|| God Hates Us All || Sonnet | Praxis

[Praxis]

"Yeah, we had a, uh..." she continued tapping in a series of sharp, heavily punctuated strokes that sounded as though she were upset. Either with the phone, the messages entailed or perhaps maybe the persistent, plastic rattle from a dashboard air vent. Considering they'd had all of twenty minutes at the station to be introduced; most of which had been lost in hands being shook and social niceties being conveyed, anything seemed possible.

"Little three bedroom, over on Hollister. My mom and my brother and I."

Tap, tap, tap.

Swipe.

She glanced up, referencing their place on what could've been any road anywhere, so long as that anywhere was surrounded by endless fields of dull, hazy gold. The Heartland they'd called it. When, she wasn't sure. Only that the term had been thrown around enough in the social Zeitgeist that she had stopped to wonder what it meant at least twice. Most of the people she knew from Gideon, Kansas; the farmers who'd inspired that name, did little besides bitch about water shortages, pestilence and whatever other tragedies befell them out in the literal middle of nowhere.

Detective Madison had never known much heart to exist there.

It'd died somewhere along the way to market, maybe. Dropped from the back of an open-bed truck to tumble, bruised, to the earth. Left to wither and rot until it was suitable for nothing more than maggots.

"Henderson plot is just up here. Slow it down, or you'll miss the turn."

Another short series of hard taps and swipes preceded her finally dropping the phone into her lap. Drawing one leg up, she'd glare at the passenger side vent and it's rattle before turning toward him again. Unspeaking, she'd study him as he was, in profile, hand locked on the wheel and eyes cemented ahead. He looked the way she'd assume any detective sent to her unfortunate end of the world might. Exhausted. Frayed around the edges if he had the time to allow it.

Resigned. Yeah, that was the word for it.

What the hell had she even been talking about?

Oh, right.

You know the area? He'd asked.

Somehow she'd meandered her way through an answer, evidently indulging him with information he might've never inquired toward. She cleared her throat and attempted to pierce the invisible wall between them.

"You're from the city?" Their Chief might've said. And she might've heard too, were her attention not elsewhere while they'd been prattling on. He hadn't done much prattling, in all fairness. Didn't seem the type, if she had to guess. Probably lost in his own thoughts, wondering what poor choices he'd made that left him with no other option than to be in a car, with her, puttering along a roughly hewn road in a town no one knew.

With a rattling air vent to boot.

~​

They probably made quite the pair to the group of officers that had gathered around one of the derelict structures on the Henderson property. He, with his well-worn patina of grit. And she, just under five and a half feet, framed as though a strong enough breeze would knock her down. She'd pulled her stubborn, fiery hair back into a loose, messy bun that struggled to stay in place. Dressed well enough, in a crisp, cornflower blue button down and charcoal denim. The only deviation from a very slender, athletic build being the jet-black, standard issue 9mm at her hip.

Mike Henderson, the great-grandson of the original, had made the call a little after dawn. According to him, a few of his hounds had found something nested against the east facing wall. A body, as it had turned out. Though, he'd been unable or unwilling to investigate much further. Subsequent reports from first responders estimated animals had been at it, given the lack of face and severe lacerations about. Still fresh. Hours old, maybe.

He'd pulled the car a short walk from the structure, avoiding a preliminary section of caution tape that warned of the mess that followed. It had rained the evening prior, leaving most of the top soil to swelter in a growing, morning heat. The whole sunken, shady valley of the Henderson property stank of mid-summer and something else. Something flat and coppery that hung in her nostrils.

Exhaling, working to keep a pace that longer legs demanded, she'd sweep intense, green eyes from him to the crumbling barn.

"You want the body or the scene?"

 

[Sonnet]

He did not reply immediately as they came to a halt.

Detective Clark turned around, his back to the barn, and looked out over the motone fields that stretched away to the horizon. He narrowed his dark brown eyes against the sun, skin creasing into well-worn wrinkles, and rubbed his salt-and-pepper beard absent-mindedly. The grit underfoot crunched beneath his shoes, the polish of the black leather long faded, and aside from the insects buzzing around them and the faint murmurs of police officers talking to each other elsewhere on the property, there was no sound to be heard.

He felt like a grasshopper trapped in the bottom of a bucket.

"The body," he said at last and looked back at Madison. She was too young for the look he saw in her eyes. Was that what this place did to people? His right thumb fidgeted with the ring he wore on that hand as he hesitated for a moment.

This was not at all how he had expected, or wanted, his new life to begin. It had barely been more than a week or two since he had moved out to Gideon. His new home was still spartan, with boxes left to unpack and new knick-knacks left to be purchased. He'd left so much behind in Baltimore. The first few nights in Kansas, spent nursing a beer in a rocking chair on the porch of his white-picket-fence house, had been promising. Peaceful, even. But with every passing day he had begun to sense an oppressive quality to the atmosphere. He didn't know if it was the smell or the temperature or the endless chirping of crickets and cicadas, but the sense of emptiness he had been longing for turned into unease.

