Authors: William Bernhardt
“Oh, my God,” Ben murmured. “Oh, my God, what’s wrong with him?”
Rob crouched down beside the body. “I have Red Cross certification in emergency aid. Let me see what I can do.” He pressed two fingers against the side of Hamel’s neck. “Well, you can forget about the emergency aid. He’s dead.”
“Oh, my God.” Ben felt a creeping chill race through his body. “How long?”
“I’m not a coroner, Ben. But I can tell if a body has a pulse or not. And this one doesn’t.”
Ben pulled Rob back out in the corridor. “First Herb, now this. What are we going to do?”
“Get on the phone and call the police. We have to report this.”
“I’m not calling from my office where he…was.”
“Then go into the conference room at the end of the hall. The sooner the better. I’ll go to my office and call for someone from building security to come up and take over. Hurry!”
Rob bolted down the corridor and turned the corner toward his office. Ben ran the other direction into the conference room and dialed a number he knew by heart.
The party answered on the sixth ring. “Yeah?”
“Mike, this is Ben.”
“Hey, Ben.” Ben heard him stifle a yawn. “Say, it’s kind of late…”
“Sorry about that. I didn’t have much choice.”
“You sound strung out, Ben. What’s happening?”
“In a nutshell: I just walked into my office and a corpse fell on top of me.”
There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “Have you reported this to the police yet?”
“That’s what I’m doing now, ditz.”
“I’m at home, Ben. This is not exactly the standard procedure.”
“Are there rules for reporting dead bodies found in your office? I’m sorry, I didn’t get my copy of the Caring for Corpses handbook!”
“Ben, you’re becoming hysterical. Look—”
“Mike, I need help.” Ben took a deep breath. “The stiff was in my office. On my second day at a new job. I’m in trouble here.”
Mike groaned. “All right, kemo sabe. Give me the address.”
After his conversation with Mike, Ben met Rob back in the corridor. “Did you contact security?”
“I accessed their answering machine,” Rob replied. “Gives you a real feeling of comfort, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He tugged at Rob’s arm. “C’mon.”
“What? Why are we going back…you know…where he is?”
“We need to block off the area, make sure Herb and Candy don’t stumble in inadvertently and spray sperm all over the crime scene. It’ll be at least fifteen minutes before Homicide arrives.”
Grudgingly, Rob trailed down the corridor after Ben. They turned the corner into Ben’s office—and froze.
“Oh, my God,” Ben whispered, not for the first time that night.
Rob’s eyes were wide as saucers. “How can this be? How is this possible?”
Ben checked his watch. “We’ve only been gone about three or four minutes. Five minutes, tops.”
“Ben, this is freaking me out.”
Ben tried to respond, but found that he could only stare at the carpet as he murmured, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
The body was gone.
A
N HOUR LATER, LIEUTENANT
Mike Morelli trudged up the stairs to the twentieth floor.
“I can’t believe these elevators are out of order!” he bellowed. “Every goddamn one of them!”
“Sorry,” Ben said.
“Do you have any idea how long it takes to climb twenty flights of stairs?”
“It’s good for you. Gets you back in shape. I’ve been noticing your expanding midriff.”
“We can’t all maintain your Ichabod Crane-like physique.”
“If you’re really hot, why don’t you take off that silly overcoat?”
“Can’t. It’s part of the image.” Mike gasped for air, then leaned against the wall for support. “Ben, my men have scoured this building. Every floor, the stairwell, the basement, every conceivable nook and cranny. They’ve found no corpse.”
“Then they need to start all over again.”
“They will. Nonetheless, it’s unlikely they overlooked something the size of a corpse. You can’t exactly tuck that away in a desk drawer.”
“I didn’t imagine this, Mike. Neither did Rob.”
“Okay. Then you tell me. Where could the body be?”
“I have no idea.”
“Who could have taken it?”
“I’m similarly clueless.”
“How could anyone move a heavy corpse off the twentieth floor in just a few minutes when the elevators are out of order?”
“Beats me.”
“You’re a hell of a lot of help, Ben. Who else was in the building when you found the body?”
