“The name’s Ross,” Micah said. The lie rolled off his tongue as though it were second nature, but something about it felt all right. “Ross Sheridan.”
“Well, Mister Sheridan,” Christensen replied snidely, “I don’t see a visitor’s pass on your person, but I trust you have the clearance to be back here in the employee’s only area?”
“Oh, absolutely. If you’d like, I can get that for you right now.”
“I’d rather you just tell me why you’re really here.”
Lolita continued to swim around the large tank that made up most of her enclosure. Periodically she would let out another whistle, seemingly curious why her attempts at interspecies communication had suddenly become one-sided.
“Let’s be honest with each other. I think we both know you’ve got a fairly solid idea about the answer.”
“I could speculate all night, but there’s only so much overtime to go around, I’m afraid.”
“Cut the shit, Oliver,” Micah snarled. Annoyed though he may be, he had to give it to the tub of lard across from him for returning each verbal jab like a champ.
“Wait just a minute, how did you…?”
“Word around town is you owe a bookie quite a bit of money. Thirty grand sound familiar?”
“That’s what all this is about?” Christensen seemed oddly relieved at the revelation. “I told that greaseball that I’d get him the money. It was just going to take longer than expected. Business hasn’t exactly been booming as of late, so the cash hasn’t flowed as well as it does usually.”
“That’s your problem, not ours,” Micah said. Any pity he had for the man vanished the moment he uttered the slur. “Ever think of picking up a second job? It’s a great way to earn some extra cash. Hell, a man with a PhD should at least be able to get a halfway decent meth operation running.”
“A second job is a little tough when you’re working 55 hours a week on the low end. Doesn’t leave much time for other obligations.”
“Are you salaried?”
“Not in the traditional sense, no.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re pulling overtime, yet you still can’t even pay back part of the money you owe?”
“It… it’s not like that.”
“Then tell me, friend,” Micah said, advancing. “What is it like?”
Christensen backed up hastily and knocked over the rolling cart, sending the glass instruments flying. He got up slowly, his hands fumbling with something on the ground. Micah walked closer, aware that something was awry, but not entirely sure what to make of it from where he stood.
“I’m not playing games here. You’ve had more than enough time to pay up, yet you keep holding out. It’s as if you don’t fully grasp the severity of the situation.”
“It’s just… I…,” Christensen waited until Micah was nearly upon him, and then he lunged forward, a shard of glass in his hand. He swiped for Micah’s head, but didn’t expect a dodge. His momentum carried him forward, grazing Micah’s chest.
“Son of a bitch!”
Micah paid no attention to the searing pain coming from his chest. Instead, he immediately pivoted and punched Christensen in the face with a haymaker. The blow sent the man into the tank, head first. His body slid to the ground with no reflexive move to slow his descent. With his pistol drawn, Micah approached the man cautiously. One step, two steps, silence. Everything pointed to the man being knocked out cold. And then he lunged forward. Micah fired one shot and watched Christensen drop to the ground for good.
That won’t be good for business. There’s no way the other guard didn’t hear that.
Micah quickly patted down Christensen, searching for anything worthwhile on his person. A wallet and a keyring. The wallet had a few store credit cards, some stamp cards, and fifty bucks. His saving grace, however, was a single key on the keyring that looked different from the rest. It was short and stout, with a plastic label over the head that read ‘Locker 22’ in blue letters. Micah pocketed the keys and put the wallet back into Christensen’s pocket. He paused for a moment.
The world around him was still silent, save for the whistles of Lolita. She now roamed closer to the edge of the enclosure; her eyes seemed to investigate the area beyond for a sign of her master. Perhaps she knew something was wrong. Certain he was alone for a little while longer, Micah lifted Christensen’s body and walked up a nearby flight of stairs. He stopped when he was at the top of the enclosure, looking out across the dark water and to the stands surrounding it. He rested Christensen’s body on the edge of the tank, the man’s head lolling about to the side. It sat there for a moment, like a creepy doll on the verge of becoming a dog’s chew toy. Then Micah gave the body a nudge and watched as it disappeared into the depths.
Chapter 26
Sheridan’s surgery took only a few hours to complete. He had been a consummate patient thanks to the heavy dose of sedatives administered to him in the lead up to his body being altered. The low-level nodes were implanted into his body with little issue. Mostly, all it took to put them in place was a small slice with a scalpel and a screw to adhere the node to the nearest bone. The larger nodes in his brain proved to be a bit more challenging, though that had been the expectation going into the procedure.
The room was quiet when Sheridan’s eyes finally parted. Mallory milled about, checking the machines situated around his bed for updates on his vitals, and that of the nodes. She had to report back to Dr. King if anything looked outside of the ordinary. Not that such a thing existed in this instance. She was scribbling a note on her clipboard when she heard a strained grunt from the bed next to her.
“Good morning, Mr. Sheridan,” she said cheerily.
“Wh… h… whe…” came the garbled response.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Mallory said. She grabbed a glass of water from the table resting over Sheridan’s bed and handed it to him, careful to position the flexible portion of the straw in such a manner that he could easily sip the liquid.
