The Definitive Albert J. Sterne

by Julie Bozza

  There was the clatter of the garage and then the back door being shut, the splash of Albert cleaning up in the laundry. Fletcher wandered closer, stood hesitant at the doorway to the dining room. Albert appeared, drying his hands on a towel. He came to a halt, and they stared at each other across the expanse of the kitchen.

  Albert’s face was close to his usual expression - shielded, impatient, a touch of arrogance. Gone was the intensity and honesty that had betrayed so much. But the man still seemed to be off-kilter with the shock of it all; he must surely have been more rocked by the realization than Ash.

  Fletch had the feeling that if he led the way to Albert’s bed, to the one room he had not yet set foot in, then it all might happen without a word, the last of those defenses would be tumbled, the love Fletch had witnessed would find an answer of sorts, there would be some kind of satisfaction. Fletcher could make it happen, yes, Fletch could become the focus of all Albert’s passion. Incredible.

  But Fletch’s memories of Tyler were too sharp. She had made love to Fletcher only hours ago, bestowing a favor because it didn’t really matter to her.

  Fletcher couldn’t do that to Albert. On reflection, considering that Albert wouldn’t let him under any other circumstances, perhaps this was the one chance Fletch would ever have.

  He turned, headed back to the living room, made himself sit. Heard Albert begin to gather the makings for dinner. Sighed in frustration. What else to do for the man?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WASHINGTON DC, COLORADO and GEORGIA

  APRIL 1983

  “Are you busy?”

  “Of course I’m busy, Ash, as you should be. What - Wait a moment.” Albert put the phone down, reached to close the door of his office cubicle, and sat down behind the desk before continuing. “What do you want?”

  “I was wondering if you can come up here and do an autopsy for us.”

  “Why not the medical examiner?”

  “You know the Bureau - once we decide it’s our jurisdiction, we don’t let anyone else poke their nose in. So I suggested to Caroline that we invite you up to dispense some expert advice.”

  Albert glanced through the glass walls at the laboratory. The three staff out there were going about their business, paying him no mind as usual. But these days he was uncomfortable taking calls from Fletcher at work. His unwelcome nervousness sharpened his impatience. “What’s the case?”

  “A woman from Salt Lake City, dumped by the roadside on our side of the border. She’s cut up pretty bad, looks like she’s been raped. Anyway, she’s someone’s friend’s niece, so we’ve been told to take it on the grounds of kidnapping across state lines and get it solved yesterday.”

  “You have a problem with that,” Albert observed.

  Ash let out a hollow laugh. “We should solve them all yesterday, shouldn’t we? Not just the ones who happen to have a relation who fancies himself important.”

  “I’ll remember your attitude when you’re in a position to call in favors.”

  “Trying to keep me honest, Albert?”

  “I don’t know why you alone should escape humanity’s hypocrisy.”

  Fletcher groaned. “It’s too early in the morning for insults. Look, we need the best up here. It’s not just an excuse to have the pleasure of your company, you know.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” Albert said, then wondered if he sounded affronted rather than irritated.

  “Not from Caroline’s point of view, anyway.”

  Albert ignored both the comment and the teasing tone of Fletcher’s voice. “I have something to finish up here -”

  “What’s that?” Ash interrupted, always keen to hear the latest.

  Aware that he shouldn’t be passing on restricted information, Albert said, “The lab has received a pair of severed hands from Texas.” It was humiliating to be reduced to gossiping.

  “They’re trying to tell you something?”

  “Spare me the pathetic attempts at humor. The hands were sent to the Dallas police by mail but the flesh is too decomposed for them to print easily.”

  “I’m glad I already had breakfast.”

  “The interesting thing is …”

  Silence for a moment. “Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Fletcher said.

  “The police assumed both hands belonged to one corpse.”

  “You mean there’s two corpses somewhere, one missing a right hand, and the other …?”

  “A left hand. Yes.”

  “That’s grotesque. I don’t know how you cope with this sort of thing.”

  “Unlike you, I don’t have a hyperactive imagination.”

  “So, can you come up to Denver or not?”

  “Book me on a flight; give me three hours to finish up and get to the airport. Tell Thornton to clear it with Jefferson.”

  “Thanks, Albert.”

  “Did you hear about the body they found in the Georgia Pine Belt?”

  “This isn’t a joke, is it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Young man, eighteen to twenty, buried facedown in a forest, naked, beaten and sexually assaulted. Sound familiar?”

  Silence. Finally, flatly, “He’s killed again.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “He’s killed again and it’s my fault.”

  “How can it be your fault, Ash?”

