For Everything a Reason (6 page)

Chapter
Eleven

Detectives Tyler and Carter arrived at the crime scene.
Three white jumpsuits moved around the tiny room, each completing their tasks,
before moving out, arms laden with sealed bags and plastic cartons. The
forensics investigators vacated the room, the last bidding the detectives to
enter. Carter moved over to the dead man’s bed. Tyler joined him on the
opposite side.

Carter looked down at the old
man’s body. “So who’ve we got?”

Tyler took a pair of latex
gloves from her pocket, slipped them on and then reached out to take the chart
from the foot of the bed. The clipboard was covered in white powdery swirls,
some large, others small, but all the potential signature of a killer.

“Mr. Henry Jones,” Tyler said.
“Aged eighty-six. Suffering from chronic pneumonia, which had become
untreatable - according to this, and the hospital were simply doing their best
to make him feel comfortable.”

“Right,” Carter nodded. “So
they must have had him on a steady drip of morphine?”

Tyler took a moment. “Yes, here
it is. He was being administered 10cc’s every hour, automatically.” She turned
her head to examine the pump at her side. It was nothing special, just a
cream-coloured plastic box, which had a clear tube running into it at the top,
and a similar tube out the bottom. A small dial at one side had a range of
measurements and speeds, which would invariably feed the morphine at the
desired rate required. Again, forensics had been busy powdering down the
instrument. The bag of morphine that must have been hanging from the stand
behind the pump had gone, and she guessed that forensics had bagged and tagged
it.

Carter took a clear bag from
his pocket. The short note that Joseph had written earlier was held inside.
“According to Ruebins, the old man said, ‘they wouldn’t dare touch him now’?”

“Maybe he meant the hospital
staff?” Tyler offered.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, they may have
manhandled him a little – you know, a nurse having a bad day, consulting
physician too busy wondering how he was going to explain to his wife the
presence of an unknown receipt for a hotel they hadn’t stayed in, or a relative
who couldn’t wait to be rid of the old man.”

“Okay, that almost fits his
next comment. ‘That ‘they’ thought they ran the whole show’.”

“See, he’s probably referring
to the staff. Hospital’s can be somewhat abrupt, especially the expensive type
– types that run to the tune of profits and turnover.”

“So you think he means a doctor
or nurse? Maybe they wanted their bed back, sooner rather than later. For
another paying customer?”

Tyler shrugged. “Can’t be too
certain about anything. Too early to say.”

“Yeah,” Carter agreed. “But
what about his comment about ‘insurance’ or ‘his secret’?”

“The guy was at death’s door.
Who knows what he meant? He was so high on morphine. Would we be as concerned
if he’d expressed a wish to fly away with the pixies?”

Carter’s lips almost curled
into a smile – almost.

Tyler said, “When we’re done,
I’ll get a full list of all his visitors since he arrived, and see if anything
stands out. You know, a distant relative, here watching over their favourite
uncle or grandfather, eagerly awaiting their cut of his or her inheritance.”

“Hang on.” Carter returned his
attention to Joseph’s note. “Says here, he did make a couple of references to
his ‘inheritance’.”

“Exactly,” Tyler agreed. “We’ve
both seen the Jerry Springer Show, right? And how many times have some family
of hicks been duped out of their inheritance – only to find out that their
recently deceased loved one willed all of it to their favourite charity?”

“Fair point,” Carter said.
“Perhaps that’s what he meant by ‘his secret’?”

“I’ll also check for recently
changed insurance policies, see if one of those relatives had been in line for
a sudden jackpot, or discovered they were about to miss out on a small
fortune.”

“Good idea.” Carter turned away
from the corpse on the bed. He slipped his hands into his pockets and drew a
set of latex gloves out. Simply holding one glove, he began to draw open the
curtain that separated the beds. The curtain slid easily, held on the rail
above by large hoops similar to a shower-curtain’s. “Look here,” he said,
drawing Tyler’s attention away from the body.

“What’ve you got?” she asked.

“Look,” Carter said, indicating
a white pattern halfway along the length of material. The white powder from
forensics formed a cauliflower shape, clearly that of a hand – a large hand.
The detective frowned.

“What is it?” Tyler asked.

