The Coworker: The First Nate Castle

by Vernon Rush

  "That's just wonderful, Dr. Castle. Let me be clear about something: outside of a meeting, if you show up on my job again, I'll have you busted. This case is not your hobby."

  "What a shame. I thought maybe you were going to enlighten me with some details, and in turn, I could maybe offer my services."

  "Like I said, this is not five years ago."

  "Tell me something, detective. How it is a detective has to work a cash register? Doesn't that make it hard to focus on your day job?"

  "Wreckage of the past, and that is all you need to know about that."

  "I see. Isn't there some sort of rule?"

  Nate could see Jack Wilcox’s jaw flexing over time. "I'll want to see you only in meetings. That is, if you stay sober." He rose from the table.

  Nate smiled. He made Wilcox nervous and he wasn't exactly sure why. "See you tomorrow, Jack."

  ***

  When at first you don’t succeed…Kill, kill, kill again.

  The beast of anxiety stirred. Scanning the major news feeds on the internet for reports of Yvonne Winters's murder, watching the detectives and the forensic squads pour over the scene only went so far. It was all so anticlimactic—not like the last time, One and Two. Three didn't give him the kick he had hoped for. The murder was good enough alright. The beautiful thing was that no matter where he was, no matter whom he was talking to or what was going on, he could replay the whole thing like a warm and soothing movie. But it was over so quickly. Three was so...cooperative... even with the chain around her neck. Sweet recall played the pop of cartilage for him. He could feel her clutches, however mousy, passively pleading. He wanted it to feel the magic—but felt nothing. The detectives were hush-hush about their progress. Except for the initial stories of the discovery of the body, silence. Where was the Goddamned buzz? He could glean no pleasure nor calm from Three. He hated to have to do it. He had every intention of pacing himself. He had Four in mind, but he hadn't totally done his footwork. It wouldn't pay to rush. But the anxiety was plaguing him something fierce.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Anxiety Attack

  He waited. Or expected rather, because Four was like clockwork. Predictable, banal, tedious, infuriating. He looked up to the heavens. The sky revealing through a lush canopy of trees imparted a grounding, a sense of natural order. He took this as a flag, a thumbs up, and eternal approval. He had sat on the bench set on a berm as it sloped towards the water. He loved Cunningham Falls. It was one of his favorite places to hunt. He scattered natural seeds to draw sparrows and mourning doves. He liked that he could connect with creatures, draw them to him so easily. They couldn't help themselves. He heard the clack of running shoes on the asphalt pavement that meandered through the park. During the summer, the park teamed with people celebrating the beautiful earth and the great outdoors but in the off season, during the work week, the park was for diehards. He chuckled to himself. Diehards.

  He toppled to the ground and lay there, careful to ensure that Chain was tucked and out of sight. Reveal was everything and he wanted to be sure that neither he nor Four were deprived. He so savored that moment when they saw the chain. He almost lost his nut right there. He wore a Lycra jacket with a bright band of color for safety so he could easily be seen by hunters and cars. The plan was so he could be spotted by a punctual associate on a few days' leave to buy her first house, and for some 'me' time. Four was so infuriatingly predictable: the very thing she would die for made her easy to kill. Four cantered atop the forest litter in irksome bantam steps, delicate and light. He mentally ranted against the irksomeness of her athletic effort. Why bother? he thought. No heart! No heart!

  Footsteps, sounding like a box of cornflakes being shaken, were by him now. Despite the springtime rains, the leaves on the floor of the park rustled. He soaked up every sound and emotional nuance as he played possum. Once he was in her view, Four was nicely alarmed at his vulnerable state. He touched Chain, let his fingertips trace the rough and cold texture of the links. The smell of rust would rise to his nostrils when he showered later.

  "Hey, are you okay?" Four stooped to touch his shoulder. She then pried at his dead weight. He artfully let his body fall back, as if impelled by the gravity of the slope. He fought to smile at his own finesse. Four crouched closer, as if by examination she could discern something. You're hardly a lawyer, he thought. You a doctor, too?

