Severed

by Corey Brown

  Harris glances at the paper and smiles weakly. “Some.”

  “Mind if I take a look at it when you’re done?”

  His heart racing, Harris holds the paper out, still folded, still wrapped around the thick envelope concealed inside. “I’m finished with it. You… you can have it.”

  “Thanks.” The man smiles broadly, taking the ungainly bundle from Harris, tucking it under his arm. Then he points at Harris’s pastry. “How are those things? Never had one myself.”

  “What? Oh…they’re good. You ought to try one.”

  ”Maybe I will.”

  “Here you go, sir,” chirps the young woman behind the counter. “That’ll be seven ninety-eight.”

  The man reaches into his sport coat, produces a wallet. Harris watches in amazement as the man places the paper, now unfolded, on the counter.

  The package is gone.

  «»

  Bleary eyed and strangely wired, Cody works his way across the detective’s squad room, weaving through a crowded collection of exhausted metal desks and swivel chairs. Cup in hand, Cody glances at an over-used, seldom cleaned coffee maker next to a large message board. He considers a topper, decides against it.

  Another detective is just arriving and he nods in greeting, Cody does likewise. Neither one speaks. A few others are already at their desks and one detective has obviously spent the night here. Cody walks straight to Captain Laroche’s office. Leaning through the open doorway, he frowns at Russell’s absence. But he notices the Times-Picayune opened to the sports section, sees Laroche’s reading glasses next to the paper.

  Back at his own desk, Cody sits down hard and leans back in the chair, stretching. The leather shoulder holster creaks as it pulls tight across his chest. Between making love to Jamie and investigating what was on that mysterious ZZ Top disc, Cody is worn out. He reaches for the green and white Starbucks cup, still half full, and tips a mouthful. The coffee helps but, despite being dog tired, he is also cranked; he doesn’t need the caffeine.

  Cody takes another swallow of the dark liquid and he looks, again, toward Laroche’s office. He starts to pull the disc out of his soft-sided briefcase but thinks better of it. Another swallow of coffee, another glance toward Laroche’s office. He flips a file folder open, flips it closed. He rolls his shoulders, trying to loosen up. Where the hell is Russell?

  More cops are shuffling in, the all-nighter shuffles out. Cody’s cell phone rings.

  “Briggs, here.”

  “You gonna be around this morning?” It is Derek Simmons.

  “Uh-huh, you in town?”

  “Yeah, I had a doctor’s appointment this morning. I thought I’d drop by, if you have the time.”

  Cody straightens, looks around. “You know it,” he says. “When?”

  “Thirty, maybe forty minutes. I’ll pick you up in front.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Cody disconnects and clips the phone to his blue jeans. Then his desk phone rings.

  “Detective Briggs.”

  “Cody, can you stop by room three?”

  Cody turns around, looks down the hall toward the interrogation rooms. At the same time he catches sight of Sergeant Schaefer as he disappears down the stairway.

  “Oh, hey Captain.” Cody says. “Number three? Sure. What’s up?”

  “Not much. I just want to talk to you.”

  “In an interrogation room, why not in your office?”

  Laroche sighs. “Just come on down, okay?”

  “Sure, all right, give me a minute.”

  Cody places the receiver back in the cradle and fingers his coffee cup. Shifting in his chair, he looks back toward Laroche’s office. This does not make sense. Why not meet in Laroche’s office? He stands, takes the ZZ Top disc from his briefcase and starts toward room number three, but he stops short. He thinks about Russell’s tone of voice, senses something.

  Why would Russell want him in an interrogation room? Turning back, Cody returns to his chair and reaches under his desk, presses the disc up against a piece of double-sided tape.

  The interrogation rooms are small, only twelve feet square, and in some police stations they are painted in soft, relaxing colors, but not this one. This one is hard core, nothing but unfinished gray cinder block, a simple light fixture hangs in the center of the room while cameras stare down from two corners. A large, two-way mirror covers most of one wall.

