The Memory Detective

by T. S. Nichols

  “Tell them not to move the body,” Cole answered his captain.

  “You can’t wimp out on me here, Cole,” the captain said, nearly growling. “You just said that you need another memory. We’ve got to solve this one before the news gets out. People will freak if they think there’s some international serial killer out there and we don’t have a single lead.”

  “I’m not wimping out, captain. I’m going to Montreal. I’m already in Boston. I can be there in seven hours. Tell them not to move the body.”

  “It’s all been arranged already, Cole. Just come back to New York. The doctors are ready.”

  “They have doctors in Montreal, right?” Cole asked. Then he looked out the hotel room window across the Boston rooftops and got an idea. “Scratch that. It doesn’t matter. I’ll bring my own doctor. They have hospitals in Montreal. They’ve got operating rooms. They do transfers there. I know they do.”

  “Why do you want to go there for this?” the captain asked.

  “I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t want anything happening to the body when they transport it. It’s already been floating in a river. Besides, if they found the body just south of Montreal, then maybe there’s some connection between Montreal and the body. I want to talk to the cops there to see what they can tell me. Then I want to be able to walk around a little bit so that I have something to trigger any memories. I want to be as close to those memories as possible. You want this to work, don’t you?”

  Cole was answered by silence. Then, “Okay, I’ll tell them to leave the body. You said you were going to bring your own doctor?”

  “I’m gonna try,” Cole said.

  Dr. Tyson hadn’t done a memory transfer herself in over four years. She tried arguing with Cole. First, she told him that it still hadn’t been enough time, that he should let his brain rest more. When she couldn’t talk him out of doing the procedure, she tried telling him lots of doctors knew the latest surgical techniques better than she did. She even knew of one in Montreal. He was world renowned, one of the leading memory transplant surgeons on the planet. Cole didn’t care. “I don’t need technique,” he argued. “I need somebody who knows how important this is.” In the end, Dr. Tyson relented, agreeing to travel with Ed and Cole to Montreal.

  The three of them crossed the border into Canada only a few hours later. They were an odd trio. Ed drove; Dr. Tyson sat in the passenger seat. It had taken some work, but she’d managed to cancel all her meetings over the next two days. Cole rode in the back, alone. That’s what he wanted. He wanted to look out the window and think. “Have you ever been to Montreal before?” Ed asked Cole after they’d crossed the border into Canada.

  “I don’t know,” Cole answered without taking his eyes away from the window. He hadn’t been able to locate any memories of Montreal. He tried. He did have a handful of memories of cities that he couldn’t identify, but he didn’t think any of them was Montreal. Almost nothing could have made him happier than that utter lack of memories. If he was right that he had no memories of Montreal, and if the body wasn’t just dumped in the city but had actually been there, then waking up from his surgery with any memories of the city would immediately prove that the transfer had worked. He knew how important the case was, but he would get to that. Right now, he just wanted the transfer to work.

  Chapter 29

  It worked.

  The trip to Montauk was an unmitigated success. Almost as soon as Carter stepped out of the car and smelled the sea air, more of the surfer’s memories began to rise from the depths and shadows of his mind. He could sense them coming even before he could make any sense of them. He immediately dismissed his driver. “Go,” he told Lou, while standing on the cliffs overlooking the ocean in his gray suit and black leather shoes.

  “Sir?” Lou asked, confused by Carter’s strange behavior. Lou had never seen him act like this before. Carter had never been a pleasant employer, but he had been predictable—until now.

  “Just go,” Carter repeated without even looking back at the car. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the ocean. “Drop my bags at the hotel and go. You can go back to the city. I’m going to be here for a few days at least. I’ll send for you when I need you.”

  “But sir, how are you going to get to the hotel?”

  Without looking back, Carter lifted his hand in the air in a brusque request for silence. He wanted to be able to hear the waves, nothing but the waves. The memories first emerged because of the smell, but the sound of the waves was tugging at them as well. “Just go,” Carter repeated, shouting the words this time.

