Amnesia: Lost in the Dust (PART 12)

The oven timer went off almost the second Veronica heard the car roll into the driveway. It was just barely before dark, but at least she knew it wasn't Emily dropping her off. Emily never dropped her off this late, at 7:03 Belinda always had a police escort. Namely David.

Veronica pulled the vegetarian lasagna out and let it sit. Veronica heard the car door close and the lock turn. Veronica slowly approached the entryway as Belinda came in. She turned and stared at Veronica, as if shocked that someone was in her house. Then the shock turned into a frown.

"I told you not to cook."

"But your doctor told me to, so..."

Belinda stared for a few more seconds then opened her office door and locked it behind her. Veronica sighed and walked back into the kitchen.

***

It was late. Like real late. Daniel should have been in bed. But that was why he picked this time. Everyone was in bed, leaving the real world to scum like him. It was dark and creepy, which was appropriate since his friends were dark and creepy.

Daniel walked down the dark ally, dark except for a dim, flickering street light across the street. He pulled out his phone, a little beat up flip-phone, with little more than enough for the occasional call in an emergency. And this was an emergency.

"Yo Jacque, you coming or what? I'm going WD."

"Save the crap, Dan, I had a close call the other night. Just making up for lost time, and I got more important orders to fill than your withdrawal."

"Man, don't you got just a pinch. You called me!" Dan leaned against one of the filthy brick walls. His headache suddenly got worse.

"Let's bet this straight, Dan. I didn't call you. I'm not your friend, go find someone else to complain to." The line went dead and Daniel rubbed sweat from his neck. He slammed his fists into the wall.

The withdrawal was starting to kick in. It was the worst pain a human could experience. Imagine a bullet wound, the burning sensation you get from the cold, and the unbearable heat running through every cell in your body. It was the only reason why Dan hadn't gone through rehab. Every time he tried to go a day without anything in his system, the pain would take over and he would walk like a zombie to Jacque. 16 hours was the limit, and he was pushing it.

His muscles ached like they were rubber bands trying to pull him into a pink blob of skin. But when he fell to the ground in the fetal position, his muscles refused to stretch out. Snot and tears ran down his face into a puddle on the ground.

It felt like he had spent hours on the ground, and maybe he had, but when he looked back on it, it felt like he had only just fallen down.

He could only barely open his eyes when he heard the footsteps. The recognizable click of heels on pavement came towards him in a blur of dark blur. He half wished those feet would kick him to death. Anything would have been better than lying here.

"Daniel Keller." She said clearly. Dan sobbed and held himself closer. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Just kill me now." He sobbed, a dribble of snot running down his eye as his face shifted.

"No, but this won't be the first time you'll ask me that."

"Waaaa- waaa-ehh-ehh." He sobbed. She sniffed, and paused for a second to grab something out of the purse that he couldn't see. The smell of lavender came around him.

"I'll come back at a better time." She said, shoving an envelope of papers into the lining of his jacket, and walking away.

Daniel continued to sob there until morning.

***

David walked down the hall of the police station, yawned, and pulled out his keys. It was early, and he would rather be in bed, but he had a huge caseload to go through since his little expedition the other day at the construction site. Frankly he didn't sleep too well knowing about all the work he'd have to make up.

He jumped as he walked into the room, Belinda was already sitting at his desk with her feet up and a sketchpad in her hands. "Belinda!" He said, closing the door.

"Shoom." She hissed. Assuming she meant "shh!" David walked behind her to see what she was doing. She was slowly drawing the blade of a knife. Her hands were shaking and the knife looked like more like a stick than a weapon, but knowing Belinda it was a knife.

"What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep, I figured out what was used to cut some of the supports on the top floor."

"I don't remember you saying anything about that."

"Cause I didn't. I wasn't sure I actually saw anything until about an hour ago." Belinda furiously rubbed the eraser end of the pencil against the paper.

"Well, we have a sketch artist in the station. I could give him a call-"

"Oh this?" Belinda held up the paper. "No I just got bored. This is the Circus Maximus. You know like in Rome."

David squinted. "Yeah. Where the chariot races were held." Rome was Melanie's staple. She adored Latin and Roman culture. And sometimes it diffused into Belinda. Belinda flipped the notebook closed and David caught a glimpse of four dark stallions practically racing off the page with graphite hooves. Melanie had been here. David knew because she was the one with the steady hands. Even though David knew that Belinda knew about Melanie, he still felt like he shouldn't say anything. He felt like he had to throw out the sketchbook to keep Belinda from seeing the pictures. "So this knife? Is it a lead?"

