Cages & Those Who Hold the Keys

by Gary A Braunbeck

  “There you go, then,” said Dobbs. “Maybe there’s something to what you’re saying, okay? Maybe. But if you’re right, if they did leave all this shit out hoping that we’d put two and two together, how’re they gonna know unless we say something? If we don’t do anything, if we don’t say anything, just come in here and haul her body away like we’re supposed to, then there’s no way anyone’ll ever know. As long as we keep this to ourselves, it’s fine.”

  “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “The hell we can’t! Listen to me, the next time we go on a call like this, you don’t touch nothing besides the front door, the gurney, and the body, got it? We find anything weird like this again and I invite you to take a look around, just hit me, okay? I’m not that far away from collecting my pension, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have it fucked up for me by a CS temp! So from now on, you don’t touch nothing unless I say so.”

  There wasn’t going to be a next time for me, so I nodded my head and muttered apologies.

  Dobbs stared at me for a few more seconds, his features softening. “I don’t mean to yell at you, I’m sorry. But it’s a done deal at this point, all the paperwork’s been filed, and the best thing that you and me can do is just…what we came here to do.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. She’s gone, nothing we do is going to change that, and I’d rather not be the one responsible for you losing your pension.”

  He reached over and gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “There’s a good fellah. Me and you, we won’t talk about this again, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Or mention it to anybody else?”

  “Or mention it to anybody else.”

  He looked around at the tracks and computer. “Still, you gotta wonder what the hell she was doing in here, all by herself, with this crap.”

  I pointed toward his digital camera. “Did you get enough pictures?”

  He nodded. “I pretty much got the whole place before I came in here. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me banging around out there.”

  “I was, uh…” I looked at Miss Driscoll’s bedside table. “…a little preoccupied.”

  “I heard that.” He looked at me and smiled. “C’mon. Let’s go clear a path so we can get the gurney in here.”

  It took us over half an hour to move the tracks, and even then it was a tight squeeze, but somehow we managed. We lifted Miss Driscoll’s body from the bed (she didn’t weigh very much, I could have done it alone), put her inside the bag, and zipped it closed. There was a cold finality in that sound that, for a moment, put me back inside the Leonard house.

  Christ, I didn’t want to be here.

  Dobbs took the lead. We’d gotten the gurney almost all the way to the foyer when one of the wheels on his end locked up.

  “Son-of-a…hold on a second, will you?”

  “Sure thing.” I let go of my end, stood there for a moment, and then noticed something. “Hey, Fred, do you have the clipboard?”

  “No,” he said from somewhere below the gurney. “What’d we do, leave it in the bedroom?”

  “Looks like.”

  His head came around the far right wheel leg. “Well?”

  I looked at him.

  He looked back at me, then sighed. “Hey, here’s a question—when you were going to school, did you ride there on a long bus or the short one?”

  “So you’re saying I should go back and get it.”

  “Whatta you think?”

  “I think I’ll go back and get it.”

  His head disappeared behind the gurney leg once more. “I’m so proud right now.”

  Back in the bedroom, I found the clipboard lying on the floor in front of the bedside table. I retrieved it and started making my way out of the room when I gave into a sudden impulse, turned back, and removed one of the numerous star-covered maps from the wall. Folding it up and slipping it into one of my back pockets, I went back to help Dobbs move the gurney out into the foyer.

  “You doing okay?” he asked once we were back in the hall.

  “I guess.”

  Dobbs pulled the door to 716 closed, checking to make sure it locked behind him, then said, “You look kinda upset to me.”

  “This hasn’t been the best morning. Could we just go, please?”

  We began moving the gurney toward the end of the hall. Dobbs asked, “So…think you’re gonna have the stomach for this?”

  “I haven’t urped on your shoes yet, have I?”

  “Just checking. Usually with CS helpers, this is about the time most of them decide they’d rather risk roadside trash pickup, dishwashing, or jail. But all things considered, you held your own real good here this morning.”

  “Thanks.” And I meant it. Dobbs didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who was in the habit of handing out compliments like business cards at a convention, so knowing that I’d earned his seal of approval actually made me feel kind of proud of myself.

  “I have decided,” said Dobbs, “that you aren’t okay, that you’re just trying to put up a good front for me. I have decided that this kind of stiff-upper-lip behavior deserves rewarding. I have decided that you need cheering up.”

  “Oh, you have, have you?”

  “Yes, and since I’m in charge, you’re getting cheered up. Besides, I’m hungry.”

  We were just turning the corner at the end of the hall when I chanced a look back at Miss Driscoll’s apartment and saw a bulky shadow closing the door from inside. A second later, the deadbolt was engaged. I started to say something to Dobbs, then changed my mind; after all, we didn’t see anything suspicious, did we?

  3

  We headed for a nearby McDonald’s. Since Dobbs wanted to avoid the crowd inside (and the thought of leaving Miss Driscoll’s body unattended seemed—to me, anyway—creepier than our eating our lunch while sitting in the wagon with it), we placed our orders at the drive-thru.

  The people in the cars in front of and behind us kept looking at the wagon and trying to look like they weren’t looking. Hard to miss a big-ass white wagon with the word CORONER written across the back and sides (as well as backwards across the front).

