Time Release

by Martin J. Smith

  “Grady…”

  “Be your best friend.”

  Christensen sighed. “Friends like you I don’t need.”

  Downing waited. And waited.

  “It stays between us, right?” Christensen said.

  “Absolutely.” The detective leaned back in the desk chair, still waiting.

  “Okay. Basically, we’ve come up with nothing you can use.”

  Downing forced a smile. “For that I promised my lifelong friendship? Come on.”

  Was it fair to toy with this man, who was so obviously emotionally invested in the case? Probably not. “Here’s the Cliff Notes version, all right? Sonny’s made some progress. He’s convinced the numbness in his hands could be psychosomatic, and he came to that conclusion without much help from me. He just couldn’t find any other plausible explanation for it. I’m not sure he sees the numbness as a symptom of posttraumatic stress, and he’s definitely not thinking of it in terms of repressed memories. He is talking more about his past, though, and some things are bubbling up as dreams that may or may not be memories. But nothing in any way related to Primenyl.”

  Downing clasped his hands behind his head and put one foot up on the desk. “What makes you think they could be memories?”

  A checkerboard tile floor swam into Christensen’s mind, and a dog named Izzy Vicious. “He dreams in pretty good detail. Physical detail. And some things he’s said seem consistent with what I can get out of the files.”

  “That’s good, then.” Downing sat forward, returning his foot to the floor and resting his elbows on the desk.

  Christensen weighed his words carefully before continuing. “But there’s something you should know. Some things he’s described are dead-on, making me think they’re memories. But some things he’s talked about are pretty clearly fantasies and buried fears. I’m no prosecutor, but I’d think long and hard about relying on a supposed witness to something when the memories are as polluted as Sonny’s.”

  Downing shook his head. “What’s that mean, polluted?”

  “As we’ve talked, he’s started using more and more detail about growing up. But some of the things he’s ‘remembered’ are just dead wrong. It’s not like he’s whitewashing anything, although that’s apparently what he’s done for years. This is more like he’s making things up out of whole cloth. And you have to wonder where that’s coming from.”

  “Lying?” Downing said.

  “Hard to say.”

  “A fer-instance?”

  “I can’t be specific, Grady. Really.”

  “But what makes you think he’s making stuff up?”

  Christensen winked. “Just damned good detective work.”

  Downing brought his hands together and folded them on the desk. His knuckles immediately went white. “Goddamn you, Jim. Don’t leave me hanging. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  Christensen was being coy. But at least he was getting honest emotion out of Downing rather than his usual bullshit.

  “Couple examples,” he began. “Sonny talked the other day about his dad and baseball. What a great college player his dad was. Played third base, I think he said. The Pirates scouted him, according to Sonny. He was invited to try out with their Columbus farm team. All very vivid and detailed memories of Dad as Honus Wagner.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “It’s all fantasy. He said his dad went to Affiliated—it’s a small pharmacy school down in Virginia. And he did. I checked. But it never had athletic programs, baseball or otherwise.”

  “Maybe he’s confused. Maybe it was high school.”

  “Doubt it. There’s been other stuff like that. You should hear him talk about the traveling they did. He detoured onto that a couple of weeks ago, and he’s brought it up a couple times since. Makes it sound like they were Swiss aristocrats. Four months in North Africa. A year on an island in the South Pacific. A six-month caravan across Alaska. Of course, none of that jibes with his school records. He’s had pretty good attendance for someone who did so much globe-trotting.”

  Downing looked away.

  “Grady, he’s ‘remembered’ schools he never attended, places he never lived, relatives that don’t exist. He’s talked about an Aunt Rachel. Only problem is she doesn’t exist, on either side of the family. I even checked his foster families. Nothing.”

  “So where does that stuff come from?” Downing said.