Sheridan took a long drag of the water. His mouth felt quite a lot like he imagined it would feel had he walked through a desert for days without a canteen. He briefly wondered if he could ever produce saliva again. Then he took another slurp, and the water had an almost cooling effect. “Thank you.”
“Sure thing, sugar.”
“How did… everything go?”
“Wonderfully,” Mallory said with a Cheshire grin. She tucked the clipboard behind her and deposited the pen in the front pocket of her scrubs. “You’re expected to make a speedy recovery.”
“How long do I need to stay in this bed?” Sheridan weakly attempted to prop himself up on an arm.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mallory said, deftly approaching and helping him to lie back down. “You still need your rest. I’m going to step outside for a moment, but someone should be with you shortly to give you your next set of medication.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Certainly,” Mallory replied. She turned on a dime and walked out of the room.
Sheridan laid on the bed for a few moments, not in pain so much as a constant state of soreness. He could feel where the incisions were made and subsequently sewed up, though he couldn’t see any trace of foreign objects. As the moments passed on, the pounding in his head grew more severe. He took another sip of water and fell back onto the pillow, groaning.
As if on command, the door swung open and the other nurse walked in. His face was sullen. Sheridan wasn’t sure what to make of him, but he didn’t get a foreboding sense of doom from the man’s body language, just a feeling that he wanted to be anywhere but in that room. The man walked over to Sheridan’s bed and handed him a cup. There were a few pills inside, but it looked like the sort of oddball candy treat you’d see at a Halloween party store.
“Mr. Sheridan, I need you to take these pills for me. We’ve got to get you prepared for your next step.”
“My next step?
What are you talking about…?”
“There’s no cause for concern. Please take your medication. The rest will be over with soon enough.”
Sheridan reluctantly swallowed the pills and stared at the man before him. Though trust was the last thing he felt, he knew there wasn’t much in the way of options in his current state. A paper bag would likely put up a better fight. He envisioned himself leaping off the bed at the nurse, throwing a few punches before bolting out the door. The reality would likely involve him plummeting to the vinyl flooring underneath the gurney like the town drunk. And then his world became hazy. He was living through it but felt zero control. His body slumped back into the bed and Scott wheeled out of the room.
“That’s it, Mr. Sheridan. Just relax. This will all be over soon.”
The words were cryptic. At least, they would have been had Sheridan any way of fully grasping the manner in which his current situation had shifted into the unknown. He simply existed, aware of the world around him, but not so much of his place within it. Sometime later he came to an abrupt stop in an unfamiliar room. It wasn’t like any other room he had ever been in. Rather than the standard four walls with a door, maybe a window, this room had just one continuous wall. To look at it from above would be to see an almost perfect circle, shrouded by an unseen square.
There was one door in the room. The only way in or out. No windows in sight, and the air vents were invisible to the naked eye. Goosebumps on Sheridan’s arms made it obvious that the temperature was being regulated somehow, but they did it in the background. Like much of the room. Shortly after reaching the destination, Scott pressed a button on the side of the gurney. It lifted Sheridan to an upright, seated position. Scott wasted no time strapping Sheridan to the bed. His arms and legs held in place, rendering him incapable of escape.
Sheridan sat there, saliva slowly exiting his mouth, dangling like a teenager hanging out of their window to break curfew. He stared at the blank wall in the distance. Scott had stepped aside to retrieve an object but looked at Sheridan with pity as he came back to the bed-made-chair. An urge to help the poor sap briefly overcame Scott, but he pushed it out of his mind and placed the object over Sheridan’s head. It was a spherical device with probes sticking out at two-centimeter intervals. These probes relayed information to and from terminals buried deep within the crevices behind the circular wall. Toward the front of the device was a cutout with a curved, rectangular lens which protruded downward, over Sheridan’s eyes. Scott inserted a feeding tube into Sheridan’s abdomen. He appreciated the ease with which he could place it thanks to his patient’s incapacity.
“I’ll be back momentarily,” Scott lied. His shift was over. No one would return to the room for a few days.
Scott walked briskly out of the room. The lights shut off and darkness surrounded Sheridan. Light emanated only from the sensors on the probes atop his head at five-second intervals, like a horrific take on Morse code. Suddenly, the darkness abated. Sheridan watched, without fully grasping the gravity of the situation, as the walls burst to life. What had once appeared to be nothing more than drywall and plaster was now a sophisticated piece of technology, a screen with clarity that would rival the highest definition displays in the world.
The OrCA logo appeared first, surrounding the room. A silhouette of the legendary killer whale, appearing to jump out of water and over the name of the branch. Letters in black, against a white screen. It would have proved to be a powerful message under most circumstances. But not this. Not long after it faded away, a scene appeared on the screen, one Sheridan had never actually been privy to, but one which instantly felt familiar. He was walking up to a house late at night. The door was cracked, which seemed wrong, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. An uneasy feeling welled up inside of him. He walked up a flight of stairs in front of him, rounding the corner and staring at the dead body of a young girl. Before he reacted, a man was rushing his position. He raised his gun. Pulled the trigger.
