Free Botanica Blues by Tristan J. Tarwater

Botanica Blues

    ‘Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion, let it sink back in the ocean!’ Rita Moreno sings on the television and I smirk, picking up my glass of soda. The sides are slick with moisture and the damn thing slips out of my hands, spilling ice and soda everywhere.
    “Shit,” I say, vaulting myself out of my chair and standing over the growing puddle, hands up in surrender and helplessness even though its only a spill. Just a spill of soda and my brain freezes for a minute, the television playing the Bernstein tune in the background. Before I can do anything, my grandmother pops her head out of the kitchen to see what I'm cursing about.
    “¿
Que paso?
” she asks me. She has a wet dishrag in her hand already, her tiny frame hobbling towards me.
    “Just the damn soda,” I say. “I can do it,
abuela
,” but she's already on her hands and knees cleaning it. I'm about to bend down to help when my phone chimes. It's work.
    “Go, go get it,” she scolds, getting up to wring out the rag in the kitchen. I can't say no to her, and I can't ignore the text. I make a sound that's supposed to mean 'I surrender' and wrestle with my jacket, pulling out my phone and sliding my finger across its screen to read the message.
    [605 Avenue B/12/1-26]
    I curse under my breath and my grandmother doesn't even say anything as I grab my gun and my bag, pulling them both on as I go to head out the door. “I'll make you a plate!” she calls after me. “
Senor te bendiga
!”
    I don't let her see me cringe. I head out the metal door, careful to pull it all the way closed, leaving it up to her to lock the damn thing. She's lived in this apartment fifty-two years and the door still sticks. A metal door. Damn project housing.
    I hear the three locks snap closed as I head towards the staircase.
Senor te bendiga
and lock all the doors. Right.
 
    I get there in seven minutes and cops are already on the scene, yellow tape drawing gawking stares from people in the neighborhood. I flash my badge at the officer watching the perimeter and he lets me pass through. Hunts saw me park my car, I know he has and he nods at me as I fall in step with him into the building. The cops outside, their faces are white as ghosts. Twelve is a big number. Hunts seems a bit unsteady himself. He hands me a mask.
    As soon as my feet hit the steps heading down into the basement I smell it. Stale incense and blood. The rot of bodies. Herbs. An extinguished fire. The odors make their way through the mask and into my memory. I know these aromas and I smell them here, their scent growing stronger as we descend. No one hung any lights in the staircase but I can see the light growing at the bottom of the landing, where the reek is coming from. Light and the terrible stench. Rotting meat and thick resins, so thick you want to scrub the inside of your head to get the stink out but you can't think of cleaner strong enough.
    Only a handful of cops are down here, looking over the piles of meat, bone and organs. That's all they are for now, till Forensics can ID them. Even after that, they'll only be people in the memories of those still around. That's all you get, if you're lucky. But my musings are slapped out of my head when I see the walls. The closest body makes my stomach turn in a way it hasn't in a while.
    The walls are painted in dried, brown blood. Giant eyes all around. They all stare down at the bodies. And the bodies...where the top of the head should be, there isn't one. The eyes are wide with terror, the mouth stretched in a soundless scream but what poured out had apparently been brain matter. Shards of skull litter the floor. I put my hand over my mouth. I can't help it.
    “No signs of powder or incendiary devices, before you ask.” Yang stands up. Her hands are wrapped in stained, blue latex gloves. She talks through her mask. How she can breathe so close to these bodies, I don't know. “Except for the candles, but they hardly count. I'd put the time of