The Law Of Three argi-4

by M. R. Sellars

  Remnants of the recent holiday season still visibly occupied the reception area of the office. Customarily, the room was bland and functional, so the ornamentation was quick to conjure a “what’s wrong with this picture” feeling.

  Intertwined silver and gold garland still hung in shallow swags along the edge of the counter with a dozen or so holiday cards folded over them and on display. The screen saver on the computer behind the desk offered a snowy scene, complete with an inviting-looking log cabin and a twinkling Christmas tree. Here and there, other decorous attentions to detail could be picked out-a coffee mug emblazoned with a picture of Santa Claus; a wreath on the door leading back to the offices, also locked; and even a half-depleted bowl of festively-wrapped candies. All of them came together to form the whole: an unlikely clutch of cheer in the midst of a place that seemed overwhelmed by depression. I didn’t know about anyone else, but it just wasn’t working for me.

  I’d seen the inside of this building too many times, not only in my waking hours but in nightmares as well. I had grown to despise its plain facade over the past couple of years. Still, as much as I hated it, I couldn’t escape. If it was nothing more than morbid fascination that brought me here, at least I could seek help, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a sickness to blame. I had become a permanent satellite inextricably gripped by the gravity of circumstance; my erratic orbit inevitably intersecting with an occupied autopsy suite. As often as not, I felt compelled to bring about the collision myself, and right now, I was at ground zero of yet another impact. Even though I was not at fault this time around, the ever-associated migraine was looming like a dark shadow over me.

  This place was always a seething well of pain for me, and this morning was no different; of course, my irascibility factor being off the scale as it was didn’t help matters at all. I had started hearing the voices of the dead-screams mostly-the moment we turned onto Clark Avenue. Staving them off became a somewhat violent internal struggle as soon as we entered the building.

  I sought refuge from the ethereal by embracing the mundane. I occupied my mind with trivial tasks in order to erect a mental barrier-anything from mutely reciting the alphabet in reverse to intensely pondering a shadow on the wall. At one point, I even found myself wondering about the holiday cards. Considering that the clientele of a morgue are normally beyond any need for celebration, they seemed out of place to me. I reached down and flipped one of the greetings partially open to reveal the inscription, which showed it to be from a sales rep at Stryker Corporation, a well-known maker of medical implements. I checked another and saw that the sender was a local wholesaler of surgical supplies.

  I guess I had been over thinking the situation. Of course, in my agitated state, perhaps I was not truly thinking at all.

  Unfortunately, seeing the names of the companies led me to dwell on such things as powered bone saws and stainless steel scalpels, which in turn brought back memories of post-mortems I’d witnessed first hand. Fearful cries from the other side rose in volume for a brief moment as I rushed to switch channels on my thoughts before they could suck me in.

  “Aye, Ben. How long do you think we’ll be waiting, then?” Felicity asked aloud, her voice thankfully snatching my attention away from the place I’d been heading.

  There had not yet been enough time for me to redeem myself, and I was still firmly entrenched on her bad side. She hadn’t spoken directly to me since my offhanded comment over half an hour ago, and it wasn’t looking like she intended to change that any time soon.

  I looked over and focused on her. She was seated in a chair across from us, her leather jacket unzipped and revealing the stylized logo of a previous year’s Kansas City Pagan Festival that adorned the front of her sweatshirt. Her legs were crossed, and one foot was bobbing in time with music only she could hear.

  I absently pondered the wisdom of the logo on her shirt being visible, given the current situation. For the first time in years, I was actually considering not being quite so open about my spirituality. Of course, once you’ve taken as many steps out of the broom closet as we had, getting back in was almost impossible, so the idea was moot. Still, calling attention to it might not be the best course.

  She looked up from her wristwatch and gazed toward Ben with an expectant expression that barely masked the fatigue showing in her face. “It’s been almost twenty minutes now.”

  He pushed away from the counter then looked out the doors and through the glassed-in foyer. “Who knows? Bee-Bee probably wants Row to stew long enough to do somethin’ stupid.”

  “Like he hasn’t already?” she volunteered.

  “Yeah, well I’m talkin’ stupid enough to give her a reason to arrest ‘im.”

  “Hey!” I declared. “I’m standing right here you know.”

  Ben looked at me. “Yeah, and?”

  “Yeah, and, you two seem to have a bad habit of talking about me like I’m not here, that’s what. You do it all the time.”

  “Not all the time. Just when it’s for your own good.”

  “That’s subjective.”

  “Uh-huh. Two-way street, Row. You aren’t exactly the pinnacle of objectivity yourself.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. Of course, that didn’t mean I had to like it. “Well, it’s still annoying.”

  “Yeah, well so’s when you talk to dead people the rest of us can’t hear.”

  Felicity piped up, a matter-of-fact tone permeating her voice. “Aye, Ben’s right.”

  “What do you mean?” I scrunched my forehead as I spoke. “You’ve ventured over to the other side yourself as I recall.”

  “Not about that.” She dismissed my comment with an impatient shake of her head. “About your giving Lieutenant Albright a reason to arrest you, then. If you don’t calm down, you’re going to do just that.”

