To Obey

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  The sole occupant of the room, a man of approximately six feet, dressed in a spotless dress suit with perfect pleats, rose as Susan entered. His coat and pants were a dark and solid blue; the shirt lighter with vertical stripes. He was clearly a proponent of the gym, with sculpted pectorals, a slender waist reminiscent of old Ken dolls, and arms that filled out his sleeves. He sported short, spiky hair the color of straw; quick hazel eyes beneath tweezed brows; and a clean-shaven, boxy chin. He appeared midthirties, with just a hint of middle-aged coarsening. She noticed no gray in his hair, even at the temples, and he appeared sleek and stylish, except for the anachronistic suit. No one wore them anymore, to Susan’s knowledge. Suits had gone the way of the strangulating tie, replaced by the khakis and dress polos she and her colleagues wore to work.

  The man offered his hand across the desk. “Detective Jake Carson. What can I do for you?”

  Susan took his hand and gave it a brisk shake. He had a dry and solid grip, and held for only a moment before releasing her. “My name is Dr. Susan Calvin. I’m here to talk about my father’s murder.”

  “Ah.” Jake gestured at the chair in front of his desk before turning to pull a folder from one of the cubbies and laying it on the remarkably uncluttered surface. “I spoke with you on Vox, Dr. Calvin. Remember? I told you we had closed the case. Your father died of natural causes.”

  Susan did not take the proffered chair. When the detective turned, he found himself looking directly into her bosom, which clearly startled him. He immediately flicked his gaze to her face. “Dr. Calvin, please sit.”

  Susan remained in place. “Detective Carson, I’d rather not.”

  “Jake,” he suggested.

  “Susan.” She gave the standard response, not at all sure she should have. He had the strategic advantage of being on his territory, in his office. She could have given herself a similar one by remaining on superior ground in the area of titles. “And my father was murdered.”

  Ignoring her decision to remain standing, Jake sat in his chair and leaned back. “Susan, I know you loved your father. I understand he was a brilliant scientist. When a loved one dies suddenly, it can be hard to believe they were felled by something so strange and unexpected. But the autopsy doesn’t lie.”

  “An autopsy,” Susan said coldly, “was never done.”

  Jake sat up. He studied her. “I assure you it was. I have the report right here.” He opened the folder.

  Susan did not wait for him to find the proper paper. “The autopsy report is a forgery.”

  Jake sighed deeply. “Susan,” he said firmly. “This must be extremely difficult for you, and I do sympathize. However…”

  “There are bullet holes in my walls.”

  Jake crinkled his face, then shook his head. “You’re mistaken, Susan. You’re misinterpreting what you’re seeing.”

  Susan did not give him time to concoct a plausible explanation or refer to a preplanned cover story. “And decapitation is not a natural cause of death.”

  Jake froze. He studied Susan for a moment, as if afraid to speak. When he did, the words seemed to blossom from nowhere, blatant non sequiturs. “You’re a beautiful woman, Susan. I’d be honored if you’d agree to have dinner with me.”

  Susan’s mouth opened, but no words emerged. She stood there, stupidly staring at him. She wanted to ask him to repeat what he had said, but the idea of stammering out a “what?” only made her feel more stupid. She met his earnest gaze and found nothing akin to desire. Instead she found promise and desperation. Clearly, he wanted to talk to her somewhere other than his office. “All…right,” she finally managed, the wind collapsing from her sails in an instant.

  Jake rose, placed an arm on Susan’s shoulders and guided her toward the exit from his office. There was no passion in his touch, just a firmness that forced her to walk in the direction he specified. “Wait for me in the waiting area. I’m off duty in five minutes, and I need to punch out. Then we’ll go eat wherever you prefer.”

  Susan found herself moving without intending to do so. He walked her to the waiting area, then released her and turned back into his office. Susan swung around to watch his retreating back, wondering exactly what had just happened. She had not finished what she needed to say, and she had every intention of doing so. If he harbored any notion of sneaking out a side or back exit and giving her the slip, she would see to it he regretted that decision, even if it meant destroying his career.

