound to her dead mother for three days. My own time in the hospital is a surreal memory. It was a time of intense physical pain and an unending wish to die. A time of not sleeping for days, until I'd pass out from exhaustion. Of staring at a ceiling in the dark, while monitors hummed and the soft sound of nurses' shoes shuffled down the hallways, overloud in the cotton-stuffed quiet. Of listening to my soul, which had the empty rushing sound you hear when you put your ear to a seashell.

I smell its smell, and shiver inside.

'Here we are,' Jenny says.

The cop in front is alert. He asks to see my identification, even though I'm with Jenny. I approve.

'Any other visitors?' Jenny asks.

He shakes his head. 'Nope. It's been quiet.'

'Don't let anyone in while we're inside, Jim. I don't care who it is, got it?'

'Whatever you say, Detective.'