Catch Your Death

by Kierney Scott

  Jeanie’s face drained of color. Her pen fell through her fingers, bounced off the oak floorboards, and landed under the couch. “What?” she whispered.

  Jess’s eyes narrowed in confusion. She glanced over at Jamison but he looked just as confused. “Have you heard of those boys?”

  “Yes,” Paul answered for her. “Those are, were, Levi’s best friends. Are you sure they’re dead? He would have told us.”

  An anxious heat spread over Jess’s body. For a flash of a second she wondered if she’d written the names down wrong but that was impossible. She had copied them down from death certificates; besides, the probability that she would have randomly picked the same names as Levi Smith’s friends was infinitesimally small.

  “Why didn’t he tell us?” Jeanie shook her head.

  “Why didn’t the school tell us?” Paul demanded. “They should have told us so we could have supported him.”

  Jess couldn’t disagree. When she was a freshman in high school, a senior had committed suicide. The school had hired grief counselors and had an assembly about recognizing depression. Every single kid in the school had been given a pamphlet with suicide prevention hotlines. At the time, she thought it was over the top, but perhaps they had done the right thing because there wasn’t another suicide for the rest of her time there.

  “Why did none of the parents tell us? Why? Why did no one tell us?” Paul asked, obviously grasping to make sense of what was happening.

  “The same reason we’re not invited to family day: because we’re not parents.” The weight of Jeanie’s despair hung heavy in her voice. “Why would they tell us? We’re just the pathetic childless couple who made believe that they had the chance to be a real family.” Her lips blanched white as she fought to hold back more.

  “No, love, that’s not it,” Paul assured her.

  Jess’s chest tightened. Grief radiated from them, ugly and raw. Being here, asking them questions, was only deepening a gaping wound. She felt like a cruel interloper, feasting on their pain. She couldn’t watch people grieve and not think of her father, all the things he had done, the pain he had caused so many people. “I’m sorry. We just have a few more questions. Does Levi have any social media accounts? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? Anything like that?”

  Jeanie shook her head. “No, he has email for keeping in contact with his friends in Utah, that’s it. We don’t allow him any other social media.”

  Jamison caught her eye and gave her a knowing look. Levi had to have social media to play the suicide game. Her real question was whether they knew he had social media, and they didn’t, which also meant they would not be able to help her with his passwords. That was okay: she could get a warrant for the information, it would just take a bit longer.

  “I found his computer at the school but it’s password-protected. Would you happen to know what that is?” It was a long shot given that they didn’t even know he had social media accounts, but she had to ask.

  “Choose the right. Capital C, no spaces. It has been his password for everything since he was a little boy,” Jeanie said.

  Jess wrote down the information to give to Tina so she could analyze his computer. “Okay, thank you. I might have some questions later but I think we’re okay to stop here.” Jess stood up. She looked over at Jamison to see if he had anything to add but he didn’t. “Oh, one more thing.” She stopped and reached into her bag. “I don’t know how long it will take for the police to release Levi’s things but I wanted you to have this. I found it in his room.” She handed Jeanie the leather-bound scriptures she had taken from under Levi’s bed.

  Jeanie’s lip trembled. “Thank you,” she murmured, the words almost swallowed by tears.

  Nine

  The metal legs of the chair scraped along the concrete floor when Jess shifted in her seat. Her butt had gone numb from sitting in the same position for so long. “Have you ever had to wait this long at the morgue?” she asked Jamison, who was sitting beside her reading an old copy of People. The issue was at least a year old and she knew Jamison didn’t give two shits about any of the people in the magazine, but he sat and pretended to read it just the same, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  The snow from his jacket had melted and dripped on her shoulder, soaking her, but she didn’t move because there was nowhere else to sit and she liked Jamison’s calm energy. She always hoped that some of it would rub off on her.

  “They know we’re coming, right?” Jamison asked.

  “Yeah, I called this morning. I spoke to the chief medical examiner and said we would be in by five at the latest. She said that wasn’t a problem and just to give her a call if we were running late.”

  “So why the hold-up?”

  Jess shrugged. “I have no idea but it’s been over an hour.” She stood up and pushed the buzzer. She had never been left in a waiting area for this long.

  After thirty seconds, she pushed the buzzer again. Finally, a middle-aged brunette woman in green scrubs answered. She held the door open just enough to speak to them. “Can I help you?” Her words were clipped and her tone exasperated.

  She held up her badge for inspection. “Yes, I’m Special Agent Jessica Bishop. This is my partner Special Agent Jamison Briggs. We are here to see the body of Levi Smith and to get the preliminary autopsy report. I called Dr. Leicester this morning and she said it wouldn’t be a problem. We could come in any time before five.”

  The woman made a show of looking at the clock before looking back and rolling her eyes.

  “I know it’s almost six now but we’ve been waiting for almost an hour,” Jess said. “I’m sure you’re busy but this won’t take long. We really just need five minutes to examine the body.”

  “Did you say Levi Smith?” A deep furrow formed between her dark brows. “His body was released for burial half an hour ago. Someone from the funeral home was literally just here.”