  Susan need not have worried. As promised, Jake appeared within a few minutes, his hair neatly combed, the file on John Calvin tucked under one arm, a palm-pross under the other. He said some words to the receptionist, then beckoned to Susan with crisp movements of his fingertips. They walked out the door together.

  Silently, Jake Carson ushered Susan into the parking lot to a Subaru Sapphire parked perfectly within the lines of its compact space. He opened the passenger’s door for her, a gallantry she had not seen outside of movies, and she found herself in a small, clean leather seat that seemed almost to embrace her. She had rarely traveled by anything other than public transportation. Personal cars had been rendered unnecessary, and her father particularly avoided them ever since the accident that had injured him and killed her mother.

  Susan discarded that last line of thought, which had risen so naturally. Her father was not a man and probably could not have obtained a driver’s license. She now knew Amanda Calvin, or whatever her last name had been, had not died in a crash, either. A car had, in fact, never played a role in the loss or serious injury of her parents. Susan no longer had a reason to fear automobiles, yet she found herself unable to fully quell her long-held abhorrence. She waited until Jake settled into the driver’s seat before saying the first inanity that came to her mind. “Nice car.”

  “It gets me where I want to go.” Jake placed the folder and palm-pross into a pull-out shelf, then settled them in place. He looked at Susan. “Before you get the wrong idea, you should know I’m gay as a nightingale.”

  Once again, Jake managed to render Susan speechless. Though she had never really believed he found her skinny frame and plain features so exquisitely desirable he had to ask her out before even getting to know her, she still had not expected that kind of candor. Luckily, he did not seem to expect a response.

  “I just needed to get you away from the recordings. Nothing said or done in a police station is private anymore.” He pulled out of his parking spot smoothly and drove toward the street. “Now, where do you want to go? We should probably head for a restaurant, just in case.”

  “Anywhere’s fine. Nothing expensive, please. We’re obviously going Dutch.”

  “I’ll pay.” Jake responded defensively. “Romantic or not, I did ask you out.”

  “Wouldn’t hear of it.” Susan hoped she had the last word. She had not meant to offend him. “I know what policemen make.”

  “More than medical residents, I’d warrant.” Jake inadvertently revealed he knew more about her than she had told the investigators. She had merely informed them she was a medical doctor. “But if you insist, I’m not going to fight with you. I was actually hoping for a home-cooked meal.”

  “Home-cooked?” Susan did not know what he meant. “Are you taking me to your place?”

  “Your place. I was hoping you’d show me the bullet holes and allow me to make my own judgment.”

  “You mean, as opposed to the party line?” Susan could not resist. “Initially, I felt like the police came to help. Now I’m not so sure.” She expected Jake to vigorously object, and appreciated it when he remained silently contemplative.

  The detective clearly knew the way to Susan’s apartment, so she did not bother giving him directions. “So,” he said, “decapitation?”

  Susan got the feeling he was testing her knowledge of the situation, seeing how much she knew so he could make up a story to explain it. “Prior to his arrival at the morgue, someone separated my father’s head from his body. Please don’t insult my intelligence
by suggesting it just popped off during the course of a seizure.”

  Jake shook his head, keeping his attention on the road. Modern cars took nearly all of the guesswork out of driving, but competent drivers still remained alert and studied the conditions around them. “Certainly not. Removing a head from a body requires a large, sharp instrument and an enormous amount of brute force. Few things insult my willing suspension of disbelief more than some primitive warrior in a movie sending heads flying with nothing but a copper sword and a bodybuilder’s forearms.” He glanced at Susan, apparently concerned she might find his casual discussion of decapitation offensive.

