by Dan Ames
There was very little to go on. He repeatedly found the address for the company, but not much else.
Even a search of LinkedIn showed no employees listed, just a generic listing for the company itself.
Now Mack was intrigued.
Mack closed up his laptop, walked outside and called Adelia. He had complete confidence in her ability to take care of Janice, but he still liked to check in, more to see if Adelia needed something for the house, like groceries, than anything else.
After she reassured Mack everything was fine, he drove down to the beach. It being summer, most of the snowbirds were long gone and parking was a breeze. He fed a few quarters into a parking meter, took off his shoes, and walked down to the water’s edge, then turned and started a fast walk north.
As his feet trudged forward, he thought about Nora. And Doug. And what may have happened.
It was with an odd mixture of shame and guilt that he pondered the idea Doug was having an affair. It had the hallmarks written all over it. A mysterious assault, a sudden disappearance.
Maybe Doug had a falling out with his lover, tried to leave her, and she attacked him. Or maybe the opposite. Doug wanted to run away with his lover, she said no, he attacked her, and got stabbed in the process.
It would explain Doug’s need for secrecy.
A huge jellyfish was stretched out on the sand, its clear, plasma-like body baking in the sun. Mack wondered what kind of jellyfish it was and made a mental note to look it up when he got back home.
There was a steady wind and the waves were coming ashore powerfully, hissing with foam as they beached themselves on the sand.
A gull cruised overhead and then landed near Mack, double-checking if he had any food. Satisfied there would be no snacks, the bird flew away.
Searching, Mack thought. We’re all searching.
Chapter Nineteen
Doug Brooks was in a severe amount of pain. His side hurt. His head hurt. He was sweating. He had the chills.
He popped three more pain pills and sat on the edge of the bed in his cheap hotel room. He’d paid cash, which is why he had taken the time to find a cheap place.
What Doug really wanted to do was go home, crawl into bed, and let Nora take care of him.
But he couldn’t do that.
And he couldn’t think about Nora.
Now wasn’t the time.
He looked at his phone and dialed the number again. But, just like the previous fifteen times he’d done it, there was no answer.
Where was the old man?
Doug got to his feet, slowly. Shuffled to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. The pills were taking effect and the sharpness of the pain had been blunted. There was more numbness now taking over and he forced himself to get moving.
Being a scientist, he had long ago given up any pretense of religion. As a boy, he’d dutifully trudged along to church with his parents, but as soon as he began his serious studies, he’d stopped and never gone back.
So when he prayed, it was more like a general wish to the universe.
Right now, he really wished he knew what was going on.
His greatest fears, long buried might be coming true.
We remember.
Had his attacker really said that?
Or had Doug imagined it?
The old man would know.
He was the only one who could know.
Where the hell was he?
Chapter Twenty
Mack felt odd showing up at Nora’s place empty-handed, but he also felt strange being invited to dinner and not bringing something. Like a bottle of wine.
But he wasn’t here for any other reason than an investigation. Treat it the same way, he told himself. Would he show up at a woman’s house whose husband had disappeared, with a bottle of wine?
Hell no.
So he’d opted out.
Plus, he was planning on driving back to Estero tonight.
Mack rang the bell and after a moment, the door opened. Nora smiled at him and let him inside. He stepped into the house, and smelled Nora’s perfume. She had changed as well, and added a little makeup.
Suddenly, he felt bad for not bringing something.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring anything,” he said.
“Oh please,” she said.
Mack watched her walk away and he felt a sudden longing. Stop it, he told himself. You’re not a college kid anymore.
“I know this isn’t a social occasion,” she said. “But do you want a glass of wine? A beer?”
“I’ll take a beer, sure,” he said. “Only one though since I have to drive back.”
Nora got Mack a beer and she took a glass of wine. There were sliding glass doors that led out to a pool and a sitting area. Nora opened the doors and gestured Mack through.
She sat in one of the chairs that made up the outdoor seating area. It was shaded, and there was a nice breeze.
“Nice to sit outside when you can,” she said.
“Any word?” he asked her as he settled into a chair across from her.
“No,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Well, nothing is about what I have, too.” Mack explained what he’d found at the police station, and then again at the library.
“Tell me about his work,” Mack said. “There’s virtually nothing online about Advanced Biologies.”
“I don’t really know that much, honestly,” she said. “He was a scientist, and he told me most of what he did was so technical that he didn’t talk about it. But it was fine. He liked the company. Liked the people he worked with.”
“Did you ever go to his office? Meet his coworkers?” Mack asked.
“No. A lot of their research was proprietary and off-limits to everyone, even some of its own employees.”
“Interesting,” Mack said. He took a drink of his beer.
“Why all the questions about Doug’s workplace?”
Mack shrugged his shoulders. “Just wondering. No one seems to have any answers, I’m just grasping at straws.”