  Jess shook her head in confusion. “What? How could you release the body before the autopsy report was filed? Bodies are never released this quickly.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t do the autopsy myself. Dr. Massif did.”

  Annoyance niggled at her. Jess had specifically called to make sure they could see the body. Something had been bothering her since she learned about the steps in the suicide game. All of the victims were covered in cuts from the weeks of self-harming, but there were no cuts on Levi’s arms that Jess could remember. Admittedly it had been a shock, and her primary concern had been trying to keep the house mother from screaming down the house and waking up every child on campus, but surely she would have remembered if Levi had cut chunks out of his arms in the shape of a cross. That would have stood out. “Did he take photos of his arms? What about a toxicology report?”

  The woman shrugged and agitation flashed in her eyes. “I don’t know. Like I said, it wasn’t my autopsy.”

  Jamison stood up and walked over to them. “Can we speak to Dr. Massif?”

  “He’s gone home. He will be back at nine tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  Jess opened her mouth to speak but Jamison cut her off. “Can you please have him email the preliminary report as soon as he gets in?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She didn’t wait for a response before she let go of the door and let it slam shut.

  Jess spun on her heel to face him. “What was that? I need to know if Levi Smith has the same cuts as the victims and she was totally blowing us off!”

  Jamison pulled out his phone. “I know she was. She was also wasting time we don’t have.”

  “What are you doing? Who are you calling?”

  “Tina. There are more than a dozen funeral homes in DC. That’s a lot of places to call. She will be able to find him faster than we can.”

  Ten

  Ernest Edwards Funeral Home was located in Centreville, Virginia. On a good day, it would have been a forty-five-minute drive; however, rush-hour traffic and an eight-car pile-up on George Washington
Memorial Parkway meant the journey took over three hours.

  “Finally, we’re here,” Jamison said when he spotted the Welcome to Centreville sign on the side of the freeway.

  “Why would Jeanie choose a funeral home this far away?” Jess wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she has family out here.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I checked this morning. All of her family is in Utah. Paul has a sister in Idaho and two brothers in Wyoming; nobody out here.” She realized she sounded like a stalker for knowing that level of detail about her boss, but she knew that much about everyone involved in an investigation.

  Jamison shrugged. “Maybe it was the first place she found. I doubt she wants to be looking through Yelp reviews at a time like this. She probably just called the first place that came up in the search.”

  “Yeah,” Jess agreed. She looked out on the sea of white. Flakes had started swirling again, adding a fresh layer to the already icy roads. The snow was even higher here than in DC because the roads and buildings of the capital soaked up solar radiation to create an urban heat island and kept the city warmer than surrounding areas. “The morgue shouldn’t have released the body. Why can’t people just do their jobs properly? I hate incompetence.”

  “I know you do.” He turned on his blinker and pulled into the exit lane.

  “I’m sorry we had to drive all the way out here. I know we could have just waited for the report to come through.”

  “That’s okay. It’s my job.”

  Jess rubbed the knotted scar tissue of her palm. “I might be wrong…” She may as well tell him then rather than later, and admit that most of last night had been a blur. “There could have been cuts and I missed them or something. I don’t know. I saw him and I… um, I…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, admit that seeing Levi had brought back memories of the night she had spent most of her life trying to forget.

  “It’s okay, I get it. It’s not a big deal if you made a mistake. I’ve certainly made my fair share.” He parked beside a Mercedes C-Class and turned off the engine.

  The building was completely dark except the illuminated letters of the sign and a single light at the entrance.

  Jess zipped up her coat and pulled up her hood. Gravel crunched under her feet where they had just gritted the path for the fresh onslaught of snow. A middle-aged woman with tight curly hair opened the door before they even made it up the path. “You must be Agent Bishop and Agent Briggs. I’m Geraldine Edwards. Your colleague called to let me know you were on your way. Come on in. It’s cold out there.”

  “Thank you.” Jess extended her hand to shake Geraldine’s. “I’m sorry it’s so late. We got held up in traffic. I’m Jess Bishop and this is my partner Jamison Briggs.”

  “That’s all right.” Geraldine opened up the door further to let them in. The entryway was decorated in cream and ivory. Oil paintings of tranquil scenes lined the walls. Gold light fixtures cast a glow over everything. It was warm and calming, almost serene.

  “Is Levi’s body being prepared for burial?”

  “No, ma’am. He is scheduled for cremation in the morning. We were going to do it tonight but Gus needed to get home. He lives out of town and didn’t want to get snowed in.”

  “Can we see the body, please?” Jamison asked.

  “Of course. He’s in the crematorium.”

  They followed her down the hall, past a chapel, and through to a smaller room. It was similarly proportioned and decorated as the foyer with its cream and gold fixtures but there was a cremator at the front. Bouquets lined the front of what looked like a conveyor belt, and the sickly-sweet smell of lilies tickled the back of her throat.

  Jess looked around for a casket. “Where is he?” she asked.

