Chapter 2

Going into the house felt like stepping on stage. Sawyer had never done much theater—his parents had always been more focused on getting him into movies—but the little he'd done had left a lasting impression, one that followed him all the way into his late thirties and a whole new career.

The detective gravely steps through the open door. It feels somehow like he's stepping inside of a corpse, not a home. He looks down at his feet—no blood yet, but a long sniff confirms that there is a very badly mutilated body in here somewhere.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Kurt muttered, waving at a fly buzzing close to his face as they made their way to the kitchen. They both stopped at the door and stared in silence for a long moment at the body…and the scattered parts of body. "No wonder the newbie freaked out and decided this was a homicide."

"We don't know that it wasn't." Sawyer breathed through his mouth as he took in the scene. The décor was…interesting. Unusual, he might go so far as to say, for a single man in his fifties. If Sawyer had seen a set dressed like this, he'd have presumed the house belonged to a gr andmotherly character. The blood and viscera, juxtaposed with the ceramic waterfowls and 1970s-era linoleum countertops, seemed like the perfect set-up for a horror film.

"Look out for clowns carrying balloons," he murmured under his breath.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." Sawyer took another step into the kitchen, looking for whatever it was that had convinced Dr. Ramin that this was a murder. The only sign of forced entry he could see was the one the tree made through the window, but…huh.

He bent down to inspect the chainsaw itself. It was a corded electric one, not gas-powered, and lay a few feet away from the body. Something about the angle of it…Sawyer followed the cord back to where it was plugged into the wall.

"Oh, don't tell me you're taking the doc seriously," his partner said with a groan. "God, this place is giving me a headache and we just got here. We should—"

"Yeah, it's definitely a murder."

Kurt heaved a sigh. "Wanna tell me why you think that?"

"Look at the end of the cord." He stepped carefully to the left and pointed to where the chainsaw was plugged in. "See the droplet here, on the bottom of the plug?"

"Just cast-off from the body."

"No. Look at the counter beneath it." Sawyer waited for Kurt to make the connection between the blood spatter on the countertop—complete with a strange, skinny void—and the smear on the plug.

"Oh, damn it."

Sawyer nodded. "The chainsaw got unplugged at one point, and the cord fell into blood that was already on the counter. Then it was plugged back in by whoever did this."

Kurt moved to rub his hand over his face, then seemed to think better of it. "Guess we're lucky that Officer Doran is a twitchy little shit, huh?"

"I guess we are," Sawyer said as mildly as he could. Kurt still saw through it.

"Don't, okay? Just don't. The last thing I need after the day I had is you getting on my back about this too." He slouched with exhaustion. "Damn, we're going to be here for hours. I'll be lucky if I see Molly at all before I have to take her to the doctor tomorrow."

"Actually…" Sawyer was way more likely to get the chance at a real conversation with Dr. Ramin if Kurt wasn't around. It hadn't taken more than a single meeting for him to see that the animosity between the two men was long-standing. "You already did the dirty work getting the warrant signed." Good thing, too—Kurt had a way better relationship with Judge Ruffino, and Sawyer wasn't sure he could've persuaded her to sign that warrant. He still marveled that Kurt had persisted when the judge had tried to insist it sounded like an accident, but he'd take it. "Why don't you go ahead and take off? I'll stay here and babysit things."

Kurt raised one bushy, greying eyebrow. "Don't know if you remember this, kid, but I'm your ride back to the station."

I'm not a kid. "I can get an Uber."

"At ass o' clock in the morning when you wrap this scene?"

"Then I'll catch a ride with someone else." Sawyer waited to see if his partner was actually going to make him spell out the fact that he was trying to do him a damn favor .

"Well…" Kurt shrugged. "If you'd rather hang out with the Body Baggers on your own, I guess it's your funeral."

Sawyer rolled his eyes. "‘Body Baggers'? Are you twelve?"

"Hey, coulda said tea baggers."

"And then I could have reported you for harassment."

"Lighten up." Kurt punched his shoulder in that genial, casually violent way some men had. It had taken Sawyer a long time to learn to differentiate between all the various kinds of violence he'd been exposed to throughout his life, and this kind had been one of the hardest to come to grips with. I like you, therefore I'm going to hit you hard enough to bruise so that you know it. "At least I'm not calling you one of ‘em, even though you…y'know…you're…"

"Bisexual."

"Yeah, that."

"Sexually attracted to people of more than one gender."

"Yeah."

"Interested in fucking guys as well as—"

"Christ, will you stop it?" Kurt made a face as he gestured toward the body. "You really think this is the place to be talkin' about your…preferences?"

"Definitely not," Sawyer agreed, keeping his face blank. He knew the fact he could hide his emotions bothered his partner fiercely, but he also knew that hiding them was far better than weathering the arguments that being honest brought on. "Go home, Kurt. Tell Molly hi for me."

"God, you're such a bossy little asshole," Kurt sighed, but he turned and left the kitchen. Sawyer stayed for another moment, taking in his surroundings—not just the murder scene, but everything else he could see from within the taped-off section of the house.

