by A. J. Thomas
“The coroner’s office opens at eight, and a deputy can come by at any time. If you feel like you need to talk to me about anything….” Doug passed the man a business card.
“Thank you,” the large man said as he held up the card and winked. Then he waddled down the stairs and climbed, with some effort, back behind the wheel of his car.
Doug followed him to the double glass doors and was surprised to see that the parking lot wasn’t empty. A small Subaru with a rental agency sticker sat parked at the far end of the parking lot.
Doug’s stomach clenched, both from shock and from the flood of arousing memories that assaulted him as he saw familiar blond hair. His blond from Missoula stepped out of the car, arched his back, and rolled his head from side to side. Instead of the casual polo shirt and running clothes Doug had seen him in over the weekend, Christopher stepped out of the car in a dark-blue pin-striped suit that made his hair and eyes seem to glow. He looked amazing. Doug quickly got himself under control. He couldn’t act too friendly now, while he was still working, just because he had spent the weekend fucking this man until they were both exhausted.
Christopher stood there, his posture and bearing radiating a poised confidence that took Doug’s breath away, and watched the Lexus pull out of the parking lot. Then Christopher looked at the brass sign beside the door, glanced at his phone, and began to walk toward him. Even though his brain was screaming at him that he had to play this off professionally, his body was compelling him out the door.
At the top of the stairs, he froze. Christopher, four steps below him, stood staring at him with a stunned, mischievous smile.
“Well, hello, gorgeous,” Christopher drawled.
Doug was about to say something, some tacky joke about it being a small world after all, but his brain smacked his libido down and reminded him there was only one reason Christopher would be here now. Doug gazed down at him, saw him from nearly the same angle at which Doug had first seen the body of Peter Eugene Hayes as he rappelled down to cut him free, and finally noticed. There were so many similarities that Doug’s brain tried to convince him he was staring into the face of another bloated corpse.
Something in Doug’s mind screamed that this was another police officer. He could not lose his composure in front of another police officer. Not to mention a man he had been fantasizing about sleeping with again up until a minute ago. For as long as he could remember, every bit of stress and anxiety he felt went straight to his stomach. From getting sick after roller-coaster rides as a kid to throwing up before major tests in college, Doug’s stomach rebelled at the slightest upset in his life. At the moment, he just didn’t have the willpower to keep his stomach under control. “Excuse me,” he whispered, ducking back into the building.
He made it two feet before he had to run. The men’s room was a whole twelve feet away, but that was too damn far. He rushed into the bathroom and managed to make it into a stall before the knot in his stomach turned into a full-blown spasm. He bent double, riding out the pain as his stomach expelled whatever was left of his lunch. When he was finished, he wiped his face and mouth with toilet paper, then went to the sink and tried to clean himself up as well as he could. As he caught sight of his own pallid reflection and flinched away from his bloodshot eyes, he wanted to punch something. How much more embarrassing could this day possible get?
At least Brittney hadn’t stuck around, Doug thought ruefully.
He straightened his suit, prayed he hadn’t been too loud, and went out to face his weekend lover.
Christopher stood on the stairs of the Baker County Coroner’s Office, utterly confused.
He picked up the manila folder that Doug had dropped as he sprinted into the building, and then followed him. He heard the sound of retching coming from behind the men’s room door. Christopher turned around again and jogged back to his rental car. He had stocked the backseat of the car with sports drinks and snacks, along with his luggage. He grabbed an orange Gatorade and went back in, taking the steps two at a time. At the bathroom door, the sound of retching continued.
Christopher sighed. He would have to take that as his answer to whether or not Doug was busy tonight. For a police officer, coming out was hard. He was open about his sexuality, but he didn’t advertise it around the office. The one thing that had kept him from being the butt of every joke in the homicide office was that his apparently straight partner was more flamboyant than he was. It helped that San Diego was a big city, with its own gay district, and more than its share of diversity. It wasn’t San Francisco, but it wasn’t uncommon to see two men walking down the street holding hands. Up here, where there were hours of highway between signs of civilization and Christopher had seen as many cows from the highway as people, things were probably different. Top that off with how Doug had described the city in terms of quiet, seething racism, and suddenly the idea of coming out wasn’t so much a question of freedom, but of giving the town one more reason to hate and distrust him.
Still, for a man who claimed to have worked in Miami, Doug seemed to have far less composure than Christopher would have expected.
He sat down and waited. And waited. Then he noticed the name of his big brother on the label of the file. He shifted into work mode and opened the file. He scanned the coroner’s report, noting the cause of death. He scanned the search-and-rescue report, and noted the name at the bottom: Douglas Heavy Runner. Christopher went back and reread the report carefully, then turned to the rest of the file. Inside were the coroner’s photos of Peter’s body, including photos of the words “Happy” and “Birthday” carved with a razor blade into his arms. Christopher turned back to the coroner’s report. Despite the unfamiliar format of the report, he found what he was looking for quickly—the estimated time and date of death. His birthday.
