Trigger warning: This piece contains descriptions of gruesome fictional scenes that may be found disturbing to some readers.
There was palpable decay hanging in the air like a swarm of immobile gnats. The carpet sloshed and oozed burgundy fluid as black oxfords moved calculatedly across the room. At the far end of the room, her snowy elbow was pressed against the desk, her head resting on a balled up fist as if either in deep contemplation or shallow rest. Her stiffened neck was cocked slightly to the left, forcing her vacated eye sockets to face a painting on the wall.
As the owner of the oxfords reached her, he began glaring at her fixed, almost Cheshire cat-like smile. A voice called out to him as he examined every aspect of her ashen face. "Kinda sick motherless fuck we dealin' with here, Crane?" The detective's attention remained unwavering. "You hear me?"
Crane kept his gaze focused on her, only snapping his fingers in response and saying the word "Pencil."
"What?"
"Give me that pencil there."
"Why you want a—"
"Just fuckin' do it."
"Fine. Christ."
The crime scene photographer, who had previously been standing in the doorway, grabbed the pencil from a night table and handed it to Crane. His gaze still locked on her face, Crane took the pencil and used the tip of it to slightly move her upper lip so he could see inside the mouth. He smirked slightly, placing the pencil down on the desk next to her elbow and reaching into his pocket. He pulled a pair of latex gloves out and, with no haste to be seen, began rolling up his sleeves before carefully placing them over his hands.
There was a sticky, damp sound as he began rooting around in her mouth. He squinted his right eye and shifted his mouth to the left as he felt around before finally stopping his hands' movement at the left corner of her mouth and mumbling under his breath, "There it is." He soon pulled out a small metal rod that had been used to hold her mouth in the smiling position, then reached into the other corner of her mouth pulling out a second.
Even with the rods out, the mouth remained in a muscle stiffened maniac's grin. Reaching into the same pocket that he had pulled the gloves out of, Crane grabbed a plastic evidence bag and placed the rods inside before holding it out in the photographer's direction. The photographer took the hint, grabbing the bag and returning back to his position in the doorway to continue watching Crane, who was now back to staring intently at her. Crane spoke to no one in particular, and in fact seemed to be addressing the room itself, saying, "What are you trying to tell me? What am I missing?"
"Wha makes ya think you're missin' somethin'?" the photographer broke in.
"I am missing something. This guy is one sick fuck, but that don't mean he ain't smart. He positioned her like this, in this exact pose, for a reason. I just can't see what it is." Crane paused for a second, then repeated in a slightly curious tone, "See what it is... see." He snapped his attention to the sockets now void of eyes, around which her skin looked as if it were raw chop meat that had been saturated in ketchup, chewed up for a bit, and spat back out in a viscous heap. He followed where the eyes would be looking, and began walking toward the painting on the wall.
He examined the painting itself for a few moments before deciding it, in and of itself, was unimportant. Crane took the painting down and placed it on the floor next to him while running his other hand across the spot on the wall that it had covered. "It's raised," he whispered, "Bumpy. Like it's been spackled over." He looked over at the photographer. "Got a knife?"
"Justa lil Swiss Army one I keep on ma keys."
"Give it here." The photographer knew not to ask why and obediently handed it over. Crane flipped open the small blade and plunged it into the drywall. He cut a large square section out and through it like a frisbee across the room. There was a small but sturdy wooden shelf that had been fixed to the metal stud in the wall. On it sat a small metal lockbox. "Alright," he said, "the fuck is the key now?"
He looked around the room. It wasn't anywhere clearly visible, so his first guess was to check the desk drawer. There wasn't anything useful in there, but when he spun back around toward the corpse, something caught his eye from where hers used to be. There seemed to him to be a strand of something sticking up behind the corner of her left eye socket that he hadn't noticed at all. As he got closer, he realized it wasn't a strand of anything at all. It was a tail. A small, thin tail.
He reached in and grabbed it, slowly pulling a small, decapitated baby rat out of her. There was a chunk of metal driven into it where the head should be. While the photographer ran out, losing his lunch, Crane plucked the key from the vermin's corpse. Placing the rat on the desk, he carefully walked back over to the hole in the wall and unlocked the lockbox.
As he opened the lid, he encountered three things inside: a small velvet pouch that held her eyes within it, the rat's decapitated head, and a small bloodstained note that simply read, "Your move, detective."
