THE MORTALIST
(In the beginning...)
Prologue
I like to think I'm hard to read but I wasn't that day, not for my last patient of the morning. The shooting didn't help, a
single shot close in and then his body falling to the floor and then a gun, the stubby kind, moving in and pressing up against the temple and then another muted bang and his head jumped, giving off a trail of steam or smoke like when you cauterize a vessel, then blood deep and spreading on the worn dry wood and
"What?" he said, "What?" The vision faded and we were back in my office. Where he was still sitting on the padded vinyl of the exam table, looking a lot livelier and definitely more nervous.
As visions go, it was definitely right up there. Second only to the one a week before, the one that finally made me tell Linda.
Maybe I'd better start with that.
Chapter One
She looked at me across the kitchen table. An empty bottle of our favorite red sat between us: alcohol to oil a secret, make it easier to tell. Unfortunately, it wasn't working.
I hooked an arm over the back of the chair and swung around to the window beside me, the dark still yard, a reflection of the single candle in the glass. That and Linda.
"You're not starting," she said.
"Give me a minute." Or a few more years.
"You wanted to talk. The kids are asleep; we could be upstairs, too."
Upstairs, her and me. Doubtful tonight. "No, you should hear this. Something from a long time ago..." I turned back. "You know how I put stuff away."
She raked her hair--deep blond furrows, bleached by sun--and twisted it through a black elastic tie. "It's more than a river in Egypt."
"What is?" I asked, distracted.
"Denial, you dope."
"Oh. Right." In my job, it's a line we usually use about patients. The way they avoid thinking about things on purpose--the diet that finally works but won't stop working, the pesky cough that only gets worse. The same goes for doctors; we just don't like to admit it. How we put the biggies, like life and death, in mental boxes, so they won't roll around and flatten every other thought. But this box was the biggest, and had to be opened now.
"Come on, Josh."
The candle between us was this handmade purple scented thing, and as it burned it gave off the unlikely smell of lilacs and citrus, both sweet and acidic. Kind of medicinal, which had to be a sign.
"Start at the beginning, right?" Maybe I could do this. "Okay. Orientation day, medical school."
"So this isn't about me."
"This was years before we met." And for all of them since, but I couldn't throw that at her, not yet. "A bunch of sessions on a Saturday. Most of the students skipped it."
"But you had to go." Palms against the edge of the table, she tipped her chair back, keeping busy. Linda's athletic, a long tall package of attitude and energy to burn off every day, though a lot of her--exactly the right amount, in fact--is lusher than that sounds.
"To find out if I could handle it; you know, the cadavers. You get accepted, you're all excited, then you think about the things you're going to have to do, what you'll have to probe, dissect."
"Yuck." She balanced, wavering, forward and back.
"Tell me about it. But the first session was nothing, all where to park and the way to call security. After an hour I slipped out and went exploring. The classrooms, the hallways, the whole place as empty as the elevator I took to the basement."
"The basement? Why?"
"That's where the anatomy labs usually are. Keeping the bodies where they should be, I guess. Underground."
"Perfect," she said, and shook her head. Doctors.
I shrugged; she was right.
Linda remained up on the chair's two rear legs, barely touching the table's edge, waiting.
And so I laid it out, everything about that first time. How the elevator's metal doors slid open to the stink of formaldehyde, as sweet and chemical as that candle, and especially the shadowed room across the corridor, filled with rectangular steel tables, each with a sheet tented over a body-sized mass. How one of those long low humps--over in the far corner and dimly illuminated by an Exit sign, naturally--had something sticking out from under, something that had to be an arm. Thick and brown and incredibly complex, the severed cuff of skin above the elbow, the muscles and tendons teased apart for what I later learned was a teaching dissection. And how, fear forgotten, dragged over by pure curiosity, I'd reached out, reached without thinking and--
The front legs of her chair hit the kitchen's battered wood floor. "You touched it? Without a glove?"
I looked up. "I didn't know about hepatitis and stuff until later. Besides, I'd hardly grazed it when I saw her."
"Who?"
