The bright light prompted a new wave of headaches. Bees buzzed inside my ears. My nose was running, and I sneezed until the glass shuddered.
I decided to ask for help from the residents. Either they’d call the police or open the door for me; then I could take the elevator to Efron’s apartment and get our clothes while calling the police.
With shrunken testicles and orbits I scanned the mailboxes. Each floor was a single apartment, which meant ten lucky people able to afford this luxury. But only two had bothered to put up their names—Schultz in 2W and Blake in 3W. Efron hadn’t labeled her mailbox yet; perhaps she didn’t intend to at all.
I pressed the button of the Schultz residence. No answer, so I tried Blake. No luck. I pressed all the intercom buttons at once and banged on the metal rectangle. On the frosted glass my breath painted steam alongside my fingerprints.
A couple walked out of the elevator—a mustachioed man in a wool coat that made me cringe with envy, and a slim woman wrapped in fur. Both pulled wheeled trollies. She looked at me in astonishment. The panel I stood behind concealed most of my nakedness.
I pounded my fist on the door, yelling for them to open it, but the man pulled her away and together they descended into the garage. I continued to bang on the lobby doors. The sign on the other side of the glass door shivered: “24-hour Security. CCTV. Personal Codes and Monitored Alarm Systems.”
Shouldn’t someone see me? But despite the noise and drumming, nobody reacted. I squeezed my face against the frozen glass and peeped inside again. Judging by the pile of TV equipment boxes, flat screens, and rolls of wire cables that lined the side wall of the lobby, I gathered that the system wasn’t hooked up yet.
What about the guard? He was my last chance. I had no choice but to go back outside, in the darkness and the mud.
The route to the guard shack took me back near the ditch where I had left Efron. I decided to check on her. When I neared, I noticed that one plank had been removed, and the second was leaning against the edge. I picked it up and waited for the next flash of lightning.
The trench was empty.
Efron was not there. I looked around in panic and noticed a flattened area at the edge of the mound with traction marks in the ground, as if a body had been dragged away.
23
A woman’s face appeared on the iPhone’s tiny screen.
Gibbons reckoned her to be under thirty. Her luxurious blond hair fell in waves around a smooth neck, partially obscuring hoop earrings. Her big blue eyes had a mischievous look that merged perfectly with her elfin chin. A small but prominent mole under her left nostril participated in her elusive smile.
He wondered if it was another unsolicited message from an online dating site. But within seconds the ‘Incoming Call’ icon flashed in the lower right corner. Gibbons needed no more than one guess to identify the caller.
“She works for Bernie,” Peter Lister said in his husky voice. He continued at a slow dictation pace, as if weighing each word, “Dr. Johanna Berger works for O-cu-lo-ris.”
Gibbons was sure that before returning his call the boss had already hurled various heavy objects around the boardroom or inside his plane. He had reason enough. He’d just discovered that Efron’s lab guest had been there for at least a month and worked for Cooperstein.
How could Peter Lister, of all people, with his sharp and focused instincts, have fallen asleep on guard?
Gibbons heard a commotion on the other end of the line. “Jerry, are you done here? Then fuck off!”
Jerry Miles was the serviceman at the marina. In times of major crisis, his boss sometimes boarded his yacht and took off for a night cruise to calm his nerves. Lister didn’t mind the frost. Once he had said jokingly that he loved Chicago because the cold was an anesthetic.
Tonight, Gibbons could understand his boss. Ashraf Nouri was still a bleeding wound. Bernie’s double betrayal had been exposed. The insult was unbearable. Though they were five hundred miles apart, Gibbons was again eager to please his master—and here was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. After delivering the test tube they would be on par.
“That Judas,” Lister said. “He’s one step ahead of us all the time.”
“I’m not sure the student and the professor are telling us the whole truth.”
“So where are they, Jeff?”
“They’re still here. She’s wounded; he won’t get far without his glasses.” Gibbons returned to the gazebo’s edge and estimated the distance to the driveway. “And they’re both naked.”