“Wait a minute.” Carter moved
closer to the second unoccupied bed, the one Joseph Ruebins had occupied. He
slipped onto the cot and then laid himself flat, allowing his head to rest
against the soft pillow. Then, reaching out, he tried to touch the curtain. His
outstretched fingers missed it by a good six inches. He shuffled his body
closer, jabbing straight fingers as far as he could.

“What are you doing?” Tyler
wanted to know.

He responded with a question of
his own. “I’m about the average size for a guy, right?”

“If you say so.”

“And look, I’m still a good
half-dozen inches away from even brushing against this with my fingertips.”

“So?”

“So, how long would a person’s
arm have to be, to reach close enough to actually grasp a handful of material?”

Tyler did a quick mental
calculation. “Not even someone the size of Joseph Ruebins could have reached
it.”

Carter’s eyebrows rose. “You
think our would-be champ is a liar, and he did get out of bed?”

“But even if he could, for what
purpose?”

“I’m not sure – yet,” Carter
said, climbing off the bed.

He returned to the corpse. He
bent to take a closer look. In an attempt to offer a measure of dignity, the
old man’s eyes had been forcibly shut, but the lids had begun to creep back,
showing the detective a hint of sickly yellow-whites. Two indents cut along the
man’s cheeks, deep lines coming together at the corner of his grey lips.
Elastic, Carter realised, to keep the oxygen mask in place. The bed sheet had
been folded neatly just below his collarbone, and both his arms were laid
outside of it, palms in an upward fashion. His skin was a combination of yellow
pallor on top, and a mottled scarlet on the lower half. A couple of pinpricks
were visible against the paleness of his skin – the calling card of a
hypodermic needle. The body underneath the sheet was insubstantial, its feet
the most prominent part, pushing the spotless white sheet up into twin
mountains.

“Wait a minute,” Carter said.

“What is it?”

Carter pointed to the sheet.
“That.”

“What about it?”

“Look how clean it is.”

“So?”

“So, how come there isn’t any
blood?”

“Why would there be any blood?”

Carter looked back blankly for
a second, before reaching into his back pocket. “You didn’t get chance to read
the original crime report?”    

“No. Why?”

“I think you’d better take a
look.” He handed it over.

Tyler quickly scanned the
document. Her expression tightened. “Good God.”

“I know,” Carter said. “Sick or
what?”

She handed the report back.
Carter tucked it into his pocket, and then bent over the old man’s face. Using
the latex glove for a second time, he gripped the man’s pointed chin and
carefully opened his mouth. And even though he’d read what to expect, he still
took a startled step back.

“Christ…” he cursed.

Tyler pushed her own nausea to
one side, allowing her professional curiosity take over, and bent to examine
what lay inside.

An open cavity revealed itself
to her. The gums had no teeth present. They were coated in dry blood, angry and
red, and full of disease – or so Tyler thought. However, on closer inspection,
she found that it was a coating of thick congealed blood that gave them their
gory appearance. The source of bleeding was more than obvious. For the most
part, the old man’s tongue was missing, just a bloody stump remaining, severed
veins exposed like worms boring through something rotten.

“What the hell have we got
here?” Tyler asked.

“Not sure,” Carter said. “But I
can tell you what we don’t have.”

“What’s that?”

“A complete no-brainer,” he announced,
with a shudder.

Chapter
Twelve

Joseph lay still – very still. However, he found the more
that he tried to remain motionless, the more difficult it became. About an hour
earlier his right arm had begun to tingle, just a slight sensation at first,
and not too unpleasant. Now, though, that arm felt as if it were being held
within the flames of baptism, his flesh, muscles and sinews screaming out for
contemplation.

Although it wasn’t completely
dark inside, he still felt like he’d been sealed within a casket, all his
senses devoid of their required input. The machinery’s hum reminded Joseph that
he was indeed still in the land of the living and hadn’t as yet entered into
the Great Beyond.

An hour earlier, his doctor had
announced that his MRI scan was ready to begin. Two orderlies had arrived and
they’d quickly wheeled him out of his room and towards the elevator. He’d taken
a short trip downwards and had then found himself in something that reminded
him of the Starship
Enterprise
’s
transporter room.

