“Nothing’s wrong,” he said as he leaned close to her again. “Nothing, except I think I should improve on my previous performance.”
Drake pressed his lips against hers, relishing her surprise. When his fingers traced a line up the inside of her smooth thigh, her eyes slowly began to close and her breathing became ragged.
I’m done with that life—this is my life now.
He cupped her breast with his other hand.
And I think I’m going to like it.
Part II – Accidental
Chapter 16
Chase Adams rubbed her eyes and watched as the scuba driver’s head broke the surface of the water. He raised a thumb, and Chase felt a scowl form on her face.
“Get the lights up over there,” she instructed a uniformed officer. The man nodded and started rearranging one of the large gray light fixtures.
Eventually, another diver appeared beside the first, and he too held up a thumb. This time they were awash in harsh light that reflected off the otherwise serene body of water.
“Bring the body up, then,” Chase said to anyone who would listen. “Bring it up and lay it on the shore.”
Then she shook her head and swore under her breath.
It was going to be a long night, meaning that she wouldn’t see her husband or son going on six nights in a row now.
Chapter 17
Beckett looked over at Suzan, who was combing through the stacks of files on his desk, looking for the folder of images containing what he had initially thought were for the forensic pathology final.
“Nothin’?” he asked.
Suzan looked up at him with tired eyes.
“No, can’t find any photographs at all.”
Beckett breathed deeply and closed his eyes. When Eddie’s face floated across his vision, they snapped open again.
“Why don’t you go home, Suze? Get some rest. Do you have class in the morning?”
“Yes, but not until ten. It’s not even midnight yet, I can look a while longer.”
Beckett considered this for a moment, then decided against it. If she hadn’t found the folder now, then she wasn’t going to find it at all.
It wasn’t here—someone had come in and taken it.
But who? And why?
And why the fuck won’t you answer your phone, Drake?
“It’s not here,” he said flatly. “But if you want to stick around, then I could probably use your help. You good at searching for things on the Internet?”
Suzan made a face.
“Of course—but that depends on what I’m looking for, I suppose.”
Beckett chewed his lip. He wasn’t even completely sure himself, and he was beginning to feel that maybe he had just imagined the comparisons between Eddie’s hanged body and the image from the test. He had recused himself from the case and had sent one of the junior MEs to finish the report on Eddie and to bring the body back and look for trace, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t check in later to make sure.
In fact, it would be irresponsible for him, as the acting Senior ME, not to review the results.
It could have been a coincidence, he decided. After all, how many suicides took place in NYC year on year? Two hundred? Three hundred? And how old were the images from the test? They weren’t his images, but he thought he could remember seeing them when he had taken the forensic pathology final exam himself more than a decade ago.
So, it was possible… and yet, what were the odds of it happening to a young doctor about to take this very test? And if it wasn’t a coincidence, what did it mean?
Did Eddie commit suicide in a way that mimicked the test itself? A way of punishing Beckett as a final, ironic goodbye? But if so, how did he obtain the images?
Beckett cleared his throat and decided to let Suzan in on what he had seen.
“Here’s the thing, Suze. I just went to a crime scene, and one of my students apparently committed suicide,” he pointed to the image of the man hanging on the screen. “It looks nearly exactly like this. I mean, almost exactly. Same shoes, same one tile missing. Same rope, same clothes.”
He let this sink in for a moment. Beckett wasn’t sure what he expected in terms of a response, but it wasn’t this: just a blank stare.
“Okay,” he continued, trying to stir up some emotion. “But there’s something else. You know the positional asphyxia case?”
Suzan indicated that she did.
“Well someone put a folder of images on my desk a few days ago. The first image was of that scene, only it was just a little different. The sweater wasn’t quite right.”
Suzan leaned away from the computer, fingers poised above the keys.
“Were there other images in the folder?” she asked.
Beckett thought about this for a moment, before nodding.
“Yes, I think there was a stack of them. But I only looked at the first. I thought it was just a copy of the images from the test, something that a colleague had left on my desk, and shoved it in the drawer. I didn’t even look at them all.”
Suzan nodded and turned back to the computer. As she typed away, she said, “So you think that someone is murdering people and staging their deaths to look like accidents? Like the suicides in the test?”
Beckett smirked; despite everything, he couldn’t help it.
That was exactly what he was thinking, only he hadn’t been so bold as to say it out loud.
But he wasn’t about to let her get off that easily.
“Maybe,” he muttered. “Maybe.”
Suzan continued to pound away at the keyboard and brought up a block of text. Her lips moved slightly as she read it to herself, then paraphrased for Beckett.
“You’re the fifth professor of the course, since it was officially renamed forensic pathology about thirty years ago,” she stated matter-of-factly. “The course website doesn’t give me much information about the exams, only that there will be a practical and written component. I think—wait a sec,” Suzan suddenly leaned forward. She clicked on a link and the screen suddenly opened to a PowerPoint presentation. She clicked through several pages of notes, then the image of the man who had died from positional asphyxia flashed onscreen.