  “He’s in the back. Follow me.” Geraldine kept walking. She opened the door to a smaller, windowless room. Unlike the other rooms, there were no cream carpets or paintings in gilded frames. It was an industrial room with concrete floors and cinderblock walls. Light came from a single-filament bulb.

  In the corner was a gurney with a cardboard coffin. “Is that him?” Jess asked. She expected something grander than a lidded box. Suddenly her mind went back to her childhood, to the first dead body she’d seen, naked and bloodied. Did that boy have a cardboard coffin too?

  Her heart raced; a frantic buzz hummed through her body. She fought to take a breath but the air wouldn’t make it past the painful constriction in her throat. The room tilted on its axis. She was going to fall. She reached out to brace herself but the solid grip of Jamison’s arms kept her from falling. He pulled her against him to right her.

  Concern flashed in his eyes but then just as quickly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go and turned away.

  “Are you okay?” Geraldine’s brow knitted together in concern.

  Jess opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. It took her a few seconds to shake off the visceral hold of the memory. “Sorry I-uh…” She could not think of an excuse.

  “That’s all right, honey. It can be hard seeing people this way.”

  Jess nodded like that was what the problem was. She had seen hundreds of dead bodies. She had seen and smelled every state of decomposition; it had never affected her. And it wouldn’t now. She wouldn’t let something that happened nearly thirty years ago affect her now.

  “You okay?” Jamison’s low voice was laced with genuine concern.

  She took a fortifying breath. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s get this done so we can get home.” Jess reached into her bag and pulled out two pairs of surgical gloves and some evidence bags.

  “They will have collected evidence at the morgue,” Jamison reminded her.

  “They were also supposed to wait to let us examine the body before the autopsy and that didn’t happen, so better to collect our own, just in case.”

  Jamison snapped on a pair of gloves and helped her remove the cardboard lid. Levi’s body was wrapped in sheets of plastic held together with duct tape. She had been expecting a body bag with a zip, not for his body to be wrapped up like trash you didn’t want to drip everywhere while it rotted. She also would have expected there to be a proper casket but she didn’t have the right to judge. People were as different in grief as they were in anything else. There was no one-size-fits-all to bereavement. If Jeanie had decided not to do a traditional funeral, for whatever reason, she had no right to question it.

  She turned to look at Geraldine. “Do you have any scissors?”

  “In my office, give me two minutes,” she said as she left the room.

  Jess peered down at the body while she waited for Geraldine to return. He looked so thin, bound up like this, long and lanky.

  “Here we go,” Geraldine said when she returned. She handed the scissors to Jess.

  Her fingers tried to close around the cold metal but her hand froze in a painful spasm. She winced. She reached across with her other hand before either of them noticed that her grip was not working, but Jamison took them instead. “I got it,” he said softly.

  Jess gave a faint smile of thanks.

  Layers of plastic peeled away as Jamison sliced through the wrapping. He started at the head and worked down until he reached the feet, and then stripped back the clear sheet to expose Levi’s naked body.

  Jess stared down at the corpse. She looked at his abdomen, searching for the post-mortem incisions, but there were none, nor were there any under his sternum or on his skull. Her head snapped up to look at Jamison. “They didn’t do an autopsy. They sent him for cremation without doing a post-mortem. Unbelievable.” An angry heat spread over her. Shoddy work in any capacity annoyed her, but this was straight-up incompetence.

  The body needed to be taken back to the medical examiners for a post-mortem. She silently began to format the pointed letters of complaint she would be writing that night.

  “Look at his arms, Jessie. You were right: there are no cuts.”

  She wasn’t crazy. Part of h
er had worried that she was losing it, that Lindsay’s death was the final push she needed into the dark abyss of insanity. Relief washed over her but it was short-lived, too soon replaced by confusion. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Jamison glanced at Geraldine and then back at Jess, to remind her they shouldn’t have this conversation in front of her.

  Jess nodded to say she understood. “Look at his knuckles. There are fresh bruises and scratches. Those are defensive wounds. They haven’t even had time to start to scab over. And look under his fingernails. That’s blood. He was in a fight recently.”

  Eleven

  Jamison pulled in through the front gates of Gracemount Academy. It looked different in daylight: older and grander. In the distance, students in maroon blazers looked like splotches of blood against the white snow. The school grounds seemed to go on forever. The campus and surrounding area occupied over 300 acres.

  “I got the impression he really didn’t want to see us this morning,” Jamison said as he put the car into park.

  Jess glanced up from her phone, on which she was reading her notes on the principal, Greg Sturgeon. Normally she would have started preparing for an interview the night before but she had got home so late she just had time to take her dog out for a pee before she went to bed. She had been so tired, she actually slept through the night, which was no small feat for her. “I don’t think he wants to talk to anyone. He will be like a dog chasing his tail right now. Five kids are dead. It happened on his watch. I don’t see how he could keep his job after this. He is probably trying to figure out who will employ him after such a colossal fuck-up.”

  “True.” Jamison opened the car door and got out. “He probably also wants to speak to a lawyer before he makes a statement because this has lawsuit written all over it. These parents trusted the school to take care of their kids.”