by Rachel Lucas
“You don’t know how much I appreciate this,” I began as he approached.
“Sure,” he shrugged modestly, “who knows, maybe we’ll find something that was missed before.”
He handed me a pair of latex gloves and I put them on as we walked up the sidewalk. He had gone over the dos and don’ts of returning to a crime scene on the phone last night. I think I had down the basics. At the door he handed me some plastic booties like surgeons wore in surgery. I slipped them on over my brown leather boots as he did the same then pulled out an evidence envelope with a tagged set of keys.
“Are you ready for this?” He paused to ask me before he unlocked the door.
I took a deep breath and nodded. I was almost grateful now that Mark Jacobs had shown me the crime scene pictures before I had the chance to see it all myself. At least it had somewhat prepared me for what I might find on the other side of that thin metal door.
The door creaked open on rusty hinges and Logan stepped inside before me. There were just slivers of sunlight through the cracks in the boards over the windows. Logan had a flashlight ready and handed me a spare one, not knowing for sure if the small trailer still had any electricity. I was grateful he thought ahead.
I was prepared for blood and carnage but was surprised to see only some dark brown stains on one kitchen chair and a larger stain on the floor. There were dots and flecks of the dark brown on the table legs and table top, but somehow, without the body present, it didn’t seem as threatening. There were black, sooty smudges where the crime unit must have used fingerprint dust. They smeared across the table and chairs.
It looked as though there had probably been two place settings at the small metal table as well as pots and pans for the meal. Most of that had probably either been taken into evidence or removed because of the food spoiling.
Other than that, it almost seemed like a normal home. A few things were probably moved aside during the investigation, but for the most part, it could have been a place where any two people had sat down to share a meal.
We were careful not to step anywhere near the bloodstains to keep from contaminating the area, but in such a closed space, it was difficult. I walked through the small front room, still decorated much as it had been during my youth. A new pillow here or there, but still much the same.
I headed towards the front of the trailer to where Lisbeth’s room used to be. This had changed. It was now a small office area with an older computer on a wooden desk. The bed was gone and it was now carpeted in a pale pink. There was a bookshelf against one wall with books and martial arts awards filling it.
I rifled through the various books and searched around the trophies, careful not to move anything too much out of place. A few of the books I opened up and thumbed through, seeing if there were any papers or notes hidden in the pages. Nothing. I remembered a few of the books were ones Lisbeth and I had enjoyed and shared in our youth. Most were worn paperback classics, tattered at the edges from so much use.
Turning towards the computer, I wondered if anyone had ever turned it on to see if there was any important information on it. It certainly looked outdated and I wasn’t sure if it even still worked. It was something to ask Logan about.
There was a small jewelry box on a shelf filled with shiny crystals, smooth stones and charms. Nothing in it really drew my attention or recalled a memory. The walls were wall-papered in a generic floral print, flowers too big and pink for such a small room. A few small pictures were framed on the walls. Surprisingly they were pencil sketches and pen and ink drawings of Lisbeth’s fairies.
“Anything of interest?” Logan appeared in the doorway.
“Not really,” I glanced up then went back to searching through the bookshelves. “Have you found anything?”
“I’m not really sure what I’m looking for,” he gave a slight shrug.
“Did anyone check out the computer?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Not that I remember reading in the file.”
“Can we give it a try?” I walked over and sat in the narrow office chair. “I’m no computer geek but we might be able to figure it out.”
He nodded and pushed the power button. At least it turned on. Someone, perhaps the landlord, was still paying the power bill.
We watched as the screen blinked and the hard drive began to purr. It booted up, went past the operating system screen then stopped, requesting a password. In unison, we both started looking around the desk and through the one desk drawer, looking for anything that might be a password. The drawer was filled with bill stubs and receipts, nothing of interest there. The entire area was well organized and tidy. There were no sticky notes with words written on them, no notebooks with a password written in the corner. We spent several minutes searching but still came up with nothing.
I tried a few obvious words. Barbara. Barb. Elizabeth. Lisbeth. Marshall. Lizzy. Beth Ann. Bethany. Everyone of the family I could remember including Vesper and Slayer. Nothing worked. I tried Dragon, Black Dragon, Fairies, anything I could think of and every variation. I tried birthdates and holidays. Still nothing.
“Why wasn’t the computer checked during the investigation?” I asked, staring at the screen in frustration.
“We really didn’t see the need. It seemed like an open and shut case.”
“Probably a dead end anyway.” I shut the computer off and turned in the chair. “Let’s keep looking through the rest of the trailer.”
We walked back into the living room area. There wasn’t much to search there. It had one worn loveseat and a chair, and ancient TV and a few TV trays. It hadn’t changed much. A few feet more and I was already back in the kitchen area, avoiding the bloodstains and searching through the narrow kitchen cabinets. Most of the perishable food must have been removed. All that was left were a few boxes of crackers and some cooking spices. I didn’t want to spend any more time in this area than necessary so I moved on.