Now that he stood here, on the Henderson property, with an unrecognizable corpse stinking up the place and a sour-faced junior detective opposite him, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up beneath the unkempt mess of his dark locks. Silver had crept into it recently. It made him feel old when he looked in the mirror.

Detective Clark had a bad feeling about this.

She was too young for the look in her eyes, he reminded himself. He'd take the body. After his second of hesitation, he nodded, half to himself and half to Madison, and dropped his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He looked like he was dressed for a funeral. It seemed appropriate now. He didn't wait for an answer as he turned away from her and ducked beneath the crime scene tape that surrounded the property.

Too many times had he made the walk up to the body. In alleys, in homes, in dumpsters, in canals. Never before by a barn, however. Not many of those downtown. Clark nodded to the officers at the scene and flashed his badge -- too new, too shiny -- before lowering himself down on his haunches, producing two latex gloves from his suit jacket. The stench was already overpowering, courtesy of the harsh summer sun, and the officers had their sleeves up to their noses. Clark could close off his nose without using his hands, an old trick he'd learned from his first sergeant, and breathed in and out slowly through his mouth. Too fast, too eager, and he'd taste the corpse-stink all the same.

She was nude. Clark cast an experienced gaze over her body, estimating her to be in her twenties. About the same age as his partner. His eyes lingered on her breasts for a moment, lacerated as they were, and his frown deepened. Sexual motive, perhaps? Forensics would have to determine if there were signs of sexual intercourse. If that was still possible. The animals that had gotten to the corpse -- or, if it was the handiwork of a human, whoever had done that to her face -- left precious little to identify her by. Clark hoped dental or fingerprints would be enough. He wouldn't wish having to ID a corpse like this on any parent.

Cause of death wasn't immediately obvious, what with all the mauling and lacerations, but the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles were. Just above the marks on her left ankle the detective spotted a small tattoo. A collection of stars, a constellation perhaps -- but nothing that Clark recognized. He looked up and motioned for the nearest officer to take a look.

Visibly surprised at being invited to participate in the inspection of the body, and clearly unnerved at the prospect, the young man steeled himself and looked closer. His nameplate read "Greene".

"That mean anything to you?" Clark asked. His deep voice was still worn from disuse and he cleared his throat. "The ink."

"No, sir," Greene said, sleeve still pressed firmly over his mouth. "Just... some stars, I think."

Clark grumbled quietly into his beard. "How long until forensics gets here?"

"Uh... could be a while. They have to come from the next town over, sir," Greene replied dutifully. Clark saw he was eager to leave the body's personal space and retreat back to his post, and the detective waved him away. Relieved, Greene straightened back up and took a few steps away, exchanging a look with the other officer.

The simmering half-silence stretched on for what felt like minutes. "Fuck," Clark mumbled at length, too quietly for anyone to hear. He rose to his full height with a soft groan, back sore beyond his years, and turned around, eyes searching for Madison. He whistled loudly when he found her and beckoned her over with a single, curt gesture.

 

[Praxis]

"Anyone been in here?" She asked a uniform standing outside of the barn. Glancing around nervously, he'd wave his hands and shake his head.

"No, uh, we put the call in and waited. Nobody's touched nothin'."

Nodding briskly, she'd slip into the darkness of the collapsing structure. The interior of the old barn didn’t leave much to the imagination. What hadn’t rotted from the seasonal rains had fallen into disrepair of the more usual variety. Broken beams that once trussed the roof lay in pieces near the large, double door entrance below a gaping, sagging hole. She watched as a pair of birds; small and quick, darted from nearby branches of an oak and took to roost in the darker reaches. Cooler than the waking world outside, it didn’t surprise her in the slightest to spot a blue tarp that’d been tucked against the far, mostly intact corner of the structure. Crushed beer cans -the cheap shit that kids usually stole- made up a lazy, dirty wreath around it.

Slipping a pair of gloves on, she’d nudge a few of the cans aside, spotting several, gutted remnants of joints that had been split open and harvested for whatever scraps remained to be used. Some of the cans were fresher than others. Those nearest to a relatively clean corner where Madison eyed a slip of dirty plastic that had been tacked a beam. Skirting around the tarp, mindful of anything that might’ve existed there, she aimed the light of a small flashlight toward it. Though faded and scratched, she recognized the text that’d been printed across the top and a blurred space where a photograph had existed.

Shoyone County High School.

