Severed

by Corey Brown

  “Is that the only morgue?”

  “Where? In the whole city?”

  Oddly, Suzanne feels foolish. “No,” she says, wondering why she feels so dumb. “Just here, in the hospital.”

  “Oh,” the janitor says. “Uh, yeah. That’s it.”

  “There isn’t another one, on another floor?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. That’s the only one.”

  She thanks him. The janitor shrugs, his way of saying, okay, you’re welcome, no problem. Then he walks back to the mop and pushes the bucket around the corner, out of sight. Now she has to decide what to do, which way to go. She looks at the lettering over the door, reads the word ‘morgue’.

  “Where did you take my brother?” she says to herself.

  Suzanne walks back to the service elevator, presses the call button but catches sight of the door to the stairwell. She decides not to wait for the elevator. Being in reasonably good shape, Suzanne takes the stairs two at a time for the first three floors but slows her pace at the fourth floor. By the time she has covered six flights her legs are burning, her breath coming in hard, short gulps.

  Taking a moment to rest, Suzanne stands on the sixth floor landing, sucking air, trying to lower her heart rate. After a few moments, she steps out of the stairwell, her heart still pounding. Down in the sub-basement, hiking to the sixth floor seemed like a good idea but now Suzanne is not so sure. To begin with, this floor is anything but deserted. The medical staff hustles about, going in and out of rooms, knots of family members are gathered together in small groups, some patients sit alone in wheelchairs, waiting for assistance. And, of course, she has no clue which floor the orderly chose. Suzanne knows starting her search on the sixth floor is as much a random choice as a logical decision.

  To Suzanne’s left, the hallway meets three others, a nurse’s station at the center of the four corridors. There is no sign of the orderly or her brother, Suzanne has no clear direction, no real plan of action.

  Confusion gives way to worry over her brother’s disappearance, as her desire to know about the orderly collides with wondering what the man is up to. Worry flips back to disconcertion. What is she doing? Chasing an orderly or finding her brother?

  Who cares? It doesn’t matter, Suzanne thinks. Something is just not right. David should not be up here. With feelings of panic welling up, she looks right then left, hoping to conjure her brother or the orderly either by sheer force of will or pure desperation.

  But another thought comes to Suzanne. She realizes that she has no idea how the deceased are processed at Saint Charles Hospital. Suzanne knows the morgue is not up here, but perhaps there are preparations that need to be made first, maybe that is why the orderly had taken David’s body up from the morgue’s level. She tries to take a calming breath, tries to relax.

  “That’s all it is,” Suzanne says to herself, still breathing hard from her race up the stairs. “They’ve got to prep him or something. David is okay, I’ll find him.”

  Suzanne thinks about everything that has happened, thinks about how Doctor Robiere wanted to perform an autopsy right away. But Suzanne had resisted, something hadn’t felt right about doing it so soon, something in her brain kept telling her to wait. Robiere had told her that, because of the circumstances surrounding David’s death, the law would require an autopsy. She had said it ought to be done sooner rather than later. Otherwise, important clues to David’s death might be lost.

  But Suzanne had insisted that it wait, at least, until tomorrow. She wanted to spend a few minutes alone with David and something in her heart told her that today was too soon for an autopsy. David needed more time.

  David needs time? Time for what? She didn’t know, but waiting just felt right.

  Suzanne shakes her head, trying to chase away these ideas, trying to chase off the questions. She still feels confident about her decision to wait on the autopsy, but what about her motivation? David needing time, what does that mean?

  “They just have to prepare David,” she says to herself. “That’s all, they have to----”

  Her thoughts seem to catch like real emotions. Suzanne’s throat feels thick, her chest tight. She wipes at her eye, her fingertips coming away wet.

  Two nurses, one of them male, are waiting for the elevator. Suzanne stands back a little, staring down at the floor. She looks at her fingernails, the French manicure still as perfect as the night of the Academy Awards. Perfect, except for one. When did that happen? The index finger of her right hand has a small chip. That figures, a hundred dollar manicure, ruined. She tries not to think about her nails, tries to ignore her memories of the Academy awards, Suzanne tries to concentrate on the hot bath she will draw once in her hotel room---- tries to shut out the thoughts of David pacing about in the shadows of her mind.

