Shutter(24)

The living room was untouched and spotless. Every glass and coaster was in its place, the television still on but the volume muted. Detective Massey sat at the head of the stairs, taking off his gloves. Massey was still a youngster, maybe three or four years on the force, and he had already made detective. An impressive feat.

“Hey, Massey.” I extended my hand. “You get a look upstairs yet?”

“Yes,” Massey said, and nothing else. Whatever was up there was horrible. I walked up the steps, snapping pictures as I went. Photo eighty-seven was of a bloody handprint at the top of the stairs. The fingers were fat and strong, the lines perfectly distinguishable. Photo eighty-nine was of another handprint at the door of the nursery. Just as I stepped inside, I heard the baby’s keening cry, the kind babies use after they get a shot or hit their heads. But there was no baby in that room—at least not one that was alive. Another officer stood at the door and turned when he saw me, refusing to even look me in the eye. The crying continued, louder and louder, as I walked to the crib in the corner. The giraffe sheets were covered in blood, as was most of the bedding and stuffed animals around the crib. The gunshot had gone right through the little girl at the base of her neck and out through the bottom of the crib. Photos ninety through one hundred fifty captured the scene in the room, the blankets, the wound, and the blood that had pooled beneath the crib. I took every photo with a lump at my throat. When OMI came to take her body, we photographed her face. The bullet had passed through her right cheek, leaving a bloom of skin and blood right below her eye. We all watched in silence as they took her little body away. Her crying remained, a dull whine.

I found the boy in his room, hiding in the closet, shot through the top of his head. He had fallen stiffly onto the toy-covered floor, his face in dirty clothes. I photographed him as he was: the blood spatter on the winter coats, his posters surrounding the portal of his closet door. I estimated he could not be more than ten years old. He was an uncanny reflection of his mother in the kitchen. Even their wounds were the same. I guessed he had probably heard what was happening downstairs and hidden, only to be found and shot. I photographed the boy and his room for over an hour. The space, despite three of us drawing diagrams, making reports, and taking pictures, was silent.

I felt a tug at my coat. The boy. I couldn’t help but look him straight in the eyes.

“He’s not here. The one that shot us.” He looked at me, devoid of emotion. “He went in there and shot my dad too. I heard it. Come on. Let me show you.” He pulled my arm so hard, I thought people might notice. I couldn’t believe I could feel him.

“Rita? Are you okay?” It was Angie. When I looked over at her I felt the sensation of tears burning my cheek.

“Yes. I’m fine. Just a long day. A long, long day.”

“Do you need a break?” She squinted at me.

I felt a push of air at my arm—the boy’s ceaselessness.

“No. I need to finish up here. What time is it anyway?”

“It’s seven. What time did you get here?” Angie kept writing in her report.

“About four thirty. Just one more room.” I walked toward Winters’s home office.

Detectives Garcia and Vargas stepped past Angie and me at the doorway. They reviewed the diagram while Garcia scribbled on his report.

“So sad to see it happen this way.” Garcia shook his head. “I never would have expected a murder-suicide from Judge Winters.” He moved around the desk and stared at the back of Judge Winters’s open head wound.

Judge Winters sat at his desk, his eyes cloudy and fixed on the ceiling. There was some slight stippling and blackening around the wound, with a thick line of blood trickling from the hole in his temple; the exit wound was on his cheek. On the wall behind him, tissue, hair, and skin covered his juris doctor and other diplomas. His hands hung at his sides and his .45 lay on the floor beside him. We found the slug embedded in the carpet under his desk. Image 285 was the wide shot of the room, and image 315 was Judge Winters’s desk, covered with unspent .45 shells.

As I pulled the camera up to my face, the little boy appeared at the left of my frame, his finger pointing toward the doorway.

“That’s the one who was here.”

I turned around to see Garcia and his partner still scratching out the report, joined by half the evidence team.

I felt an undulation of rage behind me and turned to see Judge Winters’s dead, scowling face staring at me. The force of his hate hit me hard, like a ball to the face—the orange flash and sting.

“See, Dad! See. She can see us.”

I stared at Judge Winters, dead and angry.

“Get out of my house!” he shouted. He moved right through my body, filling me with a sickness I’d never experienced before. I could feel his death.

I stumbled out of the office and down the stairwell, knocking a framed photo off the wall at the bottom. The glass shattered from the corner, breaking the frame into two even pieces.

“Rita!” Angie reached for me. “What’s wrong, Rita? Are you okay?”

In the photo, the police chief and the mayor stood on one side of Judge Winters, and Detective Garcia and another man dressed in a tailored suit stood on the other—all smiles and arms over shoulders.

“Help me.” Erma’s cold breath coiled around my neck, stiffening my neck and jaw and vibrating my skin. “I’m not leaving until you help me.”