Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense

by Fynn Perry

  To Lazlo’s surprise, the autopsy of Kendrick had already taken place at 5:00 a.m. that morning, and it had been carried out by no other than the Chief M.E. herself, Rachel Wallace.

  “Must be important,” Stevens muttered.

  Lazlo interrupted the receptionist again and asked to see a copy of the report. He offered his badge as proof of entitlement. The woman sat up and studied it for longer than he was used to. He figured it was either to annoy him or to satisfy some deep-seated need to be in total control of this domain. He looked at her desk and decided on the latter—the desk was impeccably tidy and ordered. It would also seem to explain her annoyance at not finding whatever she was looking for.

  Despite validating his badge, she looked uneasy as she flipped through more files on her desk. “I’m not sure this is right, you know. Patient confidentiality is paramount,” she said, deadpan, pausing with the file in her hand.

  Lazlo didn’t have time for sitting on the fence. He snatched it from her and gave her a wink as if to say, ‘It’s fine, don’t worry.’

  He scanned through the notes with Tom Stevens looking over his shoulder. The cause of death had been certified as severe head trauma due to a collision. Death was most likely instantaneous, and the first responders had been unsuccessful in providing CPR. Further notes stated that the victim had been heavily intoxicated and was covered in cuts and bruises. There was no mention of any drugs in his system.

  “Where’s the body?” he asked the nurse.

  She looked uncomfortable with the request but said she would check. She momentarily disappeared through a door with a keypad beside it, and was gone for some long minutes.

  She reappeared and announced stiffly, “It was collected by the Sacred Heart Funeral Home.”

  “And the address?” Lazlo demanded.

  “They’re quite a ways from here. Twenty-two Marigold Street in Spring Valley.”

  Lazlo had spent a lot of time studying El Gordito’s business operations, and he knew there was widespread speculation on the force that the Sacred Heart Funeral Home, with its crematorium on site, belonged to him. Such a setup would clearly be useful for destroying evidence.

  Out in the parking lot, Lazlo called the funeral home, posing as a relative of Kendrick, and was informed that the cremation would take place at 11:30 a.m. that same day. Lazlo was shocked at the speed with which events were unfurling.

  It was now 8:40 a.m. Sacred Heart was about forty miles away. Thankfully, it was a Saturday, which meant no rush hour. If he gunned his two-year-old Audi, they––if he could convince Tom to go too––could reach the funeral home in an hour and a half, with a little time to spare. He figured he could work his magic again and appeal to Stevens’s sense of altruism.

  The Sacred Heart Crematorium, which stood at the rear of Greenwood Cemetery, was easy to recognize. It looked like a pretty stone chapel, save for a disproportionately large chimney at one end. Even the most casual viewer would be left with no doubt as to the actual purpose of the building: burning corpses.

  Lazlo left the Audi in the guest parking area, and he and Stevens rushed toward the back of the chapel-like building, where they expected the ‘deliveries’ took place.

  As they turned a corner, Lazlo suddenly halted, signaling to Tom with an outstretched arm to do the same. A security guard and another man dressed in a lab coat were standing with their backs to them. The man in the lab coat was also wearing some kind of thick, waterproof apron. They were smoking and admiring the view as the sun beat down over the gardens where ashes had been scattered by relatives.

  Stevens and Lazlo slid quietly along the wall and moved quickly into what looked like the delivery area at the rear of the building. Lazlo was accustomed to the stress of undercover work, Stevens less so. His brow was damp and his hand shook as he reached for the handle to a grey-painted door.

  It opened onto an empty corridor, and immediately, refrigerated air with a thick smell of embalming fluid and bleach hit them. Once inside, they tried all the doors, one by one. The third was unlocked, and when they walked through, they found themselves in the preparation area.

  Two dead bodies were laid out on metal tables. The uncovered body was that of a woman, probably in her eighties. She lay there clad in a navy twin-set and crisp white blouse. Heavy make-up covered the ashen skin of her face, neck, and hands.