The huge machine dominated the
centre of the room, tubular in shape, and as thick as the hull of a nuclear
submarine. In fact, Joseph had first thought that the object was most similar
to a small diving vessel, like the one he’d seen recently on a Discovery
Channel programme. On the other side of the room, separated by thick glass, was
another smaller room with multiple computer screens and keyboards inside.
Joseph wondered if that was where
Scotty
punched in complicated
coordinates to teleport patients to distant worlds. Something even more
spectacular was about to happen, though. The hospital was about to map the
secrets of Joseph’s brain, which was far more worrying to him than being
separated into a zillion atoms and reassembled halfway across the cosmos.

He tried not to think too much
about what he’d been told, something about magnetic waves, that were 30,000
times more powerful than the earth’s magnetic field, distorting and shifting
every single nucleus in his body, enough for each cell to generate its own
magnetic wave, thus allowing the complicated machinery to catalogue his
innards. The thought of this internal shift worried him and, as he lay there,
his mind began to wander.
Seth Brundle
from
The Fly
took shape in
the forefront of his thoughts, a hideous contortion of a human being, stretched
and warped, and offered back to the world as a nightmare creature forced to
roam the streets and alleyways under the cover of darkness.

Joseph took the deepest breath
he could without inflating his lungs too much and tried to guide his mind
toward more pleasant subjects.

Marianna’s face came to him,
tired looking but beautiful nevertheless. How long had they been together, he
wondered, counting the years – not as simple numbers, but as events, happy
events, that had gone by? He remembered the first time they’d met. It had been
complete luck; he, away at training camp; she, attending an interview for a job
that didn’t exist; and both a hell of a long way away from home.

Joseph should have been 1500
miles away, on the west coast, readying himself for his first real test as a
pro. Instead, his opponent – a bruiser named Freddy Tonk – had had his jaw
broken in a bar fight, and Joseph had been forced to take another fight in Las
Vegas, on short notice.

Marianna was visiting Vegas for
a job interview. Having recently graduated from college with a diploma in
Retail and Leisure Management, she arrived at her destination, only to be told
that the vacancy had been already filled, and that the date on her letter must
be a simple typo, as the interviews had been held on the 11
^th
of the
month and not the 17
^th
. She’d tried to argue about the injustice of
the situation, but to no avail. Down on the cost of travel and out of patience,
Marianna finally accepted defeat – bitterly – realising that the journey had
been a complete waste of time. After her disastrous day she’d found a cheap
motel, as far away from the bright lights and noise as she could, and checked
in for the night.

Just two doors down, Joseph was
already enduring his second night there. Enduring, because the motel wasn’t
exactly one that could be found in the
Zagat Guide.
With only paper-thin
walls to separate them, he’d already spent two days playing third-party to a
young, recently married couple, who were hourly in danger of thrusting
themselves headfirst into his room during the ongoing consummation of their new
marriage.

Sometime late into the night,
Joseph was awakened by something other than cries of passion. Jumping out of
his bed, clad only in his underwear, he threw open the door to his motel room
and found a semi-naked Marianna clutching a pillow against her bare breast.  

“Inside,” she stuttered, her
free hand aimed towards the darkness of her room.

“What is it?” Joseph asked,
wide-awake and alert to trouble.

Marianna just stared back,
terrified.

Joseph quickly returned to his
room and reappeared armed with a scuffed boot. He inched over to her, keeping
his eyes fixed on the wedge of darkness that filled her open doorway.

“What is it?” he whispered,
joining her.

“On the bed,” was all Marianna
could say.

Joseph turned to find her face
full of blind terror. What lay inside to have spooked her so? He contemplated
returning to his room and dialling 911, but then a rush of bravado hit him, and
he decided that he’d investigate things himself, in the hope that he wouldn’t
look either cowardly or heartless. He took a breath, whispered, “Wait here,”
and then stepped across the dark threshold.

Marianna waited outside, her
teeth chattering, even though the night verged on being uncomfortably warm. A
few seconds later, Joseph returned, stepping out of the room backwards, the
boot slipping from limp fingers. He doubled over, hands clasped to his thighs,
mouth wide-open as if he was about to retch. Yet, rather than emptying his
stomach, he instead threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Marianna stood motionless for a
second before tugging at the hem of his shorts. Joseph turned to her, his eyes
full of tears and laughter.

