Tentacle University pt. 4

The man, Detective Marco Cruz, led Peter and Devon towards an unmarked town car, the only clue that it was a police vehicle being the white and green municipal plates, and the small red and blue light bar poorly hidden in the back window. 

“You seemed like you recognized something,” Cruz stopped at the car, turning.  “Mind telling me what that was?” 

Peter looked towards his feet, not speaking, so Devon spoke up.  “The bracelet on the body, the medical alert one, it looked familiar.” 

“Oh?” Cruz removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of striking brown eyes.  “Where’d you recognize it from?” 

Devon bit his lip.  “Our roommate, Tim Masterton.  He got one just like that a few weeks ago.  He has a really bad shellfish allergy, had a bad reaction to something, and the hospital recommended he get one. He hasn’t taken it off since.” 

“Your roommate, you have any idea where he is right now?” Cruz asked.

Devon shook his head. 

“How about you?” Cruz’s eyes shifted to Peter.  “You know where he is?” 

“No.” Peter’s voice was barely audible. “He wasn’t in his room this morning. He has a girlfriend, though.  Thought he probably stayed over at her place.” 

“That girlfriend, could you describe her for me?” 

Peter shrugged.  “Pretty, brownish hair, big boobs. Her name was Lori Costello.”

Devon nudged Peter in the ribs.

“What? They were a pretty memorable feature.” 

The constant stream of questions was starting to get on Devon’s nerves.  He knew the detective was just doing his job, but the more questions he asked, the more it felt like he knew something, that all of this was just to double check something that had already been confirmed.

Cruz sighed.  “If I showed you a picture, do you think you could recognize her?”

Both guys nodded. 

Cruz motioned for one of the crime scene photographers to come over.  He stepped away from the car for a few minutes, and it seemed like he and the photographer were arguing.  Devon had a bad feeling.  Suddenly he didn’t want to look at that picture.  In fact, he would rather be back in his dorm room, back in bed, and as far away from Detective Cruz as possible. 

When the argument ended Detective Cruz, a digital camera in his hand, walked back to the car.  “I’m going to warn you guys, this picture is kind of… gruesome, but if you could ID the victim, it would help me a whole lot. You okay with that?”

“ID the victim?” Devon could feel the blood rushing out of his face. 

“The photo I’m going to show you, it’s from in there.”  He motioned the camera towards the old dorm building.  “When I said it was kind of gruesome, I was lying.  It is very gruesome.  If I wasn’t desperate to get a solid ID, and a solid head start on all of this I would never think of showing you something like this, but…” 

The two guys glanced at each other, and then both of them nodded. 

Detective Cruz turned the screen of the digital camera towards them. 

There, on the screen, was Lori Costello, or at least, her head was.  Her face was pale, the only color the blood splatter that streaked her lips and cheeks.  Her eyes stared lifelessly at nothing, and her features still held a look of surprise.  Not horror, but surprise.  Devon glanced down and could see the clean, bloody stump where her neck ended and attached to nothing. 

“Oh God.”  Devon looked away from the camera.  “That’s her.”

Peter said nothing.  He just turned away and vomited into the grass.