The screen faded to black. And started anew.
Chapter 27
Castillo sat in his regular booth in the private room of La Cantina Sucia. His usual call girl beside him. Micah walked into the room and gave Castillo a stern look. The girl left a moment later, and Micah sat down in her place. Castillo took a sip of the mojito in front of him.
“How’d it go?”
“A whale ate him.”
Castillo nearly spit out his drink. “A whale? You mean to tell me I sent you to collect money from the guy, not to off him, but just get some money and a fucking whale eats him?” He exploded into a fit of laughter. Tears rolled from his eyes and he felt a tinge of pain in his chest as he opted to laugh instead of breathe. “Did you get the cash, at least?”
“Nope, he held out,” Micah said. “This should make up for it.” He grabbed a set of keys from his pocket and set them on the table.
“BMW, huh? Yea, I think that ought to do it,” Castillo said, pocketing the keys.
“The car’s still at the Seaquarium. Couldn’t exactly tow it with the Impala.”
“I’d have killed you if I found out you tried.”
Micah shifted in his seat. The threat didn’t bother him, but it seemed to make clear the notion that nothing existed between the two men outside of a professional relationship.
“I’m only kidding. Look, don’t worry about the car, I’ll send some guys out there to pick it up. I mean, they probably have a day or two to pull it off because it’s not like that damn whale’s going to shit the guy out this afternoon.”
Chapter 28
Something felt off to Osteen about the interaction with the Medical Examiner, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Frank Orson had been a trusted colleague of Osteen’s for most of his career. There were more than a few folks sitting behind bars at that very moment who may not have been without the collective efforts of the two men in upholding the letter of the law.
That nagging feeling just wouldn’t go away. Try as he might to rid himself of it, Osteen could sense that something was off. He had missed a clue. A tell. Something to force his mind to not take everything at face value. But he had ignored it. Perhaps Vivian was right.
It often felt like his cases, at least lately, were considerably more convoluted than they needed to be. It hadn’t always been that way. There was a time when Osteen would roll up to a crime scene, figure the motive out quicker than the beat cops could put up caution tape, and move on to arresting the perp. Those days were long gone. In their place stood a man whose age continually seemed to get the better of him. An increasing sense of paranoia crept forward, further causing him to question reality. Could he ever truly be sure of an answer anymore?
This time felt different. There was no delusion. The sixth sense that had made him a natural as a detective had alerted him to something outside the ordinary while he was in the Medical Examiner’s office. But what? He touched the screen on his car and prompted his phone to call Vivian. She picked up after two rings.
“He… hello?”
“Hey, Viv. Feeling any better?”
“Sort of. Just trying to sleep it off and hope for the best.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Take some meds too, while you’re at it.”
“Look, Dan, I appreciate the concern. I really do, but why are you really calling?”
Osteen looked out the window, toward the Atlantic, and wondered if he should really tell Vivian what was on his mind. After all, she was the one who had decried him for trying to find issues that may not be there. But surely, she’d see how weird it all seemed. Even if she didn’t, there wasn’t much he kept from his partners. “I just left the M.E.’s office.”
“How’d that go?”
He could hear a bit of contempt in her voice. That, or she was on the verge of another trip to the bathroom. He wasn’t certain, but he pressed on. “Odd, to say the least. I’m not sure why the hell Orson called me down there. Nothing he told me was outside of th
e findings in his report.”
“So, he just made you travel across half the city in the middle of the day for a pow wow?”
“Something like that. Look, I’d be lying if I said something didn’t feel off about the whole situation.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Vivian answered. She then had a brief coughing fit before collecting herself. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. If he would’ve just left it at the file, I would’ve wondered, but ultimately figured there’s not much I could do. No way the department’s going to let me go after this thing on my own. Not unless I could prove its merit to them. But then I get there, and Orson says he preferred to tell me in person as more of a professional courtesy.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“He basically told me I’d be committing career suicide if I pressed this any further. But it just came across as genuine collegial concern.”
“Almost like he felt he was doing you a solid.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe he was.”
“Well shit, if that’s the case, how am I supposed to just sit back like nothing happened?”
“Easy. Shut your brain off.”
“Easier said than done,” Osteen replied. He pulled into his spot at the department and shifted the car into park. The squad car idled as he relished in the cool manufactured air blowing through the tiny plastic vents.
“Look, Dan, you are mere months away from retiring with your full pension. A well-deserved thank you for a few decades of service to the Magic City. Don’t throw that all away for some two-bit hack of a news anchor.”
“That just feels so damn wrong.”
“Even if it’s all bullshit. Maybe the warning was just there to push you off course in the search for the perp. Who knows? At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide the situation’s worth. You can put it all on the line for this man who wouldn’t have given a shit about you when he was above ground, lose everything, and it won’t change the fact that he’s gone. Dead. Solving this doesn’t bring him back, but it could ruin you.”
Murder in the Magic City Page 11