by John Burdett
Kokoro Press
www.kokoropress.com
Death Effect
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copyright © 2017 John Burdett
Edited by: Allison Jacobson
Cover art by: Louca Matheo
Electronic book Publication Death Effect April 2017
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Sedonia's Magic Words, Inc., 10435 Green Trail Drive N, Boynton Beach, FL 33436
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/)
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Death Effect
John Burdett
Dedication
For Nit
I.
Medical Examiner Doctor Bethany Lee Brown — Dr. B to friends and felons alike — of Etowah County, Alabama, was not pregnant — so why marry that fat slob of a sergeant Jack Gatt from Etowah PD? She didn’t want to, but he was forcing her hand as only a cop can. Okay Mister, she thought, have it your way, but you better watch out.
So far she had resisted pressure to sleep with him on grounds of religious principle, which was kind of quaint for a forty year old woman in the context of the twenty-first century, but not so unusual in Alabama where the Lord still ruled. Even so, unkind tongues had often asked: Was she gay? Was she just weird? Her friends opted for lovably weird, and pointed out that there were a lot of men who would find it difficult to sleep with a medical examiner, especially if they couldn’t stop thinking about what she did with her hands all day. Also, if she’d been gay everyone would have known about it by now. This was gossip county. You couldn’t even cop a speeding ticket without the whole town knowing. And now the prim little ME with the old fashioned hair-do, short with a wave across her forehead from left to right held rigidly in place by a brittle lacquer, was about to marry the roughest police sergeant in the county? He was no Adonis; the best the opposite sex could find to say about him was that he’d kept his ginger hair — and vastly enlarged his stomach, was the second thing they said.
Nobody, except perhaps a curious psychiatrist or two who had heard the news, considered an alternative explanation. According to unpublished statistics, the constant presence of death could do strange things to the libido of professionals who lived in it. No one was surprised at the collapse of sex drive in many cases; less expected was the occasional spike in the opposite direction, stemming, perhaps, from intimacy with an unconquerable power: I am become Death, Destroyer of worlds, quoted J. Robert Oppenheimer from the Hindu scriptures at the moment when he’d acquired the power to destroy ours.
In the golden days of free speech it was often hinted that this death effect was more pronounced in women than men, a sexist observation that, as we shall see, may not have been quite fair: it could happen to men too. The theory, for what it was worth, suggested that in about ten percent of subjects studied, the outraged psyche became so resistant to the perpetual presence of death it reared up, so to speak, and formed a fierce addiction to that act which most radically affirmed life.
Whatever. People scratched their heads and came up with many theories as to why she, who had rejected so many beaus, would fall for him. Attraction of opposites was cited. Bethany was a near vegan who loved Chopin (she played the master’s works all day, especially his Nocturnes, over a stereo system she installed in her lab) and had not eaten meat since her midteens. She never drank, smoked or did drugs and, once they ditched the lesbian hypothesis, nobody imagined her to be anything but chaste — frigid as a steak in a freezer, they said. So what did she see in Jack, who was — well, let’s be discreet and describe the six foot three, two hundred and seventy-five pound red-faced, ginger-stubbled hard-living cop as her polar opposite and one whose lifestyle blocked further promotion, even in Etowah County. Everybody shrugged. It was the difference in class, style, preferences — dare one say civilization? - that hit you between the eyes. She was five three, weighed a hundred twenty pounds, ran her department with a stainless steel fist, used makeup that turned her face into an over-controlled mask and under her white coat wore modest skirt — or pants — suits of neutral colors that sent a message to men like the sergeant: don’t even think about it, dude. On the other hand she insisted on fresh-cut flowers everyday in her office, which was attached to the lab. Not white lilies either but, passionate crimson roses.
It was a tribute to her standing and reputation that no one, not even her most virulent critics, suggested that Sergeant Jack Gatt might have the goods on her. But he did. So, was her secret dark enough to force her to marry the brute against her will? Yep.
II.
She passed her days — and sometimes a big chunk of her nights — in artificial light: nobody thought that windows in a morgue were a good idea. As she stood in her autopsy bay next to one of her two spotless stainless steel tables, she paused dreamily for a moment, staring at the neat gleaming rows of tools she used every day: Stryker saw (for cutting through skulls), hook hammer (to remove the skull cap), rib cutter, Hagedorn needle (used to sew a body back together after an autopsy), and so on. She was thinking: the average horse weighs two-thousand pounds. Two thousand over two seventy-five equals 7.27, so divide by that number to find the human dose. She possessed no sedatives of her own, although she toyed with the idea of sourcing narcotics from the cadavers: one in two was on something mind-numbing before they succumbed, such is the world we live in.
