Autopsy of a Mind

Chapter 37: Steak and Stew

[Warning: Gruesome description/imagery]

"You are staying here," he said firmly, but I had already gotten out of the car.

"You can't show me anything worse than I have already seen." I shrugged. He sighed and silently contemplated for a moment. In the face of my stubbornness, there was not much he could do.

"If we are getting you to a psychiatrist, I can afford some more trauma to your senses." His words made me smile. Determined to prove him wrong, I followed him silently and entered the building.

A rush of policemen had cornered a harmless looking older lady who scrunched her face in panic as the words were fired at her.

"What did he tell you?" She couldn't answer.

"He said" the woman stopped, her face looked pained as she searched for the words. Then she said a string of sentences which caught my attention. She spoke in Korean.

"Should I help them translate? Do they have a translator on board?" I asked Sebastian as we walked up the stairs.

"Do you know the language?" I nodded.

"I will ask if they need help when we come down. We need to see the crime scene first," he told me. "You brought your notepad and pen, right? I need you to take notes." I nodded.

We entered the house to the smell of stale food.

Two officers came out, their faces ashen as the neared us.

"Sebastian Butler?" one of them asked, hoping he was right.

"Yes, that is me." The guy nodded and ushered us in.

"Be prepared for the worst," the other warned us.

The scene was a massacre. The walls of the hallway had splatters of blood all over it, the floor was drenched in blood. There was a little space on the sides for us to walk around, but the scene was gruesome. However, I didn't know that I had not seen anything yet.

There were blood trails leading to another room.

"What do you think happened here?" Sebastian asked, his hands inside his pocket. He seemed at ease with the scene. Even I was influenced by him. It was as if I felt nothing towards these people, so I didn't need to panic to make the killer die. Everything was analytical. Maybe it would change when I saw the body.

"These blood spatters look like the weapon was used to strike multiple times," I glanced around the walls, the blood trail led all over the ceiling as well. "There was a definite withdrawing motion and it was very passionately done. The splatters go up until the ceiling. So the blood from the weapon flew up at the motion." The explanation was more for my benefit than anything.

"What do you think the weapon was?" he asked. I shook my head, bewildered as to how I would figure that out.

"I don't know. I would have to see the body for that." The other two policemen remained silent, observing the communication between the two of us.

"Where is the body?" Sebastian asked. The resulting scoff made me reconsider my choice of coming inside. It was going to be unsightly.

"Here," one of them said, pointing towards the room to which the dragging trail of blood led.

We followed suit, unsure of what we would find. But the scene was domestic. The floor was obviously wiped clean once the body entered the dining-cum-kitchen, but why I couldn't figure it out.

The room was spotless, and the dcor was beautiful. There was a little dining table, quaintly set and there were two plates on it. On further speculation, one of the plates was empty. There were utensils in the kitchen sink and a pot immaculately sitting on top of the professional looking stove.

We walked towards it and realized that there was something very wrong about this scene.

"Has everything been taken pictures of?" Sebastian asked, his voice low.

"Yes, sir. There is more."

I moved forward towards the food on the table and realized what was wrong. The placement of the food on the table was that of a gourmet restaurant, but the scent of the meat gave off much more information than was required by me to understand what I was looking at.

I felt oddly hollow and calm at the moment. There was no guilt or panic at having stumbled upon a similar case, neither was there anger towards the one who had committed the murder.

"Knives," I said loudly as I moved towards the sink. A set of knives were inside the sink, they were cleaned but looked like they were being disinfected or something. I recognized the knives used and moved towards the pot on the stove.

"Steak and stew," I could tell from the smell.

It was an image of domesticity that I was used to. "Don't open that!" I heard one of the policemen say, but I had already placed my gloved hand on the lid of the top and opened it.

They waited mutely for my scream of horror, but it didn't come.

"I had heard of stew from fish head, but this is the first time I am seeing it with a homo sapien." I put the lid back on. "You don't want to see this," I informed Sebastian.

He was pleased by my countenance.

"So, you know where the body is?" he asked, somewhat amused by my unaffected attitude. He must have been able to read me like an open book.

"There is no body. She made sure to chop it and portion it. The rest is probably in her freezer with her regular meat." I shrugged.

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