NERTHUS
The flickering lights of the cold room give me harder goosebumps than the idea of being surrounded by corpses.
“Whenever you are ready, ma’am,” the coroner looks at me over his small glasses, and I nod, trying to keep the bile rising in my throat down.
With a swift movement, he lifts the cloth, revealing the pale face of a woman.
It might seem like a mundane action on his part, but I certainly wasn’t ready for it.
Even if they gave me all the time I needed to adjust and prepare myself for this sight, I must admit that I wasn’t ready for it.
And how could someone ever be?
Holding a hand in front of my mouth, I swallow hard.
“Take your time. If you need a break, let me know.” The detective, standing at the feet of the woman, talks in a calm voice, tearing me out of my abyss.
I blink my tears away as I take a deep breath and tear my eyes away from her. “No, no. It’s alright. Erm… I worked with her a few years ago.”
Making a little break, I appreciate the fact that the detective doesn’t interrupt my thinking process, as my brain struggles to assemble a coherent thought in this depressing situation.
“I didn’t know her real name…” I force myself to continue. “But her street name was something like… Cherry, Candy… Something sweet.”
“Peach,” the detective informs me, making me nod absentmindedly.
“She was nice,” I whisper, continuing to stare at her.
As the coroner covers her cleaned face back up, I get dragged out of my trance immediately and I look up to the detective. “Why did you call me? I can’t give you any information about her. It’s been ages since I last saw her.”
“There is something you should take a look at. If you don’t mind sparing a few minutes for me.” Holding out his hand towards me, he makes a small gesture, making me step next to him. We leave the cold room and settle back down into his messy office.
Passing his hand over his tie, he hands me a file. Before I am even able to open it, he put his hand onto it, blocking me in my movement.
“Take a deep breath. It isn’t going to be pretty,” he warns me, making me nod.
I feel so desperate that the wish to call Arawn arises in me once again. But I force it down, not wanting to be the needy girlfriend he is surely not paying me to be.
Freaking out internally, I nearly can’t manage to open the simple, thin file. Bracing myself against something I can hardly prepare myself for, I take another deep breath in the hopes that it will reduce my tremor.
As soon as I have opened the file, I would like to scream. But my lungs are blocked by the bile rising in my throat, and I would risk covering the detective’s desk with my vomit if I were to make a sound. Closing it again, I close my eyes and throw my head back, exhaling desperately.
Detective Ramirez gets up swiftly, pouring me a cup of water clumsily from the carafe, standing on a sideboard in his stuffed office. He passes me the paper cup with an apologetic expression as if he had any fault in what was happening.
“Thank you so much,” I push out raspy, taking the cup with shaking hands.
“If you want to call someone to get through it with you, let me know,” he offers with a gentle tone.
Arawn’s picture flashes into my brain once again, but I push him out, showing Detective Ramirez a sad smile. “No, no. It’s going to be alright. Thank you.”
Gathering all my courage again and hoping that my lunch wouldn’t rise up from my stomach once again, I open the file fully.
I let the cover page fall out of my hands as if it were burning my skin, keeping me from closing it back up again.
Slowly, I lay my fingers on the photographs laying on the crips paper reports that are tuckered to the file.
It feels as if my mind leaves my body as I start shuffling them around absent-mindedly, and still get to memorize every single detail that I’m seeing in the pictures.
“Those signs…” I start, and Detective Ramirez leans onto the desk, nodding.
“This is exactly why I called you. They made me think of an old case that I worked on years ago. The one involving your friend.” He sighs as he reaches out to turn a picture with a deep cut in the victim’s hip towards me. “I thought it looked like a signature.”
I clasp my throat as if it could keep the bile from rising further and nod, agreeing with him. “Who did this?”
“We still didn’t catch him,” he informs me, making me close my eyes. “But I remember how you came to ask for your friend. And the scene you made in the precinct. Without you, we wouldn’t even have filed a report. Nowadays, everything is automated and digitally connected. As I fed the computer with the information, another set of similar cases popped up. I spoke to the detectives of the other districts, and I have good and bad news, Ms. Hendricks.”
“Give me the bad news first,” I say, wanting to sound jokingly but my voice fails me miserably.
He flashes me a pitiful smile as he tilts his head at me. “The bad news is that we might be dealing with a serial killer here. The good news is that we would never have come to this realization so fast if it hadn’t been for you, and your stubbornness.”
***
I want to die…
Wait, no. That is not true.
I open the door to my apartment with a deep sigh. Slipping out of my heels, I take a few steps into my living room before I halt in my tracks.
My body feels so numb that I can’t even experience shock.
If he really felt the rage with which he was glaring at me, he could take out his gun and even shoot me, and I’m not sure if I would feel anything.
“Where have you been?” Arawn’s growl gets at least a few nerves of mine to buzz as I force myself to walk further.
“In hell, I would dare to say,” I answer smugly, making him distort his face.
“I’ll give you five seconds to reformulate your fucking answer, or we will do this my way.”
I shake my head, my survival instinct forcing up my ‘I don’t give a fuck’-attitude instead of having me crawl into his arms for consolation like I would want to.
And I hate it.
“Oh, and what would ‘your way’ be? Huh, big boy?”
Crossing my arms, I look at him challenging, and he scoffs. “Don’t push your luck, woman. This is not the right time for it.”
I let my arms slump, making my bag fall from my shoulders and I catch it with my hand. “I was called by a detective. It was about a cold case. It was horrible.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asks, making my heart skip a beat.
“What?” I look at him questioningly, my mouth turning dry.
He passes a hand over his face, sighing exhaustedly. “I saw you enter a precinct… I know it had to be something bad, so why didn’t you call me?”
“I thought I would just bother you. I didn’t want to anger you or keep you from your work. It was nothing I couldn’t handle alone.”
My breath hitches in my throat as his expression morphs, and he takes a step closer to me. “I know I was an idiot. You are never bothering me, Nerthus. I prefer you would call me, instead of going through those things by yourself. And apparently, you would have needed someone to go through it with you.”