  Two plain, metal chairs stand at attention on opposing sides of a gray, steel table. At the end of the table is an audio-visual cart with a nineteen-inch color television and video cassette player. Cody pops the door, lets it swing open. Captain Laroche sits in profile, his back to the mirror.

  Russell glances at Cody, gestures to the other chair. “Have a seat.” His expression is inscrutable. Taking a sip of coffee, Russell says, “You look like yesterday’s garbage. How’re you feeling? How’s the shoulder?”

  “Feels like somebody worked me over with a crowbar, but I’m all right,” Cody says, sitting down, facing his captain.

  Russell squints. “And your face,” he says. “What happened to your forehead?”

  Reflexively, Cody touches the lump, wishes he had not. The swelling had gone down but it still hurt like crazy. More than anything, Cody wishes he could remember how he got the wound in the first place. All night, as he and Jamie looked at the data disc Nick Wheaton had left behind, Cody kept thinking about the welt, kept touching it.

  “I bumped it,” Cody says. "You know how that goes, there’s no meat up there so it doesn’t take much to raise a goose egg.”

  Russell studies him, wonders about that lump then says, “Think you’re ready to work?”

  Cody gives Russell a look but quickly nods. “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Maybe you ought to take some time off.”

  “I’m fine.” Cody says. “No serious damage, the doctor gave me a clean bill. I thought you were leaving me in, what’s going on, Russ?”

  Russell shifts in his chair. Leaning forward, Russell laces his fingers together, sighs. “I just had a conversation with Dennis Schaefer.”

  Cody shrugs. “And?”

  “C’mon, you know where this is going. Just tell me what happened last night.”

  Confusion frames Cody’s face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “I went home after leaving the hospital. Well, not home, I went to Jamie’s parent’s house.” Cody shrugs. “I picked up Jamie’s car and went to their house. What’s Schaefer’s problem?”

  “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “About what?”

  Russell reaches for the remote control and presses the power button. The television makes a popping, static sound as it comes on. “The problem isn’t Schaefer’s,” he says. “Or maybe it is, but that comes later. After he talked to you, he had a chat with the guard at the parking garage. This morning that same security firm gave this to Schaeffer.”

  “I don’t understand. Schaeffer just left, I saw him head downstairs. We never spoke to each other. What security guard?”

  “I’m talking about last night.”

  “Last night?” Cody says. “I was at my in-laws. You’re not making sense, Russell.”

  Using the remote, Russell points at the television and says, “Take a look, then we’ll talk.”

  The tape has been wound to the precise moment Cody was picking up his car the night before. The black and white tape is slightly washed out, the point of view is from above and positioned awkwardly toward the parking stalls. From this angle, objects in the parking lot are ill-formed and hard to recognize.

  On the television screen a figure appears, walking diagonally from the lower right to upper left corner. Stopping short of a dark-colored car the man hesitates, pulls out a gun and checks the clip. After re-holstering the weapon, the man looks around before proceeding to the black car.

  All at once, the man is slammed up against the car, as though he’s been hit from behind. Spread eagle, his head is turned si
deways and pressed flat against the roof of the vehicle. The man appears to be struggling, trying to break free from something unseen. Something invisible.

  Russell looks at Cody out of the corner of his eye. Cody’s expression is deadpan, there is no tell on his face. The tape rolls on.

  After a few seconds, the camera pulls in closer. Cody’s face comes into view as he stands, alone, flattened against his car. Another few moments of video scroll passed and Cody stumbles backward from the car, spinning around and drawing his weapon, pointing at nothing.

  Then he is talking to himself. The video continues relentlessly, showing Cody as he leans over the car hood. Now Schaefer drives up and climbs out of his police cruiser, Cody is obviously unaware of his arrival. Cody spins, drawing his forty-caliber, again, points the thing at Schaefer.

  Russell slides a finger across the red stop button on the remote control and draws a breath, waits a moment longer before speaking. “We don’t need to watch you puking your guts out,” he says. “We’ll save that for the encore. So how about this, what happened?”

