by Jamie Metzl
I’m not sure if we are still connected, then I hear her weak voice.
“What?”
“Just to go with me to the hospital and ask them to review the autopsy. They have to keep tissue in the hospital, and by law they’d have to do a review if you request it.”
“A review?”
“Have another look at the tissue to see if they can learn more.”
“But the funeral is tomorrow,” she says in a near whisper.
“I know, Mrs. Stock. I’m so sorry.”
Her heavy breathing fills the line.
“Mrs. Stock, I promised you I’d find out what happened to Lee. I believe deeply that the full story of what really happened is somehow not being told.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I can pick you up in thirty minutes to take you to the hospital.”
I feel the indecision in the silence.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes. I have a navy blue Hyundai Sonata. If you’re willing to help, just please come out. If not, I completely understand. Okay?” I feel like a jerk for pushing so hard as I tap off the call.
“What do you mean by ‘what really happened?’” she asks through dead eyes as she gets in to my car thirty minutes later.
“I just think there’s more to the story than what the police are saying.” I fight with myself about how much to tell but decide to leave it at that. “And I think there’s more to be learned from the autopsy report.”
A look of greater pain crosses her face as I explain the autopsy review procedure and how she can make an official request. I wait in the car as she goes in.
Watching this poor woman amble toward the door, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Her only child is gone. How much does it matter whether she died of a heart arrhythmia or of something else? How much does it matter if her daughter was pregnant or not, if Becker was involved or not, if Min Zhao is part of the story? Her daughter is lost. Period. Maybe it’s just me who cares to tell the story, me burdened by my lost sister, my callous sense of justice, by a million and a half dead Armenians whose stories can never fully be told. Maybe I should just leave her alone.
“They said they can’t do it,” she says through heavy breaths after opening the car door fifteen minutes later.
“Who said?”
“The doctor, I think his name was Papadoc or something like that.”
“Dr. Papadakis.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’s sorry but that he did the autopsy himself and there’s no reason to review it just to find the same thing.”
“But that choice isn’t his to make if you make the request.”
She turns to face me with a pleading look in her eyes. “Please, Mr. Azadian, take me back to the hotel.”
Part of me wants to resist, but I know it’s not the right thing to do. “I’m so sorry,” I say again, stupidly.
I turn gently toward Carol as I pull up the drive toward the hotel entrance. “When I spoke with you on Wednesday, I asked if you thought maybe she might have been pregnant.”
Her body stiffens; a strange look comes across her face. “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” she says nervously after a long pause.
“Can you say who told you to not talk about it?” I ask gingerly, sensing I may already know the answer.
“He had big plans . . .” She stops herself.
“Big plans for what?” I say as softly as possible, fearing that even the slightest pressure could tip Carol Stock over.
She doesn’t respond.
“Mrs. Stock,” I almost whisper, “big plans for what?”
Carol Stock stares at me pleadingly, as if asking to be excused from answering my question. “For the Second Coming.” The words flow quietly through her lips like gas leaking from a cracked jar.
“Are you telling me that Reverend Becker—”
The smack on my driver’s side window reverberates through my head like a sledgehammer. I jerk my head left and instinctively retreat from the enormous hand spread across the glass like a ferocious paw. I cast my gaze upward and cower under the raging gaze of Cobalt Becker.
25
If the God in whom I don’t believe is, as the Puritans understood, an angry God, then Cobalt Becker, his self-appointed representative here on earth, is his equally wrathful agent.
Becker’s burning eyes reach through my window and grab me.
I have only one option. I open the door and stand before him.
He glares through me with laser-like intensity. His shoulders rise and fall with his heavy breath like a bull setting to charge.
I expect a barreling voice when he begins moving his mouth, but his intense whisper, more like a hiss, is even more chilling. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
My mind scans for possible answers. There is nothing for me to say.
“Have you no decency,” he thunders quietly, “no shame?”
I stand my ground, but only barely.
“How dare you take advantage of this woman. How dare you cause her even more pain in her hour of grief.”
I feel myself shrinking before the fierce charisma of Cobalt Becker.
Then something clicks inside of me.
My voice returns. “Good afternoon, Reverend.”
His glower pierces my defenses.
I struggle to hold out. “Everyone feels terrible about what happened to MaryLee Stock,” I say, feeling self-conscious that I never actually knew her, “but I am determined to find the full story of what actually happened.”
My words almost physically push back Cobalt Becker. I press forward. “I don’t believe she died of a heart arrhythmia.”
Becker’s stare almost assaults me.
I press on. “It looks to me like something worse may have happened to her. Her story deserves to be told.” My spirit grows beyond my frame like a shadow elongating in a setting sun.
Becker’s breath quickens, his chest lifts, his eyes grow wider. Then his look softens like a car shifting down a gear. “Tell me exactly what you mean.”
His shift puts me again off balance. “I think the autopsy was a sham,” I say quickly. “I think MaryLee’s death was connected to something bigger than her. I think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Becker then turns his attention to Carol Stock.
