The Alexandru Chronicles: The Beginning (18 page)

“Lets go home, lass.”  before turning to disappear into a mysterious dense, greenish, fog, with his pretty little companion, Alister spared his brother one last glance. “Take care, Craig, don't get into too much trouble.”

XXX

From the moment Genevieve had answered her phone that Tuesday morning, she had found herself in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Not only had Albert called her half past three, from the morgue, but he had demanded that she meet him over at the morgue immediately. While he was discrete on why he wanted to talk to her, she couldn't ignore the urgency in his voice.

Anyone else, she would have told to go take a flying leap off of a building or the highest mountain, but, since Albert was one of the few people she could count as a friend, she decided to just show up and see what the problem was.

The moment Genevieve walked into the reception area, she heard the commotion going on in the morgue; by the sounds of it, it sounded a lot like grief. 

After signing in, she made her way into the morgue and, abruptly halted in her tracks, when she noticed this distraught elderly, dark skinned, woman standing there next to a body on one of the tables. 
 

Swallowing, Genevieve took a nervous step back, and, apologetically, said, “I'm sorry..., I didn't know...”
actually she had known, but she hadn't really thought about waiting; that's the thing about being sleep deprived or still groggy from just waking up—one usually didn't think or have time to feel anything regarding emotional sympathy.

“
That's okay, just wait for me in my office.” hastily walking past them, she hurried into Albert's office.

As she watched from the doorway of his office, Genevieve noted how Albert was leading the distraught woman out of the morgue. It wasn't but a few minutes afterwords, that he came back in to the morgue and, while shaking his head, he headed toward her.

After brushing past her, he went over to his desk and plopped himself down.

Turning to look at him, Genevieve said,  “Albert...,”  it was the morose look on his face, that had her deciding to tread lightly. While she wasn't particularly happy that he had disturbed her slumber, she didn't want to upset him any more than he was.  “what's up?
”

When he looked up at her, Genevieve instantly noticed the absentminded surprise on his face. He had been so lost in his thoughts, that he had forgotten that she was even there.

After he nervously fidgeted with the papers on his desk, he finally said, “Gen..., at around one this morning three unidentified corpses were brought into the morgue.”

“
Okay... not to state the obvious, doc, but isn't the morgue where most corpses are brought?”

Frowning he replied, “Yes...it's just that these three were strange....”

“Strange...?” sitting down across from him, she said, “You lost me.”

“
Before you showed up, the families of the two of the three corpses came in and identified the two bodies.”

“
Okay and who were these two?”

“
Clint Sanders and Clive Anderson..., both are cousins.”

Still lost, she sat there silently looking at him; trying to figure out why those names sounded so familiar. It was then that Albert said, “The third body was positively identified, by the woman you saw outside in the morgue.”

“Okay..., who is he?”

“
A Mr. Sherman Hermit.”

Silently sitting there for a few minutes, it finally dawned on her why the other two names had sounded so familiar.

Sherman Hermit was a small time drug hustler, whose rap sheet was as long as Genevieve's arm; he had two lackeys that he ran around with.

There wasn't anything real significant about Clint and Clive, except that they followed Sherman around like two brainless half wits and committed petty crimes that had gotten them both a few years in prison.  All and all, the three had found ways to beat the rap. Either taking a deal or paying off some dirty cop to make valuable evidence disappear.

“Sherman Hermit...” sighing, Genevieve got up, and heading toward the door, she said, “goodbye.”

“
Gen..., wait...”

When Albert suddenly grabbed her by the arm, she irritably turned to face him. “Doc..., I'm going home...” when she saw how frazzled he looked, she said, “Albert, thus far you have not told me what is so strange about these three corpses being brought into your morgue...”

“Gen...there's more that I need to tell you...”

Looking down at her watch, she said, “Okay, you have fifteen minutes...go...”

“When I did the autopsy on these three, they were completely drained of all their blood.”

Still irritated and not totally convinced on why she was there, she said, “Well..., what's so odd about that?”

“Gen, even after death, a corpse should still have some blood in it...these three had zilch.”

After silently contemplating, she finally said, “Albert..., I still don't know why you called me out here.”

“Gen...,” he sighed. “these three were murdered.”

“
Alright..., where's your proof...?” before he could answer, she said, “Wait, before you answer that..., here's another question. Was any detectives from homicide called out?”

“
No...not that...no.”

“
Why was that?”

“
I don't know...” he looked down at his feet.

“
Well, I'll tell you why...” when Albert looked back up at her, she said, “It's because this didn't look like a homicide to the responding officers.”

“
Gen...”

“
Doc, when you did an autopsy on the bodies, besides the lack of blood and drug abuse, did you find any other damage to the organs?”

For a few brief minutes, all Albert could do was stare at her. When eventually he replied, he sounded disgruntle and frustrated, “No.”

“Well, then...I don't know what to tell you... I can't very well go to my Captain and tell him that these three died of something other than natural causes.” 

“
Then how do you explain the lack of blood?”

Genevieve, sighing irritably, finally said, “I can't...,” before Albert could say anything, she rushed on, “but I do know that drug dealers, like Sherman, are famous for tasting their own product; whose to say that they didn't die from a drug overdose.”

As they stood there in awkward silence, Albert finally said, “So what I'm suppose to tell his mother...?”

“
I don't know....She doesn't believe her son died of a drug overdose?”

