Legally Wasted

by Tommy Strelka

  “I don’t know him, Larkin.”

  “Well get to know him, goddamn it.”

  “Mr. Monroe?” asked Terry.

  “What?”

  “It’s a divorce,” said Terry. “I figured after she done hit me, it would be a fairly simple case. You know, vehicular battery and all.”

  Larkin closed his eyes and balled his fists. He needed a drink, a gun, anything that could do damage to himself or others. With his eyes shut tight, he spoke through gritted teeth. “You can’t afford to buy a goddamn band-aid to put on your hand. I’m paying for that bandage right now, because you don’t have insurance. I should sue you, Terry, as a taxpayer.”

  Terry laughed. “It’s all good, Mr. Monroe, I’m receiving disability now and everything and - -”

  “You’re not married. How in the hell can you get a divorce?” Anger seeped like sweat down his forehead.

  “Common law wife,” said Terry.

  “And you,” said Larkin as he jabbed a finger toward Ron. “You send him to me?”

  Ron raised his hands, palms upwards. “Now, Larkin. Just take it easy. You’re not hearing him out. If his wife hit him with the car it shouldn’t be that hard. He’s got money. He’s collecting disability. And don’t be so hard on yourself. That judge just hated the both of us.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Monroe. I can pay you. Well, I mean I gotta get some money that some other people owe me, but I can pay you. I can pay you like two hundred next Friday and another two hundred dollars the Friday after that.”

  Larkin turned toward the door.

  “You always stuck with it,” said Ron. “Even when it got bad, you stuck with me.”

  Larkin leaned his forehead against the cold aluminum plating on the door. His head slipped a bit on the surface.

  “Sweaty mess,” he whispered. He opened his eyes and watched his breath fog over the nicked metal. He knew then exactly where all of his rage had originated. Terry was not to blame, it was himself. He knew the moment that he spotted Terry that no matter what came out of the hayseed’s mouth, he would take the case. He tilted his head back but he could not make out his reflection in the scratched metal surface. “I hate myself.”

  “What’s that?” asked Terry.

  “Just call me tomorrow afternoon, Terry,” said Larkin as he pushed the door open with great force and immediately knocked a nurse onto the hard off-white tiles.

  “Christ!” he yelled as he extended both hands to help the nurse back to her feet. Though she had been knocked off her feet, Larkin was comforted that she seemed to have tumbled well and did not appear to need any medical attention herself.

  She waved his hands away and glared. “There are windows on the doors for a reason. What are you doing on this floor?” She reached for a nearby stretcher and lifted herself off of the ground.

  “I . . . was visiting.” Larkin kept his hand extended as if evidence of his good intentions would prevent further inquiry. Sweat fell from his face to the floor. His hand remained extended for too long.

  “You weren’t visiting,” said the nurse. She reached her full height of just a tad over five feet and stepped closer to Larkin. “Who are you? Are you one of them lawyers?”

  Larkin ran. He rounded a corner and glanced from side to side, searching for an elevator. He heard shouts from behind him and cursed.

  “Stop running!” a woman screamed. It was good advice.

  Larkin nearly crashed into a pair of wheelchairs left unattended in the hallway. The chairs slowed him a bit, but he took a sharp right down another corridor and made it safely inside another elevator as the doors began closing. Grabbing his knee with his left hand to gasp, he slapped the lower row of buttons with his right.

  He looked up to see a man in a dark blue uniform with a badge hustling toward the elevator. Their eyes met and Larkin knew that both he and the cop had seen each other before. They did not know each other by name, but they had each seen the other in court a number of times.

  “Stop!” shouted the cop. The doors shut.

  Whether it was the gin or his historic hatred of all things cardiovascular, Larkin was quite out of breath. A wave of nausea passed over him and it nearly brought him to the elevator floor. As the doors opened, he staggered forward. A brick wall in front of him seemed inviting and he pressed his full weight against it. He coughed for a moment and fought the familiar urge to vomit.