  “Back down to the morgue…” The orderly’s words seem to creep out like a whispered promise. “In the morning there’ll be an autopsy…”

  The elevator bells chime and the doors slide open. The female nurse steps in but the male nurse waits, allowing Suzanne to go first.

  “Can you tell me,” Suzanne says, looking at the young man. “Where autopsies are performed? Are they done up here, on the sixth floor?”

  He gives her a look. “No, they’re performed down in the sub-basement, in the morgue.”

  “So nothing happens, uh, I mean dead people are never brought up here?”

  The male nurse shakes his head. “Uh-uh, cadavers go to the lower level.”

  “Would anyone ever need to bring a….a dead person up here before an autopsy?”

  “Up here?” The man glances at the female nurse and shakes his head again. “No, this is a surgical floor,” he says. “We try to keep people out of the morgue.”

  A beat, a moment passes. The male nurse widens his eyes at his female counterpart, looking for some help.

  “Uh, Ma’am, are you getting in the elevator?” The female nurse says.

  Suzanne forces a smile. “No, sorry.” She looks at the male nurse and says, “Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem,” he says, returning the smile, stepping into the elevator. He looks at Suzanne and says, “Take care.”

  «»

  Cody pulls into the parking garage of the District One police station. Showered and in a fresh change of clothes, he is feeling more on task, less distracted. But now that he is more focused, the pain in his head and shoulder seem to be more pronounced. Cody considered popping a painkiller before leaving home, but decided against it. He wants his mind clear.

  A blast of torrid air greets him as he climbs out of the car, instantly dots of sweat glisten on his forehead. The heat of the morning has given way to a sweltering afternoon. Sunglasses still on, Cody scans the street outside. The traffic is unusually light for North Rampart, no one is out, nothing is happening.

  “Goddamned heat,” Cody mutters. “It’s March for Chrissakes, not July.”

  A quick trip up the stairs and Cody steps into the detective’s room. The scent of body odor and stale food catch his senses. These smells should have seemed normal but at this moment everything feels strange, almost foreign. It is late afternoon and unusually quiet, only a few cops are working the phones, following leads or filling out the endless parade of forms. Cody looks around the room, glances at his desk. Nothing has really changed in the last thirty-six hours and yet something is out of place. He starts toward Russell Laroche’s office.

  “Hey Cody,” a detective calls out.

  “Nacho,” Cody says, with a quick nod.

  “Heard about your shooter. That’s fucked up.”

  Cody keeps walking. “Yeah, it is.”

  “And a cop, too.”

  “How about it?” Cody says, still walking.

  “Did you know him?”

  Stopping, Cody turns to look at the other detective. And he knows. Cody knows what is out of place: it is him, Cody is out of place. He is walking through cop-land and the latest story is about a dead policeman who
tried to kill one of their own. Fabulous. The rumors and theories would flood the building and every other cop-land outpost in the city like a surge of muddy Mississippi water. But the question on everyone’s mind will be just that, did you know him? Meaning, did you kill him?

  Cody looks at Nacho then glances around the squad room. No one else is looking, but everyone is listening.

  “Did I know Hank Mitchell?” Cody shrugs, thinks about the veiled question then says, “Not really. I’ve shaken his hand a few times over the years, played softball against him once or twice, but that’s all. From what I hear, he was a good cop. I have no idea why he tried to kill me and no idea who butchered him.”

  Nacho pauses, trying to read Cody and says, “That’s fucked up, man.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  Cody knocks on Russell Laroche’s door, pushing it open at the same time. Russell looks up from the stack of paper heaped on his desk.

  “Have a seat,” Russell says, gesturing to a chair. But Cody remains on his feet.

