Empathy

by John Richmond

  “You first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look like you’ve got something to say.”

  He blushed. He did have something to say, but in his head it sounded so stupid. Didn’t matter. He couldn’t keep this behind his teeth. “This isn’t going to sound very romantic, but it’s big and important, okay?”

  She touched his chest. “You’re shaking.”

  He grabbed her hand, crushing her fingers a little. “Maybe I’m telekinetic.”

  She kissed his cheek, slow and deliberate.

  Charlie took a breath. “In six months,” he said, “we’ll still be together.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I’m going to ask you to be my wife in six months.”

  Emily sat back and clocked her head against the wall.

  “Ooh!” Charlie said.

  Emily stared straight forward, counting the bars of light on the wall. She remembered the crazy girl in the patriotic mix-n-match bra n’ panties combo staring at herself in the mirror the first day in New York. The dark circles under those eyes, the ribs showing and shadowed, the clutching fingers and cocked head. She remembered that girl was going to chew a bullet a few days ago unless some miracle…

  “S’okay,” she said. “Didn’t really feel it.”

  Oh shit, Charlie thought, I’ve fucked myself.

  Emily turned her face toward him. “Six months,” she said and nodded slowly. “Yeah, that, ah, that’s about right. Like, we should take at least that much time to get to know each other a little better.” She paused. “Just to make sure.”

  “Because you might find something out about me that you can’t stand. Like I fart too much or something.”

  “Right,” she said. “Or you’ll realize I snore like a fucking grizzly bear.”

  “Or cuss like a sailor?”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  “I already know about both of those.”

  She flicked his arm. “Yeah, well, you smack your lips in your sleep.”

  Charlie searched her face, looking for the trip wires. None. She was with him. He grabbed her and held her, not sure if letting her go any time soon was in the program. The smell of her shampoo and sweet sex wafted into his head, made him drunk. “I’ve been looking for you my entire life,” he said.

  Emily pressed her cheek into him. “You’re done.”

  The were silent, holding one another. The light bars climbed and rusted.

  The phone jangled.

  Emily hummed against Charlie’s neck.

  Charlie sighed.

  Emily leaned and reached, reluctant to let go. Charlie laughed at her contortions and kissed a tendon in her neck. She recovered and pressed the cool plastic against her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Emily.”

  She smiled. “Samuels. How are you?” She frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. A little light-headed, but I suspect that’s from sitting on my well-flattened bottom for the past seventy-two hours. You?”

  “Me?”

  “How are you, young lady?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m really great actually.”

  “He propose?”

  Emily turned wide eyes on Charlie. “How’d you know?”

  “You’ve seen Star Wars, Miss Emily?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Like the ancient Jedi Master, Yoda, I too know everything.”

  Emily laughed.

  “Ah,” Samuels breathed. “Nothing better than the sound of a woman’s laugh when she’s happy and in love. Listen, new friend; I have a request.”

  “Anything, new friend.”

  “You remember young Michael McCafferty, the curious cabaret performer from the errant taxi cab? He’s awake.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Samuels was quiet a moment. “He’s asking for you.”

  Emily looked at Charlie. “Put your pants on.”

  “My pants,” the phone chirped, “are already on.”

  * * *

  DETECTIVE BILKO STABBED a little plastic stylus into the face of her PDA. It beeped, mocking her.

  “I’m so fed up with this thing I can hardly stand it.”

  Michael whispered something.

  “What was that, Mr. McCafferty?” Bilko asked. Cute kid.

  Michael swallowed and winced. The freshly removed respirator tube had poured a line of hot sand down his throat. “I thought,” he rasped, “cops used pen and paper.”

  She smiled. “You makin’ fun of me, Michael?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s a good sign, I guess.”

  Bilko’s PDA beeped again, this time with a friendly chime. She scowled down at it from the side of her eye. She scribbled a line with the stylus and her whole face lit up. “Ah,” she said, “now we can start.” Bilko looked at the old man sitting in the chair by the window. “Mr., uh?”

  “Samuels,” said Samuels.