  He had missed the ground floor. His hand must have hit a button for a lower level. In-between his gasps he realized that if the police or security were looking for him - - and they most likely were, a sweating, sprinting, nurse-assaulting man in a suit was big news in Big Lick - - the basement might be just the place to lay low for a moment. With his eyes shut he heard a loud click, a mechanical whirr, and then a blast of chilled air swirled around him. Goose bumps raised. Invigorated, he opened his eyes to see a janitor pulling a large plastic cart piled high with cleaning supplies out of an immense metal door marked with bio-hazard signs. The morgue.

  “Good God, that feels good,” Larkin whispered as he stood and straightened himself. The janitor looked up. Larkin nodded as he fished in his pocket for his cell phone. Quickly placing it to his ear, he acted like he was actively engaged in a very important conversation.

  “Yes, Steve,” he said in a voice a bit deeper than normal. “I’m on the bottom floor now as we arranged. Yes. I’ll just wait here for the medical examiner.” He watched the janitor close the morgue door and push three digits, 5, 5, 1, into a numeric keypad next to the door. The keypad beeped and the whirring sound repeated as the electronic deadbolt slid into place.

  As the janitor passed by and pressed the button for the elevator, Larkin gave a military-style salute while continuing to act like he had to negotiate a multi-million dollar corporate merger with an unnamed medical examiner in the morgue in about five or six minutes. As soon as the elevator doors shut and the janitor was gone, he headed to the door and punched in the code. The inner mechanisms released the lock and the door opened a few inches. He grabbed the handle and yanked. Cold air engulfed him.

  “Good lord,” he said as his breath floated away like a specter among the dozen dead bodies lining the metal shelves. All of the bodies, including four or five scattered haphazardly on stretchers in the middle of the room, were covered in sheets. An overhead bulb did not enhance the tone of the room. Though the sheets did a bit to dehumanize the corpses, the sight of so many exposed toes with attached tags was a bit horrid. Larkin’s stomach trembled as he noticed a large drain in the floor. But the cold air felt so damn good.

  He closed the door most of the way behind him, but did not shut it completely. Adrenaline coursed through his limbs as he moved slowly among the bodies. He stepped forward but his shoe slipped on the freshly waxed tile. His arms jutted sideways to catch his balance. The fingers of his right hand gripped the cold aluminum railing of a stretcher, but not before grazing the sheet-covered body upon it.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. He caught himself and stood upright. “Rebecca Overstreet,” he read on the nearby toe tag, “F.” Judging from the rather sizeable breasts beneath the sheet, he surmised that “F” meant “female” and also that Ms. Overstreet would likely be missed. Stepping carefully, he walked to the corner of the room and sat upon an unoccupied shelf that was affixed to the wall at or near normal bench height. He immediately felt the chilled concrete through his thin wool slacks. He quickly buttoned his coat.

  “Well this is nice,” he said, meaning every word. The air and the silence relaxed him. He watched his breath for a minute, and considered the notion that he was the only one breathing in the room. As his eyes adjusted to the level of light, he gazed upon the assortment of toes. Some had toenails that seemed old and brittle, while others appeared as if they had more wiggling left to do before God, cancer, or fate had decided that enough was enough.

  A big toe that seemed a bit smaller than most of the others peeked out from beneath a sheet only a few feet away on a stretcher. Pe
ach-colored nail polish looked to have been applied not too long before death. Larkin leaned forward and squinted at the tag.

  “Alex Jordan,” he read, “M.” He recognized the law clerk’s name. He stood and slowly approached. His foot slipped a bit on the tile, but the peach-painted toe had him in a tractor beam. He did not stumble. He stood directly over the body and made out the outline of the young woman’s body beneath the sheet. She was a slight thing and almost as flat-chested as a twelve year-old boy.

  With his right hand, he carefully flipped the toe tag over so the light fully shone upon the letters. “M,” he whispered. He looked back to the breasts. She had not been well-endowed in life, but there were definitely breasts. A few strands of red hair dangled over the edge of the stretcher.

  The “M” had to have been a mistake, thought Larkin, after all, Alex was indeed a man’s name. The picture of the person that the news footage had displayed earlier in the evening could never have been confused for a man. She was beautiful, attractive even, and utterly feminine.

