Free Extreme Justice by William Bernhardt

she … someone you knew?”
    “It’s my Lily-lady. My sweet, sweet Lily.”
    And then, to the total stupefaction of the crowd, Earl wrapped his arms around the corpse, hugging it tightly, and began to weep.
    When Lieutenant Mike Morelli arrived at the club, he took immediate control. He systematically began running through the crime scene protection checklist he kept permanently stored in his head. He cordoned off the stage with bright yellow tape and spread brown butcher paper on the floor. He deputized the bouncers and stationed them at all exits with instructions to keep potential witnesses in and, more importantly, to keep the press out. Ben could hear reporters outside the front door swarming, shouting questions; there was even a helicopter buzzing around overhead. Obviously, Mike wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
    Ben watched as two women in green jumpsuits hoisted the corpse onto a stretcher to take it away to the medical examiner’s office. He was pleased to see they had to work at it; it would’ve made him look pretty wimpy otherwise.
    He took this last opportunity to gaze at the mutilated face. Even with the grisly handiwork of some twisted mind’s knife, Ben could see that the woman had been lovely. She was not young, but time had not masked the beauty that was her birthright. Her face shone in the low lighting. He could still see the powdery remains of makeup on her face, as well as eyeliner and mascara. A shame she thought she had to paint herself to be beautiful, he thought; she didn’t. She was a born looker.
    Still, Ben was not unhappy to see the body depart. The whole club was being contaminated by a heavy, musty odor. The sooner the remains were gone, the sooner they could all breathe freely again.
    Ben was relieved Mike had been dispatched to handle the crime scene. Ben and Mike went way back, all the way to college days, when they had been roommates and played music gigs in local clubs and pizza parlors. Mike fell in love with Ben’s sister, Julia, and ultimately married her. The marriage hadn’t lasted long, and after the divorce, Ben found himself on the outs with both Mike and Julia. His friendship with Mike had never really been the same. They were still sewing it back together, one stitch at a time.
    Mike was crouched over the spot where the body had dropped, scraping the wood planks for blood samples. Ben noticed Mike had managed to smear some blood on the crumpled and disgustingly dirty trench coat he always insisted on wearing to crime scenes.
    “Shouldn’t you be wearing coveralls?” Ben asked.
    “Don’t like ’em,” Mike grumbled, not looking up. “They wrinkle my raincoat.”
    “How can you tell?” Ben nodded at Sergeant Tomlinson, Mike’s protégé, who now served as a SID crime scene tech. He was fascinated, watching the players go through their motions. It was like watching an ant farm: everyone had specialized tasks, and a strictly observed caste system remained in place at all times. The detectives spoke only to each other or to Tomlinson; the uniforms spoke only when spoken to. And no one spoke to the people from the medical examiner’s office.
    To be fair, the detectives would confer with the medical examiner himself or his tech, if either happened to be on the scene. In the main, the conversation would be a rapid-fire series of questions, most of which the examiner either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, at least not until after the autopsy had been performed and the tox tests had been processed. Of course, that didn’t prevent Mike from asking “What was the time of death?” and “How was she killed?” The only inquiry that produced a useful response was: “Where was she killed?”
    The tech had answered in reverse: “Not here.”
    “Not D.R.T.?”
    “No way. She’s been moved.”
    Maybe that wasn’t all that helpful, now that Ben thought about it. Did anyone really suppose the murder had occurred on top of a stage light? But the tech’s