  “Samuels, yes. Can you please excuse us?”

  “No!” Michael blurted, grimacing with the effort. “Need him here.” He looked over at Samuels, pleading.

  “Don’t worry, kid.” Samuels said. “I’m too old and grumpy to be moved without handcuffs and a stun gun.”

  Michael croaked, “Kinky.”

  “What’s your relation to Mr. McCafferty, sir?”

  “None. T’was my nature brought me into young Michael’s sphere.”

  “Your nature?”

  “Nosiness is my natural state. I got bored and stuck my snout in here to see what was worth seeing. Michael seemed lonely to me, so I sat with him a while. Wouldn’t let me leave when he woke up.”

  “I’ll bet the hospital staff just loves you.”

  “You’d have to ask them. We’re not on speaking terms at the moment.”

  “Michael?” Bilko asked. “How do you know Mr. Samuels?”

  “Dreamed him.”

  “You had a dream about him?” Bilko’s stylus hovered over the screen. All that effort to get the damn thing fired up. “Do you mean that you remembered him in a dream?”

  Michael threw a Buddhist smile. He knew how he sounded. “Never met. Dreamed him.” His eyes shifted over Bilko’s shoulder and moistened. “And her.”

  Bilko looked over her shoulder at the white female who’d just appeared in the door: mid to late twenties, medium height, athletic build, fake blonde, green eyes, black cardigan over a light blue tank and jeans. The detective sighed. “C’mon in, dream girl.”

  Emily blinked. “Sorry?”

  “Me, too,” Bilko said. “I was all ready for this case to sew itself up now that Mr. McCafferty has decided to join us in wakey-wakey land, but oh, no, it just gets weirder and weirder.”

  Charlie popped in a moment later. “I talked to the charge nurse. We’re cool to be here as long the Detective says it’s okay.”

  Bilko’s PDA beeped and the screen went dark. She wondered what kind of helpful noise it might make if she pitched it against the wall as hard as she could. “Hell, let’s everybody come on in and interact with the only witness to a murder. No, no, it’ll be cool. Like a little party or something.”

  Emily crossed the room and gave Samuels a gentle hug. “How you feeling?”

  “Okay, he said. Nice to see you, miss Emily.” He looked over her shoulder at Charlie. “Young man?”

  “Sir?”

  “She’s happy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good man.”

  Bilko looked from Emily to Samuels to the new guy with the special forces hair-do but who would have to be the shortest SEAL ever minted by the Navy. “Michael,” she asked, “do we really need everyone of these people in here for me to question you?”

  Michael was sorry for the Detective. She seemed like a nice enough lady even if she was here to determine if he had killed that cab driver. He nodded. They did all need to be there. The more the merrier far as he was concerned. Michael didn’t
ever want to be alone again if he could help it.

  “Ooookay,” Bilko breathed. She put her PDA down and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, y’all. I just haven’t had much sleep in the last couple of days.” Face still hidden behind her hands, she went on. “Any of you read about that crowd of people died on Wall Street the other day?”

  Charlie and Emily hadn’t read anything but each other’s faces over the past few days and the most recent periodical upon which Samuels had been able to lay claim had sported a masthead from two weeks ago. The silence from the gallery brought Bilko out from behind her shield of fingers. Shame, too. It had been nice and dark in there, smelled like lotion.

  “None of you heard about it? Seventeen people died.” Bilko got a room full of shaking heads and wide eyes. “Thought I was outta’ touch.” She went on to explain about the “freak gas leak” that poisoned a small crowd of people on Wall Street during the mid-day rush. “Technically it’s not even a homicide.”

  “But you think it is, Detective?” Samuels asked.

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  Emily’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, you do.”

  “You a mind reader?”

  Charlie said, “I think she means it just sounds like you have a different opinion of what happened.” He shot a look at Emily.

  Bilko sat back in her chair. “You know what? I just realized that with the exception of Messrs. McCafferty and Samuelson—”

  “Samuels,” said Samuels.

  “Samuels, I don’t know who either of you fine citizens are.”