  Larkin looked at the area of the sheet where Jordan’s pelvis would have been located. The fabric was thick and telegraphed no clues. He sighed loudly as he knew that he would give in to curiosity’s demands.

  Holding his breath, he gripped the edge of the sheet with his right hand. He counted to three and lifted. His eyes wandered down Jordan’s flat stomach. A small pink penis, like that of a child, lay against her left thigh.

  The morgue door opened and light flooded the room.

  Larkin screamed, staggered backward, slipped, and fell. His head hit something very hard. Intense pain freight-trained through his nerves as he gritted his teeth. Men shouted at him, but he could not discern the words. The pain was awful. He opened his eyes and saw flickering spots and slashes in his vision. The sheet that had once covered Alex Jordan floated downward through the frigid air. As a tip of the fabric touched his forehead and the rest blocked his vision, Larkin closed his eyes.

  50 Proof

  More rough, thick fabric rubbed against the nape of his neck. He opened his eyes and light struck his retinas like spear tips.

  “Jesus,” he growled. He tried to block the light with his right hand, but a locked handcuff prevented him. The cuff clanged against the metal railing that encircled his stretcher. Larkin bit his lip as the sound echoed in his aching skull.

  “He’s awake!” hollered Terry from across the room.

  “Just kill me now,” said Larkin. “Please, Lord, strike me down.”

  Heavy footsteps smacked against tiles. Larkin shifted on the cheap pillow. The back of his head stung like hell.

  “Good evening, Detective,” shouted Terry. “I haven’t stepped a single foot on Hank’s land since last time. Have your investigators found any leads, as it were, to what he done with my dog?”

  Through a crack in his eyelid, Larkin watched Detective Kincaid grip the undrawn curtain near Terry’s bed and, with a quick flick of his wrist, the curtain buzzed down the runner and blocked Terry from view. “Aw, man,” said Terry, concealed from view.

  Kincaid approached Larkin’s stretcher. He fidgeted with the remote control wired to his bed. Larkin’s bed whirred as the back rest tilted upward to a more vertical position.

  “Mr. Monroe.”

  Larkin squinted. Kincaid wore a full salt, pepper, and a pinch of Cajun seasoning beard that was in great need of a trim. Wild bristles poked out from his tan face like uncoiling springs. Stubble marked his cheeks and neck where he had neglected to shave for about three days.

  “Detective,” said Larkin. “You look like you could use a good cup of coffee.”

  “I’ve had three. You’ve had quite a night, here, Mr. Monroe.”

  Larkin raised his cuffed hand. “I seem to have been arrested.”

  “Mmmm,” said Kincaid as if he had just swallowed foul medicine. His fingers were noticeably worn and callused. “You’re in custody right now. You’re not arrested.”

  “You don’t need a lawyer to tell you that there isn’t much of a difference.”

  “You’re not in my custody. You’re in the custody of the hospital.”

  “I’m in hospital jail?” He smiled but it hurt.

  “You’re temporarily detained. Someone seemed to think you may have suffered a concussion. The handcuff is because of your trespass and a few other violations.” Kincaid cracked his knuckles.

  “So what do you plan on doing?” asked Larkin, although he had already imagined his law license engulfed in flames along with everything else in his dusty office. Strangely, he did not feel nearly as remorseful as he would have predicted.

  “Well,” said Kincaid, “I was thinking about obstruction of justice. That’s a class five felony.”

  Terry “ooohhhhed” from across the room and behind his curtain.

  “Shut it,” snapped Kincaid.

  “It’s only class five if I threatened you by force,” said Larkin. “Take it back to misdemeanor town, pal. But you’ll never even get that to stick. I don’t suppose you can get me a private room?”

  “And desecration of a body.”

  “A body,” repeated Larkin. “Would it be more accurate to say, his body?” He stared at Kincaid, but the cop did not even blink.

  “When did you meet, Ms. Jordan?”

