by Fae York
The rest of the night was a blur. Emergency responders placed the body on a stretcher and a kind-faced police officer asked her a few questions. At some point, she ended up back in her apartment with her head spinning in circles.
Emelia was staring sightlessly at her couch when the phone rang, the caller name unknown. Thinking that it could be a call from the police station, or a neighbor with questions about the accident, Emelia reluctantly answered.
“Hello, this is Emelia,” she said halfheartedly.
“Emelia, hey, it’s Aleph, from Plume, remember? I told you that I would give you a call.”
Emelia cleared her throat and tried unconvincingly to add a little pep to her voice. “Oh yeah . . . Hey, Aleph.”
“Everything okay?” he asked. The concern in his voice was sincere but Emelia was drained.
“Oh yeah, yeah . . . no, um . . . I’m fine. I just had a really long day at work and a rough night. I’m alright now, how are you?”
“I’m alright. I was late to work today, time just seems to escape me these days.” He chuckled. “But I’ll live.”
There was a pause and Emelia didn’t say anything, so he continued, “You know, it’s pretty late and you definitely deserve a good night’s sleep, but I’d love to get together sometime soon. Could we do coffee? Tomorrow maybe?”
Even with everything that had happened, Emelia managed a small smile. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot actually.”
“Perfect, it’s a date then.”
Emelia swallowed softly. The ‘D’ word. “Sure.”
“Goodnight, Emelia.”
“Goodnight, Aleph.”
The phone clicked off. She buried her head beneath her comforter and willed herself to sleep. The sooner sleep took over, the sooner she could get back to the office—hopefully piecing together the mystery of the Doe cases that were now consuming her mind.
7 Coffee for Two
The next day at work, Jay intercepted her the moment Emelia stepped off the elevator. He kept her blindingly busy all day long, running her ragged, as if he knew that in any given second of free time she would be thinking about the Doe cases.
Standing in the copy room a few minutes before lunch, Emelia stared at the wall ahead of her while the machine whirred and churned out a two hundred page document for her persistent boss. She was completely oblivious to the fact that Gavin had come in right behind her. Just as Emelia stooped down to retrieve her copies, he spoke.
“Are y—”
Emelia squeaked and the papers that she had been holding fell to the ground.
“S-sorry, Emelia,” Gavin stammered, awkwardly squatting down to help her pick them back up. “The secretary sent me to come get you, you weren’t answering your phone. But, um, there’s a guy at the front desk who asked to see you.”
“A guy . . .?” she asked, but then it dawned on her. Aleph. She grinned. “Oh, yes, tell her I’ll be right out.”
“I didn’t know you had a boyfr—” Gavin began, but Emelia was already out the door.
Aleph was standing at the front desk with his back against the wall, dressed more casually than the last time she had seen him, but he still looked handsome. He looked up at the sound of her heels clicking on the tile floor and smiled.
“Figured that you could probably use a break,” Aleph said, extending the crook of his arm like some sort of old-fashioned gentleman.
Emelia laughed and accepted the invitation. “You have no idea.”
He chuckled and said nothing, walking her out the door and down the street.
“Where are we going?” she asked curiously.
“I want to take you to this little cafe on Center Street, I hear it has the best coffee in D.C.,” he said, reaching to crossing press the button at the stoplight.
“You don’t mean The Box, do you? I love that place.”
“Yeah, one of my really close friends recommended it to me. She says that it’s a little older than some of the other cafes in town, but that’s what makes the coffee taste so good,” Aleph told her with a secretive smile in her direction.
“That’s what I keep telling people at work. That is, when I talk to people at work. I can be a bit of a social recluse sometimes.” She laughed nervously, and they crossed the street.
“Really?” Aleph cocked his head in disbelief. “You’ve always seemed so open to me. Easy to talk to.”
“Always? Keep in mind that you’ve known me for a whopping four days, Aleph,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t get out much.”
He coughed and cleared his throat at that, “Yes. I guess you’re right.” They stopped in front of the door and Aleph pulled it open for her, “Well, we should change that.”
The Box smelled amazing, like old-fashioned doughnuts and books mingled with richly brewed coffee. Emelia took a deep breath in. Aleph went to the cashier to place their order while Emelia picked out a seat, her favorite spot next to the window on the second floor. There was this adorable, rusted staircase inside that led up to a section of booth seats on the balcony. From here anyone could look down into the kitchen or observe the other customers in the seating area below. Emelia loved to sit there, and watch the people walk by on the street.
Five minutes passed, then Aleph came over with a steaming mug in each hand and a paper bag of pastries between his teeth. He slid into the seat across from her, set down their coffees and pastries, and cleared his throat.
“So, how have you been? You sounded a bit . . . off on the phone last night.” He pulled out a blueberry scone and set it on the napkin in front of her.
Emelia stared into her coffee cup and swirled the beverage around with her spoon. “I have had a rough week.”
Aleph didn’t say anything but watched her patiently as though waiting for further explanation, and his patience did her in.
