Tunnel Vision by Brenda Adcock

eightthirty.”
    “How long were you here before you found it?”
    Nicholls inquired.
    The lab assistant shrugged, “I don’t know for sure. Maybe ten minutes. We don’t need much equipment for jellyfish so I just threw it all on the tables and went to make sure there were enough jellyfish.”
    “Were there?” Brodie asked.
    The man looked sharply at her. “I don’t fucking know! My count was interrupted. It’s not like I thought ‘Oh goodie, we have twenty jellyfish and one human head’.”
    Nicholls patted the lab assistant on the shoulder and said, “It’s okay, Kevin, just try to take it easy.”
    “How can I take it easy, man? Another forty-five minutes and there would’ve been twenty kids in here. Do you know what would have happened if one of them had found...it.”
    “They’re lucky you got here first, Kevin,” Nicholls said to comfort him. His hands were still shaking and he held them clasped tightly together, hoping no one would notice.
    “Did you recognize the victim, Kevin?” Brodie asked.
    “To tell you the truth, ma’am, I didn’t look at him long enough to know.”
    “But you know it’s a man,” Nicholls said.
    “Well...I mean...I guess I just supposed it. I can’t imagine anyone doing something like that to a woman,” Kevin said with an incredulous look on his face.Brodie gave her partner a ‘you wouldn’t believe what people can do to each other’ look and he smiled. She hopped off the lab table and spoke quietly to Nicholls. “Make sure you have his name and address. As soon as they get his prints for comparison let him go on home to lie down.”
    Nicholls began taking down information about Kevin Larson while Brodie walked across the room to where her trainee was interviewing a police officer. Maggie finished speaking to the officer just as she got there. The officer nodded to Brodie as he turned to leave.
    “What’s his story?” Brodie asked.
    “He and his partner took the call at six-fifty. When they arrived, the kid over there was semi-hysterical.”
    Brodie smiled at Maggie’s reference to the lab assistant as “kid”. She had been about the same age when Brodie first met her and it wasn’t a word she would have used to describe the young woman.
    “Officer Corcoran inspected the tank and
    determined there was indeed a head in it, but says they didn’t touch the tank or anything else in the room, with the exception of the doors,” she continued. “He remained here while his partner called it in. The crime scene people haven’t arrived yet, but should be here any minute.”
    “Good. Have you inspected the tank yet?”
    “No. I didn’t think I should touch it until the lab techs finish their thing.”
    “That’s right, Weston. Cedar Springs may not be as sophisticated as Austin, but the same rules apply.”
    “I’m aware of that, Royce,” Maggie frowned.
    “That’s Lieutenant Brodie to you, Detective,” she stated, shifting a cold glare toward her. Other than her family, she had never allowed anyone to use her first name…except Maggie. That had been in a different lifetime and a familiarity she wouldn’t tolerate now.
    Maggie looked at the woman glaring at her. “I’m sorry. I’ll remember that, Lieutenant.” Her former lover wasn’t going to make her training period easy and Maggie wasn’t sure she could blame her. Brodie walked away from her and went to the aquarium. Nicholls joined her and the two detectives bent down slightly to look into the mass of jellyfish.
    “What do you think, RB?” he asked.
    “Well, this obviously isn’t where the guy was killed. No discernible blood in the tank. No mess in the lab anywhere, and to decapitate someone would have made one helluva mess.”
    “It doesn’t seem likely the killer would have stuck around and cleaned up after himself either. Where do you think we’ll find the rest of him?”
    “I’m sure it will turn up in the worst possible place,” she said as she stood again and stretched her