  Not wanting to push his luck, Lou turned around, got into the car, and drove off to the hotel where Carter was scheduled to stay. Carter still didn’t look back. He began to walk down the jagged cliffs toward the water. He held the memories back as they came to him, hoping that he could delay them long enough to get his feet on solid ground, not wanting to fall from the cliffs because the memories made him lose his footing. Soon, he made it to the bottom. He let the memories come to him as soon as his second foot sank into the soft white sand.

  They were a mess at first, a dozen or more memories rushing out at the same time, running on top of each other and mixing together. Carter didn’t want that. He wanted each new memory to come to him pure and unassailed by others. He took a deep breath. He tried to remember the techniques that he’d read about how to handle this. He tried to grab hold of a specific detail from a specific memory, it didn’t matter what or which, and focus on that. The intention was to become anchored to one memory.

  Carter picked a memory and anchored himself to the smell. The briny Montauk sea air unleashed a memory of an even more pungent odor, a mix of salt water, dead fish, and blood. He looked around, and he wasn’t on a beach anymore. He was standing on a boat, red water churning all around him as if the sea were boiling with blood. Then some gigantic monster came up near the surface of the water. It was an enormous gray mass. The whole boat rocked as it swam beneath them. “Woow-hee,” a voice yelled from behind him with an accent Carter couldn’t place at first. “She’s a biggie. Might as well jump in now. She’s what you came here for.” South African. Carter had done enough business there to recognize the accent.

  Carter was afraid. He knew that it was only a memory, and still he was afraid. His fear didn’t matter, though, because the surfer wasn’t afraid. Irrespective of Carter’s fear, it only took a moment for the surfer to take three giant steps and leap feetfirst into the bubbling red water. The water was cold at first as it rushed into his wet suit. The surfer looked around him. He could see the chum, bloody dead fish and squid, floating in the water. About twenty feet from him, he could see the bars of the floating cage, there to protect the divers from the giant sharks. He could see another diver inside the cage. The surfer was supposed to be inside the cage too. He wasn’t. He was out in the open water. He’d leapt there on purpose, a move that Fergus would admonish him for later. There was a fine line between acceptable and unacceptable risks, and the surfer lived his life right on that line.

  At first, Carter didn’t see any sharks, only shadows moving through the water, just outside his view. They’d been chumming for the last hour to lure the giant beasts closer to the boat. The surfer turned his head. He felt surrounded by the bubbles from his own frantic breathing. He was afraid now too, but Carter could remember how much he loved the fear. His heart raced. Even through the surface of the water, he could hear the panicked screams from the boat above him. He hadn’t told any of them that he had no intention of swimming in the cage. They never would have brought him out here if he had. The screams grew louder. They had a reason to scream.

  The surfer turned his head. He saw gnarled teeth and lifeless eyes first. A shark the size of a small submarine was swimming straight for him. By the time the surfer saw him, the shark was only a few dozen feet away, appearing out of the murky water like a monster sneaking into a child’s nightmare. The shark’s tail swung back and forth with purpose. The
surfer couldn’t do anything to avoid the shark, so he simply watched as it swam straight at him. In all the surfer’s little games with death, it had never appeared so certain or so magnificent. Both Carter and the surfer were now terrified but, while Carter was frozen, the surfer was giddy with his fear. The shark didn’t open its mouth on the first pass. Instead, it bumped the surfer hard with the side of its snout. It was like being hit by a small torpedo. Then the surfer watched the shark as it swam past him, disappearing again into the murky water. It was horrifying how easily and completely the water could hide such a massive, monstrous creature.

