The Coworker: The First Nate Castle

by Vernon Rush

  “It’s your call guys. I am at your service.” Nate stood and waiting for the decision to be made. He believed a tendril of dead body odor smell beckoned him. At about 24 hours, a dead body was fragrant; smelling like last week’s trash. For the aroma to have accelerated, there had to be considerable butchery.

  Jack relented. "How are you with blood? I cannot overstate it. It's a bad one. There is no shame in letting me give you the deets out here. But if you can handle it, I could use your eye.

  "Okay, detective. I have been taken to task, " Nate responded, and despite the warnings, was about to proceed with an almost jovial attitude.

  Jack stopped him with two fingers. “There is something you should know beforehand, besides the horrific scene. It’s Emily Fabian.”

  Nate staggered. It was if he had gotten a whiff of knockout gas and his blood pressure surged up through the soft, brain-side of his scalp. The world around him spun. He gripped the door jamb to regain himself. This was a little too peripheral. He had just spoken with her. He had promised her. He had patronized her like he'd patronized Daria. There was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing would harm her, he'd said.

  “You got it?” Jack asked.

  Nate nodded his head. He did. He had to. He was immediately immersed in the guilt that somehow he was responsible. He had caused this woman to be killed; he just knew it. He was responsible.

  CHAPTER 10

  Blood on The Scene

  Nate trembled for his presumption that, as a seasoned academic man, he was ready for what he now saw. Prior to that moment, he had been pretty sure he had seen just about everything there was to see or had read everything there was to read. As gory as gore could be, he would have sworn it had walked through his comprehension before.

  Jack placed a hand on his shoulder and made light, just to diminish the blow if it were possible. "Should we go ask our sponsors if we can drink? Might be the exception to the sobriety rule. Take a second, and when you can talk, tell me what you think."

  The amount of blood on the scene was overwhelming. Nate guessed that she had been scalped alive, that the heart was beating as major arteries were opened and the pressure caused the blood to shoot all around. It looked like someone had taken buckets and tossed their contents about the room. His first impression was, by all appearances, that this was not the work of the Coworker Murderer. The sight of Emily Fabian’s body reaffirmed the ridiculousness in the suggestion that murders were anything but an act of rage and hate somewhere in the killer's psyche. All violent crimes were hate crimes. This one was a full-blown tantrum. Emily Fabian had been slaughtered. She had been scalped. This was what the coroner had meant by needing his expertise.

  Nate doped himself from the comprehension of the once-perky Emily Fabian, with her hair sliced from her skull like pineapple barbs from the fruit, by sifting through his mental files for data regarding scalping. Going intellectual helped him save his mind; got his mind away from this awful place, and he snapped. He was thinking skewed thoughts—like if he traced the sources of the heinous act, maybe it would lead him to the killer. While scalping was a practice widely attributed to Native Americans, not all tribes practiced it. It happened throughout the globe, long before the frontier days. Herodotus, the Greek historian and one of Nate’s personal heroes, reported that ancient Scythians drank blood and sawed the skulls off their victims. Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and ancient Iranian tribes had taken scalps as trophies. So there was really no one to attribute the state in which he found Emily Fabian, save for maybe TV. For all his hours of study and grandmother-limited time in front of the tube, that was how he personally had learned of scalping. On a re-run of Gunsmoke.

  Nate had begun his dissertation, though his voice sounded like he was listening to a recording of his voice. Nothing was real at all. "What I think is someone was really super pissed off. Not just in general, but specifically at Emily herself, and he is using her body to tell us that. The difference between this murder and the other four? This may have been done by a serial killer, but this was not part of his pattern. The other acts were expressions of an old rage triggered by the victims. This murder was fresh rage acted out in real time against the very person he was angry with."

  “You think we have gotten on our killer’s nerves? What did we do except run around in the same circles we have always been?” said Jack, completely frustrated.

