The Undead

CHAPTER 7 - Back to Cape May [By Jenn]

CHAPTER 7 - Back to Cape May [by Jenn]

   Crime Scene Investigator Sienna Rose arrives at the crime scene at five in the morning. She receives a call from Detective Gabriel Santos of Cape May City Police Department just a few minutes ago saying that a man was murdered in his home in Cape May, New Jersey. She will be doing the initial walk-through of the scene to get an overall feel of the scene without touching anything. 

   She ducks under the yellow crime scene tape to get into the victim’s house. She enters the house to find the living room where the couch is situated at the middle of the room facing a television set placed at the wall on the right hand side of room. There are pillows and a white blanket on the couch in perfect mess. The remote control of the television is seen on the floor at the corner of the wall where the television set is and the wall where the front door is. The broken pieces of the glass ash tray scatters on the floor just below the table situated between the television set and the couch. The left hand side of the living room seems untouched. There are some small brownish-red fluid droppings on the floor leading towards a door on the right side of the television set. A splatter of the same brownish-red fluid is also visible on the floor between the couch and the table. The splatter is almost cylindrical and has a diameter of about 12 centimeters. The fluid droppings begin from the splatter and continue towards the door and into the master bedroom. 

   CSI Rose finds herself walking slowly towards the master bedroom door with the pen and notebook in her hand after writing down what she sees at the living room. She stops at every few steps to take photos of the findings that she writes on her notebook. As soon as she stands in front of the master bedroom’s door, she gasps in awe at the scene she’s looking at. ‘No assumptions, no opinion’, she thoughts to herself although she would love to think that the killer is somewhat insane. She regains her composure to note everything she witnesses from the master bedroom. 

   The bed is situated at the middle of the room connected to the wall facing the bedroom door. There are two windows located just behind the bed and at the walls to her right hand side. The droppings of the brownish-red fluid continue up to the bed and stop at a large splatter of the same fluid on the mattress on the bed. The body of a Caucasian male, in his thirties is hanged to the ceiling with both of his hands tied up to string. The string from his hand is made to hang to the support of the ceiling panel and pull down towards the window on the right hand side where the string is tied up. There are also drops of the brownish-red fluid, presumably blood, dripping from the body’s forehead on the floor right below where he is hanged. CSI Rose can see a bullet hole on the forehead of the body. She scans through the room with her eyes. A .40 cal gun lays on the floor next the dripping blood below the body. At the corner of the room, on her left hand side, she can see a cartridge casing of the bullet.

   After writing down what she sees on her notebook, she walks out of the room to find Detective Santos standing in the living room. “He was one of our men, you know”, he begins.

“I’m sorry to hear that”, CSI Rose only finds those words come out of her mouth.

“Aaron Fleming. His father used to be my senior at the City Police Department. We were in the middle of investigating a murder at the Rhythm of The Sea inn that resembles the unsolved murder case of his father”. Detective Santos pauses and sighs. He then continues, “Now, Aaron’s gone too”. He stops there. 

   CSI Rose begins to speak, “I’m sorry to ask, but I studied about Medieval Latin during my university years in Canada, and when I see his body, it just brings me back to the sense of the late Medieval Latin through the witch hunting book, Malleus Maleficarum”

“What do you mean?” Detective Santos asks.

“The way he was hang was exactly the way witches were tortured in that era.” CSI Rose explains.

“You think witchcraft have something to do with this?”

“No. I’m saying that the killer is trying to tell us something by the way the body is hanged” CSI Rose explains further. She then ends her words, “and it may suggest that whatever happens during the witch hunting days brought the killer here today”.