Dues of Mortality

by Jason Austin

  And it was going to happen even if he had to sell the American nuclear codes to communist China...which had to be a far faster method of making money than his current one.

  The department's sting operations had just about sucked the guts out of every cop with overdue alimony. The pace at which extramural opportunities were presenting themselves had slowed to a turtle's pace. Northcutt longed for the days back in narcotics when it was as simple as picking up stray cash from the dealers and dopers alike. Nothing too over-the-top, nothing that might keep him awake at night and certainly nothing that would get the fed’s attention. He wasn't going to end up like those dummies who had gotten caught because they got greedy and lost perspective. But even he had to admit it was getting harder and harder to say no to people like DapperDan009—the most pretentious email address in the world if there ever was one. Northcutt drummed his thumb on the steering wheel. This little rendezvous had better not be to twist his arm about dissecting the video. Northcutt had already told that overbearing asshole it was likely to come up dry, just like he’d been telling Roberts. If this was about DapperDan flexing his muscles, it would be a short meeting.

  At the descending end of his parking ramp, Northcutt heard the pithy squeal of the Mercedes’s tires as it turned onto the same ramp and coasted into an empty space directly across from his. He glanced reflexively at his comwatch. He had to give him credit, Dapper never kept him waiting. Northcutt watched in the rear-view mirror as Dapper emerged from his fancy chariot with briefcase in hand and Armani coat drapering his every step. However, all the Cashmere and Japanese silk in the world couldn't hide the disquietude that was so apparent in the reflection. The detective didn't know what was going on, but by the time Miles Gabriel took the seat next to him, Northcutt was primed to either shoot him or ask for double.

  “How are things progressing, Marcus?” Gabriel asked, getting right down to business. He wanted the meeting to end quickly; he didn't much care for being in Northcutt's presence. The detective was one of those people whose physical unattractiveness was such that it made Gabriel's skin crawl. Northcutt was a light-skinned black man approaching fifty with a head like a giant egg narrow end up. His eyes and mouth both turned downward from the outer edges like his face was half melted. And worst of all, his bottom lip was perpetually moist, making anyone within spitting distance want to take a step back. Gabriel couldn't begin to fathom the mental state of the woman who had consented to marry him.

  “I still don’t know what the point of this is,” Northcutt said. “I told you it wasn’t likely we’d get anything from the video. If that had changed since we last talked, I would’ve called you.”

  “Oh, I’m not concerned, Marcus. You’re a more than capable detective; you won't let me down. I’m just here to help.”

  Northcutt watched Gabriel pop open his briefcase and remove a Ziploc plastic baggie from inside. It contained a nickel plated revolver with a crosshatch handle.

  “What’s this?” Northcutt asked.

  “You are still a detective, aren’t you?” Gabriel smirked.

  “I know what it is. I meant why are you giving it to me?”

  “I believe it’s what you’d call a ‘lead.’ I want you to do the full workup. Prints, DNA, serial number, everything.”

  “Is this still about Glenda Jameson’s hero?”

  “Like I said, you’re a capable detective. Whatever you find, run it through all the databases and get back to me.”

  “When do you need the results?”

  Gabriel didn’t answer. He instead opted for “the look” as a far more unambiguous communique.

  Northcutt sighed, and a flower of steam blossomed on the windshield. He turned his comwatch face-up and checked it. “I think I can squeeze it in this afternoon,” he said. There was still plenty of time to get back downtown and every clock in the world could be set by Silas Lally's lunch breaks. Silas was the nerdiest, most predictable forensics guy in the precinct. And he wore the label proudly. Plus, doing the prints would be a snap for Northcutt, especially with that new software. DNA, on the other hand, would take something more in the way of tools and time and most likely be a wasted effort. Although, there was no need to tell Gabriel he wouldn’t bother to try.

  “You’ll hear from me tonight or first thing tomorrow, depending on what I find.”

