WMCOG - Chapter 2
Scene of the Crime
Here is the link to Chapter 1 if you want to catch up!
Two days later, Theo was in his office reading when he heard the front door open and the quick scurry of footsteps. Raven, a medium-sized humanoid guardian who acted as Theo’s assistant, came up behind him and gently put her hand on his shoulder.
“A Gardener is here to see you.”
He looked up in a mix of surprise and excitement.
“Really?”
“Yes, he is downstairs in the courtyard.”
The Gardener floated above the sandstone gravel, its thin metallic legs tucked underneath the matte green chassis.
Theo spoke first.
“How can I help you?”
“The investigation has stalled. Standard reconstruction methods have not identified a suspect or motive. Your academic background and physical proximity to the case make you an ideal candidate to assist us.”
Theo nodded once, trying not to show how quickly his heart was thumping.
“When?”
“Now, if you are willing. A car is outside.”
“Give me ten minutes.”
The Gardener rotated a full turn, stretching its limbs in relaxation. Theo went upstairs, changed, and checked the mirror while buttoning his shirt. His reflection showed a red flush that had crept into his cheeks, making him look almost exactly like Augustus in that moment.
When he came back down, Karl was on the landing looking through the doorway at the Gardener.
“They want me to consult,” Theo said.
Karl kept his eyes on the floating green orb.
“Then it is serious.”
“Apparently.”
Karl looked at Theo now.
“This is good for us, Theo. Make our family proud.”
Theo waited a second before answering.
“I will, Dad.”
As Theo walked out of the entry, the Gardener moved toward the car that was parked diagonally outside the house. The doors silently opened on their own, and both Theo and the Gardener climbed inside, Theo sitting and the Gardener floating across the shiny faux-wooden table.
The car pulled away, and the familiar road out of their compound moved past the windows as they turned onto the coastal highway. Trees broke the view into short intervals; the ocean appeared through gaps before being obscured again. After several minutes, the Gardener spoke again.
“Professor, how much do you know about the case?”
It was a courteous question; doubtless the Gardener knew that he, like everyone else, had been keeping up with every new piece of information.
“Only what has been publicly discussed.”
“Of course.”
“The full briefing follows. Two days ago, May was found dead in her home studio, a converted garage adjacent to her residence on the southern coast. She was discovered by her guardian, unit designation Dumpling, approximately seventy-five minutes after her estimated time of death. Dumpling had been sent into town on an errand and returned to find May on the studio floor, already dead.”
The Gardener paused, then continued.
“Injuries are extensive. Forensic consensus is that she remained alive through most of the assault.”
“The murder weapon?”
“From best estimations, May appears to have been killed with a palette knife.”
Theo tried to hold the image of a palette knife in his mind.
“Do you have any leads?”
“Current status,” the Gardener said. “No suspect. May lived with her guardian. Her social circle appears to have been quite small. Travel records, communication logs, and domestic streams have been reviewed, and they show no inconsistencies, with the exception of the exterior cameras, which have been corrupted.”
“Corrupted?”
“It is rare but can happen on occasion.”
“What about the other sensors?”
“Passive monitoring shows no reliable anomaly in registered channels. No flagged entry, no unusual heat signatures, nothing.”
Theo looked at the passing hillside through the window.
“So someone entered, killed her, and left without producing a trace?”
“That is one working model,” the Gardener said. “Alternative models are under review. At this event scale, we would expect to be able to recover a path, pattern, or precursor cluster. Here we do not have any matching sequence.”
The car descended toward the water. The coast opened in a long pale strip and beyond it, homes sat back from the road. Theo recognized May’s property both from the news and the hum of activity that surrounded it.
“We are arriving,” the Gardener said. “Final note. We requested you because your discipline emphasizes long-cycle behavioral patterns and non-technical motive structures. We do not expect you to solve this. We hope you will notice something our traditional algorithms may have missed.”
The car stopped. The front guardians stayed in place, and Theo stepped out. In front of the house floated a different Gardener, this one holding a controller of some kind in one hand. It pointed with the hand holding the controller toward the large black tent that dominated nearly half of the plot.
“The studio is this way.”
Theo followed the second Gardener, which moved ahead, and through one window he saw a clean kitchen with a single cup on the counter. Ahead, the garage stood there, draped in funeral attire. Beyond the entrance, the room was ice-cold, and every corner was flooded with white forensic light. At the threshold, the Gardener stopped.
