Teeth. The only thing Forensics found was teeth. How many weeks, how many months had she spent trailing this guy? And all they could find at his apartment was three molars and an incisor? What a joke. But still, she was glad that it wasn’t her digging through that mess. He’d lived there for fifteen years and not once thrown out the garbage. The filth and accompanying insects were bad enough, but she couldn’t handle the smell. God, the smell. The sickly sweet aroma of rotting food, human waste, and industrial-strength emulsifiers made her vomit minutes into her first visit, and she had no desire to repeat that experience. I’ll have to make this work.
“Hey Liz, this one is for you.”
Alan Washburn, the mail guy. They’d dated for a few months several years back, but even after their falling out he never stopped giving off “I’m interested” vibes. She wasn’t, but he was ever hopeful. Never again, Alan, but thanks for the mail. She took the small brown package from him.
“Who is this from? There’s no name or address or anything.”
“Beats me. A guy I’d never seen before handed it to me on the way up. He said you’d want to have it.”
“You brought me an unlabeled package from someone you’ve never seen before?”
“Well, yeah, I uh…” he stammered, blushing.
“Thanks, Al.” It was likely junk—for years the local wannabe detectives tried to pull her into their investigations at the last minute with mysterious packages like these, and their frequency increased to absurd levels now that she was lead investigator. I’ll look at it tomorrow. She set it with the other mail on the corner of her desk. Wait, what’s that? On the corner of the package there was a deep red stain, spreading like ink across the brown paper wrapping. Oh crap it’s going to get on everything… She hurriedly grabbed the package, rushed into the nearby break room, and set it into the stainless steel sink. Gloves. I know they’re around here somewhere. She glanced around the room. First-aid kit, right beside the vending machines. There was one pair of blue latex gloves left. They were big, too big to be comfortable, but in these circumstances she couldn’t be picky. The package was still leaking.
She cut through the outer wrapping and found a wooden box inside. The wood was figured, perhaps mahogany, and had an unusual holographic sheen under the room’s fluorescent lights. There were no visible hinges, but there was a small, inset hole on the bottom: the source of the leak. After pulling slowly on each side, a gap became visible, large enough to work a fingernail into. The two sides slid apart smoothly, without much resistance, and revealed their contents: a neatly folded piece of paper and a severed thumb, warm to the touch. Blood. It’s freaking blood. She resisted the urge to throw up and unfolded the blood-stained paper. A message was written in ornamental cursive:
I saw everything.
There was more than just teeth. —W.D.
So there was a witness.