by Loretta Ross
“The number on the badge your office sent is wrong. Randy’s badge number was 4103. You probably have that on your paperwork somewhere. The badge I got from you is number 4183. It’s a counterfeit. The real badge 4183 is accounted for. I’d thought that maybe someone thought his badge was lost and took it upon themselves to replace it, but then I looked through the carton you sent and found his hat badge. It also has the wrong number on it.
“I’m not out to get anyone in trouble,” he said. “I just need to know what happened.”
Sophie looked completely bewildered. Death was a good judge of people—in combat situations you had to be—and in his own mind he was certain that she was not just pretending.
“That badge,” she said, “was on Randy’s shirt. I helped get his body out of the turnout gear. I opened his bunker coat and took the badge off his chest myself. There wasn’t any funny business. I swear to you.”
Death tapped the edge of her desk, thinking hard. “You undressed his body?” He couldn’t say why exactly, but he was a little weirded out by the concept.
“I only helped with the bunker gear.” She looked down at her lap, gathering her thoughts before speaking. “I’m a medical examiner. We see pain and grief and sorrow every day. Sometimes that pain and grief and sorrow is our own. And that sucks. But what we do is important, to the living and the dead, and if I had been assigned to Randy’s autopsy, I would have performed it because I am a professional.”
“I’m not doubting you,” Death said. “I’m just trying to figure out how this happened.”
Sophie sighed and sat back. “His helmet didn’t come in with him.”
“What?”
“No. It would have been left behind at the scene. The paramedics pulled it off when they tried to revive him. They also opened his turnout coat and slit his shirt up the front so they could put EKG leads on his chest. You probably saw that his shirt was cut.”
“Yeah, I saw that. I was surprised my motherin-law didn’t throw it out. His T-shirt’s gone. I’m really hoping she didn’t turn it into a dust cloth.”
Sophie frowned. “He wasn’t wearing a T-shirt.”
“What? That’s nuts. Randy always wore a T-shirt.”
“Well, he wasn’t that day. Unless the paramedics stripped him in the field and then re-dressed him without it. I can’t see any reason for that, though.”
“You said you opened his turnout coat?”
“Someone had closed it up again, just a few of the clasps.”
“But why would he not be wearing a T-shirt?”
She leaned forward. “Death,” she said gently, “your brother had just been told that you were dead. When he got dressed, he probably wasn’t thinking too clearly.”
“Yeah, okay, I can see that. But that doesn’t explain where the other badge came from.”
“No. And there,” she sighed, “I don’t know what to tell you.”
_____
Nathan Broome was a coin collector, but not in the traditional sense. At some point he had decided to collect his life in coins. His collection included a penny minted in every year from the time he was born until the day he died. At five-year intervals he added a nickel to the collection, a dime every ten years, a quarter every twenty-five, and a half-dollar at the fifty-year mark. The most valuable pieces in his collection were eighteen wheat pennies valued at a whopping six cents each. The entire collection, in its oversized, custom-built frame, was shiny and impressive and worth $3.97.
And nobody wanted it.
The sun beat down on Wren’s bare head, making her scalp itch and sending trickles of sweat down her back. Not a breeze stirred, bees droned in the clover along the edge of the yard, and the nails in the wooden stepladder she was sitting on were hot enough to burn bare skin if it accidentally came in contact with them. She was hot, tired, cranky, her phone was buzzing against her hip, and her throat was dry and scratchy. She swallowed hard and made one last, valiant attempt to persuade the crowd that this was a Neat Thing and something they absolutely Had To Have.
“Okay, let me ask you something. How many people here are carrying plastic? Hmm? Just about everyone, I’m gonna bet. And you know why? Because hard, cold cash is becoming obsolete. Someday there won’t be any coins anymore, and when that happens, this collection is going to wind up being a heck of a great investment for whoever’s smart enough to snatch it up. Why, if these were ancient Roman coins—”
“We’d be bidding on them,” someone in the crowd heckled.
