No Time Like the Present

by Ellison Blackburn

  Narrowing my eyes, “What?” I say, my voice barely audible.

  “Thank God Skye saw him for what he was, is, and asked Mom to watch over you and take you in if something happened to her. You would have ended up with him if she hadn’t, River.”

  I volley a look from Archer to Vale and back to Archer. “Out with it. What does Seeley Roth have to do with this?”

  “The man is evil. He values life so little, at least other people’s. He thinks he’s some kind of puppet master. So, without a doubt, he would have played the daddy card to his advantage. We didn’t want to even imagine the twisted strategies he might exact if he knew about you and Vale.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Because I felt nothing for him, I’ll repeat, nothing, he couldn’t have manipulated me.”

  “Of course you would say that but—”

  “I’m serious. He had no claim on me, none whatsoever. So zero influence.”

  “How would you know? Would it have occurred to you Roth was involved if he was working through Vale?”

  “River, please,” Vale says mildly, touching my knee with his fingertips. Likely self-invented, a tingling ripple spreads over my knee and a mild electrical current to surges up my leg. “We discovered, roughly three months before that the tech in my brain was not damaged as we thought. It had only been deactivated. Shortly thereafter, it began to ping a signature we were able to track. At the same time, I started to get these odd flickers in my head like my brain was taking snapshots. I couldn’t still the twitches the same way I can my muscle spasms.”

  “I know, but Mayhew said being with me would keep you grounded. That you needed us to get better.” I cringe inwardly at the desperation in my voice.

  “We thought it was, I was!” He moves closer to the edge of his seat, holding out both of his hands. I stare down at them. “You have to understand, River, things were changing unbeknownst to anyone. I was getting worse and would continue to do so. It was out of my control. Mayhew, Quinn, Marlowe, Archer, you, could do nothing to stop it. It was impossible to extract the bug without severely risking my mind and my life.

  “I never mentioned it, but it sometimes felt like I was being watched and oddly as though from within like my own mind was my jailer. I wanted to believe it was just residual paranoia on my part, remnants of the hijacking. But someone was watching, River. Only they weren’t really watching me. They were using me, looking through my eyes, listening through my ears, monitoring all of my sensory input.”

  “But—”

  “It became obvious. I wasn’t ever going to heal. The purpose of the hijacking had been to turn me into a glorified surveillance device.”

  “No.”

  “And when it reactivated, we could see it was growing and assimilating to my neural pathways. One day we’d pick up a signal in one spot, and the next, it wouldn’t be there, but another would ping from the somewhere else.”

  “Nanotech?” I suggest.

  “Yes,” Vale says.

  “Which is why Quinn said it was impossible to extract.”

  “Correct,” Archer says.

  Christ. I had once thought my mind had been hijacked too, and my short foray into that possibility was horrifying. But my fears had just been imaginings. Vale had lived it for real, and his hijacking had been super high tech. The idea that one day, the malware would thoroughly overtake his mind must have been awful.

  His voice is light. “In fact, we think Seeley Roth planned my rescue—that he’d left me alone at the riverfront, out in the open, so Clarion would find me, so he could infiltrate the Division’s bioengineering projects and investigations through me someday.”

  I nod at the sense this all makes.

  “Do you see, River? We couldn’t let him learn that not only had Vale been rescued, but that he’d also become part of the family, not before he lost his ability to block the interference.”

  “The fact is, Archer, I was never really able to block the signals in the first place. The techniques I use to quiet my spasms weren’t ever going to work on my mind. We were just lucky that we figured out what was going on before the program fully re-initiated.”

  “Marlowe said you offered to negotiate a deal. Now, that sounds like it might have been an opening for some kind of double agent strategy. Was that the original plan?” I ask.

  “That conversation was a story we made up; the cleanest method we could think of to get Vale away. There wasn’t much anyone could do if they thought he was already incarcerated.”

  “Anyone,” I think aloud. Meaning me.

  Vale nods. “It became clear soon enough; there was no way I could work both sides, River. At best, Mayhew could try to teach me how to partition my thoughts. We thought maybe, however slim the chance, that if I could close off a part of myself from prying eyes, I might be able to have some sort of quality of life. We had to do something, even knowing I would never be able to keep much secreted away. Not how I felt about you. Not proprietary information about Quinn’s work and the bio-intel department. Not anything I happened to glean about Archer’s investigations. Like your brother said, we had no choice. I had to disappear, start over somewhere else. I was Roth’s agent through and through whether I liked it or not. He would have eventually known everything about the St. Clairs and Clarion if I’d stayed.”

  I crouch over and bury my face in my hands. I flinch when I feel his warm hand cup my shoulder. The gentle pressure is comforting, and at the same time, it scorches my skin.

  “Where did you go after you left?” I mumble, dropping my hands but keeping my head bowed.

  “I was housed in a dead-zone bunker on facility grounds. The funny thing is that although this trip back in time has been strange and difficult, it gave me back my life—well, a life. I mind being Henry less than I think you mind being Reid.”

  For the first time, I allow myself to look up at him without trying to ferret out every last secret he might be holding on to. “I’m not trying to be Reid, Vale. I’m just borrowing his name.”

