Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) by Chris Bauer (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📗

The way the cops liked it, too. Helped preserve a crime scene, reduced odors, kept blood and other liquids from evaporating. More info Philo kept to himself.

The open concept living and dining areas had a mock French chalet look inside and out, heavy on finished wood, plus what appeared to be an expensive tile floor. Circular black metal stairs led to a second floor.

“Watch your step,” Evan said. “Broken glass.”

The glass crunched underfoot, Evan stepping only a few feet more before pulling up. Philo and Patrick stopped alongside him.

“She loved her home,” Evan said. “Such a nice place.” A pensive declaration filled some with melancholy, some with exasperation, all of it veiled in hurt.

“Very,” Philo said.

Inside, the far wall, tan stone embedded with rough-hewn timber, rose to the second floor. Nothing overt by way of damage in here, as far as they could tell. They wandered past the circular staircase and entered a hallway that took them to the left wing. Abstract paintings hung on one side, the other tall, panoramic glass windows showing the sprawling front lawn with mature tropical flowerbeds in oranges and neon blues.

“I know, Philo, you’re thinking more ground-level windows. These are thermo pane, a little sturdier than that hundred-year-old tinker-toy crap in the front door. But still, a single woman living alone, and it’s only glass.”

Evan rubbed his temple as they walked. “A wonderful, quiet neighborhood, but we decided to live at my place after we were married, a gated community on the water.”

He stopped them in front of a door, gulped some air, then released it slowly through puckered lips to settle his nerves. Breathe in, breathe out…

“Here we are. Her bedroom.”

He swung open the door. The first smell to hit them was a blush of sandalwood, the scent coming from a king-size bed’s ornately carved massive headboard and equally impressive footboard, plus other bedroom furniture pieces carved out of the same wood. Knockoff heirloom furniture that someone might build a house around, its carvings intricate depictions of Hawaiian ritual coronations with all their tropical pomp and circumstance, the wood pleasant and still aromatic as hell, like a burning candle.

“This bed had a right to be called king-size,” Evan said. “It’s a replica of a piece from Hawaiian royal family history that predated colonization of the islands. Miya said the set cost her three months’ salary.”

Philo mentally checked down part of that info: Miya was a doctor. Three months of a doctor’s salary meant it had to be one hell of an expensive bedroom suite.

A second smell came from the bed’s mattress, standing on its end against an armoire, out of the way. Not a pleasant one. Philo knew what it was: the sweet, metallic pungency of dried blood. Confirming this odor was a dark brown stain, the blood not only on the mattress’s quilted surface but also inside its tufts, through broad slashes hacked into the material, exposing the padding and coils. How Evan could now be in the same room with this monstrosity—the bed on which his fiancée’s murder took place, and no doubt where they had made love—Philo couldn’t fathom, having seen the outcome of similar acts before, violent and gruesome, as a crime scene cleaner. Not something Evan would have run across as a citizen, or as a Navy commander, maybe not even something he would have seen as a SEAL, either.

“These fucking animals—”

“Let’s take a break, Evan.” Philo draped his arm around his friend’s neck, pulled him into a shoulder squeeze. “We’ll leave Patrick to evaluate what needs to be done in here. Any beer in this house?”

He about-faced Evan and they exited the bedroom, leaving Patrick to get a feel for the remediation effort required, and to maybe see what others sometimes didn’t see, even the police.

In the kitchen, each man held a beer bottle by its neck. Philo leaned back against a countertop. Evan paced.

“I’m lost, Philo, just… lost. This person, this lovely woman… Miya and I dated for a year. She became my best friend, Philo. Big shoes to fill, I know, and no offense, but you bailed on me.”

Philo’s cue to respond. “You prefaced it with ‘big shoes to fill’ so you’re good by me. But a person’s retirement isn’t bailing, right? Always just a phone call away. So tell me more about Miya.”

Evan’s eyes welled. He took another pull from the bottle, let his beer hand drop to his thigh again, stopped pacing. He launched into it.

“Witty, lovely, caring. A gifted researcher. We met at a function the Navy and the local state representatives hosted for donors for the naval museums on Oahu, and the veterans, and some other causes around the islands, that kind of thing.”

“Pearl Harbor memorials stuff.”

“A lot of that shit, yes. Benefactors out the fucking ass, wanting to show their patriotism and support. I do support it, of course. It just gets overwhelming some days for me and the other COs around the islands.”

So much for maintaining a Douglas Logan-inspired PG-rated discourse. “So we’re off the clock now, language-wise, Evan?”

“Fuck it, I can’t help it. And crazy enough, I was introduced to her by none other than Mr. Douglas Logan himself, a goddamn saint, and I call him that with reverence and respect both. The old guy played matchmaker from the start. Grizzly and ornery, but he means well. He’s always been good to me…

“Miya’s grandparents, they talked her and her family into leaving Miakamii when each of them felt it was right, said Miya should follow her dream and go to a good med school…

“She picked Johns Hopkins, went into medical research, genetic mutation work, came back to her beloved Hawaii to conduct it. Breakthrough stuff. She was married once before, to someone from the mainland, but he died. Early-onset Alzheimer’s.”

“Huh. How old?” Philo asked.

“Young. In his fifties. No children. She stayed a widow, stayed married to her work, met me, this because Douglas Logan made sure our paths crossed. I owe the man, Philo.