Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  “Why is that?” She was correct of course. I wiped my brow, fingers coated in sweat. “I mean how do we know?” Wadsworth had sent me here not only as detective but as teacher.

  Debbie strolled into the middle of the road, cheeks red with the heat. Me wondering how long it would take to get heatstroke out here, another distant rumble catching me praying for cloud-cover. Debbie scanned the ground, head whipping forward and back again. “Can’t be a car or a pickup. The angle’s all wrong. Too steep of a shot and too centered. Plus no blown-out automotive windshield glass. Ricky’s skull was lathered with gunshot residue. Just like Investigation 101. Our killer had to be riding. And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “You said it in the pathology lab. There’s just no way the perp got off a hit like that and didn’t somehow eat pavement in this cluster-fuck.”

  “Agreed,” I stood back on the bad hip, testing the socket, trying to stretch standing in place. “So we are dedicating ourselves to the idea of a second rider, the killer missing. Ricky and his sport bike exploded right in shooter’s face, went off like a bomb. Imagine a full-sized man on a five-hundred-pound machine instantly sucked into your front wheel. At a hundred and thirty miles per hour. It makes for shitty physics.”

  “And maybe desperation or urgency on the killer’s behalf?”

  “Presto.” I leaned and my hip finally popped, the tension gone. “Which begs the greater question?”

  “Where the fuck did the motorcycle go?”

  “And?”

  “Where the fuck did the killer on that motorcycle go?”

  “Nice.”

  Debbie puffed up her chest a bit. “Maybe he or she evaded the debris field altogether. Maybe got lucky, veered out of the way in the fraction of a reflex.” She stopped and squinted at the paint streaks marking the path of destruction, scratching her chin. “But I doubt it. Nobody could swing out of this in time.”

  “Agreed.” The atmosphere went heavy with electrical-ozone smell, the dark-blue line covering half the sky now, the belly of the clouds swelling and going liquidly molten. Just a couple inches from blotting out the sun, thank God. A lightning bolt maybe over Lincoln Country now, then a sharp bang, the concussion rumbling beneath our feet. While I was studying the sky, I noticed Debbie twisting, bending over, closing one eye, hands on her knees. She found a new line and traced it with her feet at an angle exiting the road, over the grass and cutting into the guardrail. “Hey Shade,” she pointed down. “Look at this.”

  I traced the point of impact where Ricky’s brains had been discharged unto the world, walked toward Debbie and saw two vague scratches a few inches apart leave the asphalt, and trail off roughly fifteen degrees oblique to the Ricky’s path of travel. “Am I lined up?” She shouted, waving toward me. “With those cuts in the pavement?”

  “I’m standing on them.” I followed an imaginary line, a trajectory of travel that veered diagonally from my feet straight to Debbie, where she stood in the vicinity of the guardrail looking puzzled. “Yep, you’re lined up perfectly Detective.”

  She gave a slow turn, and stopped dead in her tracks. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” I jogged over, where she pointed at the ground. The guardrail sat untouched. Not a scratch. But directly in front of it, a fresh plug of sod roughly the size of a softball had been chunked out of the ground. The mark of a hard impact. We looked at each other, eyes wide. Debbie muttered. “Holy shit.”

  Coming to my tiptoes, I peered over the metal barrier to the right where the field fell off quickly into a steep ravine of densely packed pine trees. Debbie nudged in beside me, palms on the steel rail to stare at the forest canopy stretching out below, wonder spreading across her face. “The whole damn bike went airborne?” her voice cracked. “Like somebody kicked a football? The entire thing clearing the guardrail without touching it? Impossible.” She looked at me. “Up and over.” Just like that, all ass and elbows, and cowboy boots, she hopped over and went sliding down the long slope, gaining speed, growing smaller by the second. A few hundred yards down she slid to a stop, maybe looking over her shoulder at me but too far too tell. I rubbed my arthritic hip. “Crap,” I muttered. Blue lightning flashed, I planted my palms down, and went over. Careening down, plummeting into the dank shadows of the forest, I rode the soles of my loafers until I glided to a fast stop, landing feet-first in a muddy bog, swallowed in mud to my ankles. The sound of thunder broke overhead.

  Debbie eyed my feet. “You need some boots, boss.”

  “No shit?”

  She tilted her head thoughtfully, eyes coming to me, squinting. “Well. You’re not in Chicago anymore.”

