The Memory Killer (12 page)

“You still do any, uh, prestidigitation?” I asked.

A sigh. “I showed Jonathan a few tricks. He yawned.”

“Whaddaya got, Campini?” I chided. “Show me something.”

“I couldn’t. I’m rusty … It’s been a while. I’ll screw up.”

Though his mouth was saying no, his eyes were hopeful.

Ocampo moved faster than I thought possible, scrabbling through the closet until finding a red turban fronted with feathery eyes from a peacock’s tail.

“The Great Campini is in the house. Take a seat, Detective.”

I sat in the wooden chair, Ocampo the cushioned one. “Pull it closer,” he said, suddenly the man in charge. “Right up to me. There … perfect.”

I sat. He patted at his robe as if looking for something, his eyebrows theatrically raised. “Hmmm. Might you have a coin I could use, Detective? A quarter?”

“Uh, let me see if …” I started to stand and check my pockets.

He waved me back down. “Wait, I know where one is.” He held up an empty hand, the index and forefinger pinching together like tweezers. “Open your mouth, Detective.”

I complied. The tweezing fingers flicked toward my lips and came away with a bright quarter between his fingertips. “You should get a coin purse, Detective,” he said, dropping the quarter in my palm. “And not keep your money in your mouth.”

I laughed and he took my wrist in hand and pressed the quarter deep into my palm and rolled my fingers around it as he intoned, “Now you see it, now you don’t. Is it there or …” he tapped my hand with his, then opened it finger by finger. No coin. “… turned to air?”

I hadn’t felt the grab and smiled. “Nice.”

He bowed and circled his hand, hiding the grin but loving the moment. “The Great Campini never disappoints.”

I heard a small buzzer sound from somewhere near the bed. Ocampo padded to the corner of the room and switched on one of the monitors. Its screen showed the front door downstairs, motion as someone entered.

He gave me worried look. “Are you expecting someone?”

I nodded. “Forensics is picking up the letter.”

He glanced at the stained page and his face fell as he pulled off the turban. He tossed it atop the bureau and fell heavily into bed, the vomit-reeking letter again forefront in his mind.

The Great Campini had left the building.

I was back in the office in minutes. Gershwin studied my photo of the note.

“He’s obviously not happy with big brother.”

“The anger is so visceral – puking? – that the note seems written soon after Donnie got his first look at Gary.”

Gershwin pulled a chair before my desk and sat, legs crossed, hands behind his neck. “What’s your take, Big Ryde? You spent like what, two thousand hours interviewing crazies in prison?”

“My hunch is that in Donnie’s megalomaniacal delusions he feels Gary thinks exactly as he does, and he wants to share his conquests, to revel in triumph. Maybe he wants them to physically share what he perceives as the spoils, like a prehistoric hunter bringing meat to a kinsman.”

“Meat in the form of pretty young gay boys.”

I nodded. “Somehow he discovered Gary and expected they’d become a team, the invincible twinship. He expected to find a copy of himself. Instead he found, well … Gary.”

All the talk about brothers reminded me mine was doing things that were probably bizarre or dangerous and maybe both, so I distracted myself by heading to the hospital to check on our two victims. I was surprised to see Morningstar at the nurses’ station, and veered her way.

“Things slow at the morgue, Doc? You must be here two hours a day.”

“I make it up at night. At least until I—”

We heard a crash from Brian Caswell’s room and ran the hall. I entered with drawn weapon, finding Caswell up and shuffling through the bedclothes, the IV rack tipped over on the floor. He looked at us with wild eyes. “I can’t find my clothes. I’ve got a show to do and I
can’t find my clothes
!”

He was having some form of episode. He eyes fell to my Glock and he shrieked. I’m surprised the window didn’t shatter.

“Easy, Brian,” I said, holstering my weapon. “I’m a cop, she’s a doc. We’re here to help you.”

“Then you can start by finding my fucking clothes,” he demanded, lifting a pillow and looking beneath. “Someone stole them.”

“Look around, bud. You’re in a hospital room.”

He didn’t seem to hear, bending to check beneath the bed. “I’ve got a fucking performance. I’m doing Ivana Tramp tonight.”

“It got cancelled,” I said, going with the flow. “You’re on next week.”

He peered at me over the bed. “Really?”

“Cross my heart.” Which I did.