Beckett leaned in close.
“That’s it. That’s the image from the test.”
“Yep. This is… uh, Dr. Tracey Moorfield’s class notes. Apparently, she posted her notes online for students to look over at home.”
She scrolled through several more images and notes, before stopping at the image of the man hanging from the ceiling.
Beckett cringed at the sight.
“So, this available online, to everyone?”
Suzan shook her head.
“No. Only to NYU students and staff. And look here—” she clicked again, and an error message came on screen, —”can’t even download or create a screenshot.”
Beckett stood straight and stretched his back.
“Thank you—at least that’s something to go on. Now go home, Suze. Go to class tomorrow morning, and I’ll see you in the afternoon. Around the same time?”
Suzan’s eyes narrowed.
“Where are you going?”
Beckett broke into a smile.
“I’m going to see if I can’t find Dr. Moorfield, ask her a few questions.”
“Now? It’s almost midnight.”
Beckett winked at the girl.
“If she’s still a professor, then she’ll still be here. Trust me, I’ll find her.”
And then I’m going to find out where the hell Drake is, he almost said, but bit his tongue at the last moment.
Chapter 18
“Anyone heard from the ME yet? Is Beckett on his way?” Chase asked, staring down at the body. She pegged the deceased’s age at anywhere between twenty and thirty years, although she had been submerged for so long that it was difficult to tell for certain.
The victim had black hair that clung to her scalp, and her gums were pulled back, revealing stark white teeth
in a sadistic grin. She was still wearing her clothes—a leather jacket and matching pants—but the former was open, revealing a black swimsuit top, and the bottoms were pulled down, revealing a matching swimsuit bottom.
Her hands were probably the worst: the skin was wrinkled and had turned a pale, ghostly white. As soon as the scuba divers had pulled her out of the pond and had laid her on the reflective blanket for specimen and evidence collection, foam started to bubble at the corners of her mouth. Now, a three-inch-high froth extended from the orifice like some sort of horrific experiment.
Chase grimaced.
“Anyone?” she asked again.
A uniformed officer appeared at her side.
“I’ve tried calling the ME, but I’m not getting an answer. Want me to keep trying?”
Chase nodded.
“Try to reach anyone at the ME’s office. I’ll try Beckett directly. Nobody touch the body until I say so, got it?”
The half dozen people milling around the pond, passing in and out of the bright lights they had erected, grumbled agreement and then continued about their business.
Whatever the hell that was.
Chase took her cell phone out of her pocket and turned her back to the others. She scrolled through her list of contacts, noting with a pang of guilt that Drake’s name was on the same screen as Beckett’s.
I should reach out to him. After all, he saved my life.
Things had ended amicably enough between them, and although no one had told her directly, Chase suspected that Drake had fallen on the sword—her sword—for the mistakes they had made during their chase for the Butterfly Killer.
Triple D Investigations, she thought, remembering the name of the PI firm that she had found when Googling his name.
I should call him, go have drinks.
Then she remembered Drake’s breath reeking of whiskey, of him hovering over Dr. Mark Kruk’s fallen body, convinced that he was going to kill the man.
Alright, maybe not a drink. Pie, then?
Beckett’s answering machine picked up, and Chase left a message.
“Beckett, it’s Chase. We have a body here in a pond in Central Park. Looks like a drowning, a prostitute, probably, except…” she paused.
Except what?
Except something didn’t seem right about it.
“We’re going to check some of the cameras, but we need you to come clear the body. You or someone else from the ME’s office. Give me a call when you get this. Chase.”
Chase hung up and turned back to the body, crouching on her haunches. She tilted her head to one side, staring at her milky eyes, the foam that bubbled from her mouth.
What’s your story? She wondered with a strange sort of abstraction. How did you end up here?
Chapter 19
Dr. Tracey Moorfield was old enough to be retired, but she wasn’t. Like most doctors, she would work until either she was physically incapable of functioning, or the university kicked her out. But because Tracey had tenure, only the former was a possibility. And judging by the way she deftly worked the pen in her left hand, Beckett thought that this was also out of the question.
Beckett found the elderly doctor in her office, a small cubicle tucked away in the back of the faculty club. He was briefly reminded of the scene from Office Space, in which they forced poor Milton to work down in Storage B. He thought something like that might be going on here; with tenure, the university couldn’t force her out, they could only make her as uncomfortable as possible.
Putting a warm smile on his face, Beckett knocked lightly on the half-open door.
“Dr. Moorfield?” he said softly.
“Yes?” the voice returned, old, but strong.
Beckett eased the door open another foot or so.
“Hi,” he said as he took in the scene before him. Beckett had never been in the faculty club before, despite being part of the faculty; he just hadn’t seen the need for it. In fact, he doubted that he would be welcome, even given his status. Covered in tattoos, spiked blond hair on his head, and a matter-of-fact way of speaking that often came across as rude, Beckett was a bit of an outcast among his peers.