  The temperature was about two seasons cooler down here, in this seemingly subterranean biosphere. Every surface had grown opaque and lumpy with organic rot, the air thick with the stench of moldy decomposition. Vines hung from the trees. The forest floor was a spongy, mattress-thick layer of dead leaves and pine needles. For her size, Debbie skittered over the rotten wood of fallen timber, and slipped into the vegetation like an agile squirrel, vanishing without a trace. Still on my ass, I worked for the next several minutes unsucking my feet from the mud, coming out socks only, and having to go deep to fish out my loafers. Back on my feet, I walked straight into a life-sized spider web, which set me grabbing at my face, pulling the shit out of my hair, wondering where the spider went. Ten bumbling minutes later, hip throbbing and me knuckling it to hold off the spasms, I spotted Debbie, crouching low at the edge of a muddy swamp, sifting through rotten leaves with her hands. Tree frogs crooned loudly and mosquitoes lifted hypodermic dust clouds, buzzing and biting. I smacked at my arms and neck over and over. “Debbie, what do you see?” She didn’t hear me, and with a shaking boom somewhere above the treetops, the wind whistled, and a torrential downpour began.

  “Shade,” Debbie’s hand cupped over her mouth shouting, waving me to her. The high-pitched whine of mosquitoes in my ears, still smacking my neck again, I clambered over, losing a loafer and popping it back on, body getting soaked as the rain broke through the treetops. Debbie had already begun snapping photos of soil and leaves. “Look,” she said pointing all around at her feet. I leaned in. “Closer,” she yelped. I slid to my knees, cursing my hip as I slunk down. The forest floor hadn’t just been disturbed, It was torn up and mud scattered, and washing away in the deluge of rain. “Back in Arkansas,” I yelled over the deluge of rain. “Feral pigs and wild boar made this kind of mess, but look. No hoof prints. This isn’t swine.”

  Debbie’s stopped taking photos and glanced at me, eyes brows crooked. “I thought you were a Yankee.”

  “I was born and raised an hour southwest of Mountain Home, Arkansas. Down in the Ozarks.”

  “No shit?” she asked it with a sly smile, like she didn’t believe me. But it was true enough. Working our hands into the stew of mud, dead leaves, earthworms, wood beetles, and soggy tree limbs, we fished around in the muck for any evidence we might find. Debbie suddenly stopped, reached in her bag, and slipped on blue, latex gloves.

  “Lookie here,” she said removing a layer of sopping leaves, snapping several photos in quick succession and lifted up a human-made object, a perfect oval of cracked glass inside a chink of white plastic housing.

  “That,” I said patting her on the back. “Is a side-view mirror from a motorcycle.”

  Looking concerned, Debbie bagged the broken part, her face going pensive, thinking hard. “But where’s the rest of it?”

  I swatted my neck, studying the bites up and down my arms. “Are there ATV trails nearby?”

  “All over the place.” Debbie grunted, blinking up at the rain, face soaked. “Deer hunters use them down here.”

  “The killer came back and got it,” I said, slipping a piece of nicotine gum from my back pocket, hoping the shit might act as a natural repellent against the mosquitos.

  “Got what?” Debbie
said.

  “The bike.”

  Debbie got up, walked around, kicked at the debris, searching, the hopes of finding any tracks vanishing in the downpour. “That would have to mean our killer is still alive. And these trails? Definitely a local. Intimately familiar with the territory.”

  I chewed the gum, watching the rain pepper the mud off my pants and shoes. “That’s one possibility. Any others?”

  She stopped in her tracks and spread her arms at the whole forest. “Hell Shade. The bike might be buried out here somewhere. Right under our feet. All this slop?” she huffed. “We wouldn’t have the faintest clue.”

  I tugged a little, the budding skills of investigation taking root, and dropped a hint, making her think a little harder. “Anything else? I mean, on a larger scale, bigger like God’s green Earth?”

  Searching again for an answer that wasn’t there, she stumbled over a root and caught her balance against a tree. More thunder let out, the roar of rain above really sweeping against the canopy now. She paused, and finally closed her eyes to see, rain caught in her eyelashes. “Maybe the killer isn’t even alive, Shade. Maybe they got help to retrieve the bike and succumbed to injuries. Given the way that crash looks up there, if our killer isn’t dead, they’re certainly Walt Disney rainbow colors of fucked up.”

