A hand came down on his shoulder, and Beckett yelped, jumping away.
“Woah, Doc, you okay?”
Beckett whipped his head around to look at one of the uniformed officers he recognized from downstairs. The man was squinting at him suspiciously.
“We managed to finally get the girl out of the apartment—seems like she was a good friend of the deceased… claims it wasn’t suicide. Says that the man wouldn’t commit suicide, no way, no how,” he hesitated. “Was it? Was it suicide?”
Beckett opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He simply stood there, trembling slightly, sweat forming on his forehead despite the cold air filtering up to him from the open door behind him.
The officer reached forward and went to put a hand on his shoulder again.
Beckett pulled back.
“Don’t touch me,” he managed to croak. The officer stared for a moment, confusion and then hurt forming on his young face. “Sorry. I’m just not feeling so well all of a sudden.”
The officer’s expression softened.
“That’s alright. It’s the weather, I bet. You know, wet hair and cool air and all that.”
Beckett resisted the urge to chastise the man, to call him an idiot. No one got sick from cold air.
“Yeah, must be,” he said instead. Then, with a deep breath, he turned back to the hanged man.
His name was Dr. Edison, Eddie, Larringer, and he was a student in Beckett’s forensic pathology class. In fact, it dawned on Beckett that Eddie was the one who had been missing from the exam earlier in the day.
I guess this is as good a reason as any to miss a test, Beckett couldn’t help but think. And then he felt sick to his stomach. Of all the horrific homicide scenes he had attended, of which there had been many, he had never once come across the body of someone that he knew.
“Well,” the officer said softly. “Was it suicide?”
Beckett steeled himself and observed the body again, thinking about how Eddie had been slowing down as of late, his answers in class becoming more erratic. These were clear signs of stress, and his grades were suffering because of it. In fact, Beckett had already come to the conclusion that he would keep Eddie back a year, just to make sure that he was ready for the big leagues.
And now… this.
Looking up at Eddie, Beckett realized that there was something oddly familiar about the way he was hanging, about the way his eyes bulged and were surrounded by broken blood vessels.
He swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” he said in a dry voice. “It certainly looks like a suicide. Let’s bag his hands for evidence just in case and get him down, shall we?”
Chapter 13
Try as he might, Drake couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. And for some reason, he had the sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the young doctor, Eddie Larringer.
After pancakes, he spent the rest of the day sipping on whiskey and watching the boring meanderings of Mrs. Armatridge and her husband, who, for the record, was confined to a wheelchair for ninety-percent of the day. This did little to help him ignore the nagging sensation in his gut.
This one is different; it’s not the same person, not the same crime. It’s been staged… he’s been murdered.
Drake was sitting on the worn couch in his apartment, drink in hand, cell phone in the other. The TV was on in the background, but even if pressed he would’ve have had a hard time recounting what was on.
And then there was the finger bone on the glass table, lying like an abandoned pile of salt.
He watched as Mrs. Armatridge went to the kitchen, said something to herself, then reached for a large knife. The woman teased it from the block, and held it up to the light. In her reflection, Drake caught sight of a small smile she had on her weathered face.
What’s she doing? he wondered, thankful for the distraction.
A flicker of movement from the upper right quadrant caught his eye. The maid, a one Consuela Ortiz, was helping Mr. Armatridge rise out of bed. As she leaned forward, lowering her full breasts level with the man’s face, she helped swing his legs over the side of the bed. Except that wasn’t all she did; Drake could have sworn that he saw her small, tanned hand sweep over his lap.
This in itself wouldn’t have seemed out of place—after all, she was helping the man into his wheelchair and incidental contact was to be expected—but it was her face that made Drake frown.
A smile, one that was just wide enough to reveal a flash of white teeth, fleetingly appeared on Consuela’s young face.
His eyes flicked to Mrs. Armatridge, who was curiously running her finger along the blade of the knife as if testing the sharpness of the edge.
Drake took a sip of his drink and shook his head, silently admonishing himself for such morbid thoughts.
That’s all in the past, Drake. This isn’t a murder scene—you’re done with those. You’ve moved on. Get a grip.
And then an idea struck him.
I should go out. Go to a bar. Meet someone. A woman, perhaps.
His eyes flicked to the bone on the desk, and for the first time since Ivan had placed the envelope on the table at Patty’s Diner, he didn’t feel the accompanying pang of guilt in its presence.
Drake shut off his phone, and put it on the table beside the bone and then stood. Stretching his back, he sighed, then made his way to his bedroom.
Yes, he thought with something akin to pleasure, I should go out.
He grabbed a clean V-neck t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans from the top drawer of his dresser and put them on.
Then, with a smile, he made his way to the front door, not even casting so much as a sidelong glance at his past life.
***
Barney’s was a local pub adorned by stained glass windows out front and a long bar that stretched the length of the pub, crafted from what had once been a massive piece of driftwood, inside. There were more taps standing at attention above the bar than there were kegs, but there were still enough kegs to satisfy even those with very specific malted barley tastes. The bartender was a friendly man who had a decade on Drake—pushing closer to fifty than forty—with a severe look, but an air that suggested approachability.