“To be honest? I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Aren’t we all?” He grinned. “What’s going on?”
Emelia looked around to make sure that no one else was listening before she spoke. Then, it all came out at once. “There have been so many weird things happening around me lately and my workload here this week has seemed enormous and I saw a man get killed Tuesday night and I just—”
“You what?” Aleph interrupted, more than just a little too loudly. He shook his head as patrons below glanced up their way then lowered his voice to a whisper as he continued, “Sorry, you saw a man get killed?”
Emelia nodded and shared only what would be in the police report; that the man had been walking through her apartment complex when one of the planter boxes from the top balcony came loose and struck him in the head, killing him instantly. She left out everything about the Does, the matching tattoos, and the mystery note that made her stomach churn.
Though she was dying to tell someone and certain that it would make for a better story, it didn’t seem like a good idea for first date small talk.
“I’m so sorry, Emelia . . . Did he have a family?” Aleph asked sympathetically.
She shook her head. “The police were unable to identify him. He didn’t have a wallet or anything on him and no one has called to report a missing person.”
“Well,” he said with a deep breath, “I’m sure that someone will call for him. Don’t worry.”
She gave him a small smile and sipped down the rest of her coffee.
They talked for a few more minutes of idle things, but their discussion of last night’s events, even though it was brief, had left a somber tone in the air. Before she knew it, Aleph was glancing at his watch. Emelia worried that she had scared him off already.
“We had better get you back before Jay buries your office in paperwork.” He flashed a kind smile.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re too late already.” She tried to match his smile.
He stood and offered her his hand to help her out of the booth. They walked back to her office in no hurry and Aleph stopped her at the entrance of her work building. “Thank
you for coming with me today. You were right, it’s the best coffee in D.C.”
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Emelia retorted.
She was turning to open the door when he stopped her again. “Emelia?”
“Yes?”
“You know that you can talk to me about anything, right? I mean, I know that we don’t know each other very well, but . . . well, like I said, I’d like to see that change,” he said with a hopeful look in his eyes.
“That means a lot to me,” Emelia replied, pushing her hair out of her face and trying to hide the fact that she was blushing. “Thanks for today, and for everything, Aleph.”
“I’ll give you a call.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said then slipped through the door with a nod and a wave. Aleph waved back and Emelia watched him go for a moment through the glass before heading back up to work.
8 Overtime
The minutes blurred into hours, hours blurred into days and, before Emelia realized it, the week had passed. It wasn’t until Friday that Emelia was able to take a breath as she walked out of the office at 8:55 p.m.—nearly two hours later than she liked to leave. When Emelia hadn’t been at her desk, she had been buried with evidence in the lab. On top of all that, she was doing her best to avoid Aleph—not because Emelia didn’t like him, but because she did. She tended to ruin every relationship that came her way, and so thought it best to take her time with this one. Her weekend schedule was lightly packed with her usual stuff—visit grandfather, shop for groceries, meal prep for the week—but she wasn’t planning anything beyond those few simple tasks.
Emelia definitely wouldn’t go walking alone anytime soon. She heard through the grapevine that they had brought in another Doe—a woman this time who had died from a lightning strike, the third Doe in their lab that had died from lightning. It was all too bizarre and every ounce of her itched to get into those cases, but as Jay would have none of it, she couldn’t do anything. All Emelia could do was plow through the next gigantic stack of work that seemed to appear on her desk every single hour of the week.
She spent most of that Saturday—other than the time she spent ticking off her to-do list—sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. Emelia was too tired to read, too irritated to watch television (for fear of being greeted with the visage of Noah Thicke’s stupid, handsome face), and too mind-numb to create anything other than the simple meals she prepared for her coming week. Emelia didn’t even have the energy to talk with Meredith Jane and let the calls go to voicemail, expecting to call her back on Sunday.
Sunday came and went before she knew it, then her alarm was waking her up from a dead sleep on Monday morning. Emelia sat up, groggy and feeling hungover. The room tilted slightly and the swoosh-swoosh-swoosh in her skull seemed to indicate that today would be another long day.
Maybe I have a brain tumor . . . I should get that checked out.
It really irked her that with the Doe cases stacking up, Emelia was kept too busy to start her own investigation into the unlikely deaths. Sure, Jay thought the Does weren’t important, and seemed continually annoyed that the FBI was giving them any attention at all, but Emelia was tired of being treated like a pawn in . . . whatever game the higher ups were playing. She had to figure out what was going on. Emelia knew that she could do it without anyone being able to track her unsanctioned investigation of the cases back to her.
Making her way to her office, Emelia grinned when she noticed her empty inbox. Part of her wanted to dive right into the Doe cases, but she had to be patient; Emelia needed to wait until the time was right. Tonight, when everyone was gone would work just fine.
Sandra popped her head in, just as Emelia was starting up her computer, and said, “Hey Emelia. We’ve been called to a meeting.”
“Okay, great. Just what I needed.” Emelia bit back a sigh and rose from her chair, joining Sandra on the walk to the conference room.