Nora sighed and took a drink of her wine. “Tell me about you,” she said. “I know about your FBI exploits. But what about after?”
He found himself talking more about himself than he had in years. He told Nora about Janice, her condition, and his retirement. He glossed over some of his cases since he’d left the Bureau.
“You never married?” she asked.
“Came close a couple of times, but I was married to the job, as cliché as that sounds.”
Nora smiled at him. “You were so intense, even back in college. You seem way more laid back now.”
“Retirement does that,” he pointed out.
A momentary silence fell between them. Outside, a car drove by and the wind kicked up, sending ripples across the surface of the pool.
“Are you hungry?” Nora asked. “I’ve got some pasta I was going to have.”
He checked his watch.
It would be better to hit the road.
“Sure,” he said. “I’d like that.”
CONTEMPLATION
Chapter Twenty-One
Brielle had gone through many obsessions. There had been food obsessions. A phase where empanadas were nearly always on the menu. There had also been an alcohol obsession. Dirty martinis every night.
Not surprisingly, yoga had become an obsession, along with working out. All those martinis and empanadas had caused some serious side effects.
Lately, she’d been obsessed with sex.
Not having sex.
Listening to it.
In the form of erotic audiobooks.
Brielle bought them by the dozens and listened to them nonstop. In the car on the way to work. At the gym. On the toilet.
But her most favorite place to listen to them was out here, on her balcony. She had an apartment on the tenth floor overlooking a part of the city that butted up against the university.
There were a lot of college students around, which was both good and
bad. You had the sometimes obnoxiously loud music on the weekends. But you also had a lot of good cheap restaurants nearby, catering to the limited budgets of its constituents.
Now, Brielle was in her happy place. Stretched out on her chaise lounge, the sun setting over the railing of her balcony, a glass of wine on the table next to her and her hands in her lap.
The current selection was entitled Manhandled by the Millionaire and the heroine of the story was just being taken to the millionaire’s beachside retreat, where he had promised her “free lessons” but Brielle figured they weren’t classes about surfing.
Brielle’s hands were in her lap for strategic reasons. Her sexuality was a bit of a mystery to her. She’d had lovers of both sexes but had never really settled on one. And she’d never really been satisfied, either. Which explained why she was always unattached.
Besides, her mind was her erogenous zone. Sometimes, she felt like her body was just a feeding station for her brain.
The erotic stories were interesting, too. She could never really tell which part of it turned her on. The male or the female. Or both.
Sometimes Brielle caressed herself when she listened to the stories, but she usually didn’t. Tonight was an exception, though. For some reason, she felt adventurous.
This was the good part.
They were at the beach house. The millionaire had disappeared into another room and the sexy heroine was undressing for what she thought was going to be a swim. Just as her clothes hit the floor, the millionaire appeared from the other room. He was naked, and in his hand was–
A shadow fell over Brielle and she must have screamed, but she couldn’t hear it because the audiobook was still playing, even as the hand clamped over her mouth.
She tried to lunge upward from the chaise lounge but her attacker straddled her and sat on her chest.
In her attacker’s other hand was a knife.
No, not a knife, she corrected herself, even as it flashed toward her and sliced through her pale throat.
The correct term flashed across her mind as her life force gushed from the giant opening under her chin.
A scalpel.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dinner was delicious, and Nora was making some coffee for Mack. Even though the drive wasn’t bad, a plate of pasta and a beer didn’t exactly make you super alert.
Just then, Mack’s phone rang.
He checked the number but didn’t recognize it.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Mack, it’s Detective Seever, with Boca PD?”
“Seever. Yes. What can I do for you?”
“Well, we’ve got a case that may or may not have something to do with the incident you and I discussed earlier,” the cop said.
“Okay,” Mack said.
“I’m down at the county morgue, and I was wondering if you were still in the area and wanted to stop by.”
Mack knew better than to ask for details over the phone, so instead he asked for the address, thanked Seever, and hung up.
“Might have a lead to follow up on,” he told Nora. She poured some coffee into a to-go Thermos and handed it to Mack.
The gesture felt immediately foreign and comforting to Mack.
He wondered if this was what it was like to have someone who cared for you. It was a strange sensation, especially considering Nora had probably done the same thing for Doug ad nauseam, to the point where he didn’t even recognize the intimacy and magic of the moment.
Geez, he thought. Listen to himself. The magic of the moment. It was a frickin’ cup of coffee, for Chrissakes, Mack, he told himself. Quit being so melodramatic.
“Thank you,” he said. He took the coffee and their hands touched.
Nora smiled at him and stepped forward, gave him a hug.
“Thank you for everything, Mack,” she said. “If you end up working late and need a place to sleep, don’t be shy. We’ve got a guest bedroom. Don’t make that drive if it’s late.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” he said.
