The Girl of My DreamsPart I

2/13/2006

By A Douglas

This entry is part of a series, Dream Girl»

Late one night I was called out to a house in one of the lower economic regions of the city. It was actually my first trip to this particular area. I’d driven past it numerous times on the expressway and never even knew it was there. There are several of these types of areas in this and every other city I suppose. Thousands drive past them on the interstates and main roads and never actually go through them. These are areas of the city I would never drive through if it weren’t for the fact that there were police officers waiting for me.

This particular part of the city was certainly known to law enforcement. The fact that one of the major thoroughfares for rail traffic in the city was only two blocks to the west would have made one think that I was now on the wrong side of the tracks. One look down the street to the neighborhood on the other side of the tracks, and I was immediately aware that neither side was particularly enviable.

As I parked across the street from the address, a police lieutenant appeared from nowhere as I opened the door. He spoke quietly so that only I could hear, “We’ll talk inside.�?

He then ushered me past a large group of people that had accumulated in the driveway and we made our way to the front porch. An officer on the porch nodded at me with a look as though he recognized me from some previous scene and opened the screen door. I nodded back politely, though in truth I didn’t specifically recall him. It’s fairly easy for thousands of officers to remember a dozen or so death investigators. It’s not so easy the other way around.

My first clue that the inside of this house was going to be an absolute pit was the circuitous route that the lieutenant and I made to the front porch as we navigated our way through car parts, appliances, and broken toys. People who give little regard to the impression their front yard makes seem to care even less when it comes to the part of their property that is not in the public eye. I have yet to walk across such a yard and enter a house where I would consider sitting down or touching anything without gloves on.

As I entered the house I couldn’t help notice the pie-shaped “snow angel�? pattern that the front door had carved in the debris that covered the living room floor. Beyond that, a small path had been trampled in the garbage that forked at the other end of the room and led to other parts of the house. It was along this path that the lieutenant and I now stood along with another officer and two crime scene technicians, each of us seemingly afraid to step off the main path into the surrounding area.

I got the rest of the information I needed from the officer inside the house. A mother had gone to check on her two and a half year old girl and called 911 when the little girl didn’t respond. The officer had arrived at the scene shortly after the paramedics who were in the process of checking for vital signs. The lack of vital signs and the obvious presence of rigor mortis was enough for the paramedics to pronounce the girl dead at the scene. The little girl was also known to have some sort of debilitating disease because paramedics noticed that she had a gastric feeding tube in place.

After the briefing in the living room, I carefully followed the two crime scene technicians into the back bedroom of the house. To say that I was shocked by what I saw is an understatement. The significance of first exposure to that scene was evidenced by the way that both crime scene technicians were looking at me to see my reaction.

Stay tuned for Part II…

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