Chapter One
01. Poison Beauty
In a early morning, a floating corpse floated up on the coast. The man who discovered it on the first day was a fool. He goes to the beach everyday to pick up shells. And the fool man always comes back from seaside that his pockets budging with beautiful shells. Now his voice is faltering, he is trying to explain for the people in the police station, gesticulates with his hands.
The fool man:" There is... there is an angel... in the sea. No, I must be in heaven, I see an angle with broken wings."
The officer:" What are you talking about? Clam down. Tell me, what's going on?"
The fool man:" I don't know. I really have no idea... I just, I just want to help her to the shore. But... When I touched her..."
The fool man:" When I touched her, I could feel her past anger and sadness. Poor woman!"
The officer:" God! Nonsense! What's wrong with you?"
The fool was halting and repeating these words again and again. But the only man who knew what he meant was the sheriff.
The sheriff came to Jess's office, the door of the office was ajar. The sheriff knocked on his office door and walked in.
The sheriff:" Jesses, someone found something strange on the beach, go see it."
Jesse's eyes met the sheriff 's but he turned his head away, his eyes contact tended to be transient.
Jesses:" All right, got it."
Jess stood up and changed other clothes, he thought that sheriff wanted to see it but he never bothered to see it by himself. He knows, the sheriff likes bossing the others around.In this town Jess was the only legal medical expert who has a blue raincoat on.
No one knew where the dead would go, as nobody knew where she came from.
The body was wrapped in a white cloth, the cheapness white cloth soaked in seawater for a long time, it was like a thin sheet of paper, but it also seemed like a plastic that couldn't sink. Her black hair, like seaweed mixed with sand and gravel, was floating near the faded collar. This made Jess remember his short-spoken wife. Or ex-wife, Jess didn't know.
But he always believed that she wasn't a good woman. She didn't care about her some unpleasant behaviors. Because she was not obeyed and listened to him, and she never try. Most of time she was a little crazy. Eventually he imprisoned her in a house. In his memory, her physical changed, she had a huge body. She looked like a ugly woman almost hardly ever went out to meet people. His wife black hair hung freely like wild grass. Sometimes she was like a wild dog that he retrieved from road and hysterical, screamed at him. Or she curled up in the corner of the living room alone, just like a potted plant that someone ignored for a long time, withered and died. Her shoulders were shaken with sobs.
"Women do, especially the stage of beauty." The sheriff said frivolously and patted Jesse's shoulder. Then he called for a glass of beer again but Jess found he was totally drunk.
Jesse never touched alcohol. He couldn't forget the only time that he drinking was at wedding night. To be exact, for him, that was not alcohol. He kissed her with a mouthful of wine. It was to be the first and last time. There must had something to be commemorated and the deep kiss kept it for wedding night. But it wasn't Jesses's real intention. He did it only for disinfection. As a woman, he couldn't imagine how many times she had exchanged saliva with other men. He hated those men. She loved him, she did that for everyone. But he wanted she to know how much he loved her. He couldn't. Who cares how many bacteria will be produced during the exchange of saliva? Caution is the basic quality of a physician, Including his careful love for her, It's always right to be cautious.
Jess recalled, as soon as he rolled body over. Toolbox neared his feet. It has most of tools that he could use to disassemble the corpse. Even a small folding hacksaw. The face of body was submerged in motionless of water and festered. The swollen lips reminded him of that first kiss. The experience was not very good. He touched her, his touch just like touched the dead solidification of fat in the morgue. An odinary day of forensic.
Jesses slit dead body's shirt with a short knife and a steady operating measure. Every attack was fast and accurate. That benefited from his "patient" never cried like women or like a naughty child. Jesses had a bad impression of paediatrics or gynecology. Neither it didn't stop he from gathering his wife to himself nor did he prevent him from giving his children a reserved, paternal hug.
Children, yes, they had two kids. A classy girl and a fantastic boy. Jesses raised his wrist, checked his watch through raincoat. The forensics calculated the time he would spend. Maybe he could go to the grocery store, after ended the very time-consuming emergent task. He will buy his daughter a new set of chess and give a stuffed bear doll for his son. They will take the gifts lovely from their father, a real little lady and a little gentleman.
