I knew that if I opened my eyes now, I’d see a pair of red-brown butterflies marked with patterns like orchid blossom skipping through the air above me in a complex, whirling, mating dance. Then I’d shade my eyes against the glare of the sun, watching them until they passed behind the tall grass. And then I’d hear...
“Mr Rourke.”
I wouldn't. I wouldn't hear a thing except the sound of my own thoughts beating against the inside of my head. There were no butterflies and that sun went down a long time ago. I couldn't go back to that hiking trail near Smuggler's Notch, not without going alone and in the cold. The memory was all I had.
“Mr Rourke.”
I looked up at the white-coated figure in front of me. A grey-haired woman in her sixties. Lined face, wide brown eyes with the studied sympathy of a professional. She had blue doctor's coveralls beneath her lab coat. “Mr Rourke,” she said, “I’m Dr Kingsley, the Chief Medical Examiner. If you're sure you want to do this, follow me.”
I said nothing, just stared bleakly at her as I climbed out of my seat. She led me down the hallway to a small office. A couple of desks with computers sitting on them. Textbooks, papers. Everything was clinically clean and so tidy you'd have thought no one ever worked here. The air carried the faint ammonia odor of disinfectant. A door in the far corner led through into what looked like a laboratory. The adjoining wall had a large window running a good ten or twelve feet along it. There was a surgical screen across it but bright blue-white light bled around the edges. A set of aluminum double doors led from the office into the room beyond the window: the mortuary proper.
“I know how hard this must be for you,” Dr Kingsley said. It was an off-the-peg platitude but didn’t care much about her words anyway; they didn’t seem to matter next to the awful knowledge that this wasn't some dream I was about to wake up from. “It's always terrible when something like this happens. It's cruel and senseless, and obviously we do what we can to accommodate the wishes of loved ones. Her family haven't contacted us, so if you're not sure you want to do this...”
“Her mom and dad are on vacation,” I muttered. “They aren’t going to be back until Friday. I don't know about the others.”
She nodded. “Well, OK then. We'll start slowly. We can stop at any time.”
Dr Kingsley opened the file she was holding, pulled out a pair of glossy photos and handed them to me. I glanced at them, swallowed once and said, “I’m not interested in pictures, Doc.”
She took them back. “You'd still like to see her?”
“Yeah.”
She pushed a button on the desk. Inside the morgue, a technician in blue coveralls drew back the screen that blocked out the window to reveal a gurney draped in white.
“I’d like to go in,” I said.
The disinfectant smell was even stronger in the mortuary, and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling seemed to throb and hum louder than they should. Gemma lay with her eyes closed, skin nearly as pale as the thick, heavy sheet that ran almost up to her chin. Her hair hung in limp drifts around her head. There was a faint bluish tinge to her lips, which had opened the tiniest fraction, just like they used to do when she was asleep.
For a long, long time I stared down at her lying there, cold and sterile and dead. My mind stayed empty. Blank, fled to some happier place, leaving me alone without any thoughts of grief or comfort, sorrow or anger, anything at all. I knew I should be in tears, or railing in anger against the unfairness of the world, or doing something to express my grief. But my head stayed silent and hollow and all I had left was a gut-tightening sense of longing that could never be fulfilled.
I trudged out of the mortuary. Dr Kingsley said something to me in her office, and I had the vague memory of signing a piece of paper, but I don’t remember hearing the words or reading the form. I just found myself back in the corridor outside, alone, and everything was done. The hallway seemed gloomy after the stark, dead light of the morgue. Tubes spaced along its length spat out a yellow glow so dirty I couldn’t tell if the walls were genuinely beige or just badly-lit plain white. The reflection on the uneven surface of the polished floor made dark whorls and pools collect like a desert mirage. I walked up the corridor and slumped into one of the chipped chairs back where I’d originally been waiting. Dropped my face into my hands and stared emptily at the liquid blackness beneath me, wishing I could fall into it.