"His wife, I guess, on the other side of the gurney. Or this fuzzy image of her, leaning over him. Crying, but I hardly heard her; I jumped back and the whole scene disappeared."
Linda squinted over the flame, working hard to figure me out. "You saw a ghost?"
"Not really--he was dead, but she looked alive enough."
"You were freaking out," she said, unamused. "And thought you saw something."
"Was I suggestible? Sure. Down in the basement, all those bodies, I had to have been. The weird thing was my fingertip, the one I'd touched him with--it was like ice, aching; I had to pin it under my arm to warm it up. And as it did, the memory faded. Like a dream does, after you wake up. But leaving the feeling, for some reason, that I was destined to be a doctor."
"Destined?" She wasn't much for that sort of thing. The edge of a tooth worried at her lower lip--one of those lusher parts I mentioned--just above a small round mole on its curving red border.
"I know how it sounds, but... Just wait." Trying not to stare at that perfect dot, black as midnight.
"I was hoping that was it."
"Me too." But it wasn't, which meant I had to tell her about the next--months later, same cadaver, working our way down into the chest, sawing through the ribs and cutting the lungs and heart out. The morning that I'd been reaching for the disposable latex gloves, getting ready, when my idiot lab partner flicked a piece of fat at me; the way I'd slipped and caught myself on the remnants of that bare ribcage with my hands. My as-yet-ungloved hands. And been blasted back to the same room, the same woman, the same body, lying just as still but with his skin back on.
As I told Linda, they turned as cold as if I'd pressed my palms into the frost-tipped grass between the scarred and spindly aspen trunks outside. Remembering was dangerous; I'd learned that years ago.
"Josh?" Her voice came like music through those years. A music that somehow made it even worse.
"Sorry," I said, meaning it. "Anatomy fun and games, and why they stopped. It could have been how I took off for the bathroom. Where I ran the water hot, almost burning myself, and tried not to think about what I'd seen--especially not how it was so much brighter that before. Not blurry and transparent, but real, a real scene playing out around me. Like some mental dam had cracked and broken open even more."
"Then that wasn't the last time, either." Watching me, eyes steady, maybe feeling the wine but getting ready for more strange news from my side of the table.
"No," I said, about to wade in deeper, when a rattlesnake-like buzzing went off by my elbow. Linda didn't flinch but I did, flinched then swore and stared at my new cell phone, vibrating in a small but frenzied circle on the table, its radium-green screen reflecting in the wineglasses like tiny evil television sets.
Grabbing it, I pushed a button to make the buzzing go away and it did, though the screen stayed on, ten black digits in a row.
"Well?" Linda asked.
I looked at the number and told her it wasn't important. Which seemed to make her nervous, as I never do that, always bounce up to get whatever random obligation my little electronic master has delivered over and done with. She'd soon be nervous enough, so I answered.
It was the local Alzheimer's facility, which I knew from the number, calling to tell me a patient had died, which I also knew. Or had seen it coming, and now it obviously had, a good thing even if I didn't appreciate the timing. Though Linda was draining the last of the wine in her glass as I got up, looking like she needed the break. |
THE MORTALIST
(Somewhere in the middle...)
Two hours later I was done. The textured whirling glow was a whole lot darker outside the windows, and still moving more sideways than vertical. I got as bundled up as Robbie had been that morning and, having completed the effect with my trusty mountain mitts, fumbled the door open and walked out to the carpeted waiting room. Everyone, patients and staff, had already cleared out of there--everyone except Max Greene. He was lounging against the column by the door, hands in his pockets, wearing a damp wool suit underneath an unbuttoned grey tweed overcoat, a plaid scarf and, honest, galoshes. He'd been in Boulder for months now; when was he going to get an appropriate wardrobe? And his hair was wet--no hat. Hadn't he heard about the whole ninety-percent heat loss thing?
He straightened up, took his hands out of his pockets and cleared his throat, looking polite but I suspected uninterested in sartorial tips. Maybe he took those from Dennis, if on a reduced budget. Or maybe he just didn't like fuzzy hats.