  “And so?”

  “We check the hospitals.” Her square jaw taking on a faint smile. “And the morgues. We check the morgues. Funeral homes. Coroners. Make sure nobody came up with a spare dead guy.”

  “Bingo.” I rasped, squirming inside my mud-soaked clothes. “But first we get cleaned up. Maybe even show this new evidence to Wadsworth.”

  Debbie threw me a sheepish glance, holding her silence for moment to let the courage grow, then blurted the question. “Does this mean you’re officially helping on this case?”

  “It depends,” I groaned as I came up to my knee. “You buying lunch?”

  15

  Watch me

  “Will this hurt?”

  I gave her a faint chuckle. “No Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” I flipped the lapel of my white lab jacket out of the way and unsnapped the lid from the magic marker. “Today we just draw lines on your face. To make a game plan in the mirror, to determine what must be done to get the desired effect.”

  Plastic surgeons are double-edged professionals. On the backside we are artists with scalpels dancing in hand, delicately trimming and tucking away the ragged-wrinkled edges of time. On the frontside, we are marketing-magicians selling to the wealthy, unapologetically thrusting our hands up to our elbows inside deep pockets flushed with gold. For a tall price, we trade the flowery talcum-powder aroma of loose-face geriatrics for something we creatively call youth. Welcome to the new humanoid you, with skin drawn too tight to blink. You pay the fee, and we’ll slice you, dice you and make you gorgeous. Or whatever you want to call it. Let me put it this way- I would never let anyone do this to my face. I rolled my chair up close, delivering delicate pen swipes, dotting inked dashes across my client’s face as she sank into the upholstery, eyes rolling back in light ecstasy, dreaming of youth, credit card ready, buying the lie that a sharp scalpel dragged across her face could somehow bring back youth. Americans.

  “The surgery, is it going to…?”

  “Shhh Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” I whispered, wheeling my chair behind her, lifting her jaws, exposing her throat. “Please don’t move. But open your eyes. Now please. Yes. Just like that. Let me angle the mirror. Perfect. See? Now hold very still. We will take this away here, clip this section here, then move along the jaw line up behind the ears, dot-dot-dot, and stitching here. And here.” She stared into the mirror with magic-marker clown face, while I turned the adjustment knob to inject the colorful illusion of life into grey skin. I pinched her skin folds.

  “Ouch!”

  Oh did I hurt you? “Sorry Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” I faked a flash of concern. “How does it go? Oh yes. It hurts to be beautiful. Ha-ha. Yes. A little pressure now.” I manually pulled the cheek-flab back to each side harder than most clients, getting her back for ouch! pulling until her eyes took on an extreme alien-Asian shape. “Ah, yes. Very clean and youthful. I bet you looked like this in high-school. Just gorgeous. Don’t you agree?” Word for word, the exact same line I’d used for years now.

  She tried to open her eyes wider but couldn’t. “Do you really think I look younger?”

  “Younger?” I grinned, tossing her my best back-handed compliment. “I barely recognize you now!”

  She giggled and tilted her head to the side, studying her profile with eager eyes and muttered something about prom, and her first love. My phone vibrated. I let go of the old lady. It was Carlina. It felt like an emergency and my heart ticked up in my chest. She never returned my calls. “I have to take this call, but my assistant Darla will come in and perform an age regression analysis on the computer, so you can see what you will look like after surgery. And you will be perfect,” I sang gently.

  The patient reached out and grabbed my wrist. “Really?”

  “Honestly Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” I yanked my sleeve from her grasp, and gave her a quick smile. “I’ve never seen a better candidate for this surgery.”

  Out in the hall, I waved at Darla, pointed at the exam room, and retreated into my private quarters, a tidy studio-office suite complete with a shower and a miniature kitchenette. I held the phone to my ear, snapping the door shut behind me. I thought I heard a baby cooing on the line. Or maybe an animal whimpering. “Carlina?”

  “Oh God Svidi,” she suddenly sobbed. “They did it. They finally fucking did it.”

  “Did what?” I said, holding my breath. “What are you talking about?”

  Those son’s of bitches,” she gasped. “They put chains on the front door. Locked the place down.”

  “The place?”

  “My clinic.”

  “Chains?”

  “Right when I got back from lunch.”

  “Who?”

