Abra-Cadaver

by Matt Drabble

  “Justice, yes,” Tommy answered half to himself. “Was that what happened Mr. Moss? Was justice served or just seen to be served?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’d rather think that it did, at least to Arnold Trotter, especially if he’s coming back to town,” Tommy said ominously.

  As Tommy left the office, the lawyer’s good mood followed him out of the door.

  Tommy left Moss and stepped out into the gleam of the summer sun. As he walked down the steps it suddenly occurred to him that he was considerably wealthier than when he had walked in 20 minutes ago. His father had been a pragmatic man by nature which had obviously extended to his finances. Tommy had little head for money. He knew that it was probably for the best that he had never earned much to begin with. His job at the paper was steady at best and his income was commensurate with his position. He wasn’t a star name in his field, but his heart had never really been in it. He had staggered through life under a black cloud that seemed to extend over all aspects of his stunted development. He knew that he was not a well rounded or adjusted adult. He had only been back in town for a couple of days now, but it seemed fairly obvious that he wasn’t the only one. Perhaps as soon as the whole Trotter business was put to bed and they found him, he could actually try and put things behind him. Perhaps running from his past was no way to face his future.

  As he crossed the road he spotted PJ and was about to call out a greeting when he suddenly spotted his friend wasn’t alone. The waitress from the bar was with him and they were carrying a picnic basket. It was touchingly quaint. Just as he was about to turn away PJ spotted him and began waving furiously.

  “Tommy,” PJ greeted him as he reached the couple. “You remember Delores.”

  “Hello again,” he greeted the waitress. “So what are you guys up to?”

  “Well Peter finally mustered up enough courage to ask me out,” Delores smiled.

  Tommy felt the shy warmth between the couple and for the first time in a long he felt a stab of loneliness. He had dated intermittently but had never been able to establish an intimacy with any woman that he’d met. The thought of Ally flashed through his mind and the idea of a picnic on a grassy lawn on a summer afternoon was suddenly an incredibly appealing notion.

  “Why don’t you join us?” PJ said with a crafty smile, “You could ask Ally,” he said as though reading Tommy’s mind.

  “Oh I can’t intrude on your first date,” Tommy blustered.

  “Nonsense,” Delores interjected. “I think that you’d be doing Peter a favor,” she winked leaning close. “He’s a little nervous.”

  “Oh really I couldn’t,” Tommy started before he was horrified to realise that PJ was already talking to someone on his phone.

  “All done, she’ll meet us in 10 minutes,” PJ grinned and Tommy couldn’t decide if he was excited or terrified.

  ----------

  Graham Moss watched the now grown boy Tommy Marsh leave and join his friends across the town square. His usual seemingly unbreakable good spirits had been dampened somewhat by their conversation. He was a man of simple tastes and appetites and never one to deny himself the finer things in life. He ate what he wanted, he drank what he wanted, and he invariably took what he wanted. His private practice enabled him to spend his days as he pleased and his time was his own. His receptionist Jennifer was a willing companion on his quest for happiness and he had certainly not employed her for her secretarial skills. The only blot on his usually carefree horizon was Arnold Trotter. He had prosecuted the case over two decades ago now, but it still lived with him. He should have been pleased that the trial had gone so smoothly, but it was all too smoothly. There had barely been a whisper offered in Trotter’s defense and he had been far too green and eager to wonder why. He knew that the victim, Mary, was the daughter of the town’s most prominent citizen Adrian Todd. He also knew that the Todd family were more than capable of exerting their influence over Denver Mills. Just what Adrian Todd had done in order to secure such an easy win was not for him to say, or investigate. He had simply taken the acclaim of serving his community and putting a dangerous man behind bars. It had not been Graham Moss’ responsibility to provide an adequate defense for Arnold Trotter.

  He tried to shake the morbid thoughts from his usually sunny mind. Trotter was hopefully dead and buried beneath the collapsed foundations of the hospital that had housed him for many years. Whatever guilt that he might have felt about the trial, he should allow it to be buried alongside the defendant.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall and decided that an early lunch was in order. The day was a warm summer one and not meant for sitting indoors and brooding over the past.

  He waved goodbye to Jennifer and felt a distracting stirring in his trousers at the sight of the tight cardigan that strained across her chest. With some regret he bounded down the office steps to the outside sun and thought about taking the boat out on the lake for the afternoon. He had just intended to get some takeout from Nan’s Diner and eat on the town square. But now the thought of the breeze through his hair and the sun on his face was suddenly very appealing as an afternoon activity.

  He headed around to the private car park at the rear of the office block. His car was a statement of his financial success and he was proud of it. He slipped behind the wheel on a whoosh of soft leather. He was about to slip the key into the ignition when a shadow loomed out from the backseat. A rag clamped down over his nose and mouth, and his lungs were suddenly filled with an over powering chemical that caused the world to fade away.

  ----------

  McEwen finished packing his bag and grabbed his belongings. He owned little in the way of material possessions and saw little value in those that did. His art was his life and it was all that was important to him. As long as he had access to his raw materials he could provide himself with enough sustenance to survive.

