A Shade Within a Murder of Crows (S&S Version)
Crow perched upon a high branch, drawn to the fresh corpses below by his gluttonous hunger. He wanted to feast on the pungent flesh, was desperate to do so, but Crow had a wariness toward a dangerous-smelling man sitting at a fire nearby. Instead, Crow pondered if the delicious corpses were some form of trap to catch unclever crows, which he was not. So Crow watched and waited.
Caw!
The dangerous-smelling man looked up and smirked at Crow, as if he was waiting for him. Crow studied the man suspicious, and how the shadows surrounding the man seemed angry. Crow’s desire to steal a taste from the fresh bodies ended up trumping his distrust though. Crow glided down and settled on the human corpse, wings taunt, poised to burst into flight if the man indeed tried to trap Crow. Crow spoke a warning to the man.
Caw! Caw!
The man laughed as if he could read Crow’s thoughts and cawed back, “Go ahead, clever crow. Feast! Leave nothing behind but his fuckin’ bones!” Shadows flickered violently.
Crow responded to the man’s invitation by ripping off a morsel of the sweet flesh from the wounded neck. As Crow ate, slowly another crow flew in to join his feast, then another. In time, the corpses were being devoured by the full murder; the man laughed his awful laugh, and cawed back at them all, “Yes! Leave nothing behind...”
The murder of crows cut off the rest of his words:
Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…
---
Detective Elliot spat in defiant disgust, as he looked up into the trees, never believing so many damn crows could cluster together; cawing their collective rage.
It was ominous to witness. It was damn irritating to listen to. It made the crime scene feel even more grim. Between the morbid display of the bodies and how the lighting threw queer shadows that seemed unbound, the scene didn’t need any help with its sense of grimness.
“Is there anything we can do about the damned birds?”
“Sorry Detective, we figured just working the scene would have eventually driven them all away,” Investigator Kelly responded, leaving the rest of what he wanted to say unsaid.
Detective Elliot gave him a slight nod and turned his focus back to the two corpses. Both more bones than flesh now. The John Doe was left embracing the killed deer. Before Elliot could ask his next question, Kelly answered as if he read the thought.
“Not sure the motive behind the placement, detective. However, it definitely attracted the carrion feeders quicker, surprisingly.”
“Anything of note?” Elliot queried.
“The victim’s ring finger is missing and the bone appears to have been cut.”
“Hmmmm,” Detective Elliot took in the scene, so much familiar, yet so much uniquely out of place. Odd pieces to an otherwise all-too-familiar puzzle. The puzzles compelled him forward. He had a talent making the pieces fall into place. That was as much his drive as seeing justice done.
Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…
Detective Elliot looked forward to solving this twisted puzzle and finding the bastard that committed this murder. He savored finding the culprit.
Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…
“Can someone do something about these damned crows?”
---
I can still feel the echo of my throat being slit, as I watch the detective and the other’s study my lifeless body. A body I do not even recognize at this point, no small thanks to the crows.
I can still recall how the blood spilled from my neck as the investigator probes what was once a simple gash.
I can still recall the feeling of trying to take a breath but drowning on my own blood instead.
I can still recall the exact moment of my death. My soul suddenly watching my killer hold my lifeless form, a feral smile of satisfaction on his smug, bastard face. To think I pitied him. To have agreed to take him with me on my usual solitary hunting trip as an act of kindness and fellowship.
The bastard lied about it all! He lied about me being one of his few friends, about his lack of hunting expertise, and about never being to this spot before. Watching him now as a shade of what I was, it was obvious he had an intimacy with this place, with my particular hunting spot. I still shiver at the thought of how long he must have stalked me. He didn’t just have a moment of passion; my murder was something planned, over a long period of time.
I recall when that crow finally chanced to feast upon my dead corpse. Choosing mine over the deer’s. I recall the rage that filled me when I felt the words, “Go ahead, clever crow. Feast. Leave nothing behind but his fuckin’ bones!” How I raged. My rage seemed to ground me. Build until vengeance seemed my only thought.
I think I will follow this detective for a time. Maybe I’ll have a way to nudge him toward my killer, how though, I have no idea.
I recall the haunting sound of the murder of crows when they feasting on my former form.
Caw-Caw-Caw-Caw…
How I would love to deal with the bastard myself though.
---
Detective Elliot exhaled as he listened to Mrs. Losstrum sob as she left his office. Elliot’s John Doe turned out to be her husband, a Mr. Stephen Losstrum. He replayed the conversation he had with her in his head, confirming what his gut already knew. She wasn’t involved.
She didn’t provide much to follow either. Steven was well loved. She couldn’t imagine him having any enemies. She only showed surprise when Elliot suggested it was not a random murder. Supposedly, Mrs. Losstrum didn’t even know where her husband’s secret hunting spot was. He always went alone. A secret from her, but a known secret.