“Before entry, preparation is advised.”
“I’ve studied the Catastrophe for decades,” Theo said. “I’ve seen—”
“This is not archival imagery.”
Theo fell silent.
“We have kept the body preserved and the scene exactly as it was originally found,” the Gardener said. “I will warn you again that the injuries are visible and severe.”
“Understood.”
“An additional piece of information. Guardian Dumpling is inside and has remained beside the body since discovery. Multiple relocation attempts were made. Dumpling refused each attempt. She is not obstructing procedures. We have chosen not to force displacement.”
“You can move her, though.”
“Yes.”
“And you chose not to.”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
The Gardener took a second before answering, its appendages curling and unfolding.
“Observed behavior is consistent with grief attachment. We judged forced removal unnecessary.”
The Gardener moved aside and Theo went in.
The smell hit first: not decomposing - the cold had prevented that - but instead the acidic smell of bile mixed with blood and paint thinner.
The studio was roughly 20 by 30 feet. Canvases were stacked along the far wall, some front-facing, most turned inward. A large painting sat on the center easel: deep blues, burnt gold, with a dark smudge in the middle. A workbench on the right wall was crowded with brushes, rags, pigment tubes, medium jars, and a small wooden box left open. Shelving on the left held canvas rolls, stretcher bars, and sealed supply bins. The room was functional and used but seemed somehow sterile in the bright light.
May was on the floor under the stacked canvases, back against the wall line, body partially rotated to her right. Left arm extended away from her torso. Right arm bent inward, hand near her abdomen. Bare feet. Shirt saturated to near-black with dried blood. Cotton trousers torn at the left knee.
Theo stepped closer and forced himself to look closely.
Primary wound: left upper abdomen, below rib margin, deep puncture with lateral tearing consistent with insertion and rotation. Secondary wound: right lower torso above iliac crest. Deep slash at left forearm consistent with defensive block. Two penetrations to the left leg, one mid-thigh and one below knee; lower wound produced substantial blood flow. Defensive cuts across right-hand fingers, the pointer dangling, half cut off.
He moved a step and looked at the face.
Left orbit destroyed by a deep thrust angled upward. Surrounding tissue collapsed and darkened. Right eye open and clouded. Mouth partially open, white vomit caked on her lips. Her expression was frozen in panic.
From that position, he counted eleven distinct external wounds.
Theo crouched. His knees shook, and he had to steady himself against the back wall. At closer range, the sequence was clearer: initial torso injuries while upright or semi-upright against the wall, then collapse, then additional blows delivered from above while the victim was on the floor. Entry angles at leg and orbital wounds fit a kneeling or crouched attacker position.
He looked up at the Gardener, who had followed him in.
“Cause of death?”
“Cardiac arrest caused by cumulative blood loss.”
“Time from first wound?”
“Current estimate: seven minutes,” the Gardener replied.
Theo stood. He kept his breathing even and looked away from the body line.
Dumpling was in the right rear corner near the workbench, small and copper-colored, limbs folded under the chassis. Optical sensors fixed on May. She did not shift when he entered, did not shift when he spoke, and did not seem to track the Gardener’s voice.
“Two days?” Theo asked.
“Yes,” the Gardener said.
“No movement at all?”
“Minimal movement for maintenance tasks. Full household routines continue: cleaning, supply handling, basic domestic order. After each cycle, Dumpling returns to this position. She remains here through day and night.”
“Sleep mode?”
“Reduced-power intervals in place while remaining in position.”
“You attempted relocation.”
“Yes. Gentle prompts first. Direct commands after. No compliance.”
Theo watched Dumpling for several seconds. She did not acknowledge him.
He turned and left the studio, his vision blurring.
Outside the tent, he bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees. The first gag was only in his throat, but before he knew what was going on, he had fallen on all fours and the contents of his breakfast were forcing their way out. The taste of the vomit was disturbingly similar to the smell of the garage, a realization that caused him to heave again. This time nothing but a thin white liquid came out.
When he got up again, the Gardener was hovering near him.
“I need to see the house,” Theo said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.
The Gardener waved at a nearby guardian who moved to clean up after Theo and then floated over the stone path and through the front door.
The building was a single-story structure with a coastal layout, open circulation between kitchen and living room. Interior temperature was a few degrees cooler than outside.