  Next to her lay a body covered with a thin white sheet. Lazlo pulled it back, exposing the naked body of a man in his thirties. The age seemed to fit, and the bruises, cuts, and autopsy stitches seemed consistent with what they would expect to see. No makeup had been applied to cover the damage to his body, nor had he been embalmed. Lazlo checked the photo he had taken of Louise Kendrick’s smartphone screen showing a recent photo of her brother. There seemed to be a match despite the swelling and bruising to the face of the body but the name on the mortuary tag, attached to a toe, confirmed it. “Mark Kendrick,” he whispered with satisfaction. “Get to work, Tom,” he added.

  Stevens carefully slipped on the pair of neoprene gloves he had brought with him. He studied then pointed to bruising and cuts on the cadaver’s face.

  “These are consistent with a car accident. I’ve only seen this kind of damage in cases where an airbag failed to deploy and a seatbelt wasn’t used. But I don’t think all the bruising happened at the same time. From their appearance most of the larger bruises and cuts, including the lacerations from the windshield fragments, occurred postmortem,” he whispered.

  “So, someone put his corpse in the car and crashed it?”

  Stevens furrowed his brow and wiped the sweat from it. “That’s what the body seems to be telling me…The bruises to his arms and legs are different. Not only do they appear to have occurred prior to death but they are consistent with attempts to manhandle and restrain our friend here by a number of persons. Judging by the severity of bruising I would say this guy put up an extraordinary fight.”

  “Like he was on something that could have given him the illusion of being stronger than he was by blocking out any feelings of pain. Like a hallucinogen?” suggested Lazlo.

  “It’s a possibility, but without a tox screen we’re just guessing here. But an overdose could cause, for instance, a massive heart attack, which could be a scenario for the real cause of death. But it’s impossible to be sure without opening him up again.” He frowned before continuing. “It’s clear to anyone with some M.E. experience that this guy was already dead before the...” His voice trailed off as he noticed something.

  “Wait a goddamn second––”

  “What is it?”

  Stevens pointed to the upper body and the standard Y-shaped incision made during an autopsy. “Look at the stitches,” he said, pointing to the diagonal ones, forming the ‘V’ part of the Y-cut. “See how cleanly the edges of the flesh butt up against one another? and how all the stitches pass tightly through the flesh?”

  Lazlo nodded.

  “Now look at these.” Stevens pointed to the stitching of the long cut below the ‘V.’ Do you see that there are a mixture of new holes and old stitch holes which are wider, like they have been pulled by the stitches? And here where the edges of the cut are less even because in some places the stitch holes have ripped?” He waited for Lazlo to lean in to take a closer look.

  “So, this long cut was re-opened and re-stitched?” Lazlo asked. “Appears to be the case.”

  “Two autopsies then?”

  “Could be, not all M.E.s favor the Y-cut.”

  “Which means the first autopsy could have been carried out with a single long cut along the body and then the second time the body was re-opened, the M.E could have added the diagonal cuts?”

  “But if it was a case of two autopsies, then between them, the body suffered some kind of trauma that blew some of the first set of stitches. I’m pretty sure the elongation or ripping of the stitch holes are not the result of, say, poor stitching.”

  “Like the trauma of a car accident?”

  �
��That could do it; so could the body being dropped.”

  “So, the accident could have been staged to cover up a cause of death which had been discovered in the earlier autopsy?”

  Stevens shrugged. “I just know the guy was fighting against being restrained before he died and his chest was opened up twice. I’m theorizing that it happened once before the trauma and then again after it.”

  Just then, they heard footsteps and voices coming along the corridor. Stevens slid off his gloves and stuffed them into his coat pocket.

  Lazlo had left the door to the corridor cracked open, and as he peered through it, he saw a guard and a man in the lab coat and apron walking toward him. They were arguing—saying something about a woman. They stopped for a second to face each other as the argument escalated.

