Brain Trust

by A W Hartoin

  “How bad would it have been?” asked Sydney. “I don’t know about strokes. She’s talking now, isn’t she?”

  “Only because I came home unexpectedly and found her within the vital window. If I hadn’t, she’d be severely impaired.”

  “We’re talking wheelchair?”

  “We’re talking completely paralyzed on the left side. Her eyesight, breathing, swallow, the whole shebang. If I hadn’t found her until the next day, she might have died. It was that bad and the clot wouldn’t have cleared itself. Sometimes they do, but that one wouldn’t have.”

  “I think” —Sydney cleared his throat— “I’d rather be dead.”

  Chuck kept pacing. “That was the point.”

  “I know Carolina. Goddammit, she’s a stunner. Why would anyone hate her that much?”

  “It’s not Carolina. It’s Tommy,” said Chuck. “He adores Carolina. You ruin her, you ruin him. He’d never recover.” He crossed the room and scooped me up.

  “Let go,” I said, struggling. “I’m mad at you.”

  “I don’t care,” he said into my neck. “I would never recover.”

  Bark.

  “You’d survive just fine. There’d be plenty of women ready to comfort you.”

  “I’d never recover. I couldn’t stand it.”

  Bark. Bark.

  “That’s nice, but you suck. Let go!”

  “No.”

  I was about to kick or something, but it turned out not to be necessary. Chuck dropped me like I went vampire on his neck. He jumped back and began a stream of consciousness cussing that would’ve left Uncle Morty envious, ending with, “What is wrong with that dog?”

  Grr.

  I picked up Wallace from beside her puddle and kissed her wrinkly head. “Not a thing. She was defending me.”

  “With pee?”

  “That’s how she rolls.”

  Bark.

  Sydney sucked in his lips, trying not to laugh, and grabbed a wad of paper towels from above the sink, giving them to Chuck.

  “How much water did you feed this dog?” asked Chuck. His right foot was soaked and his jeans weren’t looking so good either.

  “Not much,” I said. “If you give her a fourth cup of water, Wallace can make three cups of pee out of it. She’s gifted.”

  “Gifted? She’s a freak.”

  Grr.

  “That’s Wallace the Wonder Pug to you.” I sashayed past him and whipped open the door. “See ya, loser.”

  “Hey,” called out Sydney.

  “Not you. Your partner.”

  Sydney grinned at me. “I’m living the dream. Chuck Watts is a loser and I’m not.”

  I blew him a kiss and trotted off toward the elevators, bypassing them in case Chuck stopped cleaning the wee and followed. I ran down the stairs with a smug pug under one arm and my phone in the other.

  “What’s wrong with you?” yelled Uncle Morty.

  “Running down stairs. They found Denny.”

  “Yeah. I just saw it. That poor son of a bitch. Wrong place. Wrong time.”

  “Can you get me the autopsy?”

  “Nope.”

  I stopped at the lobby door and bent over, catching my breath. “Why not?”

  “Cause Simon called. He wants you out there.”

  “Who’s Simon?” I asked.

  “Dr. Grace, ya nitwit. He’s got the body and he wants to talk to you.”

  I straightened up. “I’d really rather not.”

  “I ain’t giving you a choice. Go.” He hung up on me. Swell. Off to the morgue, not exactly the happiest place on Earth.

  “I hope you have some pee left,” I said to Wallace.

  Bark.

  “If Dr. Grace tries to show me Denny’s body, I want you to spray him good.”

  Bark. Bark.

  I called Fats and she was at the front, waiting. I peeked out the door and then ran through the lobby and jumped in her truck.

  “What’s with the dog?” she asked.

  “She’s going to pee for me.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You will.”

  Fats merged onto the highway out to St. James and Wallace decided to get comfortable by spinning in a circle on my lap eighty-five times. Her tiny nails dug right through the thin material of my sundress. If I’d known I’d be running around with the pug, I’d have worn jeans.

