Lieutenant Albright breezed in through the front doors of the medical examiner’s office just over twenty minutes later. True to what Ben had told me earlier, her gelid expression had not changed in the least.
“Mister Gant,” she said as she entered, cracking what might have passed for a pleasant smile had there not been so much sarcasm affixed to it. “I am surprised to find you here in the lobby as I asked. Apparently you CAN obey the law if you try hard enough.”
“The door is locked,” I answered coldly. “You know that.”
“Of course.” She nodded. “But that sort of thing has never stopped you in the past.”
I caught an acidic response in my throat and choked it back down, turning my head to the side and closing my eyes as I did so. I heeded Felicity’s advice and took an audibly deep breath in through my nose, then exhaled slowly through my mouth as I opened my eyes and turned back to face Albright. I could feel energy flowing along my spine and coupling with the Earth in a solid ground. It was as tangible to me as a hot and neutral lead on an electrical outlet. Still, it didn’t bring complete calm, and simply being in this woman’s presence made me bristle.
“Look, Lieutenant,” I began. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. I have no desire to continue down this path with you.”
“And which path would that be, Mister Gant?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“I’m telling you that I am not going to allow you to bait me any longer, Lieutenant,” I replied. “I’m here, just like you asked. I’m just waiting for you to tell me what it is you want from me.”
I cannot say that she was visibly disappointed by my stance, but I definitely had the feeling that some of her steam had instantly become just so much condensation. There was a short period of silence while she considered what I had just said. I fully suspected that she was using the time to regroup and plot her way around the obstacle I had just placed before her.
“Mister Gant,” she proceeded with a tilt of her head. “What I want, you cannot possibly give.”
“How so?”
“No matter what powers you may claim to have, you cannot change that which has already happened. I firmly believe that the man on the table beyond that door is there because of you. There is nothing you can do to bring him back nor any of the other victims for that matter.”
“No. No I can’t,” I agreed in a quiet tone.
“Now, just a little while ago I had the unpleasant duty of phoning Mister Harper’s wife to ask that she come down here to identify his remains, and…”
She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Like a banshee wail, Felicity’s voice pierced the air between us, rendering everyone mute. “You what?!”
“Excuse me?” Albright turned her hard stare on my wife.
“Aye,” Felicity began as she stood and moved forward, bringing herself eye-to-eye with the lieutenant with no more than a pair of steps between them. “You told Nancy that Randy was dead, over the phone?”
“And what would you have had me do, Miz O’Brien?” she shot back.
“Send someone to tell her in person.”
“That is not how it is done.”
The one word response that my wife uttered next surprised everyone, including me. “Bitch.”
The thick calm that enveloped her as she spoke was something I had seen only once before and was in no hurry to see again. The button that had now been pushed was well up the column from what I’d done earlier. I wasn’t sure if there were enough Gods to create a pantheon that was capable of quelling the fire that had just been ignited.
I actually saw a wash of surprise flow across Lieutenant Albright’s features as she stared back at the redheaded tempest in front of her. It was obvious that Felicity’s outburst had blindsided her.
“What did you just say?” she asked.
“I think you heard me, then,” my wife answered with frigid purpose in her voice as she cocked her head to the side and glared. “But I’ll be more than happy to repeat it for you if you’d like.”
The door on the back wall of the lobby clicked loudly and then whooshed open just as Albright started to open her mouth. A pale young man with a stoic expression and scraggly goatee poked his head through the opening and regarded us with general disinterest. After a moment, he pushed the door wider and held it open with his back against it.
“Doc says for you to come on back” was all he said.
Albright swung her gaze from the young man back to Felicity and shook her index finger perfunctorily as she mustered a menacing tone. “We will finish this discussion later.”
“Aye,” my wife retorted as she gave her a curt nod, but still never broke eye contact. “I’ll be looking forward to it, then.”
“Johnathan, could you please turn that down?” The medical examiner on duty called out to the diener who had led us back to the autopsy suite, raising his voice to be heard over the music that filled the room.
On the opposite wall, the young man was standing at a stainless steel sink performing what must have been some daily routine considering the mechanically adept way he was approaching it. Whatever it was, it involved angry-looking medical implements that appeared as though they would be more at home on the set of a horror movie.
Aphrodite’s Child’s “Four Horsemen” was blaring from the speakers of a compact stereo nestled on a shelf in an out of the way corner. Considering the tune was one that came from my generation, it was not the type of music I would have expected to appeal to someone as young as the assistant, but to each their own.