There were doilies on top of every flat surface in the living room. A bowl of hard candies sat on the table next to the recliner, which had a remote attached to the arm. He'd only seen recliners like that in retirement housing, when a resident needed assistance getting upright. Sawyer glanced back at the body. Mid-fifties at the oldest. No sign of assistive mobility devices anywhere.

Definitely someone else's house, or at least it had been until very recently.

"Detective Villeray?"

Sawyer turned to Dr. Ramin, a smile coming to his face. Probably should do something about that. This isn't exactly smiling territory. It was hard to prevent it, though. There was something about the other man that made Sawyer want to…well, to smile, even when the medical examiner looked as undeniably annoyed as he did right then. "Yes, doctor?"

"Your partner is turning CSI loose on the scene. Apparently he was convinced this was a homicide after all."

"Kurt knows his stuff."

Dr. Ramin tilted his head slightly— incredulous would be the look a director had asked for here, and the good doctor delivered beautifully. "He said you're the one who made the call, not him."

"Yes, but he believed me."

"Ah." He relaxed a bit. "You noticed the discrepancy with the leaf litter."

"Among other things." As much as Sawyer would love to sit down with Dr. Ramin and share all the telltales that had alerted them both to the fact that this was a murder—preferably over dinner—he also noted the camera in the other man's hand and the somewhat impatient expression. This was likely his subtle way of telling Sawyer to get the hell out of the house. "I should let you work."

"I would appreciate it." He sounded appreciative, too, and slightly surprised. Sawyer knew there was no love lost between the doctor and Kurt, but he was determined not to get lumped in with his partner.

"Not a problem." Sawyer stepped out of the kitchen. "Kurt's going to take off. Would it be possible for me to get a ride home from you? I believe we live fairly close to each other." Dice thrown…

"I'm afraid not," Dr. Ramin said briskly. "I'll be leaving with the body once it's ready to be moved. I'm sure you'll need to stay after that."

Damn. Came up snake eyes.

Sawyer didn't let his disappointment show. "Of course. Maybe next time."

"Next time we meet at a crime scene?" You weirdo , the undercurrent said, but there was a little hint of humor there as well. Sawyer would take it.

"Better than an interrupted dinner," Sawyer replied.

Dr. Ramin blinked.

"How did you…"

"You're wearing cologne. Something really nice." Sawyer shook his head. "Nobody wears a cologne like that if they aren't trying to impress someone."

"Good nose, detective."

Not good enough to impress, apparently. Or maybe he just didn't like being interpreted. Or maybe Sawyer was wasting his time right now and needed to finish getting the hell out of the way so the M.E. could get on with it.

"Call me if you need anything," he said, then left the house.

Exit: pursued by a bear.

Dr. Ramin left with the body a while later. He didn't spare Sawyer so much as a glance as he did so, clearly tired after what had probably been a long day followed by an interrupted night out. Carlos was inside the house with another CSI, which left Sawyer to handle the trail of curious neighbors, curious cops, and other assorted looky-loos who seemed to come out of the woodwork once the clock tipped past midnight.

You should all be in bed.

So should Officer Doran; his adrenaline had turned into fatigue once the good doctor had left, but he was still on duty, so Sawyer asked him to help with looking up information on the man who'd been killed.

"Gilroy Upworth," Officer Doran read from his computer. "No parking tickets, no speeding tickets, no DUIs, no—oh, there was one charge of animal cruelty for dyeing his chickens blue back in the early oughts, but other than that I'm not finding anything."

"Interesting. Anything on his family?"

"No, uh…unmarried—or divorced, I guess, around the same time as the chicken thing." He glanced at Sawyer. "Do you think they divorced because they argued over dyeing their chickens?"

"People have gotten divorced for stranger reasons," Sawyer said. "No kids?"

"No, no kids, and nothing on his ex after 2010…the only other Upworth in town is Edith Upworth, eighty-seven. She lives at Pine Lodge Retirement Community."

"She probably hasn't lived there for long," Sawyer said. "I'd be willing to bet that this house was hers before her family member moved in."

"Oh." Officer Doran closed his eyes for a second. "Oh, of course. The victim is probably her son. "

"Or a nephew," Sawyer agreed. "The Lodge is a memory care facility, right?"

Officer Doran nodded.

"Good. Hopefully Mrs. Upworth has advanced dementia."

"Wha—why would you hope for that?"

Come on now, Officer. Consider the emotional relevance of this plot point.

"Because otherwise I have to tell a little old lady that either her child or nephew has been murdered in the home she just recently moved out of," Sawyer said.

"Oh shit, yeah. That would be terrible." The younger man shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Do, um…should we talk to the neighbors?"

"We already have," Sawyer pointed out. "There are only two close enough to have noticed anything, and members of both households have already stopped by. I'll go again when it's light, to make sure I get everyone and that nothing was left out, but there's not a lot to do there."

"Then…what do you do next?"

At least he was trying to learn. "Check the nursing home to see if talking to Edith is necessary. Check in with an employer, if he has one. See what I can dig up about him. Right now, it's looking pretty thin."

"What do you do when it looks thin?"

Sawyer sighed. "You look harder. There's always a motive for murder."

Officer Doran shook his head.

"You don't think so?"