“
No...she said her son never did drugs.”

“
I bet she also claims that he was a perfect angel, and that he was an upstanding human being.”

Noting the sarcasm in Genevieve's voice, Albert, shrugging, said, “She did say that he volunteered at homeless shelters.”

“Right...So, all you have is a distraught woman who claims that her son didn't do drugs and volunteered at homeless shelters.” turning to leave, she said, “It sounds like the woman didn't know her own son...” when she noticed how even more morose the doctor's expression became, she continued, “Look, I sympathize with this woman..., I really do...” sighing defeatedly, she said, “I of all people know what it feels like to lose a family member to drug abuse. Yet, I can't do anything about this...” she motioned over to the metal table that held the lifeless body of Sherman Hermit.

After a few minute more of just standing there, silently staring at each other, Genevieve finally turned and left the morgue.

XXX

After leaving the morgue, Genevieve decided to head back to her apartment. If anything she could catch up on a few hours of Z's, before having to get up and go to work.

The drive back to her apartment was a pleasant enough one, there was hardly anyone out and the air was cooler than it would be once the sun was fully up.  With regard to Tucson in general, at least what Genevieve believed caused most of the heat, was how heavily populated Tucson was now. During the early forties and fifties,  possibly earlier than this, when Tucson was fairly new, Tucson had been a lot cooler during the summer than it was now. Now, though, it was unbearable during the summer; at seven in the morning, a person had to use their AC or suffer for the rest of the day through the heat.

Genevieve had been lucky to have green lights all the way from her apartment to the morgue and even now when she was practically home she hadn't had a single red light. She was so elated about having one more intersection to clear, that she was imagining her bed and how good it would feel to have a couple hours of sleep before work. Yet, the moment she came to the last intersection, before the turn off to her apartment, she saw that the light had went from being green to that slightly yellowish orange;  realizing that she wouldn't be able to clear the intersection before the light turned red, she pressed lightly down on the brake to slow her car.

Yet, nothing happened, the car didn't even slow down; if anything it sped up.

It was as if, her car had a mind of its own; no matter how hard she slammed down on that blasted brake, the car would not slow down – it kept increasing in speed.

When she ran the red light, with her continuing pounding on the brake, it was the idea, that if she didn't find away to slow down the car, that she might end up hitting a pedestrian, that had her quickly turning the wheel to the right and aiming the car right at the curb.

While this didn't stop the car completely, it slowed it down enough to give Genevieve the time to put on the parking brake and turn off her car.

For those brief panicky minutes, all Genevieve could do was sit there; trying to figure out how or why her car's brakes had given out. It hadn't been but two days ago that she had taken her car in to have an inspection done, and everything had checked out. Yet, now, she sat there, with her heart beating a mile a minute, staring down at the dashboard and feeling this eery, cold, perspiration working it's way down her back...

XXX

It had taken awhile at
Brakemax
for her to find an affordable car rental place, that would deliver her a car to use. Instead of going with the typical car rentals – like
Enterprise –
Genevieve had decided on a family own rental place, solely because it was cheaper than anywhere else; that was her first mistake. First, it took close to two hours for them to deliver her rental, which she started wondering if it would have just been easier to have
Brakemax
drop her off at work. The only downside about this option, though, was that she would have had to depend upon Kyle; who hated using his AC. Then, if that wasn't bad enough, this business didn't have any automatics and she was stuck with a stupid stick shift; a stupid stick shift Mustang – the cosmos really had a sick sense of humor.

It had taken close to an hour, battling traffic and putting the car in the wrong gear, for Genevieve to finally be able to, somewhat, get it. Yet, no sooner had she gotten kind of use to driving her stick shift rental, was she pulling up to her precinct.

After getting out of the car, hitting her head on the low ceiling, she made her way inside, where she saw two bouquets of flowers sitting on her desk.

The one was red roses, which she made a disgusted, snickering, sound at. And the second bouquet was a bunch of Tulips, Daisies, and other spring flowers. They were beautiful and, unlike the red roses, she was instantly drawn to them.

Anyone who knew, or bothered to get to know Genevieve, would have known that she hated roses – no matter if they were red, yellow, or white, she had this irrational loathing for them. Possibly one of the major reasons for her disliking roses, was that at both her parents' funerals there had been dozens of roses – now every time she saw a rose, she was reminded of her two heart wrenching losses.

She didn't have to make an educated guess on who these spring flowers were from.
Yet, she hadn't a clue, who the distasteful roses were from – possibly they were from Keith, who was trying to make-up with her.

After retrieving the card from the spring bouquet, she silently read it:

Enjoyed last night. Sorry, that I had to run out on you like that. I hope to see you, later, tonight.

Cirpian

Smiling, she sat down at her desk, forgetting all about the roses.

When, a few seconds later, Kyle walked in, she still had this dreamy expression on her face. Glancing at both bouquets, he said, “So, who are those from?”

When she surprisingly looked up at him, he chuckled.

Before replying, she stuffed the spring bouquet's card into her pocket and while reaching for the rose bouquet's card, she said, “My date from last night, sent me the spring flowers...I'm not sure about the roses, though.”

Opening the small envelope, her heart instantly sank, when she read the card:

Sorry about your car, baby. Maybe next time you won't piss the Sandman off.

Kyle had been looking down at a bunch of files on his desk and hadn't even noticed the color draining from his partner's face.