  Cody is motionless. Back erect, he stares at the white and black snow hissing across the television screen.

  “Cody?” Russell says.

  With a mechanical twist of his head, Cody looks at Russell, a dazed expression on his face. His mouth opens as if to speak, but he says nothing.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Cody’s voice is hoarse, almost a whisper. He tries to focus on Russell’s face but finds it hard to concentrate. Cody has a memory struggling to be noticed but is not finding purchase in the pathways of his brain. “Russell,” he says, slowly. “I can’t explain this tape, but that didn’t happen, not to me.” Cody points at the television. “That wasn’t me.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Cody’s face clouds over with anger and embarrassment, he looks away.

  “Holy shit, you’re not kidding,” Russell says, getting up from his seat. “You’re serious, you really don’t remember.”

  “I got in my car,” Cody says, with a shrug. “I sort of remember getting the heaves, but I went home. I ate dinner, drank moonshine with my father-in-law and made love to Jamie. But I didn’t…” Cody looks at the TV, “I didn’t do any of those things. Not that I know of.”

  A raw, anxious feeling comes over Russell Laroche. He cannot believe what is happening or what he is hearing. Cody is losing his mind, losing it right here in front of him.

  Russell paces the floor in silence for several moments then stops abruptly. He tries to straighten the silver tie wrapped around his neck but only makes it tighter, makes it feel like a noose. He hooks an index finger behind the knot and breaks the stranglehold on his throat.

  “Well, it happened,” Russell says. “Now, we’ve got to figure out why.”

  “How can we be sure that tape is real?” Cody says. “How do we know it wasn’t manufactured?”

  “C’mon, who would do that? And why?”

  “Well, let’s start with the guys who tried to take me out yesterday, why not them?”

  “Cody,” Russell says, patiently. “Two security guards at a parking garage you randomly selected saw this. They watched you. But they don’t know you from Adam. You really think they’re part of some big conspiracy?” Russell shakes his head then rubs his neck, says, “Jesus, they saw it all. I can only guess who they’ll tell.”

  Placing both elbows on the table, Cody puts his head in his hands and searches for an explanation. He knows there is one. He knows the answer is locked away in his head somewhere, but it is like trying to catch an autumn leaf on the wind. Clumsy fingers reaching into the air as dozens of other leaves spin by, spin away, each one within reach, none reachable.

  “Maybe,” Cody says. “It was the painkillers. Hell, I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud, but if that tape is real then something made me act that way. Maybe I had weird drug interaction?”

  “That’s my point. We’ve----”

  “No,” Cody says, cutting in. “That’s my point. We both know I’m not a head case. Something external made me do those things, it wasn’t me.” Cody sighs and quietly says, “It just wasn’t me.”

  “Look,” Russell says. “I’m no doctor but I’ll bet my Oppenheimer portfolio that painkillers don’t cause hallucinations. People take them all the time. Shit, I’ve taken them. C’mon Cody, you drew your weapon twice for no apparent reason. You could’ve popped Schaefer.”

  “With Schaefer, I….” Cody tries to explain, finds he cannot.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Russell says, interrupting with a wave of his hand. “You have to be evaluated.” Russell folds his arms across his chest. “You’re one of my best. Hell, you just might be the best detective in the whole goddamned town and, as much as I’d like to, I can’t ignore this. Protecting Jamie is one thing. I’m willing to bend the rules for her sake. But I have an obligation here. I have to know if you’re capable of performing your duties. I have to know if you’re in a meltdown.”

  Russell spreads his hands in a gesture of appeal. “Look,” he says, “What you did was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen a cop do. I don’t know if you’re a head case or not, but we both know I have to be sure you’re not flaking out.”

  Cody draws a breath, he knows Russell is right. Cody exhales slowly, sounding exasperated. “Okay, fine, I’ll see a doctor. What about Schaefer? Think he’ll talk?”