There was a slender hall working back from the kitchen. It was lined in cheap wooden paneling and closed in enough to make you feel claustrophobic. The first door off to the right was the bathroom. The toilet, vanity and tub were all in a matching dusky pink and close enough to touch each other. What little space was left was filled with toiletries storage, a clothes hamper, and a small bookshelf filled with paperbacks. I rifled through the science fiction novels as I had the other books, still finding nothing. It really didn’t seem like there was anything to find here.
Along the way Logan was always there. He was experienced at searching and carefully thorough without disturbing things more than necessary.
Next I went out into the hall and headed back towards the last room in the trailer. Barbara’s room was the one area I was least familiar with. I walked into the cramped room, Logan close behind. It was surprisingly neat considering she hadn’t expected it to stay frozen in time like this. There were colorful scarves draped from the light fixture in the center of the room. The bed was covered with bright throws and pillows, mostly favoring dark reds and deep greens.
There was a compact white dresser with clothes carefully folded and a small closet with sliding doors and clothes hung in spaced increments. There was nothing of real interest except for two pictures hanging on the walls.
One was above the bed and covered a good portion on the wall space. I recognized Barbara’s artistic style in the oil painting of a vivid red dragon. It had sharp black claws and bright green slanted eyes. It wore a wicked, toothy smile as it looked down on a fair maiden. She had long, dark hair and wore a flowing burgundy dress. She seemed to be trying to charm it. It may not have been good enough to be in a museum, but it was unique and detailed. It was framed in a heavy, dark wooden frame.
The other picture hung on an adjoining wall. It wasn’t as big but this dragon was jewel green with golden scales, claws and a horned tail. It was in a forest, flanked by trees and the only object in the picture.
“I thought this room was really unusual when we first went through
the crime scene,” Logan spoke behind me. I had to admit, he was right. My own mother’s bedroom would never have looked anything like this. Something about the red dragon gnawed at me.
“Find the Black Dragon with the red glowing eyes,” I said aloud. “Black dragon, not red.” An idea occurred to me. “Logan, can you help me?”
I walked around the bed and grasped the thick frame, Logan followed suit and took the other side. We carefully laid it face-down on the bed. The back was covered in generic brown paper. I searched the surface, wondering if there were any clues. Nothing. Just a smooth surface of brown paper. We hefted it back up and put it on the hook then I turned to the other picture.
It was small enough for me to lift and put face down on the bed by myself. Same brown paper, same blank surface. I sighed in frustration.
“Well, It was worth a shot,” I shrugged and placed it back on the wall.
We both took another cursory sweep of the room. Under the bed were old shoeboxes, lids missing and various worn shoes inside. I looked behind the dresser and headboard but found nothing unusual. Turning to the closet I looked at several storage bins on the shelf over the hanging clothes. I pulled them down one by one and nudged through them. They were full of scarves and clothing accessories, belts, and chunky jewelry.
“I can’t think of anywhere else to look,” I admitted as I ran a gloved hand down the turquoise satin sleeve of a dress hanging in the closet. A pleasant memory tugged at my mind.
It was a Saturday morning and I had just spent the night. Barbara and Lisbeth were dressing to go to a medieval festival. I was feeling bad because my parents wouldn’t let me go so Mother and daughter had decided to pull out all of their costumes and have a dress up party. I’d tried on several but the turquoise one was my favorite. It had long, slashed sleeved that draped to the floor and a silver under-dress. The neckline was square with a fitted bodice trimmed in silver braid. It had a matching silver woven belt that trailed to the floor along with the long flowing skirt. The colors really brought out my blue eyes.
Barbara had braided my hair away from my face with the length of it flowing down my back. Lisbeth had found a bright silver scarf to pin into it, almost like a crown. I had felt like a royal princess. I felt like Maid Marion waiting for Robin Hood or Queen Guinevere about to be introduced to her King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It had been a magical memory that I had treasured yet hid away.
I couldn’t resist pulling the dress out and looking at it again. I ran a finger town the length of one satin sleeve, wishing I could feel the smooth softness through the latex glove. It was hand-made and carefully stitched with delicate silver thread embroidered into the corset. This wasn’t the kind of dress you could just go buy in a store. It was magical somehow.
Looking up, I noticed Logan watching me with a sideways smile. He must have wondered what I found so fascinating about the dress. The moment of nostalgia was gone and I snapped back into the present. I shrugged and carefully hung it back up in the closet, putting it back with the other tucked away memories of my youth.
The train of the dress was longer than I remembered and I was having a hard time getting it all back into the cramped closet. How had it all fit in there to begin with? I moved a few other clothes aside to make more room then froze in shock.
A pair of glowing red eyes stared back at me through the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Logan,” I whispered, crouched down in front of the closet. I couldn’t say more.
He must have noted the tone in my voice. Before I knew it, he was bent to one knee beside me in the cramped space. I pushed the hanging clothes off to one side as far as I could.
There, along the back wall of the closet, was a vicious-looking black dragon staring back at me with glowing red eyes. His jagged teeth looked razor sharp, his long talons deadly. He had wide, sleek wings, opened fully as if about to take flight. It looked as though he a climbing up out of a volcanic area with glowing red and orange lava surrounding him and rising steam. Molten rivers crawled around it, oozing liquid fire so bright you could almost feel the heat.