  “They even glued a sheriff’s notice on the front door,” her voice broke into sharp catches, the tears flowing. “I couldn’t even peel it off.”

  “Chains?” I repeated, all the questions swirling in my head making me go dizzy on my feet, holding the wall for support. “Who is they? What the hell are you talking about? Carlina, did you do something wrong?”

  “I just-” she grabbed breaths between sobs. “I can’t explain it all right now. Okay baby?”

  Pain flickered inside my gut. I plunked down on the edge of my office recliner, gut dropping like a stone, feeling blackness spread all around. Some people saw red. But I always saw black. The monster moving in with that detached feeling. Standing out of the way to let him inside. “You stupid whore.”

  “Svidi baby,” she stammered. “Don’t, honey. Not right now. Okay baby? I need you real bad.”

  “I already told you I saw everything,” I whisper-screamed. “The club. Opening your legs for Greymore and those disgusting assholes. Oh, Greymore. Everything he touches turns to shit. Well, he won’t turn me to shit.”

  “No Svidi, please,” she moaned.

  “And you,” I hissed. “Always disappearing. Never answering your phone. Now the fucking clinic? Is it drugs Carlina? Are you back? What have you done this time?”

  Nothing but sobs coming over the line. “I swear to God Carlina,” I gritted my teeth, then realized something awful. Something terrible. Chest sinking. “Wait,” I said wondering about the weapon at home. The one I almost gunned everyone down with last night at Chumley’s. The same gun sitting in the top dresser drawer of our bedroom right now. Loaded. “Where exactly are you right now?” I whispered.

  Her voice came back, quivering. “Home.”

  I veered the Mercedes onto our street, a hard jerk, the tires screeching, our white, wood-framed mansion shuffling visibly behind towering cypress hedges. Gaining speed, I s
wung into the driveway just as a motorcycle shot out. The flash before impact. Time deflated, and everything turned slow-motion. A long blur streaked across my visual field like a huge cruise ship easing by, and the Mercedes moving in tighter and closer, until I could almost read the lettering on the rider’s racing boot. The car and the bike hugged each other, nearly touching. A flash. No helmet. The rider’s face. Skinny. Sickly. Face glued to mine. Eyes bulging. Teeth clenched. Bracing for impact. Stomping the brakes, the heavy sedan dove down, tires locked and howling, the rear swinging wildly out to the side. The rider’s ass appeared in the windshield, floating across the hood, then drifting almost motionless into the passenger window, both vehicles wanting to wrap themselves together, but somehow missing by a fraction. The bike sailed into a long fishtail, sweeping sideways across the pavement, and impossibly corrected into a straight line, the rider somehow still seated, missing by a fraction, not looking back, twisting the throttle and vanishing over the hillside.

  What the fuck? I turned up the drive, hit the brakes in the gravel at our side entrance. A tidy yellow package lay on the porch steps, leaning against a massive stone planter with columns of indigo trumpet-vines spilling out. Carlina’s Audi sat safely in the garage undisturbed. I jogged up the steps and tried the door. Thankfully, it was still locked. Seems our two-wheeled visitor wasn’t an intruder, just a delivery man. I snatched up the manila envelope and read the request written on the sleeve: Watch me.

  The kitchen was quiet and I pushed through the swinging service door into the back hall where the pipes in the wall resonated with soft banging, the sound of Carlina upstairs running bathwater. With confrontation on my mind, I began to toss the package to the side when I read it again. Watch me. I glanced up the steps, back at my hands, and bit my lip. Greymore. The male predators. Promiscuity. Me lurking about with a loaded gun. Half out of my mind. Boiling anger. Our so-called friends at Chumley’s who didn’t bother to hide their hate for me. Now the clinic. All our troubles had been escalating for months. It could wait a few more minutes while I figured out what in the hell I was holding in my hands. I ripped open the envelope to find a thumb drive. There were no markings of any kind. No note. Nothing but the envelope and Watch me. In my office I pulled the blinds and shut out the sun, and flicked on my laptop, the dark room taking on the flat, dimensionless light of an electronic screen. I inserted the drive into the USB and clicked the play icon. The screen flashed to life. A naked man was mounted on a woman, doggie-style, over the back of a couch. The couple thrusted together like dogs. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back hard. She gasped and moaned, collapsing onto her elbows. Neither seemed to be aware of any camera or that they were being recorded. The sound quality was horrible.