  “Maybe we aren't figuring out who he is fast enough. This is someone who wants to be recognized by the world as being amazing and powerful. We are now on five and we only have theory.”

  “We know this is the same guy, not just because this is Emily Fabian, but because of this right here. Jack drew his finger back and forth just above a rust mark around which the injury had blackened. "This sort of mark was present on all victims. First three had their windpipes crushed by strangulation with an implement that left the same trace. The fourth victim was straight out asphyxiated. Coroner said the killer sucker punched Stacy Gottsponer with the mystery tool, crushed her airways, and so she choked. The killer may have changed it up, liked the effect, and now does it this way."

  "A signature…" Nate remarked. He pulled out his notebook and began to make notes. This was the first time they had come up with this kind of specific. Killers left tags, took trophies for many reasons—one of them being to be able to completely own the crime.

  "A signature," Jack concurred.

  While Jack seemed to be validated by this milestone discovery, Nate’s voice reverberated in his head. Without his awareness, his entire reality took on a hollow tone. Jack probably identified Nate’s state for what it was; Nate realized it in a detached way. He was absolutely losing it. Jack changed the subject and Nate was very aware that this was a tactic to bring him back to earth as much as possible.

  "How's your friend?" Jack asked. "She go home and hit the showers?"

  It took a moment for Nate to compute whom he was even referring to. It was as though Jack was high off the brutality of the crime scene. Somewhere in his system was emotion. Nate would be sobbing soon. “Who?” he asked.

  “Blondie?” Jack prompted. “Madame Shoulder Satchel?”

  Nate smiled wanly. "Definitely went to go for some R & R. I think she has what I have now." What he had. Nate didn't have the flu. He had a bifurcated psyche, split in two by the incomprehensible; the unfathomable. His brain was broken.

  "Is she one of us?" Jack asked, in the code referring to alcoholics.

  "No, but she certainly is high strung enough to be. We've sort of been cracking these cases over the years and I think these new ones just got to her." Nate laughed as though one of the funniest things had occurred to him. “I do not think we can take much more of this.”

  Jack tilted his head and thought a moment. "Did you happen to tell her our thoughts about the fact that the employment agent had access to both firms?"

  "No," Nate answered. "I haven't talked shop really with anyone except you in a while. You guys have shut me out till now and so Daria and I have not kicked it."

  "I was just wondering. Here we were, talking to Emily Fabian and then about Emily Fabian. One thing is for certain,” offered Jack, “we can cross Emily Fabian off any list of suspects. We think she was the conduit between the firms and possibly the murders. Maybe someone working through her? A boyfriend? Maybe we should go see if there a guy at this agency who would have access to placement information?"

  Peripheral, thought Nate. The last straight thing Nate recalled saying was, "It wouldn't hurt to rule it out."

  * * *

  Emily Fabian. An involuntary slideshow of their interaction just the day before played before him. Whenever he met anyone, the first thing he did was size them up. He looked at what they wore, and then speculated—based on whether the clothes were stained or neat—what their living space was like. He made judgments about the nature of their relationships strictly based on whether there was a shine on their shoes.

  Emily was a perfectionist. She didn't have a hair ou
t of place. Her body was slight and in great shape; Nate ventured that she would not allow it to be otherwise. She was a lady in the cultural sense of the word. There was something sad about her, Nate thought. It might have been, in part, because she had ended it with the college employee she had alluded to. But, to Nate, it was like she was perfect so someone would finally love her. She didn't have much in the way of a life; Daria was kind of right that rooming houses were not a creepy signal but holding stations of what society considered fulfilled lives. Emily had missed the boat somehow and she was a cute woman. She didn't make sense to Nate. He also couldn't confirm whether he was right about his guess as to what kind of living space she would keep because her room was destroyed by a hellish battle. She had fought for her sad little life and had lost.

