By Emi Gruender
There had never been a worse time to sneeze. Kanya would have bet good money.
She watched in horror as Marsha’s snot rocketed out of her facial orifices and landed all over the corpse lying on the autopsy table. The pathologist froze. His scalpel was still buried in the dead-man’s chest. Well, what was left of it.
Marsha just stood there, unfazed. “…What?”
“Holy—Marsha!” Kanya hissed, flustered. She plucked a couple of Kleenex from the nearby counter and tried in vain to wipe Marsha’s almost green snot from the stiff’s dead-white complexion. “There’s a flu going around—-”
“I’m going to go… wash my hands.” He said. He peeled off his plastic gloves gingerly and promptly left, the door still swinging back and forth in his haste.
“I cannot believe you, Mars.”
“What’d I do?”
Kanya looked sideways at her partner. Sometimes, she couldn’t fathom how Marsha had managed to climb her way all the way up to senior detective, with her absent green eyes and permanently lolled mouth and tendency for doing the worst things at the worst possible time. But Kanya had to admit; her partner was a damn good detective. Even if her methods were… unorthodox.
“Come on,” she said, after her phone vibrated with a new notification. “They connected the body to another location. East side. Beat cops were covering it until they found the serial’s signature.”
Marsha visibly perked up. “Another signature?”
Kanya had to fight to keep up as Marsha burst out the doors and readjusted her ratty green army jacket over her scrawny shoulders. What a pair they made: a blonde with a pencil-skirt and a hound-dog of a woman, strutting and lumbering respectively to a police cruiser with a glittery-pink license plate.
~~~~
It stunk of rotting fish and sewage down on the East side, along the rows upon rows of abandoned warehouses. Farther along the pier, in the gloom, Kanya could just barely make out the line of flashing police lights and bright yellow CAUTION tape as she and Marsha picked their way through the filthy cobble. Well, Kanya did. Her magenta heels were dangerously sharp and precariously tall, and gingerly, she stepped through the filth and algae. Her partner, on the other hand, almost dragged her tired leather shoes through the muck, much to Kanya’s distaste.
A solemn-looking police officer stood waiting for them at the police line.
“We’ve roped off the crime scene,” he said gruffly. “Been told to inform you that almost nothing’s been moved since we found it. Cops on duty didn’t clock the signal until they had mucked around a bit.”
“Is it just the signature?” questioned Kanya.
“No. Another body. We’re waiting for your decision before the coroner comes and takes a look, determines the cause of death.”
Marsha snorted. “If it’s the serial’s signature, I’ve got my expectations for cause of death. Let’s go.”
Before Kanya could even respond, Marsha had ducked underneath the bright yellow tape and virtually shoved the officer out of the way as she stalked towards the decrepit building.
“Thanks,” Kanya said quickly, scampering after her partner. Only Marsha could get away with acting like this, she thought, as she felt the officer’s eyes boring into the back of her head.
“You have to stop doing that,” she said to her partner.
“Doing what?” Marsha responded sincerely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The stench of the stagnant building hit Kanya as soon as Marsha creaked open the door. Still air, rotting fish, mold climbing up the walls. The glass ceiling chipped and shattered in places, allowing flocks of curious pigeons to stick their heads inside, and foggy light to spill over the cold concrete floors. Marsha just looked around, unaffected.
“Well. That’s a signature, all right.”
The serial’s signature was admittedly hard to miss. Bright pink and adorned with plastic rhinestones, a poor imitation of the Barbie logo towered over a crumpled body at the a concrete wall at the other end. Uselessly, police tape extended from wall to wall like some sort of morbid aisleway, framing the clearly male body at the end in grotesque glory.
“Creative,” was all Marsha had to say, before briskly taking off toward the body.
“Don’t we need masks or something?” whined Kanya. “If I get asbestos in here, you’re paying for my hospital bills.”
“It would be a pleasure.”
They both looked down at the body. Stiff and white, clearly in rigor mortis, the corpse’s eyes were closed, but his mouth lolled open. There was no rope around his neck, no bruising in his wrists, no apparent struggle anywhere. There was only a bloom of crusting red in an uncanny imitation of a heart slightly to the right of his breastbone. An elastic glove snapped around Marsha’s calloused hand as she reached out and unbuttoned the top several buttons, revealing the thin, circular hole boring straight into his heart.
“Careful,” Kanya warned, to which Marsha dismissed with a small wave. “Marsha—”
“Curious…” her partner mused, running her finger over the almost perfect circular hole. “Was this a metal pole? A dowel?”
While her partner kneeled by the body, Kanya’s eyes drifted up towards something tan, hidden beneath the body, barely visible. Carefully, she slipped on her own elastic gloves and she removed a file from beneath the stiff, dusting it off. It clearly wasn’t there for long—taken from an office perhaps not even a couple hours before.
“Look at this, Mars.”
The file was filled to the brim with official-looking documents: criminal records, court documents, witness testimony, and most hauntingly: photos. It was unmistakable— the dead face on the floor matched the rosy, vibrant one in the picture. And beside him, his arm draped around the other, the corpse on the autopsy table, his smile wide and jeering. The one that Marsha had so gracefully rocketed snot all over.
There were other photos, too— not just of men, but a whole congregation of smiling faces. And within every court document, every paper of identification: evidence upon evidence upon evidence of these people’s crimes.
Assault and battery of—- Kanya tore her eyes away from the document and shoved it beneath her partner’s nose.
“Look at this.”