  “Get back to work, both of you!” barked a deep voice, coming from somewhere out of Lazlo’s field of view.

  Lazlo could only see the reaction of the men. They stopped their conversation immediately and sheepishly walked off in opposite directions.

  Lazlo breathed a sigh of relief and beckoned to Stevens, who had turned pale with fear and was now swearing under his breath. With one hand on the door handle, Lazlo opened the door farther and slowly squeezed his head between the door and the frame to peer out into the corridor. All was quiet. He inched his head out more, hoping to crane his neck around the door and see in the other direction.

  At that moment, he felt the cold metal of a gun muzzle pushing into the side of his head. He slowly turned to see the barrel of a Glock handgun, held by a man in a black suit. It pressed against his forehead, pushing him back into the room. Black Suit had been followed inside by another man in a suit.

  “What are you two sickos doing?” the second suited man said.

  Lazlo fumbled for his badge and pulled it out, motioning for the gun now pointing at him to be holstered.

  “I’m guessing you don’t have a warrant, officer, since you didn’t announce your visit. You understand, we are acting in self-defense. You’d be surprised how many deviants come in here.”

  “It’s ‘detective,’” Lazlo corrected.

  “Well, detective, your supervisor will be hearing from me. I think you know the way out, but in case you’ve forgotten, my colleague here, with the gun, will escort you.”

  Lazlo walked out slowly with Stevens, who followed with his head hanging like that of a beaten dog.

  They got into the Audi, and the armed guard stood waiting for them to drive off.

  “You’ve cost me my job, goddamn it, Lazlo!” hissed Stevens.

  “Tom, just take a breath. This goes much further than the fake autopsy. Trust me! You are helping to expose a network of corruption, and once we get to the bottom of it all, you will be vindicated.”

  Stevens let loose another string of expletives while the guard banged the palm of his hand on the roof of the car impatiently. Lazlo started the engine and waved to the guard, signaling he was going. At the same time, with his phone already out, he discreetly hit the speed dial to Captain Tony Ruzek. He put the phone to his ear as if taking a call and shrugged at the guard, who had now bent over to look through the car window.

  The line rang, and the captain answered. Before Lazlo could start saying anything, his boss declared, “You better not be doing anything even remotely connected with Vargas!”

  “Chief, I can’t give you the full details, but we need to stop a cremation.”

  “Christ almighty!” the chief sighed. His comment was almost immediately followed by the sound of the guard shouting at Lazlo to move. The man banged on the window.

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Nothing. Hear me out, chief, please.”

  “Go on,” the chief said reluctantly.

  “Remember the Kendrick case? The guy who disappeared, and died about twenty-four hours later in a car crash? I’m pretty sure he didn’t die because of hitting the wall. He died earlier and then someone placed his body in a car and drove it into a wall to make it look like an accident.”

  “Can you prove it?” the chief interrupted.

  “Not without another autopsy.”

  “Who is the M.E. on the report?”

  “Rachel Wallace.”

  “What? You want to discredit the Chief M.E.’s report based on a hunch, a half-baked theory? Are you nuts?”

  “Chief, Wallace must have falsified the death certificate. There is no way the car crash was the cause of death. The body already had an autopsy performed on it before it was placed in the car. There are two sets of stitches on the body,” Lazlo said sternly. “And the crematorium is owned by El Gordito,” he added. “Chief, there is something deeper going on here.”

  The chief paused for a second as if caught off guard, but then seemed to dismiss everything Lazlo had said. “If you even go anywhere near another business owned by El Gordito, you’ll be placed on immediate suspension. It’s your suspension or another lawsuit against us, and the department can’t afford it. Nobody is stopping any funeral!”

  The line went dead. Lazlo could see mounting concern on Stevens’ face. “You’ll be fine, Tom,” Lazlo said, and paused before adding, “I, on the other hand, will probably get suspended very soon.”

  “Christ, Lazlo!” Tom exclaimed.