  The first puff of Four's exhale that brushed his skin and he was on. He opened his eyes as though that breath were a coin in the slot of his mechanics. With both ends of Chain in his taut grip, he pushed up towards the slender curve of Four's white neck, bared by her altruism. His was such a clean shot, he probably broke some stuff.

  Four went flying, writhing in leaves, whispering under her body as she struggled for air. Sa-weet! Crushed it! She could clutch at her neck all she wanted; that air was not getting in. Now it was he who crouched. He observed and marveled.

  Four purpled. Her eyes colored with a road map of blood vessels. He looked at his watch and made a mental log, of time frames. This was definitely a good one. This one was the goal; what it was all about. As Four expired, he leaned back and let the warmth flow over him. Wave after narcotic wave pulsed throughout his body, pushing out the anxiety that had previously plagued him. He felt calm. He felt content. He felt good.

  Four was silent and still. Even as it just happened, there in the back of his mind he knew he would have to do it again. This was a great one, but it was already losing its edge. It was like that sometimes; one did him or it took a couple in a row. It was hard to predict beforehand how it would go.

  This one was a good one, very satisfying. Maybe just by comparison to Three, which had been abysmal. He shed his outer layer of clothing and packed it in a backpack from which he took a ball cap. In seconds, he had a whole new look.

  He carefully tucked Chain into the false lining of his backpack and strolled. Four was hidden in plain sight. He had a very good chance to be able to visit, to prolong the exquisite lulling satiation.

  The trees canopied him as he walked and he couldn't help but smile at himself with the clear sky and the tops of the trees looking down on him like an eternal society—his fellows. Like he was brethren of a superpower.

  ***

  Though it was mostly an artsy town—craft shops, galleries, shops of the rare and interesting—there was a handful of law practices in Frederick. Weston & Hale was the name that came to everyone's lips when the subject of law came up. Now it was the name on everyone's minds, replacing Dublin & Meyers with strange mercy, and had them shaking their heads at the shame about the murdered young attorney. While it was a town of well-meaning, social minded people, Frederick, for all its relatively good nature, was a white town. A white town of upper middle class folk, with slim exception. Nate Castle noted the tragedy was well aided by the fact that Yvonne Winters was blond haired and blue eyed. If she had been homely or older or not so blond, he wondered whether folks might not be as struck by the fact her exquisite neck had been crushed.

  Even in Snyder’s Grocery there was no escaping the contamination of the serial murders. The store was an icon of all things Frederick: just about the only game in town for grocery shopping, and yet, all in all, a good play. Family owned for several generations. Nate had clear recollection of walking the aisles for the items on his grandmother's lists. Frederick was a haven for progressive thinkers even back then, but you couldn't send a 10-year-old on honey-do errands these days. Murders were happening and they were being talked about by people lifting and cutting cartons to stock the shelves to the checkers pushing goods on the belt. Everyone was talking about the murders, whether it was about someone they knew who knew the victims or someone weird in town who probably was responsible.

  Since he hadn't been drinking for all of about a week or so, Nate faced the impracticality of taking his meals at Frederick eateries. Entering Snyder’s, he was at once gladdened by the conclusion that had brought him there for while he knew Snyder’s (everybo
dy knew Snyder’s), he had forgotten just how much he enjoyed it. He was also glad to be wearing a jacket, for in the crisp weather, the store itself was cold. The gray of the polished cement floors seemed to add to that. The store was small but each aisle was stocked not only with familiar brands but with specialty items you could only find elsewhere with a lot of trouble. Like wines. He groaned as his mouth puckered for Spanish red wine. He had never been an oenophile but he was now terrified he would be sucked into a vortex waiting for him in the wine section as he passed it

  He walked briskly to the produce department and selected candidates to compose a hearty chopped salad. Salad, fresh bread, and an oil and vinegar made with pungent red wine vinegar, for he was determined he craved it simply for its taste. He also picked up Parmigiano Reggiano, not just because it was a good staple but because he loved the way Daria said it. His first meal at home in quite some time would be dinner for Daria.