"Dr. Czaplicki? Joshua Czaplicki?"
Unbelievable--he got it right. Acting as casual as I could, I said, "Yes?"
"I'm Max Greene. With the Police Department." The hand that came toward me was callused and wide--handball, I figured--with blunt, thick fingers.
Too flustered to remove my mitten, I shook it. If nothing else, those layers of insulation saved my grip from being completely crushed as I said, "Detective Greene."
"That's amazing, Doctor: you guessed my rank. And call me Max, please."
"All those police shows--they're always detectives," I said. "I must watch too much TV."
He nodded, waiting, until I added, "How can I help you, Max?"
Placing that square hand lightly--but firmly, or was that my imagination?--on the back of my parka, he started me on my way to the Family Practice Clinic's main entrance. "You must be in a hurry to get home," he said, though I was feeling more like a quick run back into my private office with a stop to lock the door between us. "Let me tell you while I walk you to your car."
The clinic entrance clicked shut as we crossed the third floor lobby, away from the elevators and toward the two wide sets of glass doors that formed the far corner. Out one set was the open bridge to the top of the parking structure and its sole remaining occupant, a snow-blanketed VW microbus, looking frozen in place and, worse, completely isolated. Out the other set was the other pedestrian bridge--also open on the top, but with four feet of decorative steel screen mounted on top of a waist-height concrete sidewall--that crosses over a two-lane street to the back of the hospital. A street that was normally busy but completely clogged with snow by then. Through the stuff still falling, and there was plenty, I could see the pale rectangles of the glass doors on the far side, doors that opened onto the main corridor of the hospital's third floor.
"Actually, "I said, "I have to stop by the hospital."
"Fine. I'll walk you there."
Damn. "There's a passage in the basement." Within shouting distance of a cafeteria, where half the hospital staff, by my guess, should be rotating through their dinner break.
"Naw--come on, you're dressed for the weather."
"And you've got your galoshes," I said brilliantly, pushing on one of the glass doors. There had to be someone in the hospital hallway on the other side.
The wind, not me, did the work of opening the door; I spent my energy trying to hold it back and keep it from smashing hard against the concrete underneath that metal screen. Until Max reached over and, with one bare hand, gripped the door's stainless steel frame and swung it firmly closed. Scratch the handball--Max had to be a lifter.
I started over and he fell in beside me, asking, "How involved were you with the Nelsons?"
"I'm not sure I can tell you that."
"Sure you can--it's authorized." I guess he watched too much TV, too.
"Okay--not involved at all. That was Dr. Costello, my ex-partner."
"Then why the fuck," he said, voice still even, "Are you meeting with my ex-partner?"
The blowing snow was stinging my face and my cap was pulled over my ears; I pretended not to hear and walked on, steady, looking at those far doors.
"I know you heard me, Dr. Czaplicki." I wasn't moving anymore and the reason was Max--more than two hundred pounds of muscle underneath that overcoat, both feet planted in the snow, his hand vise-like on my arm.
"Hey," I said, and wrenched it loose. We stood facing each other, my back to the screen, as a single car tried to stay in the deep tracks twenty feet below.
"Sorry--I get excited." We were having a nice private moment; between the storm and the screen, no one could see from the hospital, the street, or the offices that were empty anyway. Despite the gusting wind, there was already snow collecting on my shoulders; reaching over with both bare hands--I stood stock still--he politely brushed it off. Then tugged down the sleeves of my parka to remove the wrinkles where he'd stopped me, then smoothed out the twisted zipper in the front. Then changed his mind and grabbed the fabric, hard. "You've got to tell me, now--people are going to get hurt."
"I know." Hey, it slipped out.
"You know what?"
The problem was, I couldn't tell him.
"People could getvery, very hurt," Max added, giving me a solid shake of encouragement.
If I told him, he wouldn't believe me. Though it was clear that not telling him was making him a little crazy.
He started to lift me, and he was more than strong enough, but my parka was this new, stretchy gore-tex. And Max was, oh, five-seven. I ended up on my toes, my eyes a foot or so above his. Looking down apologetically, which didn't help.
