When I pushed open the door to the brightly-lit coroner’s office, I found Bug there, leaning on the receptionist’s desk and drinking a cup of coffee. He sported full scrubs, a hairnet like a poufy halo around his head, and Nitrile gloves, which he’d forgotten to remove. At least they looked clean. Bug was deep in conversation with Sheila Focht, the head lab technician. She’d cut her long hair down to a pixie like mine, but while I liked to think mine gave me a bit of an edgy vibe, hers only served to make her look more cadaverous. Sheila ran ironman races, and her body lacked the fat stores required to make it look like anything other than a skeleton covered in skin. The shorter hair only served to accentuate the fact that her cheekbones could cut glass.
The two of them looked up as I entered. Bug wore an expression of faint amusement. Sheila just looked dead.
“Hey,” I said, holding up a hand in greeting as the door swung closed behind me. “Trainee day?”
Bug nodded and grinned. “Yep. This group lasted about twenty minutes before one of them puked. I think that might be a record.”
Trainees from the police academy came through the various departments before they requested their assignments, and they always spent a morning with Bug. Not that any of them would become coroners, of course, but the administration had decided that it would be useful for them to get an introduction to autopsy and “add humanity” to their victims. Whatever that meant. As far as I could tell, the only thing that the new policy accomplished was an increased incidence of puking incidents in the sub-basement. At least Bug seemed to find it amusing.
“You are a sadistic man, Bug Murphy.” I shook a finger at him. “And I like it.”
“I cannot argue with this assessment,” he said gravely. “Sheila and I were just talking about your case while we wait for the ventilation system to do its magic.”
“It smells like disinfectant and bile in the autopsy suite,” declared Sheila. “It’s distinctly unpleasant.”
I had a smartass comment for any situation, but Sheila always managed to say something that left me speechless. It was less about what she said as much as how she said it. Sheila could make any comment bland, and it left me nothing to work with. So I just shrugged and changed the subject.
“Which case?” I asked.
“The bowling pin murder,” said Bug with relish.
Such melodrama. I shook my head in slow exasperation but couldn’t really blame him for it. The whole situation sounded like a TV movie—a bowling league gone bad, and two people bludgeoned to death with a collectable pin autographed by three Professional Bowling Association Player of the Year winners. The sheer number of witnesses had made the case fairly easy to work, and I’d proved without a doubt that Felicia Davenport had committed the crime, but the DA’s office was going to have their hands full proving that she’d been sane at the time. Nothing quite said “temporary insanity” like beating your husband and his mistress to death with a bowling pin in front of the entire Thursday night league.
“What about it?” I asked, suddenly nervous and alert for trouble. I really hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those cases that seemed simple and then went unexpectedly sideways. That sucked. “There’s no problem, is there?”
“Nah.” Bug waved a hand. “We were just talking blood spatter. It’s a unique pattern because of the shape of the pin. Sheila and I were talking about publishing a paper on it, but I think we’d need some other oddly shaped blunt instruments to really flesh it out.” He paused dramatically. “Get it? Flesh it out?”
I groaned, but Sheila didn’t even notice.
“I could look through my files,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of bats, but that topic has been beaten to death.”
I groaned again at the horrible blunt-object-murder punnage, and she looked at me quizzically.
“You sound like you’re ill, Audrey. Do you need an antacid?” she asked.
Before I could answer, Bug’s secretary interrupted. She was a meek little woman who liked romance novels. Nice enough, but the kind of person you didn’t notice until she said something.
“Pardon me,” she said now, “but Sheila? You’re wanted at evidence storage.”
Sheila immediately jerked to attention. “Finally,” she said. “I put that request in almost three hours ago.”
Without another word, she walked out of the room, muttering to herself about the incompetence of the storage personnel and the general malaise of the staff. Bug and I exchanged bemused looks.
“Three hours ago?” I asked. “I think I’d be pretty incompetent at six in the morning myself. In fact, I know I would.”