He looked around and seemed suddenly perplexed. His knees began to buckle and I vaulted the bed to catch Caswell before he fell, laying him back on the mattress. Two nurses hovered outside the door and I waved them away,
under control.

“Shitarooni,” Caswell said, like seeing the surroundings for the first time. “It
is
a freaking hospital. I, uh, why?”

Morningstar uprighted the IV rack, the tubes still running to Caswell’s thin arm. “Thanks, hon,” Caswell said to Morningstar “God, you’re cute. Great eyes.”

“You woke up earlier, Brian,” I said. Talked to a nurse, remember?”

“Uh … kind of. Big freckly girlie with—” he bounced invisible breasts. “bodacious breastage?”

I’d seen the woman a time or two in the hall, hard to miss, easy to remember. “That would be her,” I acknowledged.

“What happened to me?”

I looked out the door. No sign of Costa. “You were drugged after a performance, bud.”

“I did a show? How were the reviews?”

I did a thumbs-up. I didn’t mention the show was over a week ago. He rolled his head, arched his back, frowned. “I ache. And unless I’m wrong, someone’s been knocking on my back door.”

“Uh, yes. You were assaulted.”

He shifted on the bed, winced. “Gawd, tell me about it. I hope the bastard practiced safe sex.”

“We know he’s not positive,” Morningstar said. HIV status had been checked along with the DNA.

Caswell sighed. “At least there’s that, fair lady. You … the pensive fellow with the sexy frown. Did you catch the monster?”

I realized he was addressing me. “We’re trying, Brian. It’d help if you could tell us what you remember.”

He closed his eyes and searched for memories. “I’m sorry, your detectiveness, all I see is me at home getting ready for a performance, packing my dresses, accessories … after that it’s like a switch goes off. Click.”

“No weird pictures, stuff like that?”

“I see pieces of things, shapes. But mainly, it’s like I fell asleep and woke up here. Listen, I gotta get home, get a couple vodka tonics in my tummy and some ice on my chundini. Can you make that happen?”

“You gotta stay here, Brian. The toxins may take a while to clear. I’ll have a nurse bring some ice.”

“Send the one with the big bosoms. Maybe she’ll give me some seeds.”

“Seeds?”

He winked. “So I can grow a pair like that. Woo-woo.”

“He’s a piece of work,” I smiled as Morningstar and I retreated to the elevator, buoyed by Caswell’s recuperation.

“I think he’s the type who has to keep talking,” she said as the door rang open and we stepped inside. “If he stops, he’ll think about what happened. It’s a protective mechanism.”

I smiled as the door shut. “Protective mechanism, Doc? Maybe you should add psychoanalysis to your pathology duties.”

“It would be easy to make my folks lay on the couch. But this would be a good time to tell you: I won’t have path duties much longer. I’m leaving the department.”

I turned, trying to keep my jaw from dropping. “You’re going to another city?”

We stopped and the doors whisked open. Morningstar stepped into the lobby. “I’m going into taxidermy and specializing in mice,” she smiled over her shoulder. “You spend less money on filling.”

“Mice?
I called after her, caught flat-footed and running to catch up.

She stopped in the center of the lobby and laughed. I’m not sure I’d ever heard her laugh before.

“Actually, I want to work with living bodies for the rest of my career. In a hospital instead of a morgue.”

“This idea just hit you?”

“Last year a friend was in a car accident, hospitalized for a month. I spent a lot of time in the hospital during her recovery. I started talking with the hospital staff, getting interested in cases. I saw the body’s incredible ability to sustain injury and yet, with care and the latest in medical science, regain health and wholeness. It was inspiring and I wanted to be a part of it.”

“You’d not seen such things during your training?”

“My late father was a pathologist. My aunt still is, up in Atlanta. When I went into medicine, my world seemed preordained.”

“But that’s changed.”

A nod. “The people in the morgue come to me in past tense. I can usually determine why they died, but that’s all I can offer. I want to work in present tense.”

An orderly rolled an exiting patient between us and Morningstar disappeared behind a bobbing wall of helium balloons. On a job she could be near tyrannical. But temperament aside, Morningstar was one of the best I’d worked with, a consummate pro. I expected she’d be the same among the living.

The balloons floated past and we stepped together. “When’d you give your notice, Doc?” I said.

“Almost two months back.”

