Page 32 of The Turning of the Tables

I’d rather be hunched over a lab table swabbing rocks than squatting in the mud with a knee that pulsed pain in time with my heartbeat and a back that felt vaguely like it was trying to set my nerves on fire.

I had other discomforts much worse than the one in my ass to be worrying about.

A squelching sound followed by a “Fuck!” had both Quincy and I looking up to see one of the uniforms having ass-planted right in the middle of the scene.

I met her blue eyes over her mask. We shared a look that conveyed volumes about rookie cops and messing up our crime scenes.

When I looked back at the uniform—a guy I didn’t know—he was staring morosely at hands that definitely now had blood on them.

The next look Quincy shot me clearly said I had to be the one to go get his DNA so we could eliminate it from the evidence collection.

I sighed, wincing as I pushed myself to standing off my own thighs, then half-limped over to where the guy sat in the mud. I already had a handful of DNA swab kits in one of the bunny-suit’s many pockets. It was really more of a utility-bunny-suit, with pockets on the hips, both thighs, and the chest. It meant we could keep baggies, gloves, a mask or two, collection vials, and other small necessities on us, instead of having to constantly run back to the truck or even across the scene to where our kits sat. The less traffic across crime scenes, the better. And the lower the risk that you were going to slip and fall on your ass, like my about-to-be-new-acquaintance.

“Hi!” I said to him, trying not to sound like a grumpy asshole.

He looked up at me, clearly embarrassed. “What?”

“I’m going to need your DNA, officer,” I told him, trying to sound pleasant. I didn’t want to have to swab him, and he wasn’t going to like it. But we all have jobs to do, and the fact that he’d just gotten blood on my crime scene meant that mine was now more complicated.

“What? Why?”

I gestured at his bleeding hands. “Because now it’s on my crime scene,” I replied. “So I’ll need a sample to eliminate your DNA from the suspect pool.”

He gaped at me. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Sadly, yes,” I replied, trying not to get annoyed at him. Well. More annoyed.

“I’m not giving you my DNA,” he snapped.

“Yes, you are, Trullheimer,” Dan Maza called out from behind me. “You barf on a scene, you give us DNA. You drool on it, DNA. You bleed on it, you sure as hell give us DNA. So get off your ass and give Mays here whatever he needs.Comprende?”

Trullheimer muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch, but I was pretty sure was rude—either to me or to Detective Maza. Or possibly both of us. I waited for him to get himself out of the mud on his own—one, I was wearing gloves and didn’t want to contaminate them, and, two, he was being a dick.

Once he got on his feet, I waved a swab at him. “Do you want me to use your hands or swab your cheek?”

“What? Fuck. I?—”

“Cheek, then,” I decided for him. I’d been pretty sure he wasn’t going to tell me to use his hands—they were scraped up pretty badly, and he probably didn’t want me digging around in them. I didn’t want to do that, anyway, with all the mud and grime ground into the wounds. A cheek swab would be cleaner.

He wasn’t wearing a mask—the uniforms rarely did, although Maza had on a police-issue navy blue one—probably because we were outside and the transmission risk was much lower. I hadn’t always seen Maza wear one to scenes, either—crowded ones, yes, but he’d started to wear them to all of them after our little contact-trace fiasco.

“Open up, please,” I said, far more pleasantly than I really wanted to.

Trullheimer made a face, but did as I asked. I stuck the swab in and rubbed it against his cheek, then took it back out and stuck it in the little tube.

“Thank you,” I told him as I copied down his last name on the tiny label. Under that, I wrote ‘elimination.’

Then I made my way back to the body, which was still undergoing examination by Doc Tierney. I’d help him bag the body, then find someone to help me carry it down the muddy and rocky hillside and out to the gravel area where the ME’s van could actually park. Preferably someone other than Trullheimer, who had already demonstrated his lack of coordination and who now didn’t like me.

A different uniform named Ramirez came to the rescue, taking the victim’s feet and walking gamely backwards, carefully looking over her shoulder as we slowly made our way down the hill.

“Why can’t people body dump on flat ground?” she complained after navigating a particularly unpleasantly rocky curve. Her tone made it clear that she was trying to commiserate—shared pain as a friendly overture.

“It really would be much more helpful if they did,” I replied cheerfully in spite of the throbbing in my knee and back and the twinges going through my wrist. “Or at least push themoffthe cliff.”

She snorted a laugh, although the going was tough enough that neither one of us was particularly inclined to conversation. Tierney led the way, calling out cautions about particularly tricky rocks and roots as we went, and he opened the van doors when we got there, both Ramirez and I significantly sweatier than when we’d started.

My knee was completely fucked, throbbing and pulsingand weak. I was frankly surprised the damn thing had actually managed to make it all the way to the van. I resisted the urge to bend down and rub it—I’d get mud all over the bunny suit, for one thing, and then I’d have to field questions about what was wrong with me, for another.