  I texted Tiny and told him I was off to the morgue with Wallace. He said he’d tell Mom and that she had three therapy evaluations that day. I’d try to get back, but I couldn’t make any promises.

  During the texting a smell came over me. I sniffed Wallace and she smelled like truffles and high-priced meat. I leaned sideways toward Fats and she said, “It’s not me.”

  A hand came up between the front seats, holding a large coffee cup.

  “Aaron!” I spun in my seat, dislodging Wallace and causing her to do her eighty-five spins again. “How in the world did you beat me to the truck and get coffee? You were asleep.”

  He shrugged and jiggled the coffee.

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully. “What about Fats? Does she get coffee?”

  “I don’t drink coffee,” she said. “Only green tea.”

  Another large cup came up.

  “Thanks, Aaron,” said Fats. “But the green tea is a health thing.”

  He jiggled the cup and she gave me a sidelong glance and I said, “It’s probably tea.”

  She took the cup and gave it an experimental sniff. “Holy crap. It is tea. How did you know?”

  Aaron just shrugged and produced a hot dog from somewhere, stuffing half of it in his mouth.

  “His gift is food,” I said. “He’s kind of a savant.”

  Fats drank half her cup in one go. “How often does that come in handy?”

  “More often than you’d think,” I said.

  “So why are we going to St. James?” she asked. “New patient?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Denny Elliot is in the morgue. Dr. Grace wants to talk to me.”

  Fats shivered and I asked, “Not crazy about the morgue?”

  “Not crazy about dead people.”

  “Really? I would’ve thought you’d made a few,” I said.

  She grinned wickedly at me. “That’s different. I didn’t visit them afterward.”

  It was my turn to shiver. “You’re freaking me out.”

  “Yeah, I do that.” She smiled wider. “It’s my gift.”

  “I thought your gift was the ability to take a bullet,” I said.

  “That, too.” She exited the highway and took the back way to St. James. We made good time since it was still pretty early and the traffic was only starting to heat up.

  Fats wasn’t keen on coming in with me, but I insisted. Something about our unsub was making me nervous. He sent his minion right up to the ICU. What was he going to do if the security guard hadn’t shown up?

  We parked and I didn’t ask Aaron to come in. I didn’t have to. He trotted along behind us, barely keeping up. I did marginally better. Fats was a fast walker, even when going to the morgue.

  We took the elevator down and I gripped my cup so hard the top popped off. Aaron reached over and silently put it back on. I leaned on him, feeling oddly comforted by the hot dog stink. So much had changed in the last two days. At least Aaron hadn’t.

  The doors opened and the morgue feeling was immediately apparent. Fats stepped back. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  Morgues are super sterile and not smelly, but even if you didn’t know it was a morgue, you’d still sense the creepy. That was a feeling that everyone got. I put my head up and walked out like it didn’t bother me. It so bothered me. The last time I’d been there was when Gavin Flouder was murdered. Goosebumps rose all over my body and the sight of the bruises on Gavin’s body appeared in my mind. I could see them like it was happening at that moment.

  Fats took my arm. “Mercy? Are you okay?”

  I shook my head. “Ye
ah, I just…bad memories.” I walked down to Dr. Grace’s office and knocked as fast as I could manage. If I didn’t do it fast, I might not do it at all.

  “Come in,” he called out.

  I opened the door and the doctor smiled at me from behind stacks of files. They weren’t as high this time and I could see his whole face. He came out from behind the desk and said, “And an entourage. Come in. Come in.”

  I introduced Fats as my bodyguard and Aaron with no explanation at all. Nobody could explain Aaron. Why try? Dr. Grace didn’t care in any case. He was all about the work, like a certain red-headed detective I knew. He ignored Wallace so completely, I wasn’t sure he saw her sitting on my right foot.

  “Sorry to bring you down here, but I heard Tommy’s been detained indefinitely and I wanted to give you what I have before I give it to Chuck and Sydney.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, this was meant to be your father’s case. Carolina is his wife and Denny died protecting her. The government has decided to block the greatest—in my opinion—detective available and that makes me angry.”

