What A Mess

Sawyer looked at the remains in front of him. The eviscerated corpse more a mass of meat and tissue than an actual body. He had seen worse in his time. But this definitely had a spot in his top ten.

He turned away from the body in favor of looking at the rest of the scene. The idyllic park was once a serene and safe place to visit. Dog walkers and early morning joggers would come out here while they filled the afternoon with the noise and chatter of picnicking families and young couples. It was the Town’s go-to spot to relax and have fun.

A body found strewn about amongst the park’s garbage cans will certainly ruin any plans of that happening in the next coming weeks.

Sawyer looked over at the poor soul who had called it in. It was one of those aforementioned dog walkers. The young man was sitting down at one of the park’s benches, absentmindedly rubbing his mix-breed around the ears. He had been very excitable when Sawyer had first come onto the scene. Struggling even to get his words out in any coherent fashion, but now he sat, silent.

He supposed it was one thing to read about a serial murder in the newspaper and another thing entirely to have undeniable proof of that fact shoved in your face bright an early in the morning.

Honestly, Sawyer could think of several other things he’d rather be doing than staring at a corpse. But, he had to admit, there was a bright side to this. It came at a high cost, too high, but it had been paid. Their killer had been cautious ever since they had announced their presence in the town, their killing streak coming to an abrupt stop. Probably hoping to weather through than risk getting caught. And they were doing well, too. Sawyer and his team only had their previous murders to go off on. Hoping to find some kind of clue to pin point their perp.

Sawyer came up to the corpse again. He squatted down, muffling the smell with a handkerchief to his nose. The forensic team swarmed around him, collecting data and taking notes.

It is deeply ironic that the best way to catch a killer is to wait until they kill again and hope they leave enough of a mess behind to convict them.

There were some days Sawyer wished he didn’t need to get up in the morning. He thought about leaving the force and retiring. It wouldn’t be that unusual for a guy his age. It’s not like he had any kids to look after. No more killers, no more corpses, no more early mornings where he would face the tragic, traumatized and the sick.

He let himself mull over the fantasy a little while longer before getting up and investigating what had his forensic team so excited.

***

Mrs. Lowell puttered about in the clean grocery store. Taking her time to select the juiciest tomatoes and the freshest of lettuce. A smile on her lips.

She felt amazing. Refreshed. Rejuvenated.

Even the slight smudge at the edge of her glasses didn’t bother her. She hadn’t been able to find her glasses cloth since this morning, but she was in too good a mood to let that bring her down.

She really, really, really needed last night. It had only been a few weeks, but it had felt like an eternity since she had so much... well, not fun, but catharsis. Yes. That’s what it was. It was cathartic.

Mrs. Lowell picked up a tomato the size of her palm and gave it a little squeeze, careful that her acrylic nails didn’t pierce the skin of the fruit. She nodded to herself and placed the red delicacy into her hand-basket. Mrs. Lowell went to grab another tomato when she caught the beginnings of a conversation. She turned her head to see two young men chatting with one another by the onions and potato section, completely oblivious to her. They were former students of hers; she recognized them anywhere. Their town was not by any means small, but there weren’t that many high schools here either. She recognized the loud, talkative one dominating the conversation as Jeremy Roth.

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, an act that wasn’t very polite or respectable as her mother would have pointed out. Her voice ringing so clear in Mrs. Lowell’s mind it was as if the deceased woman had come back from the grave just to remind her of the at fact. But, well, young men aren’t often quiet, so it wasn’t her fault really that she overheard their very loud discussion.

“Yo, I’m telling you they know who it is!”

“Shut up Roth. They hadn’t figured it out in weeks. What makes you think they got the Wolf now?”

Mrs. Lowell picked up a second tomato, unintentionally leaning to her left to listen in.

“I’m telling you they got his number. You should have seen the way they were talking. They were excited about something and I betcha they got a lead!”

She froze.

The other young man snorted. It didn’t deter Roth.

“I’m telling you, man. That dour old man, Detective Sawyer, right, well he ‘bout nearly did a jig this morning.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Well, okay, no, he didn’t. But he looked like he won the lottery though.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. And how do you know all of this anyways?”

“Cuz I was there.”

“No, you weren’t!”

“Yeah, man, I found the body. Or, well,” Roth’s voice grew softer, almost too soft for Mrs. Lowell to hear the rest of his words. “Some... of the body.” 

“Dude...you good?”

“Y-yeah, I didn’t really get a too good look. It was Woody who really found it, he’s never smelled... that before. So he was really curious.”

“Y’sure you’re okay man?”

There was no answer, but Roth must have nodded.

“Okay then... but man, talk about burying the lead. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Like text me next time, man!”

Roth chuckled. “Sorry dude, I wasn’t really thinking. But yeah, I’ll definitely make sure next time I come across something as crazy as that you’ll be the first to know.”

“Sweet!”

“I hope they catch whoever it is soon.” Roth said. His voice going back to flippant in an instance. “Whoever the sicko is needs to be locked up. Can’t have some wackjob leaving a gross mess all over town.”

The conversation got harder and harder to hear as the two walked farther away, leaving Mrs. Lowell all by herself once more.

