Choked Up

by Hank Edwards

  He rose and stood looking down at the man, wondering just what had happened to him and what thoughts he had had in his last awful moments. Some family memory, maybe? A girl—or boy—he had loved? Perhaps a moment of peace and well-being that he wished could go on forever?

  "Pearce?"

  He turned and found Jake watching him.

  "What do you think?" Jake asked.

  Pearce shook his head as he removed his gloves. "It doesn't look like one of our cases."

  "You don't say," Detective Little said, her tone drenched with sarcasm.

  "We had to be sure," Jake said, and handed over his card. "Once the autopsy is complete, give me a call. I'd still like a final word from a medical professional."

  "As compared to an investigative professional," she said, then smiled and slid his card into the back pocket of her pants. "It'll probably be three or more weeks. Wayne County's a little backed up. Sure you don't want to send him on down to Quantico and your own medical professionals?"

  "I trust the Wayne County ME," Jake said. "Thanks for the call. We'll be in touch."

  "I'll wait by the phone," Little grumbled, and turned away.

  Pearce led the way back up the flagged path, and by the time they stepped under the yellow tape once again, the sun was just starting to come up. He stopped to watch the sky lighten over the low buildings across Woodward Boulevard as Jake talked to the patrol officer a moment. Sleep had been elusive the night before, and he was feeling the effects already. He was going to need a lot of coffee.

  A bright light snapped on to his left, and he flinched away from it, cursing as a woman shouted, "What can you tell us?"

  The fucking media, of course. Most likely cruising the city with their police scanners running, just looking for the next big thing to report on.

  "Is this related to the other cases?" the woman asked. "Do we have a serial killer in Detroit?"

  "No comment," Pearce grumbled, and moved to the car where he sat heavily in the passenger seat.

  The cameraman continued to film his profile as he sat and stared straight ahead, and Pearce had to restrain himself from flipping the man the finger. He might need to make use of the media later, so it would be best to stay on relatively good terms with them. Well, as good of terms as were possible when they blazed up camera lights in someone's face.

  Jake added his own "No comment," as he made his way around the front of the car to the driver's side. Before he got in, however, the reporter saw the FBI placard on the dash and shouted for the cameraman to film it. Pearce snatched it out of view, but not fast enough, and he put a hand over one side of his face to block the camera's view. Jake got into the car, started the engine, and pulled into traffic.

  They were silent for a time, then Jake looked over at him. "You need food."

  "I need forty-seven hours of sleep," Pearce said.

  "Well, I'm not spooning you for that long," Jake said. "But I will take you to a good diner for an energy-packed breakfast of greasy food."

  Pearce managed a grin. "Sounds good."

  Jake drove in silence for a short time, then said, "It definitely isn't one of ours."

  "No, it isn't. But I'd be interested in what the medical examiner finds."

  "Yeah, me too."

  "Bad way to go, though," Pearce said. "Drug related?"

  "Most likely," Jake replied. "The area has, of course, become popular for drug transactions and prostitution because of the woods."

  "Naturally." Pearce closed his eyes and sighed. "Just another day on the job."

  "It sounds so crass when you say it like that," Jake said.

  "Just get me some breakfast, and then we can decide on our next steps."

  Pearce looked around the Coney Island restaurant with more than a little déjà vu. It was a restaurant close to the FBI offices in Detroit, and he knew, without a doubt, that it was the one he and Mark had stopped in after they'd gone on the run. As he thought about it more and more, Pearce was pretty damn sure the booth Jake had selected was the exact booth where he and Mark had sat.

  "You all right?" Jake asked.

  "Huh? Yeah, why?"

  "Just have a weird expression, that's all. That body mess you up, or are you really that hungry?"

  "I am hungry, but I just… I think I've eaten here before."

  Jake's eyebrows went up. "Here? When?"

  "When I was here in Detroit before."

  "You mean when you went rogue?"

  Pearce scowled. "Went rogue and stopped a terrorist attack. You forgot a part."

  "And started a relationship with a witness," Jake added. "I guess I forgot two parts."

