-Jill-
I'm still not a morning person, but when I must get up I've always been able to. When I don't, you need a catapult to launch me out of bed. Derek already left for work, saying goodbye with a kiss and receiving a slap in the ass from me. I finish making Jesse's lunch and put it on the counter as I finish my coffee.
I miss six-year-old Jesse. This thirteen-year-old Jesse is a handful. He's already as tall as me, with acne on his chin he tries to hide. His hair is longer, but he cuts it short in the summer. I don't like his sarcasm, but then again, I'm one to talk. He picked up the sarcasm from me, not Derek.
Jesse comes into the kitchen with his bag slung over one shoulder. He thinks he's sneaky by adding a snack cake, assuming I'm not paying attention.
"No cakes for breakfast," I say, and he groans and puts it back. He grabs his lunch and tries to walk past me again, but I stop him by rising my foot in front of him. "Pay the toll punk."
"Really?" He asks annoyed. I don't relent, and he is only allowed to go if he kisses me on the cheek. "You're weird." He still kisses me.
"Go learn something," I say before he leaves for school. The apartment is mine for the time being, and I have a few hours until I need to go in. This is when I typically do my physical therapy.
Seven years later, and my shoulder never fully recovered. I was never told it would however. I was told the opposite as a matter of fact. Sometimes an accurate diagnosis sucks.
Taking a resistance band, I pull my arm up to the side until parallel. The band keeps me from going much higher, but I fight against it, and lower it back down. I repeat this action multiple times. I squat a little and do rows. I pull it up from the front.
This session takes me about twenty minutes, and I've been doing this for seven years without fail, every day. I'm no longer on the pain meds, and I really didn't like them anyway. They turned me into another person.
After my therapy I get dressed in cargo khakis with a blouse and pull my laminate over my head with my left hand. My credentials dangle just below my breasts. 'Jill Whitaker, CSI'.
I spend most of my days in the crime lab. You'd be amazed how little I actually go out, but I do make an appearance at a scene about once a week. Mostly my techs collect the samples, takes pictures, and other procedural necessities. We then all process them at the lab together. I only go out for the murders.
I'm waiting for a blood sample to finish in the centrifuge when I get a call that I'm needed at a scene. I make the five other members rock paper scissors to fight for the spot to go with me. Heath wins so packs up our bags and rides with me over to the crime scene. Heath is fresh out of school and is still learning, but he is a data sponge.
Possible murder suicide by the look of it at first glance. Man dead in the kitchen, slumped backward over the table like he'll fall any second. He has two gun shot wounds to the chest, but the blood spatter is minimal. It was not a through and through shot, the bullets likely still in him. He died almost immediately, stopping his heart and the blood flow. The fact he didn't keel over with the wounds facing up, kept the blood from pooling.
The woman is dead in the living room, gun shot wound to the head, left side. Through and through, the bullet through the television and then into the wall. The entertainment center is a lovely red mist. Her blood is pooled on the ground around her head. In her hand she is still grasping a Barretta nine-millimeter.
We take pictures before we move anything and I eject the magazine from the pistol to examine the ammunition. Ten round magazine, seven bullets remaining. The number adds up, but other things don't. She was shot in the left side but the gun is grasped in her right. We dig the bullet from the wall, and the calibers don't match. The bullet that went through her head was a thirty eight.
I reexamine the man and gauge the diameter of his entry wounds. The coroner will know for sure, but they look more like hollow point thirty-eights than nine mil. It hit the woman directly in the temple and met virtually no resistance so was able to go straight through. The man it hit at center body mass, so the bullets were able to do what hollow points do.
This isn't a murder suicide, this is a double homicide.
"What's the situation?" one detective asks another.
"Murder suicide, pretty open shut case," he replies to his partner.
"Nope," I say from the woman's body, trying to angle out the trajectory of the bullet that hit her.
"Excuse me?" The detective asks.
Detective Chase Kramner is a green detective, fairly new with more swagger than sense. He walks and talks like he has a camera crew following him. Faux hawk haircut with white pants and a polo, looking like a frat boy. Bless his heart.
"Looking more like a double homicide," I say, and he snickers and shakes his head.
"Dead hubby on the table, wife dead holding the gun..." He starts, his tone incredibly condescending.
"Holding the gun in her right hand with a left entry wound. Is she a contortionist?" I ask, his partner holding back a laugh. "There is also no point blank residue on her head, and the calibers don't match genius. Ever tried firing a thirty height from a Barretta?"
"Why is she missing bullets in her clip then?" He asks, and I think I've got the angle down. A slightly downward trajectory from roughly six feet on the other side of the couch.