Marsha took the documents, the dead body’s slime still over her gloved fingers. Silently, she flicked through them. Kanya could not read her expression.
“Seems like we’ve got a Robin Hood on our hands.”
“Yeah.” Kanya did not like the look on Marsha’s face. “We should bring this back to the station, try to get some definitive proof—”
Marsha’s gloved hand closed around Kanya’s wrist in a nearly uncomfortable grip. Kanya looked at her partner curiously.
“What’s wrong, Mars?”
But she stopped when she saw the identification file that Marsha had clutched within her hand. A crop of sandy-red hair, a bulbous nose, a crooked smile with a gap between his two front teeth. Derek Santiago, the document read in serious black type.
“Well, would you look at that?” Kanya said. “He’s definitely something.”
Marsha was unamused. “I know this man, Kanya.”
“Really, now? One of your exes?”
Marsha’s green eyes were icy as she looked straight into Kanya’s soul. The humor in Kanya’s expression dissipated as the seconds ticked by, her breath stilled in her chest.
“You really must do a better job at hiding your hatred.”
Kanya yanked her hand away, suddenly frightened by her partner’s sudden change in demeanor. This was the Marsha she knew. But not to her. Never to her.
“What are you talking about?” Kanya demanded.
“There’s a journal you keep hidden in the floorboard compartment of the cruiser. Bright pink with rhinestones on the cover. Yearbook photos with pen marks all over the faces.”
“Oh, that?” Kanya scoffed. “That was my first year on the job. Must have forgotten to take it out over the years. How did you find that—?”
“I hate Derek Santiago,’ you wrote. Vampire teeth and a devil’s tail. A high school enemy, I assumed.”
Kanya’s gaze flitted between her partner and the file in her hand. Maybe she could take it before Marsha really lost her mind.
“Oh, right Derek. I remember Derek. He was an awful guy, but it’s been years since high school—”
“There’s some things that no one can ever forget.”
Kanya felt glued in place as her partner stalked closer, like a wolf with her haunches raised and teeth bared. She didn’t recognize this new woman.
“Is the mold getting to you?” Kanya’s voice was getting higher, and she made a swipe for the file. Marsha was too quick, and ripped it away. “Seriously, Mars, if we know the other targets, we should put those into a database before they get damaged.”
“Which is more proactive? Trying to find the would-be victims, or stemming the problem at its source?”
Kanya was at a loss for words. Marsha, not taking her eyes off her partner, pointed at the bright pink signature scrawled in dripping spray paint on the wall.
“Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I wouldn’t see the connections?”
Without warning, Marsha shot forward with her hand raised towards Kanya’s neck. Kanya’s body moved before she could process. It was just a reflex—- the way her hand caught on the heel of her shoe and ripped it off her foot, aiming it straight at her partner’s heart.
Kanya watched with wide eyes as Marsha moved a couple inches away from the stiletto and pressed an almost imperceptible button hidden within the rhinestone on the heel. With the plink of a spring, a deadly sharp knife, thinner than the heel and wickedly pointed sprung out, aimed straight towards Marsha’s chest.
They stood there in silence for a second. Kanya watched her partner’s face, trying to decode the difficult expression on her face. And then, finally, Kanya couldn’t hold it in anymore. She knew her smile looked crazy, based on the way Mars’ eyes widened and she shifted away slightly, but there was a certain thrill in being caught. Kanya couldn’t help but relish in it.
“You’re a damn good detective, aren’t you?”
She could tell Mars didn’t expect it when Kanya ducked down and placed a well-aimed foot straight at her partner’s gut. With a shout, Mars crumpled to the ground, her green army jacket smearing in the filth of the warehouse floor. Casually, Kanya stowed the knife away and fitted the heel back onto her foot.
“Kanya!” Marsha shouted as Kanya strode towards the dead body. Playfully, Kanya threw a condescending glance over her shoulder, a manicured finger over her lips.
“Shhh… don’t call them in. That wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”
Marsha hauled herself to her feet. If Kanya let her get close, she knew she would lose. Marsha was far more muscular than her, not to mention her work-appropriate cargo pants and full-length shirt. But while Marsha was a damn good detective, Kanya was a damn good liar.
“Who are you?” Marsha spat. “Where’s the Kanya I know?”
Kanya looked up casually through the shattered glass roof. In the distance, the roar of her bright pink helicopter was unmistakable, the platinum blonde of her followers unmistakable. Though her position as a detective in the police department was useful, all things had to come to an end. And with some dramatic flair in the middle of a warehouse, with her partner clutching her ribs on the ground? Wasn’t a bad reveal.
“Some call us the Sorority. Et quod suus ‘venturus erit, right? He’ll get what’s coming. Though, I personally like ‘Illegally Blonde.’”
“Why?” was all Marsha could eke out. The hurt in her eyes was almost… entertaining.
The helicopter’s blades were directly above the warehouse, now. Only a matter of time before the officers outside came streaming in, like a bunch of confused dogs.
“Oh, honey.” Kanya said, her finger under Marsha’s chin. “You’re sweet. But a bloodhound like you? I don’t doubt you’ll be able to sniff that one out on your own.”
The doors burst open just as Kanya reached the suspended ladder from the helicopter whirring above. Quickly, the rope yanked her up so that she hung right above the pack of yowling offices, with their prized hound injured and snarling at the forefront.
“I’ll find you.” Marsha growled, her hand clutched around her waist. Turns out that a kick to the gut with a stiletto doesn’t wear off too quickly.
Kanya smiled. Her partner was indeed a damn good detective.
“I can’t wait.”