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“Ah, what do we have here?” Matt directed the camera to the small table Danni indicated. “Wires, a discarded USB cord... It looks as if at one time there was electronic equipment here. Probably removed hastily. I wonder if there were monitors here for the cameras in the alley.”
He continued traversing the area. “The kitchen is small but neat. There are no dirty dishes to account for the smell.”
Danni went toward the single bedroom, leaving him to finish the living room and kitchen. The smell was worse there and she feared they would find a body.
She flipped on the light. The source of the smell was clear. The bare mattress contained a large rust-colored circle of something Danni bet was blood. The human body contained 1.2 to 1.5gallons of blood. As long as the heart pumped, blood would leave the body through an artery, if cut. It certainly looked like a large amount of fluid had soaked the mattress. The cloying smell of death and rot in the poorly ventilated space was suffocating.
“In here, partner,” she called out.
Matt stepped in behind her and whistled. “I think we found where Hobbs died. I’m referencing the dead body we handled last week. He apparently died from blood loss. As you can see, the mattress appears to be stained with a rust-red–colored substance resembling blood.” He turned to Danni.
“I agree it could be where he bled out,” she said. “This creates a problem. The lock on the apartment was still in place and didn’t appear to have been tampered with. If someone got in here, they had a key.”
Matt nodded and stopped recording. “Let’s hurry up and look around. I don’t think I can stand the stench much longer.”
Danni nodded. “For once we agree completely.”
She headed for the bathroom while Matt restarted the recording and went through the closet. Danni had spent a few months with narcotics before she went to sex crimes. The biggest plus was she got to work several search warrant services and she learned a lot about where people hide things.
She checked in the toilet tank, then under the sink, and found nothing. Standing in the small space, she had no idea how manytimes the apartment, originally built in the 1920s, had been remodeled. Danni turned her attention to the medicine cabinet. When she opened the door, it creaked, and the cabinet itself was filthy... and empty. She closed the door and saw a subtle shift as the cabinet appeared to droop down. She opened it again and pulled on the door. The cabinet moved.
“Matt, come in here; give me a hand with this.”
He came in and recorded the small space. “My partner thinks something is out of line with the medicine cabinet. I’m setting the camera down to help.”
Together they wiggled and pulled, and the cabinet came out. Danni set it in the sink, expecting to find treasure inside the wall, but initially saw nothing. Matt stuck his head in the hole.
“Gotcha!” He turned, grin on his face. “Hand me the camera.”
Danni did so and he filmed with one hand while he reached down into the wall space. He grabbed a thin rope Danni hadn’t seen. As he pulled nearly four feet of the rope up, there it was, dangling on the end. A ghost gun.