A student identification card, from the recent year too. Picture defaced but name legible. She leaned in, shining the light across where text had faded. She didn't recognize the name but a quick guess could've given her more than a few that might've been a hit. The younger brother of so and so, or the third cousin of such and such. The lineage never went very far in a place like Gideon. And while rumors of inbreeding among some of the far removed families were just that -rumors- it wasn't the sort of smudge that got easily glossed over.

Motioning for the uniform, she'd wave the light in the direction of the beam.

"Tag this."

He moved as though he would, naked hands fishing about a shoulder bag he carried.

"Gloves." She reminded without looking back, exiting through the rear of the structure and keeping eyes fixed on the ground. The rain would've washed away any useable tracks. As summer stretched on, the storms that came with it became increasingly violent. Their short-lived fury pelting the region and rendering anything solid to mush before they'd continue Eastward. They were easy enough to predict. Even then a thick storm front was forming in the West. By noon, the shady, forgotten corner of the Henderson property would be soaked anew.

Madison's head snapped in the direction of Clark's whistle. Sneering, she'd go to join him, stabbing an ugly glare into his side. Long enough that she was confident he'd felt it before turning her attention to the half torn body. Her expression didn't change much, from her glare to what looked like pity as she took to kneel and examine.

"Don't whistle at me like that." She muttered, leaning in closer still. "I'm not a fucking dog. Sends a bad message."

She knew the stars instantly. In a flash, her mind raced from point to point. Stringing along lines from one memory to another until she could plainly see the girl in the tapestry created. Megan Landry, the dumb bimbo. Prom Queen from the year Madison had graduated. The tattoo -pathetic, cartoonish thing that it was- had been a gift. She'd bragged about it the entirety of senior year, making sure to make known it's presence at every opportunity.

Madison had hated her. And the feeling had been more than mutual. Seeing her without a face, marked by multiple grisly wounds and what could only be described as grotesque mutilation brought only the faintest of emotions to her surface. Same age but hardly the same breed. To her knowledge, Megan Landry had married off to an accountant from Topeka. Spent most of her days in an elegant townhouse near the river.

Maybe elegant wasn't the proper term. It was Topeka after all. Still, it was a million miles or more from partially dismembered, possibly raped and ...well, dead.

"Shit..." She hissed, rocking to heels before standing again. "I know her."

 

[Sonnet]

Clark's brow furrowed at Madison's rebuke and the glare she graced him with, but he said nothing. She was going to be that kind of partner -- fine. He'd seen it before. Female detectives that overreacted to perceived denigrating behavior to overcompensate for their position in a male-dominated field. Instead, he stood back up while she inspected the body, looking down on her as she did. He expected her to take her time, be thorough, and then wow him with her analysis, prove to him that she was just as good at this job as he was. When she joined up in his upright position just barely ten seconds later, however, Clark narrowed his eyes.

"I know her," she said.

Small town. Of course she did. His eyes widened and he rubbed his beard again. Was he going to have to call a grief counselor? A second or two of meeting her gaze told him otherwise. There was recognition and something else, but not shock or loss. They weren't close. Clark looked down at the body again and exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he glanced up at officer Greene and motioned for him to step closer. Having overheard the conversation so far and sensing what he would be needed for, Greene grabbed his pen and pocketbook, eyes darting between Clark and Madison.

"Who is she? How do you know her?" the older detective asked. His voice had softened a little and he watched her closely, though not unkindly.

 

[Praxis]

"Mm..." She hummed, shifting from one foot to the other as she truly considered it. Lotta people could have the same stupid tattoo, right? It looked the same, sure, to her memory. And how many shitty, cheap beers and gutted joint remnants had she consumed in the time before she'd chosen a direction for her life. One that didn't careen steeply downward shortly after it was supposed to take off. Things had always taken off for Megan Landry. Until they hadn't.

Now look at her, she thought. If that is you.

"Could be Megan Landry. Local, but she got out. Married an accountant out of Topeka. City guy, good looking. I met him once at a fundraiser we had for the, uh..."

She hissed a curse at herself as memory once again fumbled. "Shit..."

"The- the cancer thing." Greene offered. "At the elk's club. I remember, he gave a speech."

She probably should've smiled. Or patted him on the shoulder, maybe. Hell, anything would've been better than the half turn and accusatory stare she ended up throwing his way. She hadn't meant to, he'd just plucked the words from so deep within her own mind that she couldn't help but scoff. At her own inability more than anything.

Not that Greene could tell.

"Yeah. The cancer thing." She admitted finally, turning to look down upon Maybe-Megan's corpse. "Looks like maybe we can pull dental. Fingertips are worn down. Maybe sandpaper?" She hummed again, clenching one cheek as she imagined the methodology involved with that. The commitment.

Jesus...

Madison shook it off, snorting and turning back to Clark. "Guess we should talk to the property owner. See what he knows."