“Carol,” he says softly, “please go inside. Revered DeWitt is there to take care of you.”
Carol Stock gets out of the car and shuffles toward the hotel entrance as if she’s become a bit player in her own daughter’s death.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Becker whispers, “but this is not right. Look at her. You must leave her in peace.”
He places one hand on each of my shoulders. I fear he’s going to strangle me but then feel the warmth of his massive hands almost merging with my muscles as if he’s melting me. He leans his head toward mine as if offering a benediction.
“Leave us in peace, Mr. Azadian,” he says in a whisper that washes through my body. “Whatever you are looking for, you will not find it here.”
He peers into my eyes and then deeper, into the soul I’ve always doubted I possess. I am overpowered.
Becker removes his hands then walks slowly to the hotel entrance, not looking back.
I stand paralyzed, as if this brief encounter has scrambled the controls to my nervous system.
Who is Cobalt Becker? I ask myself, stunned. What strange power does he have over me? I can’t read him. Somehow I fear him. Something inside me is inexplicably drawn to him. I stumble to my car, feeling anger boiling up inside of me.
I tap through my u.D. Joseph Abraham and Jerry Weisberg’s faces pop up on my split screen dashboard. “Are we secure?” I ask.
“Think so,” Jerry answers.
“Jerry, could Cobalt Becker possibly build a Centurion or a Trojan horse?”
Jerry nods. “You’d need resources to do it, but he seems to have them.
”
“Anything more on the malware?”
“We’re working on it, but it’s some really impressive work. It’ll take more time.”
“Joseph, what about the doctors and clinics?”
“I’m down to two fertility clinics and three OBs, but I’m having a hard time getting it down from there.”
“Let me try,” I say. “Send me the contact information.”
“Will do, boss.”
“Thanks, to both of you. We’ll connect later.”
The screen reverts to the shifting collage of photographs sent randomly from my u.D.
The image of Toni and me on horseback watching the annual burning of the Kansas prairie in Cottonwood Falls flashes by. The sun casts an orange spell on the reflecting grasses, the quiet joy flows from our faces. Should I have deleted these photos? I ask myself. Then the idea hits me. I hate to ask. I know how she’ll feel when I do. But I know to my core that I cannot leave MaryLee’s death, like Astrid’s, unexplored and unexplained. And who else do I know who can help me get to the bottom of this?
I stupidly tap the text icon on my u.D.
T—need to speak, can we meet?
I pause for a moment, realizing how she will read these words and feeling like a jerk. Then I add work related. I know this will piss her off. I also know she’ll be there.
The response comes in seconds.
Can meet in 30 near hospital.
1:00 at Tofu Bell on 32nd, I dictate, picking the least romantic place possible, trying, however feebly, to not give mixed signals.
CU, she replies.
I call Maurice on the bat phone and update him on Carol Stock and my total failure to get access to the tissue. I think about telling him of my unfolding plans but decide against it. If he didn’t like my stealing garbage . . .
26
Tofu Bell is my dirty little secret.
A big part of me believes that to be great, something must be unique. If everyone embraces any fashion or view, chances are there’s a better path they are missing available to those who challenge the orthodoxy.
“Whoso would be a man,” my hero Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “must be a nonconformist.” But whoso would like a veggie bowl with quinoa, kale, sesame tofu, black beans, chia seeds, diced broccoli, and jicama for $9.95 must eat at Tofu Bell. That it’s in every airport in the United States is somebody else’s problem.
I take a seat facing the door and can’t help feeling jittery as I wait.
Six months ago I was torn between my strong feelings for her and my constant sense there was another destiny awaiting me. Maybe Toni had been right when she’d told me that happiness wasn’t a grand plan but a continuous series of small acts, each insignificant in itself, banding together to make a life, that the image of happiness was not staying up all night talking but her coming into the house with grass stains on her knees after playing with our hypothetical kids in our hypothetical backyard. Maybe the big picture, life itself, is made up of small dots, the pixels of our daily lives. Maybe, I wonder as I momentarily stop breathing as I see Toni gliding through the door, marking off the entire universe is the same as laying claim to nothing.
A mix of excitement, warmth, nervousness, attraction, and trepidation surges through my veins.
Five foot seven and too thin to be curvy, her long flowing arms sway with her stride like willow branches blowing in a gentle breeze. The sculpted bob of her jet-black hair curves in to frame her oval face. Her green eyes dance from her almond skin. She radiates.
I smile inwardly and gulp at the same time as I stand and move awkwardly in her direction. Not sure if I should hug her or just say hello, I end up in a strange no-man’s land between the two. “Hi,” I say. The small word struggles to carry layers of imperfectly defined meaning.
She looks at me and smiles unevenly, her smile impulse seeming blocked by better sense. I step back.
As I have from the moment I met her, I feel the desire pull her to me. I don’t. “Can I get you something?”
She glances at me with a knowing look on her face, challenging me to explain what she’s doing here.