As they walked, Sandra asked quietly, “Emelia, have you been put on any of those Doe cases?”
“No.”
The swoosh-swoosh-swoosh began in Emelia’s head. She tried to ignore it.
“It’s weird,” Sandra whispered, glancing around uneasily, “that they have not put one of us senior technicians on any of them. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
“Perhaps,” Emelia said, defaulting to Jay’s answer that had irked her when he had used it on her, but it seemed as good an explanation as any she could come up with, “Jay views it as a waste of resources to have senior techs on cases unlikely to lead anywhere.”
Sandra stared at her, awed. “Seriously? Do you think that?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Emelia admitted. “It’s not my place to think about why they have or have not put their best and brightest on particular cases. I prefer to let management do their job so I can focus on mine.”
Sandra nodded and dropped the subject, sensing that Emelia wasn’t in the mood to commiserate with her. The meeting was dry and pertained very little to Emelia’s actual work. Back at her desk, she hesitated before diving into the Doe cases.
During her time in the lab that day, Emelia covertly pulled a few threads from the seam of her own, brand new lab coat. She looked away and pricked her finger then carefully dropped some blood on one of the clusters of threads. Emelia took both groups of fibers and nonchalantly put them in her machines while she worked on other things.
Unnoticeably, the machines whirred to life and began analyzing the fibers. When the results showed on the screens, Emelia didn’t know quite what she felt. Happy because her machines were working perfectly, showing that her fibers were a cotton blend, aged about one year and the blood was in her age range. Frustrated because the John Doe’s fabric and blood had to have been analyzed correctly, too, and that just didn’t make any sense.
Emelia promised herself she would run the fabric tests again if she could ever get her hands on the evidence packets.
The hours ticked away and Emelia stretched her work to a ridiculous length, saying goodbye to everyone who peeked in through her open door while she plugged away looking incredibly busy. In truth, Emelia had finished all her work and was now just typing “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs” and filling numerous pages with the ridiculous sentence that she had learned in third grade. For several weeks, during their cursive handwriting practice time, they wrote the sentence nearly as many times as Emelia had written it that day. But it worked for what she needed it to do; she looked swamped.
Once nearly everybody else had gone home for the night, Emelia swiped the ID card from a janitor who stepped into the autopsy wing and sighed as she closed the door behind her. It had been much easier to infiltrate than she thought it would be. Emelia felt guilty about lying, but didn’t want to have her security badge number linked with any entrance, exit, or return at this hour of the night, and it made sense that the cleaning crew would be in and out of there.
Emelia went into the autopsy suites first, not wanting to be burdened with evidence samples. However, she hadn’t counted on the wing’s computers being logged out. Emelia could log in, but that would defeat the purpose of having snuck in here in the first place, so she would just have to play hide and seek and hope for the best when it came to discovering which rooms held the Does. Luckily, the first suite containing eight lockers happened to be the room that housed all the Does; they were keeping them all in one place.
If it wasn’t for the smell it could have been Christmas. Even after working as a medical examiner for a few years, the smell of formaldehyde still caused her stomach to churn slightly upon entering the room. Before stepping all the way in she took a deep breath of fresh air to steady herself and got to it.
Emelia pulled out several of the cadaver trays from their individual lockers, making note of each body’s identification number to pull their evidence bags. She noticed that each body seemed to be young and healthy, but the hair on their heads seemed aged beyond what it should be if they were as young a
s they seemed to be. With each body she closely examined the tattoos on their necks, noticing that although they looked exactly the same at first glance, each one was different, varying in length and position. Some of them were lower down on the neck—closer to the C7 vertebra, Emelia noted, instead of hovering between C4 and C5. She simply wrote down these findings, feeling nothing unsettling about the difference in location or the changing patterns.
Emelia thought about what the tattoos could mean . . . maybe her colleagues were onto something . . . maybe these tats are a new gang marking . . . indicating how many people they’ve killed . . . She jotted down those thoughts as well then exited the room.
In the evidence room, Emelia pulled the bin related to the Doe case she had been pulled off to could test the fabric again. She also pulled the bin for the first Doe that arrived and the bin for the most recent Doe. With her arms heavily laden with the three bins, Emelia headed to her workstation in the laboratory. Hesitant about logging in because, as soon as she did, her security information would be entered into the system, Emelia stood in the center of the room trying to decide what to do. Alone in the room, she could hear something whirring, and wandered up and down the aisles, trying to discover the source of the sound.
One of the machines was active. It was Gavin’s workstation; he hadn’t logged out.
Looking around her because she was so nervous about breaking protocol, Emelia stepped up to his station and stared at it, wondering at Gavin’s total lack of professionalism in forgetting to logout. It was perfect.
Emelia set down the bins and rubbed her now sweaty palms on her lab coat. She didn’t like being dishonest, but something wasn’t right with these cases and she needed to figure it out. No one else was anywhere close to solving the cases, and soon they would need to dispose of the bodies to free up the space. The cases would then be put in the “closed and unresolved” category indefinitely. Emelia couldn’t have that. She had to solve them.