  “You mean, mister - -”

  “Knock the crap off, Monroe.” Kincaid drew in close. “The attitude, I mean.” True to his word, he did indeed have coffee breath. Bloodshot eyes, perhaps even worse than Larkin’s, glared. “I’ve had to deal with two heaping handfuls of bullshit tonight. You give me anymore and I’ll make it two fists worth. Don’t dick me around. Not only are you going to lose your ticket from what you’ve been doing tonight, but I can make sure that the next several months are spent in close proximity to a lot of your former clients. I have half a notion to believe that some of those fellas were less than thrilled with your legal work.”

  “Da’yum,” drawled Terry.

  “For Pete’s sake,” said Kincaid as he swatted Terry’s curtain aside. Despite his two fists being filled with bullshit, Kincaid gripped the railing of Terry’s bed and escorted him to the door.

  “You’ve always done right by me, Mr. Monroe,” said Terry as he coasted by. He fell backward in his bed as the other end punched the double doors open and Kincaid sent him sailing into the hallway.

  “Watch out for nurses,” said Larkin as Kincaid returned to Larkin’s bedside. He gripped the aluminum railing of Larkin’s bed as if the cop planned on violently moving two beds that evening.

  “When did you meet the victim?”

  “I never met her,” said Larkin. He dropped all of his gin-infused, brain injury pseudo pretense. “That’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “You never met her,” repeated Kincaid flatly.

  “Never. I mean, come on, Kincaid. You know who she works for. I haven’t had a case go up the chain to the Supreme Court of Virginia in over five years and I’m certainly not her boss’s golfing buddy.”

  Kincaid took a step back and rubbed his beard. His eyebrows lifted as if he suddenly seemed to realize that he did indeed need a trim. “Then why did she have your business card?” he asked.

  “Business card? My business card?”

  “Cyber Card Print dot com,” said Kincaid. “One thousand cards for free,” he said as he recited the small print marking the back right bottom corner of each of Larkin’s business cards. “You just pay the shipping.”

  “Why did she have my business card?”

  “I already asked you that.”

  “Well,” said Larkin, “clearly, I don’t know!” He tried to raise his hands in exasperation, but only one arm would raise more than a few inches. “You read it yourself,” he said. “I ordered a thousand cards. That’s a lot of damn cards. I’ve been doing that deal online for years. I don’t know how in the hell she received one or why. I never met her . . . him.”

  “Where were you two nights ago?”

  “Dr
inking. Alone in my house. You can ask my cat.”

  Kincaid crossed his arms. He wore one of those neat blazers with suede patches on the elbows. “If you don’t know her, why did I just watch you knock yourself out looking over her body in the morgue?”

  “Look, Kincaid, I’m going to level with you.”

  “Now would be about the time.”

  “I came here tonight because Terry, the guy out in the hall - -”

  “I know him,” said Kincaid, “or at least his family.”

  “I figured you would. Well, I’ve represented him before. You see I have this deal worked out with this paramedic named Ron. I’m sure you can track him down if you want. He kind of gives me a heads up when good cases come rolling through the door here.”

  “Terry Woolwine is a good case?”

  Larkin had to laugh a bit to himself. At least others shared his opinion. “I didn’t say that. He’s a terrible case. But that’s why I was here. You can report me to the state bar if you want. I’m guilty of soliciting cases from people in the damn hospital. Report me, I’ll be in good company.”

  Kincaid smiled. He had a warm smile, a big welcoming Christmas morning smile. “Soliciting,” he said. “You mean ambulance chasing.”

  Larkin ignored him. “Whatever you call it, I was here to dig up work. That’s when I accidently bumped into a nurse outside in the hallway, a little thing filled with piss and vinegar. She alerted security because it wasn’t visiting hours or what have you. I thought about my law license and I panicked.”

  Kincaid continued to smile, but despite its warmth, Larkin knew that he was now just a punch line. “So in a panic you bolt through the building and instead of heading outside, you run down into the basement to let things cool off. When all of a sudden, you realize that the best possible hiding place is in a large cooler filled with dead bodies.”

  Larkin cocked his head. “In so many words.”

  “And you’ve never even heard Alex Jordan’s name before.”