  Russell’s deep blue tie is loose, the white sleeves of his JC Penney shirt are rolled up and a black Stafford sport coat hangs from the back of his chair. The lines on his face seem deeper than usual. Cody catches the scent of tobacco and looks at Russell’s ashtray. There are two cigar stubs mashed into the pewter ashtray, one is still smoldering.

  “I think Hank Mitchell killed Julia Turano,” Russell says, off-handedly. “They found glass fragments in the sole of his shoes. I’m betting it’s from the broken window in Nick’s apartment. Did you know he used to live in the same building? Moved out about two weeks after Nick and Julia moved in. It could be coincidence but I don’t think so, especially after his attempt on you. It was him, I’m sure of it.”

  Russell folds his arms across his chest, waiting for Cody to respond. Cody says nothing.

  “Okay, so Mitchell is involved,” Russell says, waving a hand in the air. “What’s he into? Why is he dead? And, why in God’s name, with a sword, why not just shoot him?”

  Cody nods but remains quiet.

  Russell stands up, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he pulls another cigar from his desk drawer, cores the end and lights up, exhaling a large puff of smoke toward the ceiling. He notices Cody watching him.

  “What?” Russell says. “What’s the matter?”

  “You tell me.” Cody points at the ashtray. “Two down, number three in progress. You don’t smoke at work and I’ve never seen you go through three at a time. Not even at home. What’d you just burn, twenty bucks?”

  “Sixty. These are a limited edition.”

  Cody raises an eyebrow. “Sixty dollars and you’re not even having fun. What’s going on?”

  Russell takes another long drag on the cigar, looks at it, and lets the smoke out slowly.

  “Do you know someone named Katherine Deats?” Russell says, rolling the cigar between his fingers, studying it.

  Cody shakes his head. “No. Should I?”

  “She worked at 2700 Tulane, in the coroner’s office.”

  “And?”

  “Ms. Deats is the only casualty in that fire.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Cody says. “But where’s this going? What are you getting at?”

  Laroche works the cigar again, deliberating, taking his time, stalling.

  “While I can’t explain this,” Russell says. “For some strange reason, Ms. Deats’s ID badge was still on her body when the fire crew got to her. She was dead, burned beyond recognition, but her badge was intact and, strangely, still attached to her. Basically, clipped to her ribs.”

  Cody narrows his eyes ever so slightly. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “We all do. Like I said, no one knows why but the badge survived, perfectly intact. That’s how they identified her.”

  “Fine. What----?”

  Russell holds up a hand, silencing Cody. “Your fingerprints are on it.”

  For Cody, the statement is like the sting of touching a live electric wire. His fingerprints? How can that be? He had never met this person, how can his prints be anywhere near her?

  “Can you explain that?” Russell says, drawing on his cigar, smoke puffing from his mouth. “Can you tell me why your fingerprints are on her badge?”

  “Not possible,” Cody says. “I don’t even know who she is, how the hell would my prints get on her badge?”

  “The arson investigators are asking me the same thing.”

  “Now hold on, what’re you saying? Do you think I had something to do with that fire?”

  Russell shakes his head. “I’m not saying anything, but I do want to know why your prints are on Katherine Deats’s ID badge.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Cody says. “Somebody found my prints on a little piece of plastic that should have burned up in bone-melting fire, but didn’t. Is that what you’re telling me? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? At the very least it sounds like I’m being set up.”

  “What do you want me to say? Is it weird that Deats’s badge wasn’t destroyed in that fire? Hell yes, it’s weird. Goddamned scary if you ask me. Can I explain it? Not on your life. But the firemen on the scene, the same ones who extinguished Katherine Deats, found her ID badge on her smoldering body. Firemen found it, Cody, not cops. The arson boys lifted the prints, not cops. Why would they set you up?”

  Cody frowns, thinks about it then says, “I have no idea. What did she do in the Coroner’s office?” Before Russell can answer Cody snaps his fingers and points at Russell, a look of revelation dawning on his face.

