Studying the Dead

I never particularly liked Fridays. Sure, it was great that the weekend was here and classes were done for a couple of days, but Fridays also meant parties. I wasn’t a fan of the parties held here. It was all about how drunk you could get and what stupid things could you do. It wasn’t my scene – which isn’t the same as saying I was a prude. I think I’m quite the opposite, actually. Really, I had just gotten done at the library. Such a thing really didn’t help me with my claim of not being a prude, but it did help the grades. My grades were the important thing. I wasn’t exactly paying tuition for a good party.

I was juggling three books in an attempt to shove them back into my shoulder bag. I heard sirens somewhere in front of me. It was in front of one of the party houses. I wasn’t exactly surprised. It would be more surprising if a cop or two weren’t there. The house was known for big, loud, stupid parties. Such parties have the tendency to attract attention – and more often than not, that attention comes from the police for rowdy behavior.

I wanted to ignore it and continue on my way to the dorms. It was late and I had just spent the last five or so hours studying. Not only was I tired, but I was just about starving. I had managed to study through dinner. I wasn’t hungry then, but I certainly was now. I was about to walk past the scene when a familiar figure caught my eye. I looked back and noticed it was my dad. His being there confused me. He was an investigator so why would he be at a party? A few rowdy college kids wasn’t reason enough to get a crime scene investigator out of bed at an ungodly hour. The confusion was enough for me to forget any wishes of a good meal and a warm bed.

I tugged my coat closer to me as I walked up to him. He was kneeling next to a body covered by a white sheet. The sheet was tinted with blood. A crowd was already there and was whispering to themselves. I paid no attention to them. Crowds usually got it wrong, anyways. A cop stopped me before I could get any closer to my dad to figure out what was going on.

“This is a crime scene, you can’t come any closer,” he told me. I nodded and tried to catch the attention of my dad. I started screaming at him, in hopes of getting him to look up.

“She’s with me,” he told the cop once I had finally managed to get his attention. I walked in without problems and mumbled a quick thanks.

“What’s going on?” I asked, nodding my head towards the body.

“Suicide, it looks like,” he told me. I nodded. This was typical for us. I had plans to follow in my father’s footsteps and to be an investigator just like him. He often let me help him in his cases. It wasn’t so much as ‘help’ as it was his way of guiding me in a field he had years of experience in when I had none.

I furrowed my brow. “Really? That’s unusual,” I said with a wrinkle of my nose. He nodded. It went without speaking that we both knew it was ‘out of season’ for a suicide at this time of year at the college.

“Do you have a name yet?” I asked as I sat my bag down in the place he had previously motioned towards. I started putting on gloves. If any questions were asked later about why a student was helping him, it would quickly be sorted later by my father. He had that kind of pull after so many years.

“A Clyburn. Trent Clyburn.” He was walking to the sheet now to lift it and show me what was underneath. I had frozen in the midst of putting on the first glove. I dropped them both on the ground without meaning to or even noticing. My heart felt like it had stopped. He turned back when he noticed I wasn’t following him.

“Alice? What is it?” I just started shaking my head. He understood. “You knew him?” he questioned. I managed to nod. Then I began to shake my head violently.

“It can’t be the same guy I know. He’s not the type,” I told him with the same violent shaking of my head. I was by no means one of Trent’s best friends, but I saw and talked to him nearly every day. I thought I knew him well enough to know what kind of person he was.

“Alice, we talked about this. People almost never seem like the type and - ”

“I get that, Dad. But you didn’t know him. Trent would never do something like that. He was happy. He had a girlfriend, friends, and a great life. He wouldn’t just do that!”

I was getting hysterical. I could feel it. My body started shaking and my eyes began to fill with tears. My dad quickly gripped my arms and led me away from the scene. I began to lose it then when I heard the whispering about Trent around me. I started to cry.