  He was not looking forward to the trip. He knew that it would be expected of him to show for the exhibition and also the funeral. He had little time for the social graces of civilized society, and it was a world that he was unaccustomed to. Dixie had been his buffer; she had been the face of his work and the voice of his sales. Now that she was gone, he had no idea just how to make the seemingly giant leap from his canvas to commerciality.

  He steeled himself and headed out into the day. He had a plane to catch, a funeral to attend and he had to show appropriate emotions throughout. Ever since that day when they were all 12 he knew that his emotional development had been cut off at the knees. He could only guess that none of them were fully functioning adults. Guilt had a way of suffocating all its own, but for now he had people to see and more worryingly, people to talk to.

  ----------

  Dixon strolled past the park. His head was bowed down low with the weight of obligations and the threat of consequences. He moved around the park allowing his mind to drift on the gentle breeze. On the surface he carefully projected the epitome of control, but inside he was a churning ocean of self-doubt. He might appear to be the biggest dog in town, but in truth his chain was held by another. One who had no qualms about neutering him without hesitation.

  His business was lucrative and cash abundant, but he still answered to a boss and he followed orders like any good soldier. Adrian Todd ran everything in Denver Mills, legal and otherwise. Ever since the news that Trotter might be the loose, Todd had been coming apart at the seams. Dixon had his own reasons for feeling anxious, but he knew that they had all taken an unspoken oath of silence; one that he was sure none of them had ever broken.

  He thought himself able to put aside his own childish fears over the possibility of returning vengeance in the form of the magician, but Todd was apparently not.

  Dixon had been involved in organizing Todd’s brutal revenge on Trotter a few years after the man had been incarcerated. It had been of the first jobs that he had ever done for the man who ran Denver Mills. He had been eager to please and it had been his contacts that had
made it possible for two very large and sadistic prisoners to extract Todd’s painful retribution. A video tape existed of the carnage, and Dixon’s stomach was only just strong enough to watch. Trotter had been taken to an undisturbed basement under the cell blocks. He knew that down in the deep dark setting two days must have seemed like 20 years to Trotter. When he had emerged from the brutality he had never been the same and Dixon shuddered to think of the torment that he had endured. But now the man might be loose. Despite the years of incarceration that had passed, it remained to be seen just how dangerous Trotter might prove to be.

  His head was full of the past when he almost stumbled across the picnic party. PJ and some booze hound from one of the bars that he frequented were sitting on a tartan blanket and beaming towards each other. He had little time for PJ normally, but he couldn’t begrudge the man a small slither of happiness. Unfortunately for him, sitting across from the new couple were two old friends that he did begrudge. Ally and Tommy were sitting together and laughing along riotously as though time had simply stood still. He felt an angry stab of anger and jealousy that was all too familiar. He had carried a secret torch for Ally since they were kids. It was a low flame that he’d thought would never become anything, right up until it did. He had tried to make her happy, but their marriage and union had always been haunted by two ghosts: the specters of Trotter and Tommy. Each of them was as destructive and damaging to his own hopes for the future as the other. Trotter was the poisonous secret that manacled them to their own guilt and Tommy was the future that Ally had been denied.

  He ducked away before they saw him and invited him over. As tough as he prided himself on being, there were some things that even he could not sit through.

  11.

  Fatal mistakes

  Graham Moss woke groggily. His head was thumping around in time to the moving car as the suspension lifted and sank on the uneven road. He desperately tried to remember where he was, but his mind was a foggy blur. The last clear thought he still held was that he had been walking to his car in the parking bay at the rear of his office. Someone had spoken to him, and then his world had turned to mist laden dreams.

  He tried to move but he was trapped in the confines of what seemed like his own car’s boot. His hands felt tied behind his back and he had little room for manoeuvre.

  The car came to a slow stop and his heart raced frantically. He searched his thoughts for reasons as to his capture, but could think of none. He was a moderately wealthy man but nowhere near the hostage neighborhood. He ran a private practice, but few of his clients had ever seen the inside of a jail cell and it had been a lifetime since he had worked on the other side of the law. His heart suddenly sank hard and his breath was painfully torn from his lungs. Oh Jesus God no, he thought desperately, please don’t let it be him.

  The boot lid opened and daylight streaked in. He squinted against the sudden invasion. A figure stepped in front of the sun eclipsing it. The silhouette stood tall and proud and as Graham’s adjusted he first recognised a billowing magicians outfit.

  “Good afternoon counselor,” the figure giggled.

  ----------

  Gaines was heading back to the office when he got the call. Some hysterical mailman had called in from Dale Midkiff’s place. Apparently the gruff old farmer had met with some kind of industrial accident. Gaines had witnessed more need for his professional services in the last couple of days than the last 20 years. The cleanup of the woman out on the main highway had been unpleasant to say the least. Her body had been positively fused to the metal carcass of her vehicle. The stench had been pungent and overwhelming and made him think that he would never be able to look BBQ in the face again. Normally his job mainly consisted of mopping up Friday night fights at the local bars, but now he had two deaths in two days and for Denver Mills that was an avalanche.