“You and me both, my friend.” Bug took off his glasses and cleaned them on the tail of his scrubs. I really hoped they were clean. “So what’s up?”
I opened my mouth to ask him about tennis, but something completely different rose to mind instead. I’d thought a few times about giving Bug the sample of Sankanium I still had hidden at my house, but I couldn’t decide if it was a good idea or not. Bug would analyze anything I gave him, and he did a great job of keeping an open mind. But all that sneaking around came with risk, and I couldn’t justify it. Not on my behalf, and definitely not on Bug’s. Besides, I didn’t stand to gain any useful knowledge. If Bug did his magic, I’d know the chemical makeup of the rock. Big fucking whoop. With nothing to compare it to, the information would be useless from a crime solving standpoint, and I wouldn’t even be able to prove that it was alien in origin. I’d gone through this argument many times before and always came to the same conclusion, but I kept having it. If I was being honest with myself, I just wanted to confide in somebody. I couldn’t do that to Bug, though. It would put him in a terrible position, stuck between reporting me as he should and supporting his friend through her mental troubles. The more I thought about it, the more I empathized with the fuckwit and casserole lady.
My racing thoughts made me stutter a little, but I managed to squeeze out a complete sentence despite myself.
“I… uh… well, I was wondering if… are we still on for tennis tonight?” I asked.
“As far as I know.” He gave me a searching glance. “Are you okay?”
I put on a sheepish look. “Yeah. My brain hasn’t quite woken up yet. I need more caffeine.”
“Help yourself,” he said, but he didn’t look convinced as he gestured to the pot.
I braced myself for another round of questioning while I poured myself a cup, but mercifully the phone rang before we got there. After a moment, the secretary handed Bug the receiver. Something in her face alerted me to the fact that this wasn’t just the evidence room calling to search for Sheila again. As he listened, Bug stiffened to attention, nodding. He didn’t say much beyond “okay” and “yes, sir,” but my hackles went from slightly aroused to full on stiffy.
Something big was happening.
He hung up and started barking.
“Moni’que, go through the list. Whoever’s on call needs to get their ass in here now. Get me any pathology assistants you can find. Trainees, retirees, anything. We need to open up the spare autopsy room and prepare for a deluge.” She nodded, her hand hovering over the phone as if she expected more. Bug flapped his hands at her. “Go! Go! Go!”
She picked up the phone like she was in some kind of speed calling contest. Bug started to charge out of the room before she’d dialed a single number, but I put out a hand to intercept him before he got very far. He gave me a startled look, clearly having forgotten that I was in the room at all.
“Sorry,” he said. “Gotta run.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Potential mass casualty event,” he said, his voice bleak. “I hope it’s a drill, but I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”
A chill ran down my spine. Bug had worked 9/11, and when he spoke about it, I could see how it still haunted him. That look entered his eyes now, making them swim behind the thick glasses. I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, but I didn’t have
much more comfort to offer. We exchanged a glance, though, and it helped to calm the adrenaline I felt rising in my veins. Hopefully it helped him too.
Then we dashed to our respective stations, readying ourselves to face an unknown threat and whatever it might bring with it.
CHAPTER 3
I pushed the elevator button and waited for the cab, but the lights above the doors stayed on three and stubbornly refused to move. Although I kept trying to tell myself that some douche canoe from accounting was probably holding the door and talking fantasy football, the delay felt ominous. My heart ran circles in my chest, and I felt the familiar stirrings of panic as I imagined all kinds of scenarios that might have been the cause of that phone call to Bug. Terrorist attack. Mass shooting. Multi-car fatality on I-475. Aliens. The list was long and distinguished, and I could fill it with ease. The whole thing could have been a drill, but my instincts told me it was all too real.
