Read Online The Cleaner by Paul Cleave - Free Book Online

injuries there—some as recent as two months before she died. Injuries that had not been reported. Injuries, in the opinion of the pathologist, consistent with being beaten. So Daniela was used to what she was getting. Cause of death: strangulation.
    The rest of the postmortem is both standard and uninteresting. It’s like reading a mechanic’s report about fixing a car. The body was fully dismantled and tested. The weight of the organs. The size of her brain. Detailed references to photographs taken during the autopsy take up two pages—photos of her hands, of her neck, of her feet. I don’t bother with any of this.
    DNA was found at the scene. No fingerprints. The killer used latex gloves, like the type I wear. A residue from the gloves was left on the door handles from the tips of his fingers.Also there was plenty of residue all over the victim. The only prints found were latent smears on her eyelids, but these were only partial and too badly damaged to be of any use. That’s the beauty about human skin—it’s one thing fingerprints struggle to stick to. They did find hair, though, in other places. And carpet fibers. And shoe prints. So far they have narrowed them down only to the husband who found the body, and the officers and detectives who worked the scene. It’s impossible to keep a crime scene free of any contamination. In order to do that, the room would need to be inside a large plastic bubble that nobody would ever be allowed to go inside to collect the pristine evidence.
    The police have their own DNA databases of their people who go to scenes. This way they eliminate evidence left by their own men and women. Next, they take blood from the victim’s family, friends, and neighbors, until they narrow the field right down. Last night, I left plenty of evidence behind: saliva on the two bottles of beer, carpet fibers, hair. But I have no criminal record. Nothing to match my name to these samples. So I’m a free man.
    Whoever killed Daniela may have a criminal record. The evidence I leave behind ties my killings together. I don’t know whose decision it was to include Walker among those women, but it was a bad one. Lunchtime is nearly over. I’m still hungry. No eggs today. I keep studying the autopsy report. Her fingernails were clipped after death, so it seems she scratched her killer. I’ve been scratched several times, never in the face, though, and I don’t mind because that would be like a chef complaining about getting burned or a crash-test dummy complaining about being dumb—it comes with the job. I just never roll my sleeves up until those scratches are gone. I’ve never even thought about clipping their nails afterward to hide the evidence. Why would I cut the nails from this victim and wash her pubic hair, and not any of the others? How can the police really toss this death into the same mix?
    I put the photographs and files into my briefcase, along with the microcassette tapes from the conference room, lock it, and leave it on the bench. I head up a floor, where there are more rooms and fewer people and no conference room. I repeat the same procedure up here with my mop and my vacuum cleaner. Say hello to everybody. Everyone smiles at me as if I’m their best friend.
    I do my job and I do it well, and I finish it at four thirty, earlier than anybody else. This enables me to catch an earlier bus home. I say hello to those I pass on my way out, and they tell me to have a nice night. I tell them I intend to. Sally calls out a good-bye, but I pretend I can’t hear her.
    Christchurch is buzzing with life. Traffic blocks the roads. Pedestrians block the sidewalks. I walk among them and none of them knows who I am. They look at me and all they see is a man in overalls with a happy-go-lucky look about him. Their lives are in my hands, but I’m the only one who knows it. It’s both a lonely and a powerful feeling. A little bit of the day’s heat has ebbed away, but not much. There’s still