  “Who knows? The name Rachel turns up once in his file, a neighbor lady two doors down who reported one of the domestics when the family lived in Highland Park, before they moved to Jancey Street. Maybe she baby-sat him. Maybe she gave out great treats at Halloween or did something else to scratch her name in his mind. But do you see what I mean by polluted? I couldn’t ever testify to the accurate memories without talking about the fantasies.”

  Downing’s gaze remained fixed somewhere between the window and the bookshelf. The only thing there was a wall socket. “So you’re saying Sonny’s not going to be much help.”

  “Grady, even if he remembered stacked cases of cyanide in the cellar, or Mr. Science working with Primenyl capsules at the kitchen table, is a jury going to believe him when I tell the whole story?”

  Downing stood up and started to button his coat. “Gotta run,” he said. “Thanks for your time. Hope I didn’t ruin dinner.”

  The detective left so quickly all Christensen could do was close doors behind him. His tracks went down the front steps and disappeared into the dark. Somewhere down the block, a car door slammed, an engine revved, and the potent sound of Downing’s Ford slowly withered to nothing. The silence he left behind was unnerving.

  Chapter 19

  Trix had the place looking great. The bare branches of the maple tree out front were strung with tiny white lights, and she’d managed to get a seven-foot noble fir into a corner of the living room. Practically New Year’s and it was still up. Downing could see it through the window, strung with the same white lights, as he crunched up the front walk and onto the porch. She’d lit a fire in the fireplace across the room and was sitting with her back to him, holding Rodney across her lap. Nothing like the smell of wood smoke on a winter day. How long had it been since they’d lit a fire?

  He hung his coat on the front-hall rack, threw his sports jacket across the banister, and slid out of his wet shoes.

  “I’m late,” he said, walking toward the flames. “As usual.”

  She looked up. Mascara had run down both cheeks, and her eyes were rimmed in red. She started to talk but nothing came out. She’d really stoked the fire. The heat was intense.

  “Look, I’m sorry. Had to stop by Jim Christensen’s for a few minutes.”

  Then he noticed the dog. Rodney’s eyes were open, but not moving. His mouth was open, too, locked in a way that made him look like he was gagging. Trix was rocking him gently on her lap, but he seemed too rigid. Junkie, gang victim, dog—didn’t matter. Downing knew the look.

  “Jesus, Trix. What happened?”

  A cherry log popped and hissed. They both jumped. His wife said nothing, rocking the dead dog and crying softly. Downing bent down and stroked Rodney’s head. Didn’t look like he’d been hit by a car. No blood anywhere. Except for the open-eyed grimace, he could have been sleeping.

  “He was lying in the backyard when I got home from work,” she said. “He’s frozen, Grady.”

  Suddenly, the fire made more sense. His wife was thawing their dog. A Currier and Ives scene, a Rod Serling production. Downing’s reflexes took over.

  “What time did you get home?”

  Trix checked her watch. “About six-thirty. Forty minutes ago.”

  “Where in the backyard?”

  “Along the fence, back in the corner.”

  Frozen, so he’d probably been there since at lea
st mid-afternoon. Still daylight then. The back fence is chain-link and open to the alley. He struggled for comforting words, much like he did at crime scenes. “He’s not even four years old, for Chrissakes. He cost three hundred dollars. What the hell?”

  Trix gave him the glare. He knew that look, too.

  “Yeah, boy, they don’t make ’em like they used to,” she said.

  “That’s not what I meant, Trix.” He stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  He flipped on the spotlight and pushed through the back door. Christ, it was cold. No wind, though. He walked carefully along the stone steps toward the fence, letting his eyes adjust to the light. He remembered the advice of George Kovacic, his first partner in homicide. God’s in the details, George used to say. God’s in the details.

  About four inches of snow remained from the latest storm. It was three days old and crusted on top, thanks to an afternoon of unexpected and brilliant sun. Nothing odd about Rodney’s tracks. Most were around the mouth of his doghouse, where he stayed most of the day when it was cold. Downing had rigged a crude heater by mounting a 200-watt lightbulb high on the doghouse wall, then putting an empty one-gallon paint can over it. The cord ran, undisturbed, to a wall socket on the back porch. Since Rodney’s stomach dragged in the snow anytime more than a couple inches accumulated, the only time he left his doghouse on days like this was to pee on the crab apple tree or crap in the garden right next to it. The snow in those areas was stained and packed by his passage.