Then I heard footsteps, heeled shoes rapping against the floor, the walls distorting the sound so much I couldn’t even tell if they were coming or going. “You must be Alex,” a voice said next to me.
I looked up to see a woman, maybe in her late twenties, wearing a thick coat over a sweater and jeans. Brown hair tied back in a ponytail, thin features and green eyes. There was a note of genuine sympathy and warmth in her voice which Dr Kingsley — and everyone else I’d spoken to since that first phone call, despite their best efforts — hadn't been able to match. The woman dropped into the chair next to me.
“I’m Bethany,” she said. “Gemma was my friend.”
“Oh.” I couldn't remember if Gemma had ever mentioned her to me or not. “Did you work together?”
“No, not really. I have a job here with the OCME. I heard that she was... y'know. Dr Kingsley said you were coming and that you might like a friend to be here. Have you been in yet?”
I nodded, slow and leaden. “Yeah.” I tried to show interest, feign normality, and added, “How did you two meet? Work the same case?”
“No,” Bethany said. “There was a meeting for OCME staff here in Burlington a few months ago. We were both new to everything around here, so we got talking. We met up a few times after that.” She sighed. “Do you know what happened to her?”
My throat clamped shut and talking was a heavy struggle. “The police told me she was driving home. Someone shot her, they think through the windshield. She got hit in the throat. They reckon she died instantly.” Breathe. “When the cops saw her car, they thought it was just someone gone off the road in the snow. They didn't realize what'd happened until later.”
She was silent for a while, then said, “Do they know who did it?”
An orderly walked past pushing a cart full of cleaning equipment. He stared strangely at me for a moment, then saw me looking back and his eyes flicked forwards and stayed there until he was out of sight.
“I don't know,” I said. "The State Police are handling it. It was the county sheriff’s department who called me with the news. The VSP will question me tomorrow. Did she have any enemies, any trouble at home, et cetera. The usual.”
“Did she?”
“Enemies? No, of course not. They speak to you at all?”
“I don't know if they will. I hadn’t seen her for a while.” Silence for a while. Then, “Gemma said you were in the FBI. Can you help the police?”
“Don’t be stupid. Cops don’t let civilians. especially the victim's loved ones, in on the show.” I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. I’d like to catch whoever killed her, I really would, but it doesn't happen that way. Even when I was in the Bureau and my parents died, all I did was answer the standard questions. Cops worked the case, not me. Much good I’d have been even if they’d asked. You can't stay focused, not that close to things. Not when your world’s been smashed to pieces.”
“Will you try if the police get nowhere?”
I didn’t answer. This wasn’t a talk I wanted to have, and the scratchy feeling around my heart meant if we carried on with it there’d probably be an argument. And I’d probably be the one to start it.
Bethany rose to her feet. “I’ve got to go now,” she said. “I’m supposed to be at work in about eight hours. It was nice meeting you, Alex. I’m just sorry it was like this.”
“Sure.” I looked up as she adjusted her coat. “Thanks for talking to me, I needed it. I’m sorry I’m not in the best of moods right now.”
“You've got nothing to apologize for. If you need me, here's my number.” She handed me a slip of
paper. “Take care.”
I stayed in the chair for some time after her footsteps had faded, still dazed, before an internal autopilot suggested I find a motel and try to sleep. My legs felt weak like all the life had been kicked out of them, and I didn’t want to leave Gemma behind. Dark, dirty slush and ice blanketed the parking lot outside, but although the sky above was utterly black, cloud cloaking the stars, no fresh snow fell. I was too numb to feel the cold.
The nearest motel was a local chain franchise called the E-Z Rest. Burlington was dead at two thirty in the morning and I saw almost no other traffic braving the conditions. The motel wasn’t at the absolute bottom end of the accommodation food chain but it was close. They had vacancies, though, and a bored night manager on desk duty. The light in my room buzzed and flickered a while before holding. I turned on the TV and emptied my pockets before collapsing into the only armchair to doze.
