The Trophy

Murray deciphers a scene

It was the hair that freaked him out.

Murray could handle the rest of the scene; it wasn't his first rodeo. The splintered door jamb, upset furniture. It has happened fast, that was certain; there was even a bottle of beer, freshly opened and still full, sitting in the counter. In fact, from the kitchen back to the rear of the house, it looked like nothing had happened.

The living room told the real story, however.

The table by the door, where the young woman kept her keys, was not just knocked over, but tossed aside. The couch was lying on it's back, the cushions soaked with blood. (The smell of blood mixed with old future cushions is uniquely horrible, Murray thought.) the television dangled from it's wall mount crookedly, spiderwebbed with cracks, the there was a gruesome splotch of blood and skin dead center.

Murray looked around again, reading the scene like the pro that he was. The door: the killer kicked it in, but only after the attach; otherwise the table would just be knocked over, not catapulted across the room. The beer: staged; the victim would have spilled out in a struggle. The television: there was nothing good on the tube tonight. The couch seemed to speak for itself, but Murray knew the prosecution's detective would read it wrong as always.

But his eye kept being drawn back to the hat rack by the door.

Blood-matted hair, still connected to a six-inch flap of scalp, hung nearly on the rack with all her other cute little hats — that definitely freaked him out.

He had experience with the rest of it. But he had never scalped anyone before, and he wondered if this time he had gone too far.

(Word Count: 291)