"You think this is funny?"
I still didn't say anything--I mean, if he did believe me, and turns out to be the guy that shoots Dennis, things could only get worse.
Even more unhappy with my silence, he let go of my parka and grabbed both sides of my beltline. This time he got me off my feet, but it wasn't all that uncomfortable, only a little tight in one department, as my baggy cords got tugged halfway to my pits.
Was I scared? Of course. But so far I'd only gotten wrinkled; I was probably less alarmed than when we'd started out into the storm.
Unfortunately, Max noticed this and gave me a good slam against the metal screen to get my attention. A single decorative panel of the decorative metal screen, that is, which flexed behind me and otherwise wasn't too bad, at least until the second slam, when it gave a recriminating squeal and then, surprise, popped off. Leaving most of me and part of Dennis leaning out through the gap, both of us looking over my shoulder at that six-by-four steel panel taking a long slow float to land with a puffy thump in the empty lane below. No cars were anywhere near; just the wind and the snow, as the small, dense cloud raised by that thump settled to cover the cut-outs of mountains and clouds. Feathery white over teal green and rose: it was pretty.
Prettier than his face, which was more your bluish red, everything bulging above a buttoned collar and tie that now looked way too tight. He was keeping me from falling, which I appreciated, as well as looking plenty surprised. I felt him slide his galoshes up to the edge of the low concrete sidewall and brace the rubber toes and his knees against it. He grunted and pulled me up a few inches, and as he did my shirt must have bunched up above my beltline, because I felt two lines of ice where the backs of his knuckles brushed against my skin, which could have been due to his melting snow on his hands but I didn't think so--the cold was more than that, burning down and inward, freezing, a cold more than cold, not surprising as in the same instant Max disappeared in a
swirling howl of white and gray and I'm falling backward with the wind rushing by my ears and then that same muffled woomph and the snow puffs out and otherwise nothing no pain nothing just the dying wind and snow and with a spinning curving rapidly enlarging even world-eclipsing trajectory one fat clump falls and sticks melting into water blurring cold and another blurring and another and darkening to gray on gray and then further to gray on black and then
another keening gust that was thankfully lighter and almost immediately cleared to reveal Max's livid face, the snow plastering his hair and hardly two feet from me. His bare hands were still holding me up but his grip had slipped around to the front of my belt, pulling it, as my weight pulled me backwards, so those contact points were lost. Now that his footing was secure, Max seemed to have reconsidered the missing panel thing, seeing it more as an opportunity to persuade. Though the empty space beneath my back bothered me a little.
Until I computed what I'd just seen and it bothered me a lot. I knew I'd just experienced Max's demise, not mine, and given the situation I didn't have much of a problem with that part. But as his upcoming end seemed to be planned for weather that was awfully similar to the weather we were currently having--that is, real soon--and as I happened to be hanging backwards on the downhill side of him, it was very much in my interest to change things.
At that point another tremendous howl of wind began to push me upright, through the gap, which I liked, except that it brought me closer to Max, who shook me again and yelled, "I know you've been meeting with him--what'd he tell you? What'd you tell him?"
I might have been computing, but not at all well, still feeling stunned by the vision. Stunned stupid, actually, and I wasn't near to coming up with my own anti-fate plan yet. But the stunned and stupid part of my brain, as opposed to the computing part, just didn't appreciate the way Max was acting. I mean, this was nuts: we were in Boulder and he was an officer of the law. So I yelled back, "What are you going to do--drop me?"
Was I being impulsive? Sure. Was I, stunned and stupid, being more impulsive than usual? You bet; even without knowing the outcome, opening my mouth and coming up with that was a resoundingly bad idea. As bad as Max's sudden fat grin as he pushed harder against the blast, cantilevering me out over the road again. He was caught up in the moment and I was caught up too, spontaneously reaching for his shoulder to take the bastard with me.