But this didn’t bother him.
What did bother him, however, was the general and pervasive attitude possessed by many of the curmudgeonly doctors of yesteryear: a holier-than-thou attitude, often directing the construction of the pedestal upon which the public was all too eager to place them atop. Most of the doctors he knew, especially those entrenched in academia, had a god complex that rivaled the Pope’s in terms of grandiosity.
Beckett knew instantly that Dr. Moorfield fit this mold very, very well. Shit, it was probably made specifically for her. It was in the way that her gray hair was perfectly styled, coming down to just below her chin in a sort of bob, and the way her white blouse was immaculate, even at midnight in the remote recesses of a building that the janitor probably wouldn’t have been able to navigate without GPS support.
Her presence alone seemed to fill the air with particles of ego like glittering dust motes.
“Yes?” she asked again, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
Beckett’s smile broadened.
“My name is Dr. Campbell,” he said politely, trying to put himself on her level.
Alas, there was only room for one atop ye pedestal of gold.
“And? Do you need something?”
Beckett stepped into the room, catching her flinch slightly as he did. The woman tried to hide her discomfort, but he saw through her mask.
“I do, actually. I’m teaching the forensic pathology course and had a few questions for you.”
The woman pressed her lips together tightly.
“I thought Dr. Jablonsky was teaching that class.”
Beckett shook his head.
“He was, but not anymore. I took it over a coupla semesters ago. Look, I can see that you are busy,” he said, half hoping that she picked up on his tongue and cheek comment, “but I just had a few questions for you—about your slides.”
A look of confusion crossed over her face.
“What slides?”
“The ones from your course… the test review material? For the final?”
“Ah, yes. The written portion of the final. I always found that part of the course to be useless. Tried my best to get it removed. If the residents spent half as much time in front of bodies as they did at their computers, then maybe we would have some actual competent pathologists today.”
Evidently, Beckett’s dig hadn’t gone over her head.
She had just lobbed it back at him.
Touché.
Beckett didn’t say anything, and eventually Dr. Moorfield sighed and laid her pencil on her desk. Then, with an action so deliberate that it was almost comical, she interlaced her wrinkled fingers and leaned forward.
“What about it, Dr. Camel?”
“Campbell,” Beckett corrected.
“Pardon?”
He shook his head.
“Never mind. I just… I just wondered if you could take them down, off the website. I mean, I think they’re great notes and all, but I feel like using the exact images from the prep exam as the actual exam is giving the students an unfair edge,” he said, surprised at how easily the lie came to him.
When he had first called his friend in the Dean’s Office and had inquired about Dr. Moorfield—waking him up from what sounded like a deep, satisfying slumber—he hadn’t the forethought to come up with a story as to why he was inquiring about the notes.
Surely, he couldn’t reveal his suspicions to this curmudgeon. So now he was flying by the seat of his pants.
And it was… oddly exhilarating.
“My notes are online? On the Internet?”
“Yep. On the class website. It’s archived, but all you need is an NYU medicine email address and password and you can get in to view them.”
The elderly doctor cleared her throat.
“I was unaware of this. I’ll speak to the de
partment, see if they can take them down in the morning. Lord knows, the last thing we need are immature, unqualified physicians that are getting hand fed the test answers, as well. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Boom, another dig.
Beckett couldn’t help but smirk. She was good. Old, crusty, but adroit.
“That would be great,” he replied, but made no move to leave.
“Anything else?”
Beckett chewed his lip.
“Well, yeah, I guess. One more thing: did you take the photographs, personally? Like I said, we still use them today. I’ve been to my fair share of crime scenes—homicides, suicides, accidents—but have never been able to capture the poses and positions as accurately as the photographer of the test photos. I mean, geez, they must be, what? Fifteen years old? Twenty? And I’m still using them. That says a lot, given how cameras have evolved over time.”
Dr. Moorfield stared at him for a good minute before replying. Beckett knew that she was sizing him up, trying to figure out if he was mocking her again, but he didn’t break.
“I took them,” she admitted at last. “And they’re closer to twenty years old by now. Took them back during a time when becoming a doctor meant actually doing things—performing autopsies, surgeries, speaking to patients—instead of just reading about it. As for cameras, nothing has really changed. I mean, you can’t click a button and put bunny ears or halos on a face with the Nikon I used back then, but that’s about the only difference.”
“Ah, well, I just wanted to say they are incredible pieces of art, really.”
Dr. Moorfield scoffed at this.
“Medicine is not an art; it’s a science, a discipline. You would do well to remember that, Dr. Camel.”
“Of course, you’re right. But still… they really are unique. Let me ask you something, did you ever think to put them in an exhibit of sorts? Copyrighting them?”
“An exhibit? No, Dr. Camel, it never crossed my mind. They are a surrogate for real learning, that’s it.”
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