  “I gave up on him, I almost forgot about him after all this time.”

  “Melodrama will not help. It may not be the same man. This was more haphazard than the cases in Colorado: the grave was dug barely six inches deep, with dirt and debris heaped over the body; the location was near a busy lumberyard; and there was no shroud or wrapping, plastic or otherwise. Cause of death was anemic anoxia.”

  “Insufficient supply of oxygen to the tissues,” Fletcher said, “which means loss of blood.”

  “Yes. Apparently the markings indicate use of restraints on wrists, arms and ankles. I would like to check on that, however; it has been some months since the time of death, and I doubt much can be clearly determined.”

  “Except by you,” Ash commented.

  Albert ignored this. “Perhaps it was a sexual liaison that went too far, and the offender panicked. This certainly doesn’t seem as clever or as organized as the Colorado cases.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like the feel of it. Have you seen the body?”

  “It’s not FBI jurisdiction.”

  “He wasn’t someone’s relative,” Fletcher observed.

  “They haven’t identified him yet,” Albert replied, deliberately taking the comment on face value. He wanted to continue the conversation, prolong the contact with Ash, even though to do so might delay seeing him in Colorado that afternoon. He hated these irrational, often self-defeating urges, not least because such impulses might become apparent to other people. And Ash was presumably in the best position to perceive them. Abruptly, Albert said, “We’ll discuss it when I’ve finished your autopsy. I told McIntyre to push for full copies of all the Georgia reports. Let me know the flight details when you have them.”

  “All right. And I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Yes.” Albert hung up, and then stared at the phone, pictured the lines that had connected them across hundreds of miles. Imagined Ash sitting by the phone as well, maybe already calling the airline, having gone out of his way to ensure it was Albert who attended to conduct the autopsy. Albert knew he was the best when it came to human remains, the results of human violence, and that the case therefore wouldn’t suffer because of this whim of Ash’s - but what was the man’s motivation?

  Too easy to distrust the only person in years who’d tried to be a friend; too easy when that person was unusually perceptive, and Albert had inadvertently become all too attached to him. And too difficult the effort to act as if nothing had changed, to maintain the carefully built facade.

  But Ash was in no mood to notice anything untoward. As Albert walked towards him in the airport, amongst the first rush of arrivals, Flet
cher gestured impatiently; he barely waited until Albert was within a yard to say, “Mac called. They’ve found another one,” even as he turned to hurriedly lead the way through the lounge.

  “Another one of what?” Albert snapped as he followed Ash, annoyed with himself for having expected and wanted some kind of greeting from the man.

  “In Georgia, ten miles from the first, four or five months since time of …”

  Apparently Fletcher was unwilling to say the word amid the swirl of people. Albert pointedly clarified, “Time of death?”

  “Yes.” Ash cast a distracted look around, perhaps wondering if that had drawn unwanted attention, then came to a sudden halt. “Do you have bags?”

  “I have them with me.”

  Fletcher grabbed the small suitcase, left Albert with the metal case that contained his tools.

  “A second body doesn’t mean anything, Ash. You’re making assumptions.”

  They were at the car within moments. Once inside, Fletcher turned and furiously spat out, “That sort of sexual thing doesn’t go wrong twice, does it? We have a serial killer on the loose and chances are it’s the same one we dealt with up here.”

  “No, the chances are that it is not the same one.” Albert hung onto the dashboard as Fletcher pulled out into the traffic a little faster than necessary.

  “Same modus operandi.”

  “Different cause of death and differences in MO, too. This one wasn’t as clever.”

  “Maybe he’s losing control.”

  “You’re clutching at straws.”

  “Or maybe he planned it to look that way. It’s the same man. I feel it.”

  “Nice for you. But what’s the basis for that? You don’t even know anything about the case that isn’t second- or third-hand.”

  “It’s enough. I’m taking you to the medical examiner’s labs, you do what you can with this woman, we leave it with Caroline, then we head to Georgia tonight.”

  “They should put you back on your medication.”

  “Don’t give me any of your garbage, Albert.”

  “Progressing from passive, straight through assertive to strident, are you?”

  “You know as well as I do - if we’d caught the sadistic bastard two years ago, he wouldn’t have got to these boys and God knows who else in the meantime.”

  “And if you don’t slow this car down he’ll soon be indirectly claiming another two victims.”

  Silence, as Fletcher stared straight ahead. But, after a moment, his hands loosened their white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and his foot eased off the gas. “All right,” he said. “But I hate this, that I didn’t stop him. You can’t reason that away.”

