Monty's Apartment

The last place Monty had been seen was at his apartment, which made it the first stop in my investigation. I decided to bring Sara with me on this trip. While I usually dislike having clients look over my shoulder as I work, she was pulling double duty as a key witness, and I wanted to see what information I could draw out of her. She was enthusiastic about getting to leave the house, but I had to wonder how long that enthusiasm would last.

It turns out it lasted until she saw my car. Now, let me say from the start that I love my car. It has gotten me through many tough times. But I can’t deny that it is an ugly piece of junk. I think it was originally a Volkswagen, but so many parts and pieces have been replaced that now it’s more of a metal Frankenstein-esque abomination. Sara seemed to go into shock when she saw it. That shock was quickly replaced by disgust, which gave way to fear as it dawned on her she would have to ride in it. To her credit, she didn’t complain. She sucked it up and sat in the passenger seat like a good girl.

Three hours later, we were in Chicago, parked on the street in front of the apartment. Another lousy, grey, and cold day, which didn’t do any favors to the look of the old buildings around us. I didn’t remember any of the trip, but I was expecting that. For Sara it came as a surprise. The only thing that stopped her from jumping out of the seat was her seatbelt.

“What just happened?” She said with a panicked squeak.

“We drove to Chicago.” I calmly replied. I pointed at the apartment in front of us. “That’s the place Monty lived?”

“But, but, how did we get here?” Her voice rose higher as she stammered with confusion.

“I’m guessing we drove here.” I kept my voice level as I spoke to Sara. “But we can’t remember any of the trip. It’s how the house protects its location; anyone who visits it forgets its location once they leave.”

“You mean I just forgot the whole trip? It’s just gone? I just lost…” She quickly glanced at the car’s clock, “three hours of my life?”

“Check inside the glove box.” I said.

She was skeptical, but looked inside anyways. Among the mess of trash that had accumulated in there over the years was a slim black notebook. Without any prompting from me, Sara opened it up and began flipping through the pages.

“This is… a journal of the drive here?” She said.

I nodded. “I probably told you to start writing stuff down once we got on the road. This is why you need to keep a record of everything.”

It was obvious that Sara wanted to keep studying that notebook, but we had things to do. She could read back at the house. Monty’s apartment complex was an old, ugly, and brown thing. With the weather as cold as it was, no one was outside. If it weren’t for the lights behind a few closed blinds, you could think the whole place was abandoned.

I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary outside in the cold, and dashed from the car to the apartment. Sara took her time walking; I guess living here builds up a natural immunity to frostbite. She also didn’t seem to mind the decrepit condition of the building, but I guess being a college student builds up a natural immunity to being bothered by cockroaches. Once she joined me by Monty’s unit, she tried unlocking the door.

“Key doesn’t work?” I asked when I saw the surprise on her face as she worked the lock.

“No, it’s… it’s already unlocked.”

Red warning flags shot up in my head, and I gently nudged Sara away from the door. With a steady caution, I turned the handle and looked inside.

“Your boyfriend not really the cleaning type?” I dryly said after looking at the room. I don’t think Sara heard me. The moment she’d seen what was on the other side of the door, her jaw dropped.

It was a small apartment, with one room taking on the jobs of living room, kitchen, and dining room. Even in the best of times the mishmash of furniture and deteriorating wallpaper wouldn’t have looked appealing. This was not the best of times. Someone had gone through the room and methodically trashed every inch of it. I’ve seen my fair share of ransacked rooms, and this one was up there among the worst. Someone had really set their mind to wrecking this place in every way they could imagine. They’d even torn a couch in two, which must have been impressive to see.

All this passed through the back of my head while I focused on the most urgent issue: was the culprit still here? Apart from the steady rhythm of the faucet dripping into a half-filled sink, there was no sound. And the food that had been thrown from the fridge had started to rot, meaning the attack hadn’t happened today. Unless this was an extremely patient vandal, they had probably left.

“Why would someone do this?” Sara quietly said as we closed the door behind us.

“Part of a cover up. Creating a big mess makes it harder to find evidence of what they actually were doing, especially if they stole something. We wouldn’t be able to tell what’s missing.” I said.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s too deliberate for blind destruction.” I told Sara, a little annoyed at her questioning my expertise. “If they were just smashing stuff, they’d only have thrown open the fridge and dumped everything out. They wouldn’t open each individual TV dinner and scatter their contents all over the room. This was thought through.”

