The Elegant Corpse

Sean was awakened by the sound of the answering machine answering the phone.He turned over and found that Roger had gone, then he looked at the time and grunted a few times.Sean climbed out of bed and went to the kitchen, wanting to turn down the volume of the phone so that he could go back to sleep, but at this moment the phone rang again, and he answered it without thinking.

"Hey?"

"Hey, Roger? Honey, I was wondering, can we go to that Cuban place again this Friday?"

"I'm not Roger." It took a moment for Sean to realize that he should explain the situation to the caller. "He's not at home, do you need me to send a message?"

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?" Sean asked a little annoyed.

"My name is Pete... a friend of Roger Corso's. What do you do at his house when he's not home..."

"Oh, hi! Pete, this is Sean."

The other party was silent for a moment. "Sean? That little Sean Williams at the club? How did you answer Roger's call?"

Sean didn't like the adjective "little" very much, and he said angrily, "I'm sleeping. Roger has gone to work. Do you want to leave a message?"

Then there was another silence. "No, it's nothing. I'll call his cell phone. Go on and sleep."

"Okay. Bye." Sean said and hung up the phone, went back to sleep.

***

"Roger!" Pete rarely called his cell phone.And he has never called his mobile phone during working hours, so Roger quickly put down the document he was looking at.

"Pete?"

"I want to tell you..." Pete chuckled on the other end of the phone, "I called your home just now, and Sean answered it."

"He took it?"

"He wasn't very happy about being woken up. I'm sorry, Roger, I'm afraid I was being rude to him, but I didn't know he lived with you."

"Hmm...it's hard to put into words."

"I didn't mean he got close to you."

"He didn't, Pete. Listen, I really don't want to die like this, but we just hit a breaking point right now."

"The case that's been bothering you? Oh, Roger, I'm so sorry. I'll hang up."

"No, no, don't apologize. I was going to call you."

"Let it be, Roger. I hope I haven't messed up your relationship."

①The original text is Spanish, Quesera.

"My God, there's enough mess in here. For God's sake, he's at least ten years younger than me."

"Well, training in the first year is very exciting."

"I'm afraid it's more than a training relationship." Roger admitted.

"Oh my god. Hearing that, I think that little exchange I just had with him was even more embarrassing."

"Peter, what did you tell him?" Then he saw Marian standing at the door of the FBI case analysis room and waving at him vigorously. "I'm busy. Let's talk about it later."

"Yes, Roger."

They ended the call.

***

The victim was very cute when he was alive, Roger thought, a rare tingling feeling of helplessness surged in his heart.

Below the Santa Monica Pier, the sand was darkened by silt and the litter of tourists on the surrounding beaches; dream.He looked down at a slender, white body that wasn't properly bound, or prepared.The owner of the body lay like a gutted fish, his pale face was young, the collar around his neck was pulled upwards, his pale eyes stared lifelessly at the horizon where the Pacific Ocean meets the sea and the sky .

As a policeman, he always regards the murder of civilians as a challenge to himself; and as a No. 1 in the old-fashioned leather circle, Roger will murder the young No. 0, especially a stable The crime of number 0 in a romantic relationship is seen as more personal in nature.

"His partner must be looking for him," Roger said hoarsely. "Check for missing persons." When a police officer led the way, Roger scanned the cordoned-off area.The young man held a beautiful loose-tailed whip in his hand, and the velvety leather in the light and shadow was curled up in a swirl shape with the rising tide.

"You know, that looks like it was made to order," Roger said to Marianne.

He was glanced at by the other party, and his heart was filled with uneasiness. "I'll check it out." Then Marianne didn't say anything more.

He wrapped the whip in an evidence bag and marked it as an important exhibit so he could get it as soon as he got to the case analysis room.Then Roger called Raymond Green.

"Roger!" Raymond was always so gentle, no matter who he was talking to.

"I've got a case for information from you," Roger said straight to the point, so that he wouldn't feel any treacherous guilt afterwards, "a pretty young man has been murdered and I'm dealing with it. The internal organs were gone, and the body was dumped like garbage. He had a well-made red scatter-tail whip in his hand."

"What do I need to do?" Raymond asked immediately.

"I need to find out who made this whip as soon as possible, so maybe the owner can be traced. The whip looks like buffalo leather, so hopefully we won't have too much trouble finding it." Because buffalo leather is a rare The whip was made of leather, and Raymond was one of the few people Roger knew who had used it.

After a while of silence. "You know how hard it is to find."

"I know. All I can do, Raymond, is to assure you that within my power, I will not get these people into trouble. This is not a 'witch hunt.'"

While it is not illegal to make whips and whips, consensual violence is illegal in the United States.Making whips that look like they're being used for BDSM activities can get the creators in endless trouble.

"Send me a photo, and I'll make a few phone calls to ask."

