Two Lines by Melissa Marr Page B

him with a menace that would make a lot of folks cringe, but Byron remembered when the sheriff had been one of the guys—likely to go into Shelly’s Stop ’n’ Shop to grab them a twelve-pack when Byron wasn’t quite old enough to buy it for himself.
    â€œThe crime.” Byron gestured at the kitchen. Blood spatter had arced across Maylene’s floor and cabinet fronts. A plate and two drinking glasses sat on the table, proof that there had been a second person at the table—or that Maylene had set out two glasses for herself. So she might have known her attacker. A chair was knocked backward on the floor. She’d struggled. A loaf of bread, with several slices cut and lying beside it, sat on the counter cutting board. She’d trusted her attacker. The bread knife had been washed and was the lone item in a narrow wooden drying rack beside the sink. Someone—the attacker?—had cleaned up. As Byron tried to assign meaning to what he saw around him, he wondered if Chris simply didn’t want to talk about the evidence. Maybe he sees something I’m missing?
    The lab tech, whom Byron didn’t know, stepped into the kitchen. He didn’t step in the blood on the floor, but if he had, his shoes were already covered by booties. The absence of his kit seemed to indicate that the tech had already done what he needed in this room.
    Or wasn’t going to be doing anything.
    â€œHere.” The tech held out disposable coveralls and disposable latex gloves. “Figured you’d need help getting her out of here.”
    Once Byron had the coveralls and gloves on, he looked from the tech to Chris. The attempt at patience vanished; he needed to know. “Chris? That’s Maylene , and . . . just tell me you’ve got something to . . . I don’t know, narrow in on whoever did this or something .”
    â€œDrop it.” Chris shook his head and pushed away from the counter. Unlike the tech, he was very careful where he stepped. He walked toward the doorway into Maylene’s living room, putting himself farther from the body, and caught Byron’s gaze. “Just do your job.”
    â€œRight.” Byron squatted down, started to reach out, and then looked up. “Is it safe to touch her? I don’t want to disturb anything if you still need to collect—”
    â€œYou can do whatever you need.” Chris didn’t look at Maylene as he spoke. “I can’t get anything else done until you take her out of here, and it’s not right her lying there like that. So . . . just do it. Take her out of here.”
    Byron unzipped the body bag. Then, with a silent apology to the woman he’d once expected to be part of his family, he and the tech gently moved her body into the bag. Leaving it still unzipped, Byron straightened and peeled off his now-bloody gloves.
    Chris’ gaze dropped to Maylene’s body inside the still-open bag. Silently, he grabbed the biohazard bag and shoved it at the tech. Then the sheriff squatted down and zipped the bag, hiding Maylene’s corpse from sight. “Not right for her to be looking like that.”
    â€œAnd it’s not right to contaminate the exterior of the pouch,” Byron retorted as he dropped the gloves in the biohazard bag, removed the coveralls, and carefully put them in the bag, too.
    Chris crouched down, closed his eyes, and whispered something. Then he stood. “Come on. You need to get her up out of here.”
    The look he spared for Byron was accusatory, and for a split moment, Byron wanted to snarl at him. It wasn’t that Byron didn’t feel for the dead. He did . He took care of them, treated them with more care than a lot of people knew in their lives, but he didn’t stand and weep. He couldn’t. Distance was as essential as the rest of an under-taker’s tools; without it, the job was impossible.
    Some deaths got to him more than others; Maylene’s