  That thought set off physical bells and whistles. There literally was a physical break in his head that sounded like the snap of a celery stalk. He was slammed with wave after wave of uncontrollable tears. His head began to ache, vibrate. He was going into sympathy with her. Scalped. Someone had taken a sharp flat instrument and hatcheted off the layer of flesh in which that thick, shiny play of cocoa tresses was planted. She was an attractive woman; she had, as they used to say, a neat figure. He admonished himself for thinking this was sadder because she was cute. Was he reacting like a member of a lemming society or as a man?

  He tried to solve the puzzle by going back over every moment they had been together, they had interacted and he wondered had he done something differently or just met her today or tomorrow, would she be alive? He fumbled with his notebook now. He went to the front porch to sit quietly and cry so hard. He made no noise as traffic waded back and forth, each component with their purpose to address the last needs of Emily Fabian.

  When he regained himself some, he plugged in his ear buds to focus and wrote, noting the display of the body: nude, splayed, with her face not covered. Scalped, so that nothing could obscure the face. Her face and her genitals were facing anyone who looked, vulnerably. The killer was shaming both Emily and any viewers. Emily had asked for a drink and he wouldn't, not because he couldn't but because of a knee jerk reaction to something she had said. No, the deluge of what-ifs had begun. He couldn't stop it. This was the part of the investigation that happened with each murder he worked on, where he began to feel responsible. But it had never been like this.

  With the first Dublin & Meyer victim five years before, he had been eager and hopeful. He was also grateful for the chance. The young attorney was a second year associate who had also been his student. Nate taught three courses, one for each of his majors, and she was a philosophy student. She wasn't particularly brilliant but he remembered her as sweet. Of course, he was finding, now that he was past thirty, that all the students who were just hitting twenty were sweet. She didn't challenge him in any way. But there was something about her that was unforgettable. She was pretty. When he regarded students like her who, despite not having a spectacular personality or obvious talent, were going to meet their goals and were physically attractive, he estimated that they would fare well in life. Better than some talented people who were not so good-looking.

  But Emily Fabian had had both drive and looks. There had to be a character flaw that had held her back. Nate believed this was the common thread that wove through the relationship each victim had to the killer. That it wasn't the way they looked or what they did, but it was all of those things in conjunction with a character flaw that set the killer off. That motivated him to hunt them.

  Nate floated. He could feel Jack's finger lightly tap his face and hear him ask if he was okay.

  "You there, buddy? Don't go away on me now," Jack said.

  * * *

  Nate felt high and he hadn't even smoked anything. It was great. He felt better. He heard himself giggle and knew that his lips were curling. He studied the porch. He imagined that each of the five women was seated at various stations about it, patiently looking to him for answers and he could not give any to them. The smell of Emily’s body had intensified just in the little time he had been on the scene. "I wish one of you could help me out," he said to the mute beauties. "You know they say: When a murder happens in a small town, the chances are that you've passed the killer on the street. Do you believe that?" Nate gazed at them, with their Mona Lisa smiles. He never saw them blink but he felt as though they had. It was Dr. Castle and the ladies.

  "Hey," Jack Wilcox said sharply. "Stop that." He sauntered out of the front room. "No talking to yourself or invisible others. Besides, they don't say a thing." Jack smiled. "Now I am going to return the favor. Do you have any more classes for today?"

  "No," Nate said shortly. "I probably should find another meeting. I am not digesting that too well. I don't want to get loaded, but I do want to get loaded super bad."

  "I am feeling ultra-sober. I don't know how that it is, cuz I am sure tomorrow I am going to be slammed with regret. You can go hang out at my place. Grade papers or whatever it is you college teacher types do."

  "I have to interview the people at the employment agency," murmured Nate. "And what about the people at the firms?" He was supposed to be going to the employment agency and see about Emily Fabian's connection to the firms where attorneys had been killed. He was insane and now had some inkling as to what Daria was going through. He felt like she looked. He worried that she was out there in the same state he was, but all by herself.