Or at least, that was what Barney’s had been three or four years ago when Drake and Clay had spent the occasional lazy afternoon inside its doors.
Now, however, Barney’s was a completely different animal. For one, the massive wooden door had been replaced by two large gentlemen wearing black t-shirts that were two-sizes too small. In fact, there didn’t appear to be an actual door at all. Behind these two men, Drake could see that the massive bar had been replaced by something sleek and black, and the worn leather booths Drake had become accustomed to had been usurped by waist-high tables made of some sort of reflective material. Barney’s interior was dim, but as he squinted into the darkness, it was suddenly punctuated by bright flashes of light.
Drake knew that he was grimacing, but couldn’t seem to scrape the expression from his face.
Barney’s had gone from a majestic lion to some sort of autistic neon leopard.
Still, despite his apprehension, Drake took a step forward. As he did, the bouncers moved closer to each other, blocking the open doorway.
“Fuck this,” Drake grumbled and turned, intent on heading back to his car and getting the hell away from this electric eyesore.
But a voice from within, which somehow managed to pierce the dull thud of dance music, hollered his name.
“Drake? That you? Jesus fucking Christ! Get your ass in here!”
Drake turned back and squinted hard, and as he did, the strobe lights flashed, and he caught sight of the bartender, of the man he knew as Mickey Roots. His severe expression was gone, and his narrow faced seemed to have filled out slightly, aided by the presence of a thick gray mustache.
“Hey Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, let him in! Let Drake in!” Mickey shouted, waving an arm dramatically.
The bouncer’s faces twisted into matching scowls, but they wordlessly parted to allow him passage.
And yet Drake hesitated. Part of him thought that this bar had become some sort of portal that would transport him to another dimension.
This wasn’t him.
He was the old Barney, this was… this was like a title of an early Tom Wolfe novel.
But why was he clinging to the old Barney? The old Barney meant staying at home, staring at his cell phone, at the finger bone, thinking of Clay and Chase and times long past.
“Fuck this,” he repeated, only this time, it felt good to say the words. Holding his head high for the first time in what felt like forever, he moved toward the open door. As he passed the bouncers, he said, “Why thank you, Tweedle-gentlemen.”
Chapter 14
Beckett stumbled into his NYU office, breathing heavily. The image of Eddie’s face, eyes bulging, foam at the corners of his mouth, was etched on his retinas, embossed on his mind.
He was so distraught that at first, he didn’t notice that Suzan was still sitting at his desk.
“Dr. Campbell?” she said softly, making him jump. He wiped the sweat from his brow and then brought his hand in front of his face, confused and worried that it was still trembling. “You alright? You don’t look so well.”
Beckett stared at her for a moment, unable to prevent himself from seeing her eyes widen, her tongue turn purple and swollen and hang from her heart-shaped mouth.
A shudder ran up his spine, and he had to physically shake his head to regain control of himself.
“I’m fine,” he said, then bit the inside of his lip. “I’m not, actually. Hey, are you done correcting the exams?”
Suzan frowned.
“On the last one,” she informed him. “But I really think that you should go over them just in case. Some of the answers…”
Beckett waved a hand dismissively.
“Don’t care about the answers. Did you come across the exam for Eddie Larringer?” he asked, knowing the answer already.
Suzan looked down and flipped through the stack of exams.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Beckett felt his heart flutter in his chest.
“Did he skip the test?”
“Yes,” he whispered. He began to think a little more about the events of the day, trying to piece together why things felt so strange, when this foreboding sensation initially began.
Was it when at the cafe this morning, getting his usual coffee when the woman with the piercing blue eyes had bumped into him, spilling her latte on her cream-colored blouse? When she’d cursed him as if he had done something wrong?
No, that wasn’t it. That was a usual occurrence for New York.
Well then, what?
“Beckett? Do you want me to go? To let you sit? You still don’t look well.”
“No,” he grumbled. “Just keep grading, please.”
And then it hit him. The strange feeling had come over him when the PowerPoint images had started cycling.
It was the image of the man who had died from positional asphyxia that had set him on this course.
Beckett snapped his fingers, causing Suzan to startle.
Yes! That’s it, the sweater was different!
“Beckett?”
Beckett walked over to her side of his desk.
“Scooch,” he said, and she slid her chair to one side. Beckett reached down and opened the door to his desk.
Two days ago, someone had left a folder with images from the exam on his desk. At the time, he thought it was the Dean of Medicine, but he had been so busy he hadn’t bothered to follow-up on it.
Only now, it wasn’t there.
He rubbed his chin and squinted at the myriad of branded pens, stress balls, and USB drives adorned with one pharmaceutical name or another.
“Suze, can you pull up the images from the exam on the computer?”
Suzan nodded and started punching away at his computer. He had left it open and it didn’t require a password… against school policy, of course, but he didn’t much care for policy.
He cared about solving problems, mysteries, and for some reason, despite the obvious signs that Eddie had committed suicide, he was beginning to think that there was something deeper going on here.