The voicemail symbol was showing on the screen of my cell. I almost dropped the thing when I heard the voice on the message. It was Gemma.
5.
“You have... one... new message. Message received... yesterday at... five... thirty-three... PM.”
“Hi, honey, it's me.”
Gemma was calling from the car; I could hear the vibration of the engine in the background. There was no steady traffic noise around her, so I guessed she must have been out of Newport already, on the backroads.
Her voice made me miss her all the more.
“I’m just calling to ask you about the weekend. Susan's invited me to a party in St Johnsbury on Saturday and I said I’d see if you wanted to go. It's more of an evening on the town, apparently. Some friends of hers are going to be taking over a bar for the night, so I guess there must be a lot of them. But she said it's like an annual thing. It sounds kind of fun.”
I could hear the high-pitched watery noise of the car's wheels cutting through snow on the road. The whirr of the heater. The squeak in the seat she was going to get fixed but hadn’t.
“But I don't know if you fancy doing that after driving up all this way, even if you're not going back on Sunday. I don't think you've ever met any of the people who are going, though I know I've mentioned them to you before. Again, it's up to you whether you want to or not.”
Her tone changed. She was smiling and I could hear it, almost see it. “Even though you do owe me for that bash for your police friend. Maybe I'll make you repay me. Oh, and what do you want to eat when you're here? I don't have much in the house right now, but I can make a trip to the store after work on Friday, I thought I might make some kind of Thai thing in the evening, but I haven't decided what, and I’m open to suggestions for the rest of your stay. Anyway, I'd better go because it's just started snowing again and I need to keep my eyes on the road. I love you, honey and I'll—”
Crack.
I could almost feel the bullet hit. The noise itself was enough to make me double up with pain, hugging myself tight as if I’d been kicked in the gut, dimly aware that tears were streaming down my face. My girlfriend, dead, the whole thing available to play over and over again. It hurt as much as when I got the call to tell me she'd been killed — worse, because this time I didn't have the half-hope to cling to that it was a joke, or a dream, and that she was really OK.
If there was anything after that on the message, I didn’t hear it, just let it bleed out on the floor. I didn't dare pick up the phone again in case I found out that Gemma didn't die straight away, in case I heard her last shuddering, painful breaths. Eventually, when enough time had passed, I collected it from the floor and heard the distorted sound of the automated message looping.
“... three. If you would like to hear the message again, press one. If you would like to save the message, press two. To delete the message, press three. If you would like ...”
My first instinct was to wipe it and never again have to face the agony of Gemma's final moments. For a moment my thumb hovered over the ‘3’ button, but then I hit ‘1’ instead.
“Thank you. Your message will be saved for thirty days.”
I couldn't do it. Couldn’t erase her last words on this earth. Maybe I’d have someone download them onto a computer so I’d have something lasting, something more concrete than memory. Maybe time would dull the hurt that came from knowing I could listen to her, but couldn't talk back ever again.
Sleep, unlikely before, was going to be impossible after that, and I didn't even try. I just sat in the armchair until daylight leaked weakly through the window behind me, then left.
State Police headquarters was in Waterbury, twenty-five miles or so from Burlington and about as non-touristy as Vermont got. A bunch of government agencies including the VSP were based out of the Waterbury Complex, a renamed section of what was once the State Hospital for the Insane. Trees gone brown and bare with the onset of winter dotted the asylum's campus, surrounding each patch of snow-covered open ground. Past use gave it a walled-off, prison feeling, even though it was busy with admin workers. I wondered what it must have been like to be a patient here. I wondered if I was ever going to sleep again. If I’d ever want to.