It was either the bowels of a volcano or the depths of hell. It might as well have been climbing right out of the closet and coming for me, as much as my hands were shaking.
I didn’t think, after all I had seen and been though in my life, that I would be that easily frightened by a painting. But there was something in the evil eyes that sent shivers up my spine.
“What the hell?” Logan pulled back a fraction once he saw the picture. He knelt frozen in place beside me as his eyes tried to register what he was seeing.
I was already gingerly reaching into the closet, feeling my way for the edges on the picture. I was almost afraid to get too close, as if those fierce talons would reach right out and claw me.
“Is it painted on to the wall or is it separate?” He asked quietly.
I couldn’t feel a matt or a frame. I thought at first it had been painted right onto the wall until my clumsy hands felt a slight edge.
“I think I feel the edge of the canvas.” Logan was finally in action, reaching up and pulling clothes out of the closet, draping them across the bed and giving us more room to see. Musty clothes gave off dust clouds as he stacked them up. By the time the bed was piled high with clothes, we still had only a partial view of the dragon.
Without a word, Logan began removing the sliding closet doors from their railing, placing each door against the back wall of the small bedroom. One he was done, a more complete picture of the dragon was revealed. Logan could see where I was searching for the edge of the canvas and knelt beside me.
“Let me help.” Side by side we peeled the canvas away from the wall. It had been taped on with an electrical tape so dark and thin you could hardly see where the picture ended and the tape began. “Careful.” He cautioned, neither one of us wanted the canvas damaged. It was a pain-staking process, inch by inch, trying to be so careful not to tear the aging canvas. My hands felt even more inept and clumsy through the awkward latex gloves.
Once the last of the tape came away from the wall we lifted the canvas and came to our feet, each holding two corners of it. Without a word exchanged, we both looked around for a large enough surface to spread it out on, but with the bed full of clothes our options were limited.
“Front room floor,” I suggested as we gently rolled up the canvas and headed down the narrow hall.
Once in the front room we knelt down and spread it out face up on the carpet between us. The room was so small, there was hardly enough space for the canvas to be laid out.
I looked closely over the details of the painting, noticing how intricate she had been with the smallest things such as the individual scales on its back, the graceful yet powerful arch of its neck, the sharp thorns sticking out from its tail. The blood-red eyes had such depth you almost thought they were real.
I carefully tried to look over every inch of the painted canvas, looking for anything out of the ordinary. To my naked eye, I couldn’t see anything more than the vivid, frightening painting. I ran a gloved hand over the surface, frustrated that I could feel so little through the latex.
“Let’s check the back,” Logan suggested.
We carefully flipped it over face down then, with delicate fingers, we each started at opposing corners of the canvas and searched the textured surface for any words, pictures or symbols. The canvas was eggshell white and at first glance it was just one plain field.
There had to be something here. There had to be. I hoped Slayer hadn’t just told me about this to throw me off. What else could he have been talking about? How had he even known about it? Could I really even trust him?
I was almost finished searching my side, trying so hard not to feel frustrated at not finding anything, when Logan spoke.
“There’s a raised area right here,” he ran his gloved fingertips over an area in the bottom corner. I leaned over and felt the same area. He was right. I pulled the canva
s back and looked at the front of the picture. Nothing obvious stood out that would cause a raised area in the back. There was nothing there but a black background. Flipping over to the blank surface I again traced the area. I could swear there was writing. It was almost in the area where an artist would put their signature. I hadn’t noticed Barbara’s signature on the front anywhere. What could it be?
“Wait, I have an idea.” Without another word, Logan jumped up and walked into the small office. I could hear him rifling through the desk drawer. After another moment he was back and kneeling on the floor again. He’d found a basic lead pencil and was using the side of the lead to rub it lightly over the raised surface.
Carefully, back and forth he rubbed, using only subtle pressure with the pencil lead, trying not to damage the surface below. After a few moments, like magic, words started appearing. I gazed down at the words in a hand-written calligraphy.
Atrus Dracona
We looked at each other in curiosity. What did it mean?
“Does it mean anything to you?” He asked.
I shook my head. Why go to such lengths to hide these words? What was their importance? How would anyone have ever been able to find them without Slayer’s hints?
“It may be Latin, but I’m not sure. I need my computer to search it. Maybe we should head back to the department and….”
I was already on my feet and heading for the office area. By the time I was sitting at the computer desk and pushing the power button he was at my side. The screen blinked to life again and we each held our breath as the password screen came up.
“How was it spelled again?” I asked
“A…T…R…U…S,” He spelled out as I typed it onto the keyboard. “D…R…A…C…O…N…A.”
I pushed the “enter” key and watched as it accepted the password.
“Yes!” Logan let out and we both smiled at each other.
The computer was slow, sluggish. The operating system was outdated to the point of being archaic. I thought it would be nightfall by the time it completely booted up.