Hard Bitten

by M. K. York

  “Yeah?” Lukas’s voice was getting clearer. Mark could picture him emerging out onto the street. “Anything interesting?”

  “I can’t read this thing for shit. What do you know about toxicology? Scratch that, it says the toxicology results won’t be ready for—four weeks? Can that even be right?”

  “It is,” said Lukas. He was breathing harder. Probably headed uphill. “It takes a month. Sometimes more.”

  “You do know something about this?”

  “Yes.”

  Mark spun around in his chair, facing the window, where watered-down light poured in. “Okay, good, helpful. So tell me, what would we be expecting in this death?”

  “Caused by arson? Fire?”

  “Yeah. Assuming he died in the fire.”

  “Uh, most people who die from fires have inhalation injuries. So burns in his airways.”

  “Good, see, this is what I’m looking for. What else?”

  “Cyanide, that’s a by-product. Should have carbon monoxide poisoning, I think they’d see that in the blood. That’s about all I’ve got.”

  “What wouldn’t we expect?”

  “Well, clean lungs. It would be tough to die in a fire without breathing soot. And any other poisons would be weird.”

  “I don’t see anything about inhalation injuries here, or cyanide. Does that mean it wasn’t a fire?”

  “What do they say at the end?”

  “The end? Huh.” Mark flipped to it. “Says inconclusive but—Oh wait, death appears to be from acute—Holy shit, listen to this: acute hepatotoxicity, drug unknown. That’s his liver, right?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Could that still be from the fire?”

  “Maybe? I’m not sure.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Mark squinted harder at Lena’s note. “Do you have any idea who Dr. Lundquist at the ME is?”

  “Sounds like a pathologist? ME is probably medical examiner’s office.”

  “Jesus Christ, I should have known that. I’m going to need you on speed dial for this. Thanks, Lukas.”

  “Anytime. You have my cell?”

  “I do, but hang on. You’ve got my office number, but I’m going to give you my cell in case you find something you want to run by me.”

  “I’m not in a great place to stop and write. Can you just text me so I have your number?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Okay. I’ll get the form in, you follow up with Katie, and thanks again!”

  “My pleasure,” said Lukas, and Mark hung up in a much better mood.

  *

  At the Brown Recluse that evening, the parking lot was small, and it reeked of diesel fumes, sandwiched between a warehouse and what looked like a factory building from the 1960s. It was close to the train tracks. Apparently in homage, the bar portion was housed in an old boxcar. Lukas was glad he’d gone for battered jeans, work boots, and a sweatshirt. The clientele’s clothes varied, but no one looked high-rent.

  It was quiet, the rattle and clink of bottles and glasses, a couple of murmuring people at tables here and there in the connected restaurant portion—he’d gone deliberately early, pushing happy hour to its limit. The bartender would still be fresh, wouldn’t be crushed with business yet. Might have more time to talk about a woman from the news.

  “Hi.” Lukas didn’t even have to signal the bartender, who was shuffling toward him.

  “What can I get for you?”

  The bartender was a balding man in his 50s. Lukas ordered a beer on tap, almost at random. As the bartender was pushing it toward him, Lukas pulled out a picture of the client.

  “Did you see her last weekend?”

  The bartender shot a suspicious look at him. “Why?”

  “She’s on the hook for a DUI. I’m working with her lawyer. Want to know if she was drunk when she left here.”

  “We don’t overserve.”

  “I didn’t think you would. But she said she was here for a couple of hours.”

  The bartender leaned forward, then drew back, squinting at the photo. He ended up holding it at arm’s reach from his face. “Wait, isn’t she the one from TV? That big fire?”

  “I’m just here to ask about the DUI.”

  The bartender drummed his fingers on the counter, staring off into space; now he was interested, with a whiff of real scandal. “You know, I thought she looked familiar when I saw her on TV. Yeah. She was here. She was by herself.”

  “Do you remember if she was drinking hard?”