When Jesses unwrapped the thinnest layer of material that close to body's skin. Lividity were exposed, the belly of body was covered in the lividity. It used to be soft. At the thought of the uterus, he remembered his wife. How about my wife? What present can I take for her?
He didn't know, he gussed she had no idea either. Fashionable dress and shoes, brand-name perfume, headline magazine......she never had anything in particular that she wanted. Except for one thing, once she said to him, she desired to have a home. So Jesses decided to eloped with her to this lonely and weird seaside town named 'Rust Lake Town', the young couple started a family. Jesse thought that ocean gave birth to life, and there was nothing like the sea to be home.
The saw scratched on the human flesh, he cut the small belly of a stranger mechanically. Pretty frosty fat, though.
The body was creaking. Of course it was a very stiff body, and the corpse was always stiffness. When he was a famous medical student, he had a keen interest in the corpse. Human had been born of mother nature, then the body became harden after death, just like a bundle of thick firewood , after burning, ashed return to nature. What an amazing nature.
Jesses recalled when he was a young, in summer childhood, he scraped away the back yard dirt and chopped up a little bug. Knife parted thin wings gently, blue and green sap was out, the little bug who was divided into seven segments of the stump. Kids are born artists.
What about his wife? what will she do?Jess hung his lashes. It was nightfall when the sun retreated. He took the children home, but she hadn't cook yet. He went into the kitchen where there was a long line of black marks on the white porcelain plate, some of which had been left by the lampblack, some are dry and coagulated by human blood. Her hands were locked together in chains, she snuffed her nose and crouched on the side of the cabinet with the liquid gas tank was off. He close to her, she shuddered as he approached. The black mess on the plate didn't look good.
Jesses:" What would you truly want?"
The husband asked, man's sound unable to hear emotion.
Sally:" I... I want to go home."
The wife answered honestly.
Sally:" Please...please, let me go home, please.."
Jesses kept silence, he didn't speak anything, but bent over and touched her tangled black hair. They were so close that Jesse almost kissed his wife's swollen eyes. His wife hand, it was full of scars, she pulled Jesses's suit shirt again and again.
Jesses couldn't control the force when he opened body's chest as if he was not able to keep himself in his family's memories. The dead had no lungs and no kidneys, the female genitalia had festered, and the killer had even taken the heart of a stranger. Who knows what the hell that this kind of criminals are thinking all day. The forensic, touched the victim's ragged cheekbones with wearing rubber gloves. It was feel like touching his disappear wife's black and blue cheeks.
She disappeared in a rain-swept night, bare feet, covered in a red old linen skirt. She disappeared down the streets of the town, like a piece of pink gum that had been crushed in black and then shoveled relentlessly. She disappeared into the direction of the sea, left her family and her husband behind, Jesses watched her go, and she never looked back.
A run away wife, a disqualification husband.
A poor family.
Jesses came to the beach, took out the phone and dialed the sheriff's number.
Jesses:"Hello, Sir. This is jessi. I've looked over it. There's nothing on the beach."
After rain, the wind blew a hard, cold blast, so that Jesses could not help holding his coat close about him. The sheriff laughed at the other end of the phone. Jesses hung up.
After work, he went to the grocery store twice. He bought chess, glass jars, formalin, stuffed toys and tootbrushes. The sky cleared after the rain, the raincoat was abandoned in the trash by him before entered the store.
No one asked where his wife was, and when he came home, the children gathered about him. No one asked where their mother had gone.
Only Jesse's cramped bookshelf had one more unique collection. A heart soaked in formalin. It was there, with fresh blood. Only the forensic knew who that belongs to.
He nursed her, just like a fascinating piece of futuristic art, like the statue of David which was meticulously carved. He thought he still love her, whatever form and exterior. He gave their children a not clean hug before delivered the gift.
It was lunch time.
To be continued ...
