The Venus

Chapter 01

In the beginning there was a dead body...

She lay in the middle of the circle of what they called the amphitheater near "The Bear" a lookout point for nature lovers near The Golf. It was an elderly man who had descended to the remote spot at this unchristian hour with a pile of sketching materials. To his great shock, he had found the body. The man would have enough fodder to be the center of attention for the next few weeks at his regular haunt, the card club, the pool club, or whatever it was that older people did these days.

Captain Paschal, head of the violent crimes unit of the relatively small Florence Parish police force, had retreated a bit to watch the activity from a distance. This was always the lee side of the storm. Until the technical and medical examiners were done with their initial findings, he always felt like he was standing there completely useless. He had his hands clenched into fists and deep in his pockets as if he wanted to avoid any contact with this act of violence. A bunch of police cars, some of them still with their blue flashing lights on, the van that served as the forensics mobile lab, the doctor's antique Mercedes, the forensics men's cars, and his own men's cars were mixed together like a jumble. The road leading here was actually a pedestrian walkway. It would be a circus when the people in attendance started to leave. He had left his own car at one of the gates of the Nature Center because he could have predicted this chaos in a heartbeat. The entrance to The Bear's area had been blocked with police tape. The first press photographers and disaster tourists had already gathered at the tape. It would not be long before the written press arrived, followed by the satellite trucks of the local broadcasters. He wished the latter success in getting closer. Because of the lack of space, they would have to drag their equipment around a lot for a few frames that would show nothing. Worthless to their viewers, who craved more and more spectacle. Between the time the old man had found the body and the arrival of the first police cars, two more early birds had joined him. So his men had three witnesses to question. Jules Goddard, head of the forensic service, and his men in white were busy at and around the scene. The coroner and his assistant also wore one of those half-space suits and knelt beside the body. Nature didn't seem to mind all the fuss. A flock of ducks and waterfowl drifted by, busily going about their daily business. It was March 22, and spring had definitely not waited a day this year. Clear blue skies with temperatures, at least if you believed the weather people, that could reach the seventy-five-degree mark. Where the men in white were hard at work, a female victim lay. Paschall estimated that she could not have been more than twenty years old. In death, she looked a little younger, more innocent, more girl than woman. Only whoever had left her dead had less regard for her innocence. Or maybe they had, he thought. She had been posed in a unique way. The first thing you saw of her were her wide open legs and her unmistakable womanhood. From her head to her waist, she was covered in an extremely thin, almost transparent fabric, tulle, he seemed to remember the name of the fabric. One of the tens of thousands of trifles that floated through his brain. She wore a neatly tied piece of black fabric around her neck. Her long blonde hair fell over her left shoulder. At the level of her neck, a soft blue-gray hair-band was visible, twisted a few turns around her hair to form a thick ponytail. Her right hand was resting demurely on her right breast. Her left hand on her abdomen, fingertips just above her Venus mound. The spot where the body was found could have been a nightmare for Goddard and his. The technician regularly lectured at police schools, as well as within individual police forces. According to him, the biggest polluters of a crime scene are the police themselves. More specifically, the uniformed officers who were the first to arrive at a crime scene. What they did was usually well-intentioned, but the very best thing they could do, and Goddard insisted on it every time, was to cordon off the scene and keep it clear until the forensics people showed up. As far as this crime scene was concerned, they had been fortunate that whoever had been first on the scene had apparently not slept during Goddard's lecture. A young cop, Melissa something something. She had seen the delicacy of the place at first glance. Locked everything up as hermetically as possible and let no one in. Not even Paschall's men until Jules had arrived. She had managed to secure the place by being alternately authoritarian, diplomatic, or even submissive, depending on who she had to deny access to the body. Paschall had not looked at the body himself for very long. To his own annoyance, his attention was too distracted by her lower body so prominently displayed.