She held the worn stub of a white crayon out to me. I starred at the crayon for a moment and then said, "Turn out the lights."
People looked at me a little puzzled, but a patrol cop hit the switch. I turned my phone flashlight app on. "Anybody got anything fine and dark, like pencil lead?" I asked.
"How about fingerprint dusting powder?"
"That should work." A flash light lit up and a detective from narcotics moved off. He was back three minutes later with a bag full of the stuff.
I scooped my hands into it and threw it lightly against the wall to the left of the hanging figure. The powder puffed off the wall to fall to the floor, but some of the finer dust stuck to the marks of the white crayon on the wall.
There was a general rise of exclamation from the gathered crowd of what was revealed on the wall beside the dead man's hand. A man's face was roughly captured in a profile shot, as if the man had been looking away; the image included the tops of the man's shoulders and the open front of his shirt. The real attention had been given to a detailed tattoo. The twisting body of a snake slinked across the exposed area of chest only to disappear up and around the far side of the neck. The body of the snake reappeared coming around the back of the neck to culminate on a head on shot of the snake's head facing us on the man's cheek. Its mouth was open revealing its fangs and forked tongue. The eyes were malevolent like only a snake's can be.
One officer asked in a hushed tone, "How could he draw that not even being able to see what he was doing?"
Lauren answered him, "He was an artist, and they often have the ability from long practice to draw what they see in their mind without ever looking, so in tune are their hands with their mind's image. The good ones are anyway." She added.
The narcotic detective that had gotten the fingerprint dust spoke up, "I've seen enough of gang tattoos to know this one looks symbolic somehow. Anybody know what kind of snake that is?"
"It's a black mamba and the tattoo is the sign of an obscure cult in East Africa." I answered softly, even as the image on the wall ushered back in a whole host of bad memories that I had been running from for years. My nightmares were becoming a reality again. I turned away from the scene feeling sick to my stomach.