Lingering by Umaiza H
The smell of bleach lingers in the room.
She’s already bleached the clothes with the splatters of blood all over them, and she’s thrown them out along with the air freshener she emptied when she was trying to kill the smell.
The damn smell is still here. It’s driving her mad.
She gets up and paces around the room, attempting to quell her suspicions that she hasn’t been thorough enough. But she has. She’s scrubbed the blood from beneath her fingernails, used those disposable latex rubber gloves that make her hands all clammy and sweaty. What has she missed?
She sits down again and pours herself a shot of vodka cranberry to try and calm herself down. She downs it in one gulp, and the tart taste of the cranberry calms her down just a little.
She pours herself another. And another. And maybe even another two. Her head starts to spin, and she sighs as she relaxes just a bit. The room starts to spin in sync with her head, and she lies there mesmerised with the whole effect.
Maybe another one won’t hurt, she thinks as she pours another shot, her hands still a little steady despite the amount of vodka cranberry in her system. As she downs it, her eyes start to blur.
Somehow there’s another one in her hand. She downs it again.
Her last thought before she blacks out is that she has to be at work by six in the morning.
*****
As the morning air bit her skin, the droning voice of an interviewer from some random newspaper added another layer of noise onto the already teeming crime scene. Sabrina weaved through the array of CSIs and specialists with equipment. As she walked past a forensic specialist sealing evidence bags, the smell of bleach caught in her throat. Her jaw tightened. She needed to get somewhere she could rinse the taste of alcohol out of her mouth.
“Sabrina Fitzroy?” A man hurried into her line of vision and stopped in front of her. “A reporter wants to speak to you about the case.”
She barely managed to hold in her exasperated sigh and plastered on a polite smile that hopefully didn’t look too sleep deprived or insane. “Of course. I’ll speak with them,” she replied.
She followed the man to the very border of the police tape, where a crowd of curious onlookers peered into the investigation. A woman with an awful bleached bob broke out of the crowd and hurried eagerly to the police tape, a burly man with a camera following. She stopped in front of Sabrina and smiled eagerly.
“Sabrina Fitzroy! It’s so lovely to meet you. The circumstances are horrible, of course,” she said as she held out her hand for Sabrina to shake.
She shook it hesitantly, and the reporter beamed.
“I’m Sarah Levoy and I just wanted to ask you a few questions about this absolutely dreadful case,” she said, making a small, imperceptible gesture to the cameraman who started recording. Levoy turned to face the camera.
“I’m here with Sabrina Fitzroy, one of the leading detectives on the case. Now, Miss Fitzroy, what strikes you as the most surprising thing about this case?”
The cameraman turned the camera towards Sabrina, and Levoy held out the mic towards her.
“Um,” she mumbled, trying to organise her thoughts into a coherent sentence as Levoy’s sour breath wafted into her face. “It’s most likely the fact that Alexander Rivera was so well protected. He had security guards. CCTV. Multiple entry points covered. All funded by his multi-million-dollar businesses.”
Levoy continued to ask her more questions, and Sabrina answered them one by one, her earlier exasperation rising with each one. Levoy made another gesture to the cameraman, who changed some setting on the camera.
“Now, Miss Fitzroy, this is my final question. Are you certain this is all the information you have?”
The camera lens stared at her like it already knew.
A memory of an earlier briefing from one of her superiors entered Sabrina’s mind. We have had cases where there have been fake reporters. Remember to be vigilant.
“Yes.” She held Levoy’s gaze. “I’ve said everything.”