  For all his studying and licensure, he realized that as long as the bodies had been intact, more or less, he and Daria had been dabbling. The only thing that made sense to him at that moment was a drink. His mouth drew up and he could almost taste the bourbon. He sat on the porch, trying to figure out how he was mentally going to get down the street to conduct interviews while stark raving mad and without getting drunk to boot.

  "We can do all that," Jack answered.

  "But the killer may kill again—" Nate counseled.

  "I dunno, Nate. I think the killer has to be as tired as we are. Go. Take it easy. Det. Klein, follow him over to my place."

  CHAPTER 11

  Don’t Get Killed

  One, Two, Three, and Four were placid, keeping him company, as though they were together awaiting the Jack's investigation. Eventually, Emily’s body was stretchered out. Nate was aware that her body was shrouded with a dark opaque zipper bag but his vision had jettisoned and he could now see her, like a hologram, in her silk print dress, the skirt of which was draping romantically off the side of the litter. Nate did not know how they had done it, but they had put her body back together and Emily looked whole; entire. There was no blood; just a gape-jawed look of shock. With his new visual ability, Emily appeared to him to have simply lost consciousness. Something transposed in his brain and he was relieved. Emily wasn't dead anymore.

  "Did you see that?" he asked the victims ever silent. "I know the detective on the case. I can speak to him; see if he can do that for you." He regretted he only had his micro car. He had a thought to take everyone for a coffee, maybe ask them if they had any idea of who killed them. He did his best to move, for without his knowledge, the crime scene had taken him completely and he was now lost. From above himself, he saw that he bowed his head to his hands and sobbed. His body rocked with the force of the torrent that erupted from him, choking out the sound and leaving him gasping for air in a similar way the murderer's blow had done to the victims. He turned his head and vomited. He retched until there was nothing left to give.

  A firm hand touched his shoulder. "Professor?" a voice said. "Dr. Castle?" He lifted his wet face upwards. It was Det. Dan Klein.

  "We can handle this," the detective said. "You don't need to be here. I'm going to have one of the guys drive you somewhere."

  "I've got a better idea," Jack said. "Why don't you go ride in the second ambulance and follow Emily to the hospital?"

  Nate thought that that made a lot of sense. "I should have done more," he muttered. "You realize this means the killer watches you and me and was
therefore watching her. I got this woman killed." He rose, standing next to Dan Klein, whose hair again managed to match his clothing. Nate was conscious of his own height compared to the detective’s. He hadn't realized Dan was so short. "Let's go, Dan. And Jack," he said.

  "Yes," Jack answered.

  "Don't get killed."

  * * *

  The smell of ammonia pierced Nate Castle's nostrils and brought him around. Coming to with the overpowering smell put him mind of the indelible smell of Emily Fabian's aging corpse, and he remembered. A wave of anguish knotted his gut, and his body gathered up briefly for it. He blinked and had to let his surrounding compute. In a pleasant way. Usually when he did that, it was because he had come to in a gutter, not because he had awakened all nicely tucked in a hospital bed, albeit in a restricted room. To his surprise and wonder, he was hooked up to an IV but overall, mentally and physically, he felt worlds better. He felt right again, except for the pangs of Emily Fabian that plagued him sporadically, when he would softly weep a few intense sobs till it passed. He rang for the nurse, who appeared almost instantaneously.

  "Good morning," he said to a nurse whose uniform he found hot, unexpectedly. Her perfume was light and pure. He connected, too, with the notion that every time he wound up in rehab for near-death alcohol-induced experiences, in a sick way it always seemed worth it, because rehabs were like hotels where the meals were included. There was a parallel to his waking on the heels of an incomprehensible horror, in a really plush bed, pleasantly doped and being waited on by a sexy little nurse. The addict in him found value in the instant gratification of overwhelming comfort. He was a sick man.

  "Good afternoon," the nurse corrected. "The doctor says you can go if everything checks out and you feel up to it. You look pretty good." She pressed her fingers to his wrist to take his pulse.