Dangerous Echoes

by Leisl Leighton

  ‘I thought you’d already done that.’

  ‘I took samples. That is only the first step. I must remove, weigh and take samples of all the vital organs and brain—’

  He held his hands up. ‘Right. Got it. Let’s get you back in there then.’ He took the end of the trolley and pulled it back out the door. She steadied her breath, heart beating hard and fast in her chest, then, taking a moment to copy the X-ray files onto her personal memory stick where she kept all her back-up files, followed him back into the morgue.

  ***

  Hours later, she finished the last stitch in her brother’s chest—she’d weighed, examined and taken samples of his heart, lung, liver, kidneys, stomach and bladder, using her phone to verbally record the procedure given the morgue didn’t seem to have a recording device. Any one of the vital organs could have evidence of what happened and would help to complete a picture of his last day. His lungs were pink and healthy—no sign of smoke inhalation, which meant he wasn’t alive when the fire began that started the explosion. She would run some tissue samples, but she knew she was right. Hartley stood through all of it, arms crossed, leaning against the bench against the wall, as if he didn’t have a problem with what she was doing at all. But he was a little green. She hoped he wasn’t going to vomit. That had happened on more than one occasion when a detective had come down to follow up on the case and had caught her mid-post-mortem.

  She began on the skull—Hartley turned away when she started up the small rotating saw, and busied himself with sorting the samples she’d collected, even though they didn’t need to be sorted. She bent to her work. She weighed and took samples of the brain, noting the bruising on the parietal lobe and the pooling of blood on the inside of the skull at the same point. She could feel a compression in the bone of the skull as well which the X-ray would confirm. ‘He was hit from behind in what would have been a killing blow.’

  ‘Could something from the explosion have done that?’

  She looked at the shape of the mark, the pattern of the fracture on the skull, and shook her head. ‘Debris would be lodged in the back of his head from the explosion if that was the case. And he wouldn’t have received this kind of injury from a fall. The angle is wrong.’ She bit the inside of her lip and rubbed her hand over her chest where an intense burning sensation had begun to grow. ‘Someone hit him in the back of the head and it killed him. This is cause of death.’

  He came closer and looked over her shoulder. ‘How can you tell from looking at that?’

  ‘Intercranial bleeding and skull fractures tell the story. I just have to be smart enough to read it.’

  He touched her shoulder. ‘You are.’ He stepped away.

  Teeth-grindingly aware of that simple touch, desperate to ignore it, she methodically continued her work. Finally, when she was done, she stripped off her gloves and scrubs. ‘The equipment here is somewhat rudimentary and can’t give the kind of chemical analytics I need. I’ll do some analysis on these,’ she said, pointing to the clothing samples she’d pulled off the body and the boots, ‘and some work on the blood and a few of the tissue samples, but there are others I want to courier down to my colleagues in Melbourne.’

  ‘It will be faster if we send them to Sydney.’

  ‘I want these handled by people I know are competent and capable.’

  ‘The people in the Sydney labs are competent and capable too.’

  ‘I want them to go to Melbourne.’ She looked up at him, about to say more, but the empathy in his eyes undid her. She breathed deeply, trying to ignore the squeezing feeling in her chest, the rawness that dried her throat, the rising anger inside her. She now had proof that someone had murdered her brother. That they’d probably set up the explosion to cover the murder. It was enough to move this from a coronial enquiry to a murder investigation. But she would need more to help catch the murderer. Heat prickled behind her eyes as she tried to hold his gaze, but the longer she did so, the more she felt like breaking down, breaking apart.

  She looked down at the floor and whispered, ‘I need people I know to do the work-ups. For Peter.’

  His hands were suddenly on her shoulders, pulling her toward him, arms wrapping around her, squeezing her against his chest. She stiffened, but he didn’t let go, and after a moment, she let herself lean into him, wrapping her arms around his strong back, feeling the tension of his muscles under her hands as she gripped tight.