  “Nah, you know what? She wasn’t. She seemed really broken up about something. Kept almost crying. She was making Sandra nervous.” He nodded over at a woman with graying blond hair who was starting to take a tray of fries to some of the other early birds.

  “Yeah?” Lukas had found, early on, that if he gave people a chance to talk, they mostly took it. It didn’t take much.

  “Yeah, she was worried that lady was going to upset the other customers.”

  “Was she at the bar or in the restaurant?”

  “Bar. Kept getting—what was she drinking? Hey, Sandra.”

  Sandra made her way over to them through the tables. “What is it?”

  “You know that woman who looked like she was going to cry on Friday?”

  Sandra made a face. “Yeah.”

  “She’s the one who burned that place down.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “What was she drinking?”

  Sandra had to think about it. Outside a train shrieked, the bells of the crossing cutting through the thin walls. “She ate—she had some onion rings. Oh, she was having beer.”

  Lukas asked, “Do you remember how many beers?”

  “No, that’s Bill’s department.” She nodded at the bartender.

  Bill looked genuinely regretful that he couldn’t remember more about their suddenly famous patron. “I don’t know. I don’t remember her seeming too wasted when she left.”

  Lukas looked to Sandra and raised his eyebrows a little. She shrugged. “She didn’t make a fuss, anyway. Just left.”

  “Is she a regular?”

  “I don’t think so.” She glanced at Bill, who shook his head.

  Lukas ended up getting a second beer, sitting by himself quietly, watching the other patrons. No one stood out. This wasn’t the kind of place where people stood out. Sticky counters, incompletely washed glasses, and indistinguishable nylon or leather jackets.

  There was the form to submit the findings to Mark, but Lukas felt itchy under his skin. After his last meeting that day he ended up texting Mark, heads up. bartender & waitress say she did not seem that drunk.

  A minute later, it occurred to him that Mark might not appreciate getting a work-related text at nine on a weeknight. But hard on the heels of that thought came his phone’s buzz.

  Good, said Mark. Might have a case after all.

  any news from the cops?

  No. Po-po still putting us off

  That made Lukas smile a little. po-po?

  Hey I’m cool. That is cool slang. From Kesha.

  The only response Lukas could think of for that was an emoji, which—there was just never a good professional reason to use an emoji. He let it slide.

  *

  Mark didn’t necessarily mind hearing about work during nonwork hours, but he usually wasn’t grateful for it. But the Carville case had started taking up more and more real estate in his brain. This was a chance to be part of something bigger than the average drunk-driving case, build something meaningful up on his résumé. Lukas seemed smart, and he was shaping up to be more helpful than Mark had anticipated.

  And it didn’t hurt that Lukas had texted while Mark was trying to rearrange the spare room either.

  The bare white walls felt like a judgment. Stacks of cardboard boxes filled the closet, oozing out in piles around the room. Sorting through them felt like Sisyphus. He made a face at the boxes and then dug back into the one he’d been working on; his shit mi
xed in with Dylan’s. When he’d first started working on it, he’d had to do it armed with a bottle of wine and the philosophical acceptance that sometimes a man had to cry.

  He thought briefly about settling in with some porn, but ended up falling asleep with a late-night talk show on instead. When he woke up, groggy, at one in the morning, he just shut the TV off and went back to sleep.

  The office was already humming with activity by the time he got in, a hive full of busy little bees. Gavin was handling arraignments, which left Mark free to actually get some work done. He had an appeal to file on behalf of one of his least reasonable clients, and there was a mental health evaluation request he needed to follow up on, and by the time he surfaced from the stack of paperwork, it was time for lunch.

  He didn’t feel like eating alone. He picked up his phone. “Jennifer? You want to grab lunch?”

  “Depends.” She sounded distracted. “You buying?”

  “I could. I just want to get out for a minute.”

  “And not feel pathetically alone?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay. Give me ten.”