“That fucker,” Christopher whispered, glaring at the photo of Peter’s face again. He was lucky he had succeeded in killing himself, because after seeing that, Christopher wanted to kill him. That day he had been bouncing off the walls of his hospital room, too doped up on painkillers to be discharged and too anxious to sit still. He’d had to move to avoid thinking. He remembered feeling sorry for himself, and if he sat still too long he’d have to think about the fact that it was his birthday. He would have to acknowledge that he didn’t have anyone who cared enough to show up other than the man assigned to work with him. Somewhere, a world away, his brother had wished him a happy birthday and hanged himself as a gift. While Christopher had been alone in a hospital room, realizing for the first time that the bullet that had landed him in the hospital would take an even greater toll than he’d imagined, his brother had reached out across a thousand miles to take one last jab at him, to remind him just how empty his life was.
He buried that anger, forced himself to stay in work mode, and acknowledged that he was being irrational. Whether Peter had stayed fixated on memories of Christopher or not, Christopher was not responsible for his suicide. But he was furious that his brother would go to such lengths to try to fuck with him, even after all these years. He bottled that anger up, promising himself that he would run tonight. He would find a hotel with a treadmill and run until he or the machine broke.
He kept flipping through the photographs and coroner’s notes with a blank, professional expression on his face. When he heard the bathroom door open, he glanced up at Doug and tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage it.
“Here.” He held up a bottle of orange Gatorade.
Doug said nothing but took the drink and gulped it down.
“Guess we’re starting from scratch,” Christopher said levelly.
“Hmm?” Doug hummed around the bottle.
“I’m Christopher Hayes, San Diego PD,” said Christopher. “I’m here to deal with this shit. Sit down, relax.”
Doug plopped into the chair beside Christopher. He peeked at the open file folder, his file folder, in Christopher’s hand. Christopher had found the photo of the carvings in his brother’s skin. He sur
prised Doug. He didn’t gasp, didn’t swear, didn’t even flinch. He took in the image with a professional detachment that Doug would give anything to be able to replicate himself.
“What do you mean, starting from scratch?” Doug asked.
Christopher sat back and turned his head sideways. Doug was stunned to see that even the man’s eyes were blank. “Seeing me obviously upset you. We can pretend nothing happened. So introduce yourself already, and get on with it.”
“Oh, hell no,” said Doug. “You surprised me, that’s all. You look like him. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but you really do.”
Christopher flipped back two pages to a photograph of his brother’s face. He held up the picture and smirked at Doug. The man’s hair color was the only similarity, in the picture.
“It’s your bone structure—your jaw, the way your eyes are set. I was the one who cut him down,” he explained, “And the angle outside was just….” Doug tried to keep himself from shivering, but he just couldn’t control himself. “It was the same.”
“The angle?” one of Christopher’s eyebrows rose.
“I’m in charge of the backcountry search-and rescue team in Baker County. I had to rappel down about forty feet to get to him.”
“I see. Well, that’s a relief,” said Christopher.
“It is?”
“Yeah.” Christopher turned the photo to the side and held it up beside his own face for comparison. “If that’s the kind of thing that gets you hot and bothered, then we might have some issues. That whole zombie kink has always freaked me out.”
Christopher cocked a cheesy smile in his direction, and Doug broke out laughing. It wasn’t appropriate. It was so far from appropriate Doug knew he should have been disgusted with himself. He laughed anyway. It was the kind of joke that would come out during the tense moments of an accident investigation, or while working a gruesome crime scene. It broke the tension, made it possible to keep going. It was also the type of joke that led to occasional media scandals and painted police officers everywhere as callous bastards.
“I’m sorry,” Doug managed, when he stopped laughing. “It wasn’t about seeing you. Hell, I wanted to see you.”
Christopher dropped the photo back into the file, closed it with a snap, and handed it back to Doug. “You should be sorry. Have a bit of fun with a guy and the next time he sees you, he’s so sickened he throws up. Talk about a blow to the ego.” Christopher shook his head dramatically. He was still smiling, though. “I might have to go crawl into a corner until whatever is left of my manhood asserts itself.”
“It was just the angle. It was a mess. Is that definitely him?” Doug held up the file. “Do you want to view the body?”
“It’s him. And no, I don’t want to view the body. I’d be tempted to beat the shit out of the body, and there’s no point anymore.” Christopher felt his carefully perfected smile melt just from looking at the way Doug’s chocolate-colored eyes widened. “I guess I should apologize for being late.”
“You’re really late. I thought you were planning on dealing with your business issues Monday morning. What happened?”
“Would you believe I got lost?”
“No. We’re on the main highway.”
“Yeah, well, when the roads on the GPS are all the same color, it’s hard to tell when it’s trying to lead you to certain death and when it’s leading you to an actual town.”
“You got lost?”
“Yup.” Christopher pulled out the small GPS the rental agency had supplied, pulled up the map with the route still marked, and held it up.
Doug took the device, zoomed the map out, and laughed. “This thing thinks you’re up in the mountains over the lake. You’d have to go up through Kalispell and then south again, taking this route.”
“I figured that out, eventually. It was a pretty drive,” said Christopher, flushed and embarrassed.
“This had you going over dirt roads for ten miles,” Doug pointed out. “I’d have expected most of them to be blocked by snow.”
