Night Shift

Officer Miranda Walker enters the elevator at Riverside Heights at 2:32am, and presses the button for Floor 5. She rings the rain from her ponytail and pulls it tight. She checks her appearance in the reflective steel elevator doors; her dark circles are deep even under her concealer. She had been drinking her mid-shift coffee when dispatch sent her to check up on a noise complaint: “Probably just a couple’s quarrel; check it out anyway.”

When she steps out of the elevator, the hallway is quiet. A few of the residents who had been woken by the shouting are chatting with one another out in the hallway. Walker passes by a pair of gaunt teenagers, who lower their voices and snicker when they catch sight of Walker’s uniform. She shoves her shoulders back, gives them a curt nod as she passes, playing the part despite being only a few years out of high school herself.

The building is run down, to put it lightly. The beige carpet lining the hallway is pressed down hard from years of heavy foot traffic. Walker absently wonders if the carpet had been white when it was first put down. Antique brass door handles and hinges are painted over the same colour as the walls, where the paint is thick and peeling. The air is heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer. 

Walker finds Unit 512 at the end of the hallway. The door is poorly fitted in the door frame, with gaps wide enough around the edges that Walker can tell there aren’t any lights on in the apartment. She feels the eyes of the residents on her as she presses an ear to the door. She doesn’t hear anything inside, so she steps back and raps her fist against the door with a quick one-two. The second time her fist hits the door, the door creaks open a few inches. With one quick glance, Walker can tell that not only is the lock broken, but so is the door’s latch. She pushes the door to get it open further, but can only move it a few more inches before she’s blocked by something on the other side. Walker tightens her core and slides through the gap between the door and the frame, and into the apartment. 

Walker jumps at a crinkling sound when she steps inside. She pulls her flashlight from her belt and flicks it on, illuminating a path of newspaper which snakes its way through the small one-bedroom apartment. The walls are lined with stacks of cardboard boxes, each bearing a Sharpie-scrawled label indicating what room the contents belong in. The furniture in the apartment is covered in clear plastic, arranged seemingly at random. Blocking the door is a heavy armchair; Walker doesn’t even bother trying to move it. 

There’s a window on the far wall of the apartment with its blinds drawn, preventing any light from the street lamps to spill into the apartment. Walker approaches it, stepping off of the path of newspaper and walking next to it on the carpet. The sound of the rain slamming against the glass grows louder as she comes to the window. She flashes her flashlight over the newspaper on the ground and notices that the ink of some of the letters is bleeding. She crouches down for a closer look. The layers of newspaper at the top are dry, but the edges of some of the pages below are damp. She runs her fingers over the window sill and finds that it is wet as well. The window was open when the rain started but has since been closed. 

The path of newspaper forks in two opposite directions. To the right goes to the kitchen and another door, and to the left, a door to what Walker assumes is the bedroom. She goes to the left, and debates knocking on the door. If there’s anyone inside, Walker’s sure as Hell they aren’t supposed to be there. She grabs the doorknob and pushes the door open, flashlight pointed straight ahead of her. 

The smell hits her immediately. A sour, putrid stench that could burn noise hairs. It makes Walker gag, and she has to turn away to keep from retching. She rummages in her pocket, untangles an N95 from a bobby pin and pulls it over her face, then turns back into the bedroom. Her flashlight gleams off the surface of dozens of black garbage bags, all piled in the centre of the room. She turns on her radio and whispers into it, barely able to keep her voice from shaking, “10-54, requesting backup. And send an ambulance.”

Walker shuts the door without stepping into it, the stench no longer overwhelming her senses, and puts the mask away. She redirects her attention to the one other door in the apartment, through the kitchen. It must be the bathroom, Walker figures. She follows the newspaper path, only walking on it when the plastic-covered furniture gives her no other choice. She tries to ignore the sound of her blood pumping in her ears. At the seam where the apartment’s shabby carpet becomes even shabbier linoleum, Walker’s flashlight catches a mark on the carpet. 

It’s the partial print from the heel of a shoe, the tread almost perfectly replicated on the hard aged carpet. The top of the print should’ve been on the newspaper next to it, but Walker is unsurprised to see that it isn’t; there aren’t any prints anywhere on the newspaper path. From what she can tell, the print probably belongs to a running shoe of some description, though it could be from a boot. Walker pulls a travel pack of Kleenex from her breast pocket and tugs a tissue free. She crouches down and gently presses the tissue to the edge of the print, and it is rapidly saturated with water. She pulls the rest of the tissues from the packet and shoves them in her pocket. She then delicately folds the damp sample into the makeshift evidence bag. 