  “You never will stop him if you don’t calm down. You’ll need your wits about you for this one.”

  Fletcher looked at him, those intense blue eyes insisting on the truth. “You think it’s the same man.” He looked almost handsome, Albert noted. The mutable, quite pedestrian features were all fired up into … beauty. “Don’t you?”

  Albert turned away. “I’m prepared to consider the possibility.”

  “Then why give me such a hard time about it?”

  “No one deserves unqualified support, least of all you.”

  “So much for friendship.”

  “If you can’t justify this feeling of yours to me, you won’t convince anyone else.”

  “You would have to be the most difficult person -” The younger man was smiling poignantly. Yes, he was beautiful. “I’m sorry. I wish I could live up to what you expect of me.”

  Albert wanted to suggest, as directly as possible, that he had no expectations of Ash, and that Ash shouldn’t bother making doomed and misguided efforts to live up to the nonexistent, but Albert realized that might sound like disappointment. He stayed silent.

  “How long will the autopsy take?”

  “Some hours.”

  “We need to get to Georgia.”

  “Book us on the first plane tomorrow.”

  “Not tonight? I thought you could do it quicker than that.”

  “You can’t possibly be asking me to rush through a vital procedure in a murder investigation - one, I hasten to add, that you insisted I perform - simply because you’re hot to chase down another case.”

  “No,” was the small, resentful reply.

  “Then rest assured I’ll work as quickly and thoroughly as usual. And I’ll accompany you to Georgia in the morning.”

  “All right, all right. The lab’s just around the corner here.” Fletcher pulled the car into one of the emergency spaces directly in front of the building. “Come on. I’ll introduce you, then I’m heading back to the office for the afternoon.”

  “Spare me the introductions. Just get me to the procedure room.”

  It was a relatively straightforward autopsy. There was evidence - particles of skin and dirt under the woman’s fingernails, fibers on her back and legs, loose pubic hair, and semen - that would serve to identify any suspects. The cause of death was clearly coma as a result of bludgeoning, following repeated sexual attack. There were numerous cuts and bruises, all of them fairly superficial, indicative of a struggle and of someone’s naïve conception of torture. Nevertheless, Albert meticulously conducted a full examination and dissection, took photos to supplement his documentation, and collected the necessary samples of organs and fluids, all the while recording his report. The only unexpected discovery was that the woman wore a diaphragm, complete with an application of spermicide. She obviously had been prepared to have or had had sex with someone voluntarily - what had happened next was a matter for others to determine. By the end of the procedure, Albert was prepared to broadly describe two offenders, their coloring, and the type of carpet on which the woman had been attacked.

  It was five in the evening before he’d reassembled all the organs and sewn the corpse back together. Albert washed, then opened the door to the corridor. As he’d expected, Fletcher was loitering.

  Albert held out two cassettes. “Get someone to type a transcript. I’ll do what tests I can, and send the rest to Washington.”

  “All right.” The younger man seemed uncomfortable.

  “Anything more from Georgia?”

  “Nothing significant.”

  “Did you book me a hotel room?”

  Fletcher looked at him. “No, I forgot all about it. And the suite the Bureau usually uses is taken.” He considered for a moment, expression speculative. “Stay with me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on … It’s only an apartment, but there’s plenty of room for two of us. The sofa pulls out into a bed - I slept on it myself for years.” But something about the tone indicated Fletcher expected to have his offer refused.

  Albert obliged by saying, “No,” and turned to head back inside.

  “Wait.” As Albert paused, Ash continued, “I’m sorry about before. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you - it wasn’t you I was angry with.”

  “Everyone gets frustrated, Ash. You know how counterproductive it is to react emotionally, yet you allow yourself to do exactly that.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  The man seemed more amused than chagrined. Albert suspected he’d sounded prissily moralistic. Why did Ash of all people always have him at such a disadvantage?

  “So, stay with me? It will be more convenient to get to the airport tomorrow - the plane leaves at quarter past six. Apart from which, you’ve already had a long day, what with the time difference.”

  “It’s only a difference of two hours,” Albert snapped, while trying to balance the conflicting urges to be with Ash as often and as closely as possible - and to save himself from situations with such intimate possibilities. Impossibilities, he corrected himself. Even so, it would be too easy to make a complete fool of himself over this. “If you insist,” he told Fletcher, and was rewarded by a relieved grin.

  “Okay. I am sorry, you know. Even Caroline doesn’t suffer through my self-indulgent mo
ments quite as often as you do.”

  “Am I supposed to feel honored?”

  “How much longer will you be? I’ll take you out to dinner when you’re done.”