Page 2 of Stay in Your Lane!

He looked where I was pointing, then shrugged again. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the deceased.”

“But it’s blood.”

Dwayne rolled his eyes. “Just go to the bedroom, Everett. You’ll see what I mean.”

Would I, though? I made it down the hall, turned to the right, and?—

Oh wow. Yeah. Okay. That was a lot of blood. Like, wow. And that was—huh. The dead dude was missing everything from his upper jaw to the top of his head. That had been one big fucking shotgun shell.

There were two other people in the cramped bedroom. One of them was the medical examiner, recognizable by the fact that he always wore the same navy suit no matter what season, temperature, or location he was in. The other was a plainclothes cop—probably a detective—standing by the closet and radiating impatience.

“Finally,”he said as he caught sight of me. “It’s past time to get this body out of here.”

I kinda wanted to say“Dude, I’ve been waiting outside”but my mom always told me silence was golden. Forgetting that usually led to raised voices, so I just nodded, then faced the M.E.

“I’ll send for the body in another day or so,” he said.

“Cool.”

The detective turned to stare at me. “‘Cool’? You think dead people are cool?” he asked, attitude in every word.

Great. Super awesome. I loved working with cops who were determined to misunderstand me. “No,” I replied, then looked back at the M.E. “Got it, Dr. Klinger.”

He nodded. “Say hello to your father for me, Mr. Mulligan.” Then he was gone, leaving me with Detective Jackass.

“Get him out quick,” he said, turning a little green behind his mask. “It fucking stinks in here. The sooner we get the cleaners in, the better.” He left the room then, muttering, “Or just burn this whole damn trailer to the ground.”

Well, that would be a bad way to handle a crime scene. I turned my attention back to the body. It wouldn’t be too hard to bag him up. His feet were right here, practically at the edge of the bedroom door, while his upper body was draped across the bottom of the bed. He was wearing pants—that was nice—but no shirt. I glanced at his bare torso before reaching for my bag, then stopped and looked again.

Circle circle circle line…circle circle…

I knew that pattern. My brother Stuart had complained for three years about wanting a pair of shoes like that until my parents gave in and bought him a pair of Nike Air Force 1s for Christmas. Our mom died a week later, though, so I’m not sure he ever actually ended up wearing them.

Still. Air Force 1s were expensive sneakers, hundreds of dollars a pair. I scanned the room for any sign of them, but all I saw was a pair of ratty brown sneakers in the corner of the closet. Still, this seemed important, so… “Excuse me?”

It wasn’t the detective who came back in, it was Dwayne. “Finished alre—c’mon, Everett,” he groaned. “Can we get this done already? The stretcher is waiting!”

“Thanks, but.” I pointed at the deceased. “This was called a suicide, right? So why is there a shoeprint on the guy’s chest?”

Dwayne sighed. “The man was very clearly an addict. Or did you miss the little shrine in the corner there?”

No, I’d seen the heroin paraphernalia, but still. That made it even weirder. “Why would someone who could afford Air Force 1s come and kick a guy like this in the chest?”

“It could have happened at any time.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how bruising works.” That, plus the blood in the hall…I was getting uneasy. “Are yousurethis is a suicide?”

Dwayne pointed a finger at me. “Wouldn’t you want to kill yourself if you lived in a hovel like this?”

“No.” It wasn’t that bad of a trailer, honestly. Grubby, yeah, and old, but the neighborhood had cats, so…

“Just do your job and get the body out before someone complains, okay?” Dwayne left again, and I turned back to the deceased.

Dude. No. It was too weird to ignore. I couldn’t get it out of my head now that I’d seen the bruise. In fact, checking over the rest of the body, I was beginning to seeotherthings that seemed out of place. There were cuts and bruises on the guy’s forearms. Sure, bruises weren’t weird on a heroin user, but these weren’t track marks and they weren’t focused around the veins. Two of the knuckles on his right hand were torn and bloody, too. It kind of blended into the blood splattered all over the scene, but…

That was the kind of wound you got when you punched something harder than your hand. I knew, because I’d gone through a kung fu master phase when I was a teenager and tried to toughen myself up by punching a tree in my back yard. I broke two bones in my hand before I admitted defeat, and my knuckles had been a mess.

I needed to get this man out of here, I knew I did. But…if this was a suicide, it was a weird fucking suicide. Someone ought to take another look at this. Notme, although I kind of wanted to check around now that I had this bug in my brain, butsomeone.And how could they do that if the body had been removed?

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