“Jesus! What are you planning, an orgy?”
Gibbons was stung, but, always a loyal soldier, he didn’t let it show. “I did search for them. It’s possible she’s hiding more of the stuff.”
“More? Where?”
“I don’t know. She’s extremely wary, boss. The kind who would never keep all her eggs in one basket. She wouldn’t have given that student everything she has. In any case, I have them both and, together, they’ll lead me to Bernie’s moll.”
And she won’t be boarding the plane alive, he added silently.
“Don’t let me disturb you then,” the boss growled, and hung up.
Gibbons crossed the bridge from the awning to the northern wall. Halfway over, he noticed a pit. He drew closer to the edge.
The pit had oval margins, its maximum width about six feet. The slime-and-water mixture was almost overflowing. Raindrops dotted it with foamy targets. The wind was blowing hard from the river. Nevertheless, the stench hit him like a slap in the face, mixed with additional sharp odor that caused his eyes to tear profusely.
A head floated above the water like a forgotten bath toy, a doll being shampooed. The tilted top of the head grazed the edge of the pit. Because of the angle, one earlobe dipped in the water and was partly obscured. One hand remained glued to the neck, as if to support the chin. The eyes were wide open and extinguished.
Gibbons swore. It was unnecessary to search for a pulse. Kneeling on his knees, he found a twig and fished in the murky water, but all he raised were the plumes of blond hair remaining on the scalp. The wail of a police siren forced him into action. The search was fruitless. What did he expect to find—a test tube excreted from the anus?
The wind forced him off the edge of the pit just as the cellphone buzzed again in his pocket. He looked around to find shelter from the elements. It had taken the boss less than seven minutes to get more information from his sources, which meant the boss had a high-ranking mole inside Oculoris. The small screen showed the hotel name and the number of the suite that Bernie had reserved for his devoted employee.
Gibbons rushed to his car. With his handkerchief, he wiped his hands clean of the slimy leftovers that clung to his fingertips, then reached for the bottle of bourbon that rested on the passenger seat and took a sip while the heater defrosted the windows. He put the name of the hotel into the GPS; it was at Louisville’s east end, near the highway. The damn tube was awaiting him there.
Now he could finally relax.
24
Inspector Syd Ramzi was squeezed into a wrinkled shirt, a rough two-day stubble adorning the lower half of his face.
His expression suggested that manners were not his strong point. He made it clear that I was practically the last person he had hoped to meet so early in the morning.
In an open-backed gown and no underwear, I had awakened into pleasant but noisy warmth, wrapped in a blanket, my buttocks in direct contact with a colorful sheet.
I was in a hospital emergency room, but this time I was the one on the stretcher. It upset me that I had no clue as to how I had arrived there. Later I would be told that an early-morning jogger had found me, snoring and stinking, on the riverbank near the marina, and summoned the police.
I was placed behind curtains in an isolation room at the end of the hall. At first I thought I was privileged, but it turned ou
t to have been a specific requirement by the police. Through the walls and the closed door, I could hear the bustle of patients being transported to the x-ray department and the operating rooms, the tweeting of monitors and cries of pain from the adjacent trauma rooms. Every now and then the door in my room opened, and someone in green hospital scrubs entered, measured my vital signs, imposed a sour gaze on me, mumbled something, changed the flow rate in my IV, and vanished.
Inspector Ramzi sat facing me, constantly shifting in his chair. When we were finally alone again, he returned his gaze to the piece of paper in his hands and, after a yawn, continued reading.
“At oh-four-forty-one the Oldham County station received a call from a person jogging near Transylvania Beach who noticed suspicious movements at the Andromeda construction site. A couple residing in the building called at oh-five-oh-nine to report seeing someone who appeared drunk or stoned, wandering in the northern courtyard of the complex, near a drainage pit.”