  Because Dobbs was picky about how his food was to be prepared (so it was going to take a few extra minutes), we were asked to pull out of line and go wait in one of the parking spaces designated Drive-Thru Customers Only.

  So we sat there while the rest of the customers took their bags of food and kept looking over.

  Two other cars were asked to move out of line and park in our area, which they did, one on either side of us. It was a hot day and everyone—including Dobbs and me—had our windows rolled down.

  There are two windows in the rear doors of the wagon, and one on either side toward the back. These side windows come equipped with blinds that can be lowered so as to keep the body from view of passing drivers.

  Dobbs had forgotten to lower the side blinds, so the cars parked on either side of us had a clear, unobstructed view of the bagged body.

  The man and little girl in the car on Dobbs’ side looked about half sick.

  The young woman in the car on my side sat with her hands on the steering wheel, staring straight out at the patch of weeds beyond the parking lot.

  Dobbs finally turned to face the man and little girl on his side. He raised his hand and gave a short wave. “Hi’ya.”

  “Hey,” said the little girl.

  “Elizabeth,” said her father, “don’t bother the…nice man.”

  “Oh, she ain’t botherin’ me,” Dobbs replied. “We’re just waiting on our order.”

  “Me, too,” said the little girl. Then: “Is that a dead person back there?”

  “Sure is.”

  “What’cha doin’ with them?”

  “Just making a delivery.”

  The man turned ashen, but the woman sitting in the car on my side was red-faced.

  The little girl asked, “Where you taking the body?”<
br />
  Dobbs smiled. “That’s a secret.”

  The little girl looked from Dobbs to the body, then at the golden arches.

  The woman in the car next to me made a sound, and I looked over to see her lowering her head, her lips pressed tightly together but quivering; she was trying so hard not to laugh.

  About this time, a young woman looking shapely and cute in her Mickey-D’s uniform came out with our order, handing it through the window to Dobbs. “Here’s your order, sir. Thank you for your patience.”

  “No problem,” said Dobbs. Then: “So, which door in the back do we go to?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” She looked at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes and sighed. “Oh, no, not you again…”

  Dobbs started the engine. “Yes, me again. Now, which door? We go through this every time, and I, for one, am getting bored with this little innocent routine you insist on playing. This stuff won’t stay fresh for long, not in this weather.”

  The woman in the car next to me looked like she might burst a vein in her head if she held her laughter in much longer.

  “Never mind,” said Dobbs to the Mickey-D’s crewperson. “I understand, all these witnesses and everything.” He winked at her. “We’ll find it.”

  The young woman slunk back inside, shaking her head and muttering.

  Dobbs pulled his Quarter Pounder out of the bag, unwrapped it, lifted the top part of the bun to check it, and then shrieked. Everyone else—including me—jumped at the sound.

  “Oh, my God!” said Dobbs. “It’s true. God help us all, it’s true!”

  He backed out then, shouting, “Soylent Green is people! Soylent Green is people! Soylent Green is peeeeeeeeeeeeeeople!”

  The man in the other car gripped the steering wheel and placed his forehead against the backs of his hands. His daughter was jumping up and down, shouting “Soylent Green is people!” The woman in the farthest car was howling with laughter, and customers inside were lining the windows, staring.

  Dobbs stopped at the exit, opened his door, and—brandishing his Quarter Pounder like it was the Olympic torch—stood up on the running board: “I can’t take it anymore! I warn you all—fear the Mystery Meat! Fear it! Fear it! For the love of all that’s good and decent, FEAR IT!” Then he got back inside the wagon and drove away as if nothing had happened.

  After we were back on the road, I said: “You’re a very weird person, Dobbs.”

  “But not boring. Gotta give me that much.”

  “What about your pension? Won’t you get into trouble if someone calls to complain?”

  “I haven’t yet. I pull this routine every time I get a new CS sidekick. Consider it your initiation.”

  “I thought the idea was to cheer me up.”

  Dobbs shrugged. “Actually, the idea was to cheer me up. You were turning into a real Gloomy Gus.”

  I figured I wouldn’t be going back to that particular McDonald’s anytime soon.

  * * *

  The rest of the day wasn’t nearly as interesting.

  We took Miss Driscoll to the morgue, filled out the paperwork, then read over our orders for the rest of the afternoon: taking a body from the morgue to the Henderson Funeral Home (then more paperwork), picking up another body from the nursing home and transporting it directly to Criss Brothers’ Funeral Home (two different sets of paperwork on that one), topped off with moving a third body from Criss Brothers’ to Henderson’s because of a screw-up with someone else’s paperwork. (We never did get that one figured out, so no paperwork for us. Hoo. Ray.)

  When I got home that night, there were three messages: the first was from Russell Brennert, assuring me once again that my job was safe, not to worry, my crew was doing fine, he’d checked up on them himself, and if I wanted to switch shifts to get in some evening hours during my CS period, he’d be more than happy to arrange it; the second message was from one of my crew members, telling me that things had gone okay and everyone was wondering if I’d still be handing out the paychecks at the end of the month or if they’d have to go to the office for them; and the last message was from Barbara Greer, my lawyer.