“It’s Montana!” Christopher cried. “I was surprised to find out that the runway at the airport was paved! I followed the GPS, and by then I didn’t have any cell phone reception, so I just kept following it. I also got distracted by the mountains. I’m used to the High Sierras. Mesas, canyons, and all that shit. Some of the mountains along the highway seem to go up forever. It’s beautiful. A little scary, but beautiful.”
“Ever heard of an atlas?”
“Yes. He was the guy who held the world on his shoulders,” said Christopher.
Doug rolled his eyes. “We’ve got these newfangled things up here called maps. They come in a big book called an atlas. It’s a paper version of this”—he held up the GPS—“except that it has the roads labeled and color-coded, and it never needs to be recharged. It’s terribly helpful, even if it can’t give you turn-by-turn directions. Do you have any idea how dangerous it can be to get lost up here?”
Christopher shrugged. “I did notice there weren’t all that many towns along the way. Not that many cars, either. I met a lot of cool people, though, including a lady who organizes a race around some big reservoir. She bragged that it was the only race in the world where the entry packet includes instructions on what to do if you encounter a grizzly bear.”
“Is that one a hundred miles long?”
“Only fifty.” Christopher dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a flyer. He held it up with a huge grin. Doug stared at Christopher, and then he shook his head.
“What?” Christopher asked.
“You’re insane. I’ve got to take you hiking,” said Doug. “If I’m right, that would be Hungry Horse Reservoir, in the Flatheads. The Flathead Mountains are pretty, but over here, we’re in the Missions. These mountains make the Flathead range look tame.”
“I believe it,” said Christopher, purposely not addressing the offer to go hiking. He didn’t know much of anything about this guy except that he was good in bed, and he wasn’t about to make stupid assumptions. “Driving down into town was amazing. Still, it took all day. There’s no funeral home assignment listed in there, so I assume the body is still locked up in the office?”
“Our county medical examiner couldn’t stay. They open at eight in the morning. As for the rest, well, I found his will and a note shoved into an envelope and taped to his front door. I have the key to his house—he seems to have left his truck at his job, but I didn’t find that key. The paperwork tends to take a while, regardless. There are six law offices in town, but we don’t have a dedicated probate court. Judge Watson does probate stuff as it comes up on the docket like everything else, so it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to get things sorted out. You’re welcome to take possession of the house now, but you’re better off getting a hotel.”
“House?”
“It’s about three miles from here. After his personal effects were boxed up, I delivered them to his house, since it’s all supposed to go to you. It’s just his clothing, boots, wallet, and a lighter.”
“There’s a house? He didn’t rent?”
“No, from what the county attorney said, he owned it outright.”
“Is that where—” Christopher couldn’t force himself to finish the sentence. He was used to talking about death, used to being casual about it. He was not supposed to be this fucking weak. But the idea of walking into the house where his brother died made him cringe. His thoughts still whirling, he remembered the details of the search and rescue report. “No, of course not. Never mind.”
“What?”
“I was going to ask if that was where he hanged himself, but I read the report.”
“Oh. He died up in Lone Pine State Park. It’s a day-use park, on the bluffs to the west. The bluffs overlook the city. A hiking trail leads to the picnic area at the top, then a switchback leads down to the lower trail. There are a couple of picnic areas up there too.”
“How could he afford a house?” Christopher asked h
im. “The last time I tracked him down, he was in prison in California, and he didn’t have a dime to his name. How did he end up owning a house up here?” What Christopher actually wanted to ask was what could have brought his brother to this out-of-the-way little town? Since the last time he had actually spoken to his brother had been when he was twelve, Christopher didn’t know enough about the man Peter had become to know what might have brought him up here. He didn’t know anything about his brother. He didn’t know if Peter had ever held a job, if he’d gone to school, if he ever had any solid relationships, or any children. He had spent so much of his life hating the memory of his brother, and then arrogantly assuming the worst, that he had never cared to find out the truth.
Doug shrugged. “I was hoping you could tell me. His probation officer said you’re the only family he’s got, so I figured you would know.”
“I haven’t seen him for twenty years,” Christopher admitted. “The only time I ever tracked him down was so I could list his address and inmate number on my first job application. Aside from needing to admit he exists for background checks, I’ve made a point of not associating with him. I’m just… I’m stuck in work mode.”
“Work mode?”
“You know, focus on what doesn’t make sense, gather facts, forget that the body was a person and just do the job that’s in front of you… work mode.”
“Ah. If you’re worried about it, the real-estate transaction should be a matter of public record. The documents are in the courthouse, if you want to see who sold the house to him, who financed it, that kind of thing. Your lawyer will pull them all anyway, to make sure there isn’t a lien on the house.”
Christopher rubbed his eyes. After driving all day, this was the last thing he wanted to deal with. He did not want to sort through the personal property of someone who, aside from a few terrible memories, was a complete stranger. He really didn’t want to have to hire an attorney. Christopher enjoyed dealing with attorneys about as much as he enjoyed going to the dentist. He recognized the need for them, and he would begrudgingly go, but he would never be happy about it.