  Russell scowls. “You’ve been a busy boy for the last twenty-four hours. I’ll be hearing from the Major about you. Maybe even the Assistant.”

  “Pre-empt, call first.”

  “I know, I know.” Russell says, a little more sharply than he’d intended. Russell tries to relax, he rubs his eyes. “Look,” Russell says. “There’s more to it than just seeing a doctor. Goddamnit Cody, I don’t want to do this but I have no choice.” Russell expels a heartfelt lungful of air, a commiserating sigh. “You’re on administrative leave,” he says. “That is, pending a complete medical and psychological examination.”

  Cody shoots up from his chair. “Jesus, Russ. You can’t suspend me. Not now.”

  “You’re not suspended. Administrative leave is not suspension.”

  “Yes it is,” Cody says. “I’m telling you, I’m okay. Don’t do this.”

  “I’m sure you are okay, but this isn’t a pissing contest. You’re off duty until a doctor green lights your return to active duty.” Russell slowly shakes his head. “The scary thing is I actually believe you. For some strange reason, I think you probably are okay. But this is not open for discussion, my decision is final.”

  “I’ll file a grievance with the union.”

  “And I’ll show that tape to the first F.O.P. member who asks me why you filed.”

  Cody’s face grows tight, angrier. “Fuck this,” he says, un-strapping his gun.

  Russell holds up a hand to stop him. “Keep your gear,” he says. “I trust you not to screw me on this, I’m sure you’ll be cleared for work in a few days.”

  Cody glares at Russell, wants to slam down his shield just to make a point. But Cody knows his captain is in a jam. Russell has to do this, if for no other reason than to cover his own ass.

  “What’re you going to tell the doctors?”

  Russell shakes his head, says, “Don’t know, maybe nothing. I haven’t gotten that far yet.” Then he crosses over to the VCR and ejects the tape.

  Cody motions toward the cassette. “You’re going to show it to them?”

  “Nope. All I care about is whether or not you’re crazy. If you are, they should be able to figure it out. If you’re not, they don’t need to get any ideas. Cody, I’m not trying to bend you over on this one, I’m just following the rules.”

  “But you are bending me over. You just said you know I’m okay.”

  Russell narrows his eyes. “Don’t give me that shit.” He holds up the cassette. “What? I just ignore this? C’mon, you’re not leaving me any wiggle room here.”

  �
��What’re you going to do with the tape?” Cody says.

  “Sit on it for now.”

  “As long as that tape is out there,” Cody says, turning away from Russell “My rep is on the line.”

  “For now, forget the tape. Once the doctors clear you, I’ll destroy it, but until then....”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cody says. “I’m in the shithouse.” He pulls the door open, “Call me when I have an appointment to see whoever.”

  Reaching his desk, Cody collapses into his chair. For a few moments he thinks about things, thinks about what Laroche has accused him of then Cody pulls his cell phone and dials.

  “Simmons,” says the voice at the other end of the line.

  “It’s me, where are you?”

  “A couple blocks from Rampart, I’ll be there in five.”

  “Keep going.” Cody says. “Meet me at Rhodes. It’s down by the river, know it?”

  “C’mon, not that little rat hole over on Saint Royce.”

  “Can you make it?”

  Derek sighs. “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Okay, I’ll be fifteen minutes behind you.” Cody says. “Get a booth, wait for me.”

  Cody peels the disc from the underside of his desk and slips it back into his briefcase. Then he gathers up a few things and heads for the stairs.

  Russell Laroche watches Cody leave. He glances down at the note a uniform has just given him. The handwriting is difficult to read but there was no mistaking the message.

  “Mr. Manchester,” Russell says, quietly. Then he wads up the slip of paper and tosses it into the wastebasket. “The Times-Picayune will have to forget this story.”

  Chapter 16

  A teenage girl greets Cody as he enters the diner. Her smartly pressed, muted yellow uniform seems at odds with the dark eye shadow, red lipstick and multiple earrings. It is almost as if she has come straight in from a night of hooking, forgetting to take off the make-up.