Dead Bride (Working Title)

He slowly slid back the zipper of the black vinyl bag. Her deep red hair was matted against her forehead in sticky clots of blood and dirt. Her skin, he could tell, hadn’t been much darker in life than it was now in death. She had been a pale skinned, dark haired beauty; the kind poetry and movies were written about.

Her make up was beautiful, earth tones with a slight shimmer on her eyes and cheeks, red on her full lips to match her perfectly coiffed hair, save for what had been ripped out. Drops of blood caked the prongs that held in place the diamonds in her earrings and the one single diamond that hung from her slender neck. Around one thin wrist was another string of diamonds to match the others; these clean and untouched by the blood from her head wound. Deep red nails to match her hair and lips punctuated each of her long thin fingers. He thought she had maybe played the piano in life.

The dress was simple but exquisite, white but so white it almost shone silver in the harsh fluorescent lights of the exam room. Tiny beads lined the strapless neckline. There must have been hundreds of them, he thought, not a single one bigger than the head of a pin, all catching and reflecting the light, dazzling him with their brilliance.

It followed her curves to her hips then splayed out across the gurney as he finished pulling the zipper open, revealing at the bottom hem of the dress, delicate silver strapped shoes and red painted toenails. He employed the help of the young man in the blue jumpsuit to move her from the gurney and body bag and onto the examining table then the young man was dismissed.

Her death was suspicious so everything she carried with her was evidence until determined otherwise. He gathered a stack of bags and went about removing those things to the bags. The diamond earrings, each into their own tiny bag. The necklace which caught the light and drew his eye to her delicate collarbone, into its own bag. Next he removed her bracelet, engagement ring - she’d never made it far enough to get the matching band - each to their own bag. One shoe, then the other and all that was left was her clothing.

He stood back from the table and looked at her. Pale skin, deep red lips, perfect red hair, arms laying almost comfortably at her sides. She could have been sleeping, if not for the missing patches of hair and blood that trailed along its edge and into her left ear, almost invisible to anyone not looking for it.

He returned to the side of the table and placed a damp bit of gauze in the end of the clamp and used it to wipe the trail of blood from her hairline. That too went into its own bag for evidence. With his magnified tweezers he inspected the wound, pulling from it small bits of rock, or maybe concrete, placing those in their own bags as well. Using the same tweezers he traced over her body, over the exquisite dress, looking for any other small bits that may be clues.

Before he was ready for it to be, that task was also finished. He would soon have to accept that he had come to the point where he’d have to remove the beautiful dress, reducing this once glowing bride to another rotting corpse. Again, he stood back from the table, instruments in hand, arms at his sides, and watched her, as if she really were only sleeping and would soon wake.

He stepped back to the table and picked up the fabric scissors from the instrument table. They sat poised above the top hem of her dress for several long moments before he returned them to their home. He propped her up on her side and one by one unbuttoned the back of the dress, the buttons running the entire length. He stopped unbuttoning just below her hips, figuring he had given himself enough room to pull it off of her respectfully. He looked at the largest of the evidence bags for several long minutes before going into the adjoining office. He removed an empty hanger and garment bag from the closet and returned them to the examination room.

After washing the hanger and bag, making sure there was nothing that would contaminate the dress…evidence… he slipped the dress onto the hanger using the plastic straps inside the side seams to hold it in place and placed the whole thing inside the bag, zipping it closed.