  Michael put a warm hand on Bilko’s arm. She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “That’s Emily Burton,” he whispered. “And her boyfriend.” He swallowed. “I don’t know his name.”

  “Dream didn’t go into that much detail, huh?”

  “Sorry, Detective.”

  Without looking away from Michael, Detective Bilko said, “Hey buzz cut, close the door, would you?”

  Charlie closed the door. Buzz cut. That was funny coming from a woman named after a show that could only be viewed on cable TV well after the witching hour.

  “Michael,” Bilko said. “You ever hear of the Phobia Killer?”

  A rogue wave of fear greased through the room and pounded against Emily’s defenses. She shuddered, but held it off. A half-full water glass on the night table shook just beneath perception. Emily’s right hand twitched once and fell still.

  “That’s my case,” Bilko said. “That person has taken a lot of people, Michael.”

  Michael nodded.

  “Those people I was talking about a minute ago—the ones on Wall Street—all had heart attacks.”

  Michael nodded again. The room was anchored around Bilko’s round voice. “My department says it was a gas leak or something like that, an accident. I don’t think it was that. Local Homeland Security office was even brought in because some jackass started yelling about terrorists.”

  Michael shook his head back and forth. The sound of his hair on the starched pillowcase was very loud. “Not terrorists,” he said.

  “No,” Bilko agreed. “Not terrorists.”

  “Or gas.”

  “Or gas.”

  “You didn’t kill that cab driver, did you Michael?”

  Tears welled and ran down Michael’s face. “No.”

  “No. I never really thought you did. Turns out the cabby was shot up with a load of medical-grade morphine. Pin hole in the jugular.” Bilko mused, “If you’ve got to go, that’s probably a pretty decent way.” She looked up at the rest of the room. “We went over Mr. McCafferty’s apartment and every scrap of cloth in it with a chemical swab. Michael hasn’t handled anything stronger than a couple of aspirin and his heart meds. At least, not for the past few months.” She looked back down at Michael. “But you know who has.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got away from him didn’t you?”

  Michael nodded, fresh tears spilled.

  “Tell me what happened the night you came in with the cab driver,” Bilko said. She shoved her PDA into her bag and pulled out a worn spiral-bound note pad and a regular old Bic pen.

  Michael reached for the glass of water. Charlie reflexively picked it up and helped him take a sip. He swallowed and grimaced. Michael McCafferty took a breath and closed his eyes. Martie Jenny was there waiting for him. He opened his eyes and she told them everything about that night, running into Doctor Fine, the warehouse, those mirror eyes swallowing her reflection, the lucky escape and the reeling drive in a dead man’s car.

  After ten or fifteen minutes of halting story, Michael said, “That’s all of it, honey.”

  “Mother fuck,” Bilko said. “Fine was in here the other day. I was standing right in front of that freaky bastard and I let him go.” She bounced her fist on her leg three times. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”

  She flipped open her cell phone and called in an all points.

  “He was here?” Michael asked.

  Bilko softened. “Yeah, sweetheart he was. He was standing over you when I walked in.”

  “Jesus,” Charlie said.

  “No kidding,” Emily said. “You can get him now, though, right?”

  “Well, we’ve got the APB out on him.”

  “But this is New York,” Samuels said.

  “So?” Emily asked.

  “So,” Charlie said, “it’s a hell of a lot easier for someone to hide in New York than in Janesville, Wisconsin.”

  “Especially if that someone has money,” Samuels said, “as I’m sure this Doctor Fine must have.”

  “Right now,” Bilko added, “we don’t even know if he knows we’re on to him. He might just hang out until the uniforms ring his doorbell. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway. Arrogant schmuck seemed like he was above everything but the sky. And, if he does wake up with enough humility to realize he might just get snared for this, his money might give him away.”

  “How do you mean?” Emily asked.

  “A man of lesser means,” Samuels volunteered, “would pay for things in cash. A man like Fine probably has a fair amount of worth, but most of it would be tied up in investments, property, that kind of thing. Most likely, his liquid reserves will be relatively slight.”