  Carter, standing on the beach in his gray suit, was breathing heavily. Sweat was beading up on his face. The memory had grabbed him, and he had no power to stop it now, not until it was over. In the memory, the water, beneath its surface, had a sound. It was a churning, grinding sound, like two pieces of sandpaper constantly being rubbed together. Other sharks were in the water around him, monsters in their own right, but none held a candle to the one that had bumped the surfer and was now circling back to swim at him again from somewhere in the murky, blood-filled water. Again, the surfer heard screams from the boat before he could see anything. From the surface, they could see the giant shadow moving underwater before the surfer could. He heard the screams, muffled and garbled though they were. Then he saw it coming, even faster this time than the last, like a freight train thrusting through the water, a freight train with teeth. The beast opened its mouth, showing the surfer rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. It was all about to be over. Carter remembered the strange peace that the surfer felt, even as Carter felt like he was about to vomit on the beach. Then, a moment before the shark struck, a loud sound ripped through the ocean like an explosion. It was loud enough to startle the shark in mid-attack. Right before it hit the surfer, the shark veered away from the sound. Then it turned quickly and dove back down into the watery depths where it disappeared from sight. A moment later, the surfer felt a tug on his shoulder. At first he worried that a smaller shark might be hitting him from behind. Then he felt himself being lifted out of the water as they pulled him back into the boat. Someone on the boat had thought to gun the boat’s engine as the shark approached the second time, startling the shark away. The fast thinking probably saved the surfer’s life and his memories.

  They were all screaming at him as they pulled him back into the boat, telling him that he was insane, asking him if he had a death wish. He didn’t care. He also didn’t have a death wish. Carter knew that from the memories. He simply accepted death because in the back of his mind, he knew that it was coming for him. Yet sitting on that boat, having just been in the water with a shark of mythic proportions, the surfer felt wonderfully small and grateful to be alive. He ignored the reprimands. Their words were like white noise as the surfer stared out over the glistening surface of the ever-churning water.

  When the memory ended, Carter was on his hands and knees in the sand. His hands were balled into fists, squeezing the sand inside them. His chest hurt. His heart was tired from beating so fast. He looked around to see if anyone was watching him, to see if anyone was staring at the man in the suit crawling in the sand across the beach. Fortunately, the beach was empty. Carter stayed on his hands and knees for another moment before trying to stand up. His knees were still wobbly. Then he looked out over the ocean in front of him and whispered to himself, “God, this is going to be fun.”

  Chapter 30

  Even before opening his eyes, Cole tried to remember Montreal. Trying to remember being murdered had to wait this time. This time, it wasn’t all about the murder for Cole. This time, Cole first wanted to see if the procedure had even worked. The memories of the city did come, almost immediately. In them, the city was cool, damp, and gray. It was raining, but Cole’s memories of the city contained no action. Nothing happened. The memories were images, a few sounds and a few smells. Cole recognized each one. The memories were all from his own forty-minute walk around the neighborhood surrounding the hospital before heading inside for the procedure. He ran through those forty minutes of memories in a few seconds, and then there was nothing. He waited for more, for new memories to come. He didn’t wait long. They weren’t coming. He knew it. He felt their absence. For the second time in a row, the procedure didn’t take. Nothing in his head was new, except for more fear. He couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to him.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Dr. Tyson asked Cole the next morning as she and Ed prepared to leave Montreal. They had to get back home to their families and their lives. Cole, on the other hand, had nothing to get back to.

  “No,” Cole admitted with a weak laugh. “But you guys need to go. I’ve taken enough of your time.”

  “Why don’t you come back with us, Cole?” Ed asked. “If you’re so sure the procedure didn’t work, why stay?” The three of them were standing in a cold, nondescript private room at the hospital. It could have been a room in any public hospital almost anywhere in the world. Cole’s release was imminent.

  “I need some time,” Cole said. “I need to be able to process what’s happening. Montreal is actually perfect for me right now. I don’t know anybody here.”

  “Are you sure it’s smart for you to be alone?” Dr. Tyson asked with real concern in her voice.

