Page 2 of Manner of Death
“How about you have a seat, kid?” Bashir nodded at the bumper of the patrol car. “Let’s not have you pass out and bust your head open.”
“Aww, why not?” Huerta grinned. “You can stitch him up, can’t you?”
“Yes, I can,” Bashir said. “But I can never remember which set of tools I last used on the living or the—”
“Jesus Christ,” Doran mumbled, and he wisely sat down on the bumper, putting his head between his knees.
Bashir chuckled and gave the kid a pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Just breathe. And this is your scene, okay? No one enters the house unless they absolutely need to, including the captain or the lieutenant.”
Doran made a choked, panicked noise. Yeah, nothing intimidated a rookie like having to tell the brass no.
“The detectives will be here soon,” Bashir reassured him. “They can take over and assign a scene commander.”
“Thank God,” Doran muttered.
Bashir gave a little nod. Then he turned to Huerta and indicated the cop. “Keep an eye on him, will you?”
Huerta nodded. Wasn’t like he’d be doing much of anything until that warrant came through.
Bashir took his kit from his car and walked up to the house. The front door was ajar with no signs of forced entry. He didn’t have to ask if Huerta had already photographed that area; the tech was very good at his job, and one of the first things he always did was document every single exterior detail in and around the designated path for investigators. Without the warrant, he couldn’t go inside, but he could absolutely take note of anything in plain sight—footprints, blood spatter or smears, items that seemed unusual or out of place… and signs of forced entry.
Confident Huerta had done a thorough job as always, Bashir paused on the porch to pull on his shoe covers and gloves, double-bagging both. He also put on a mask; there was always the possibility of airborne pathogens, and… well, death scenes could be messy. Bashir had literal nightmares about moving a body and having some fluid fly up and land in his mouth or nose. His stomach was strong, but it wasn’t that strong.
Once his hands, face, and feet were covered, he nudged the door open with the corner of his kit, touching as little as possible to avoid ruining any latent fingerprints. Then he used the flashlight on his cell phone to skim over the hardwood floor for blood or shoe impressions. While crime scene details weren’t part of his job, he was careful to watch for potential evidence and, at the very least, not disturb or destroy it.
As soon as he crossed the threshold into the house, that familiar taste of copper settled onto Bashir’s tongue. It was thick and intense; not just blood—a lot of blood. Bashir could guess why Officer Doran had been green around the gills, especially if this was his first time walking into a gruesome death scene.
Fortunately, despite being so affected by what he’d found inside, Doran had done a great job protecting the scene. Not only had he set up a wide perimeter outside, he’d established a clear path through the entryway and living room to the kitchen, carefully lining it with tape. The pathway zigzagged a bit through the living room, and it didn’t take but two seconds to figure out why: a smear of blood on the floor, a partial footprint, and a gouge in the hardwood that was probably preexisting but may not have been (well done, Officer Doran, not taking for granted that it was old).
Nevertheless, Bashir shined his flashlight on the wood as he walked, and he took the path slowly, just in case Doran had overlooked something.
When he reached the end of the path, he was at the kitchen doorway. There, he stopped to take in the scene.
Given the heavy presence of blood on the air, Bashir had guessed this was most likely a murder or a suicide. Maybe natural causes if someone had had a catastrophic medical event and bled out—wouldn’t be the first time he’d attended such a scene. Animal was always a possibility, however minute. He had to keep an open mind, of course, and it was prudent to not make any assumptions or jump to any conclusions so early in the game. Even mentally running through theories wasn’t a good idea. The curious and analytical mind was what it was, though, and it was human nature to start considering how pieces might ultimately snap together.
But as he looked over the scene, it was like watching a long shot horse surge past the sure things in a race—the odds went out the window, and in this case, the horse named Accidental Death was leaving the others in the dust.
In what was once a kitchen decorated with country kitsch like hat-wearing chickens and deceptively friendly geese with bows around their necks, the man Bashir’s colleagues had indicated was the homeowner lay sprawled in a pool of congealing blood. There was blood smeared, pooled, or splattered over every surface from floor to ceiling, turning those chickens and geese into witnesses of something straight out of a horror film, with red streaks, droplets, and the odd chunk of the decedent sticking to their painted faces. Amidst the carnage were leaves and splinters of wood from the giant tree branch that had crashed in through the kitchen window.
Bashir’s best guess? The homeowner had been attempting to break the branch into manageable pieces so he could remove them before cleaning up his kitchen. Somewhere in the process, the chainsaw had ceased to be cutting through wood and instead divested the man of several organs and a substantial amount of blood.
Unless there was a killer in town who’d taken to sabotaging power tools and heaving tree-sized branches through windows, the odds were tipping very, very heavily in favor of this being an extremely unfortunate freak accident.
That is, until Bashir looked closer.
As he’d begun his routine process, which started with photographing the body, he’d considered telling Doran there was no need for the warrant or for homicide to get involved after all. The kid was probably a rookie and had jumped the gun, thinking such a horrifying scene had to be a murder. Some young cops were like that; they still believed in a just universe where if someone met a terrible end, someone else could always be blamed and punished. If there was a lot of blood and destruction, then there had to have been a crime.
Fact was, though, accidents happened. Horrible, unimaginable accidents that ended lives and traumatized witnesses forever. Accepting that was part of working in law enforcement, whether in Bashir’s role, Officer Doran’s, or Huerta’s.
He was just about to call the homicide detectives and tell them to nix the warrant, then gently explain to Officer Doran that this was just an accident, when something caught his eye, and the world… the scene… everything…
Shifted.
Though Bashir’s focus was on the body itself, corpses didn’t exist in a vacuum, and he also wanted to maintain a good working relationship with the CSIs. So he observed, recorded, photographed, and protected any evidence he found so Huerta could collect it. And this time, as he did so, his gaze landed on a shard of glass.
A shard of glass lying on top of the pool of blood around the unfortunate homeowner.
Once he saw that, other details came into focus.