  “I know,” he says so softly that it feels like a caress on my face.

  After a prolonged silence, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, Archer asks, “What now?”

  “With?” I ask, leaning back and slouching as though I’ve been holding myself erect for days on end. I feel an odd sense of relief and hollowness all at once. Did my brother think we could all just pick up where we left off? That Vale and I would kiss and make up?

  “Can we all coexist? Maybe get past this and move forward?—now that you see there wasn’t another way around it. That it was no one’s fault.” I fail to respond within the brief lull that follows his statement, so he continues. “Because I’d like Vale to feel like he can count on us and vice versa. I’d like to bring him in as a consultant at the Station. What do you think?”

  “Fine,” I reply quickly. Archer and Vale exchange blank glances, and I get to my feet. Was it only six forty-five? Today had turned out to be the longest day of the year, though it’s April 7, and not June 20. “We have a few minutes before dinner, I’m going to change. I hear we’re having Marlowe’s favorites: roast joint, root veggies, and vanilla custard.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I EXCUSED MYSELF after dinner and stayed upstairs for the rest of the evening. I locked my door in case someone should decide he wasn’t through grating my head and heart back and forth over a washboard and then hanging it out to dry. But no one bothered me.

  Suffice it to say, I had a fitful night’s sleep and found myself leaving the house alone at half-past seven the next morning. Then my brisk walk to the office was befuddled with a thorough analysis of the number of petals in a forget-me-not, the virtual plucking of said petals, which initiation sequence would lead to which outcome, and what result I hoped to gain, assuming the number of petals was left to random chance. I knew it was simply a matter of starting with an odd or an even, but purposely complicating the equation was the whole point.

  When I arrive at the
Station, Constable Otis is still at his post as second-shift front desk attendant.

  “How’s it, Doc?”

  “Good,” I say, scoping the counters for half-forms with potential.

  “You’re here awfully early.”

  Duh. “Mm-hmm.”

  “And without the chief, I see.” His eyes graze over me.

  What? No. That’s impossible. Does he mean to say, I didn’t arrive on my brother’s back? Surely Archer is in the Station stables as we speak. “Yep.”

  He ducks his head, withdraws a form from a shelf, and slides the half-sheet of paper over the counter to me, wiggling it teasingly. “Waitin’ for you in your morgue, that one is.” He nibbles at the corner of his lip and spits a piece of chapped skin onto the counter.

  Hiding my disgust, I glance down at the form and study it. Oh, for the love of God. I turn around and start walking down the center aisle past the waiting areas chairs, some occupied.

  The constable says in a level tone behind me, “I’ll have an officer get in touch with the wife then, shall I, Doc? So as she can come to confirm it’s her husband here on your slab?”

  “That’s all right, constable, I know him. No rush on that score just yet. By the way, where was he picked up?”

  “He face-planted the counter at Mad as Hops just across the river.”

  “Thanks, constable.”

  Harlan Otis is the one officer I cannot get myself to call by his first name or last name. Using his first name seems too personal and the last name too formal, connoting respect I do not really feel for the man. I suppose he’s nice enough. He’s never given me a definite reason to dislike him. Only, there is something about his leer when he thinks I’m not looking that gives me the heebie-jeebies. What makes me uncomfortable is that I can’t really gauge if he feels a weird kind of attraction to me because of my effeminacy or if he harbors a latent hatred for the same qualities, in general. I’ve had experience with both kinds of attention already.

  “Sure enough, Doc. I’m up here for another hour if’n you need anything. For instance, I’ve made a fresh pot of coffee. Might I bring you a cup?”

  See what I mean?—I’m at a loss to decide if I should judge him based on what he says or doesn’t say. “I’m good, but thanks anyway, constable.”

  Once in my lab, I pull back the sheet over the corpse’s head.

  Reggie Marsh.

  Looking at him now, all gray and gaunt, one would think he died last week. What did it matter what killed him? It wasn’t murder. Though, I’m sure someone out there wouldn’t have minded him dead. I wonder if anyone will miss him besides Bert Harris.

  I can say for a fact that he didn’t die from a natural cause either. No. The slow poisons Mr. Marsh self-administered all too often were about as natural as imbibing turpentine regularly as a form of treatment for his various invisible ailments and then soaking in it.

  I draw the tarpaulin over his face again and walk backward until my hips nudge the rounded edge of the enamel countertop. I wrap my fingers around the counter on either side and sway back and forth, mentally ticking off the preparations I need to make for my final assessment of the cause of death. For the moment, it doesn’t quite occur to me that my steps usually require no consideration at all, especially not for a simple death certificate.

  My lips part, and a soft sigh escapes. When my fingers start to tingle from their contact with the cold surface of the counter, I realize I haven’t lit the stove yet. My head today might as well be crammed full of red paper cutouts in the shape of hearts. And yet, I am glad of the distraction. And that, this is. And for this, let me just say, thank you to Mr. Marsh.

  I mentally shake aside the last of the loose baubles rattling around up there. “Indeed, I thank you, Reginald Marsh, you horrible man,” I voice to myself. “You’re not scary at all, Reg, now that you’re dead.”