  Downing stooped and looked into the doghouse. A ring of light escaped beneath the paint can, so the heater was still working. From the doghouse’s mouth, though, one set of tracks stood apart from the path to the crab apple tree. They branched off at a 45-degree angle directly from the dog­house to the back fence, a deliberate departure, like someone in the alley had called him to come. And Rodney, friend to all, would have done just that, especially if they had food.

  Downing stepped over the tracks and followed them to the chain-link. He looked both ways down the alley, but saw no obvious tracks near the fence. This was a working-class neighborhood, filled with plumbers, carpenters, secretaries, city workers. Not many stay-home parents. The only people around most weekdays were the retirees, and they stayed indoors during the winter. Would anyone have noticed someone back here?

  Something in the snow caught his eye. He bent down for a closer look. There were three or four of them, and they glinted in the spotlight like diamonds in the snow. The largest was about the size of a dime. He flicked two or three of them into his palm and held them closer to his face. Tinfoil. Tiny bits of tinfoil. Squatting there, he noticed the deep and irregular furrow that scored the snow for about fifteen feet to his left. It ran along the fence, and seemed much too irregular for the smooth path of Rodney’s drag­ging stomach. He looked closer. At one spot, the dog had fallen onto his side, leaving a perfect profile. At another, he seemed to have fallen and convulsed, sweeping snow with his runty legs, digging almost to the dead grass underneath.

  Just beyond that, another profile. He’d died there on his side, with enough body heat left to melt the impression of a basset hound clear through to the grass.

  Jesus, it was cold. He’d come out without a jacket. Downing put the bits of tinfoil into his shirt pocket and retraced his path, stepping carefully into the footprints he’d already left. He climbed the back-porch steps and pushed into the warmth of his kitchen. Trix hadn’t moved. Neither had Rodney.

  “Hard to tell what happened,” he said.

  She didn’t turn around. She just watched the flames, listening to the pop and hiss of the burning logs. Rodney was her dog, always around, more dependable than her husband and much more affectionate. She’d told Downing as much, several times.

  He sat on the hearth, closer to the white-hot coals. “I’m sorry, Trix.”

  “Will you bury him tomorrow?” Her eyes stayed on the fire. “Somewhere in Highland Park, maybe? I know the ground is hard, but I don’t want to turn him over to some disposal service.”

  “I’ll take him tonight,” he said. “We’d better do it in the dark.”

  Finally she looked at him. “You really couldn’t tell what happened?”

  He shrugged. “He might have had a seizure. You been giving him his phenobarbs?”

  “Every morning.”

  “It was so cold today. Maybe he had one of his spells and didn’t come around in time.” He hated lying to his wife. Against all odds, she still seemed to trust him. Which made it worse.

  “That’s probably what happened,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. Big sigh. “Well, shit.”

  He wrapped the dog in a comforter, the ratty one they used to use for picnics when their daughter was young. She’d just left home again after a visit—better she wasn’t here. Downing carried the bundle out the front door and back down to the driveway. The Ford’s engine was still ticking.

  He laid Rodney into the well, moving his Kevlar vest and spare shotgun to make room, and slammed the trunk. Trix, who was watching from the window, opened the front door.

  “Won’t you need something to dig with?” she shouted.

  “Right.” Downing retrieved a shovel and a pick from the garage at the side of the house, if only to maintain the illusion that he was going to the woods to bury her dog.