"I wish I did, but…sometimes people do awful things just because they can."

Interesting. Sawyer might have to do some looking into Officer Doran's history, find out what gave him this less-than-standard perspective. Sawyer, for his part, always believed in the existence of motive. It was one of the few places where the silver screen and real life overlapped. "I think, given the lengths that whoever killed Mr. Upworth went to to make it look like an accident, that whoever it was had a solid reason for doing so."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You did a really good job here tonight," Sawyer added, glancing at his phone. "And I believe you're officially off the clock now."

"I am?" The young man looked extremely relieved. "That's great!"

"I'll cover things until the scene is wrapped up."

After Officer Doran handed over responsibility for the house to another officer—the one Sawyer had assigned to be scene commander—the kid left. Sawyer put on his don't-fucking-disturb-me face and, in between making calls and looking for evidence, helped the scene commander handle another four hours of comings, goings, random interruptions, and one very cheeky raccoon who wandered right into the front yard, up to the stairs, and stood on his hind legs with his nose in the air, sniffing.

"Sorry," Sawyer told the critter. "You don't have clearance to go in there."

The raccoon gave him a glare , shit in the middle of the walkway, then turned and waddled off insultingly slowly.

Finally, finally , at ten in the morning, CSI was done with the house. "For now," Huerta added as he slapped another layer of CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER tape over the front door. "We've got a lot of work to do, still, but all in all I think we got a lot of great evidence!"

"Great, huh?"

"Oh yeah! Hair samples, questionable blood stains—"

"‘Questionable'?"

"I think there's a fifty percent chance that at least some of the spatters I photographed on the countertop were actually marinara sauce," Huerta said, not at all abashed as he stripped out of his gear and shoved it into a hazardous materials bag, "but better safe than sorry, right? And Jesus, I've seen bloody crime scenes, but this one?" He whistled. "This was almost a record for me when it comes to swabs! I used up an entire pack of two hundred all on my own, and I was one of three techs on the scene!"

Wow. "That's a lot."

"Right?" Huerta beamed at him as he carried the bag over to the van he'd come in and deposited it in a larger receptacle there. "We were so thorough! You're going to get more leads than you know what to do with—but don't quote me on that. I get in trouble when I tell people things that can't yet be corroborated by the evidence, and I don't want to get Doc in trouble because I couldn't stop running my mouth."

"That's thoughtful of you." Sawyer liked the thought of people going out of their way to make life a little easier on Dr Ramin. He looked like the kind of guy who was used to fending for himself.

"I learned it the hard way," Huerta confessed. "Who knew that telling a reporter about the brand of lipstick you saw on a nightstand could be construed as leaking important information about a case?"

Sawyer blinked. "Was it actually important?"

"It turned out to be, yeah! The guy who was killed didn't wear lipstick, and at first the killer was assumed to be his wife, but then the lipstick ended up belonging to his mistress! But that was a detail they didn't want getting into the press because only the killer would know it, and it caused a big mess." Huerta wrung his hands for a second. "Good thing the detectives had some more aces up their sleeves. Doc was actually a big help on that one, too."

Sawyer saw his chance. "Mr. Huerta…"

"Oh, call me Carlos."

"Carlos, then." He smiled his charming everything-is-fine-I'm-fantastic-look-at-how-pretty-I-am smile. "Would you mind giving me a ride back to my place? I'm afraid I don't have a car of my own here."

"Oh, yeah, for sure!" Carlos motioned to the passenger side of the van. "Let's go! Hey, you want to grab a coffee on the way? There shouldn't be more than two cars ahead of us in line at this time of the morning."

Sawyer got into the van and fastened his seat belt. "You must get a lot of drive-through coffee," he commented.

"I mean, I do, but once I decided to figure it out I sat in the coffee shop all day just so I could compile a spreadsheet. I averaged drive-through visits down to every quarter-hour from when they opened to when they closed, then verified my initial findings with random visits for the rest of the month. I'm ninety-two percent sure there will only be two cars ahead of us."

Sawyer let his smile fade into something more natural. "You really pay attention to a lot of things, don't you?"

"I do! A lot of people find it really annoying," Carlos replied. "Not Doc, of course. He says it's what makes me a good CSI."

He wasn't going to get a better segue. "Speaking of Dr. Ramin…"

"Oh, it's okay," Carlos assured him. "I know you're interested in him, but I won't tell."

Not that Sawyer had been trying to hide his interest, but it was still a little disconcerting to be seen through by someone he'd barely met. "How did you know?"

"The length of time you made eye contact, the way you sniffed the air when he passed—that's his date cologne, it's Tom Ford, it makes approximately twenty-eight percent of people who smell it try to get closer so they can—"

"Got it," Sawyer said. Well. As long as he was hanging out with someone who had an apparently encyclopedic knowledge of everything he encountered… "So on that topic, what's his favorite restaurant?"

"Oh, I know that! He's got two, actually…" Sawyer settled back to listen to the younger man give him the keys to Dr. Ramin's heart—or at least his stomach—with a feeling of satisfaction. He could work with this. No one turned away free food, not when it was something they liked.

Yeah, he could work with this.

And…scene.