  “Meet me for breakfast at the Sparta tomorrow morning. 8:30. It’s important.”

  I’ve known Barb since high school. She used to date Andy Leonard. Like Brennert, she’d endured no end of suspicion and abuse from people during the months and years after the murders. And also like Brennert, she and I have never once discussed what happened that night.

  Barb is not a person who talks in short sentences; she tends to preface things, give details, and lean toward excessive small talk, even when leaving phone messages. (I’ve always suspected that silence makes her uncomfortable, hence her always keeping the conversation going.)

  There was a tension in her voice that I hadn’t heard since the murders.

  And she used short sentences.

  And she hadn’t asked me to meet her, she’d told me to. (Barb never orders anyone. Never.)

  Whatever was going on, it must be important. She knew I had to be in the meat wagon with Dobbs by nine a.m. sharp, and if the traffic was on my side I could make it from the Sparta to the coroner’s office in about 15 minutes.

  I fixed myself some microwave macaroni and cheese, popped open a soda, and watched a Cary Grant movie called People Will Talk that had one of those happy endings that leaves you with a lump in your throat. After that I washed the dishes, read the paper, then went to bed.

  Yes, it’s a full life I lead.

  4

  “Where is it?”

  Opening my eyes, I saw the digital clock on my bedside table.

  4:42 a.m.

  The voice from my dream was fading. I sighed, rolled onto my back, and started to drift off once more when a hand I could have sat in clamped around my neck and began to squeeze.

  “Where is it?”

  I opened my eyes and saw two bulky shadows leaning over my bed. One of them pressed down, increasing its grip around my neck. The pressure was enough to hurt me but not completely cut off my breathing.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” said this shadow, “and then we’re going to hurt you.”

  I struggled against the grip but it did no good. “Where’s what?” I managed to get out.

  “The map you stole from Road Mama’s apartment.”

  Road Mama?

  Okay, I was still dreaming. Cool. Not quite so scared shitless now.

  “In the back pocket of my jeans. On the chair over in the corner.”

  “You shouldn’t have stolen it, you know.”

  Strange, how your conscience works on you. All day long I’d felt bad about taking that damned thing.

  One of the dream-shadows moved away from the bed. I heard some rustling, then: “Got it.”

  The pressure was released from around my neck as the second shadow let go to remove something from its pocket. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.” It leaned down once again, and I felt a short sting in my right arm, and then everything got warm and shiny and I rode the high back down into sleep.

  * * *

  When the alarm went off, I stumbled out of bed, dry-mouthed, groggy, arms and legs feeling like rubber, and grabbed my jeans from the chair in the corner.

  The map was gone.

  For several seconds, I was afraid to breathe.

  Then I got angry, grabbing a baseball bat from the closet and stomping through the apartment in only my underwear, kicking open doors, ripping aside the shower curtain, shouting curses and promises of broken kneecaps.

  Then I noticed that the deadbolt and security chain were still in place.

  I made another macho-man sweep of the apartment, at one point opening the refrigerator door to make sure no one was hiding in there (yes, I know…), and finally deciding that I just wanted to get the hell out.

  Check the other pocket, you idiot.

  Back in the bedroom, I grabbed my jeans and checked all the pockets.

  No map.


  So if it wasn’t a dream, how in hell did they get in? (And, for that matter, how did they leave?)

  Just to make certain, I checked the front door—locked; I checked all the windows—locked; the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio in back—locked; the

  refrigerator again—I needed to buy groceries.

  I stood in the middle of the kitchen, tapping the business end of the bat against the side of my leg and shaking.

  Maybe it was a dream, I thought. Sure, a dream brought on by an overly-scrupulous conscience. Maybe you took the map out of your pocket and put it somewhere else and that’s why it isn’t in your jeans.

  I went to the front door and stood there, facing the inside of the apartment. I hadn’t done all that much when I got home last night, so it would be easy to retrace my steps.

  Front door. Bathroom. Kitchen. Living room. Bedroom.

  Still no star-spackled map.

  I retraced my steps again.

  Nothing.

  I tried it once more, this time checking between and under the couch cushions, then under the couch itself, then under the coffee table, under the bed, under the dresser, and—just for good measure—inside the refrigerator once again, where I discovered that no groceries had magically appeared, nor had the map.

  “It fell out of your pocket before you got home,” I said aloud, hoping the sound of my own voice would calm me. “Yeah…it fell out of your pocket somewhere along the line after you left Miss Driscoll’s apartment. That’s all there is to it.”

  I felt completely silly now.

  I continued to feel silly all the way through coffee, my shower, and getting dressed. Driving to the Sparta, the feeling of silliness gave way to mild gaiety, and by the time I walked into the restaurant and located Barb’s table, I was dangerously close to whimsical.

  That all came to a crashing halt when I sat down and Barb spoke.

  5

  “Did you give them the map?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. She couldn’t have said what I thought she’d said. I sat down and asked her to repeat the question.

  Leaning forward, she nailed me to the spot with her piercing green eyes and said: “Did you give them the map?”