  “You’re not gonna win, Row,” Ben offered. “Especially if you play ‘push me-shove you’ with her. She’ll knock your ass down and kick you while you’re there.”

  “Whatever happened to the whole ‘to protect and serve’ thing?” I asked.

  “Number one,” he returned, “you’ve been watchin’ too much TV. And number two, never pull the ‘taxpayin’, law-abidin’ citizen who pays your salary’ crap with a copper. Trust me, it just pisses us off.”

  “So, it’s okay for her to treat me like a criminal?”

  “How many times have I gotta tell ya’, Row? This is reality. She’s holdin’ the cards here, not you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I grudgingly admitted. “But she’s still getting to me.”

  “That’s YOUR problem, then,” Felicity said. “You know how to get around that. Ground and center yourself.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” I said as I pulled my glasses off and rubbed my eyes, lingering for a moment as I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.

  “How’s your head?” Felicity asked, her voice still edgy but softened by a few degrees of concern.

  “Killing me,” I answered.

  “Twilight Zone?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah,” I nodded slightly. “And we’re already hell and gone past the signpost.”

  CHAPTER 6:

  Lieutenant Albright breezed in through the front doors of the medical examiner’s office just over twenty minutes later. True to what Ben had told me earlier, her gelid expression had not changed in the least.

  “Mister Gant,” she said as she entered, cracking what might have passed for a pleasant smile had there not been so much sarcasm affixed to it. “I am surprised to find you here in the lobby as I asked. Apparently you CAN obey the law if you try hard enough.”

  “The door is locked,” I answered coldly. “You know that.”

  “Of course.” She nodded. “But that sort of thing has never stopped you in the past.”

  I caught an acidic response in my throat and choked it back down, turning my head to the side and closing my eyes as I did so. I heeded Felicity’s advice and t
ook an audibly deep breath in through my nose, then exhaled slowly through my mouth as I opened my eyes and turned back to face Albright. I could feel energy flowing along my spine and coupling with the Earth in a solid ground. It was as tangible to me as a hot and neutral lead on an electrical outlet. Still, it didn’t bring complete calm, and simply being in this woman’s presence made me bristle.

  “Look, Lieutenant,” I began. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. I have no desire to continue down this path with you.”

  “And which path would that be, Mister Gant?” she asked, feigning ignorance.

  “I’m telling you that I am not going to allow you to bait me any longer, Lieutenant,” I replied. “I’m here, just like you asked. I’m just waiting for you to tell me what it is you want from me.”

  I cannot say that she was visibly disappointed by my stance, but I definitely had the feeling that some of her steam had instantly become just so much condensation. There was a short period of silence while she considered what I had just said. I fully suspected that she was using the time to regroup and plot her way around the obstacle I had just placed before her.

  “Mister Gant,” she proceeded with a tilt of her head. “What I want, you cannot possibly give.”

  “How so?”

  “No matter what powers you may claim to have, you cannot change that which has already happened. I firmly believe that the man on the table beyond that door is there because of you. There is nothing you can do to bring him back nor any of the other victims for that matter.”

  “No. No I can’t,” I agreed in a quiet tone.

  “Now, just a little while ago I had the unpleasant duty of phoning Mister Harper’s wife to ask that she come down here to identify his remains, and…”

  She didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Like a banshee wail, Felicity’s voice pierced the air between us, rendering everyone mute. “You what?!”

  “Excuse me?” Albright turned her hard stare on my wife.

  “Aye,” Felicity began as she stood and moved forward, bringing herself eye-to-eye with the lieutenant with no more than a pair of steps between them. “You told Nancy that Randy was dead, over the phone?”

  “And what would you have had me do, Miz O’Brien?” she shot back.

  “Send someone to tell her in person.”

  “That is not how it is done.”

  The one word response that my wife uttered next surprised everyone, including me. “Bitch.”

  The thick calm that enveloped her as she spoke was something I had seen only once before and was in no hurry to see again. The button that had now been pushed was well up the column from what I’d done earlier. I wasn’t sure if there were enough Gods to create a pantheon that was capable of quelling the fire that had just been ignited.

  I actually saw a wash of surprise flow across Lieutenant Albright’s features as she stared back at the redheaded tempest in front of her. It was obvious that Felicity’s outburst had blindsided her.

  “What did you just say?” she asked.

  “I think you heard me, then,” my wife answered with frigid purpose in her voice as she cocked her head to the side and glared. “But I’ll be more than happy to repeat it for you if you’d like.”

  The door on the back wall of the lobby clicked loudly and then whooshed open just as Albright started to open her mouth. A pale young man with a stoic expression and scraggly goatee poked his head through the opening and regarded us with general disinterest. After a moment, he pushed the door wider and held it open with his back against it.

  “Doc says for you to come on back” was all he said.

  Albright swung her gaze from the young man back to Felicity and shook her index finger perfunctorily as she mustered a menacing tone. “We will finish this discussion later.”

  “Aye,” my wife retorted as she gave her a curt nod, but still never broke eye contact. “I’ll be looking forward to it, then.”