The only tangible clue she did give him was the description of her husband’s wedding band. A simple silver band, marked with only two tiny sapphires. It wasn’t much, but at least he knew what the trophy that was kept looked like.
Elliot exhaled again, pondering his only other memory of the conversation. How the shadows played on the wall, almost as if another shadow was trying to comfort hers.
The illusion gave him a chill down his back and for the first time since visiting the crime scene, he thought about all of the crows and their shrill song, but it came out as:
We know-We know-We know…
---
“...and how well would you say you knew Mr. Losstrum?” the detective asked.
“Not well,” the man lied, while imagining how beautiful it would be to slice open this bastard cop’s neck wide open. The bastard deserved it for interrogating him in Steven’s old office. It was dangerously shrewd, a cruel genius to do it in a room with so much...familiarity. Easy to lie, harder to lie with the feeling of a ghost watching you. “I mean Steven and I obviously worked together and tended to be the last ones out of the office, but we really never socialized outside of the office.”
“Did Mr. Losstrum mention his hunting trip at all in one of those late nights?”
“No,” he lied easily again. Although, it took effort for him not to smile thinking about that first crow eating Steven’s corpse and telling that crow to leave nothing behind but the fuckin’ bones!
“Did you know his wife?”
“No,” he lied again, even as she bloomed fully into his imagination, a forbidden fruit almost in reach now, the last piece of Steven’s life to claim. Steven had everything he ever wanted. Now everything Steven had was slowly becoming his. The wife was the last prize and was only a matter of time, even if she was to be a singular taste.
The detective’s shadow seemed to dance violently.
A picture frame on Steven’s desk suddenly fell over, brushed only by the shadow. The fall drew both of their stares to it. It was a picture of the wife. It was impossible not to look at her for more than just a moment, his final prize, to taste her sweet flesh just once. His lust flowed.
“I mean, I met her briefly at office parties, but that was about it,” the man said, trying to reign in his momentary wave of desire.
“I see,” said the detective, “I suppose there is nothing else to ask. Thank you for your time, Mr. Gilmore.”
“Anything to help,” Gilmore replied, shaking the bastard cop’s hand while dreaming again about slicing his throat. The detective left him wary. So many shadows seem to haunt him lately. Now the detective’s taunted him as well. It made him think the crow cawing:
He knows-he knows-he knows...
Yes, this bastard cop just might know. I may need to rectify that soon, thought Gilmore, followed by imagining slicing the bastard's cop neck clean open.
---
Detective Elliot looked at the body crumpled like a ragdoll at the bottom of the stairwell. If the poor bastard didn’t die of a broken neck, thought Elliot, he died from every other bone being broken. The wall was nearly as broken as the man. The head resembled a smashed fruit. It was as if someone shot the poor bastard out of a canon from the top of the stairs. It was a scene of disbelief.
“Detective! You’ll want to see this!”
Elliot turned and followed the officer to the landlord’s office. There, they replayed the close-circuit security feeds of the stairwell and the hallway leading to it. He watched the victim leave his apartment alone.
“Pause it! Yeah, right there!”
Detective Elliot studied the face. He knew that face. It was that Don Gilmore that he interviewed a week or so back regarding the Losstrum murder. He got an odd feeling about the man, he seemed a bit taken with Losstrum’s wife. It was a motive. Elliot was planning to have a second interview with him, but had a number of people that seemed to have more motive to weed through first.
“Detective?”
“Oh, sorry. It is just I met this man not too long ago. Go ahead, and continue the video.”
Elliot watched as Don Gilmore got to the top of the stairway. Then, he saw something unbelievable.
“Go back. Play that again!”
“I told you that you needed to see it, detective!”
They played the scene a second time. A third in slow motion. Don Gilmore’s body flails at the top of the stairwell as if he was suddenly pushed impossibly hard from behind. Yet, after his body starts to fly down the stairs, his shadow seemed to stay behind at the top of the stairs.
They watched each feed dozen more times, to see if there was anyone else there. The videos seemed to show no one else, just Gilmore and his queer shadow.
Elliott recalled how shadows seemed to actively haunt the Losstrum case. His gut suddenly screamed a suspicion.
“I would like to look in his apartment, please...”
The landlord lead Elliot and the other officers into Don Gilmore’s small apartment. It didn’t take long to find what his instincts suddenly urged him to look for. Sitting naked, alone on Don Gilmore’s nightstand was a simple ring of silver. Looking closer, a simple ring of silver with two tiny sapphires.
Elliot had a vibe go up his spine. He could almost hear a crow caw:
See...see...see...
Elliot solved one case in that moment. He also believed this was a homicide as well, and who the killer was. Yet, he knew this new case would always be a mystery. Who would believe that a man was killed by a shadow pretending to be his own? A shadow belonging to a man already dead?