  Before Pearce could reply, a waitress approached with a pot of coffee. She poured them each a cup, took their orders, and strode off. Jake happily sipped his coffee, but Pearce wasn't done with their discussion.

  "Hey," he said with a lift of his chin.

  Jake looked at him over the rim of his cup. "Yeah?"

  "What's your problem?"

  To his credit, Jake looked surprised by the question. "What? What do you mean?"

  "The comment about me starting a relationship with Mark," Pearce said. "That's the second time you've brought it up. Do you have a problem with it?"

  "No, no problem. I thought we were joking. Weren't we joking?"

  "Some things about my work record and private life aren't fodder for joking."

  Jake gave a single, curt nod. "Okay. Noted." His expression closed down as he looked out the window, his fingers wrapped tight around his coffee mug.

  Remorse bubbled up within Pearce, and he sat back as the tense silence between them seemed to thicken by the minute. He looked out the window, then at the other diners around them, but nothing helped. He'd managed to obliterate yet another working relationship. Well, it had to stop somewhere—and not only because AD Harris would be following up on his time here in Detroit once this case was closed.

  Pearce drew in a breath and released it in a long, drawn-out sigh. He had just opened his mouth to say something—what it was he wasn't quite sure—to break the tension when the waitress returned with their orders. She set down Pearce's western omelet and then Jake's Big Budget breakfast special and asked if they needed anything else.

  "Just more time in the day," Jake said with a smile. "Can you manage that?"

  "Honey, if I could manage that, I wouldn't be working here." She smiled, touched Jake on the shoulder, and walked off.

  "How do you do that?" Pearce asked.

  "Do what?" Jake asked without looking at him.

  Yep, Pearce had definitely hurt Jake's feelings. Dammit. Pearce wondered how he'd managed to keep Mark for so many months. Oh, right, Mark had been traumatized the last few months and pretty much afraid to leave the apartment, so that had helped.

  "Put people at ease," Pearce said.

  Jake glanced at him as he cut a sausage patty in quarters. "Are you making fun of me?"

  "Not at all. It's a serious question."

  Jake nodded and popped a bite of sausage in his mouth, thinking as he chewed. Finally, he said, "Well, I don't act like a dick around them, so that's a start."

  Pearce pressed his lips together and nodded to himself as he scooped up a bite of omelet. Okay, he deserved that one, so he'd let it go.

  "Good suggestion," Pearce said around a mouthful of eggs. "Anything else?"

  With a small grin, Jake said, "I don't talk with my mouth full."

  Pearce glared. "Smartass."

  "Mouth full," Jake said.

  With the tension broken, they discussed the body from that morning and how it didn't match the other cases. They finished breakfast and pushed their plates aside, then sat sipping refilled coffee as the traffic outside picked up with people heading into work.

  "We're pretty much certain it's Robert Morgan, right?" Jake asked.

  "About 99.9 percent certain," Pearce replied. "The notes, the way they were killed, and the positioning of the bodies all points to it."

  "He'
s recreating your stepbrother Jeremy's crime scene, right?" Jake asked, and Pearce must have looked surprised by his knowledge of it, because he followed that up with, "Bata filled me in before he flew to DC to ask you to come here."

  Pearce looked out the window. He knew, of course, that Bata would have had to have explained things to Jake, but it was always a shock to hear Jeremy's name spoken so casually.

  "Sorry if I threw you off just now," Jake said. "I just wanted you to know I'm caught up on the specific details of the case."

  "It's fine," Pearce said and flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile but which felt more than a little off to him. "I knew that, of course. Just hearing his name caught me off guard."

  They sat in silence for a bit, and then Jake said, "Morgan's a ghost these days. He's not showing up on any security camera footage, no eye-witness sightings, nothing. How's he getting to these men?"

  "He's got to have an accomplice," Pearce said.

  Jake nodded. "The old Scream trick of two serial killers?"

  Pearce frowned. "Scream as in the movie Scream?"

  "Exactly. Two serial killers to help each of them establish an alibi."

  "Interesting way to put it," Pearce said, "but yeah, that's the idea. And it worries me."

  "Why is that?" Jake asked.