  “She came out of an office,” Cody says. “Followed by some guy, I think they’d been doing the pickle tickle because her hair was messed up and she kept straightening her skirt. The guy’s clothes were messed up, too. I told him to zip his fly.”

  “What are you talking about?” Russell says.

  “The day you gave me Nick’s case, you told me to meet Hansen and Slater at Fletcher’s office. Remember?”

  “Uh-huh, I remember.”

  “I was ringing the bell, you know one of those things you see in hotels to get the staff’s attention? Anyway, I was trying to get some help and this woman comes out of an office, in a hurry. Then a young guy comes out of the same office with an ID badge, I guess she’d left it behind. When the guy handed it to her, she dropped it. I picked it up and gave it to her. It was Katherine Deats. That’s how my prints got on her badge. It’ll be easy to check. Find out who she was boffing and he can verify my story.”

  Through the thin, gray haze of cigar smoke, Russell Laroche studies Cody. The conversation might have ended if it had not been for Eric Hansen. Russell wants to take Cody at his word, wants to dismiss the issue, but he cannot. There are too many connections, too many questions, too many dead people. Russell shoves aside a stack of papers and parks a haunch on the edge of his desk.

  “We’ll come back to Deats in a minute,” Russell says. “Tell me, did you meet with Eric Hansen today?”

  “Why?”

  “Did you?”

  Cody shrugs. “Not exactly.”

  Russell makes a face. “What does that mean?”

  Cody folds his arms, starts to pace. “Yeah, okay, I saw him.”

  “What about it?”

  “I get the feeling you’re watching me?”

  Shaking his head, Russell says, “Negative. Tell me what happened.”

  Cody exhales hard, something between a sigh and exasperation. He doesn’t want to talk about the situation with Eric Hansen and Tina McGrath, but knows he doesn’t have much choice. “We met, sort of,” Cody says. “There’s not much to tell. Why?”

  “That’s it? You sort of met?”

  “More or less.”

  Russell nods, the motion is measured, patient. Cody reads the gesture as a lead-in, he knows the proverbial shit is about to hit the same kind of fan. Here it comes, Cody thinks, bracing himself.

  “Okay,” Russell says. “Let me fill in the gaps, stop me when I go wrong. This morning,
a little before Ten o’clock, Eric Hansen finds you on the side of J.P. Oil Road, which is a little southwest of Krotz Springs. You ever hear of that place? Not me, I had to look it up on the map. Krotz Springs isn’t much to brag about, a little refinery town with a population of about twelve hundred. They have one school, K through eight, no high school, not much else. It’s funny, Krotz Springs is a hundred and twenty miles Northwest of New Orleans and my star detective is flat on his back, out cold, on some half-forgotten road in the middle of nowhere. My Número Uno is found unconscious in the middle of fucking nowhere by a detective who is investigating the death of a cop who was rumored to be part of an NOPD Internal Affairs ghost squad. To make matters worse, when you finally do come around, you climb in your car and hit the gas. You make like a goalie and get the puck outta there. Does that about sum it up?”

  Cody’s shoulders sag. From the wrong perspective, the total is right, it does sum up. But if everything adds up, he wonders, just what is the right perspective?

  Then Russell raises his index finger, the physical postscript before a verbal one. “Oh,” he says. “And Hansen said you discharged your weapon. Is that true? What were you shooting at out there in the middle of nowhere?”

  His encounter with Hansen and Tina McGrath seems so long ago, Cody had almost forgotten about it. Wanting to tell the same story now, Cody tries to remember what he had told Tina and Eric. But he has the feeling of being set up, his boss calling him in under pretense. The idea makes Cody’s skin feel hot, anger starting to simmer.

  “Why does it matter?” Cody says, narrowing his eyes. He refolds his arms, squares his shoulders. “Yeah, okay, everything Hansen told you is true. So what? Like you said, I was in the swamp, south of a nowhere refinery town and way out of NOPD jurisdiction, who cares? And as far as my gun is concerned, some guy---- and who cares if he is a cop---- someone says I fired it, if that’s true where’s the proof?”