"Probably not. It's too generic to look for. Whoever did this was smart. He used, like five different types of accelerants so he couldn't be traced, according to the arson forensics team. All of which I expect he had other people buy."

"So he had help?"

"Probably not willingly. But buying that much accelerants should be traceable, and we've had no hits yet."

"Who says?"

Belinda handed him a post-it note from her pocket. In Melanie's handwriting, it says "No hits, possible help involved, 300 accelerants bought in the probable area."

"Our best bet," Belinda continued, "Would be to look into who would want to kill him."

"So it's not a suicide?"

"Would you buy your depressed friend several gallons of known accelerants with no questions?"

"I'm not saying he has smart friends." David placed a hand on her shoulder casually.

Belinda stiffened.

"Sorry." David took his hand back.

"No I'm sorry." Belinda grabbed her cane and began the struggle of getting out of the chair. "You have work to do. I shouldn't bore you with all this."

"Belinda."

"I'll just leave you with these uh..." Belinda looked down at David's flimsy plastic inbox that was overflowing with manilla folders. "Yeah." Belinda kissed him lightly on the cheek and left David with his filing.

***

Belinda pulled her gloves on with her teeth as Emily unzipped the body bag slowly. With her free hand she flipped through the folder that came with Mr. Issac Dumphy. Overall, a very uninteresting dead guy. Gunshot to the head, he was found in his locked bathroom with the gun in his hand, previous signs of depression. Suicide. The autopsy was just a formality.

"Veronica said you didn't sleep last night." Emily said lightly.

Belinda nodded, pulling on her other glove and rolling over to the body.

"And you left early."

"And?"

"I was just wondering if you were feeling okay."

Belinda raised and eyebrow, but she didn't dignify the question by looking up. "I had a break in the case, I had to do some extra work with the night guys. Polly gave me some information on the accelerants used in the fire, and she says that it's utterly useless information."

"And this is good because...?"

"I never said it was good- What are we doing?"

"Autopsy of a forty-year-old alcoholic." Emily said confused.

"Look it was suicide, just write that down there on that little leaflet of their's." Belinda pulled her gloves off finger by finger.

"You do realize that we're the forensics team right?"

"And what does that have to do with the circumstances of his death?" Belinda, or as Emily now suspected, Melanie shoved the folder back under the table.

"Nothing, but we still have to do a complete check no matter if we think it's a waste of time or not."

"So you agree?"

"I'm not agreeing to anythi-"

"Good because we have actual police work to do." Melanie pushed herself back to her desk and grabbed a pad of paper and her phone.

"You do know where we are right?" Emily asked, motioning vaguely around the room, "What we're doing on Dum-"

"You're right he is dumb." Melanie scrolled through her pictures.

"I didn't say 'dumb' I was going to say Dum-"

"Those are the same words, Emily. Dumb doesn't have a homonym."

"Would you just let me fin-"

Melanie held her phone out for Emily. Emily took it and looked at the picture on the screen.

"So?" She asked. It was a crevice in a piece of charcoal black wood.

"Saw marks on the ceiling above our victim, made by kitchen knife about six inches long. Someone was trying really hard to be sure any evidence on the body was destroyed." Melanie pulled a scalpel off her desk, and a fresh pair of plastic gloves.

"Have we ruled out that he really wanted to die quickly."

"Beyond a doubt. It was subtle, but Yaiko down the hall- he did the second autopsy after David got clearance for further investigation- he says that he's not One-hundred percent, but he thinks he saw some evidence of bruising around the throat and under the shoulder."

"Places a collapsing roof wouldn't have smashed and livor mortis wouldn't have hit?"

Melanie nodded as she opened the bag and began to move hair out of the way of the bullet hole in the corpse's head.

"I thought you didn't want to do the full autopsy." Emily said, watching to make sure Melanie wasn't missing anything, which she never did.

"I'll humor them. It won't be the first time my time was completely wasted."

"It's not wasted if we found something." Emily muttered.

