George seemed surprised at his answer but didn’t comment. They went to the parking lot, where George’s Escalade gleamed in the sun. It was a very new car, the typical factory smell still lingering inside. Andi almost felt bad sitting down on the passenger seat with his shabby clothes. They weren’t dirty or anything, just old, because he hated shopping with a passion, but he felt out of place in this pristine car, next to his partner, who again wore a suit despite the heat. If George had similar thoughts, he didn’t voice them, for which Andi was grateful. He told his partner to drive in the general direction of Goose Creek while he tried to ignore all the information he was getting from the insects nearby.
The breeze was just right to float in the air, watching the huge blobs move about jerkily like in an old black-and-white movie, the new spread of soil in the huge flower pots along the road was woefully devoid of anything nourishing like dead leaves or bits of roots, and there was an invisible barrier in the air where a shopkeeper had just cleaned his window, much to the chagrin of the fly that was trying to get into the darker space to lay her eggs.
It was all like a constant thrumming in the back of his head, one he couldn’t turn off. Hisomahad told him he would be grateful for it once his own senses started to deteriorate—at the end of her life, she had been blind, but still able to “see” through the eyes of the insects—but at the moment, it was simply overwhelming. The human brain couldn’t even properly deal with the five senses the human body possessed. How was it supposed to process the information coming from creatures who experienced their world through pheromones, different colors of the color spectrum, vibrations, or even sonic? Not at all, that was how. Even though Andi had learned to interpret the signals he was getting, he was still confused most of the time, so reducing the influx to a low hum was the best he could do.
Fortunately, George had to concentrate on traffic, thus sparing them both any awkward conversation. It only took them twenty minutes to reach St. James Ave., where the Extra Space storage unit was located. The yellow police tape as well as the blue flashing lights guided them the last few yards. George found a parking spot close to the building, and when they got out, they were greeted by a young beat officer who looked fresh out of the academy.
“Detective Hayes?” The woman looked at him questioningly. Andi extended his hand.
“That’s me. This is Detective Donovan, my partner. You called this one in?”
“Yes. I’m Officer Mayfair. We got a call about forty minutes ago from a man named Christopher Palmer, who informed us about a body on the premises. He’s the janitor and was supposed to do some repairs on two of the units today.” Officer Mayfair gestured to an elderly man with a potbelly and thin graying hair, who was sitting with a blanket around his shoulders on the passenger side of the patrol car Officer Mayfair must have come in.
“Thank you. What exactly do we have?”
“Female, looks underage, African American, deep head wound. That’s all I could see without moving her.”
Andi nodded. “Very good. Please show us the place.”
Officer Mayfair led them along the building to the back, where weeds were growing through the asphalt, reclaiming the ground. They were trampled, and a few feet before the next corner, Andi saw the corpse. He approached slowly, trying to take everything in, already relying on what his little friends could tell him as well. In situations like these, he was grateful for the additional input.
Two blobs had come out of the building, only one had left, the other was now a feast to be consumed, the first tendrils of the scent of decay already spreading around the premises, crawling over the trampled grass and rapidly heating asphalt like fog in the early morning, enticing more and more tiny scavengers to come closer long before the warm-blooded ones even knew there was food to find.
Andi was by now so familiar with the pheromones of death they no longer threw him off guard like in the beginning. The eager buzzing of the flies and the hurried scuttling of the ants also informed him of the other two bodies inside the building. The scavenger insects were almost going crazy from all the food they were getting.
“We need to go inside the building. Now. Can you ask the janitor for the keys?”
Officer Mayfair looked startled. “But… I already checked the locks. They weren’t tampered with. And the janitor said it all looked normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“We would have to take a look inside no matter what. I just want to do it now.”
Something in his tone must have told the woman how serious he was. She hastened back to get the keys while Andi stared at the girl on the ground. She was on her belly, so he couldn’t get a good look at her face. Her clothes were flimsy, too thin even for this time of year, and he could spot bruises on her naked thighs. Whatever had happened here, it wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t just this girl. Sometimes Andi hated his job from the bottom of his heart.
“Poor thing. Do you have some hunch, or why do you want to check the building already?”
George’s voice was low, almost soothing, as if he didn’t want to spook Andi.
“Let’s just say I got a feeling. Could be nothing. But I doubt it. Young girl, dressed like this, in a quiet area? That’s trouble.” He didn’t elaborate further, keeping things purposely vague, and George seemed to get the hint. With one last look at the girl, he started back toward the main entrance, where Officer Mayfair was hopefully waiting with the keys.
Chapter 5—How Did He Know?
GEORGE WATCHEDAndi closely while Officer Mayfair fumbled with the lock to the storage unit. The man was calm, which could be expected of a seasoned officer, and also resigned, as if he already knew what they would be finding, which in turn made George edgy. Even though they had been at the crime scene for only a short time, he had taken a very close look, and nothing had hinted at the girl having been in the building or even having a connection to it. So why was Andi so adamant about going inside when the crime scene was so obviously in the open?
Officer Mayfair finally managed to wrestle the lock into submission. The gate to the building opened with an ominous creak, making it obvious why the janitor had to come to do repairs. Inside there was a long hall with storage units on each side. Andi found the switch for the light, and for a moment the hall looked like an underground rave until the halogen lamps finally settled, shedding their cold glow on the units, which were all secured with heavy padlocks. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet Andi walked down the hall with determined strides, making it clear he knew where he was going. After about fifty feet, the hallway made a curve. George felt a strange tingling in his stomach, one that had saved him countless times already. He knew something was wrong, that Andi had been dead on. They rounded the corner, Andi in the lead. George almost ran into him when his partner suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. A storage unit to their right had caught Andi’s interest. It was closed, like the rest, and George wondered what had Andi so riveted until he realized it himself. There was a black stripe leading from a crack in the wall to the gate, vanishing beneath it. Upon closer inspection, the stripe was moving. Ants. George approached the gate and pressed his ear on the thin aluminum. The buzzing of flies had his heart sinking. While working in Narcotics, he had stumbled upon a few corpses. To him, the worst was not the smell or the often-gruesome sight. It was the steady hum of flies that turned his stomach. For some reason, the image of those small black bodies all over a dead person made the hair on his nape stand up.
He turned to Andi. “Can we just open it, or do we need a warrant?” If this were a narcotics case, they wouldn’t be allowed to open the unit just because they suspected something. The flies, though, should be probable cause in a homicide case, or so he thought.
Andi shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I think I just heard somebody calling for help. It was very faint… I could be mistaken.”
George hesitated only a second. “I think I heard it as well. We should take a look. Just to be on the safe side.”
Somehow this conspiratorial exchange gave him the feeling of being closer to Andi. It was probably because the man had kept him at arm’s length so far, even though it was only their second day together, and he was simply glad to finally get that partner feeling he liked so much about his line of work.
They both bent down to inspect the lock on the gate. It was new, with several scratches, as if somebody had been in a hurry to insert the key.
“Do you happen to have a bolt cutter around here?” George looked at Officer Mayfair.
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t. I could see if the janitor has something, though.” She blushed, seemingly thinking a good officer should always have such a tool with them.