  Susan was quick to agree with him. “A galloping horse and a finely honed war axe might do the trick, but even that would more likely break the neck than sever it.” She looked directly at Jake. “So, you’re not suggesting my father tripped over the vacuum cleaner and cut off his own head with a wayward butter knife.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So?” Susan pressed.

  Jake sighed. “You’re absolutely certain he arrived at the morgue…um…headless.”

  “This is my father we’re talking about. I’d hardly get that wrong. Would I?”

  Jake cleared his throat. He licked his lips.

  Susan folded her arms across her chest with a snort. “Do I seem like a hysteric to you? I know you want to give me some gibberish about mental states and loved ones and delusions. I’m a psychiatrist, Jake. Believe me, I’ve seen and heard it all. I personally went down to the morgue at Manhattan Hasbro, where they took him, not this phony forensics lab you claimed performed the autopsy. His head did not arrive with him. His body disappeared soon afterward, under mysterious circumstances. One thing I know for certain: It never went to the chief medical examiner’s office. An autopsy was never done, and that report you have is fraudulent.”

  Jake’s shoulders slumped. “Susan, if the body disappeared under mysterious circumstances, as you say, how do you know it never went to the chief medical examiner’s office?”

  Susan shook her head. She could not reveal the source of that information. “Let’s just say I know it for a fact, and work from there.”

  Jake pulled into the familiar parking lot, and Susan’s anxiety increased. She knew the area as well as her own name. She had always felt safe there, welcomed, enveloped by her father’s loving presence. Now, it seemed sterile and empty, shadowing hidden and lethal dangers. “For someone who wants me to defy my superiors and come clean, you’re sure not revealing much yourself.”

  Susan remained seated in the idling car. “So, you admit you know things about this case that you’re hiding from me?”

  Jake’s brows inched upward. “Ah, a poker game. I assure you, I do know how to bluff. Wouldn’t it be better if we both just laid our cards flat on the table, Susan?”

  “I’d like that,” Susan agreed. “You go first.”

  Susan did not expect him to comply, so it surprised her when he turned in his seat, propped his knees against the console, and turned her an expression raw with honesty. “Your father did not die of natural causes. Your turn.”

  Susan dismissed his forthrightness. “Tell me something I don’t already know. Something I didn’t tell you first.”

  Jake twisted his lips, as if eating something bitter. “Fine. The head was not on the scene when my colleagues found him.” He looked at Susan intently, as if uncertain whether she might lie about already having the information.

  Susan wanted to do that, to keep teasing facts from him under the guise of knowing it all, but she was too honest to pull off the scam. “All right, my turn. I know who took the body.”

  Jake leaned toward her eagerly. “Who?”

  “When you tell me who has the head, I’ll tell you who has the body.”

  Conflicting emotions crossed Jake’s face and passed. He sighed again. “I understand you’re a highly competent psychiatrist.”

  Susan guessed where this was leading. “Competent enough to know when someone’s lying, no matter how well trained to bluff. And if you don’t tell me the truth, we’re finished.”

  Jake bobbed his head and tucked his legs more comfortably. She wondered how long he planned to keep her in the car. “Just so you know, I’m also trained to read faces, body language, and other nonverbal cues.”

  “I would be disappointed if you weren’t.” It surprised Susan to realize she liked the man and found herself wishing he had not referred to himself as “gay as a nightingale.” “Are you really gay or did you just say that to put me off?”

  Jake grinned. “You’re the incomparable people reader. You tell me.”

  Susan considered what she knew about Detective Jake Carson thus far. He had a conspicuously macho job, which could represent overcompensation. He did display some stereotypically gay characteristics: painstaking attention to detail, especially in dress and appearance; good muscle tone; a lack of photos on his desk and walls, as if he preferred no one knew his personal business and he wanted to avoid teasing from coworkers. Many years had passed since anyone batted an eye at sexual preferences, but she could see where a gay policeman might feel inclined to keep his proclivities a secret. “It’s a bit of a joke that manly men don’t buy cars from Subaru’s gemstone line, but you don’t seem the type to fall prey to pigeonholes.”