He left, went out to the car, and plugged in the county morgue’s address. It was only ten minutes away and by the time he arrived, he’d drank most of the coffee. He figured he might need it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“In here,” Seever said, when he saw Mack in the hallway. The security guard had let him into the building, and eventually he’d found his way to the basement, where one always found the pathologist’s headquarters.
“I cleared it with my boss,” Seever explained. “You being here and all.”
Mack stepped into the brightly lit, sterile room. There was an assortment of body parts on a stainless steel table. Mack tried not to look too closely. He’d never had a problem with queasiness, but it had been awhile.
The pathologist was a tall, thin woman with stooped shoulders. She had a narrow pinched face, and blonde hair sporadically tucked underneath a surgical cap.
“Show him,” Seever said to her, after brief introductions were made. The woman’s name was Carol Bennett.
“Just to cut to the chase,” Seever said. “This was no train accident. The vic was dead already, and probably placed on the track. My guess would be to help destroy any evidence.”
Mack nodded.
“Okay, Doc,” Seever said to Bennett.
She pointed to what remained of the dead man’s torso. “This body had been cut apart before the train’s impact had taken place. Clearly, an incision was made here,” she said. “But then the knife traveled upward, doing extensive damage along the way, without wavering. It was a very sharp knife and the cut was done with a good amount of force.”
“How much force?” Mack asked. “In other words, could a normal person create that kind of wound? Or would it require someone with extraordinary strength.”
“I think the average person could do it, if properly motivated,” she said. She gave Mack an odd expression and he guessed she was watching for his reaction.
He didn’t have one.
“It’s more about the knife, right?” Seever chimed in.
“Yes, I believe that’s accurate,” Bennett said. She went to a stainless steel tray and selected several cutting instruments. They varied in length, but each one was tipped with a similar blade. Long and narrow. Some were longer than others.
“If I had to guess, the weapon was very similar to this,” she said. She selected the longest of the blades. “It’s a #22, but they make different versions of this.”
To Mack, it looked like a surgical knife on steroids. Much bigger and heavier.
“And there are knives like that not just for medical uses, but for the street,” Mack pointed out. “There are several companies that manufacture knives based on surgical instruments. It could be the assailant used one of those.”
He almost told them about the case of a serial rapist in Louisiana who had used such a knife to cut up his victims postmortem. That killer had used something very similar as this murder weapon.
“Unfortunately, they’re widely available. Which means it doesn’t narrow things down, at all,” Mack said.
“Damn,” Seever said. “I hoped your case combined with this might get us somewhere.”
“It might,” Mack pointed out.
“Tell me what you know about the victim,” he said.
“A John Doe,” Seever said. “The doctor here guesses around late twenties or so. No distinguishing marks. No ID. Yet. That’s partly why I called you.”
“Partly?” Mack asked.
“Well, the doc here wanted to meet you,” he said, a bit sheepishly.
“I followed some of your cases. A fascinating career,” Bennett said.
“Yeah,” Mack answered. He looked down at the dismembered body on the table. “Fascinating.”
Suddenly, Mack noticed something on the dead man’s head.
“Are you doing a brain autopsy?” he asked her.
“No,” she said, a half-smile on her face. “You noticed that, too?”
&nb
sp; “Noticed what?” Seever said.
Bennett went to the dead man’s head, and turned it sideways, revealing a long, thin red line that ran from behind one of the man’s ears, around the back of the skull, to the other ear.
“It’s where a cut is usually made to open the skull. To remove the brain,” Mack explained.
“Very good, Mr. Mack,” Bennett said. “But I didn’t make that cut.”
“You can’t cut a head open with a knife,” Seever said. And then, a little less confidently, “Right?”
“A special saw is required,” Mack said. He pointed to Bennett’s instrument table. “Like that one.”
They all turned to look at the saw.
“What the hell?” Seever asked.
“When you establish identity, please call me,” Mack said to Seever. “Ms. Bennett, it was good to meet you and thank you for your insights.”
She smiled at him. “Any time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Seever caught up to Mack in the parking lot.
“Did you say you’re working for Douglas Brooks’s wife?” he asked.
“I’m not working for her,” Mack answered. “Just doing her a favor. I knew Nora and Doug back in college. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Okay, well, we’re probably going to want to talk to Mrs. Brooks sooner than later.”
“Really?” Mack asked, even though he knew it was probably going to happen.
“Little strange that Douglas Brooks says he gets attacked by somebody with a surgical knife, and then we get a John Doe who was cut up by someone with a surgical knife.”
“Nora won’t know anything about it.”
“No, but she knows a lot about her husband.”
Seever said it with a bit of an edge.
“You really think Doug Brooks had something to do with that?” Mack said gesturing back toward the autopsy room. “No way. Not in a million years.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Seever said. “After all, I’m happy to defer to you in matters of the criminal mind.”