Wren growled under her breath and resisted the urge to start pulling pennies out of the frame and throwing them at people.
Off to her right Sam Keystone nudged Felix Knotty, the irascible Vietnam vet who did odd jobs for the business. Oh, thank God! They were going to take pity on her. Felix raised one hand languidly. “One dolla!”
Wren pounced on him. “One dollar! I have one dollar! Anybody else? No? Good! Going once! Going twice! And SOLD to the gentleman in the snazzy ball cap!” Felix doffed his battered ball cap to her and she set the coin collection aside. Sam had come up beside her now and motioned her off the ladder.
“My turn.”
She handed over the microphone, limp with relief, and went to the cash tent for a soda and some shade.
As she cleared the edges of the crowd, she pulled out her phone. There was a text message from Death: Call me when you get a chance.
Leona and Doris were busy cashing people out so Wren helped herself to a soda and stepped back outside to make her call in the shade of a majestic weeping willow. Death answered on the first ring. “Hey. How’s the auction going?”
“Well, I haven’t strangled anyone yet.”
“That good, huh?”
“I’ve seen better. How are you doing? Where are you?”
“Burger joint. Stopped for a late lunch. I went by 41’s but they were out on a call.”
“Have you been to Randy’s yet? Is everything turned on?” Death was planning on staying at his brother’s house and he’d called to arrange to have the utilities turned on again.
“Ah, no. I haven’t been there yet. I should probably do that next.”
Wren could hear the reluctance in his voice. Maybe you should just get a hotel room, she wanted to say. Maybe you could wait and deal with this later. She wanted to say, but did not. He was going to have to face all of this someday. It wouldn’t help anything to put it off.
“I talked to Sophie at the coroner’s office today.”
“Oh?”
“I think you were right. She had a thing for Randy. She didn’t have a clue about where those badges came from, though. And she made a good point. Randy’s helmet never passed through their office. The badges had to have been switched at the scene.”
“But it was in the carton …?”
“Because Evelyn put it there. You know? My motherin-law? I called her just now. She took Randy’s turnouts to HQ and turned them in. The battalion chief came out and talked to her. They had Randy’s helmet there and he gave it to her then.” He sounded discouraged. “None of this is making a damn bit of sense.”
They talked for several more minutes before saying goodbye. Wren touched the end call button and stood, pensive, staring down at her phone. She heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and looked up to find Roy Keystone standing a few feet away watching her.
“Wren Morgan,” he said. He gestured toward the auction going on beyond the thin, green curtain of willow fronds. “Is this really where you need to be right now?”
_____
The neighborhood had declined since Death’s grandparents bought their retirement cottage a few blocks north of Forest Park. Driving there, he passed countless “for sale” signs. Many of the houses—single family dwellings from the early twentieth century—showed signs of neglect. Here and there a derelict property had been boarded up and vandalized and a few of the homes sported burglar bars on the windows.
On Randy’s block, things were a little better. The old b
uilding just to the south of his house was crumbling into ruin, but that was nothing new. In their childhood, that had been high on the list of Places You Better Not Let Grandma Catch You. The other houses were bright and well-maintained, and it did not escape Death’s notice that Randy’s porch was swept and his lawn as neatly mowed as the others.
Randy’s house sat back from the street with a slanted and uneven concrete walk leading up to the door. It was built of red brick, small and quaint, with a single dormer window. The full front porch featured filigreed iron railings and posts to hold the roof up. During his grandparents’ day the front and side yards had been a riot of color, but Death’s grandmother’s roses had proven no match for Randy’s brown thumb.
Death went around the block and drove down the alley to reach the backyard and the detached garage. It wasn’t equipped with a garage door opener, so he had to get out, unlock it with the spare key Randy had given him, and raise it manually. Here, too, there were signs that someone had been by to tidy up. Randy had never in his life left a room this neat. All the tools were put away above the workbench and there was room for Death’s Jeep beside Randy’s classic Mustang.