Something insidious.
The PowerPoint started running and Beckett stared closely at the image on the screen. As expected, it depicted the man bent over on his own neck. The man in the striped sweater.
It is different, he concluded, remembering how the stripes had been vertical in the image that had been left on his desk, while these ran horizontally.
The image flicked over to the next image, this time of a hanged man. Suzan accidentally clicked the mouse and the next slide appeared, showing an obese man in a bathtub, his wrists slit.
“Wait! Go back!”
Suzan clicked again, and Beckett felt his blood run cold.
“No,” he moaned, and for the second time this day, the second time in as long as he could remember, Beckett felt fear course through him.
This image was of a man hanging from the ceiling, a drop ceiling tile removed, one end of a faded rope wrapped around a water pipe, the other around his neck.
The man’s back was to the photographer, but Beckett could clearly see that he was wearing dark jeans with a soiled spot between the two rear pockets. He was also sporting a clean white t-shirt and a pair of worn Converse sneakers, the laces untied.
“This is… impossible,” he muttered, blinking rapidly, wondering if he was still somehow hungover, or if the Ayahuasca he had indulged in a couple of months back in Montreal was finally coming back to haunt him.
“What? What is it?” Suzan asked.
Beckett swallowed hard.
“I just… I just saw this man, hanging from the ceiling,” he gasped. “This is Eddie Larringer.
Chapter 15
Drake fumbled to open the door to his apartment, while at the same time holding the back of the woman’s head, their lips pressed together in a sloppy, drunken kiss.
He cursed when he dropped his keys. Peeling her off him, he bent to grab them. As he did, the woman thrust her hips forward seductively, moving her crotch, hidden behind her black satin dress, in his direction. Drake slid up her body, pressing his jeans against her, watching as her chin rose, a soft moan escaping her mouth. He kissed the corner of her jaw, then finally managed to open his door. He thrust it open, and then wrapped his arms around her thin waist, and picked her up and entered his apartment.
He used the heel of his shoe to slam the door closed behind them.
Then Drake started kissing her again, breathing in her scent, the lingering aftertaste of his own whiskey-laden breath mixed with the sweetness of the Prosecco that she had been drinking.
They barely made it to the couch. Drake had lifted the woman’s dress over her head and was now kissing her on the neck, shoulders, every pale, perfect patch of skin that he could find. She was wearing a sexy black bra and lace panties beneath her dress, and in only a few seconds, he had removed those as well.
And then he too was naked. Drake lowered the woman onto the couch, the couch that he had spent many nights on alone, and then resumed kissing her, stroking her, and finally, entering her.
She gasped loudly and her hand flew out, knocking into the coffee table. Drake heard the sound of something falling off the table but paid it no heed.
It didn’t last long. It was good, but it had been a while since Drake had been with a woman and it showed. And yet, she seemed satisfied. Breathing heavily, Drake pulled himself off of her and sat up, lifting his boxers to his waist.
The woman started to trace lines on his bare back.
“Mind if I smoke?” she asked gently.
Drake said he didn’t mind, and then, at the last moment, added, “have one for me?”
He hadn’t smoked for nearly as long as it had been since he had laid with a woman, but when she handed him
a Belmont and he took his first drag, it was as if he had never quit. As he smoked he poured a drink from the bottle of Johnny Red, offering her one first.
She was pretty, with small, girlish features, and blond hair that feathered about her head. But it was her body that had first attracted him to her, from the very second he had stepped into Barney’s.
Lithe, muscular, and pretty near perfect.
The only problem was, he couldn’t remember her name.
She, on the other hand, remembered his well.
“Drake,” she said absently as she took a drag of her cigarette. The smoke mixed with the glow from the burning cherry and gave her pretty face an almost ethereal appearance. “Like the rapper.”
Drake nodded. This wasn’t the first time he had heard this; in fact, Screech had gotten into the habit of calling him this exact thing-Drake the rapper—on several occasions.
“Yeah, but I’m the original,” Drake said with a smirk. He took a sip of his drink, then took a drag of his cigarette.
He noticed the red light on his cell phone blinking and knew, thanks to Screech’s tutelage, that he had a message waiting. Drake reached over and picked it up, swiping the bottom and punching in his code to unlock it.
He was wrong; there wasn’t a message waiting—there were a half dozen, and they all came from the same number.
From Beckett.
Drake stared at the phone for several seconds.
“Everything all right, Drake?”
Drake scrolled to the text message section and read the first few messages.
Drake, need your help.
Drake, answer your damn phone.
Something fucked up is going on, need your advice.
You a fucking detective or what?
Drake?
DRAKE???
Without thinking, he clicked the button at the bottom, making the screen go dark.
Not my problem anymore, he thought, then turned back to the beautiful, naked woman on his couch, a smile on his face.
He gently teased the cigarette from between her fingers, watching her brow furrow in confusion. Then he dropped his own cigarette along with hers into his half-empty glass of scotch, extinguishing them both with a loud hiss.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 35