  “That’s not Chuck and Sydney’s fault.”

  “They work for the government,” he said as if this answered all my questions.

  “Okay. Works for me,” I said. “What have you got?”

  He squeezed out between Fats and Aaron. “Come with me.”

  Ah, crap. Please just x-rays. No body. Please, no body.

  Fats grabbed my arm as I went past. “Where are we going?”

  “To see the body,” called out Dr. Grace.

  Dammit.

  “You don’t have to go in,” I said to Fats.

  “Thank God,” she said.

  Dr. Grace held the swinging double doors open for me and said, “This won’t take long. I’ve only done the prelim, x-rays, and started the labs.”

  Wallace scampered through the doors, her nails making quite a clatter in the empty hall.

  “You might want to leave the Wonder Dog,” he said.

  Grr.

  “Or not. It’s up to you.”

  Bark.

  “I guess the pug is coming.” I walked a lot more slowly than Wallace, who wagged with excitement like there were treats on the horizon. What a weirdo!

  There was only one body on a slab in the room. Thankfully, it was covered with a sheet. Dr. Grace went to the head, grabbed a chart, and assumed his lecture pose that I remembered so well. I stood back a couple of feet, reluctant to get too close with the feeling of intense dread that was coming over me like a bad case of the stomach flu, nausea and all.

  “Subject has been deceased for approximately forty hours. I can only say that because you came upon the scene so close to the incident. Normally, it would be thirty-six to forty-eight hours with the rate of decomp and insect infestation.”

  Oh, no! Not the insects.

  “Swell.” I swallowed hard and Wallace ran around my feet, wagging and doing the pug smile. I picked her up and the warmth of her wiggling body allowed me to take a deep breath and actually look at the body before me. “Any insight into the killer?”

  “Absolutely,” said Dr. Grace.

  He said absolutely, but I wasn’t so sure. Denny had been shot three times initially, square in the middle of the chest in a good grouping. That showed both training and experience, but that could describe a lot of people, including me, Mom, and Tiny, for instance.

  Denny’s death wasn’t instantaneous, but it was pretty quick. One shot hit a lung and another severed an artery. Our guy was good with a gun and he meant to kill Denny. He wasn’t just firing out of fear. That was consistent with the cold planning of Sturgis.

  “What’s most interesting is that after death, which I believe happened in your mother’s garden, the body was moved without leaving traces of blood anywhere else.”

  “So he packed the body off. We knew that,” I said.

  Dr. Grace smiled indulgently. “Have you ever tried to move a body with massive hemorrhaging?”

  “Gross. No.”

  “Think about it.”

  I thought about it. There would’ve been a lot of blood and blood was disgusting, sticky. It got everywhere. I’d been in the ER with a gunshot victim where blood got on the inside of a lamp, a good six feet to the left of the patient. Nobody knew how it got up there. He wasn’t spurting.

  “I don’t know how you control blood that way,” I said. “It spurts and drips. Denny couldn’t have been in the garden very long after death, so the blood wouldn’t have congealed.”

  “Experience,” he said.

  “A serial killer?”

  “Possibly. Or a gun for hire. They know their business very well. Maybe someone who served in law enforcement or perhaps the military.”

  “Not a newbie.”

  “Definitely not. He’s seen blood. He wasn’t shocked or startled by the amount. He knew just what to do.”

  I’m so afraid to ask…

  “What did he do?” I asked, petting Wallace so fast she gave me a lick.

  “Okay. The table is the back of your parents’ house.” Dr. Grace walked me backward to another table. “You’re Denny in the hostas and I’m the killer, standing on the left side of the door. I shoot Denny.”

  “That’s a decent distance,” I said.

  “Fifteen feet.”

  “So Denny came out the door. The killer put the gun on him and he backed up into the hostas?”

  Dr. Grace nodded. “He shot Denny as he was pulling his weapon.”

  “How in the heck do you know that?” I asked.