Her footsteps sound deafening against the linoleum, and Walker startles herself. Her heart races, but she presses on. As she walks through the kitchen, she notices the cardboard tube of a used-up paper towel roll, and a bottle of Clorox cleaning spray on its side, the spray handle twisted off of the base. The sight makes her stomach drop. She opens the cabinet door underneath the sink and finds the garbage bin as she hoped. Walker lifts the lid and finds the bin filled with crumbled newspapers, stained dark red, still wet in some spots. She closes the lid and takes a deep breath, willing away nausea rising in her throat. As she wraps her fingers around the bathroom door handle, Walker wonders if writing people up for parking violations was really such a bad gig. With a deep breath, she grabs the knob and turns it. 

The flashlight’s beam bounces off the water covering the bathroom tile. Floating in the water are dozens of small blue pills, which Walker recognizes as Advil, the fast-acting liquid gel variety. Red-tinged water drips down the side of the tub, so Walker draws back the curtain. 

There’s a body in the bathtub. A woman lies back in the overfilled tub, her naked body bloody and beaten. The water over her chest is a deep red circle, spreading quickly. One of her eyes is black, but they are both open, wide and blue and staring at Walker with a face frozen in fear. Floating on the water is the Advil bottle, on its side with a cloud of pills around it. She isn’t sure if the woman took the pills to end the pain or end it all. 

Outside, Walker hears the sirens of her backup arriving, and a breath she doesn’t know she’s holding leaves her lungs. She approaches the woman in the bathtub and reaches out a hand to her wrist, just to do her due diligence. 

Her flesh is warm to her touch. Walker whips her hand away as though burned, and stares into those cold, dead eyes. She almost misses it when the body mouths the word, “Help.” The sirens outside are blaring louder now. Walker jumps to her feet, and retreats from the bathroom, her instinct guiding her rather than her logic. She goes to the window, jumps over the newspaper, and spies two police cruisers and an ambulance driving up, their red and blue lights reflecting off of the puddles on the street below. She rushes to the door, feet crunching on the newspaper as she wiggles through the small gap. She doesn’t bother to close the door behind her as she runs into the hallway.

The neighbours that had been milling about in the hallway are now gone, the gaps in their apartment doorframes dark. Walker presses the call elevator button over and over, mentally rehearsing everything she needs to say to the paramedics now and then to the detectives later. She wonders if she’ll need a lawyer. 

The elevator isn’t coming. Walker can’t hear it, but the “Call” button is still lit up, suggesting it’s on its way. She jabs the button a few more times for good measure. She can’t hear the emergency sirens anymore, and isn’t sure if they’re already making their way into the building or if she’s just not close enough to a window to hear them. If they’re here already, she could be holding up the elevator. She starts looking around for an exit sign. 

She finds it and bolts for the door, which opens into a dark concrete stairwell. She flies down the stairs, taking three at a time, supporting her bodyweight with the railing as she bounds down. Walker manages to make it down to the second floor when she barrels into a hard mass. The collision knocks the wind out of her, and on her inhale she chokes out a quiet “Sorry.” Walker takes a step back on the landing and takes in the tall figure in front of her. 

When she sees his eyes, she struggles to take in anything else. He has the gaze that she’s only heard about from her fellow officers before; the completely dead eyes. The woman in the bathroom had more life in her eyes, and she was barely holding on. The hairs on Walker’s arms stand up on end as a chill runs down her spine.

“What’s all the commotion about, Officer?”

He smiles brightly at her, all white teeth and charm, and Walker tries to remember whether or not she turned her body cam on, wonders whether she can turn it on now. She’s not even sure if the stairwell is bright enough for a camera to capture his face. She forces herself to look at his clothes, to put together a description in her head. He’s carrying a plastic shopping bag which is stuffed full. Walker can see the paper towel and cleaning products through the straining plastic. And on his feet, he’s wearing a pair of Adidas trainers. She staggers away, but her heels quickly hit the edge of a concrete step. 

“Just here on a noise complaint,” Walker answers honestly. The man’s smile doesn’t waver. 

“You need an ambulance for a noise complaint?”

Walker knows in that instant that she and this man understand each other completely. She doesn’t answer him, just holds his eye contact. He stares back, doesn’t urge her to answer him. She moves her hand towards her holster. Before she can draw, he points a pistol at her head. “Wish I didn’t have to do this, Officer. You really are quite lovely.”