It took me aback. “That long?”

“Everyone in the department knows, almost no one outside of it. I’ve already started some of the re-training.” She grinned. “And doing observations at hospitals.”

Suddenly things made sense. “You haven’t been shirking your morgue duties. You’re already entering the new world.”

A nod. “A couple of retired paths came back to fill in my schedule. I’m doing my observations, studying, and basically considering what specialty I’ll ultimately go for.”

“You don’t have to train a successor?”

“Roland Espy is stepping in as acting director. He’s from Tallahassee, an interim administrator. We just hired a forensic pathologist from Chicago. She’s worked in Indiana and then, for the past seven years, put in her time in Cook County as an assistant director.”

“Chicago? She’ll know gunshot wounds.”

“She wants a position a little closer to the sun.”

“A seamless transition. Espy takes over, you stuff mice.”

Morningstar made a scissor motion with her fingers. “You use tweezers and pack batting in their tiny bungholes. I’ll mount them holding cocktail umbrellas and make a killing selling Geisha mice.”

I laughed. She had a weird sense of humor, a hidden side. I decided to try something considered but never explored during our working tenure.

“It’s Friday. Can I take you to a celebratory dinner tonight, Doctor? To celebrate your big jump?”

It was a long shot into total darkness. I held my breath until she responded with light.

“What a lovely thought. Of course.”

I stared. “Uh, really?” was all I could say.

“I’m thinking supper club, Detective Ryder. Drinks, dining, and dancing.” She turned and started for the door, her smile a thousand watts of sunshine. “Sounds like fun, no?”

My elation returned to tension by the time I got back to the department. Gershwin’s office was a former storage room for my office, which he had to traverse to get to his space. I’d been at my desk for several minutes when he entered with a stack of files in his hand.

“I’m gonna shuffle through reports from Ruiz just to see if there’s anything there.”

Ruiz, Tyler and Bell were the investigative-pool dicks assigned to follow up on sightings based on the retouched photos of Gary Ocampo, potential ways Donnie might look. The photos had been sent to all law-enforcement entities in the region.

“They’re overwhelmed, right?”

“Swamped. Were you the one authorized the general release of Gary’s retouched photos to gay bars and organizations?”

“What? No.”

“If not you, Big Ryde, who?”

“No idea.”

“The hits are coming in, but the guys are barely able to check a dozen a day.”

I sighed. The FCLE had dozens of active cases – murders, drug dealers, counterfeiters, bank robbers – all handled from two floors in Miami’s Clark Center building. I’d been lucky Roy’d allowed me three pool investigators.

“It’s a pure crapshoot,” I said. “But it’s gotta be done.”

“Ruiz says next time you want them to check a suspect make sure he’s ten feet tall with purple hair and one eye in the center of his forehead. I told Ruiz that wouldn’t solve anything … it’s Miami.”

He continued for his office. I cleared my throat. “Uh, hang on a sec, Zigs. Morningstar wants me to take her to a supper club. Any recommendations?”

He jumped into his office, threw the files on his desk and was sitting across from me in a flash, leaning forward. “
Oy caramba
, Big Ryde. Give me the juicy details.”

“There are no juicy details. She’s resigning to re-train for standard physician-type work and I offered to take her to dinner to celebrate. The supper club was her addition.”

“Does la señorita want
Latin
dancing?” I saw his grin widening. “That’s pretty sensuous stuff, sahib.”

“Don’t start,” I said. “Just give me some suggestions.”

He snapped his fingers. “The Calypso Club, an institution. Full Latin orchestra. Low lighting, too, jefé. Candles on every table.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

He put a hand above his head, one below, snapping his fingers like a flamenco dancer. “Es muy r-r-r-r-r-ro
man
tico.”

I muttered and waved for him to beat it, but as soon as the Cheshire-grinning Gershwin trotted to his office I made reservations at the Calypso.

Auguste Charpentier, né Jeremy Ridgecliff, leaned back in his Herman Miller Aeron chair and looked between the computer monitors and Bloomberg terminal on his desk. The US trading day had just ended and he approximated his winnings: over eleven thousand bucks, on the low side of average.

“Eleven thousand bucks and change, Brother,” Ridgecliff chuckled. He often included his brother in his talks with himself, as if the brother were there in person. “How’d you do today, Carson?”