  "That means he's convinced someone else to help him murder four men," Pearce said. "He was involved with a terrorist cell before, one that was planning to blow up a riverboat directly over the Windsor to Detroit tunnel and collapse it, so there's no telling what he might be thinking about."

  "You think this could all be leading up to something bigger?"

  "Could be," Pearce replied. "He lured me back here with the murders. Who knows what he's got in mind now that I'm here."

  "Pretty drastic method to get your attention," Jake said.

  "For most people," Pearce said as he signaled for the check. "But you don't know Morgan."

  The waitress brought the check, and Pearce grabbed it before Jake could reach it.

  As Pearce shifted through the cash in his wallet, Jake asked, "Buying me breakfast to make up?"

  Pearce shook his head. "I have a feeling I'm going to end up buying you dinner at the most expensive place in town before I leave."

  "Oh my. Well then, I'll start making a list. There's Roast, Coach Insignia, the Whitney, Iridescence, London Chop House. So many to choose from."

  Pearce dropped money and the bill on the table and got up. Jake paused to look at the amount and the total, then stood before him with a smile.

  "Twenty-five percent tip," Jake said. "I knew you were a softie at heart."

  "Don't tell anybody," Pearce said, and gave him a gentle shove toward the door. "Come on, we've got a killer to catch."

  12

  Mark felt good. He'd driven to the outlet stores an hour outside of town and made it through a day of shopping and eating out without a single blip on his radar. He'd been nervous, and a couple of times had had to quickly exit a store when it filled up with too many people for his comfort, but all in all, he'd made it through an important milestone. He'd chalk today up in the win column of his life, and there'd been far too few wins he could claim in the last several months.

  He sat on the couch and looked through the half a dozen bags of items he'd purchased, glad to see he hadn't gone too crazy, just a few new pairs of pants and some button-down shirts. He'd even picked up some undershirts and a few jockstraps for Pearce, having to use the shopping basket he held to hide his sudden erection as he imagined Pearce wearing them.

  With nothing else he needed to do, he tried everything on again to make sure it fit as well as he remembered, then removed the tags and set the clothes aside. He grabbed the receipts out of his wallet and looked at the totals again. His disability check would just cover the charges, and he had to push down the ever-present sense of guilt he experienced when thinking about being on disability. He hated that he had to depend on the state to help with groceries and other items. But after many long discussions with Pearce about it early in the summer, he'd gone ahead and applied based on mental anguish, including his doctor's and therapist's diagnosis. To his surprise—and occasional guilt-ridden regret—his application had been approved, and he started receiving the deposits in his checking account.

  Now that he was feeling better, Mark was hoping to be able to get a job so he could stop receiving disability sometime in the near future. Not today or tomorrow, but soon. He hoped.

  His mobile phone buzzed where he'd left it on the coffee table by the sofa. His hopes that it was Pearce were dashed, but he still smiled at the name displayed: Calvin Gilbert.

  "Hi there," Mark said after accepting the call.

  "Well, you sound very chipper," Calvin said. "I take it being on your own for a while hasn't made you too wiggy?"

  Mark smiled. "Wiggy?"

  "Yeah, you know: twitchy, anxious, out of your mind. In other words, wiggy."

  "Um, no, being here alone has not made me too wiggy. At least not yet. And how did you know I was on my own, anyway?"

  "I took a guess," Calvin replied. "I thought I saw your hunky man here in town a few days ago, prowling around Danglers, no less."

  "Yeah, he was in Danglers. Did he behave?" Mark asked with a laugh.

  "He did! I tried to get through the crowd to talk to him, but he was gone before I could do it."

  "Well, that's too bad," Mark said. "I know he would have liked to see you."

  "Mm-hmm. So you're okay with him stomping around gay bars in your old neck of the woods?" Calvin asked. "You're not in an open relationship, are you? Because I should have been told about that shit."

  "No, no, nothing like that," Mark assured him. "Aaron's back in Detroit working on a case."

  "I thought as much." Calvin lowered his voice and asked, "Is it about the murders?"

  "You know about them?" Mark asked.

