Starvation (M-self)

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slackywacky
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Starvation (M-self)

Post by slackywacky »

Starvation
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“Damn, he wasn’t like that last time we met.” John said, looking at the partly covered body of a male on the table in the morgue.

“That’s why we called you. You met him not too long ago, right?” The coroner, Sebastian Clintock, asked his friend, the local sheriff, John Carpenter.

“Yeah, Kyle Whitlock, 27 years old, no fixed home address. Our path crossed three month ago in the spring. I remember him because it was a bit of a weird call. What happened?”

“Selfbondage gone wrong, we think. He was found in the woods by a game warden, pure accidental, the warden was following a wounded deer and came across this body. Nobody ever walks in those woods; it is posted as private property. Cause of death is starvation. Based on the state of the body, he died a week ago. I can only imagine how long it took for him to die. Not a nice way to go.”

“You suspect he was there all this time, locked up and no way to get to water or food?”

Sebastian picked up his tablet and showed John some photos.

“Oh Jesus.” He said, looking at the crime scene photos.

It showed Kyle, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, lying on the forest ground, hands cuffed behind his back with hinged handcuffs, ankles cuffed with the chain linked over the handcuffs, holding him in a tight hogtie. He had a black spandex hood over his head, with a large ballgag on top of it locked tightly in his mouth. A heavy chain was fixed between his neck and a tree, giving him only a small area to move around in, sturdy locks prevented Kyle from getting the chain loose.

“How do you know it was not a crime?” John asked.

“Only his fingerprints are on the locks and cuffs. And there was only a single track of footprints coming in to where he was found. When the ranger traced it back, he found a bicycle stashed away not far from the only access road. We found no evidence of another person.”

“That does not mean there is no crime. Somebody could have set him up to it.” John countered.

“That’s where you come in. We only identified the body this morning, hence why we called you.”

“Yeah, just what I wanted. I know these calls are part of the job, but I hate to have to tell somebody that his/her son is dead.”

“In this case you don’t have to tell the parents, there are none, they died a few years ago. The system shows no next of kin. As you met him before, I assume you can ID him?”

“Yep, I can. Roughly three month ago I got a call that a man was walking near the dollar store on Bradford Road with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was not hard to find, I found him walking along the road towards the train station. It turned out to be a dare. Officially there is nothing I can do about people walking around handcuffed, there is no law against it, but we had a chat about how weird it might look. The dare had gone fine until people at the dollar store spotted him and called us. Since he had no ID on him, he had to come by the office the next day, that’s how I know who he was.”

“Who did the dare?” Sebastian asked, while covering up the body.

“He wouldn’t tell me. I think somebody offered him some money. Nothing I could do.”

Sebastian nodded and rolled the gurney with the body towards the cooler.

“Based on how we found Kyle, it is probably warranted to say that he was into bondage.” Sebastian said, closing the door to the cooler behind him.

“Yeah, I figured that too. Did we find keys? He is cuffed and has the chain locked to his neck and the tree. It could be suicide?”

“Yeah we found them, but we needed a metal detector to locate them. It looks like he dropped them and could not find them back, probably because of the hood. The spot where we found them was just outside of the area he could traverse, chained as he was. I suspect he covered them up with soil when he tried to find him, possibly panicking, and trashing around.”

“I can’t imagine lying in the woods, bound, gagged, blindfolded and losing the keys. Without them he would never have gotten out of those cuffs, those are police regulation cuffs. But then, I would not be doing something stupid like that anyway.”

“Sometimes plans don’t work out. I think, based on the trashing he must have done, looking at the disturbed soil, that it was not his intention to die there. But sometimes it is hard to tell. It does not feel like suicide.”

“He did have some money; those cuffs are not cheap.” John said to Sebastian.

“According to the computer, he was on welfare and did the odd jobs around the place. He stayed pretty much under the radar, there is not much on him in the system. No tax reports either.”

“Dead and nobody who cares. Not the first and unfortunately not the last. There must be a place where he stored some stuff, he must have had some possessions.”

“That is your job, not mine. If there is no claim for the body in the next few days, he’ll get a state cremation.”

“I will do some investigation. I know last time we met, he stayed in a tent behind the old gas station. I’ll start there.”

* * * * * * * *

A week later Sebastian and John looked at the simple wooden coffin, which was ready to go into the large furnace.

“Nobody claimed the body, but I found it wrong that nobody would show up at his cremation. Afterall, he was somebody’s son and deserves at least that much respect.”

“Yes, that’s why I am here too. Thanks for letting me know.” John said.

“Once you found out that there was nobody who would claim his body, I arranged the cremation.”

“My investigation did not provide much info. His tent was still behind the gas station. A sleeping bag, some canned food, water bottles, he lived rough. I did find a stash of bondage magazines and the receipts for the cuffs, chain, ballgag, and locks. They were several months old. Funny that he kept them, as there was hardly anything else of paper there. We cleaned the site.”

“No trace left of a life lived on the low end of society.” Sebastian sighed.

“It sounds wrong, I agree. Nobody should have to live like that.”

The coffin disappeared into the furnace and once the door closed, the glow of the fire could be seen through the thick glass.

“What did you do with his belongings?” John asked.

“The usual, they will go into storage for 10 years. If they are not claimed by then, they’ll be destroyed.”

Both men stood silently watching the flames, until the flames died down.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Sebastian said.

John nodded, before shaking Sebastian’s hand.

“Thanks for coming.”

“You’re welcome. See you soon, hopefully under better circumstances.”

Both men left the funeral parlor and went on their ways. The ashes in the oven were collected by the funeral attendant and put in a simple urn. The urn was placed on a shelf in the rear of the building, waiting for the slight possibility that somebody would claim it.

And life went on…
Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment.
Slackywacky, also @DeviantArt

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