  They ended up wolfing down pasta from the trendy, overpriced place just south of the courthouse.

  “How’s the new case going?”

  “The big one?” Mark crammed a bite into his mouth.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s okay. We’ve got the investigators on it, we’re hoping we can show she wasn’t wasted.”

  “Or maybe she was too wasted to be guilty?”

  “I think she’d have had to be unconscious.”

  “Which investigators did you get?”

  “Lena’s got Katie and I’ve got a new guy, Lukas Nystrom. Know him?”

  “No, haven’t had him.” Jennifer raised one eyebrow. “Is he cute?”

  “I guess? His hair is so light it’s hard to see his eyebrows.”

  “Oh, that gets weird.”

  “Yeah. Built like a brick shithouse, for what it’s worth. Super Scandinavian. He looks like you could buy a kit for him at IKEA.”

  Jennifer laughed. “Hah, I might just. I like the brick shithouse thing.”

  “This may be more than I really need to know about you.”

  “Please.” Jennifer got sidetracked as they started to get up, casting a longing glance at the nicer coffee place two doors down. “Think we have time?”

  “Absolutely not, but if you do it I will too.”

  She sighed. “No, you’re right. I’ve got court in the afternoon. Have to get my shit together.”

  “Who do you have?”

  “Ugh, Kline.”

  “That guy’s such an asshole.”

  “You think?” she said sarcastically, wrinkling her nose. “If the counselor could approach the topic at hand... Christ. It’s like listening to one long, never-ending fart.”

  “He is a fart. He’s an old fart.”

  She cracked up as they pushed through the door. “Don’t let his minions hear you.”

  “What minions? His clerk? Please. She eats lunch in the women’s bathroom so she doesn’t have to risk running into him.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah, for real. Margot from the DA’s office found her in there once.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Agreed.”

  *

  Gina Carville had worked, until recent events, at West Cascades Shipping and Transport, Limited. The Wikipedia page was about as interesting as a hernia, and their company page didn’t clarify for him what exactly they did.

  He showed up to their business office with what he thought of as his most disarming smile and polite apologies for bringing up such a sensitive topic. The explanation that he was working with the lawyers on the case got him an interview with Gina’s closest coworker, a woman who was still a couple of steps away from friend.

  “Well, she was the assistant to the warehouse manager, you know?” The woman, Emily, had perpetually wide eyes and seemed faintly terrified. “Greg. He was—” She had to stop, coughing a little on tears.

  “Okay.” Lukas tried to maintain sincere, interested eye contact. She fumbled for a tissue and started blowing her nose. “Greg was the warehouse manager, and Gina was his assistant?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “How did they get along?”

  Emily gave one last sad honk into the tissue before considering the question. “Well, I mean, she worked for him, but it’s not like they were friends. They weren’t close. But they got along fine.”

  “Any arguments recently?”

  Emily frowned. Her blond hair hung limply over her eyes. “No, honestly, nothing. It was all just—very normal.”

  Lukas nodded through an explanation of what Emily did that he had no desire to follow, but he gleaned that Greg had been largely responsible for warehouse operations, and Gina had handled the nitty-gritty for him with varying degrees of competence depending on how much her personal life was imploding at any given time.

  Emily seemed unaware of how much she was giving away, but the references were everywhere. “When her last boyfriend broke up with her—sorry, that’s not really relevant,” and “She had to call in sick—her ex-husband was—no, never mind.” Sidelong darting glances when she said, “She was never drunk at work, I don’t think.”

  When he left, it was with the distinct feeling that Gina might not have been drunk when she was driving that night, but that she was in general something of an emotional disaster. Arson and murder seemed like a stretch.

  It made sense to quickly dash off a text to Mark: interviewed colleague, sounds like a train wreck.

  When he parked again, back in downtown for an appointment he had with a different client, his phone had a new message: Yeah most of my clients are. Thanks.