He wordlessly abandoned his task for a moment to step over and spin the knob on the bookshelf sound system. He dropped the volume out of our range of hearing just as the chorus was about to inform us as to the color of the fourth horse.
It didn’t matter. Like most anyone, I already knew the color and what it represented. I found no particular amazement in the coincidental symbolism either. It was the sort of thing that seemed to be happening to me constantly these days, and I’d grown jaded to it.
“Thank you,” the M.E. stated aloud, the tone sounding as though the words came more from habit than actual courtesy.
We were standing next to a metal table in the tiled room. The form resting atop it was zipped partially into a body bag that could be seen at the foot. From the vicinity of the waist upward, it was also covered by a white sheet, a necessity because of the two-by-four that was still attached to the corpse.
The weathered length of wood jutted out on either side, exposed for all to see. Randy’s pale hand was twisted into a pained claw, his wrist mottled purple and swollen where several circlets of bailing wire held it fast to the wood. Frozen blood streaked the appendage and glistened wetly as it thawed.
I stole a glance at Felicity. She was holding her eyes tightly shut with her fist pressed against her lips. Her visceral anger had been replaced for the moment by bitter anguish.
I took a deep breath of the frigid air in the suite as I struggled to maintain control, myself. The smell of death and raw meat stung my nostrils, and I choked back the desire to vomit. The fact that a good friend was lifeless beneath the shroud made this experience different from any other. Even when I’d helped investigate Ariel Tanner’s death, I had never been in close proximity to her corpse as I was now with Randy. I wasn’t entirely sure I could handle it.
If the increasing throbs inside my skull were any indicator, I would have to say no.
The doctor turned his attention to us. “Now then, we won’t be starting the post until later this morning…”
“Is Doc Sanders doing it?” Ben interjected, referring to the chief medical examiner for the city.
“Doctor Sanders is on vacation right now,” the M.E. replied.
“What about calling her in,” my friend pressed. “She’s familiar with the way this wingnut operates, and I’m sure…”
“I am certain Doctor Friedman can handle the task, Detective,” Albright announced with a thread of agitation in her voice, cutting him off mid-sentence.
“I’m afraid she is unreachable.” The doctor was obviously miffed but offered the explanation anyway. “If I remember her itinerary correctly, she is on a cruise ship somewhere in the Bahamas.”
“When’s she get back?” Ben forged ahead.
“Storm!”
“Yeah, okay, sorry Doc. You were saying?”
The M.E. sighed and then continued, “We won’t be starting the official post until later this morning; however, I assume you are all aware of the condition of the body, so the cause of death is not likely to be much of a mystery.”
“How did you ID him?” I asked
“His driver’s license,” Lieutenant Albright answered for him.
“He was nude when I saw him hanging from the building,” I ventured. “Where did you find that? With the note?”
“Not exactly,” she replied. “Doctor?”
The M.E. looked surprised. “Lieutenant, since Mister Gant knew the deceased, I am not certain that…”
“No, Doctor,” she returned. “I insist. Mister Gant needs to see this.”
Doctor Friedman glanced at me with an apologetic shake of his head. I had met him before, and this was the closest I’d seen to real compassion from the man. That made me fear what I was about to see even more.
His sudden attack of humanity was well placed, but he just didn’t have the backbone to stand up to Albright. Without another word, he pulled back the sheet, hesitating initially before finally executing the deed.
“Awww, Jeeeez…” Ben exclaimed. “Lieutenant…”
“Shut up, Storm,” she cut him off yet again.
Eldon Porter wanted no mistakes made in identifying Randy Harper. In point of fact, he had gone out of his way to be certain of it.
Bile rose in my throat, and I began to physically tremble from the sickening mixture of sadness, pain, and overwhelming anger as I stared at the horror before me.
Felicity yelped, and I heard her behind me as she began to sob, but she was soon drowned out by the thick noise of blood rushing in my ears as my pulse began to race.
The means of identification was just what Albright had said it to be-a Missouri driver’s license. What she hadn’t warned me of was the fact that it was firmly affixed to the center of his forehead by a framing nail driven deeply into his skull. Judging from the lack of severe trauma, Porter had probably used a nail gun.
I probably would have stood there transfixed by the appalling sight, eventually falling into ethereal sync with the final violent moments of his life had it not been for the anguished scream that suddenly sliced through the room.