You should get a Mustang. A gray Mustang.
So help me, God, Randy, if you make that lame joke again …
You’ll what? Say “Bite me”? Again?
You do and I’ll knock another tooth out.
Yeah, yeah. I’m quaking in my boots. Anyway, you’re not cool enough for a Mustang. You should get a Pinto. A gray Pinto.
Well, then, you should get a white one.
A white one? Why a white one?
Because Pestilence rides a white horse.
In the end, Randy was the one who had gotten the Mustang. He was the one who wanted one all along. He’d gone with a classy, non-symbolic dark blue. In other circumstances he might have chosen red, like a fire engine, but War rode a red horse and war wasn’t something to joke about when your only living relative was getting shot at in Afghanistan.
Death pulled his Jeep next to the Mustang, relocked the garage, and entered the house through the back door. The kitchen was spotless, counters bare and cupboards closed. The refrigerator was unplugged and the door propped open with a chair. The shelves were empty and clean. Death plugged it in. The light came on and it started humming so he knew the electricity was on. He closed the door so it could get cold, wandered into the living room, and dropped onto the sofa.
The weight of his memories was overwhelming. The sight and the scent and the feel of the place conjured the dead.
Randy had the walls covered with pictures, some hung properly in frames and some tucked into the corners of other pictures or stuck up with tape. Death studied them from the sofa for a few seconds, then dragged himself up to get a closer look. There was no order to them. Family pictures mingled with pictures of his friends on the fire department and on the softball team he played for. There were comics cut or torn from the newspaper, things printed off the Internet, and pictures of women. Some of the women Death recognized and some he didn’t.
There were no pictures of Death.
He frowned, puzzled and hurt and unsure what to make of it.
There were blank spots—lots of them—where his picture might have been. But the pictures themselves were gone.
“He took them down. He couldn’t bear to look at them.”
Death spun so quickly he made himself dizzy.
A short, chubby brunette stood in the kitchen door. She saw the effect she’d had on Death and held out a hand as if to steady him, instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. So sorry! You left the back door open and I’m afraid I’ve gotten used to coming in.”
“And you are …?”
“Annie. Sorry! Annie Tanner.” She waited a few seconds for recognition. “Rowdy’s wife?”
“Annie? Yes! Annie, of course. Randy spoke of you.” He glanced around, adding things in his head. “You’re the one who …” he waved one hand in the air, indicating the house in general.
“Rowdy and I. And the other guys too, sometimes. We’ve just been keeping an eye on the place. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Mind? No. No, of course not. I appreciate it.”
“We came over that day, after,” she shrugged and looked away, not wanting to say it. Death nodded that he understood. “We came over, cleaned out the refrigerator, tidied up the place.”
“I could sure tell somebody had. Randy was a lot of things, but neat was never one of them.”
“No,” she smiled, warm and sad. “No, neat he was not. You know, we thought the world of your brother, Death.”
“I know.” He looked around. “He pulled down my pictures, huh?”
“Took them all down. Destroyed a few of them, I’m afraid. Ones of you in uniform, mostly. And then he felt bad about it. He was so mad at you. He said you knew better than to get killed. He told you. It wasn’t rational, but—”
“I understand.”
“He spent the night before he died at our house. I didn’t see anything—anything—to suggest that he was sick! I mean, he was upset, yes. Terribly upset. But—”
“He spent the night with you?”
“Captain Stone, from C shift, called Rowdy. Randy was at the firehouse when the Marine Corps tracked him down. It was his day off, but he was pulling OT so one of the guys from C shift could take his son to a ball game. The Marines called and talked to Captain Stone first and he called Rowdy to be there when Randy got the news. He called Cap, too. They came here first but eventually Rowdy brought Randy home.”
“I appreciate you looking out for him. He meant,” Death had to stop and clear his throat. “The kid meant a lot to me.”