  "Oh my nervous little pet, everyone out here knows about them," Calvin replied. "It's the gay scene's worst kept secret, if they're trying to keep it a secret."

  "Not sure about that," Mark said. "Aaron's been there a few days now, and he's working with the Detroit agent in charge, some guy named Jake."

  "It's always a Jake," Calvin said.

  "Stop that!" Mark scolded him through his laughter. "Hey, Pearce might be able to use your help, actually."

  "Oh? Do tell."

  "He's trying to find a common link with these cases," Mark said.

  "Well, all of the victims were gay men, so there's one big commonality right there," Calvin offered. "And I worked closely with one of them."

  "You did? Oh, Cal, I'm so sorry."

  "Thanks. Erik was a really good guy," Calvin said. "He really wanted to make a difference, you know?"

  "I'm so sorry," Mark said. "That must be really difficult."

  "It has been. He worked with a group of kids here at the LGBTQ Community Center, and they've all been taking it pretty hard."

  "Well, Pearce is looking for any kind of link that might help them out. Maybe an acquaintance they all knew, or a bar they all went to just before they were killed. Something like that."

  "I only knew Erik," Calvin said. "But I'll ask around about the other guys."

  "Discreetly, please," Mark said.

  "Hey, it's me. Discreet is my middle name."

  They both laughed at that, then Calvin asked, "Tell me, is this at all related to the case from the beginning of the year that brought you two lovebirds together?"

  Mark hesitated as he weighed his response. He didn't want to lie to Calvin, but he wasn't in a position to be able to divulge many details of the case. It wasn't that he didn't trust Calvin with the information, it was just that Pearce liked to run his cases a certain way, and that meant being in control of who had what level of information.

  "It's been just under a week that he's been out there, so he's not entirely sure yet," Mark said, hoping that answered Calvin's question without him having to come out and say an
ything.

  "So I take that as a yes, then," Calvin stated.

  Mark sighed. "I didn't say that."

  "Oh, sweetie, we've been friends for years, and I know just how to interpret your tones," Calvin said.

  Mark smiled as tears filled his eyes. He and Calvin had been friends for years, and he'd been so appreciative when Calvin had come out to DC and stayed with them for a week when Pearce first went to work. His caring presence and refusal to put up with Mark's whining had meant Mark had gone to his first week of therapy sessions and made it farther away from the apartment than he'd managed since returning from Barbados. Mark missed Calvin, probably more often—and more deeply—than even he realized himself.

  "Well, I appreciate all of those years," Mark said. "I hope you know that."

  "You know I do." There was a moment of comfortable silence, and then Calvin took a breath and continued. "Well, before this turns into something worse than our Steel Magnolias, Beaches, and Terms of Endearment weekend sob fest, I'm going to get back to work here. Send tall, dark, and scowling my way, I'd be happy to help him any way I can. If he wants to meet up with me in our environment, I'm spinning at the Bone Yard Friday nights."

  "You're a deejay at the Bone Yard?" Mark asked.

  "You know it, sweet thing," Calvin replied. "I am in demand. He's got my number, too, so have him text me. And if he calls me, I'm not answering. I don't need to hear that man growling demands in my ear while I'm at the evil day job. That's your thing, sweetie, not mine."

  Mark laughed. "I will definitely give him those very specific instructions."

  "You keep getting better, you hear?" Calvin said. "I expect to see you back here in the Motor City sometime soon. You can come down to the Bone Yard, and I'll play all your favorite dance songs."

  "All of them?" Mark asked.

  "Every. Single. One." Calvin made several kissing sounds, then disconnected.

  Mark sat in a corner of the sofa with his legs curled under him and a smile on his face. He imagined Calvin deejaying at the Bone Yard and a warmth of love bubbled through him. The bar was dark and stank of old beer and sweat, but it had a decent sound and light system and a dance floor big enough for as many dancing queens as felt the need to get up and get moving. Mark had always enjoyed dancing there, usually off in the corner near the deejay booth, which, back in his barhopping days, had been decorated with strings of colored Christmas lights and illuminated penises. Mark wondered if Calvin had kept those same lights or if he had added his own unique flair.