  He grabbed some eau minérale, real butter, and a baguette, which he thought he would buy daily as a part of ameliorating his livelihood because he could walk there. But no; he had to re-think that, now that he had a healthy or unhealthy fear of the wine section. He left as soon as he was able.

  He toted the couple of bags of groceries that he'd bought to his roller skate of a car, now pissed. Sobriety had ruined Snyder’s for him. Sure, he hadn't been in Snyder’s for a bona fide shopping in forever, but now that was not an option. Rage. Fire. Fury. He connected with the desire to kill something and have no compunction about doing it. Dinner might have been ruined and he hadn't even started it. He hurried home.

  He rented living space from a house that had been the home of a childhood friend. There were a couple of low rise apartment buildings in Frederick, but for the most part, apartments were derived from converted houses. Rooming houses. The home in which he lived had the appearance of being grounded and calm. Like a little old lady lived there instead of four or five young adults unsupervised in one way or the other. It was owned by a woman a little older than he was, who made a rule of no drugs or drinking, which Nate observed when people were being killed in or around Frederick.

  As he pulled up to the curb, he saw Daria on the broad cement steps of the stoop, her ever-present messenger bag to her side. She had a key to his place and it would have totally been okay if she'd gone in, but she said the place was kind of creepy and with what had been going on lately, Daria was skittish. She said that the houses, split up into rooms like the one Nate lived in, were crime traps. Maybe there had been, once upon a time, a time that she could have shared a house with others, but now, even if the places were suites of a couple of rooms, like Nate's, locked and separate secured units, Daria couldn't do it. She said the thought made her terribly anxious. She had the same objection to actual apartments in the apartment buildings. Something about the hallways made her claustrophobic. Every time Nate and she contended with one of these murders, she became higher strung. As a compromise, she lived in one of the smallest houses in town, on a fairly generous lot. It was the size of an apartment practically, so it was affordable, yet she didn't have to contend with the threat of unknowns as she might if she shared a space.

  "Don't want to go on in? You'd be more comfortable," Nate inquired rhetorically as he approached her.

  "Only I would not be more comfortable." She made a face.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Creepy Venue

  He bent towards her. "You afraid the Coworker murderer is in there waiting to get you? Just my academic opinion, but if you ask me, your place is creepier, but okay," Nate razzed.

  Daria gripped his arm. "Really?" she asked, in fright.

  Nate chuckled. "No. Come on in." He passed her and unlocked the front door.

  She was not satisfied. "But you asked me if the Coworker murderer might be at my place," she pressed. "You've never asked that."

  He turned to her and rested a calming hand on her cheek. "Daria," he soothed, "I was joking. We can discuss what makes a creepy venue a creepy venue. You're awfully jumpy."

  "There's been another one." Daria trembled in his caress. "And we don't have anything to on the first one, really."

  "Come, let's sit," he suggested.

  He set his groceries down and opened the door to his place. It had a counter and a microwave but really, to prepare the salad, he would have to use the kitchen.

  Daria found her usual place in one of the suede overstuffed chairs.

  He slid his backpack off his shoulder to take it to his bedroom. He held out his hand.

  "What?" she asked, sulky like a five year old.

  "Give me your bag. I'll take yours too." He figured Daria always took such good care of him while he was in need, if he could show her a little love now and then, it was the least he could do.

  "No, I'm fine," she replied.

  He smiled. "Just checking." He left her alone for just a sec and returned with a notebook and his pen.

  Daria eyeballed it and then looked at him. "Let's forget about this dinner thing. Let's go to Jerry’s. I need a drink," she said.

  He blinked at her, shocked at her suggestion. She knew better. "I am not drinking, and you know that," he scolded.

  "Just not drink tomorrow. I am upset," she whined. "I need you."

