Heartless – Chapter 1
Intro
Start reading Heartless, a dystopian detective novel set in a world where the apocalypse may already be unfolding unnoticed.
Chapter text
This one is different.
Fifteen years on the force tells me to expect every case to be different. I enjoy the variety of ways in which people die as much as I enjoy anything. Each case brings a challenge, a puzzle, a problem to solve. The garden variety cruelty of man displayed in fits of rage. Bleeding hearts amid broken streets. Desperate hands taking desperate measures. Cousin Sandi’s head bashed with grandpa’s fishing trophy because grandpa changed his will.
When the disasters came, people didn’t change. The government did.
Meant to guide us through the storm, temporary public safety proclamations define the new normal of LA County’s stillborn rebirth. They grow, each stacked on the last, a pillar of legalese high enough to reach the sky. Martial law gave way to an ongoing state of emergency where increasing power rests in fewer hands. All decisions made by the lone county supervisor still alive.
A loaded weapon means more than my badge ever did. Cop corpses not in the morgue rot under tons of earthquake debris. Empty parking spaces mark cruisers that never came home. Almost half the force dead and buried with the other half picking up the slack. Public demand for protection has increased while the force’s ability to respond has degraded. Caseloads might be the only thing stacking faster than PSPs. People die. Alone.
This one is different.
Not with the victim. I take in all of him, and that’s quite a lot. He’s two-seventy-five if he’s an ounce, maybe three hundred. The way he’s folded makes it hard to get an exact read. Big. Muscly. Probably played football in his youth. Or rugby. He’s running to fat. His thighs strain the white fabric of his uniform pants, while the seat bulges like an overfull dam.
A second chin grows from his neck like a deployed airbag. I’ve seen this before. Big men with fast metabolisms that slow. He would tell me, if he could talk, that he just needs some time in the gym. He’ll be back in shape in no time, metabolism running at full boil, melting pounds like soft butter on fresh-baked bread.
His eyes. Staring through me into eternity with a bug-eyed gape on his oversized melon. Stunned that his end arrived with the abrupt insertion of a sharp object into his thorax Surprise? Fear?
I kneel to get a better look.
Folded into the linen cart closest to the van’s rear door, his bottom perched on a plastic-wrapped stack of medical scrubs fresh from the wash and still ready to wear. Legs sticking out of the cart. Feet even with his head. The tagline from a TV commercial from my youth flits through my mind: “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”
I swallow the laugh. Anyone could be watching, and I don’t need a visit from Internal Affairs because I broke some PSP rule I didn’t know about.
His hands droop on his middle, thick fingers making one of those heart signs athletes use to signal that special someone in the crowd. Love ya, Mom! Probably posed. But why?
His skin glows with a pallid luminosity as if his spirit remains. A crimson ocean covers his chest, like an apron, narrow at the top with gravity spreading the rest, like a flood through a spillway, more brown than red—a butcher’s apron outside the fridge too long. And yet, it’s where the blood isn’t…
I tweeze the shirt up off the body. A big hole with a clean incision. A gusher. Even with the weapon plugging the wound, the blood should be everywhere. But it isn’t.
I scan the immaculate interior. Bundles of linens stacked in neat rows occupy shelving designed with ergonomics in mind. All those bundles in neat piles on white shelves lashed to white walls on a white floor. Helix Trope white.
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Helix Trope bought out the previous linen contractor. New fleet. New branding. Same drivers, they said. Same service. Cleaner. Greener. More efficient. They agreed, for a fee, to keep the county functioning while the county figures out what functioning means under emergency powers made permanent.
The Helix Trope name has blossomed like mushrooms after a rain, appearing everywhere—warehouses, hospitals, recreation camps for the unhoused. They promised to keep LA clean, like this van. Too clean. Impossibly clean. I check my shoe covers. Nothing.
Apart from the heart-shaped pose, his hands are clean. No defensive wounds I can see. No towels grabbed in desperation. No stack knocked loose. No blood where it should be.
This one is different.
“Officer?”
A uniform outside pokes his head in, fresh-faced and too young for the job. The pin on his breast tells the tale. Another recruit from the green shirts. The county’s answer to a depleted police force—teenage conscripts with fear in their eyes. They don’t offer much, but some of them can be useful, like when I want coffee, when there is any , which isn’t often these days.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the doc.”
“The doc?”
I roll my eyes. “The medical examiner. The only redhead outside you’ll want to ask on a date.”
Another yes, sir, and he disappears.