“You meant a lot to him, too. You know that, right?”
Death nodded awkwardly and for a moment they just stood in an uncomfortable silence. It was Annie who broke it. “So, what are you going to do? Will you live here now?”
He looked around, tried to picture himself occupying this space and could not. There were so many memories here, but not a one that wasn’t tinged with loss and sorrow. This was his past and his future was across the state with his feral pixie. In that moment, he missed her so much his heart hurt. “I think … I think I’ll probably sell it. Keep a few mementos, let the rest go to auction. I really do appreciate the work you’ve all put into keeping it up.”
“It’s no problem. We did it for you, because Randy would have wanted us to. An auction is going to be a lot of work. I hope you know you can count on us to help all we can.”
“Thank you, so much. I might take you up on that. First, I need to consult an auctioneer.”
_____
After some consideration, Death dialed the business number for Keystone and Sons. If he was going to use an auction as a pretext for getting Wren to St. Louis, he felt he should do so through proper channels. It was getting late in the afternoon, now, and the day’s auctions would probably be over, but he knew that Leona kept an eye on the business phone around the clock. He was expecting her voice and a polite, businesslike greeting.
Instead, the phone clicked to life and an old man whispered at him to shush.
“What?”
“Shh! Dammit, boy! Don’t you understand shh?”
Death lowered his voice. “Why am I shh-ing?”
“This damn phone’s stuck on speaker and I can’t figure out how to turn it off. Leona’s coming. You don’t shh, she’s gonna find where I’m hiding.”
Death put his own phone on speaker, balanced it on his knee and sat back on the couch to wait. Odd knocks and rattles came over the line. Footsteps approached and a door squealed.
“Roy?” Leona’s voice was distant, but not too distant. “Roy Keystone, I know you’re in here somewhere. Eventually I am going to find you and when I do, you are going to be one sorry little man. You hear me?” The footsteps receded. The door shrieked again and then closed with a bang and Roy Keystone giggled like a naughty schoolboy.
“Do I want to know what you
did to her, Roy?”
“What makes you think I did anything?” A series of scrapes and groans came from the phone. Some of them sounded like wood or metal, some of them sounded like tendons and bones. “Good Lord, this is ridiculous. I don’t know how Matthew fits into these places.”
“Matthew is seven. That probably helps.”
“Blah blah blah. Did you call me up just to criticize me?”
“No, I—”
“Why did you call me up, then?”
“Well, I heard this was the business number for Keystone and Sons Auctioneers. I wanted to talk business, so I gave it a call. You still haven’t told me what you did to Leona.”
“No, I haven’t. What do you think you want to talk business about?”
“I’m, well, you know I’m over here in St. Louis to settle my brother’s estate. I’m thinking I need to have an estate sale and I was wondering if you guys might be willing to handle that. I mean, I don’t know if there’s enough here to make the commission worth your while, but I thought maybe you could send somebody over to have a look at it and … ?”
“We could do that,” Roy agreed. “Say, Felix Knotty or one of the grandsons?”
“Oh. Um, well, I was thinking—”
“No, you weren’t. What’s your middle name?” the old man demanded suddenly. “I know you’ve got one. It starts with a D.”
“How do you know that?”
“Leona told me. She made you show her your driver’s license to get an auction number one time, remember?”
“Yeah, but I thought that was just teasing me.”
“It wasn’t teasing, it was being nosy. She plays it off real cool, but my wife is about the nosiest old biddy in the county.”
“Roy! That’s no way to talk about your wife.”
“No? But it’s true. And I say it with love. Anyway, Leona’s seen your driver’s license. She knows your height, your official eye color and hair color, your birthday, and how old you’ll be. You were still using your ex-wife’s address, you’ve dropped at least forty pounds of muscle since you got the license, when they took your picture you were just about to sneeze, and your middle initial is D. Only she can’t find out what the D stands for, and it’s driving her crazy.”