The inspector stopped and examined my reaction. It was difficult for me to follow his monotonous recitation. Was he talking to me or about me? I was lost. The words echoed back like bad acoustics.
“The body of a woman was found in the pit. The rescue team arrived at the scene in less than fifteen minutes but could do nothing. The coroner officially pronounced her dead at oh-five-twenty.”
What did all this have to do with me? What time was it? What day was it, for that matter? I rolled up my pajama sleeve and almost tore out the infusion accidentally. I had probably arrived dehydrated, because a bag of saline flowed into me at an accelerated rate. I didn’t have my watch. I didn’t have a pocket. My cellphone was neither on the bed nor on the nightstand.
I was looking for something to focus my eyes on, but the surrounding walls had no paintings, no prints. Nothing.
“Can you tell me what this is about?”
The inspector did not answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard me.
I raised my voice. “What am I doing here?”
Now he heard me, because he raised one eyebrow. He massaged the stubble on his right cheek, tossed a sage flavored Ricola candy into the air, and seemed proud when it made an impressive parabola and landed straight in his mouth. He offered me one. I refused, and his teeth started grinding.
“We still haven’t identified the body. Difficult to estimate the height and weight—the drainpipe was apparently clogged, and they used some acid to open it up. It regurgitated in the storm and ate up a lot of the tissue. The upper torso and the head were left intact. Blond hair.”
Blond! The word struck me like a blow. I shook my head in disbelief.
My response didn’t go unnoticed. “Someone you know?”
I swallowed. I’d had a premonition that Johanna’s disappearance would not have a happy ending. The mad Irishman had gotten her after all. My mind tried to piece together the mosaic of events.
The bastard must have snatched her from my apartment. Must have! She wouldn’t have left without a reason.
Ramzi continued to suck on the Ricola. “They found her without clothes. Bit unusual on a night like that, don’t you think? Naked, both of you. Maybe you were in the middle of…”
Although he kept his head lowered, I was convinced that somehow, he was scrutinizing my facial expression.
A naked woman, a naked man; the woman was dead, the man found barely alive, but now definitely awake and kicking. This quadrilateral was missing two vertices: Lucy Efron and the redheaded Gibbons. But the inspector was unaware of their existence. He didn’t need to be. For him, the equation was simple and obvious: The dead woman was the victim; the live man—me—her killer.
Upset, I stammered, “In the middle of what?”
“You know… Fucking.”
I gaped at him, unable to reply.
“Now they do it in hot air balloons or on the beach, in zero degrees, with a plastic bag over the face—maybe near a sewage pit.”
My eyes stung and my nose was running, and I’d already used up half a box of tissues.
The inspector went back to pawing in his papers. What was he talking about? This was a mistake, a big mistake.
I wanted to begin by insisting I was Milbert Greene, from 154 Avon Court in Louisville—a medical student, not a junkie who’d been arrested for loitering. But he was ahead of me.
“Milbert,” he murmured, as if to himself. “What kind of name is that? It’s a first for me.”
“A butterfly, Inspector.”
His brow arched again, but he said nothing.
“If you already know who I am, then you probably also know that I’m a first-year medical student at the University of Louisville.” I paused to ensure he was fully tuned in. He was—even without eye contact, he gave me a snappish nod. “And you also know that Professor Efron is my instructor.” Details of the nocturnal puzzle started to surface in fragmented flashes. “I’m worried about her. She was… attacked.”
“Attacked,” he echoed.
“By a man named Gibbons, some Irish or Scottish thug, I’m not sure. Actually, I’m even not sure Gibbons is his real name.” My face contorted in a mixture of apology and pain, as I palpated my swollen cheek.
The inspector halted sucking his Ricola for an instant and grunted. His icy eyes pierced me, staunch and unblinking. “Your instructor. Attacked. So, in a nutshell, you’re not sure of anything. So, let’s cut the crap, Mil-Bert. You had a little escapade on the riverfront with the Scot, the Irishman, the professor… did I forget anyone?”
