Seeking Normality

The smell of rotten cabbage is horrendous and not easy to forget.

The lush verdant landscape of the Pacific Northwest is lovely to look at. It often beguiles many to dream of themselves gazing down from the crest of one of these glorious mountains. Even if that view comes from a neighborhood for the rich, the stench of gangrenous decay is not one you’d think you’d be forced to endure. If only I didn’t have to smell that putrid funk again.

When that smell hits you, it feels like your senses are getting whacked with a mallet. I still remember the first time this fiendish odor engulfed me in its miasma. I vomited, twice. You would think that the cheeseburger and chili fries, that tasted glorious on their way down, wouldn’t be so bad when it came back up, but you’d be wrong. I was a high school kid doing crap for money on a rich people golf course. The housing, by the 10th fairway, evicted all their prairie dogs. Those squirrels would then get caught in our irrigation system. They’d drown then rot. I got paid to clean that smell away. I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m not here to clean now. Wait, I am, but in a metaphorical sense.

I’m here to catch a killer.

I didn’t think I’d find another victims this morning with the aid of a memory I’d like to forget. A body had been found here a week ago. That was number 37. The killer has been placing bound victims where they’ll be forced to drown. I came here to look for more clues, I didn’t expect to find number 38.

It was a field of flies that led me to the location of number 38, not that the smell didn’t help. It wasn’t hard to miss. The spot was on a slope. All the others were too, some steep, some shallow. This corpse looks female. Can’t tell the age. Number 37 was male, single, so we didn’t look for a mate.We’ll need to see what the relationship, if any, might be with other victim. Unlike the rest, we knew who he was. He was former airborne. He had a dog tag on the laces of one of his boots. That used to be a thing for the 101st in Vietnam. This guy wasn’t that old so either they’re keeping up with that habit or it was just nostalgia, but that doesn’t matter, we know who he was.

None of the other corpses ever had ID. The killer must have not seen this one. We’ll have to see what clues that leads to. Like most of the bodies I’ve looked at, either in person or in pictures, this one appears to have been entwined in shrink wrap.

I climb out and hike back up to my car on the narrow road to call this in. I could have just pulled out my cell phone right there, but that smell was just too much. I’ve already taken plenty of photographs, more than enough. I just couldn’t take the awful bouquet of death anymore.

I call Simpson, the lead agent in this area. “Better send them back out where your people located 37. I found another one.”

“Seriously? Weren’t you there just to take pictures? Investigate?”

“Ha ha. But sometimes you find what you weren’t looking for.” The laugh was at his lame attempt at humor, not the joke. “The sad thing is this victim was probably still alive when you were here.” I sit in the car, on the passenger side, and get out my laptop.

“How?”

“They’re gagged to be kept quiet. So even if the victim was aware of others being in the area, they couldn’t move or make sounds.” I take the SIM card out of my camera and pop it into the slot on the side of the laptop.

“Not move at all?”

“He paralyzes them too. Some neural toxin that lets them be aware but not move, anything.” Looking at some of the first pictures, there doesn’t seem to be enough flesh left on her skull to identify. “That woman might have already been dead. The putrefaction level suggests 5 days.”

“Wow. Checking the calendar,” I can hear papers being moved on a desk. “We were there 7 days ago. We could’ve saved her.”

“Like I said. The victim might have already been dead. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to find out for sure. I’m interested to see if this one has dog tags too.”

I don’t know if the wind has shifted or what but this abhorrent fragrance is getting worse. Once I got off the phone with Simpson, I moved the car to the top of this foothill, as the road crests its peak. I’d like to be above that lovely aroma, whiff it less. When Simpson’s team gets here, we can go down and get to work.

I’m not doing what I wanted to be doing right now anyway. I do want to catch this killer before he kills again, but most of all, I want to go on that elusive date with Emma, at last. We’re supposed to go to dinner in a couple of days, on Friday. I’ve been looking forward to dating my daughter’s 3rd grade teacher for a while now. She hasn’t been easy to agree to see me. I don’t want to miss my chance. I want to be normal.

I’m not going to get mad at myself for doing my job right. Well mostly, I still haven’t caught this killer, that’s been at it for three years now. Granted, I’ve caught others in this time, but this one has had my interest for awhile now. I just have a life to live and didn’t want a killer to mess that up, again.

This “ditch drowner” has been drowning his victims on the slopes of forested hills with rain water. This killer wasn’t what brought my marriage to death, I did that. By catching killers.

Tammy, my ex, couldn’t take it anymore. I joined the bureau after we got married and I didn’t become a profiler for another five years after that. But four years of profiling was when she’d had enough.

That was the year I caught the Foxtrot Fox. I let that chase undo what I built with her. She told me how bad it was getting for her, with me not being at home regularly, always on the road chasing criminals. It wasn’t that I wasn’t concerned about how she became dependent on medication for sleep, I just figured it was something we could address after I caught that killer.

She addressed it by filing for divorce.

I wasn’t normal enough. That was something Tammy said at our divorce. She said I wasn’t there enough for Marina, our daughter. When she was in kindergarten, her class did a show for the parents. I don’t remember who I was chasing then, I just didn’t make our daughter’s performance. The divorce court got to hear about that too.

No one should be allowed to murder. So what if what I do for work is stopping people from doing what they shouldn’t. I earn income for what I do. That’s still work, isn’t it? Don’t normal people work? 

My head hasn’t been mulling over my divorce like this for a couple of years now. Emma has changed more in me than one might think. More than I thought she could. And we haven’t even gone out yet. I’ve just been Marina’s dad at school functions this year, which is where I met Emma. I am trying to be more normal, doing school stuff with my daughter, that sort of thing. I didn’t expect my daughter’s teacher to possess such a gorgeous inquisitive gaze.

At one of the sessions teachers meet their students with parents, Marina asked her a question about an assignment. I don’t remember what that question was, I just remember it sparked a look on Emma’s face that melted my heart. One eye grew larger, its eyebrow went up too and the other side of her mouth and cheek went up. I don’t know if any description can give it justice. That was when I knew I wanted to ask her out.

This road’s hilltop crest is in the shade of evergreens. I’m sitting on the hood of the car as I see Simspon’s team heading up. I get back down to the site as they arrive behind me.

One of the team, Mark Gibbons, comes up to me. “Metzer. Where at?”

I can’t help but laugh. “When did your nose stop working? You need me to tell you where to look?”

He quickly covers his nose and recoils in horror. “Ugh. Spoke too soon. Ok.” He points behind himself with his other thumb. “Simpson’s not far behind.” Gibbons heads towards the flies.

I can see Simpson pulling up in his car so I start to walk over.

“You couldn’t just take pictures?”

“I wanted to. I have a life to live.” I say to him, and a teacher to date, I say to myself.