  Emily nodded. “So when he tries to use his Platinum AmEx at the Holiday Inn or the airport, you’ll be able to pick him up?”

  “If everything goes right,” Bilko said, “yes.”

  No one said anything for what felt like a long time to Emily. Charlie leaned up against the door jamb, Samuels in his chair, Michael the bed, Bilko next to him. A few days ago Emily hadn’t known any of these people and now she was intimately tied to each one of them. Story of her life.

  “I read about the Phobia Killer a couple of days ago,” Emily said. “In the Post? There was this horrible picture.”

  “That hooker,” Bilko said, “and the spiders, right?”

  “I saw that article,” Charlie said. “He scared her to death by tying her up and covering her with the spiders.” He shuddered.

  “Heart attack,” Bilko said. Turns out she had a pre-existing condition, a little like Michael here.”

  Samuels cleared his throat. “A week before that it was that poor slob they found hanging upside-down from the balcony of his hotel room.”

  “Afraid of heights?” Charlie asked.

  “That’s what we guess,” Bilko said. “He didn’t have a congenital heart defect, but he was enormously fat and had a high stress job—Commodities broker. Fine could have killed him the same way by forcing him to run a mile on a treadmill.”

  “But he didn’t,” Emily said.

  “No, he wanted to make sure fatso was nice and scared.”

  Charlie shook his head back and forth. “Man, like death isn’t scary enough. Can you imagine how bad it would be to die of fear—to have a feeling kill you?”

  Emily crossed her arms and looked at the floor.

  Charlie noticed and his head flushed like a beacon. Bilko caugh
t the sudden radioactive glare off his scalp and made a mental note: Not only were Charlie and Emily screwing, but they were most likely in love. Wasn’t that just the sweetest damn thing ever? Aww.

  “How many has he killed since you identified the pattern, detective?” Samuels asked.

  Bilko counted off on her fingers. “Going backward chronologically we’ve got spider girl, fatso, a wet teenager and rOdint boy.”

  “The respect you show for the victims is truly inspiring, detective.”

  “Who’s the wet teenager?” Emily said.

  “Fifteen year old girl we found in the river a while back. Looked like a drowning at first, but the M.E. didn’t find much water in the lungs, so she died before she hit the drink.”

  “Much water?” Charlie said.

  “Yeah, there was some in her lungs, like a cup or two, but not enough to do more than make her choke. She had congenital arrhythmia. That’s what killed her.”

  “Enough water,” Emily said, “to scare her if she was afraid of the water, but not enough to drown her out right.”

  Bilko nodded.

  “The other one?” Michael whispered.

  “ROdint boy.”

  “Lovely,” Samuels said.

  Bilko ignored him. “Ten year old kid had rat bites all and up down his arms and the inside of his thighs. He might have died of rabies if his heart hadn’t given out first.” Bilko shook her head. “We thought it might be a doctor. We even had the hospital under surveillance because all the vics were patients at the same place, but we were looking at the wrong kind of physician.”

  “You were looking for a heart doc,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, and we should have been looking for a shrink.”

  “But he’s a psychiatrist,” Samuels said. “How would Fine have access to private medical records for people who aren’t his patients? And how did he know Michael?”

  “I actually saw him as a patient for a little while. Anxiety was messing with my—,” he tapped his chest. “His office was right across from my cardiologist’s office. That’s how I found him in the first place.”

  “I don’t know exactly how he did it,” Charlie said. “But it wouldn’t be too hard to call the insurance companies, or even central records at the hospital, and claim that he was that particular patient’s doctor. Once you know how a system works it’s not hard to hack it. Get a few numbers off a medical secretary’s computer and you can call in scripts for Oxycontin for half the city before anyone gets wise.”

  “It’s a good thing—.” Bilko’s phone interrupted her with a buzz. She flipped it open. “Bilko, go. Yeah, good. Be careful.” She closed the phone and looked down at Michael. “They just picked him up.” She shook her head back and forth, a little smile on her lips. “Fine was just sitting in his apartment, watching TV.”