"Thank you, Raymond. I'll explain to you how important this is when conditions permit."

Roger hung up the phone and started to sort out the clues.Afterwards, he called a producer he knew himself.

He and Marianne followed the ambulance back to the medical examiner's office.While waiting for various news for the first time, he paced back and forth in the dim corridor and made phone calls.This time, DNA was not found on the body; and this time there were also difficulties in identifying the young man.Only this time, Roger was wrong.The missing person report did not match the description of the victim.

"It sucks," Marianne said, "because now we have nothing to do with evidence."

Maybe the collar was just a decoration, a random accessory the young man picked up at the local flea market.The whole case made Roger feel ghostly before his eyes, his hidden life from the past gradually eroded into his present, and every small sign had a deeper metaphor.He's trapped in a mystery that only he can solve.

He was staring at his desk in a daze, and Mary suddenly said: "Hey—" He raised his eyes and saw her sniffing his high-heeled shoes.

Roger felt that he might be sleeping, which is a picture only in nightmares.

"If the deodorant doesn't work, it's time to go home," she explained, putting on her heels again and standing up. "And you too." She gave the ultimatum, then slung the bag over her shoulder . "Don't forget, there is someone waiting for you at home."

She was still laughing at his expression when she left.

***

The "Pink Flamingo" bar on a Saturday night was literally a mess after a crop.Sean was happy to use this as a distraction.The endless wine list, the waiters and customers leaning on the counter shouting loudly to drown out the blaring music, because his mind is not so focused on remembering the ingredients, the faces, and collecting the cash. Thinking wildly.

But after closing the door, he started thinking about the call again.

"Love troubles?" Bob teased him while tinkering with the cash register.

"How did you know?"

Bob chuckled. "I've crossed more bridges than you have walked. What happened to you?"

Sean slapped the bar with the rag. "I have no idea."

"Well..." Bob said, "but you're just mad."

Sean folded the rag and shook it out again.Then throw it on the table. "Maybe."

Bob smiled. He pulled up the bank deposit bag, pulled out a stool and sat down. "Why don't you talk to me?"

Sean braced his fists against the sides of the sink where he brushed his glasses. "I feel that in my whole life, many things have been hidden by people."

"Like what?" Bob asked.

Sean shrugged. "Like my brother. Like what the hell happened to him, what kind of guy he was... blah blah blah. You know that jerk makes me think he's still grieving his lost love, and then a guy calls out of the blue Tell me about their date last week."

Bob's little pink mouth opened wide. "Oh!" He looked suddenly enlightened, his eyes swept around the room, and then stood up from the high stool. "I get the feeling you two need to talk," he concluded, before hastily grabbing his purse and coat.

Sean replied angrily, "Me too."

"Well, better go home and talk," said Bob, inviting him to the door.

Sean flung his apron on the counter, grabbed his jacket and keys and left. "Yes, I think we need to talk about it."

***

For the hundredth time Sean thought that Roger's schedule was terrible.It was three o'clock in the morning when Sean got home, but Roger hadn't come back yet, and he didn't even make a call or leave a message on the answering machine at home.Speaking of this, Pete didn't call and leave a message.

Sean even wondered for a moment in annoyance: Is Roger really working, or is he making fun of him with Pete at the moment.At this time, his attention was attracted by the box with Patrick's name on the table.

You must be jealous, now you have a goal.

He went to the refrigerator to find a bottle of beer, and leaned on the cooking table to meditate on the box. "Patrick's Altar"—that's what he called it in his head.

"You know," Sean said to the box, "I've been fighting guys like you my whole life."

The box didn't answer.This is one of the things Sean finds most annoying about ghosts: you can't expect them to fight you back.

"I'm not a selfish man," he said, sitting down, leaning against the box in a particularly "friendly" way, and throwing an arm over it. "Would you like some beer? No? Well, well, of course."

He drank about half a bottle by himself.

He'd seen the downfalls of men: drugs, alcohol, sex.He knew he was in trouble.Roger frightened him speechless.He was like a scared bunny in the middle of the road, watching that heavy diesel truck rush towards him.The six-foot-four truck with the build of a lumberjack, the grass-green eyes, and the whip.

"What do you think of me?" he asked the box.He tore off the tape, lifted the lid - vaguely aware that it was "wrong" to do this behind Roger's back - and looked inside.Most of the boxes are photos and books.The man's teeth are really white and straight, Sean thought, picking up a framed picture of Patrick happily with his arm around another man.

"Mr. Perfect for Mr. Perfect," he said.

Sean leaned back and drank some beer, put down the photo frame, and picked up a book.It was a hardcover copy of Osiris.There were hieroglyphs on the dusty old cover, and a thin fellow in a white robe, holding a shepherd's hook in one hand and what Sean thought was a It's like a thing with a loose tail whip.

He went to the refrigerator to get another bottle of beer, sat down, and opened the book.