Chapter II

The detective 

I crack open a beer and look at this shit heel of a case on my desk. It’s a front page headline of a newspaper and I know it will be my responsibility to figure. I fondle my badge and think how I am the smartest man on the force and how everyone knows it from the janitor to the governor. There is something about this case that irks me. It’s on the black side of town.

First thing I see when I walk in is the red on the wall and the first thing I smell is the iron smell of fresh blood. A mouse skitters behind a mahogany dresser and I reach for my holster. Like a rush of blood to my eyes I notice the dead woman’s flush red lips.

To regain focus I light a cigarette. My armpit drips sweat and I scratch the top of my head. The room is too dark. This room gives me the creeps. I refocus my mind on the sound of a mouse behind the dresser and try to remember what I had for breakfast.

I had a bagel and cream cheese with orange juice not coffee because I was going to get a Red Bull on the drive over to the crime scene. The dead woman with the red lips lies on a queen sized bed. I can hear a conversation downstairs. The toe nails on her feet are the same color as the lipstick on her mouth.

Black people talking downstairs make it hard to think. This place reminds me of places I had been to as a kid. When you were a kid you could go anywhere with anyone. If I was a black guy I could come back here tonight and have myself a time. These aren’t bad guys who run this joint and obviously it attracts good looking women.

I light another cigarette. I don’t know why I smoke these things. I also don’t know why this woman is dead. I also don’t know why she is so attractive. This room smells like piss.

Or is that just the smell of this cigarette? Cigarettes always smell of piss. Why do I smoke these things? What would the woman look like without the sheet over her?

It looks amazing. The perfectly white sheet over an immaculate woman lying on top of a blood-stained bed sheet gives off a very pleasing aesthetic. Maybe the murderer thought so as well. The room smells like my cigarette and reeks of lye. The floorboards although old are the only thing clean in the entire room save the top bedsheet and my record.

I could use a whiskey at the bar downstairs. A pressure is beginning to give me a migraine. Is it bad juju to share an ashtray with a murderer and his mistress? Anyways the husband is back at the station with his high-dollar attorney and wants a report more desperately than my superiors do.

Oh, the ceiling is clean as well. I like her perfume. God, I am tired, I could use another Red Bull. I could use something stronger than a Red Bull. Too bad I won’t ever know what kind of perfume that is.

A beautiful day

To walk down the street

& look at trees

But there is murder in the air

Let us laugh &

Let us joke &

Smile shit faced grins

All is good &

All is golden

With this new murder in the air

The Deputy

She was shot through the stomach. She was shot through the stomach in this hotel room on the black side of town above this bar. She was shot through the stomach in this hotel room on the black side of town above this bar during the day. Then the murderer went down the stairs and killed one of the black owners at the bar and stole money out of the cash register.

Full ashtray. Mahogany dresser. Blood on the wall. Floor washed with lye.  Clean bed sheet. Blood stained bed sheet. Clean ceiling. Mouse under dresser. This seven-figure looking broad on the bed, dead.

Marlboro and Camel cigarette butts in the ashtray. One must be from the detective. Why do people smoke cigarettes? I’ve always thought they reeked of piss. This mouse under the dresser probably knows the whole story but he is talking as much to the cops as the black guy who runs this place.

I’ve been on the police force for a couple years and never been promoted. Stuck with each grunt job that they can make up. Sometimes though they can come up with some dirty shit. “Eat your wheaties today, we have got a body we are going to need you to throw in a river.” Like I could eat a bowl of Wheaties.

Wheaties are just a step above grape nuts. Being a grunt police officer like myself is a step above being a mobster. The police ain’t as bad because they don’t run the entirety of the organization off of causing crimes, just some of it. Like us cops didn’t kill this woman but we are dumping her body into a river instead of taking it to forensics.

This is a nice place. Shame this crime had to happen in an establishment like this. Good decent black folk run this show. If I had more black friends I could come down here and have a time.

I might get some cigarettes after this. The woman only weighs a couple hundred pounds. She ain’t fat by any means but she is dense. In this body bag it’s like I am taking out the laundry. Husband left a hefty donation for the chamber of commerce.

“Appreciate it if you would clean it up nice and tidy like.” “Things were great when it started.” “Can’t stand to see my social status slip farther than it already has.” Yes sir Bob, me neither. That’s why I carry your wife around in a body bag in my trunk.

In the tv shows when a guy does something like not have his wife’s dead body sent into forensics it’s a big blaring clue that he is a prime suspect for the murder. She was and is dolled up real nice as well. Did he fuck her and then kill her? Or just kill her? What a creep show.

No one says a damned word about anything. The detective. The husband. The chief. The black guy at the bar dressed as a white guy. The mouse. Just that I should eat some nasty cereal and tidy things up. 

“You have a job to do and you had better let yourself do it.” Like hell. The detective could tell the chief that the mouse told the black man dressed as a white guy that the husband had told him that I was the one who slept with and killed his wife, the black business partner and took the money. Since it is me and my squad car and a woman’s body sinking to the bottom of a river I wouldn’t give a damn if a mouse did tell a lie like that.

The husband killed his wife and then because he had just killed his wife he went and made love to her, aces high like, and since he was shitting in high cotton, he killed a black man for kicks downstairs and stole money to feel like a teenager again. Don’t give me a raise or give me a title though because I’m untrustworthy and I’m a loose cannon. What am I going to eat for lunch today? KFC or Popeyes? Maybe I’ll just get some smokes and eat KFC or Popeyes for dinner.

Morbid eyes

Morbid lips

Morbid breath

Morbid kiss

Morbid sex

Morbid legs

I can see morbid thighs

Morbid lung

Morbid tongue

Morbid dreams of Jung

Morbid loss

Morbid cost