Her Shoes

I didn't know what to expect. It didn't matter that I had almost 20 years in this business. New situations reared their ugly heads on a daily basis. Most mundane, some interesting, some exhilarating, and some downright frightening.
This one was different. This was a first. I was excited, in a morbid kinda way.
I wove through the late morning traffic with my siren wailing and lights flashing. Thanks to the Chief of Police, a big car nut, my cruiser was equipped with more bright colored lights than you'd see while walking down the midway of carnival. There was always the occasional Buick that was slow to react. The old man in the hat driving the car would be oblivious to the screaming flashing monster in his mirrors, then suddenly take notice and jerk his behemoth of a vehicle to the right, bouncing off the curb.
I reached my intended destination without crashing, or causing any that I knew of. A big red fire truck was already parked out front. It's flashing lights, although impressive, demonstrated that the Fire Chief was not nearly as enamored with the presentation as his counterpart at the police department.
The tires of the cruiser squealed as I turned into the lot, past the woman in white who was frantically waving her arms as if stranded on a desert isle and I was captaining the rescue boat.
What was I about to see? Was her face going to be bloated and blue? Was there going to be any blood? Will there be many panicky family members with whom to contend? Will she be alive?
I bailed out of the cruiser, shutting down the shrill but forgetting the lights. What a beautiful day. Fluffy little clouds were adrift in a perfect light blue background. A summer breeze from the west caressed the back of my neck as the heat from the sun baked my face. The day itself was aloof to the horrific incident that was unfolding in the building right next to me.
I popped the trunk of the cruiser and grabbed the bright red medical bag and a pair of rubber gloves. The woman in white was yelling at me to follow her around the back of the office building. We jogged to a nondescript door that I didn't know existed. As I snapped on the rubber gloves, we crossed the threshold and took the curvy, carpeted steps two at a time.
She laid on the floor at the top of the steps.
Her lips were blue, which intesified her ashen face. Her eyes were shut and her breathing was labored and uneven. But she was breathing. That's always a good thing. There was a fresh, straight, red line running lengthwise across her neck. A small section of that line was bleeding from an abrasion. Her purple button-down shirt had partially climbed up her belly, exposing an old scar snaking vertically down her abdomen. She looked like she was in her mid-30's and not at all unattractive. How sad.
Her naked feet were still in the tiny bathroom, past the door that had been locked only moments before. Her black shoes sat, lonely, against the far wall of the bathroom. The brown electrical extension cord still hung from the ceiling vent, knot less.
The dentist from the downstairs office had attended to this young lady. He told me he helped her husband get her down, but he couldn't detect a pulse and she wasn't breathing. CPR brought her back but she was still in bad shape.
The psychologist, hands wringing, looked on from his office door. She never made it to her appointment.
After she was taken by the medical personnel, I collected her shoes and the cord and then distributed witness statements. As orderly and practiced as if may have seemed, it certainly was not. But this was one of the many situations in which I have to put up a front to keep everyone else calm.
I drove to the hospital not paying attention to the babble of the talk radio that was tuned in on my radio. I was trying to figure out how to talk to her husband, how to keep my sensitivity yet obtain the information I needed.
I began to wonder what her favorite color was and her favorite ice cream flavor. Did she like music, and what genre if she did. What did her laugh sound like? It probably wasn't shared enough.
And I still had her shoes.
As I pulled my cruiser onto the block that housed the hospital, I watched and listened to the big red and white helicopter take off from the roof. It headed south, toward the big city hospitals. My gut told me I knew who the passenger was.
I bumped into an emergency medical technician who had worked the scene. He confirmed my gut feeling.
I made my way back to the police station. As I placed her shoes in the property room, I wondered if they would ever be claimed.