The sheriff squinted into the setting sun and the wind and spat on the ground. This wasn’t his first corpse, but it still wrenched his guts a little every time a new one turned up.
They did, and almost constantly out here in the cybergrass. This one hit different. He knew this one.
The deputy, a little out of breath, joined him in looking down at the remains. The look on his face said it all. This was some father’s favorite.
“Pretty bad one, sheriff?”
The sheriff spit again in answer, not even careful to avoid hitting the carnage that was painted across the sandy dirt of the imaginary landscape.
“Any clues? Or any idea . . . what makes these sick artistic types do things like this?”
“Nobody knows. They get one, they just run it into the ground and start cutting and dissecting, and next thing, it’s just a mess.” He paused a moment in contemplation of the disease of overanalysis.
“I mean, scene of the crime, we know who done it. Hell, looks like he was proud of it. Did it loud, probably thought he was sending a message, maybe had some kind of hidden meaning.”
“Pretty sick, sheriff.”
“I’ve always said his kind was. I knew this one, back in grade school. Not to tell, but I heard. I had a science teacher, right after lunch. Used to try to wake everybody up. A little high energy antics, you know the type.”
“That I do, sheriff.”
“I wouldn’t say I was fond of the vic, exactly, but I knew . . . damn it, it just hurts a little to see one so cut up. Anyway, teacher used to wanna know what they had at the cafeteria. Somebody says a Italian food, he ast, ‘They got one’a them Ca-Pre-Se salads,’ made a whole joke out of it.”
“Warm feelings, sheriff.”
“Yep. And some sunuvabitch comes along just dissects it like the joke wasn’t obvious. Sick stuff.”
The two men scanned the crime scene a while. There was nothing to clean up, so they clicked on some other stories, because the archive is always available.