Ben thought for a moment. “To my knowledge, only myself, Rob Fielder, Herb, and Candice.”
“The last two say they left immediately after your…encounter with them. What about your buddy Rob?”
“Rob has been with me all day long, and we only came upstairs about an hour ago. We were together until we found Howard, and we were only separated for about three or four minutes after we found his body. I called you, and Rob called security. At least, that’s what he told me.”
Mike nodded. “I checked. He did call the security desk downstairs. Left a message on their answering machine.”
“Anybody who works in this building could’ve stayed late. Just because I didn’t see them doesn’t mean they weren’t here. Have you got a list of all persons who signed out after eleven
P.M.?”
“We’re working on it. I saw those overweight babysitters you call security guards though. Someone could’ve slipped by them without signing, particularly if it was someone the guards recognized.”
“I’ve seen them wave people through myself,” Ben said.
“Even assuming someone could’ve relocated the body in the few minutes you were gone, which is difficult to believe in and of itself, where could they have gone with it? Especially with the elevators out of whack. I don’t think they could’ve moved the stiff off this floor, much less out of the building.”
“Have you checked for other exits? Maybe some secret, executives-only passageways. Or maybe the windows?”
“I’ll ask people tomorrow about secret passageways, but it strikes me as rather unlikely. The windows are all, without exception, hermetically sealed. Any other suggestions?”
Ben pressed his fingers against his temples and tried to remember every second of the past hour. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself with Rob, walking toward his office, opening the door, seeing the body fall….
He snapped his fingers. “There was something in Hamel’s hand. It fell out when he hit the floor. I couldn’t tell what it was.”
“Whatever it was, it’s not there now. What did it look like?”
Ben tried to recall. “It was square and flat. Not large. About the size of the palm of his hand.”
“And you didn’t look at it more closely?”
“I was a bit stressed out at the time, Mike. I apologize for not performing the Sherlock Holmes routine to perfection.”
Mike grunted. “Well, if you think of something more, let me know.”
“Of course. What’s your plan of attack?”
Mike twisted his shoulders, sending ripples through his overcoat. “I’m not sure I have a plan, Ben.”
“Isn’t that what they teach in crime school?”
“Ben, you have no idea what my schedule is like right now….”
“You’re not going to let this drop!”
“Ben, I’m a homicide investigator. There’s no proof so far that there’s been a homicide! Or even a death!”
“You have my testimony.”
“I need more. To be specific, I need a body.”
“That’s just a technicality. You don’t absolutely have to have a body to initiate a murder investigation.”
“But it sure facilitates matters. The D.A. would appreciate it, too.” He shoved his hands deeply into his coat pockets. “Have you been keeping up with the murders of the teenage girls?”
Ben nodded grimly. “Three murders in less than two weeks.”
“Yeah. Grisly, too—heads and hands cut off. Apparently a serial killer with a serious grudge against teenage girls. First bona fide serial killer we’ve ever had.”
“What’s your point, Mike?”
“My point is that every available resource in the department, including me, has been diverted to these murders, and given the magnitude of the crimes, rightfully so. How much interest do you think I’m going to be able to stir up for your alleged murder with no corpse?”
Ben didn’t like what he was hearing, but he knew Mike was right. “Any recommendations?”
“You could look into this matter yourself. Do some checking on your own. You’ve done it before, and not altogether unsuccessfully. If you can uncover more information, or better yet a corpse, maybe I can pull some men off the serial killer case and put them on this one.”
“Where would I start?”
“You need to find out everything you can about the victim. When he doesn’t show up for work tomorrow, people are going to start talking. Listen to what they say. Find out whatever you can about your new colleagues. Given where the body was found, the guilty party may be an Apollo employee.”
Ben hated to become the company mole. It seemed like a betrayal—only two days on the job, and already he was going to be investigating his co-workers, possibly trying to incriminate them. “I’ll see what I can do. Mike—thanks for coming out.”
“No problem. If you see your sister any time soon, put in a good word for me.”
“I could try, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Alas, ’tis only too true. Before I go, Ben—mind if I ask a question?”
“Ask away.”
“What the hell are you doing working for this big corporation?”