  Jake chuckled. “Subaru calls it their ‘hard rock’ line, but I’m not sure that makes things any better. And yes, I’m really gay. Cops don’t kid about stuff like that.” His eyes narrowed. “Clever way to distract me, though. It’s your turn to tell me something you’ve learned about this case. I don’t suppose you know who killed your father.”

  “At least you’re admitting he was killed.” Susan thought back to the last revealed fact. “And you’re the one being clever. It’s actually your turn to tell me something.”

  Jake opened his door. “How about if I give you a professional assessment of the apartment? I haven’t actually seen it yet. I’m relying on what you and the investigating officers have told me.”

  Jake got out and headed around the front of car, but Susan did not wait for him. She opened her own door and stepped out into the parking lot. “A deal,” she said, “as long as I get a fair and honest investigation and not more twaddle.”

  Jake took Susan’s arm, displaying the lost manners of distant predecessors. Susan suspected a greatly loved or overbearing mother had probably drummed them into his head. She rather enjoyed the attention, finding his proprieties flattering, even though he probably executed them more from rote than from any particular intention. Since Remington’s death, no man had gone out of his way to perform those little niceties that most women publicly shunned but many secretly appreciated.

  Seized with sudden insecurity and a jangling sense of alarm, Susan wondered if she could ever feel normal again after an event of this magnitude. She understood why so many families chose to leave their homes after a death, even one from a lingering disease, during which they had plenty of time to adjust to the inevitable. The building seemed unfriendly, almost hostile, a quiet testament to the abrupt and ugly change the world had taken in the last couple of days. She never remembered seeing such hollow looks in her neighbors’ eyes, never recalled her footsteps echoing in the hallways, never realized how dim and poorly revealing the lights in the shared spaces must have always been.

  Quite unconsciously, Susan found herself stepping over the place where Sammy Cottrell had taken her last gasping breaths. The body was gone, of course, along with a hunk of carpet that had soaked up the scarlet stain of her exsanguination. Susan did not bother to point it out to Jake, though the detective did kneel to examine the scene while she inserted her thumb to activate the door lock to the apartment she had shared with John Calvin. Man or robot, she still considered him her father.

  The lock clicked, and Susan pushed open the door into the wreckage of what had once been their tidy little apartment. She had examined the scene twice before, and it should have looked hauntingly similar, but
it did not. The destruction had clearly intensified, the couches and chairs wholly disassembled, their cushions reduced to strips of colored cloth. The enormous picture of Amanda that had filled most of one wall for as long as she could remember now lay shattered on the floor, hacked to bits by a questing knife.

  Susan unleashed a shattered moan that brought Jake to her side.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Susan pointed. “My mother died when I was just three. That picture used to be of her. It was my father’s prized possession.”

  Jake lowered his head respectfully. “I’m sorry.”

  “Earlier today, it was off the wall, clearly checked over, but mostly intact.”

  Jake crouched in front of the remains. “Wait…did you say earlier today?”

  “I was here before I came to see you. Remember, I told you about finding the bullet holes.” Susan’s gaze went instinctively to the places she had seen them. Now the wall held myriad gouges, including one that caved in the area where she had noted several obvious bullet holes. “What the hell?” She looked back at the door, which Jake had carefully closed behind them. “I heard the lock click when I triggered it just now. I swear I didn’t leave it open.”

  Jake did not contradict or suggest she might have made a mistake. “There’re ways around a simple thumbprint lock. A professional would know them.”

  “A professional?” Susan looked around the room again. Someone had definitely entered in the hours between her last visit and this one. “You think a professional killed my father? A gangster?”

  “No.”

  It was not the answer Susan expected. She whirled to face Jake Carson. “No? Didn’t you just say…”

  “I said a professional could get past a thumbprint lock. A professional definitely tossed this apartment.”

  “Tossed?”