Then three things happened, almost at once. The unfortunate one was that the wind died, the way it does sometimes, going immediately from a tattered keening howl that more than fills your ears to a muffled silence that fills them a different way. Deprived of that countervailing pressure, we both started tilting back over the cement sidewall, the hollow black rubbery treads of Max's galoshes not gripping the walkway's salt-melted slush as well as he'd hoped. The okay thing was that my reaching arm hit the vertical steel pole that had formerly braced and anchored one side of the fallen panel; the impact stung but I managed to snag it anyway and, straining, at least stopped our backward passage. The best thing was a voice calling from the hospital side of the bridge, saying, "Is that you, Doc?"
|
THE MORTALIST
(Getting kind of close to the end...)
That week turned out to be my week for women. Something in the stars, I guess: almost every patient; Caitlin constantly clinging to my legs and tripping me; and Linda and I, after a hundred times of talking through what happened, deciding to try to lay our night and day of guns at rest. Or close: she'd brought her father's old pistol home from her Mom's, to reside in her side of our closet. Said it was a Walther, same as the one I'd carried up into the mountains and then forced back on Dennis. I didn't like it hiding there, but she'd already anticipated my objections with a small but solid bolted safe with a numeric keypad. She'd timed herself at a silent seven seconds to get the thing unlocked and loaded, which made her sleep better, if not me.
Carlotta was gone on vacation, but Jennie stopped by--as usual unannounced, as usual at the end of the day, and as usual looking for publishable revelations about the Nelson case. After talking with Jean, I'd called her about the grandfather's disappearance, but only because I knew it was already national. She gave it some local play as another part of the ongoing Nelson family tragedy, but it wasn't a scoop and was generally thought to be an unrelated mob thing. At least she got some mileage out of that, sussing out and publishing the rumors about his body and the meat processing vats at his pet food company's main plant. I was glad I didn't have a dog.
By then she'd stopped bugging me about Dennis, after the twentieth time or so I told her he'd turned out to be okay. As for Max, she told me that her sources at the DA's office said he'd gone back to New York, that now I wouldn't have to worry about him bothering me either.
"How about this?" I said, after she dragged me across the parking lot to the Toad. "I see people dying."
"It's your job," she said, sweeping the room for our waitress.
"No, really." What the hell. "Ahead of time. Visions."
"I know a good therapist."
"I'm not crazy, Jennie."
"I didn't used to think I was either, just unhappy. But then I wasn't seeing things. Usually."
"Come on; this could be a story."
Her lager, which she'd picked from a two-page list, and my generic Merlot finally landed on the table. "A story or a pitch?" She gave me a disgusted look. "Do you know how many docs are pushing that holistic shtick? It's the newest thing: they get publicists, idiots who call us every week. What is it with you guys--insurance squeezing too hard? You're like chiropractors, Jesus. I thought you were above that."
"Are you done?"
"Yes, Josh, I'm done."
"Then... Oh, never mind."
"Excellent. Be a doctor, you're good at that." She drained the first few inches off the tall glass, then looked at me, foam on her lip. "Speaking of which, got a good one for me?"
"Sure--Jean Costello," I said, obviously without thinking.
Her eyes got wide. "Isn't she--"
Crap. "No. I mean yes. That isn't why... she's just good, and she cares. And she'll kill me if you ask her about Thomas Nelson. You and then me, got it?"
"Okay, okay, as long as she's competent. There're these headaches, and my stomach. Must be the hours."
Jenny lifted her glass; I put a hand on her wrist, not to read her but to say, "Or..."
"Don't start."
"I had a friend," I said. "He'd order, take a sip--seemed to like it, too--then stop, leave it in front of him. Facing it down; the honorable enemy."
"Please." She drained the rest, then held the empty glass a few centimeters off the table and let it drop between her fingers, hitting the wood with a magic sound just loud enough to traverse the crowded room. A sound that made the bartender turn her way and then say something to the waitress; they must teach that in journalism school.
Jennie spotted an old Boulder drinking buddy, presumably someone who could keep his opinions to himself. I said goodnight, leaving her to the tangled life that only she could live, and walked out thinking: a friend? Not about Jennie, but Dennis, the guy who pulled me into the shitstorm that could have killed my family. Maybe, maybe not. |