Giselle

12th of July The sound of a camera shuttering filled the dark, cold room. The forensic photographer stepped gingerly on the waxed, wooden floor, trying to avoid one of the several pools of coagulated blood that stained the floor and the walls of the room.   He squatted, camera poised, and took more pictures of the dead body. He leaned forward and zoomed on the deep s***h on her neck. Squinting through the lens, he took a few pictures of the cut, moved his attention and the camera down her body, and began snapping the numerous tears and gashes that littered her body. The number of times the camera flashed was uncountable; there were simply too many things to photograph in the small room. The body, the blood on the floor, the blood on the walls, the blood on the cushions, the blood on the table. So much blood and so many pictures. The photographer straightened up, his full body suit crinkling as he rose, and lowered his camera while looking around the scene. His pallor had since changed, getting paler every second he spent in the room. It was ordinarily a well-furnished living room with everything in the room -the heavy curtains, the polished mahogany centre table, the velvet-covered and plush cushions- everything, telling the story of old wealth. That is, without the blood and the body. Right now, all it told was the tale of a very gruesome murder. The main door opened with a click and Lieutenant Gabi Alfaro stepped into the crime scene. A tall and slim man, Gabi Alfaro did not look like anything special. But it was what was in his skull, not outside it, that was noteworthy. The lieutenant had served for fifteen years and in all that time, seldom was there a case he failed to solve. His reputation preceded him and once the call of a possible homicide rang out, the lieutenant was summoned. Gabi examined the interior of the house and frowned. He was a seasoned investigator and in his time serving in the Rivers Police Department, he had seen a lot of things. Murder, rape, human trafficking, fraud, robbery. Everything. He had seen it all. When he received a call informing him that a suspected homicide had taken place in a residence on the outskirts of town, he tried to steel his mind in preparation for the murder scene. But as he stood in the doorway, observing the garish scene, he realized that there was nothing he could do to prepare for the sight. Bloodbath. The word bloodbath kept flashing in his mind as he took in the scene. It took everything he had in him, all his years of training and all his discipline, not to vomit all over the floor. He was certain no one would judge him for it, though. The first responders were almost passed out on the front gardens of the house after throwing up all the contents of their stomachs all over the lawn. He had planned to speak with them first before surveying the situation inside the house but they had looked so traumatized that he decided to enter the house first to allow them time to recover. Now, he felt like taking a timeout alongside the semi-conscious officers on the lilac bushes. What was this? Who would do something so horrific? He stood still, taking in the entire scene and stabilizing his mind. Exhaling firmly, he turned his attention to the first issue at hand. How to get to the body. Gabi Alfaro currently stood in front of the entranceway to the house. The living room, where the body lay, was on his right; the dining room on his left. The staircase, that led to the upper floor of the house, was directly ahead. He couldn’t walk straight to the body. There was a river of blood surrounding it. Not to mention the splotches staining various parts of the floor. He examined the room and began to plot his movement from where he stood. The living room had two sofas, placed opposite to each other, with the mahogany table between them. Looking straight at the living room, the sofas and the table were parallel, with the body sprawled between the sofa furthest from the door and the table. To get a good view of the body, his best bet would be to curve around behind one of the sofas and examine the body from there. At least, until the cleanup arrived. And so he moved, carefully and delicately, the rubber boots he wore silent on the wooden floor. Gabi threaded behind the farthest sofa, coming to a stop once he reached half of its length. He could see the body, the dead woman lying face, up clearly from where he stood. And he could see that this had been a very brutal murder. It was one thing to stab someone in a vital spot and leave them for dead. It was another thing to stab them over and over and over again, probably even after they had died. It looked like the latter was what happened here. Gabi Alfaro leaned further over the couch, trying not to touch its fabric and contaminate the evidence. He studied the numerous cuts marring the woman’s body. It would take forensic evidence to ascertain but his experience was telling him that the death-dealing cut was the one on her neck. It was too deep and definitely hit her carotid artery. The way the blood pooled also served to buttress his hunch. The blood was more concentrated around the top of her body. The bleeding had most likely started there. The other gashes looked similar in size and depth and were randomly placed around her body: two in her left arm, three in her right, five in her torso, one in her right leg, and three in her left. In total, the woman was stabbed fifteen times. One hell of a murder. Gabi looked around the body in search of more clues that would shed light on how the murder took place. He walked further along the sofa, reaching its end. Trailing off the body were globs and smears of blood which suggested to him that the first stab had not been where she presently lay. He followed the trail with slow, deliberate steps, noticing how they increased in size as he walked further into the room. The trail continued, ending at the farthest wall of the room. Right at the curtains. It was immediately obvious that this was where the first strike, possibly the most fatal, had taken place. The splatter pattern on the off-white curtains told him as much. Using a gloved hand, he pushed the drapes apart, taking note of the state of the windows. Clean. Not a speck of blood on them. He looked through the glass and observed the distance to the next house. Too far. Nothing would have been different if she had screamed at the top of her lungs. No one would hear. Lieutenant Gabi removed his hand from the curtain, allowing them to fall together. He spun back around to face the body. A scene began to form in his mind. She stood gazing out of the window. The murderer came up from behind her, striking her in the jugular, creating the first pool of blood in the room. The victim must have pressed her hand against the wound, trying to hold it close. An instinctive reaction. That would also explain why the amount of blood got progressively smaller leading up to the body. She tried to run, tried to escape. Maybe to a phone or the door. Did the murderer try to stop her? Gabi squatted and examined the floor. The spray of blood told him no. The murderer hadn’t interfered. There were no smears to show a struggle or a fight. Just the drops of blood and one set of footprints. But he would have to confirm it. Gabi moved closer to the body. The next thing he wanted to confirm was the time of death. He looked down at his police-issued wristwatch. 8:08 am. The fact that the blood had congealed and dried so much told him that this murder was not recent. At least, eight hours ago. But the body… The state of the body disagreed. It did not look like an eight-hour old body. He wished he could approach the body and examine it closer. Even from the distance, he could see the degree of discolouration of the veins and the waxiness of the skin. It was consistent with changes that occurred within three hours of death. The blood was telling him eight while the body told him three. A disparity. But Lieutenant Gabi Alfaro had an idea as to why. The temperature of the room. He didn’t have to look at the thermostat to know that the temperature was below… Someone, probably the killer, had turned the thermostat so low, allowing the body to maintain its “freshness” despite it being the middle of summer. So why? Why murder someone in cold blood and then try to preserve the body? Why murder someone in such a manner? Why murder this particular person? Why murder someone at all?