  “What do you think I’m going to do to myself?” Cole asked her.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Dr. Tyson answered. “You know there could be other reasons why the procedure didn’t work, right? That it might not be you? There’s still no evidence that any one person can become resistant to receiving other people’s memories.”

  “Then what else could it be? Tell me what else it could be.”

  “Dumb luck,” Dr. Tyson posited. “You just had two duds in a row.”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t believe that. You told me yourself that the odds of that were less than a tenth of a percent—less than a thousand to one. That’s why I brought you here. You knew the stakes. You weren’t going to mess anything up.”

  “The procedures were still closer together than anyone would recommend, than I would recommend.”

  “Sure,” Cole conceded, “but that shouldn’t lead to a complete lack of memories. That might fuck some of the memories up. It might create confusion. It might meld memories together, memories that belong to different people. It might even drive me fucking crazy. But it shouldn’t make my body reject new memories. There’s only one explanation that makes sense.”

  “And what if it’s true? What if you can’t inherit any more memories? What then?” Dr. Tyson asked. Cole didn’t know how to answer her.

  “What’s the big deal?” Ed asked. “I mean, you’re still a cop. You’ll find other ways to solve crimes. People do it all the time.”

  “You don’t understand, Ed,” Cole told his partner. Only Cole and Dr. Tyson understood. Allie would have understood too, though she would have been ecstatic at the news. Cole loved his addiction, and Dr. Tyson benefited from it. Only Allie hated it. “It’s not just about the job.” Cole looked at Dr. Tyson again. She knew how serious it was. “Dr. Tyson can explain it to you on the way back to Boston,” Cole said.

  “Come to Boston,” Dr. Tyson said. “I can run tests. I can do studies. We can figure this out.” It was as close to begging as she was willing to get. She seemed to want the answers as much as Cole did. “Maybe later,” Cole said. “A few days. A couple weeks, even. Right now, I need some time alone. You two go back. I promise that I have no plans to do anything drastic.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Dr. Tyson asked.

  “I’m going to take some time to reminisce, to enjoy the memories that I still have in my head. Maybe I’ll find some that I haven’t explored yet,” Cole answered her.

  Chapter 31

  A literal slap to Cole’s face finally began to unlock the truth. The slap did what everything else that Cole had tried could not. Cole had spent four days in Montreal after Dr. Tyson and Ed had lef
t, trying to unlock as many of Meg’s memories as he could. He wasn’t looking for truth. He was simply trying to immerse himself in what he believed were the last new memories he would ever receive.

  As soon as Dr. Tyson and Ed left, Cole made a list of triggers that he thought could unlock new memories. Then he went about checking off each of the items on his list. Cole rented a bike and began to ride aggressively around the city. He found that the faster he rode, the more memories were unlocked. He nearly crashed multiple times when his immersions began just as he hit top speed, zipping through traffic. At night, he sought out bars full of young people that might remind his brain of the parties Meg had gone to when she first reached New York. He found a copy of The Fox and the Hound and watched it over and over again. For four days, he burned through memory after memory in one near-constant bender.

  On the night of the fourth day, Cole found himself once again at Peel Pub, a piece-of-shit bar frequented by first-year university students looking for cheap beer. He’d been there before, though he couldn’t remember if it was on his first or second night. It worked the first time. After two beers, the memories shot through him like adrenaline. But it wasn’t working this time, not after two beers, not after four. Cole wasn’t ready to let go. That’s when he saw her, standing at the opposite end of the bar. She was short. Her skin was the color of dark coffee. She let her hair grow high and curly around her head. After only one beer or even two, Cole would have found her resemblance to Sam superficial. Cole was way past two beers when he first saw her, though.

  Cole stumbled toward her, instantly certain that this woman was the key to unlocking a whole slew of Meg’s memories that Cole had not yet experienced. Her name was Zoe. Cole remembered that. That was nearly all he remembered about her, though. He didn’t remember what he said to her. He didn’t remember why she turned and slapped him full across the face.