Glaring at the elevator failed to make it budge from the third floor, so I decided to take the stairs. I needed the time to center myself anyway, because I already had the adrenaline shakes. I focused on each step as I climbed from floor to floor. Timed my breath with the fall of each foot. In and out, forcing my body into composure despite the hormones flooding my bloodstream. I knew this level of stress, I’d been here many times before, and it wasn’t going to carry me away. With effort, I pulled my thoughts away from morbid speculation and onto more positive things. My son Greg was at college in Oberlin, probably playing chamber music and flirting with pretty girls. Aunt Rose would be safely at synagogue right now, arguing with the rabbi and laying down the law. Jenn, the stage manager at the Valentine Theater, was between shows and had been using the extra time to paint her condo an atrocious shade of green that reminded me of nuclear avocados. Thoughts of my loved ones doing normal things helped to still my nerves better than anything else.
Then, unbidden, I imagined my former partner Ronda as she fell to her death. The wet splat as she hit the pavement. The uneven hitch of her chest as she struggled to draw breath. The futile moments where I sat next to her, knowing there was nothing I could do. My carefully constructed calm vanished like free condoms at a college fair. It had been nice while it lasted.
I burst out of the stairwell into…relative normalcy. The second floor where I worked was busy as usual. I’d emerged near the Ops department, which was currently at a mid-shift lull. A few uniforms—mostly shift supervisors—worked their desks, and a couple of guys sat hunched over paperwork too urgent to wait for the end of shift. But most of the cops were out on the streets where they belonged. There was none of the chaos I’d expect if they’d just gotten a call about a potential mass casualty event. No cluster of bodies around the television like we’d done on 9/11 and the day of the Boston Marathon bombing. The department kept a TV on a cart. We mostly watched training videos on it, or breaking news when things went sideways. But it sat, mute and silent in the corner.
There I stood right in the middle of all this normalcy, my heart racing like a jackhammer and my face flushed like I’d just ran a marathon. One of the office assistants flashed me a questioning look as she hurried past with a sheaf of papers clutched in one hand. I tried to smile at her, but it felt more like the kind of rictus grin you see on horror movie corpses. I’d seen plenty of dead people. None of them ever smiled like that.
Was I overreacting? The ever-present doubt crept in on me again, and when I thought back to what had happened in Bug’s office, I started questioning that too. Bug had been worried for sure, but what if it hadn’t had anything to do with the call at all? He’d known something was up. Maybe that call had been a regular old drill after all, and he’d just been worried about me.
If I didn’t keep it together, I could lose my job. I had to stay calm while I figured out what was going on. If there really was an emergency, I’d know soon enough. Until then, I needed to keep my eyes open and my face pokered. Dissolving into hysterics was not permitted, no matter how tempting it sounded.
I steeled myself with a deep breath before I started the walk to the Crimes Against Persons bullpen on the other end of the building. The structure itself wasn’t that large, but rather than brave the main hallways with their usual crowd of people in various emotional states, I opted for a less direct approach. I wound my way through personnel hallways, past file cabinets and supply closets, and stopped at a convenient ladies’ room because I couldn’t hold it any longer.
As I walked, I noticed something strange. Almost every door I passed was closed. Senior officers were the only staff to have earned doors; the rest of us worked in open bullpens because some genius had decided throwing us into a crowded morass might help merge the staff into a friendly and cohesive unit. Instead, it made me wear earplugs when I needed to concentrate. But senior brass got doors, because sometimes they had to discuss uncomfortable personnel issues that would probably make the employees less friendly and cohesive if we’d heard them.
In another burst of brilliance, administration had enacted an open door policy for the top brass, which meant that those highly coveted doors couldn’t be closed unless the person inside was dealing with the kind of sensitive material that would make us less friendly and cohesive. Which meant that closed doors signified bad shit going down, and we all knew it.
All these closed doors could have been a coincidence, but maybe not. I didn’t like the potential explanations one bit. I didn’t lose my shit like I had earlier, but I hurried my steps toward Sergeant Scorsone’s office, drying my hands on my pant legs because the air dryers in the bathroom hadn’t gotten the job done adequately.