  ‘You can let go, you know.’ His chin moved against the top of her head as he spoke.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice muffled against his chest. She knew she should pull away, but couldn’t make herself do it. ‘There are still things that have to be done.’

  ‘They can wait, I’m sure.’ His voice was a warm puff of breath in her hair. She shivered at the intimacy of the sensation. ‘Cold?’

  ‘Yes,’ she lied—she was never cold in the morgue, the exhilaration and exactedness of her work always kept her warm in a way she knew probably wasn’t normal. She began to pull away from him. It was more difficult than it should have been. She shivered again.

  ‘You should put a jacket on.’ He moved his hands up and down her arms. The frisson of warmth that tingled over her skin made her want to lean back into him, but she couldn’t. She still had the next post-mortem to do.

  She shrugged away from his hands. ‘I’m fine.’ She set about copying all her work so far, making doubles of all samples, some to stay there for analysis and some to go into the special containers she kept in her backpack. In Melbourne, she had a secondary storage area in a different section of the morgue building where she kept the samples, but when she was out on the road she had her specialised backpack—double stitched, army-tough, waterproof with extra pockets and tabs and a combination lock—to use until she got back to her lab. She always kept it fully stocked and prepped and took it everywhere she went even when there was no reason to take it. Jenny called it her blanket. She called it being practical, and she was glad of that practicality now.

  She printed out her findings so far and put them in a manila folder which went into her backpack along with her laptop—the morgue computer was too slow for her liking—and the medical USB with the X-rays on it.

  Once done she turned back to Hartley, who had been watching her silently. ‘I’ve got to work on the other body now. Can you help me to put this one away?’

  They worked together quietly and quickly, the click of the lock as the door closed on her brother’s body like a final goodbye. She pressed her hand against the door, swallowing down the grief aching in her throat, and turned back to Hartley. ‘Let’s get Tyler. Once I’m done with him, I’ll look over both the X-rays and do what I can do here with the blood and tissue samples, while you organise a courier for the ones I need sent to Melbourne.’

  He reached out to touch her again, but she moved away to open the locker Tyler was in. ‘Help me here, please.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this now. You should take a break. Get some rest. We can come back tomorrow.’

  ‘No. I want to do it now.’

  ‘Erika. You don’t have to prove anything to me. Take a break. Nobody will think worse of you for it. In fact, they might just think that you’re human.’ He winced as soon as the words left his mouth, before she’d even had a chance to understand the impact of them and why they hurt so much. ‘Erika, I…’

  She didn’t let him finish. That ball of emotion she’d been suppressing had grown too large, too hot, too forceful, for her to keep it inside anymore. Pushed by his words, by the pain they brought, the ball exploded in sudden fury.

  She leapt at him, a sound coming out of her mouth that wasn’t words, wasn’t a scream, her fists lashing out, hitting him, glancing off his shoulder, smashing into the locker behind him. She barely felt the pain. Raw anger and grief were finally flying free, aimed, rightly or wrongly, at the man who had tied her in knots ever since he’d walked into the interview room at the police station not twenty-four hours earlier. The
man who had tied her in knots for more than twenty years, ever since they’d been griefstricken kids who found each other through mutual loss. She kept lashing out with her fists and knees and elbows and hands even though she knew it wasn’t reasonable, even though she knew it wasn’t fair, even though she didn’t really want to hurt him. Some hurt-animal part of her had sprung free and didn’t care. She just wanted somebody else to feel what she was feeling, because then, maybe then, it would mean that she wasn’t all alone.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Erika. Erika. Stop it.’ His head smarted from where it had smashed into the locker when she’d launched herself at him, the copper tang of blood in his mouth, the sting of a cut under his eye from where her ring had cut him, but he didn’t care about that. He managed to get his arms around her, pull her tight against his chest so she couldn’t hurt herself more. There was blood on her knuckles. She struggled against his hold, the hurt animal sound wrenched from her soul grew louder. Hell.