"Like what?" Melanie asked, grabbing her tweezers. "A note hidden in the ear that says 'Hey I murdered this guy and here's why, and we'll be in the next few days.'" Melanie examined the neck of the man before returning to her search for the bullet. "Face it this is pointless. If they found any signs of struggle or any reason for this to be a murder it would be at the crime scene, not in the cranial damage of a heavy alcoholic and depressed security guard."

"Where are you getting security guard."

"Oh, see he has a callus on his finger from the sticky walkie button."

"Oh, really, I was thinking guitar player."

"No see." Melanie held up the hand, showing Emily the fingertips.

"Oh, only one callus."

"Yeah..."

***

Belinda was staring at the wall of her forensics lab when David walked in. The wall was, as usual, covered in pushpins and post-it notes.

"You need a ride home?" He asked. Belinda jumped a bit and turned around.

"Bit late for that now."

There was a silence for a second. David looked down at his shoes, summoning his inner James Bond.

"Well what if I didn't mean your home?"

Belinda's facial expression was hard to read, it was clear and calm. No hint of any concern in her eyes or quiver in her mouth. However her cheeks were also bright red. "Uh..."

"Not to insinuate anything..." He said quickly. "Just if you had any theories on this... uh case you wanted to... Uh... You know, share with me." David watched Belinda as she let her hair fall over her face. "Or you know, just crash on my couch. If you're tired, I can't imagine your desk would be anymore comfortable than my couch."

There was a longer silence. David's mouth suddenly felt dry.

"Sure." Belinda said quietly.

***

David insisted on opening car door for Belinda, which irritated her. She rolled her eyes and accepted his hand. She would never admit it, but with the dark and the folder under her arm, she really needed David's hand. It was sturdy, and sure, and warm. And let's just admit it now, he was kind of hot.

"Do you want anything to eat?" David asked as Belinda set pictures the file of the fire on his kitchen table.

"No." She scanned the pictures, while also scanning David's house through her peripheral vision. She had been at his house before. A holiday here a party there. But always planned occasions. Never alone and never on a whim. It was dirtier than she'd seen it before. Miscellaneous letters and papers lie on the edges of a kitchen counter. Some of JP's toys laid across the coffee table in the living room. All falling prey to Belinda's unconscious deductive mind, leading her into David's day to day life.

David placed a hand on her shoulder as he looks at the pictures and post-it notes spread across the table. She doesn't react, letting him brush her skin just once. It's distracting, but she doesn't say anything.

"I interviewed his friends and family today." David told her.

"And?"

David shrugged and sat down in the chair next to her. "Doesn't look good for our murder angle."

"He had no enemies?" Belinda asked.

"Worse. He was clinically depressed."

"But did he have anyone who would want to kill him?"

"No, everyone seemed really supportive. Despite his depression he was a really good guy."

Belinda shook her head. "I'm not going to say none of them were lying, but I'm beginning to doubt he was killed by someone he knew."

David brushed her hand. "Belinda there's not much new forensic evidence to look at that you haven't already. You should get some sleep."

"But there's still evidence." She insisted, "Did you talk to his therapist?"

"How'd you know 'bout the therapist-"

"Clinically depressed, key word 'Clinically'."

"Yeah, yeah, I did." David said rubbing his eye.

"What'd she say about his depression."

"That he had it." David said dumbly.

"Was it getting worse?"

"Yeah, she said he started seeming more distant about a month or two before the fire. This doesn't really help the murder theory."

"But what does it say about the murderer if we're assuming it was murder?"

David thought for a second. Belinda's dark eyes watched him in anticipation. "Well, we know it had to be planned in advance. And if we already decided that it wasn't someone he knew. Then this is a serial killer who needed a blood fix."

"Exactly." Belinda said, looking back at her file.

"But that's a couple a big if's, Bells."

"But if these if's are correct, then we can find a person seemingly unrelated to the case who happened to be around the crime scene a lot before the murder."

"That could be anyone from the witnesses to the construction crew."

"So?" Belinda asked.

"So, we have entire night before we can get any appropriate evidence to support that theory." David reached for her chin and kissed her. A long gentle kiss. One that made both Belinda and David uncomfortable and insistent.

When David pulled away there was a long pause. They both stared at each other, dumbfounded, as if neither of them knew what to do after the that. Which of course they both did, intimately.

"I'll take the couch." David said.

Belinda nodded at walked down the hall to David's bedroom.