I’ve never seen a dead body before.
In the movies, they make them look peaceful. Like death was something they expected and was as painful as ripping off a Band-Aid, and like the blood is nothing more than the strawberry syrup you pump into your morning coffee.
Reality is painfully different.
I can’t get that man’s face out of my mind. His eyes were open, staring at me but not seeing. His mouth hung open, twisted in a silent cry that still oddly rings in my ears, and his fingers were rigid and claw-like as if he were still gripping onto his attacker for dear life.
But what haunts me the most is the wound at his throat. It was so wide and open, stretching the width of his neck as if his entire skeleton was trying to claw its way out of his flesh. There was so much blood soaked into his suit, sprayed up the walls, and pooled out across the floor.
And the smell.
A terrible wet, coppery smell that clings to my nose and floods my lungs even now as I sit in my manager’s office clutching a paper cup filled with cold, terrible coffee.
That man. That poor man.
How can he be dead?
How can someone be murdered here and no one heard a thing?
“You know what to say, right?” Gerald paces in front of me, wearing a hole into the floor with how frantically he walks back and forth. “You tell them nothing, you hear me? Not a fucking thing.”
I don’t speak. I can’t. I’m frozen, staring at the dirty carpet as if the body is still there staring back at me.
“Do you hear me, Evelyn?” Gerald snaps. “You don’t say a thing.”
Slowly, I lift my head and stare at the blurry version of him that dances through my unshed tears.
“Are you even fucking listening? Those cops upstairs don’t care about you, alright? They don’t give a shit about anything, so you don’t say a word about how we run things here, understand?”
We.
As if I have a stake or responsibility in running this place. As if the dead body in the bathtub is my fault as much as it is his.
“Are you fucking listening?” Gerald surges forward and painfully grasps my shoulders in his meaty hands. He brings his face so close that I should be able to smell the stale stink of his breath, but all I smell is blood.
“The under-the-table payments, the whores who use this place, the drugs. Not a fucking peep, you hear me?” Gerald snarls. “You know nothing. You’re just the fucking cleaner.”
Gerald darts back when there’s a knock at the door, and a second later, the white door swings open and in steps a woman. Her blonde hair sweeps up to the top of her head, and square spectacles balance on the bridge of her nose. Her grey pantsuit hugs her body and as our eyes meet, I can’t help but wonder if the fabric is as soft as it looks.
Should I be thinking about that right now? I have no idea.
“Good afternoon. I am Detective Sarah Gogs.” She introduces herself with a flat smile. “You are the business owner, correct?” Her sharp gaze lands on Gerald and he nods quickly, offering her a hand to shake.
“Gerald, yes.”
She doesn’t take it. Her eyes snap back to me, and I’m rooted to the spot. “And you, you’re the one who found the body?”
I nod slowly, unable to take my eyes off her.
“Gerald, my colleague outside wants a word with you. Do you mind?” Sarah steps aside and tilts her head, indicating that Gerald should leave. He hesitates but leaves after a moment, but not before he shoots a warning glare in my direction. Once the door closes, Sarah perches on the edge of Gerald’s messy desk and sucks in air through her teeth.
“What’s your name?”
Finally, I find my voice. “Evelyn,” I croak. “Evelyn Morris.”
“How are you doing, Evelyn?”
“Is he really dead?” I ask softly, despite the answer being clear in my mind.
“Yes.”
I close my eyes and the tears fall. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t get the image of him out of my head.”
Sarah’s tone softens and there’s a note of sympathy. “You never forget seeing a dead body, I’m afraid,” she replies. “Evelyn, I’m sorry to have to do this, but I need to hear it while it’s still fresh in your mind. Can you tell me what happened?”
Nodding, I open my eyes and stare up at her. Despite the hard lines creasing her forehead and the tight purse of her lips, her eyes hold an unexpected warmth. I cling to it as I speak.
“I was cleaning as usual and just listening to music. I didn’t hear anything or see anything. I just… I did the room and then I went into the bathroom to clean, and that’s when I saw the… the…” My throat closes and heat rushes up my neck, settling behind my eyes. The tears come thick and fast, forcing me to dip my head away in embarrassment. Abandoning my pathetic coffee, I fight to wipe the tears away.
“Did you recognize the victim? Did you see him at all?”
I shake my head, struggling to picture his face. All I can see is the gaping wound on his throat and in my mind, it spreads across his body until it consumes him.
Sarah makes a soft noise, then her hand lands gently on my shoulder. “I understand this will be difficult for you, Evelyn. I’m going to have one of my officers take you down to the station so we can talk properly, okay?”
My head snaps up as my heart jumps like a punch. “What? You think… You think I did this?” I weep.
“It’s protocol,” Sarah replies, smoothly dodging the question. “It will be more comfortable for you to talk away from the crime scene.”
The crime scene.
Of course.
That man is dead and someone killed him. Could it be someone else who is staying here?
Or something much worse?
The bright lights and antiseptic smell of the police station are starkly different from the motel. It’s like I’ve been whisked away into an entirely different world. Sarah seats me in a comfortable office and brings me a cup of real coffee, one with a taste and scent strong enough to cut through the copper smell that’s following me like a ghost.
She sits on the couch across from me, notepad in hand, and taps her pen lightly against it while watching me drink. The heat from the coffee trickles slowly through me, and I can trace it in my mind’s eye as tight muscles slowly ease from the heat.