Sergeant Scorsone had been my mentor for years. When I’d finally gotten my promotion to detective, I’d been partnered with him for my probationary training period. On the surface, it probably seemed like an odd pairing. Scorsone was one of the old guard, conservative and by the books, and I was about as green and idealistic as any rookie could be. But instead of viewing the assignment as a glorified babysitting job and therefore beneath him, Scorsone had thrown himself into it. He’d just lost his partner and was determined to find the killer. Instead of viewing me as an impediment, he’d enlisted my help. We’d solved the case together, and I’d brought my first murderer to justice.
We’d been partners for a couple of years after that. Rather than retiring, Scorsone had opted for a desk job. He was one of those guys who would stop working when they carried him out on a stretcher. Now, he ran our entire division, and while I turned in all my reports to my immediate superior per department protocol, I answered to him. He still had my back after all these years, and I had his.
Hopefully his door would be open, because if anybody would give me an honest assessment of what was going down, it was Scorsone. After all our history, we didn’t keep secrets unless they were related to the possible presence of visitors from other unknown planets. And really, that kind of secret didn’t seem unreasonable to keep from where I sat.
The door was closed.
My palms began to sweat as I stared at the door, and it took some effort to talk myself down. This was all probably a drill. And if it wasn’t, it would turn out to be the kind of situation I’d trained for. A building collapse or a mass pile up on I-75. Those things would be terrible, but I knew how to handle them.
It wasn’t an alien spaceship come to kill us all. That kind of thing only happened in Will Smith movies. It was ridiculous to list it among the potential explanations, wasn’t it? I couldn’t decide.
I knocked, but there was no answer. If I lurked in the hallway outside Scorsone’s door much longer, I’d begin to attract attention again, so I decided I needed a cup of coffee. I’d forgotten all about the one I’d poured in Bug’s office; it probably still sat next to the pot where I’d left it in all the chaos. I ponied up my quarter and took a look around the bullpen as I blew on the hot liquid. The place seemed normal to me. Nothing out of the ordinary or—
What the hell? The desk opposite mine, Ronda’s de
sk, should have been empty. I didn’t have a new partner, and per my agreement with Scorsone, he wasn’t going to assign me one without at least giving me fair warning first. I didn’t deal very well with surprises these days, and I just wasn’t ready to replace her yet. I thought he’d respected that, but maybe I’d been wrong because here was a big box of assorted crap sitting on the generic desk blotter. I hadn’t even known we’d gotten any new hires or transfers. We’d only had one since Ronda’s death, and I’d refused to work with someone with such horrible body odor. Honestly, I needed my nose.
Scorsone hadn’t forced the issue. Well, he’d tried, but then he’d gotten a whiff of Eau de Señor Body Odor in the elevator and conceded that I might have had a point about his unsuitability in the partner department. In the end, he’d matched the new guy with Detective de Grosso, who had lost his sense of smell after a motorcycle accident in his 20s. With my urging, he’d also gotten HR to send the guy some personal hygiene in the workplace pamphlets. It didn’t do to have the detective in charge of an investigation smelling like used rubbers and moldy cheese.
Now I’d gotten a newbie of my own. Having a new partner didn’t surprise me too much, but the way it had happened sure did. The swell of righteous anger felt strangely good. Normal. I would have felt much less uncomfortable about it if Scorsone had just talked to me. No matter which way I turned it, I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t.
From the various tense and expectant looks on the faces of my coworkers, they expected me to throw a fit. But whoever I’d drawn as a new partner, they couldn’t be half as bad as Señor Body Odor. Perhaps I’d even like them. Ronda wouldn’t mind, and not just because she was dead.
With those thoughts running through my head, I squared my shoulders and sat down deliberately at my desk, intending to pick up the phone and call Scorsone’s cell. If he didn’t pick up, I’d leave a voice message asking about all the closed doors and the urgent call to Bug’s office. I hadn’t forgotten about those things. Well, maybe I had, but I remembered now. I wouldn’t be able to rest until I got some kind of answer.
Unidentified Flying Suspect (Illegal Alien Book 2) Page 2