  ****

  Glenda fought valorously the urge to call her parents and make sure they were alright. Louise and Jeremiah had to be going ape-shit. Not only was there daughter missing, but the police and news media were hawking their every move. As crazy as it sounded, Glenda took a measure of relief in the latter. For whomever it was hunting her, would have a hard time getting past the news cameras to use her parents as bait. She sat at the coms hub with her fingers fluttering over the 3D panel. If I could just get a message through somehow. If I could...In that instant, she recalled her alias web account. Her mother had been the only other person she’d entrusted it to if she needed to reach Glenda during her “getaways” with the Human Dingleberry, as Louise referred to him. Would she even remember it? Glenda thought. Or know enough to use it where she wouldn't be seen? Could she even get out of sight long enough?

  It doesn't matter, Glenda decided. She had to try. She opened the email and typed in a short, but sweet, message: I'm OK. Don't believe news. Love you.

  She hit send and prayed quietly that it would reach the eyes of her mother in short order. Glenda then breathed a sigh of relief and scrolled back to the Case Western Reserve University contact page.

  “Dammit! It dropped again!” she shouted. The connection to University reception was proving hard to maintain. “This is the fourth time in twenty minutes!” She buried her eyes in her hands. “I’m getting nowhere! There’s not a single person from BioCore, Millenitech, or even staff at the university who knows where Richard Kelmer might be or how to reach him. All I’m doing is harassing people.”

  “Even a total recluse has some kind of lifeline,” Xavier assured her, “something or someone who’s still on the outside.”

  “I’m beginning to think not.”

  “You knew him. How’d you meet?”

  “I was still a student at Case Western. I was having a hard time with biology and chem and I...” Glenda perked up. “Student! God, am I dumb!”

  “Just for the record, you said that, not me,” Xavier said

  Glenda poked out her tongue and spat him a raspberry.

  Xavier laughed.

  “I’ve only been considering his peers,” Glenda noted. “Maybe I should try asking his students. There was one I remember meeting through him in passing. He made her his lab assistant, said she was his best student, that she was special.”

  “Special? When a guy uses that word to describe a woman, it usually means she can tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue.”

  “Not in this case,” Glenda said certain. “Richard mentioned his work in the message he left me. If his work has something to do with this, then maybe she would know.” Glenda punched up the Case Western directory, hoping she had the last name spelled right in her head. When she saw no direct line for Dana Holliman, she tried the department line for the microbiology lab.

  A tender female voice pitched from the webscreen. “Case Western Science Department, Microbiology.”

  Glenda thought for a second. Maybe she could convince the receptionist that she and Dana were old pals. “Dana? Wow, is that you? You sound different. It hasn’t been that long, has it girl?”

  “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong connection. Can I redirect you?”

  “Oh, not again,” Glenda said politely. “I thought they got it right this time. I’m trying to reach Dana Holliman. They already transferred me like three times.”

  “One moment, please.”

  The line went silent for several seconds. If eyeballs could sweat from exertion, Glenda’s would have looked like an NBA player’s head at halftime. Please don’t get suspicious! Please don’t get suspicious, sh
e prayed. I’m not showing a picture because I’m having a bad hair day, that’s all.

  “Hello?” the receptionist said.

  “Yes?” Glenda answered.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  Shit!

  “Karen...Karen Henderson?” Glenda said as if asking if the false name was acceptable.

  “One moment.”

  This time the pause took noticeably longer.

  “You said you hadn’t seen Dana in a while?” the receptionist asked?

  No, but if it helps. “Yeah, I know, I’ve been caught up in my own drama for so long. She was always telling me, ‘Karen, you need to stop being so neurotic. You need to get more organized, and you sure need to stay away from stupid guys.’”

  “Dana Holliman isn’t here anymore. That’s probably why you’ve been getting transferred a lot. Some of the staff aren’t up to date.”

  Glenda silently fell apart, watching her ill-fated hope sprout wings and head for the window. “You’re kidding. Oh, no, I’m only going to be in town until tomorrow afternoon. I’d hate to have to leave without at least talking to her.”