I duckwalk along the aisle, searching, my gloved hands trailing along the smooth flooring. Not a speck nor a smear. No red on the painted aluminum.
“How did you get here?” I mutter.
The victim holds his peace. So does the van. Is that an upturned curl on the victim’s lip? We’ll see about that, even if the county doesn’t care, even if I’m the only one who does.
This one is different.
The dull thud of rubber-soled shoes confirms the doc’s arrival. A spectacled woman with a pen behind her ear and a badge that reads Janine Balalaika, Medical Examiner. She leans against the cargo doorjamb and cocks her head at me, coffee cup in one hand and a half-eaten doughnut in the other.
“You rang?” she asks, taking a bite of doughnut and a sip of coffee.
I tilt my head at the victim. “Have you examined the body?”
She nods and chews the bit of pastry. Swallowing, she takes another sip of coffee. Thorough she is. Everything one step at a time. I know better than to rush her. “Forensics finished before you got here, pictures and all. By the way, thanks for the coffee. Where did you find it?”
“A coffee truck.” Of course, I can’t share my source with the doc. “The guy owes me and tells me when he gets some. He makes the best coffee in the county. Even before the disasters. His wife makes the doughnuts. I’ll miss him most when whatever stash he has runs out.”
“You’ll have to share the secret.”
“Not likely.”
“Did you want something, or can I go back to angrily pacing outside while you scratch your head and my corpse goes into rigor mortis? If he does, you’re going to put him on the gurney.”
I glance at the body. “What do you make of it?” I ask because a man his size should have struggled. Those meaty hands smashing, bashing, or gashing great gobs of flesh as he fought to preserve his precious life. How does anyone lift a man of his size, deposit him in a laundry cart, and stab him to death with no sign of a struggle? This one is different.
“Big fat man fell on a pointy thing.”
I’ve known the doc for years. Her sense of humor grounds me when the alternative is losing my cool. “Is that all?”
“That’s all it is to me. I won’t be able to tell you anything about the blood without analysis.”
I frown. “So, drugs then? He drove to this lot to get a fix?”
She cracks the lid of the coffee and sips. A coy smile tugs at the corners of her full lips. “You’ll have to wait for the bloodwork.”
“You going to tell me anything useful? Pretty clean for a murder scene. You think the victim bought it in the cart?”
“The victim expired in the early morning hours. You won’t get a precise time without more analysis. As for the victim’s position, I don’t see it any other way. We didn’t find scuff marks or any indication someone moved the body. This van is cleaner than most operating rooms. The few stray hairs we found belong to the victim.” She sips her coffee and sighs with pleasure. “Coffee good. Balalaika likes. We can discuss blood spatter when you’re ready.”
“What spatter? The walls should look like Jackson Pollock had a bad day. Did Forensics mop up in here?”
“What you see is what we got. Everything showroom clean except for the victim.”
“Tell me about the wound, then.”
“Anything for you, Zalerian.” She recites the description with her eyes closed, as if she can see through my eyes. “Precise stab wound with minimal tearing, indicating a very sharp blade. A single point of entry just below the sternum angled upward toward the heart. Catastrophic internal bleeding flooded the pericardial cavity and spread down the front of the victim.”
“Would you say the killer knew how to use a knife?”
“Knife, scalpel, or headsman’s axe, our killer knows the human body. Could be a doctor or at least a serious student of anatomy and medical techniques.”
“Is this something you’ve seen before?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Did you look at the wound?”
“Of course, a big hole in the gut. Big guy fell on the pointy thing. So what?”
Tsk. “And I thought you were a professional. Take another look.”
Back down the aisle of the cargo area I go and lean over the body. Once again, I tweeze the shirt away from the wound. “Okay. Big wound with precise edges, just like you described. A gusher. No way the victim staunches the blood flow. I don’t see blood spatter, just a lot of blood. The killer struck at close range and wears the spatter. What am I missing?”
“Ugh, How did you ever make detective? Did you look inside?”
I angle my head to glare at Dr. Balalaika. I’m not afraid of blood or dirty work, but I prefer to gather information like this from the experts. “Why would I do that? It’s a stab wound.”
“So you’d know what you’re dealing with.”
As if a chest wound isn’t always bloody; this one has precise edges. So what? “Fine.” I push the sleeves of my houndstooth jacket up my arm and separate the sides of the cut. I insert my hand between the stiff walls of cooling flesh. My eyes bulge. Something’s missing. I gape at the doc.
Eyebrows raised and lips pursed, she nods at my sudden understanding. “This one is different.”