Facilis Descensus Averno [REWRITING]

16. Clockwork

The following morning, Bishop went back to the house alone.

She took a bite out of her bagel and a long sip from her cup before exiting the car, and looked up towards the front porch. The lights on the porch and inside the house were still off and the curtains were drawn shut. Yellow police tape encircled the lawn and again around the porch, warding off potential intruders and curious onlookers, not that there was another living soul across the entire street besides the detective herself.

That didn't mean the Sullivans, as they once called themselves, didn't have any neighbors. Bishop noticed a few pairs of eyes staring at the commotion in the house from a good distance the last time she was here; inevitable, with two police cars and an ambulance parked curbside, with two officers dragging Toby Rogers through the doors in handcuffs, and into one of the cars, and not without significant struggle after the young man had tried to deny them entrance. Then a body bag emerged a few minutes later, and Bishop could only assume what the neighborhood gossip was like after they had left the scene.

But the street, like the house, was abandoned now, leaving Bishop to her own devices as she approached the front lawn and ducked under both police tapes. She produced a pair of latex gloves and a pocket knife, which she used to cut the paper seal pasted on the front door and its frame, making sure not to damage the wood. Stashing the knife away, she twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

Her entrance blew a cloud of dust off the furniture and sent particles dissipating throughout the living room. She coughed involuntarily, a sharp echo that broke the silence in the stagnant air, then waved a hand over her face as her eyes began to scan the interior to see anything out of place, even despite the seal. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary within the house, though, except for the disorderly mess left behind from their last visit. The couch and the coffee table were slightly crooked and out of place from the shaded markings on the floor left behind from where they once were—an aftermath of Toby's well-fought struggle. The back door was still ajar, and there was a trail of dirt leading from the backyard, disappearing into the kitchen. Through the window, she could see a small rectangular plot left unearthed in the corner, near the edge of the weathered white picket fencing.

She left the front door open with a small gap, hoping it would allow some fresh air to circulate and replace the suffocating atmosphere inside the house. She trod lightly and carefully across the living room; there weren't many personal effects lying around—no photographs, no house decorations like flower vases or rugs and such, aside from bare bones furniture, at least not in the common spaces. There were a couple of used glasses and dirty dishes left behind in the sink, and an untouched bowl of cereal doused what she quickly determined was curdled milk on the breakfast counter. Not many signs that showed previous occupancy, she thought, leaving her to wonder if the company would have ever considered this place to be a home at all if the past few months had never happened.

The five doors were identical, with nothing to indicate which one led to which room. She tried the lone door to the left of the living room first, but after twisting the knob a few times, realized it was locked. She could break it down, of course, but it would have to be a last resort. Wouldn't want them to come home to a broken door. The second door she checked was the bathroom, the third being a small storage space that, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, bore only a few cardboard boxes gathering dust and spider webs in the back corner.

The fourth door finally led her to a bedroom. A queen bed, with floral-patterned duvet and pillow covers, was pushed into the back corner of the wall near the window looking out to the front lawn. Beside it was a wooden nightstand with a ceramic lamp sitting on top, and opposite to the bed was a matching dresser with a handful of bottles and containers sitting on top. Directly beside the door was a bare wooden desk and chair. On top was a reading lamp, a couple of pens and a notebook, and an old paperback novel split open in the middle, with the open pages pressed against the surface of the table.