“How long have you worked at the Sunrise Motel?” Sarah asks.
“Two years,” I reply hoarsely.
“And in those two years, have you ever seen that man before?”
I can’t think. His face is lost to me, swallowed by that wound and his claw hands. Trying to picture him each time fails, so all I can do is shake my head. “No.”
“According to the books, there was no guest staying in that room, yet you were there today to clean it,” Sarah says. “Is that common?”
I nod and lift my attention to her. “Gerald wants every room cleaned every day.”
“Why?”
I can’t tell her the truth. Gerald has too many people staying there who want to remain invisible or are up to something illegal. I don’t know what to do. If I cover for him, am I covering for the murderer?
“Sometimes we get people that sneak in through the back fence,” I say, reciting the lie Gerald told me when I first started working there. It’s the only thing I can think of right now. “They break into the rooms, so Gerald has me clean every room every day to check that we don’t have anyone here who shouldn’t be.”
Sarah scribbles on her notepad. “Talk me through that room today. What did you do?”
I sip the coffee and briefly close my eyes. My tears have long dried on the drive over here, but the sting of them clings to my eyelids and the back of my throat.
“I unlocked the door with my key and went inside. The place was a bit of a mess. I figured a guest had checked out recently, so I just cleaned.”
“What did you clean? Tell me exactly, Evelyn.”
“I don’t know,” I say while shrugging. My thoughts are muddled like fog has slipped in between my ears and is hiding the details from me. “What does it matter? I cleaned and then I found a body.”
“Because you cleaned the crime scene, Evelyn.” Sarah leans forward and rests one elbow on the top of her thigh. “Either you’re the murderer trying a very clever tactic to cover your tracks, or you’re just caught up in this by accident.”
“Murderer?” My stomach lurches with the force of a wave. “I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t kill him, I could never kill him! I could never hurt anyone!” A wave of nausea forces me into silence, and I screw up my eyes, fighting the stomach cramps that follow.
“Which,” says Sarah softly, “is exactly why I need to know every detail of what you did.”
I take her through it all to the best of my ability. I detail everything I remember doing when I entered the room, everything I touched and cleaned including what products I used, and then my discovery of the body. I had dropped my basket of bathroom cleaning products in shock and then picked it back up, only to drop it again when I realized I was disturbing the pool of blood. Sarah writes it all down and gets me to repeat it several times, then she has me tell the same story to two other detectives who ask their own variations of the same questions.
I repeat it until my throat is dry and my shift feels more like a story than actual reality, but in a strange way, it does help me disconnect from the trauma of discovering a dead man. Constantly repeating the story makes me bored of saying the same thing over and over again, but I can’t tell if that’s a normal reaction to have, and I’m too scared to ask in case it makes me look guilty.
By the time we finish, it’s pitch black outside.
“I can have an officer run you home,” Sarah says as she walks me to the exit.
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s okay, really. I’d much rather walk. Gives me some time to process.”
“Are you sure?” Sarah’s prickly demeanor has softened these past few hours, and her sympathetic smile holds a clearer warmth.
“Yeah. I kind of want to breathe fresh air and just walk, y’know?”
“I understand,” Sarah replies, though I can’t tell whether she does or not.
As a detective, I’m sure she’s seen her fair share of dead bodies. Maybe this is just a regular Thursday for her.
“Take my card,” Sarah continues, sliding a small card into my hand. “If you need anything, please call me. And I’ll be in touch, so make sure you don’t go anywhere.”
“Is that a don’t leave the state kind of warning?” I try to joke, but even as Sarah smiles, the warmth doesn’t reach her eyes.
“That’s exactly what that is.”
“Oh.” I flip her card over in my hands, then nod quickly. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Take care, Evelyn.” She waves me off at the door, turns on her heel, and strides back into the police station.
I remain stationary on top of the steps, staring out at the busy streets still heaving with life despite the late hour. It’s surreal to see people going on with their lives as if there hasn’t been a murder.
And yet, I understand it. I can’t count how often I’ve seen a death on the news and brushed it off as nothing. Only this time, it’s tangled up in my life and I saw something I will never forget.
I start walking, loosely planning my route home as my thoughts turn back to the body despite my best efforts. His face is still a blur to me, and that wound is as clear as ever. It’s seared into my mind as if my thoughts fell victim to the same blade that cut his throat.
Digging in my pockets, I retrieve my phone and Google the motel. The murder has hit the news already. I scan articles as I walk, but there’s no mention of me, thank God. Is that a good sign? Maybe the cops don’t see me as the culprit if it’s not in the news.
I hope so.
Next, I search how to deal with seeing a dead body, searching to see if my growing numbness and lack of memory of his face are common reactions, but I don’t get my answer.
Two steps down the next street and suddenly, someone slams into me so hard that all air is forced from my lungs in a rapid grasp. The impact sends my phone flying from my fingers and I stumble sharply, rolling over my ankle while I fight to regain balance.
I don’t stand a chance. Before I can suck in a breath, arms lock around my body and lift me upward as a black car screeches to a stop at the roadside. The door swings open.
Terror grips me like a vise and I can’t scream. I have no air in my lungs, and the tight grip across my body prevents me from gaining the space to breathe. I kick my legs and another set of hands grabs them.
“No!” tears from me in a hoarse, weak gargle as I’m dragged into the darkness of the car and the door slams heavily behind me.