Better by far, though, not to use any chemicals prescribed for humans. She favored M99, aka Etorphine, an opioid about ten thousand times as potent as morphine. Fentanyl, Carfentanil and Thiafentanil she liked too and she knew how to obtain veterinarian supplies anonymously. Of course, she didn’t worry about body parts disposal: she could have him in bite-sized chunks in under an hour. A slob like Gatt could disappear on a bender for three days, no one would be surprised. Anyway, if they did find any remains, who d’you think would do the autopsy? The trick would be to have him visit her in secret at the lab, preferably in disguise. She had a reason to believe that would work. It had before.
It was a shame in a way because, contrary to all her expectations, the Sergeant had behaved almost like a gentleman. With what he knew - and the evidence he possessed - he could have had her any way he liked, including sideways any day of the week, confident of her cooperation and silence. But so far he had held off from insisting on premarital consummation, though she had seen signs that he was tempted. The sergeant was lonely, gruff, hopeless with women and desperate for a long-term relationship.
She couldn’t offer him that, unfortunately, because he didn’t have that long, even if he didn’t know it yet. Love may be blind, but in a career that had seen every form of human love turn into its opposite, she couldn’t afford to take chances. She locked the door of the lab, then did something she had not done since childhood. She turned up the volume on Chopin’s haunting Nocturne No.2 in E Flat, knelt down and prayed.
Listen, Lord, if you exist you know better than me I’m not doing this for selfish reasons. If it was just my little life at stake I’d let the slob arrest me and send me to death row. But it isn’t, is it?
She stood up suddenly because there was a knock on the door. His knock. She put on an angry face because this was a breach of their agreement. A spyhole in the door revealed the giant cop in full uniform: navy blue and lumpy with gadgets,
especially the Glock 45 in its leather holster.
III.
He saw the look on her face soon as she opened the door - and she realized that he was scared of her, this poor lonely monster. So why did he want to marry his scary succuba? Who knows? Succuba, succubus: men and women were equally deluded.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding up a massive hand, “I ain’t here to bother you, it’s business.”
She allowed her features to soften and frown in perplexity at the same time. Business? As far as she could see he hadn’t brought a cadaver with him, but maybe he’d left it in the car? He’d done that once before when he was drunk and nearly got the sack. While the cops owned crime scenes, only ME’s owned corpses. It was a strict division of rights and she had had to intervene on his behalf, claiming he had acted on her authority because her assistant was too busy to cope.
She let him into the lab, then watched nervously while he took it upon himself to close and lock the door. Rape, now, after all? She sure didn’t have the physical strength to resist, nor could she ever report him, considering what he knew. And she hadn’t prepared, didn’t have the M99 — be great, though, in a way, if he did make a move and she could legally stick him with the breadknife, which pathologists used to slice up organs - that would solve everything. Stab wounds were not necessarily fatal, of course, unless delivered by a pathologist who knew how to make them so. No D.A. would dream of prosecuting.
“I been thinking,” he said, looking at the floor and flushing. “I know how fierce and beautiful your soul is and how low down and ugly mine is.” His eyes watered and he started to shudder with emotion.
She stared at him, hardly daring to hope. Was he was going to give her a let out after all? She wasn’t sure that was such a great thing, even if he gave up on the marriage he still had the goods on her, could make her do anything he wanted once this little bout of devotion wore off. Maybe she should go ahead and order the M99 anyway, have some ready for next time he stopped by. She hadn’t realized his passion had turned him into a kind of devoted disciple, though, at least not to this extent. “Thought you said it was business?”
“It is.”
“How’s that?”
“Your business. I’m giving you what you want.”
“So, I don’t have to marry you?” That was the first order of business as far as she was concerned.
“Yeah, you do. But not just to save your hide.”
She thought about that M99 again. “What then?”
“It’s in the car. My wedding present to you, and proof of my commitment. I strongly approve of what you did, so from now on we’re a team.”
“It’s in a bag?”
“Sure.”
“Do I know who?”
“Oh yeah.”
She called her staff and told them to go to the cop car and bring in the stiff.
IV.
Her two lab assistants brought the heavy body bag from the car and laid it on one of the tables.
“Don’t open it,” she ordered after they laid it out and were about to do just that. The sergeant will help me with the handling,” she explained. “That’ll be all for now, thanks.”
After her staff left she locked the door again and nodded. He could do the heavy lifting while she watched; he said it was his wedding gift after all, so let him unwrap it. She figured it was deliberate the way he had the body emerge feet first, so there was no way she could know who it was - or had been - until the head appeared. Even in death you could tell what kind of life the dead man had led: late twenties with the wrecked health of a meth addict. Neglect had turned his teeth black - those that remained - his body was skinny in the way of his kind: she knew she would find wasted muscles, liver problems, probably some syringe spots: people like him normally experimented with whatever drug was cheap and on the streets when the craving hit.
But as soon as she saw the face of the stiff she burst into tears of joy. She grabbed Jack’s arm and stood on tip-toe to plaster his rough face with kisses. She felt a tremendous relief, as if a cadaver had been laid across her own shoulders this past few months - which was almost literally true - and now was lifted. No way Big Bad Jack Gatt could ever turn her in now and this, of course was the true meaning of his ‘gift.’