“No, you’re wrong, it’s not like that.” I writhed under the covers.
“So what happened there?” he asked.
“Where?”
“Near the pit, with the pretty blonde.”
Blond again. The word hit me like a hammer. I replayed the VOD in my brain, back to Grandma’s apartment and the foam bath. Out of the steam rose a dim memory of Johanna’s naked body, rising like a siren, dripping across the hallway, and mumbling something vague about making coffee before disappearing into thin air.
Could Gibbons have been lurking in my kitchen, hellbent on kidnapping her? The apartment door had been open for a while, and I kept thinking I had forgotten to lock it. Did he break in? Or Judd? Or were they both in on it? And where had I been during all this? How had I managed to fall asleep in that drift of foam, utterly plastered? All we drank was beer. Had he spiked the cans? When exactly?
If he had been waiting inside my apartment, where did he hide? On the porch, behind the utility closet, the only place I hadn’t checked last night? I’d been too lazy to bolt the windows.
“Now, listen here,” I said, my voice as calm as I could possibly make it, “I’ve had it with your sick innuendos; there’s no time for this crap. A top scientist is in peril, a university professor who has invented an extremely important drug for treating eye disorders. We need to find her urgently, before that psycho Gibbons does.” My voice trembled as I added, “He has apparently already murdered her guest—an Austrian doctor, the blond woman you’re talking about.”
The inspector was showing signs of impatience. His smile flashed and faded. Even a second Ricola didn’t soothe him, although he mashed at it ferociously.
“Don’t bullshit me! I’m not going to sit here, waiting for you to pee out whatever you imbibed or snorted last night,” he said.
Then he abruptly pressed a button at the side of the bed. The frame hummed and folded like a pocketknife, bringing my torso into an erect position. It wasn’t out of concern for my pillow—the policeman wanted me to be as uncomfortable as possible, increasing my tension headache and vertigo. And to get closer.
“Spill it. I’m listening.”
The inspector pulled out his cellphone, turned on the front-facing camera and stuck it in front of me, within breathing distance.
For a moment, the blurred image I stared at did not register. My eyes
were puffed and swollen, with dark circles around the sockets and ingrained lines along the protruding cheekbones. My conjunctivae were bloodshot, my nose pasty and shiny with a watery discharge that dripped continuously into the groove above my upper lip. The stubble added to the aura of a homeless person on speed.
A puff of my breath boomeranged. I had terrible halitosis. My whole body emanated a mixture of stale sweat and river water, which blended with the stench of various other secretions from my pores, as alien to me as was the rest of my body. I didn’t see any toothpaste in the vicinity, so I lowered the bedrail, slid barefoot to the floor, and stumbled to the sink to rinse my mouth out with water. Adding a pinch of liquid soap on the tip of my finger, I rubbed my gums hard and spat.
The inspector held out his cellphone again, and I scrutinized myself one more time. It was easy enough to imagine what the cop thought of me. Right then, I had to admit, I didn’t possess a particularly flattering opinion of myself, either.
My gaze returned to his softening face and a hand that fluttered on my arm. “Come on, tell me exactly what you did out there next to the pit. Sign a statement that it was very windy, rain, mud, slippery, whatever—that she lost her balance and fell, and we can all go home.”
“You don’t understand. It was nothing like that. Nothing happened between us.”
He was disenchanted. “Ah, yes, you were having Bible study all night.”
Despairing, I decided to tell him about myself, Efron, Johanna, the lab—all of it. When I got to the part about stashing the tube in the electric kettle and the beer in the tub, he sneered, “Sure, Mr. Butterfly, definitely.” He was lost when I described Gibbons playing mini-golf in the professor’s living room. By the time I reached the garbage room and the Jeep he was dumbfounded. He raised his arms, then scribbled in his notepad. From under his curled mustache I heard him sneer, “Americans!”
An Eye For Murder: A Medical Thriller Page 13