  He drove out to the Midkiff farm unable to enjoy the pleasant summer sun as it baked his arm that sat on the rolled down window. The air was thick with the scent of crops baking in the heat and it was always his favourite time of year. That was, when he wasn’t scraping up remains off of the main road.

  He pulled into the driveway and shook his head at the lack of care and maintenance about the farm. He knew that Dale’s wife had taken the kids and left him a few years back and the gruff man’s mood had soured over the years. Midkiff was a regular around the bars, and often drank away more than he had in his pocket. Gaines knew that there was a circle of people around the Trotter trial who had all benefitted or fallen apart after the verdict was handed down. Dale had been the jury foreman who had paid off his mortgage on the farm about two weeks after the trial. His wife had left soon after and the man’s life had gone downhill fast. He had interviewed Dale several times over the years in an unofficial capacity of course. The man had kept a stony silence over the subject and had shown no remorse for whatever his own part had been. There had been no guilt and Gaines could only guess that karma was indeed a bitch.

  He saw Katherine Jacket, one of the town’s three deputies standing on the farmhouse porch. Jacket waved him over with a shaky arm and a green face. She was the youngest deputy at 22 and Gaines knew that the other two would have given her the shitty detail to spare their own tender stomachs. Katy was a broad and athletic young woman who joined the thickset farmhands that permeated the small town. She was a milky white but strong looking young woman with wide shoulders and a seemingly permanent smattering of ache. Her most distinguishing feature was a small crescent moon birthmark on her cheek that she often hid with subtle makeup. Gaines had noticed that the young woman had a habit of placing her hand over her cheek in a casual gesture that spoke to her self-consciousness over the blemish. She might be first in line when it came to the physicality department, but her mind was also sharp and clear.

  “Hey Katy,” Gaines greeted her on the dirt track that passed for a driveway.

  “Hi Sherman,” Katy managed through green gills.

  “What have we got? Did old Dale finally fall over drunk and get himself mangled in one of the farm machines?”

  “Not exactly,” Katy said gingerly. “He’s over there in the doorway.”

  Gaines looked over the young deputy’s shoulder towards the house. He could see a pair of sturdy work boots sticking out from under a sheet. “What happened?” He asked, interested and afraid of the same answer.

  “From near as the doc can tell, he got sprayed in the face with something acidic.”

  “How acidic?” Gaines asked with a lump in his throat.

  “Damn near burned the flesh off right to the bone.”

  Gaines steeled himself against the forthcoming sight. He knew that he was going to have to take a peek under that sheet that already looked to be soaked through with something wet and slimy. Ever since the fire at Blackwater Heights he had tried to reach out for information about the fatalities, but the authorities in charge were being obstinate to say the least. He would have thought that if anyone was entitled to information about Arnold Trotter, it would be Denver Mills.

  He walked to the doorway and put on his coat of armor that he’d often worn when working real cases on real streets. It had been a lifetime since he’d had to wear that suit and he’d hoped that he’d retired it for good.

  “Hey Sherman,” Doc Norton greeted him.

  The town doctor was an old man that shuffled around with the infirmities of the elderly. He had to be past retirement age by now, but he showed little signs of walking away. He was around five feet seven with a lean build with cold blue eyes. He was quick witted, but sharp tongued with it.

  “What’s up doc?” Gaines grinned with a forced brevity.

  “Your cholesterol I’m guessing if you’re still eating daily from Nan’s Diner,” Norton replied without his wrinkled face cracking.

  “Any idea what caused this?” Gaines said ignoring the jibe as he knelt down before the corpse. He placed a trembling hand on the sheet and pulled it back slowly with a dry mouth. The sheet stuck to the bo
dy underneath and his stomach rolled as he heard the sound of something falling with a soft plop onto the wooden floor below.

  “I can show you the photos later if you like,” the doctor said generously. “I had Katy run off a few shots.”

  “Thanks for the offer doc, but it’s my town and I have to set the example.”

  Gaines ripped the sheet back and stared down at the mess below. Dale Midkiff’s head was now dissolved beyond recognition. “Are you sure that it’s Dale?”

  “Yep, I brought that boy into the world and treated every ailment ever since. If I couldn’t recognise one of my own boys, then what good would I be? Besides his ID is still in his back pocket,” Norton grinned.

  “You’re a funny man doc,” Gaines said as he let the sheet go and gratefully stood up and away from the mess.

  “As for cause, as yet I have no idea. We’ll have to send some samples out for analysis; we simply don’t have the equipment to find out for ourselves. As for motive, I guess that’s your department.”

  Gaines felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his soul. A lifetime ago he had been a real cop with a real gut. Now that long dormant beast was telling him that something was seriously wrong in his adopted town and that things were only going to get worse.

  ----------

  Graham Moss found himself trapped inside a wooden barrel that came up to his chin. His hands and feet were still bound and the caped and hooded figure had lifted him from the boot of the car with inhuman strength. The figure had lifted him from behind and he had been unable to glance upon a face. The field was deserted and he looked around desperately at the isolated landscape.

  “What do you want from me?” Moss strove for an authoritative tone, but fell someway short.

  “You know this would be so much easier if I had my equipment,” the figure moaned quietly. “But I guess that we’ve all got our own problems.”