  I turn away from him and walk over to the stove in the far corner. Shoveling in a scoop of coal from the scuttle, tossing a match into the grate, and adjusting the flue, I run through the events of the previous day, after assisting Lulu and just before meeting Owen Kingsley Carr.

  Bert’s reaction was strange and makes more sense now. But it was somewhat preemptive of him to plead that I “lift the curse.” Had Reggie Marsh been dead that long? If so, why was he only brought in this morning?

  Lifting the canvas cover and then his lifeless arm answers the questions. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in.

  Or maybe it has already passed? “That’s absurd,” I mutter in my head. He can’t have been dead for thirty-six hours sprawled over the counter at the tavern. I move along the drawers, collecting the necessary instruments and supplies. Perhaps, it’s some kind of sick joke, and his friends moved his body to the bar?

  It was starting to look as though Mrs. Marsh’s account might clear up a few things after all. But calling her in could wait an hour. Abe Farrell hadn’t called in sick once in the past year and a half. I hope he is feeling hearty today.

  At about noon, Tanner and Theo escort Olive Marsh to the back antechamber where her deceased husband’s body is parked on a gurney.

  She’s a small, rail-thin but sinewy woman. It is so peculiar to me how a husband and wife look more and more like one another as time goes on. I wonder how long a couple has to be together for that to happen. Mrs. Marsh might have been cheerful and pleasant looking twenty years ago.

  Dry-eyed, she nods morosely at me, though she bites at her thumbnail in between wringing her hands worriedly as she passes through. Then after less than a minute, the sergeants lead her back out; I presume to the reception area to complete the release paperwork.

  Three hours later, the two officers re-enter my lab again, both stopping before the top step.

  “The chief asked we come get you for a debrief, Doc,” Tanner says. “For debriefing purposes, that is. If you’re available.”

  His amateur use of the lingo elicits a grin from me. “I’m available, though I’m not sure why I need to be.” I hadn’t seen Archer today, and I wasn’t sure I was really all that ready to see him now. “There’s no case here as far as I can tell. How about you just tell me what Marsh was doing at Mad at Hops at six o’clock this morning?”

  “The short of it is he was deathly ill yesterday but woke up energetic enough to return to work today. And it were his habit to have a drink before starting out. ’Course he usually imbibed at home first thing but not this morn. His wife said he was anxious to just get out of the house. Simple as that, Doc,” Theo says.

  “But—” Tanner begins.

  “Well, … sorry, sergeant, what were you about to say?”

  “Nah, you go ’head and finish, Doc. I was going to say something ’bout a can of worms, but it’s best I keep my mouth shut ’bout it for now. The chief wants us discussing it all together.”

  “Hm, that sounds rather mysterious.” I eye him curiously, and he nods, shoving his hands in his pockets and dropping back to lean against the white-tiled wall adjacent to the entry doors. “I was only going to say that Reggie Marsh might have died from a number of different causes—cirrhosis of the liver, kidney disease, or emphysema if not lung cancer—but in the end, his heart gave out, probably the very moment he decided to take his first lethal sip of the day. I didn’t do an autopsy, but I doubt there was very much alcohol in his system.”

  “Now, I don’t get that,” Theo says, descending a step. “How is it a man who’s so used to his cups dies from a sip? I’ve heard of a diseased liver but to die from a sip, you say?”

  “Ah, well, imbibing alcohol first thing in the morning would be like injecting adrenaline directly into a vein—even for a healthy individual. You see, sergeant, blood pressure gradually rises from the moment you awake until noon or later depending on other influencers. It has to do with the body’s energy cycle throughout each day, called the circadian rhythm. Every organ in the body is affected by this balance, but the heart is regulated by it most evidently.”

  “Interesting,” h
e murmurs.

  I proceed only because Theo really does seem interested. Tanner, on the other hand, has discovered the corner of the wall at the edge of the first step makes for a handy massage post. He shimmies side to side, his hands still in his pockets.

  “So, no matter how conditioned you are to drink, an immediate strain on the heart is an immediate strain. And Mr. Marsh’s heart decided it had had it with him and his unreasonable demands once and for all. Now, shall we go see what the chief wants of me? Maybe he’s bored, hoping to indict Mr. Marsh’s heart for murder, and I’m to provide evidence to support this theory.”

  To my amazement, Tanner chuckles, focusing his gaze on me. “You know, Doc, sometimes you surprise me.”

  “Hm, Sergeant Adams, I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “It were. How do you do it?”

  “What?”

  “Keep your cool when you see so much, …” He pauses, searching for the right words, his mind and mouth working around his disgust. “When you see so much death and people all … blood and guts and stuff.”

  “Ah.”

  “You even make jokes. And I know for a fact that you’re not off your rocker. We’ve met other coroners and they ain’t, are not half as sane as you. Haven’t we, Theo?”

  “Oh, yeah, for sure.”

  “I might write a medical treatise on the subject, fellas, for humor is said to be the best medicine. Now, you know our chief inspector, the clean-shaven grizzly bear. He tends to strain his harness overmuch when he doesn’t get his way.”