  He’d heard that sound before, once, when he’d snuck into her room one night and found her curled in a corner of her dark bedroom. She’d been rocking back and forth, making that sound, and he couldn’t make her stop. There’d been blood that night too—not much, but enough to scare him. Her nails had cut into the skin of her legs as she’d held onto herself so tightly, almost as if she was afraid she was going to fly apart if she let go.

  He’d been so scared for her that night and he was scared now. He hadn’t been able to help her then, hadn’t been able to get through to her, but he was damned if he was going to be as useless and helpless now. He had caused this emotional fugue with his unthinking words and it was up to him to fix it.

  ‘Shh, shh, Erika. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. Nothing’s going to hurt you now. Shh. Shh.’

  He had no idea what he was doing but he kept on doing it, muttering soft, insensible words against her hair, rocking her gently, until slowly, slowly, she stopped fighting, that horrible sound changing into shuddering sobs until finally she turned in his arms and clung to him, burying her face into his chest.

  It broke his heart.

  Just like it had broken his heart all those years ago. Shit!

  When she’d run away, his hurt and sense of betrayal had made him accept his father’s version of events—that he’d been a stupid boy with his first crush, and she was a girl that had only ever used him—but even then, he’d known it was a lie. He’d tried to cling to that lie when he’d heard she was here, when he walked into that interview room. He told himself he didn’t care that she was back. But then why had he come here with her and helped her? Why had he kissed her?

  That kiss… It had felt like coming home, like the two of them had always, and would always, belong together. He’d been such an idiot! He’d believed in a lie to protect himself when the truth was, he cared more for this damaged woman than he’d ever cared about anyone else in his life.

  He stood with her cradled in his arms for long minutes, expecting her to stop sobbing, to let go. She didn’t. She didn’t respond when he spoke to her either. Knowing she’d hate it if anyone at the hospital saw her like this, he picked her up and carried her away from her brother and his death, away from the science of the autopsy that she’d clung to as a way of holding onto herself, or her sanity, or whatever it was she was trying to hold on to. He carried her to the freight lift and then up and out the loading bay doors. He hurried across the parking lot to his Patrol, thankful it was quiet. When he got there, he tried to coax her to let go of him so he could put her in the car and drive her to Daphne, but she wouldn’t let go. Shit, he couldn’t drive like that. There was only one thing he could do.

  He called Mac.

  Mac didn’t ask any questions when he got there, just helped Hartley get into the back of the four-wheel drive and then drove them back to the hotel.

  Hartley carried Erika to her room and Mac went to get his mum.

  Erika’s sobs had stopped when he opened her door, but she was still clinging to him, her face almost welded to his shoulder. He sat on the bed, not knowing what else to do, Erika cradled in his lap. His shirt was wet and he was certain there would be bruises in his shoulders where she clung to him.

  ‘Oh, goodness. What’s happened? Oh, you poor dear.’ Daphne, hand to her throat, rushed through the door, wearing a pair of Wonder Woman pyjamas that, in that moment, looked oddly right, with Pip hot on her heels. Mac came after his parents but stopped at the door.

  Daphne sat beside them on the bed and began to stroke Erika’s hair, her back. Pip stood a few feet from the bed, edging from one foot to the other, his white t-shirt half tucked into his crinkled pyjama shorts. He looked back at the door where Mac stood, then back at his wife. ‘I’m going to call Jenny.’

  ‘Yes. That would be good. Let me know what she wants us to do.’

  Pip brushed past his son and was gone.

  ‘Who is Jenny?’

  ‘The lady Erika went to live with when she left here, a friend of her mum’s. She’s a psychologist. She’ll be able to help.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Hartley’s voice was hoarse. ‘She hasn’t spoken and won’t let go of me.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ Daphne’s gaze wasn’t accusing, but he could feel her urgency, her worry, right down to his soul. It echoed his own.