“I don’t under—”
“I thought you got this money-grubbing routine out of your system during the Raven, Tucker & Tubb fiasco.”
“I hardly think that was typical—”
“Have you read much Samuel Clemens—Mark Twain?”
“You’re the English major, not me.”
“Do you know the story of Tennessee gold?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s something Twain’s father talked about when Twain was young. He was always dreaming of easy wealth. Some of his get-rich-quick schemes involved land speculation—Tennessee gold. He never found any gold, but that desire for instant security infected Twain for the rest of his life. Even after he became a successful writer and was relatively secure financially, he continued to pursue the dream. He invested in an unperfected typesetting machine. It was supposed to revolutionize the publishing industry and make him rich beyond his wildest imagining.
“But there were development problems, complications, demands for additional start-up cash. To make a long story short, the machine drained Twain dry. And it bombed, never made a cent. Instead of being reasonably well-off, suddenly Twain was penniless. To pay off his debts, he went on the road, taking on a nightmarish schedule of speaking engagements—and this was late in his life and during a time when travel was not easy. He wrote a flurry of books of dubious quality. He did almost anything he could for money. He eventually got back on his feet financially, but it embittered him, cost him his health, estranged him from his family, and possibly contributed to the death of his wife and two daughters.” Mike’s eyebrows bounced up and down. “Get the message?”
Ben pursed his lips. “I suppose in your subtle lit-crit way, you’re suggesting that I’m chasing after Tennessee gold.”
“Yup. And I think you got it the same place Twain did. From your father.”
“Really? Christina attributed this career decision to my mother.”
“That’s possible, too.”
“Better stick with the detective work, pal. As a shrink, you stink.”
“Says you. Anyway, try to get some sleep tonight. Snuggle with your cat. Forget about the nasty world of serial killers and corpses that tumble into your arms.”
“Thanks.” Ben felt another chill creeping down his spine. “But I doubt it.”
T
HE BRUNETTE DUTY OFFICER
at the front desk gave Sergeant Tomlinson directions to the X-ray room. She was good-looking and, by all indications, interested. But he wasn’t. Not that she didn’t appeal. He just had a hunch Karen wouldn’t approve, and he wasn’t about to put his relationship with his wife and daughter at risk for a quick romp with the duty officer.
He pressed the button outside the X-ray room, and a moment later the automatic lock released and the door; popped open. Good—Koregai must have received his message. Tomlinson had called ahead and learned that Koregai was doing a rework on the second of the three corpses. Sounded like a golden opportunity to Tomlinson; he crossed town in less than fifteen minutes. Of course, the blaring siren on his car helped somewhat.
Koregai had been the downtown coroner for years, far longer than Tomlinson had been on the force. In that time, Koregai had become the stuff of legends. Notoriously difficult to work with, he seemed to think that the entire law enforcement division existed solely for his benefit and pleasure. He chafed at commands and resisted all direct orders; pushy demands had a mysterious habit of causing autopsy reports to be delayed or lost. He probably would’ve been dumped long ago, if not for the fact that he was the best in the state at his job, and he was even better in the courtroom.
Tomlinson approached the table in the center of the dark room. An icy blue female corpse atop the table gave off an eerie glow under the dim fluorescent lighting. Tomlinson didn’t have to ask who she was; the absence of her head and her hands explained everything.
“I’m Sergeant Tomlinson. I’d like to observe if possible.”
There was no response from Koregai, not even a grunt.
Tomlinson decided to take his silence as approval. He read the clipboard at the end of the table. The preliminary autopsy report was on top. Tomlinson scanned the form; the phrase
within normal limits
jumped out at him time after time. The only deviation from the norm appeared at the bottom of the page. In the space labelled
ABNORMALITIES,
Koregai had scrawled:
No head
,
no hands
.
Very informative.
Koregai extinguished the overhead light. He was a short, dark man of Asian-American descent. Hardly friendly, but that was all right with Tomlinson; he couldn’t imagine anything worse than a chummy coroner. Koregai flipped the power switch on a gray box about the size of a toaster oven. A row of green lights danced across the front of the device. He picked up a small metal wand connected to the box by a spiraling cord.