  “She's on staff at Roxxon Pharmaceuticals, now. If you'd like, I could give you their number. She’s only been there about a month, so you’re probably not the first person they’d have to put through again.”

  Chapter 37

  August 30, 11:48 a.m.

  Glenda and Xavier had purchased some secondhand clothing to mix things up costume-wise. A sport coat here, a tennis outfit there, all cheap little numbers purchased from a resale shop to keep them under wraps for whatever the situation called for. For their trip to Roxxon Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Xavier went with a casual blazer and black slacks, while Glenda a pink sweater set, gray denim jeans and sensible shoes. Her digital glasses still reflected blue eyes, but she'd changed the frame display to a simple black outline. Also, she was now a blonde. The process had taken forever with the coloring kit, but the results were well to her liking. She looked damn sexy and it did wonders for her confidence. It even helped her schmooze her and Xavier's way into a pair of visitors' badges at Roxxon without having to produce a single scrap of ID. Well, that and the low-cut sweater that turned the male receptionist into a drooling simp, Xavier thought. Thank god this place didn't have more aggressive security issues. Xavier worried it would be a serious problem as they started out, but as it happened, Roxxon labs was a smaller, community-based company, that didn't have storm-troopers posted every exit like some global conglomerate. Roxxon outsourced a hefty percentage of their research & development and profited by acquiring niche drugs from their multinational counterparts. In short, it just wasn't very economical to hire trained professionals to guard the formula for dandruff shampoo already on the market ten years.

  As she and Xavier walked toward their destination, Glenda readjusted herself inside her sweater to knock down the weaponized cleavage she'd used to K.O. the receptionist.

  “You really know how to use those things,” Xavier said.

  “It's all in the delivery,” Glenda japed, doing up the buttons. The couple had decided to go with being colleagues of Dana Holliman’s, from her Case Western days, arriving for a lunch date, if anyone asked. It was a good cover, seeing as how Dana was at Roxxon, so fresh from Case Western, and kept regular contact with other grad-students. Xavier still wasn’t happy about a physical encounter, but he couldn’t argue Glenda’s instincts about not talking turkey over the web. After walking barely five minutes, he and Glenda soon found themselves in front of a lab door with the name “Dana Holliman” taped over the nameplate above the entry scanner. The door had a single, eye-level window, and Glenda peered through it nervously. She scanned the room. “Empty,” she reported. “Damn.”

  The barren hallway leading to her lab module echoed Dana Holliman's hastened, but dainty footsteps, sounding almost like the tick tick tick of a track coach's stopwatch. Dana had memorized the layout of the building on her first day, if for no other reason than, to find the shortest route to its vital areas and ease the demand on her sense of taste. At 250,000 square-feet, Roxxon labs was a humungous four-story tribute to pointless, abstract architecture. Hallways forked at uneven angles, throwing off Dana's sense of direction and odd-colored protrusions of stone and glass ran the exterior of the building for reasons totally imperceptible even by people who worked there. It all made Dana curse under her breath with every trip to and from the cafeteria. If a certain area or office was listed at being north or east of another then, damn it, there should be one corner to turn not three. Adding insult to injury, the most preposterous paintings and sculptures tastelessly impugned the Roxxon lobbies at virtually every entrance. Gross, Dana thought. She had piddled out more fascinating creations with modeling clay and finger-paints in kindergarten. She longed for the simplicity of Case Western where the bricks and mortar were in earth tones and the creative droppings of any beetle-brained pot-smokers were confined to the Arts department.

  Dana decelerated when she noticed two strangers—one male, one female—loitering outside her module. She judged them as a couple pausing to share a joke or perhaps a public display of affection. The latter if the female was lucky; the man was terribly handsome.