  *****

  “Johnathan, could you please turn that down?” The medical examiner on duty called out to the diener who had led us back to the autopsy suite, raising his voice to be heard over the music that filled the room.

  On the opposite wall, the young man was standing at a stainless steel sink performing what must have been some daily routine considering the mechanically adept way he was approaching it. Whatever it was, it involved angry-looking medical implements that appeared as though they would be more at home on the set of a horror movie.

  Aphrodite’s Child’s “Four Horsemen” was blaring from the speakers of a compact stereo nestled on a shelf in an out of the way corner. Considering the tune was one that came from my generation, it was not the type of music I would have expected to appeal to someone as young as the assistant, but to each their own.

  He wordlessly abandoned his task for a moment to step over and spin the knob on the bookshelf sound system. He dropped the volume out of our range of hearing just as the chorus was about to inform us as to the color of the fourth horse.

  It didn’t matter. Like most anyone, I already knew the color and what it represented. I found no particular amazement in the coincidental symbolism either. It was the sort of thing that seemed to be happening to me constantly these days, and I’d grown jaded to it.

  “Thank you,” the M.E. stated aloud, the tone sounding as though the words came more from habit than actual courtesy.

  We were standing next to a metal table in the tiled room. The form resting atop it was zipped partially into a body bag that could be seen at the foot. From the vicinity of the waist upward, it was also covered by a white sheet, a necessity because of the two-by-four that was still attached to the corpse.

  The weathered length of wood jutted out on either side, exposed for all to see. Randy’s pale hand was twisted into a pained claw, his wrist mottled purple and swollen where several circlets of bailing wire held it fast to the wood. Frozen blood streaked the appendage and glistened wetly as it thawed.

  I stole a glance at Felicity. She was holding her eyes tightly shut with her fist pressed against her lips. Her visceral anger had been replaced for the moment by bitter anguish.

  I took a deep breath of the frigid air in the suite as I struggled to maintain control, myself. The smell of death and raw meat stung my nostrils, and I choked back the desire to vomit. The fact that a good friend was lifeless beneath the shroud made this experience different from any other. Even when I’d helped investigate Ariel Tanner’s death, I had never been in close proximity to her corpse as I was now with Randy. I wasn’t entirely sure I could handle it.

  If the increasing throbs inside my skull were any indicator, I would have to say no.

  The doctor turned his attention to us. “Now then, we won’t be starting the post until later this morning…”

  “Is Doc Sanders doing it?” Ben interjected, referring to the chief medical examiner for the city.

  “Doctor Sanders is on vacation right now,” the M.E. replied.

  “What about calling her in,” my friend pressed. “She’s familiar with the way this wingnut operates, and I’m sure…”

  “I am certain Doctor Friedman can handle the task, Detective,” Albright announced with a thread of agitation in her voice, cutting him off mid-sentence.

  “I’m afraid she is unreachable.” The doctor was obviously miffed but offered the explanation anyway. “If I remember her itinerary correctly, she is on a cruise ship somewhere in the Bahamas.”

  “When’s she get back?” Ben forged ahead.

  “Storm!”

  “Yeah, okay, sorry Doc. You were saying?”

  The M.E. sighed and then continued, “We won’t be starting the official post until later this morning; however, I assume you are all aware of the condition of the body, so the cause of death is not likely to be much of a mystery.”

  “How did you ID him?” I asked

  “His driver’s license,” Lieutenant Albright answered for him.

  “He was nude when I saw him h
anging from the building,” I ventured. “Where did you find that? With the note?”

  “Not exactly,” she replied. “Doctor?”

  The M.E. looked surprised. “Lieutenant, since Mister Gant knew the deceased, I am not certain that…”

  “No, Doctor,” she returned. “I insist. Mister Gant needs to see this.”

  Doctor Friedman glanced at me with an apologetic shake of his head. I had met him before, and this was the closest I’d seen to real compassion from the man. That made me fear what I was about to see even more.

  His sudden attack of humanity was well placed, but he just didn’t have the backbone to stand up to Albright. Without another word, he pulled back the sheet, hesitating initially before finally executing the deed.

  “Awww, Jeeeez…” Ben exclaimed. “Lieutenant…”

  “Shut up, Storm,” she cut him off yet again.

  Eldon Porter wanted no mistakes made in identifying Randy Harper. In point of fact, he had gone out of his way to be certain of it.

  Bile rose in my throat, and I began to physically tremble from the sickening mixture of sadness, pain, and overwhelming anger as I stared at the horror before me.

  Felicity yelped, and I heard her behind me as she began to sob, but she was soon drowned out by the thick noise of blood rushing in my ears as my pulse began to race.

  The means of identification was just what Albright had said it to be-a Missouri driver’s license. What she hadn’t warned me of was the fact that it was firmly affixed to the center of his forehead by a framing nail driven deeply into his skull. Judging from the lack of severe trauma, Porter had probably used a nail gun.

  I probably would have stood there transfixed by the appalling sight, eventually falling into ethereal sync with the final violent moments of his life had it not been for the anguished scream that suddenly sliced through the room.