  “Simple. One of the shots went through Denny’s left hand before striking him in the chest. Denny was right-handed. People who are putting up their hands in defense put up both hands. What was the right hand doing?”

  “Reaching for his weapon,” I said. “Ah, crap! The shot in the door wasn’t from the killer’s weapon. It was from Denny’s. He got a shot off.”

  “Correct.”

  “How did nobody hear that?” I asked.

  “I’m sure your suspect used a silencer so it was only the one shot on a lazy Saturday afternoon.”

  “But it was a gunshot.”

  “Do you know what weapon Denny preferred?” he asked.

  I thought about it, but it wasn’t like Denny and I hung out. “We were at the range with him one time. He had a Ruger. 22.”

  Dr. Grace nodded. “Yes. Yes. Those are quiet compared to say, a .38.”

  “Still, it’s a gunshot.”

  “A few people reported hearing a noise at around three thirty, but they didn’t think it was a gunshot until the police told them about your mother’s attack.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on.”

  “Keep in mind. It was one shot on a very hot afternoon with impending rain. Everyone was inside with the air conditioning going strong. One lady thought it was lightning. People talk themselves out of reporting things all the time,” said Dr. Grace.

  Palfrey. That measly butler.

  “So why do you think he bothered to retrieve the bullet then?”

  “I wondered about that, too. But I don’t think our man expected your mother to be discovered so soon. In fact, I believe he knew her schedule well and he knew where you were, obviously. I think he expected it to be at least twenty-four hours before she was discovered, possibly more. Carolina wasn’t going to get up and walk away from the type of stroke she had.”

  “Still…”

  “They were calling for rain on Saturday night, a real gully washer.”

  I remembered the clouds and the heaviness in the air, but I hadn’t thought about it. “But it never rained.”

  “Weather people are always wrong,” said Dr. Grace. “If they’d been right and you hadn’t shown up—”

  “The blood would’ve been washed away. But you would’ve noticed the trampled plants.”

  “I wish I could guarantee that, but I can’t. When I arrived on the scene, the breakag
e wasn’t obvious, far from. There were only a few snapped leaves from where Denny walked and where he fell was well-concealed. We had no reason to think there was a second victim. We weren’t looking. The going in theory was that he shot at your mom, striking the door. Then he attacked her, bringing on the stroke.”

  “How did you find the blood then?”

  He tapped his nose. “I smelled it.”

  “Ew,” I said. “If it had rained and you did find the area where Denny fell, what could you have discovered?”

  “Very little. He probably thought Denny’s disappearance would go unnoticed for a few days at least. A few more to put it together that he’d been with your mother. After that, I might’ve found traces of blood, but I doubt with our heat and the amount of rain they were calling for that I could’ve gotten DNA or even a type.”

  “So he rolled the dice.”

  “He did, but he handled the whole thing very well.” He held up a finger gun. “This is what he did.”

  Dr. Grace fired his finger at me, came over, and made like he was flipping me over, facedown on the ground.

  I went cold and even Wallace shivered. “You mean he put Denny facedown so he could bleed into the ground as he was dying?”

  “What better way to control the victim and the blood?” he asked.

  “That is so cold.”

  “Ice cold.”

  “But if he thought it was going to rain, why bother?” I asked.

  Dr. Grace pointed at me, almost with glee. He was so in his element. “Excellent question. Think about it.”

  “You are such a professor,” I said.

  “I do teach three days a week,” he said. “So Miss Watts, what does your experience tell you? You’ve killed someone. How did you handle it?”

  “I froze.” My mind, with perfect clarity, showed me Richard Costilla’s face exploding, him tumbling backward down the stairs, and landing in a heap at the bottom. Every instinct I had kept me from going down those stairs. I could never have flipped him over and held him down as he died. Never.

  “It was instinct,” I said. “He wasn’t thinking. He reacted. If he had been thinking, he wouldn’t have bothered. He’d have remembered the coming rain and just let Denny bleed wherever.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How in the world do you get that instinct? He must’ve done it before.”