Sara looked around, taking in that information. “If this was a cover up, what were they trying to hide?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” I said. “No cover up is perfect. It’s human nature to make mistakes.”

I’d said that with confidence, but as I picked through the shattered glass and torn furniture, that assurance wavered. There was too much to piece through, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to find. “Was Monty’s family well off?” I asked Sara.

The question caught her off guard. “What? I mean… well… why do you ask?”

“The furniture in here. If you look beyond the mess, it’s very nice. Much nicer than I’d expect to find in a place like this. And it’s all fairly new, so I doubt he bought it at a thrift store. Which means Monty either was bringing in more money than his apartment would lead you to believe, or he had someone help support him. I guessed family since it seemed to be the most likely explanation.”

Sara rolled her eyes a little; she probably thought I was showing off. “Yeah, his parents are pretty rich. They don’t get along with Monty, though.”

“They got along well enough to buy him a couch.” I think Sara had a comeback to that, but I ignored her. Still hadn’t found anything. As I scanned the room for a third time, something poking out from under a flipped chair. When I dug it out, I was disappointed to realize it was just a painting. Not even a proper painting; one of those abstract modern ones. Lots of oranges and blues that blended together in some places. It might have been a picture of a person. Or maybe a fire? Possibly some kind of fish. Is this the kind of thing that universities are teaching kids these days?

“Oh, I remember that.” Sara said. “That was one Monty and I worked on together.”

“You can paint?” I said with surprise.

Sara looked at me like I was an idiot. “I was attending an art college, you know.”

“Right. Of course.” Not important, anyways. This was getting frustrating. And the faucet’s dripping was getting on my nerves. Each little drip felt like a hammer on my school. Usually I can ignore insignificant details like that, but I couldn’t let that sound go. Fed up with it, I tried to turn off the faucet, but no matter what I did with the knob the water kept slowly dripping out.

“Let’s check the other rooms.” I said. “Which door’s the bedroom?”

Sara led me to a door just down the hall to the left. The door was locked, but Sara had a copy of the key. I’m not entirely sure what I expected to see inside, but it hadn’t been gallons of blood. There was blood all over the small bed in the corner, and splattered across the walls. Sara covered her mouth in horror, and looked like she might scream. I put a hand on her shoulder and firmly said, “Stay calm. It’s not real.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “It’s not real?” She said, her relief clear. “That’s fake blood?”

“What? Oh, no, the blood’s probably real. But it doesn’t splatter like that when someone’s killed. This looks like someone just threw a few buckets of blood around the room to make it look gruesome.”

Sara’s grip loosened, but she kept her hand on mine. “And of course you’re the expert on blood splatters now?” She said with a touch of snark.

“I’ve seen a few homicide scenes in this job. Now let’s get looking. I want to see why someone tried to make us think your boyfriend got killed.”

Once again, my confident words didn’t hold up once I started looking. While the culprit’s attempts to hide the existence of a cover up were clumsy, the cover up itself was unusually well done. The amount of damage done to the apartment made it impossible to determine what they had been doing or looking for, and I couldn’t find any signs that hinted at the identity of the culprit. I usually don’t put much faith in obvious clues like muddy footprints or hair caught in the door, but after half an hour searching without results I was really wishing for one. And that dripping sound would just not go away.

I stopped and thought about that. The noise should have gotten quieter since we left the kitchen, but I could still clearly hear it. There had to be another source. I looked around the room until my eyes settled on Sara. She’d stayed in the back of the room to let me work; maybe I should have been a little suspicious that she hadn’t made any smart remarks to me in so long. As I watched her, I realized her lips were moving slightly, making a dripping noise.

“Sara?” I said, uncertain if she would respond.

“Yes? Drip, drip, drip….” She wasn’t saying “drip,” she was somehow making the exact same sound that the faucet had.

“Why are you making that noise?”

“What noise? Drip, drip….”

I told Sara to stay still and then shined a flashlight in her eyes. Her eyes followed the light, but her pupils were dilated. When I touched her forehead her skin was cold and clammy. “We’re leaving right now.” I said after finishing my check.

Sara didn’t seem to register what I’d said at first. When she did, her voice was slightly slurred. “What, did you find something?”

“Maybe. I just need to grab a few things before we leave to make sure.”

On our way out, I collected a sample of the water coming from the faucet. After analyzing it and comparing it to the sample I have of Sara’s tears, I can confirm that there was a significant amount of Ichor in the water.

I still stand by my statement that it’s human nature to make mistakes.

But I don’t think what we’re dealing with here is human.