When I swung out of the car, the cold hit me like I’d fallen into a river. I wedged my hands in my pockets and hurried to the doors. Inside the air smelled acrid, overly warmed by a heating system that recycled every cup of bitter coffee and every sour armpit. The woman at the front desk directed me down the hall and said I’d be meeting Detective Sergeant Karl Flint. I recognized the name as that of the cop I’d briefly spoken to about Adam Webb. I found his office at the end of a long, echoing corridor. He was somewhere around forty, pale and more or less clean-shaven, with close-cut dark hair and wide, watery brown eyes. He wore a dark grey suit and burgundy tie like he was born in them. He stood when I came in and we shook hands, but his bedside manner felt straight out of a textbook and I got the impression he didn’t use it much.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Flint.”
“Alex Rourke. We spoke on the phone a couple of days ago.”
“We did?” A blank look crossed his face.
“Adam Webb. Missing person.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Small world, isn't it?” he said. “Mr Rourke, I know this is a tough time for you, but I need to ask you some questions that might help us figure out what happened to Dr Larson and why. We’ll record the conversation so we can refer to it later. OK?”
“Yeah, I know the drill.”
“Good.” He smiled. Uncapped a pen. “When did you last speak with Dr Larson?”
“Monday.”
“What did you talk about?”
I shrugged. “Nothing much. The usual, just about our days at work, things like that. Are you married, Detective Flint?”
“No.”
“Well, imagine what married couples talk about when they come home from work. That's what we did.”
“OK. And that was the last occasion you spoke to her?”
“She called me yesterday, but my phone was engaged so she left a message on my voicemail. We didn't talk.”
The chair creaked as he leaned forward. “What time was this, Mr Rourke?”
“Just gone five-thirty.” If he noticed a touch of hoarseness in my voice, it didn’t show. “Right up to the point she died.”
Flint's hand hovered. “What did she say?”
“She was talking about the weekend — I was coming up to stay with her. Some stuff about a party in St Johnsbury, what she was going to be cooking. Nothing strange. Then she said it had started snowing again so she was going to hang up to concentrate on the road.” I paused. Breathed. “Then I heard her window splinter.”
“Did you hear a shot?”
I shook my head. “No, just the glass breaking.”
He leaned back in his chair. “And that was all? Do you still have the message?”
“No.” I wondered as I said it why I was lying. Keeping Gemma's last moments private, maybe. It didn’t matter anyway; since there was nothing on th
e message that I thought would help the police, I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it. “I erased it,” I said. “I didn't want to hear it again.”
“God damn it,” Flint said, shaking his head. “There could have been something useful on it.”
“Like I said, I didn't want to hear it again. She was driving along and then the bullet hit. That's all.”
He paused for a moment. “Moving on. Did Gemma sound upset or agitated in any way when she spoke to you, not just on the last occasion but at any time recently?”
“No, she never said anything to me about being worried. I don't know of anyone who might have wanted to kill her. She hadn't had trouble with anyone lately, or ever, that I can remember. She wasn't the sort. Is that what you were looking for?”
“No strange occurrences, at home or at work?”
I shook my head. “Everything was normal.”
“What about your relationship? Were there any problems there? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do, but I expected it. And no, our relationship was great.” My throat closed up again around the words. I wanted to make the guy understand how one day we were going to be married, maybe even have a family, but the thought of either of those things just brought the threat of angry tears. I just said, “We were happy.”
He nodded and dropped his pen on the desk. “That seems to be the picture we're getting from everyone we've spoken to.”
“Have you got any leads, anything to go on?”
“inquiries are progressing.”
“Meaning no.”
“It’s very early days, Mr Rourke, and we’re still trying to develop leads.” He sighed. “She was found by a Lamoille County Sheriff's Department cruiser, but they thought she'd gone off the road in the snow and it wasn't treated as a crime scene until someone from the medical examiner's office got there. We haven't found any witnesses who could tell us what happened yet — that patch of Route 100 is pretty quiet. We’re trying to collect information, but until something comes up, since she had no enemies and nothing was taken, we're currently looking at a motiveless crime or a freak hunting accident.”
The Touch Of Ghosts: Writer's Cut (Alex Rourke) Page 3