“What the hell’s so funny?” she
demanded.

“On… the… bed…” Joseph managed
to say, between howls of amusement.

“And?” she asked, colour
turning to her face an angry shade of red.

“On the bed,” Joseph repeated,
now finally getting control of himself.

“Well?”

“I thought I’d find a body or
something worse.”

“And?”

“And, all I found was… a mouse.
A tiny little mouse!”

“Tiny? Little? Are you
serious?” Marianna asked. “The thing’s as big as a cat!”

Finally, Joseph gathered his
senses. “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “It just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

Marianna stood gaping, but then
their bizarre situation became apparent: she, almost naked, fearful of a
creature a fiftieth of her size; and he, there to rescue her, armed with only
an old boot for protection, wearing little more than she was. Her apprehension
wavered, and she began to laugh at herself. This set Joseph off again, unable
to control the tears that slipped down his cheeks. Eventually their laughter
died, which left them both suddenly conscious of their exposed state.

With his attention focused now
on her, Joseph felt an unexpected swell within his groin. Her legs were long,
dark and sleek, giving way to rounded hips and, although she held the pillow
tight, he still got a hint of the fullness of her breasts. Having to forcibly
peel his eyes away from her body, it was her face that eventually stole his
breath. Beautiful without doubt, but naturally so. Not a hint of makeup or
lipstick marked her face, her skin was brushed by the exotic colours of nature.
Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight and, as she smiled openly at him, her face
became angelic, framed by a mane of jet-black hair.    

Before she noticed his arousal,
Joseph returned quickly to his motel room. He reappeared a moment later dressed
in loose jeans and carrying a flannel shirt in his hand.

“Here,” he said, offering her
the shirt.

She took it, one hand still
clutching at the pillow, and then turned her back on him to slip the shirt over
her head.

“What now?” she asked,
revolving to face him.

“Uh…” was all Joseph could say,
mesmerised by her beauty.

“About the mouse?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Joseph stooped, took up the old
boot and then disappeared back into darkness. He seemed to be gone forever.
Worried now about the welfare of the rodent and the handsome black stranger,
Marianna almost called out for him not to hurt it – or himself – before he
re-emerged with one hand placed carefully over the boot.

“You caught it?” Marianna
asked, impressed by both his skill and compassion.

“No point in killing it,”
Joseph replied. “Wouldn’t make much of a meal. Or a scarf, for that matter.”

She grinned back, pleased by
his kindness, and yet took a step back as he passed her. “Where are you going
to let it go?”

“Out in the bushes,” he
replied, heading towards the side of the highway.

“Be careful,” she called to him.

He returned a few minutes later
with the empty boot strung over his shoulder. The hard contours and muscles of
this handsome black man struck Marianna.

“You sure it’s all clear?” she
asked, her throat dry.

Joseph paused for a moment.
“Never can be too sure,” he told her.

Marianna fidgeted awkwardly,
unable to be quite as direct as she wished.

“Listen,” Joseph began, “I’ve
got a couple of cold sodas and some potato chips in my room. I could fetch them
and make sure Mickey Mouse isn’t entertaining the rest of the Magic Kingdom
tonight.”

Marianna paused, just long
enough so she didn’t look too desperate. “Great,” she replied, simply.

They spent their first night
together camped out at the foot of her bed, eating an improvised picnic,
laughing, talking endlessly and, quite simply, falling in love.

Now, as he lay cocooned in this
tight drum, Joseph smiled ruefully to himself. Even after all these years of
being happily married, he’d never told Marianna that the mouse had actually
disappeared, nowhere to be found, and he’d only pretended to catch it in the
hope that she would be impressed by his valour.

The slight hum that surrounded
Joseph stopped, abruptly, and the table that he was strapped to began to
retract from the tubular-shaped chamber. He held his breath, fearful that he’d
been changed, both internally and externally, and there would be gasps of
horror as he emerged in some hideous altered shape from the machine.
Nevertheless, when Marianna and his son appeared before him, their faces showed
nothing but relief.

“Hey, handsome,” Marianna said.
“Back in one piece.”