As Virgil walked toward the house, another car pulled to the curb down the street and honked once. He turned and saw Trane getting out.
Trane flashed her badge at the St. Paul cops and hurried up to Virgil.
“Have you been inside?”
“No. And the cops are being mysterious.”
“What?”
“Let’s go up. I’ve been told to look at the dead kid’s stomach.”
“What?”
—
They went up to the second floor of the house, where the other cop was standing next to Quill, who was sitting on the hallway floor.
Trane identified herself and Virgil to the second cop, said hello to Quill, who was stricken, red-faced and sporadically weeping, and the cop said, “We’ve got an investigator coming, he’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“The victim...” Virgil began.
“Has been dead for a while,” the cop said. “He’s on his back. We’re seeing some rigor in the eyelids, and the blood’s already settled in his back and legs. There was no hope of resuscitation.”
Trane said, “Would you mind if we took the witness outside?We know her, we’ve dealt with her, it might be better... We’ll wait for your investigator by the front door.”
The cop nodded. “Sure. She’s shook up.”
Virgil: “We need to take a quick look at the victim. Your partner outside...”
The cop nodded again. “Yeah. Take a look.”
Quill said in a choked voice, “His name is Brett Renborne. Somebody’s got to call his parents.” And she began weeping again.
“Hate this shit, when it’s a kid,” Trane said, as they walked down the hall to the room—it was a single room, perhaps fifteen by twenty feet, walls painted a medium blue, with a bed, an Apple laptop on a small wooden desk with the printer on the floor next to the desk, a shelf with a microwave on it, and there was a closet. But no bathroom. Virgil asked, and the cop at the door said, “Down the hall.”
—
Virgil led the way inside Renborne’s apartment, both he and Trane stepping carefully. Virgil pointed silently at the syringe on the floor.
Renborne was sprawled on the bed, on top of a sheet, mostly on his right side, with his right arm extended out from beneath his body. He was wearing a white T-shirt, which was pulled up to expose most of his stomach, and a pair of Jockey briefs. The shorts were soiled, and there was the distinct odor of fecal matter in the air.
Virgil bent over the body to look at the stomach. “Oh, Jesus,” he said.
“What?”
“Look.”
Trane bent over the body. “Do you think...?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Seven words were scrawled in black ink in a wobbly hand on Renborne’s stomach: “I did it. I can’t stand it.”
Virgil looked around, saw a black Sharpie pen poking out from under the other sheet. He pointed at it. “Pen.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Trane said.
—