Her eyes darted from the table to the cop and back again. She could hardly believe it — could this be love, cop style? Just to make sure, she checked the single bullet wound to the back of the head. Sure looked like the kind of hole a slug from a Glock 45 would make. You couldn’t tell much from the exit wound that had caused the top of his forehead to explode.
“Oh my god, I adore you,” she told him, breathless.
“Accidental death?” he asked.
“Serious misadventure with no sign of foul play,” she agreed. “Hard to make it suicide, though.” She made a gesture of trying to point a gun at the back of her own head.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. I was aiming for the upper right temple, being as he was right handed, but he twisted just at the moment I squeezed the trigger.”
They stood together holding hands, staring at the body.
“He did those two teens in Baldwin last year didn’t he?”
“You know it, I know it, half Baldwin County knows it. Correction, half Alabama knows it. Tortured them for thirty-six hours, they say.”
“But no way they could prove it?”
“None.”
“You went all the way to Baldwin to do this?”
“Yeah. For you.”
She stood by the cadaver on the autopsy table, staring at her fiancé while the cop stared back. Who knows what kind of silent lightening flashed between them? It lasted a full, unblinking minute, during which Dr. B experienced an extraordinary transformation. Gatt was surely going through a similar awakening, but didn’t dare to make a move. He was leaving it to her.
“It’s okay, we can do … it … now,” she said with more of a grimace than a seductive smile, then jerked her chin at the empty table.
Now she was testing him. Could a man like him have experienced that very special death effect the secret studies referred to? The research had been focused primarily on forensic pathologists, but death squad cops were included and suspected of similar minority reactions.
As if he knew exactly where she was coming from, he turned the corpse around so that it was on its side, with dead eyes facing the second table.
Now she knew the answer to her question was yes, most definitely. She switched the Chopin to the jolly Waltz No.4 in F, then, with the dead killer looking on, they made out on the steel table with the silent intensity of reptiles. She knew Gatt loved the way she bit and scratched. And now she understood why he was insisting on marriage. He had the bug too, the death effect. He wanted this quality of sex nightly, if not more often. She saw it. She understood. With her the intensity was even greater. For he’d no doubt dipped his wick, as they said, all over the goddamn state of Alabama. She, though, constrained by both profession and gender, had spent more than a decade with no more than hand relief for a companion. What man would sleep with her twice after enduring an appetite like that? It was like having sex with a wolverine in heat. But the Sergeant not only kept up, not only seemed to savor every bite and scratch, he seemed as voracious as she. Whenever he was in danger of flagging he simply switched his gaze to their silent witness.
“We’re gonna be a great team, he murmured softly in her ear when they finally took a break.
“Who’s next?”
He grinned. “I know who did that rape and triple murder three weeks ago down in Birmingham, but they’ll never catch him. He has a whole tribe of brothers, sisters, cousins, in-laws giving him an alibi.”
“Try not to shoot him in the back,” she chided gently, makes it hard to give a determination of accidental death.” She licked his hairy ear. “Let’s do it again,” she whispered, with no more than a quick professional glance at the next table.
“Wow!” the sergeant said. �
��Sure.”
“You spend so much time with the dead, you feel you owe it to them to share,” she explained with a smile.
When they’d finally drained each other dry they left the morgue and walked out across the parking lot to his car in an explosion of light. She shielded her eyes from the bright southern sun and the too-vived, too-living, uncontrollable world it revealed.
She stood near the black–and-white with him, prim as ever, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily, though.
“Honey,” he coughed, still, at bottom, scared of her. “You owe me. What I showed you in that bag is my guarantee to you. Until the moment you sign that death certificate and let me off the hook, you have total power over me.”
“Well, you have the same over me,” she retorted.
“Not exactly,” he mumbled, “I want the details. How’d it happen that you had the chance to—“
“Send that bastard to his Maker,” she supplied.
“Yeah, how’d you do it?”
“It was God’s will,” she said. “I bumped into him in the supermarket - he didn’t know who I was and best of all he didn’t know I recognized who he was and what he’d done. I’d only just finished sewing up his last victim. I knew how much pain he was capable of inflicting. The smarmy blond ladykiller came onto me like he’d never known a rejection. Worse than that, like him being a good eight years younger than me he would be doing me a favor. I told him he could pay me a very discreet visit at the lab so long as he came in disguise.” She shrugged. “‘Course, I wasn’t expecting some clever-dick sergeant to put two and two together.”
There had been others, of course, but she wasn’t going to fess up to stuff he knew nothing about, was she?
“Some plain clothes guys were trailing him,” the sergeant explained. “They reported to me that he put on some corny disguise, fedora and shades, to visit the morgue — it’s not a big building, but of course nobody thought about you — except me, after they couldn’t understand how he left without them noticing. I figured there’s one way of leaving a morgue unnoticed. I thanked them and told them they could stop trailing him. I been in this game nearly two decades, I got a nose for it.”