  “That's her,” Glenda whispered to Xavier. He was the one who would make their opening. Dana and Glenda had met only on the briefest of terms, but scientists were famous for nothing if not their ability to apply their memories. Assuming the disguise didn't pass muster, shoving Glenda right in her face could shock Dana into a reaction that would draw onlookers fast.

  Xavier proceeded, jutting an open hand straight at her. “Dana Holliman, good to see you,” he said.

  Dana toddled, almost dropping her code key. Her reflexes directed her to extend a polite, if not, surmising hand and the handsome and forthright stranger had to cover the remaining distance to take it.

  Dana wasn't the most glamorous woman he had ever seen, Xavier thought. But as brainy types went, he'd certainly let her do his homework. Dana was a garden-variety carrot-top with all the trimmings: white skin, red hair, green eyes. But apparently, or unless she was a whiz with a makeup brush, she had been spared the relentless community of freckles that tended to accompany her Celtic heritage. She was also younger than he imagined—younger than Glenda, perhaps—and if his eyes weren't deceiving him, was giving Glenda a run for her money in the body department.

  “I'm s...sorry,” Dana said. “Have we met?”

  “No, but I've heard of you. We have a friend in common: Richard Kelmer.”

  Xavier let Dana's hand slide away as a chill bubbled up between them.

  “Who are you?” she asked, not so friendly.

  Xavier curled a cheek. The change in Dana's demeanor was subtle, yet swift and he knew, in an instant, not to play coy. She knew something. Something that gave her reason to wax suspicious at the mere mention of Kelmer's name.

  “We are friends of Richard Kelmer's,” Xavier said, “and we very much need your help.”

  Dana looked sharper at the man. “How do you know Richard?”

  Xavier peeped over his shoulder, motioning for Glenda to step forward. It was a bold move if not a stupid one. If Dana raised a stink and alerted security, he wasn't sure if he and Glenda could outrun them. He could only say his choice to be honest with Dana, from the jump, was pure instinct.

  Glenda angled in front of Xavier and almost went so far as to flank Dana. But Xavier subtly cupped Glenda's waist and halted her movement. Making Dana feel boxed in wouldn't win them any favors.

  “You and I have met before,” Glenda said. She tapped a finger behind her ear and the outline framing her glasses dissolved.

  Dana gasped.

  “Please. There's no reason to panic,” Xavier said, looking directly into Dana's bulging eyes. This is where his boyish features and disarming charms would come in handy. “We just want to talk.”

  Dana backed away. “I'm not talking to you. I'm calling security.” She then turned, br
eaking into her best high-heeled trot.

  “You have to help us save Richard!” Glenda said promptly.

  Dana froze. She looked back at the pair, but kept the rest of her body aimed in the opposing direction, ready to book under the slightest provocation. “What do you mean?”

  “Dana, could we please go somewhere a bit more private?”

  “Why would I go anywhere with you and what does this have to do with Richard?”

  Glenda paused. She and Xavier bounced glances up and down the hallway ensuring they were safe from curious eyes and ears.

  “Four days ago I got a call from Richard,” Glenda said. “He sounded frightened, panicked. He wouldn't or couldn't tell me what was happening, but ever since then I've had people trying to kill me and one of them mentioned Richard's name. I think he wanted to kill him too. I think Richard may have been trying to warn me about something, something that's led up to all this insanity that's been going on around me. But now it looks like he's gone missing himself and we need to find him. I'd tell you why we haven't gone back to the police yet, but you wouldn't believe me. Please Dana. It may already be too late.”

  Dana homed in on Xavier. “Who is he?” she asked.

  “I’m someone who’s trying to help,” Xavier answered simply. He regretted not telling her his name—it wouldn’t serve to earn Dana's trust—but throwing it around could bite them in the ass if he wasn’t careful.

  “Will you talk to us?” Glenda asked.

  Dana just whipped her eyes between them. “No. Leave me alone.”

  “Dana, please.”

  “I haven’t seen Richard for months,” Dana exclaimed. A benign answer was best. Anyone looking to hurt Richard would get nothing from her.