  The delivery entrance to the Allegheny County morgue was in the basement, just off Third Avenue. Downing hit the opener that was clipped to the Ford’s visor. The garage door in front of him yawned slowly open and he drove into the century-old building, which was tucked behind the jail and county office buildings like a Gothic three-story mauso­leum. There was no reason his gut should tighten like it did. He came here a lot, whenever he thought he might find God in the details of an autopsy. He’d watched a hundred procedures, maybe more. So why did he feel like jamming the car into reverse and slipping out before the garage door closed behind him?

  He parked beside Pungpreechawatn’s black Crown Victoria. He wasn’t surprised to see it. Coroners kept odd hours. But he was glad, since he’d hesitate to ask a favor of one of Preech’s creepy deputies. The top guy at least made big money. But what’s with deputy coroners? Who’d want to spend all day hauling floaters out of the Mon River or sacking road meat when you’re making $20,000 a year?

  He unlocked the trunk, lifted Rodney out, and closed the trunk lid with his elbow. The garage was lit only by a small ceiling fixture, so he picked his way carefully past the floater freezer, stepping around the stacked boxes of alcohol, xylene, and formalin to the battered green freight elevator to his right. The place reeked of formaldehyde. Preech swore the cheery spider plants he hung all over the building completely eliminated the odor. Preech needed to get out more, obviously, but the plants did seem to thrive here.

  Downing stepped onto the corrugated steel surface of the elevator’s scale, startled as it registered 310 pounds. As it lurched to the second floor, he calculated. He weighed 185, plus the dog’s 60. Then he remembered to add the 65 preset pounds—the weight of an empty gurney. That was the 310.

  The morgue was an architectural gem that had stood since 1897. Downing had watched the county struggle to upgrade the building in recent years, as if a granite masterpiece with walls twenty-eight inches thick could be improved by cheap wood paneling. The publicly accessible areas were a 1970s-era hell, complete with molded plastic chairs the color of a pumpkin and dropped ceilings that hid not only computer wiring, but the building’s original gaslight fixtures. Scrape away the morgue’s tarty makeup, Downing mused, and there’d still be a beauty underneath. The floors in the third-floor courtroom, now overlaid with durable nylon carpet, were solid marble, just as the embalming tables had been until the 1972 remodeling. No matter what ghastly surprise awaited him inside the cooler, Downing always paused before stepping into its 42-degree chill to marvel at the original foot-thick oak door.

>   The elevator opened into a nightmare of fluorescent light, linoleum, and bad wood paneling. The plastic pumpkin chairs lined a wall to his left. Preech sat behind his desk, eating curry out of a Tupperware bowl.

  “Mr. Grady Downing,” he said as Downing pushed through the door. He spoke with a heavy accent, but always in the proper English he learned as a child in India. “How do you do?”

  Downing sat in the office chair facing the coroner, letting the dog’s weight rest on the chair’s arms. “Need a favor, Preech.”

  “We’re very, very busy tonight, you know. The holidays. Much work to be done. We have four different crews out right now and they should return any moment. Any mo­ment.”

  Downing lifted his bundle slightly. “I think Ron Corbett may have poisoned our dog.”

  The coroner stopped chewing, studied the comforter. “The same Ronald Corbett?”

  Downing nodded. “I’ve been nosing around about those Greene County cases. They were practically in Corbett’s backyard. So I’m sure it’s got back to him by now that I’m talking to people again. Then tonight, our dog turns up dead. Looks like somebody fed him something through our back fence.”

  Preech forked another load of curry into his mouth and chewed it slowly. “What sort of favor do you need from us?”

  Downing smiled. “I’m guessing the dog was dosed with the same stuff they found in Greene County. Can you check?”

  “You believe cyanide to be involved in your dog’s death as well?”

  “Maybe. Hydrogen cyanide, I’d bet.”

  Preech shook his head. “It would be a very difficult problem, working here on a dog. The taxpayers of Allegheny County might not be pleased about my authorization of staff time and county resources to—”

  “Please, Preech. For old times’ sake. Just check him for chemicals.”

  The coroner looked at his watch. Downing looked at his as well. 9:30 p.m.