  ‘I’m not sure. It might have been something I said, but I can’t remember anything specifically. She’d just finished the autopsies and X-rays on Peter when…’

  ‘Oh, Lord. No wonder. It probably took her right back to her parents’ deaths.’ Her gaze pinioned him to the spot. ‘You know she was there with them, in the car, when it was run off the road? She tried to save them.’ Hartley nodded. She’d told him that much. He’d heard the rest in whispered gossip around town. She’d been twelve. Her mother’s neck had been broken on impact and she died instantly, but Erika managed to keep her father alive until the ambulance arrived. She’d stuck her hand right in the wound in his chest and pumped his heart with her own little fingers. People had looked at her as if she was some kind of monster to have been able to do that. Hartley knew different. Her mind, her beautiful, brilliant mind, had probably read it in a book and given she remembered everything she’d probably just done it. To her, it would have been the only thing to do.

  ‘Most adults wouldn’t have been able to do what she did,’ Daphne said, stroking Erika’s head softly, surely. ‘When Pip and I arrived at the hospital, she was still covered in blood and clinging to her father like she’s clinging to you now. And she was making a noise. The most horrible noise.’

  ‘I know that noise.’

  Daphne’s hand clenched, tangling in Erika’s hair, dislodging the ponytail. A little choking sound erupted from Daphne’s throat, then she pulled out the band gently and kept stroking Erika’s hair, the wavy auburn locks falling over Erika’s shoulders and onto Hartley’s hand.

  ‘I thought, I hoped, she would have grown out of these fits of hers,’ Daphne said after a long silence. ‘Poor, dear girl. You had no business letting her do something like that, Hartley John Cooper. No business at all.’ She wasn’t looking at him, her gaze glued to Erika, but it felt like she was.

  ‘I couldn’t have stopped her. She would have done it with or without me. Better I was there, right? And lucky she did do it because she found something almost right away.’

  Mac stepped into the room. ‘What?’

  ‘Peter was murdered.’

  Daphne gasped, but Mac said, ‘How?’

  ‘There was evidence of an accelerant as well as clear evidence that he’d been bludgeoned on the back of the head. Erika said it would have been a killing blow.’

  ‘Oh my.’ Daphne’s hand stilled, trembled, but then returned to stroking.

  ‘So it’s lucky she did the autopsy.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have done it,’ Daphne said, her voice low and hard. ‘You shouldn’t have let her autopsy her own brother. The other boy, fine. But not her brother. I
t’s too much.’

  ‘She’s so damned icy, Mum. Who would have guessed it would flip her out like this?’

  ‘I would have, Macarthur Hudson. She isn’t cold. She just struggles to deal with her emotions. Which is completely understandable given what she went through.’ Her hand trembled as she turned Erika’s wrist over, fingers stroking over the white scars there. ‘She feels more deeply than any of us know.’

  Hartley’s arms tightened around Erika as Mac stared at the scars on Erika’s wrist and said, ‘She tried to kill herself? I never knew that.’

  Daphne sighed. ‘Mabel refused to get her help and then, when it became a matter of saving face, sent her away for a few months to be dealt with elsewhere. It probably would have worked too if the poor dear didn’t have to come back here afterwards. She got sent back a few more times to the asylum when Mabel couldn’t take the “hysterical episodes” as she used to call them.’

  Hartley squeezed his eyes closed. So that’s what happened. ‘She would never tell me where she went in those months she was gone.’

  ‘Of course she wouldn’t.’ Daphne’s eyes burned into him. ‘She’s too brave. Too independent and proud to have leaned on someone like she needed to. It got to the point where Pip and I said enough was enough. That’s why we gave her the money to go to Melbourne. We sent her to Jenny. She’d gone to university with Erika’s mum and while we didn’t know her well, we knew her well enough to know she could help. Would want to help. And we knew Erika’s mum and dad would want her to go to their friend.’

  ‘You helped a sixteen-year-old to run away? Mum, you could have been arrested.’

  Daphne waved her hand. ‘Mabel didn’t care. She didn’t even write up a missing person’s report. She said she didn’t think it was necessary given everyone knew Erika had run away so she wouldn’t get in trouble for stealing those sausages, but the truth was, she just didn’t care.’ She wiped her free hand across her eyes, sniffing.