Another Girl
It was a cool morning when her naked body washed up on the shore. She was wrapped in a fishing net, with bits of seaweed in her hair. Or at least, what used to be her hair. Now it looked like black thread tangled in a knot that no person could disembroil. Her skin was pale and she looked like a puffy, pillow person made of wax.
A jogger discovered her washed up on the shore and I was the unfortunate one who was assigned to her case. The young ones were always the most draining.
I began by examining her fingernails. You could tell a lot about how a person died by what was under their fingernails. There were a few missing and most were translucent but I could still tell that a struggle had taken place. The ones that were missing had been ripped off, most likely while she was still alive. I found bits of flesh underneath her pointer and middle fingers of her right hand along with dirt and sand that had festered there while she was drifting up stream.
I tried to imagine her life. I didn’t do this with all of my victims but this girl seemed special. Even with her puffy face and bloodshot eyes, I could tell she had an innocence to her that made it difficult for me to understand why she had to die.
Most people don’t deserve to die. It’s hard to feel sorry for some that do though. God wants us to be a certain way and yet in this day and age, how many of us actually refrain from sin? The bible was written so long ago and yet those are the rules that we are supposed to abide by. I had a feeling that this girl was pretty close to following all of them.
I imagined her growing up in a small town in a big house with a porch that wrapped around it entirely. She had a swing set in the backyard that she played on every day until she was too old and her father sold it. She went to school and had lots of friends and a brother and sister and mom and dad.
That was until she met the boy. He was a few years older and had a car. He would pick her up and they would go to movies together. Then one day she went to his friend’s house where she had her first drink. And her second and her third. She trusted this boy with all her heart. They had been going out for three months and after the fifth drink she knew she was ready. She wanted to go all the way with this boy.
This boy didn’t have it as easy as the girl growing up. He had no swing set and he didn’t have a lot of friends. This boy missed a lot of school because he always had bruises. His dad would punch him and kick him when he didn’t do what he was told.
The happy girl was sure she was falling in love with this disturbed boy. They would spend a lot of time together and when the boy would get mad or jealous, she always knew it was because of his past. She knew she could change him. His life would be better now because of her. He wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.
The first time the boy and the girl went to visit her parents, she was nervous but she was also in love. She didn’t see the same things that other people saw. Her fears about their meeting quickly dissipated though because the boy was actually wonderful to her parents. They talked and laughed all night and the boy didn’t lead on that the night before he had given her a shove during their fight.
The boy and the girl were fighting more often now. Usually it was over things that were miniscule or even nonexistent. Once, the girl had answered the phone and spoken to a telemarketer and the boy accused her of flirting. He yelled at her. A lot. She kept telling herself it was just because he loved her so much. Things would get better, she thought. He doesn’t mean it. He’s just passionate.
As I began to examine her hair, I noticed some patches where the hair was only about an inch and a half long. It had been pulled out, probably a few months earlier.
The boy started pulling her hair around six months into the relationship. She would try to walk away from him and he would yank her back. He told her he just couldn’t take her turning her back on him. Afterwards, he would tell her he was used to his parents and anyone else he loved walking away from him. “I can’t handle you being just like them. You love me, don’t you?” he would say. Of course she did. He needed her.
The cause of her death was unclear to me. The water in her lungs indicated a possible drowning but the large purple-black bruise on her lower back indicated that she may have been struck with a large object before plunging into the ice cold water. I felt her spine but I couldn’t tell whether or not there were some broken vertebrae.
The night of the girl’s death started with another fight. She knew he would be mad about her haircut so she was searching through the apartment, looking for a hat. She didn’t want to lie to him but she just wanted to wait for the right time to tell him she had gotten her hair cut. She had found something moments before he walked in the door and frantically pulled the gray toque over her newly short brunette hair. “Hey, baby,” he kicked off his shoes and left them on the steps for her to put away as she did every day.
“How was your day?” she asked with a sweet smile. She was doing her best to not draw attention to the inevitable fight that was under her toque.
“What’s with the hat?” She knew he would notice. She never wore hats. She would remove her hat and it would set off their biggest fight yet.
I knew he had done it. The problem was, I couldn’t find anything that would link him to her killing. It was harder to prove these kinds of murders because the victim would have spent so much time with their boyfriend. If you find a hair on the body or some kind of DNA, it isn’t necessarily evidence.
As I continued to scour every detail of her body, I imagined what her parents will do when they find out. Will they kill him? How will they ever be able to live knowing what happened to their daughter? They’ll blame themselves and they’ll go over every scenario, wondering if they could have done something to change her fate.
I prepared my report and a million things were still going through my head. I wondered how long the investigation would be, if they’d catch the guy, if he’d be convicted. I wondered what her family will do and how many people will miss her.
As I drove home I started to wonder what I’d have for dinner. I turned on the music and rolled down the window. I always loved the drive home from work. It’s so relaxing and I get a chance think about anything other than how people died. I felt the air whipping past my window and I could smell the salty ocean in the air. I’m instantly at ease and ready to join the real world again.
As I entered the house, I was immediately wrapped with the smell of home. I felt the warmth and the feeling of comfort took over. My husband had something in the oven and the smell in the air reminded me of Thanksgiving.
“Hi Honey,” I greeted him with a smile and a kiss. It’s always so wonderful when he cooks dinner.
“How was your day?” He asked.
“It was fine,” I don’t usually talk very much about my work for obvious reasons. And as I thought about my day, I was surprised I hadn’t thought about the girl since I left.
As we sat down to enjoy the delicious meal of homemade chicken soup and biscuits, we started to talk about what we would be doing for the weekend and what we were going to bring to our friend’s potluck. We chatted about trivial things, normal things husbands and wives talk about when they’re ending the day.
As I laid down that night, I realized this is was my favorite part of the day. I cleared my head of thoughts and I rested my head on my husband’s chest. My eyelids easily closed and I slowly fell asleep to the rhythm of his heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump.
