Veiled (A Short Story) by Kendra Elliot Read Free Book Online

watching his men
get their gear.
    “Two bodies in one day,” he said as they stopped at the
bottom of the stoop. “I don’t know whether to blame my dumb luck or yours,” he
said to Jack.
    “How about we each take credit for one?”
    Terry didn’t smile.
    “Is it Will Marino?” Lacey asked.
    “Looks like his driver’s license picture. The hair anyway.
I’ll have Mathews take a look when he gets done puking.” Terry was looking past
them, a grim scowl on his face.
    Lacey followed his gaze. Sure enough, Mathews had one hand
propped up against a tree as he heaved at its roots. “He didn’t even step
inside, did he?” she asked.
    Then it hit her. The scent of death that had been locked up
in an airtight house with the sun pounding on its roof for a day. Her own
stomach heaved.
    “I smelled it the second I opened the door,” said Terry.
“That’s something you never forget. Mathews hadn’t gotten any closer than you,
when I told him to go get his kit. He’ll get over it. He’s a good officer. He’s
just a bit green.”
    Garcia stepped up and handed out booties and gloves. He had
a camera in his hand.
    “Let’s get started,” Terry sighed. “Shoot everything.” He
stepped out of the way and let Garcia click his way into the cabin.
    Lacey followed the men, who stepped carefully behind Garcia
as he took photos. She breathed through her mouth, wishing she had a mask. The
cabin was dim, but she could see that it was decorated in what she thought of
as fraternity style. Every piece of furniture looked like it’d been picked up
from a yard sale. A dartboard hung on one wall, the area around it covered with
holes from missed throws. Two mismatched couches, one plaid, one striped, were
pushed up against the far wall, with a large coffee table filling the space
between the couches and the big-screen TV.
    No matter how poor a man’s furniture was, he always had a
big screen. She wondered at the logic of leaving such an expensive piece of
equipment out here in the wild but didn’t try to understand it. Fishing and
hunting magazines covered the coffee table. But things appeared rather neat and
clean for a male residence. The magazines were in tidy stacks, and blankets
were folded at the end of a couch. Even the three beer cans on the end table
were lined up in a row.
    A low hum met Lacey’s ears.
    “Oh no,” Lacey whispered. She knew what the hum could mean.
    Stretched out on the plaid couch, like he was sound asleep,
was their body. Jack carefully switched on a light. There was the source of the
hum: a huge mass of black flies had found the dead man’s facial orifices.
    “Dear God.” Garcia crossed himself and then wiped at his
brow.
    Lacey tried to see past the flies. The hair looked like it
could belong to the face she’d seen on Will’s license photo. His body was
already starting to swell, his abdomen tight against his shirt as his internal
organs started putrefying from the inside out.
    One arm dangled off the couch, a small gun just out of reach
of his fingertips. Lacey stepped closer and studied his head. She didn’t see an
entrance wound or an exit wound. “You got pictures all around his head?” she
asked Garcia. The young man nodded and continued his photography. Lacey gently
lifted the dead man’s head, feeling for an exit wound or some blood in his
hair. She didn’t find either one. She looked over the length of his body. No
blood. No injuries.
    “It’s a .22. A Ruger,” Jack said. He’d crouched down to get
a better look at the gun.
    He’d probably put the gun in his mouth. She studied
the small black weapon on the floor. She knew crap about guns. But if the
caliber was small enough, like a .22, she knew it could ricochet inside the
skull and never find an exit.
    “Did he kill himself?” Garcia asked.
    “I don’t know,” Lacey said. “It’s possible.” She met Terry’s
questioning look. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “I can’t see an entrance wound
from a gunshot