  It made sense, he figured, though it was depressing to see it there in stark black text. Most of his clients were a little more solvent, able to pay him to look for their problems, but there was a definite bias toward people with significant self-created difficulties. Working in their fields could grind somebody down.

  Mark had still seemed energetic, a manic light in his dark brown eyes while he talked, jabbing the air with his pen. Lukas wondered how long that lasted as a public defender. Lena seemed different—harder, colder. Both of them at that table with no surprise in their eyes and very little hope. They knew their client was a disaster. They knew she might be guilty of everything. She might be a liar and a drunk and a killer, and they were going to sit at that table with him, anyway, and look for stones to turn. Plan her defense, because everyone got a defense in a court of law. Everyone.

  Lukas got home that night tired, ready to crash, but he had a new voice mail he noticed as he sank onto the couch. He hit play resentfully.

  “Hey, buddy!” The voice was way too cheerful—Frank was already drunk. “We’re out at the Tin Whistle if you want to come! Gonna be here for another couple of hours probably!”

  It didn’t sound appealing. Frank and the guys were friends he’d gone to high school with, been tight with since then. They’d watched his fits and starts at careers. They’d judged. They kept nagging him about dating.

  But he hadn’t gone out just to socialize in weeks. He sighed wearily and stood back up.

  At the Tin Whistle, he squinted into the gloom. Frank and the guys were at a booth in the back. Top 40 hits were blaring too loudly. Alex saw him first and waved him over, scooting his chair with a horrifying squeak of rubber-tipped feet dragging on the floor.

  “What’s up, man?” shouted Alex. He looked puffy around the eyes. Hadn’t quit smoking, then.

  “Not much.” He grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and dragged it over. “Just working. How about you?”

  “Man, I’m bushed. Madison’s teething now. Keeps me up all damn night.”

  “That sucks.”

  “You’re telling me.” Alex slapped him on the back between the shoulder blades. “You need to settle down, man, pop out some kids so you feel the pain
!”

  “God, no.”

  Alex thought that was funny and laughed loudly, showing his teeth. Frank leaned over.

  “Lou!” Frank knew Lukas didn’t much like the nickname, but it had never stopped him before and clearly was not about to now. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Yeah, work’s been crazy.” Lukas rolled his neck, trying to get the persistent crick out. “Just picked up a new job, got into the public defender investigator pool finally.”

  “Nice!” Frank high-fived him. “You were hoping for that, right?”

  “Definitely. If they like me they’ll keep me in the pool. Steady work.”

  “Less spying on cheaters?” Alex tossed in.

  “So far.”

  “So what’s the case?” Nick looked genuinely interested. None of them were bad guys. They were just the guys.

  “Can’t talk about it, sorry.”

  “Oh, shit! That’s cool.”

  Lukas laughed, finally feeling some of his tension ease. “Hope so.”

  They shot the shit for a while, the guys drifting into talking about their wives and girlfriends. That was the part he didn’t much care for.

  “—and she wants me to take care of the gutters,” said Frank, whose girlfriend was on-again, off-again, currently on-again but inching perilously close to figuring out that Frank was a loser, by the sounds of things. “I’m like, look, Tiff, if I didn’t fall asleep the second I got home I’d do it, okay? How come she’s at home all day but the gutters are my job?”

  “Women.” Nick shook his head. “Luk, when are you going to shack up with somebody? Hell, are you even dating?”

  “Just a couple of Tinder hookups. Nothing serious.” It didn’t count as a real lie to say Tinder instead of Grindr; he had a Tinder account and everything, even if he never logged in.

  (If they’d ever snagged his phone, which these jerks had been known to do, Tinder was on the first page of apps. To get to Grindr, they’d have to go back three pages.)

  “Shit, look at the big man!” Alex whooped. “Still fucking around on Tinder! You’re pushing thirty, asshole, get a ball and chain like the rest of us.”

  Lukas shrugged. “They’re not wild about a guy who lives in a shit-hole, drives a Corolla, and works nights.”