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intheheartTitle: Mud
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Felipe's first case in homicide.
Notes: An experiment in film noir.
WARNING: implied sexual misconduct, murder (specifics: strangulation).
Felipe caught the case on a dark wet night in fall, drove to the scene under gunmetal skies that misted rain. Not a good omen, he thought, standing with cold hands deep in his pockets and his head bent, but what was a good omen when someone was dead?
It was a girl, wide-eyed on her back in the mud. Very young-- he doubted she was older than twenty, maybe even young as sixteen. She was fully dressed, her hands crooked into claws. A darkening bruise circled her throat.
"Strangulation?" he asked.
The uniform shrugged. "ME's coming. They'll say."
He turned sharply. "Which ME?"
The uniform shrugged again. "Does it matter?"
It did to him.
He turned away, looked down at the girl in the mud again. Her hair was caked with mud, but the rain had cleaned it a bit at the temples; through the dirt, it showed red.
--
The ME who came was not Summer, to his half-relief and half-sorrow. It was a scruffy-looking man, rotund, grease stains on his shirt, who knelt down in the mud beside the girl and treated her with more respect and gentleness than Felipe had ever see him use on a living person.
"COD is strangulation," he said, after he'd gone over the girl and tenderly closed those staring eyes. "She put up a fight, too. Skin and blood under her fingernails. We'll get the son of a bitch."
Behind him, a streetlight flickered on and cast an eerie, sickly light across the scene. He closed his eyes and felt the mist cold on his face.
"Get a picture of her face," he said. "Knock on doors, see if you can get an ID." He opened his eyes again and looked one final time at the still face. "I'll try missing persons."
--
Her name was Lori Gedren, and she was seventeen.
He talked to her family. He picked up the phone afterwards to call Zack, but put it down without dialing, because there were some things you couldn't share, could not begin to talk about, and Zack wouldn't understand. He might not even answer.
Red hair. Red hair and pale skin and high heels.
Her parents had said one useful thing-- that she'd been out with a boyfriend the night before and simply hadn't come home. They'd assumed she would sneak in after curfew-- they'd had no idea she was lying dead in the mud.
The boyfriend was a promising lead. Felipe put out an APB on anyone matching his description, then taped a picture of Lori Gedren to his wall.
She smiled down at him, merry blue eyes full of life. He turned away to his computer and began to work.
--
It was an easy one, in the end. The girl's boyfriend was hysterical when they found him, hiding in an alley with his scratched and bleeding hands over his head. He ran from the uniforms only to smash into a detective, and babbled out a confession before he'd even arrived in the station.
They'd been on a date. He'd gone a little far. She'd shoved him away. He'd gotten angry. The boy claimed he'd blacked out and woken up with her dead in the front seat of his car. Felipe doubted that, but it didn't matter, because he'd confessed, and he matched the DNA they found under her fingernails.
A stupid argument, a boy's inability to respect a no, and a pretty red-haired girl with long, pale legs died choking in the mud.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then put Lori Gedren's picture in his top desk drawer.
--
He went home after that. It was nominally daylight, but still raining, bullets of water from gunmetal skies; the sun never had a chance. The streetlights were still on outside of his apartment, and the flickering neon sign outside the restaurant across the street lent an occasional red glare to the streaks of rain on his window.
He could call someone, or go to the bar where all his cop friends went to drink after work. But he didn't want to be around people; more, he didn't want to be around Summer or Zack and they both drank there.
So many people he didn't want to see. So many people who wouldn't understand.
He poured a glass of whiskey, sat on his couch and watched the rain and the flashing neon sign outside, without really seeing any of it.
All he saw was Lori Gedren's smiling face, and the mud.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Felipe's first case in homicide.
Notes: An experiment in film noir.
WARNING: implied sexual misconduct, murder (specifics: strangulation).
Felipe caught the case on a dark wet night in fall, drove to the scene under gunmetal skies that misted rain. Not a good omen, he thought, standing with cold hands deep in his pockets and his head bent, but what was a good omen when someone was dead?
It was a girl, wide-eyed on her back in the mud. Very young-- he doubted she was older than twenty, maybe even young as sixteen. She was fully dressed, her hands crooked into claws. A darkening bruise circled her throat.
"Strangulation?" he asked.
The uniform shrugged. "ME's coming. They'll say."
He turned sharply. "Which ME?"
The uniform shrugged again. "Does it matter?"
It did to him.
He turned away, looked down at the girl in the mud again. Her hair was caked with mud, but the rain had cleaned it a bit at the temples; through the dirt, it showed red.
--
The ME who came was not Summer, to his half-relief and half-sorrow. It was a scruffy-looking man, rotund, grease stains on his shirt, who knelt down in the mud beside the girl and treated her with more respect and gentleness than Felipe had ever see him use on a living person.
"COD is strangulation," he said, after he'd gone over the girl and tenderly closed those staring eyes. "She put up a fight, too. Skin and blood under her fingernails. We'll get the son of a bitch."
Behind him, a streetlight flickered on and cast an eerie, sickly light across the scene. He closed his eyes and felt the mist cold on his face.
"Get a picture of her face," he said. "Knock on doors, see if you can get an ID." He opened his eyes again and looked one final time at the still face. "I'll try missing persons."
--
Her name was Lori Gedren, and she was seventeen.
He talked to her family. He picked up the phone afterwards to call Zack, but put it down without dialing, because there were some things you couldn't share, could not begin to talk about, and Zack wouldn't understand. He might not even answer.
Red hair. Red hair and pale skin and high heels.
Her parents had said one useful thing-- that she'd been out with a boyfriend the night before and simply hadn't come home. They'd assumed she would sneak in after curfew-- they'd had no idea she was lying dead in the mud.
The boyfriend was a promising lead. Felipe put out an APB on anyone matching his description, then taped a picture of Lori Gedren to his wall.
She smiled down at him, merry blue eyes full of life. He turned away to his computer and began to work.
--
It was an easy one, in the end. The girl's boyfriend was hysterical when they found him, hiding in an alley with his scratched and bleeding hands over his head. He ran from the uniforms only to smash into a detective, and babbled out a confession before he'd even arrived in the station.
They'd been on a date. He'd gone a little far. She'd shoved him away. He'd gotten angry. The boy claimed he'd blacked out and woken up with her dead in the front seat of his car. Felipe doubted that, but it didn't matter, because he'd confessed, and he matched the DNA they found under her fingernails.
A stupid argument, a boy's inability to respect a no, and a pretty red-haired girl with long, pale legs died choking in the mud.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then put Lori Gedren's picture in his top desk drawer.
--
He went home after that. It was nominally daylight, but still raining, bullets of water from gunmetal skies; the sun never had a chance. The streetlights were still on outside of his apartment, and the flickering neon sign outside the restaurant across the street lent an occasional red glare to the streaks of rain on his window.
He could call someone, or go to the bar where all his cop friends went to drink after work. But he didn't want to be around people; more, he didn't want to be around Summer or Zack and they both drank there.
So many people he didn't want to see. So many people who wouldn't understand.
He poured a glass of whiskey, sat on his couch and watched the rain and the flashing neon sign outside, without really seeing any of it.
All he saw was Lori Gedren's smiling face, and the mud.