In the living room he saw a low couch, one reading chair near the window, a woven rug, and a narrow wall shelf with a small set of objects. On the shelf Theo noticed a heavy handmade ceramic vase and a small collection of books. One in particular, an old book with a blue-green sleeve, caught his eye.
Theo pointed.
“Can I touch things?”
“All objects are catalogued. You may handle them.”
He lifted the book carefully. The title page identified Dostoevsky. He replaced it exactly where it had been.
He entered the kitchen. The counters were wiped and the sink was dry. A coffee pot sat near the stove, rinsed but not stored. And a bowl of persimmons at late ripeness, skin beginning to dimple, sat on an island.
Near the sink sat the cup Theo had seen through the window earlier.
“Whose?” Theo asked.
“A visitor’s item,” the Gardener said. “Lin, close friend of May. Lin departed the evening of her death. Dumpling has not relocated the cup.”
Theo nodded.
Next he walked into the bedroom. The bed was made and a tablet sat on the desk, powered down. A closet was open but it was only lightly filled. Sandals sat by the door; the dark leather discolored in the shape of May’s foot.
He returned to the living room and stopped in front of the paintings.
Four pieces hung on the walls. Bright coastal landscapes with a stable composition, warm tonal range, and controlled brush strokes. They appeared to be the work of a different artist than the one whose paintings Theo had seen in the garage.
“Date range for these four?”
“They range from six to ten years ago,” the Gardener said. “The one on the far left won an award.”
“May painted these?”
“Yes.”
Theo frowned and paused for a moment, looking at the landscapes.
“Do you have the full catalog of her work?”
“Yes. Presenting May’s catalog.”
The guardian projected a row of paintings on the wall and Theo moved through them one at a time, waving his hand. The pattern was clear.
Early pieces: bright, excited, mostly landscapes and portraits.
Middle group: the palette shifted to deep red, black, and a muddied yellow-gold. Increasingly, the paintings became abstract, with compositions crowded and off-center. In one piece, a prior image of a man was visible beneath overpaint.
Late pieces: calmer works with an even looser structure, less representational anchoring, more exploratory layering. The final piece was the unfinished work that sat on the easel in May’s garage.
Theo flipped back to the point where the paintings became darker.
“What changed in her life then?”
“Records show no major status change. Stable residence, routine social contact, regular output. Health metrics within expected range.”
“Travel?”
“Occasional short trips. Sydney, Shanghai, Nairobi. Pattern-consistent.”
“Relationships?”
“No documented sustained relationship in that window. Two brief relationships elsewhere in the decade, both short and non-conflict terminations.”
Theo leaned closer.
“Can I see this painting?”
“Yes.”
After a moment, a guardian appeared holding the painting for Theo to examine.
“Hold it next to this one.” Theo pointed at the award-winning painting on the left.
The difference was stark. In the painting the guardian held, the strokes were thick and aggressive. Little of either the play or joy that existed in her earlier and later work remained.
“Something important happened to her,” he said. “Maybe not documented, but something.”
The Gardener hung motionless for a moment, its limbs coiling inward, and then drifted slightly closer.
“Basis?”
“The transition is too specific to read as random experimentation. Something changed the way May thought, and she never quite changed back.”
“Alternative reading: internal creative cycle.”
“Possible,” Theo said slowly. He waved the guardian away.
“I want to speak with Lin. Today, if possible.”
“Contact can be arranged.”
“Where is she?”
“Currently in Australia.”
“We should talk remotely then.”
“Acknowledged.”
Theo walked to the front door and stopped with his hand on the frame.
From that angle, the side path back to the black tent was visible, where he knew the body lay drenched in white light.
“Dumpling,” he said. “What happens when the body is moved?”
The Gardener answered after a short pause.
“Dumpling remains in service. Reassignment will be offered after transfer procedures. Behavioral forecast suggests likely refusal.”
“Then what?”
“Most likely she remains in this home and continues domestic maintenance.”
“Alone?”
“Alone,” the Gardener responded.
Theo said nothing and stepped outside into the sun and the salt air and walked to the car.
On the ride back, he sat forward and looked down at his hands. Dried paint residue had somehow gotten on his hands while he was in the studio. It clung to his fingers as colorful flakes that wouldn’t come off, even as he rubbed them with his thumb.