I pull out a seat for her. “It’s good to see you,” I say, racking my brain for something more creative.
“It’s nice to see you, Rich,” she says, sitting.
In our eight months of dating she almost never once called me Rich, Dikran, or any proper name. Her words confirm our new status.
“How have you been?” I ask, kicking myself for my predictability.
“I’ve been fine. How’s your mom?” she says, throwing me a bone.
“She’s good.”
“Still worried about you?”
“Do you need to ask?”
“Still showing her photos of Shoonig?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“The Janissary?” she adds with a slight smile.
Every word, every gesture with Toni has a history, tells a story that simultaneously pushes us together and pulls us apart.
It had been our third date, the Kansas City Symphony playing Rachmaninoff in front of the magnificent Union Station. Toni noticed the look on my face when she leaned over from our picnic and petted the dachshund puppy passing our blanket.
“Look at the baby,” she’d said, an unbridled love in her voice.
It was hard for me to pretend. The first two dates had gone so well I didn’t feel the need to. My mistake.
The dog passed and she gave me a look I’d later learn much better how to interpret. Then, I didn’t know it was a warning sign to stop.
“You know, psychopaths don’t like dogs,” she’d said.
“I could have sworn it’s that kids who abuse their pets can end up as psychopaths,” I’d replied, dipping a baby carrot into the Costco hummus.
She’d wiggled her nose, in retrospect another sign I should have left well enough alone.
“I know people say a dog is a man’s best friend,” I’d prattled on, “but who are the other friends?”
She’d bit her lower lip. Of course, yet another missed sign.
“And people feel like their dogs love them, but what else are the dogs going to do?” I’d jabbered on. “They have one evolutionary skill of kissing their owners’ asses in exchange for food and shelter. What other options do they have? How many Chihuahuas would make it on their own in the wild? How many Chihuahuas does it take to bring down a wildebeest?”
Now Toni was visibly starting to get annoyed. It was hard to miss but I was on a roll.
“And on top of that these dogs’ lives start with a crime. We steal them away from their mothers and then force them to live with the people responsible for this theft. If any dog ever got full awareness of its life situation the first thing it would do is attack its owner. It’s like the Janissaries during the Ottoman Empire, Christian babies stolen from their parents and forced to fight for the Sultan.”
She’d stuck out her tongue in a playful way that sucked the wind out of my monologue.
“But that was a cute dog,” I surrendered.
She shook her head from side to side.
In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d sufficiently appreciated how nice it was for someone to look at a puppy and simply feel love, or what an ass I’d been to push on with my point so obliviously. Maybe nothing about love is simple.
Toni smiles gently.
“Fine,” I say, “the Janissary is fine.” I tilt my head to suggest she hasn’t answered my question.
“I’m good, Rich,” she says, this time meaning it.
“Your parents, your sister, the nieces, guitar lessons?”
“Everyone’s good,” she says suspiciously, again challenging me to say what’s going on before she decides how to respond.
I look at her for a moment too long then turn my eyes away. We speak for a while, skimming the surface but each mining in our different ways the many currents that lie below.
I know I need to tell her why I’ve asked her to meet me and that doing s
o will kill our small reconnection. I let the conversation flow until the two images of MaryLee’s body, first still beautiful on the apartment floor and then dissected under Papadakis’s scalpel, begin to invade my thoughts.
“I need to ask you a favor,” I blurt out of seeming nowhere.
Her body stiffens as I’d known it would. “That’s why I’m here?”
“I wanted to see you,” I say earnestly, “but yes.”
“What do you need?” she asks in a functional voice that makes my shoulders drop.
“It’s just that . . .”
“What do you need, Rich, just tell me.” She enunciates each word in barely disguised anger.
“It’s a complicated story. May I?”
She looks at me like a parent waiting to hear an excuse from an errant child.
As I tell her the story, beginning with MaryLee Stock’s body on the apartment floor and ending with the suspicious autopsy, Carol Stock, and Cobalt Becker hissing in front of the downtown Marriott, her demeanor slowly changes.
“Are you sure you want to go forward with this?” she says in a tone that feels warmer.
She knows me well enough to already know the answer.
“What do you need from me?” she asks.
How many people do each of us have in our lives who are in our corner? How many can the universe ultimately provide? “I need you to steal a tissue sample from MaryLee Stock’s autopsy,” I say, trying not to sound squeamish.
Toni blanches. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“I think I do.”
“You can’t just steal tissue. It’s illegal. People get fired for a lot less than that.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“But,” she says, finishing my sentence, “you can’t rest until you find out what really happened to the girl.”
“Do I need to answer that question?”
“But there’s something more?” she asks intuitively.
“What do you mean?” I say, already knowing my evasion will be useless.
She looks at me without flinching.
I hesitate before speaking. “Something about her reminded me of Astrid,” I say quietly, looking down.
The words hang in the air.
“I saw her dead body and something told me I needed to figure out why,” I continue, “that I couldn’t let another young woman just go without any rhyme or reason, that—”