The boy and his grandmother came home on the 4th of July, to cheers and Canadian chocolate binges. It was a happy, crowded family weekend that left me both relieved to have them home and totally eager to be back at work. Just as I slapped my tea mug into the microwave, my co-worker came in the back door, wiping her feet on the mat. “There are maggots swarming up the driveway.”
The ground outside was writhing, in a way that was both horrible and very festive. We picked our way across the driveway, popping and squelching.
The tiny bodies flowed in a mass away from the dumpster, which sat like a beating heart at the end of the driveway. We stood and listened to the drone of flies bumping around inside of it for a long minute before deciding it was our duty as nosy citizens to make sure the body inside wasn’t a person. Because there was definitely a body in it.
There was a black garbage bag tied up and thunked heavily just inside of the dumpster. We got a louver hook on a long pole and poked at the bundle. It felt like a body in a plastic bag. This is really not a pleasant sensation. The fumes were strong enough to smell with our ears. Between retreats to gulp fresh air, we took turns wrestling the plastic loose with the hook, very much hoping not to see fur or hair.
There was paper, and inside the paper were the remains of a velociraptor.
Or a deep-sea fish. Several of them, actually. The bag was full of large, toothy fish heads, and they were not laughing, happy, or roly-poly. We didn’t dust for prints, but it seems reasonable to suspect the man who drives the truck with FRESH AHI painted across the side.
And that was my Monday. My clothes smell like ADVENTURE! In mystery cozies, bodies fall neatly into hedges and off of balconies, to be puzzled over while eating chocolate biscuits. Miss Marple never had to open maggoty bags of rotting meat with a hook on a stick. Am not a very good amateur detective so far.
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