Now, that simply can’t be.

The Wolf was careful; they were precise; they were clean, meticulous, and never ever, ever, left anything behind to incriminate themselves.

Those boys were simply ignorant of that fact.

She relaxed, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and looked down at her hand and gasped.

In her hand was a crushed tomato, its red juices dripping down her arm and soaking her floral pattern sleeve. Staining the pale fabric. And worse, some of it had gotten on her glasses.

An image of red, much thicker and darker than tomato juice, filled her mind. Clouding her vision. She had to clean it, get rid of it, it was vile, gross, filthy-

She took a breath and wrapped the ruined fruit in a plastic bag before sliding her glasses off.

They needed to be cleaned.

She couldn’t find her cleaning cloth though and fought to compose herself.

She was making a mess.

***

Roth called out a goodbye to his friend, having parked some ways away from the entrance himself. The bag of groceries hanging off his arm swung with each step. He focused on that as he scanned the parking lot for his car. The swish and crinkle of plastic creating an annoying but vital distraction.

He had found a body. An actual human body. Roth let that fact roll around in his mind all morning.

It didn’t look like one. He thought to himself. In fact, he distinctly remembered thinking someone had thrown away their barbecue dinner. But no, he recognized the shape of a hand, its bones visible to his eye but the unmistakable shape clear and once he saw that, he could see a chunk of liver, some muscle, more bones, more-

He took out his car fob and unlocked his van. Woody, his pit bull-terrier mix, hopped excitedly in the backseat.

“Hey boy.” He said, voice coming out softer than he’d expected.

He needed to stop focusing on... that.

Instead, think about how wild a story this’ll make. It’d be a killer ice breaker!

He grimaced. Roth had wished the few hours between finding the body and now he’d settled on some kind of emotion. The rollercoaster of Woah this was crazy man, let me tell everybody about it! To I never want to think about this again was exhausting. And right now he was decidedly in the latter part of the ride.

He opened his trunk and set his groceries inside in one motion, taking the time to boop Woody’s nose as he tried to climb over the seat to Roth. He was about to close the door when a pleasant and familiar voice came from behind him.

“Good morning Mr. Roth.”

He shushed Woody, who had growled and turned around, putting on a smile to face Mrs. Lowell. She was wearing a white floral pattern dress with the sleeves rolled up. She was also wearing her signature gold-framed glasses. Although they looked a little smudged, which was odd. Mrs. Lowell was always particular about her appearance like that.

“Heya Mrs. L, how’ve you been? How’s this year’s batch of students?”

“Very well, thank you. And thankfully, none of these years’ freshmen have proven to be as troublesome as you and your friends were.” She said with an amused smile on her face. “Although, the semester is still young, who knows.”

Roth’s smile turned genuine, finding himself thrust back into his high school days.

 But her smile didn’t stay long. It dropped in favor of a worried expression that Roth only ever seen her use a few times back when he was her student.

“But I’m afraid I didn’t come to talk to you to reminisce dear, have you heard? They found another body!”

And like a slap to the face, Roth was thrust back into the present, his smile faltering a bit.

“Yeah... that sucks. It makes it the, what? The fifth one in two months?”

She hesitated, looking up at Roth in confusion before realization hit her, and she nodded vigorously.

“Yes, yes, the fifth one...how dreadful.” She tapped an acrylic nail to her chin “I hope they find whoever did this soon. I fear for the students, this curfew nonsense is making a few of them antsy.”

Seeing how distraught she looked, Roth couldn’t help but try to relieve some of her worry.

“Hey, hey now. I’m sure that this whole thing will be over with soon!” He said with as much confidence as he could. Mrs. Lowell looked up at him quizzically.

“How so?”

“Well,” Roth said. Leaning in and mock whispering into Mrs. Lowell’s ear. “Let’s just say, that I bore witness to a major discovery. Just this morning, the investigation team found something at the latest crime scene!”

“Impossible!”

Roth winced, not expecting her to yell. He pulled away and saw Mrs. Lowell blushing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. But... really? They found something? What was it?” 

“I was too far away at the time but...it looked like a piece of cloth.”

“Impossible.” She said again, this time much quieter. Her brow furrowed, and she had a dark look in her eyes.

“It was pretty small. The killer probably didn’t notice they dropped it.”

A flurry of emotion crossed the older woman’s face, but in the end she settled on a smile, although even Roth could tell it was strained.

“Thank you Mr. Roth, I’ll be going now. I’ll keep you here no longer.”

“No problem.” He said. He felt a little better knowing he had shared some kind of good news.

They parted ways, and Roth tried to focus on the positive of today.

The Wolf, the serial killer that had been plaguing their town for months, was going to be caught.

As he pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, He didn’t notice the police cars passing him until the flashing lights and sirens blared to life behind him.

He tensed, fingers gripping his steering wheel, before relaxing with a sigh.

It was over, and it hadn’t even been a day. He felt a weight he wasn’t aware of lift off his chest.

Roth turned towards Woody, who was looking at him with his big brown eyes, causing Roth to smile and scratch behind his ears.

“Well, at least Mrs. Lowell has nothing to worry about anymore.”