  It was now 9:30 a.m. Lazlo put the automatic gearbox into drive. They drove out slowly along the gravel road, the guard diminishing in the rearview window.

  A few seconds later a black Mercedes appeared, driving toward the crematorium. As it passed, Lazlo caught a brief glimpse of one of the passengers. It was Siobhan Kendrick, dressed in black. There was momentary eye contact before she looked away, fearful.

  Twelve

  Later that same morning, John made his way back to DNA, hopeful that his newfound ability to possess mortals would help him hide from belligerent spirits. He was expecting his method of entry into the club to be the same as before, but things had changed. A guard’s booth and a barrier had been put up at the entrance to the parking garage. He waited a while, observing these new security measures until a delivery truck pulled up to the barrier, blocking his view of the booth.

  Deciding he could make use of the truck in order to get in, he ran toward it and reached through one of the plastic side curtains surrounding the cargo area to grab an anchor point to pull himself up against. The palm of his hand found and interacted with a curtain support column, giving him purchase. His other hand made contact with and pressed down on the truck bed to help him haul himself up and allow his head to pass through the curtain. He brought his knees up to make contact with the truck floor, then his feet, and stood up. His glow illuminated a narrow space surrounded by metal beer kegs stacked from floor to ceiling.

  The truck started moving down the ramp and into the basement level. John figured it would soon pull up to the loading dock and reverse into it, as the bay wasn’t wide enough to allow for the unloading of a truck, side-on. Between him and the driver, who would soon be his second host, stood the wall of beer kegs.

  Passing through the barrels would be tricky without being able to see the truck floor to engage and disengage with. And the time that he had to do it was going to be shorter than he had expected. No sooner had he started his journey through the barrels than he felt the truck turn and commence reversing. He stepped forward and felt the soles of his feet touch cold, wet metal. He pushed through until they made contact with the wooden truck bed.

  The vehicle was now slowing, and he couldn’t risk the driver, his only camouflage, getting out of the cab before he had possessed him. He plunged his head into the barrels and made his way forward to the cab. Metal gave way to the brownish-orange color of light beer, then metal again, then an air gap where his head emerged and then back through metal, beer and the outer barrel wall.

  He hustled his way through, even though it was a bit hit and miss with his feet, sometimes slipping then regaining his footing. The last five rows of barrels were different. He slipped through metal, beer,
then, unexpectedly, a plastic membrane and finally—pills. Hundreds of white pills with red spiders embossed on one side. Drugs were being smuggled into the club.

  Upon emerging from the last barrel, John immediately passed through the cab wall and into his new host, just as the driver was about to get out. It caused the driver to sit bolt upright the instant that John’s energy surged through him. This time, John felt the ‘seal’ and immediately felt fully absorbed. His host continued to disembark, now in a slight daze.

  This second host, unlike the hobo he had possessed, was fully in charge of all his faculties––John felt twined with every breath and every reflex. He was seeing, hearing, and smelling from a mortal body again—a middle-aged and overweight body belonging to a bearded man in black jeans, black Motörhead t-shirt, and black boots. But more than that, John realized he could feel what his host felt and hear his thoughts. They were like a faint background hum he could tune in and out of with remarkable clarity. The driver walked around to the back of the truck where one of the club’s security guards, thankfully unpossessed, was waiting, looking down from the raised deck.

  The driver nodded a greeting to the guard. John could sense the unease of his host as images of the same guard shouting at, and then pummeling another driver for asking too many questions about El Gordito’s business, appeared in the driver’s mind like snapshots in a slideshow.

  The driver, now trying to fight back feelings of fear, gave the guard a set of transport bills headed with the name Andrew’s Liquor Merchants. John noted the pickup address was Supreme Logistics Fulfillment Center at Bellevue Logistics Park in Newstone, New Jersey. Another company with the word ‘Supreme’ in the name. The guard took the bills and placed them on his clipboard, took out a pen, and scribbled a signature on each. “270 kegs?”