Accidental God 2.0 -- Section 08

[We're making progress again.]

    "What a mess," said Paul, looking around the room.
    Tuck knew exactly what he meant. Hardly any furniture--just a table and a couple chairs, rug on the floor--with a kettle on the stove and a few dishes that had wandered away from their families. Other than that, the room was perfectly clean. Empty.
    "You sure this is the place?" asked his partner. "They haven't left us anything to work with. At least nothing obvious."
    Tuck nodded. The residue of violence was strong, like the taste of liver in his nose. He'd only tried liver once, but the meat hadn't left a favorable impression. Meat? Was liver even meat? Tuck wished he could spit out the feeling of violence as easily as he had the liver.
    "This is the place, but it's...strange, somehow. It's stronger than it seems like it should be."
    "The residue?"
    "Exactly."
    Paul looked around at the immaculate room. "Maybe a dead god leaves a stronger residue. You ever seen a dead god before?"
    "Of course I haven't. No one has."
    "That's not true," said Paul.
    "No, you're right. But how many have, really? A dozen?"
    Paul blinked, scrunching up his eyes. "Didn't Proust work some of the god deaths from the Olympics in eighty? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. Should we call him up?"
    Tuck walked across the room toward the window and stopped, standing on the rug. It had a floral pattern with leaves in some odd magenta color. Why make realistic looking flowers with magenta leaves? Maybe they were from a plant he'd never heard of. He pushed the thought out of his mind and concentrated on why he was there, as distasteful as it was.
    "No," he said. "This is different. The residue of destruction definitely clings to the perpetrator, but not the way it does to the actual location. There was more death here."
    "Seriously?" said Paul. "Someone killed our killer?"
    "Or the killer killed twice. Whatever happened, the people here didn't get along so well."
    There was a knock on the open door and Jaimie Lawrence, the crime scene investigator, poked her head in. "Hey, guys."
    Tuck smiled. "Hi, Jamie." She was nice in the way that very few people are. Tuck wasn't sure how she could approach scenes of violence and horror with the cheerful innocence of a bouncy-ball, but she managed.
    "You almost ready for me?"
    "I wish," said Paul. "We've got nothing."
    "You sure this is the place?"
    "He's sure."
    Tuck nodded. "I'm sure."
    "You want us to take a look around? Just a once over? Maybe we can find something that will give your guts some direction to follow."
    "Is that standard procedure?" asked Tuck.
    "No, but I'm assuming time is important here, and we're not especially concerned about proving anything in court."
    "Time is very important," said Paul, "and court is the last thing on my list of worries at the moment."
    "No, it's not," said Tuck.
    "Yes, it is."
    "Court matters."
    "Saving lives matters."
    "That, too, but--"
    "Get in here, Jamie," said Paul.
    "Great. Come on, boys!" Jamie stepped in, followed by the members of her team. With a few gestures and quite a few words, she divided up the small apartment into regions and the CSI crew started working across the room in rows, wall to wall.
    "So, Forgotten Zed, huh?" Jamie talked as she looked at the rug, wall, ceiling, and rug again, inch by inch.
    "Yeah," said Tuck. "Um, where should we stand? Do you need us to move?"
    "You're fine. Who would have thought? I mean, the guy WAS forgotten. Not much going on around him. Most gods you hear something about. Who he's dating, where he's living, what she's wearing. Why don't you hear about gods getting drunk? Can they get drunk? I assume there are gods out there who drink. It'd be a waste to live for thousands of years without a martini now and then. You guys want to go out for drinks after this is all over?"
    "Tuck doesn't drink," said Paul.
    "I don't drink."
    "Why not?"
    "I don't like feeling out of control."
    "He won't even take gas at the dentist. He'd rather just suffer."
    Tuck gave a tight lipped smile as Jamie looked up at him.
    "No drinks, then," she said. "Chinese food?"
    Paul laughed. "After a murder scene? Tuck won't be eating for a week."
    "Two to three hours," said his partner.
    "I get it," said Jamie, looking at the floor. "But you two WILL hang out with me sometime. My boyfriend is out of town for a month, I'm bored, and you two are more fun than Buffy reruns."
    Tuck looked at Paul, lost.
    "You know," said Paul, grinning. "The demon slayer show?"
    "Oh, yeah. That fake docudrama. I hate that show."
    "You and all the other demons."
    "Nobody thinks it's actually real," said Jamie, looking at the window closely, "just like that show about angels spending all their time helping people."
    Paul snorted. "Like we have the time for that. Ruled by the mortgage. Not all of us have been making money for the last thousand years. You find anything?"
    "Yeah. The smudges on the dirt here suggest that they took the screen out for the shot and put it back. That mean anything?"
    "That they were careful," said Tuck, "but we already knew that."
    "Somebody had tea," called one of the crew from the kitchen. "Anyone want some?"
    "What kind?"
    "Peach-a-Palooza."
    Paul wrinkled his nose. "We'll pass," he called back, then turned to Tuck. "Why do people drink fruit tea? Tea is supposed to be from leaves. No fruit. No hips. You with me on this?"
    Tuck shrugged. "Partially. I prefer Peach 'Plosion to Peach-a-Palooza."
    "Seriously? You DRINK that stuff?"
    "Not Peach-a-Palooza."
    "Holes on the table," called another of the crew. "Little ones, like they had something screwed in here."
    "Makes sense," said Paul. "They'd need some kind of mount for two shots that close together at this distance."
    Tuck glanced out the window toward where he thought Forgotten Zed's apartment must be. "I can't even see it," he muttered.
    "What was that?" asked Jamie.
    "The building. Zed's apartment. I can't tell where it is from here."
    "No kidding. That's an amazing shot."
    "Two amazing shots," said Paul, "which probably means they braced the table as well. Everybody off."
    Tuck stepped back awkwardly off the rug as Paul rolled it up, shoving it against the wall.
    "We are trampling the rules of evidence under foot like the Romans in Carthage," he protested.
    "The Romans had rules about evidence?"
    "Just one: don't destroy it."
    "Pish," said Paul, crouching down close to the floor. "See? Holes. They attached the table to the floor."
    "And what's this," said Jamie, on her knees and pulling out a flashlight. "Looks like blood here."
    "Finally," said Paul with a smile. "They left a little bit of a mess. Something you can get a lead from, Tuck?"
    "If it's leftover from a fight, then I'd think so." Tuck took a deep breath. It meant another hour or two of feeling terrible, but that was to be expected. "Part of the job, right?"
    "Exactly," said Paul. "And when it's done, we take Jamie out for Chinese."
    "I thought we were doing Denny's?"
    "Only if it's three in the morning. Otherwise I override you and say it's Chinese."
    "I know an all night Chinese place," chipped in Jamie.
    "In that case," said Paul, "it's definitely Chinese."
    Tuck crouched down over the blood stain. "But I like pancakes," he muttered.