  "I am sorry if I am not paying enough attention to you, but you know the drinking thing doesn't work that way. I can't just stop so I can make sense of my notes later. You know and I know that I am an alcoholic. I get that you don't really get it. But—"

  Daria jumped on his sentence. "I get it."

  But he replied, "You believe it but you don't get it, and I don't expect you to. It's one of the comforts we find in meetings. That people there get us."

  Daria smiled and shook her head. That was the Daria he knew. "I see. Are you misunderstood folk, Dr. Forensic-psych?"

  "Now you can laugh, but there is a real syndrome of being to this dilemma from which I suffer. Accepting that I am different so that I believe I need help and yet accepting I am the same so as not to shirk my responsibilities to myself and society."

  Silence ensued.

  "Well, that calmed me down," Daria laughed.

  "I need you as my friend to support me in this thing," he said quietly. "No more invites to the bar for a while and no more drinks. Forever, but like one day at a time."

  "Right-e-o professor." Daria looked pained, as if she was going to cry.

  He placed a quiet hand on her arm. "Come sit at the kitchen counter and let me make you dinner. You tell me all about this next one. You know, maybe we should re-evaluate why it is we are even involved this time. This would be the first time that we weren't invited. So why do you think we are imposing ourselves?"

  His words seemed somehow to frighten her. "Well, Jesus, we aren't going to let a couple of dumbshit cops, new to the case, keep us away, are we? I can’t believe you are even asking yourself that question. Of course we are involved. We owe it to our community. We have something valuable to contribute."

  He studied her. "I get that. But maybe we should have a system of re-grouping so that we don’t get lost in this thing. I mean, I am not sure how much more I can take of life, let alone young promising life, being cut down this way."

  Even as he moved their party out of the confines of his suite and into the broader space of the common area of the home, he felt some anxiety. It had only been a few days really that he had been gathering facts about Yvonne Winters's murder and he really didn't have anything going except a few observations. Now another one?

  Daria sat on a bar stool at the kitchen counter as he laid out vegetables from the handled paper bags from Snyder's. "See?" he said. "You get to sit on a bar stool and I stay away from the hair of the dog."

  "What bit ya?" Daria finished and took a deep breath. "They found her in Cunningham Falls."

  "Like the first one," he searched.

  "Right," she swallowed hard. "Which really bothers me because, I mean, I know we have a really wholesome town—or so we keep tell
ing ourselves with all these murders going on—but that is a place where families go to be pure."

  "Strangled?" he asked.

  Daria thought. "The reports didn't say."

  "But not a coincidental murder. So we know she is a Coworker Murder victim, how?"

  "The reports say it appears to be another one. Either way, Frederick is turning into Chicago." Chicago was Daria’s current standard for the worst violence mecca on the planet, but she deferred that she only used U.S. comparisons.

  He chuckled. "So why do you think the killer re-visited the old venue?"

  "I have no idea," Daria scoffed.

  "Could be that he is bringing us back to a place to re-display signals that we missed before. Could be familiarity. Could have special meaning. You just pointed out it is a place where families go to be pure. We are a small town steeped in classic American values."

  "Even if there is no such thing as that. Why do we keep pretending we aspire to those values if we don’t, not really?" Daria asked.

  "Look it here," he said, as though he were cheering up a kid. He pulled an appliance off the counter behind him. "A little TV with a radio. We can to listen to talk radio."

  "Yours?"

  "No, but the landlady would be cool if we used it. Let's listen to some news. You figure it out," he said to her of the television set. "And I'll finish this up."

  He cut the root end of the frisée he'd bought and separated the gritty leaves, setting them in a bowl to wash them under the tap. He drained them and blotted them, then set out all the other veggies he was going to use and did the same. When he withdrew the generous chopping knife from the block, Daria started. She just about jumped out of her skin.

  "Easy, peasy. You're a peach, not a vegetable. I got no designs on you," he kidded.

  She adjusted the volume so they could listen to the news loop on the talk radio. The great thing about a salacious item was that the wait to hear about it on news radio was brief.