Ribbons (sample)
Christopher Howland, 2007
“Well fuck me all over again,” I said. The victim was hanging from the ankles, a messy tangle of wire binding them to – of all things – a chandelier. His head was the only bit of him that had skin on it. I walked around, getting a good look. Strips of flesh had been peeled away, banana style, from tiptoes to chiselled jaw, and hung there in little ribbons, their length falling to the floor all bunched up, in a pool of blood. Reminded me of those cheap paper confetti rolls we used to throw around as kids.
Stopped and breathed for a minute. Quiet, but the whole place resonated with a kind of residue anxiety. Felt familiar. Until yesterday, this poor bastard was someone’s lover. Best guess, she wouldn’t know what had happened to him yet. I took some happy snaps on the digital camera. Got plenty of angles. Some gory close ups, stopped a couple of times, to keep the perspective going. You try to monitor your professional distance from this kind of thing, but really, there are some bits of the body you don’t need to see the inside of. I locked up as I left – the back way – hadn’t been able to pick the front door latch. Left him where I’d found him, the real cops and others would be swarming in soon. I had all the evidence I needed. A flash drive full of high res pics, and hints of other things that forensics couldn’t measure. Of course, I’d seen all this before, just last week.
*
Had to check in with the boss. The office was kind of past its prime. Just out of the CBD, it was half way up a slab faced block that was probably the height of architectural chic in the early 60s. The place had never seen a renovator. I parked in the gravel dust bowl around the back, took the groaning elevator up to the fourth floor. The corridor always sounded wrong. Footsteps echoed, made you keep walking just because being quiet was even worse. Rod’s office door was unlocked. I slammed it shut, just to make sure he knew I was there.
“Jim, come on in.” The gruff voice came from the next room. He was a strange man. A contradiction of traits you wouldn’t want to choose between. His hair style hadn’t evolved since the mid 70’s – just gotten thinner, and I was never sure if the slick sheen was some kind of hair product, or just him. Rarely saw him away from the neat, orderly desk and the genuine leather blotter. I sat down on the visitor’s side and slouched. I un-slouched long enough to place my camera on the desk.
Elbows on desk he looked at me, hands clasped just beneath his chin and head cocked to the right. He even raised an eyebrow – I think it accentuated his habitual half smile. That was his caring look. He only had two looks that I knew of and that was the caring one. I think it was supposed to convey various things that I could never imagine him saying.
“Righto Jim. What have we got?” Rod nodded towards the camera.
“Well, it’s him,” I said.
“Uh huh?”
“Same profile.”
“Profile?” Rod used to be an officer, before he was kicked out for being too weird. “Profile is character traits. You mean modus operandi.” He pronounced the ‘I’ heavily.
“Yeah.”
“Uh huh.” Rod opened the desk drawer, pulled out a shiny new looking Mac portable. He connected the USB cable between my camera and the laptop with careful attention. A few moments later full screen blood and guts coloured up the décor. “Well well, very charming,” he said. “Certainly looks like him.”
“Yeah. Chandelier this time.”
“What was it last time?”
“Bannister rail, internal staircase. Didn’t look so… elegant.” Rod glanced up, then back to the Mac, flipping through my sequence of pics.
“Hmm. Very precise work,” He, zoomed in on the ribbons of skin and where they came away from the corpse. “Deep resonance to get that kind of cleanliness in the tears.”
“I know,” Like me Rod was meta-empath. Same as the sick puppy who’d sliced up the new chandelier ornament.
“Residual resonance?” Rod asked.
“Yeah. Enough to know it was personal. Must have been at it for some time.”
“Ok Jim, profile then. What’s behind his behaviours?” He may as well have asked how did it feel.
“Well, looking at how he strung him up in the nude – demeaning and dominance.– but more like anticipation than fulfilment.”
“You got all that from residual resonance?”
“I’m extrapolating.”
“Ok.” Long pause.
“Look, you know what it’s like,” I said. “The bits fit the theory but really it’s just my gut feeling.”
“Your gut’s pretty reliable, Jim.” Slight nod of approval.
“The whole thing – just speaks competitor.”
Rod got up from the desk, “Let’s go visit his family.”
*
cognitionfatigue 