Until Proven Innocent

“Alright I’m gonna fucking kill him,“ Susan announced as we nursed our second glass of wine and I’d poured my heart out to her about the break up. I finally had the nerves to tell her what he actually did to me, and she was on my side after hearing all that. She’d been a fan of him before only because I never said bad things about her, and therefore she must have thought he was perfect. Which he was not. At all.

“Come on, and then you really think he’d send one of his morons after you?“

“Seriously Sue, I’m telling you. I saw that same car on the street today, he’s probably trying to intimidate me or whatever. Who else would it be, I mean it’s not like I did something to someone…“ She nodded, then took another sip of the wine. “Come on, that’s such a dick move to do. But are you really sure it’s him? You're in a murder case after all. Maybe someone has a problem with you defending Mr. Sexy?“

“No, it's definitely him. I know you liked him but yes, I am. He’s a control freak. He probably wanted someone over to see if I was alone tonight or seeing someone. He always suspected me to cheat,“ I said as I shrugged. “So you don’t wanna call the cops or something?“ I let out a laugh. “On him? No, really. I’m not gonna give him any attention and he’s gonna stop immediately.“

She nodded. “You’re right. I just can’t imagine him ever turning out like that…“ Me neither, Susan. Me neither. After a few music videos of my client and some more wine I was ready to admit that he did look absolutely stunning. Susan ended up crashing at my place, and honestly I was glad to have her there.

I mean, after having one of Thomas’ henchmen break into my house, I wasn’t feeling too great. But well, not bad enough to actually call the cops or something. And I believed it was not necessary, either. People were committing worse crimes all the time, so why bother the authorities with a problem that was soon going to end anyway?

The weekend passed easily. I spent one day with my grandma at her house and the other day I watched Netflix and dreaded having to socialize the next day. I couldn’t make up my mind about Mr. Sanders. In my head, I kept calling him Matt for some reason. Would I try and face him again without the guards? It worked, right? Or should I just try and distance myself from him? My parents warned me, and they were far more experienced than I was. Maybe I should just believe them.

On Sunday evening, my parents returned from their trip and I finally relaxed. I was finally not alone anymore. In this big house that made way too many noises, I hated being alone. Also, it really set me off that my stupid ex sent one of his friends to check up on me. If my parents had been home, they probably would have called the cops on him. Which was smart, actually. Just… I didn’t want to. It was nothing dangerous after all, just an idiot doing another idiot a favor.

“Honey, did you see my laptop?“ Mom asked. They’d promised to show me pictures of their trip. “Uhm, I think it’s downstairs in its bag. You wanted to take it with you, remember? And then you decided not to,“ I reminded her. She walked upstairs , placed the laptop on the table in front of us, and then switched on the device.

“Have you been using my laptop, honey?“ The question hit me out of nowhere. Her voice didn’t sound too pleased. I shook my head no. I owned the same model, so why would I have?

“Then how do you explain this?“ Her fingernail made an ugly sound as it touched the display. I rolled my eyes as I remembered all the times I told her she was not supposed to touch it.
But then I looked. The file was named 211/04/2017_Sanders_M, and I’d certainly never seen it before. I knew how those files were named, though, and it looked pretty official. 211 was the section for murder in the penal code, 04/2017 meant that it was the fourth case they were dealing with in the year 2017.

“You seriously used my laptop and e-mail account to get the file? Who sent it to you? Toby? I told him I was on vacation! And he’s not supposed to send around files anyway! And you could have asked me nicely, I would have gotten you the file anyway!“

Mom was furious. Her abrupt screaming ripped me out of my trance, and I vehemently shook my head. “No, I didn’t touch it! Someone broke in last night… Ask Susan, she was over… I thought…“ I shrugged, knowing my suspicions about Tom did not matter.

“Are you sure that’s the truth?“ My dad’s eyes met mine with a stern look. “Yes dad,“ I replied. “Well, how about we check this out…“ The first file was a short video clip. It was named randomly, the numbers and letters did not make any sense. Mom clicked on it, and the media player opened itself.

It was the low quality video of a built-in CCTV. You could see Mr. Sanders and his bandmates in the aisle of a bus, naked girls everywhere. Mr. Sanders was holding a blond girl’s hands, and after a few seconds you could see them head away from the others. I felt sick. Seeing how he really was, and seeing that pretty girl who was now dead made me uneasy.

But for some reason, the sight of him with that girl was what made me most agitated. I felt angry and frustrated, but for some reason, it also turned me on. Generally, I noticed, I’d been thinking about that encounter way too often. It was stupid, yet somehow my brain kept overflowing with thoughts of Mr. Sanders and, well, sex. Even though this was not the kind of sex people usually dreamed off. You know, in the back of a bus with others right next to you? With someone who did the same thing every night, probably?

The next file was horrible. It hit me unexpected. I clicked on the icon to open the file. Suddenly, the dead eyes of the murdered girl stared at me through the phone. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I froze. Someone let out a blood-curdling scream. It took me some moments to realize that it was me who screamed.

“This is… really gross,“ my mom commented. She sounded totally in control. I get it, she’s seen worse. I haven’t. I swallowed. The head looked unharmed, pretty and somehow peaceful even. She had fine facial features and extraordinarily long lashes. Her face was sprinkled with some red dots, but I told myself it was just halloween make-up.

It was the neck that made my insides twist. Well, rather what remained of the neck, which was, well, not much. Red flesh stood in all kinds of directions possible, and I couldn’t help but feel incredibly sick when I realized how much it looked like cooked tomatoes. I’d never smelled a corpse in my entire life, but at that moment I felt the rotten smell invade my nostrils even though I was only looking at a picture. She must have only been dead for less than an hour when the picture was taken. I guess word traveled fast.

With my hands trembling, I clicked the next file despite feeling a metallic taste inside my mouth. Somehow, I foolishly believed it wouldn’t get any worse than what I just saw. The next picture hit me like a train. I felt physical pain when I looked at it. It was as if something heavy suddenly landed on my chest, knocking all the air out of my lungs.

On this picture, her head was turned. A large wound could be seen on the side of what used to be a pretty face. You could see right through the hole even though I would have expected it to bleed much more. Maybe she was dead already when that happened. You could clearly see her jawbone, and where her teeth were supposed to be. They had been removed by the force of the knife stab, one entirely, the other remained a small broken stump. I swallowed, then bravely clicked on the next file.

You could see her entire body. Her chest, her breasts, and her abdomen were covered in what had to be fifty stab wounds. I ran to the bathroom just in time for my food to leave my body the way it came in. I was trembling.

I seriously trusted this guy without knowing what it even was that he did. It shocked me how naive I'd been. The evidence was overwhelming, after all. Him being the last person to be seen with her. Him with blood on his body. His DNA underneath her fingernails from as far as I’d gathered. Involuntarily, that song started to play in my head. He wrote that, right? Must have stabbed her fifty fucking times, I can't believe it. Ripped her heart out right before her eyes.
Wait. Her heart...

I ran back into the living room. I bravely took another look at the picture. But the body was too bloody to tell if it was still in there.

Fuck. I’m never seeing him again without anyone in my presence. Ever.

Notes

Alrightttty another update on this story. :) And yeah, they'll meet in the next chapter of course.