Severed

by Corey Brown

  Nick Wheaton’s involvement alone explains why he had been killed. But who did it? Obviously the NOPD smelled the same stink the FBI did, but how much did they know? Was anyone working with Nick and, if so, who were they and what were they up to?

  Questions, thoughts, doubts worries, run through Derek’s mind like watercolors on a rainy day. Derek wonders if Cody knows more than he is letting on. It does not seem like that is the case, but he cannot be sure. And all that talk about NOPD cops in a funky sex thing, what did that mean? And does Cody know about Hansen? Did Hansen talk to anyone, would he have said anything to Slater?

  What to do about Cody? Should anything be done? Derek considers spilling the beans, telling Cody about the op, but even as he thinks about doing it Derek knows that would be a mistake.

  One thought chains to another and suddenly Derek is back at Walmart thinking about his meeting with Cody earlier today. Without realizing it, his mind seems to focus on the screenwriter, David Carlson. For several moments Derek rolls Carlson’s name around in his mind, decides to do something about him.

  Specialist Dan Nicolai glances up to see Derek coming toward his desk, he can tell something is on Derek’s mind. Dan watches him for a moment then says, “What’s going on?”

  Derek rubs his jaw. “There’s another machine I need you to check out,” he says, his tone a dead giveaway, the tolerances of investigative leeway are about to be pressed. “Ever hear of David Carlson?” Derek says.

  Dan frowns then he shakes his head. “No, not that I recall. Should I?”

  “He’s a screenwriter, does scary stuff. He’s big in Hollywood.”

  There are three computers in Dan’s cube, he nudges a mouse, clicks, double-clicks and starts a browser. He surfs to a website then points at the LCD screen. “The David Carlson who checked out last night? This guy?”

  “Yeah, him,” Derek says. “I need you to look around his computer.”

  “Is he part of an operation?”

  “No. Well, maybe.”

  Dan folds arms, stares at Derek, takes a sharp breath in through his nose then says, “Which is it, yes or no? Is he or isn’t he?”

  “Not sure, maybe.”

  “Maybe isn’t good enough,” Dan says, shaking his head. “What’s-his-name at the DEA is one thing, I’m all for going after assholes working this side of the law. But Carlson is a civilian and you’re telling me he’s not even part of an op.” Dan shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”

  Derek shrugs. “He might be involved, he might not be.”

  “My personal ethics are pretty specific about breaking the law.” Dan says, folding his arms. “I’ll do it if the guy is a bad cop or some other piece of shit. Otherwise, forget it.”

  “First of all,” Derek says. “David Carlson is dead. The rules are a little different.”

  “Don’t give me that crap. You still can’t----”

  Derek holds up his hands, a gesture of surrender. “I know, I know. I didn’t mean it that way. Look, there’s an outside possibility Carlson is connected to our man in the DEA, I just want to see if my sources are correct. Don’t get too serious, don’t drill him posthumously. I just want to know if he’s involved, that’s all.”

  Dan studies Derek’s face. The idea is intriguing. In Dan’s world, the justification for an unauthorized break-in falls into two categories: the first involves some really, really bad guy, especially if they are working for the government. The second category involves level of challenge. If the exercise itself is prohibitive, Dan wants to go after it. Category two has nothing to do with the law or snooping around someone’s personal life; once in, Dan does not feel the need to plunder the machine he has just entered. For him, getting in is the reward.

  But this particular challenge does not fit into either category, it is off base and way out of line. “Doesn’t feel right,” Dan says. “Sorry, man. I can’t.”

  Derek nods. “I understand. No problem. Thanks, anyway.”

  Turning, Derek starts to walk away.

  “What if I’m caught?” Dan says. “Who takes the heat?”

  Stopping, looking back, Derek says, “I do, I take the heat. Here’s the backstory: I told you Carlson was part of the operation. But I lied and you had no reason to doubt my word.”

  “Just so we’re clear,” Dan says. “If I go in and this guy is dirty, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, you get nothing from me. Don’t even ask.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Seriously,” Dan says. “No news is no news. If I don’t offer something it means there is nothing to say. Do not press me, I won’t talk. We’re clear on this?”

  “Crystal.”

  Dan swallows hard, looks down, and feels some measure of regret when he says, “Where did Carlson live?”

  «»

  Suzanne Carlson collapses into a chair. She glances around, trying to get her bearings. She is not even sure what floor she is on. The third floor, the sub-basement, who knows? There are a pair of double doors nearby, some chairs, a few people. What did that mean? Suzanne looks more closely. The emergency room, she is in the waiting room for emergency so she has to be on the first floor. The wall clock reads 5:15 PM. Can that be right?

  I’ve been traipsing around this hospital for the last three and a half hours, she thinks. No wonder I’m so tired.

  Rubbing her eyes, Suzanne tries to shake off the disorientation. She has been here so long she hardly notices the trademarks of American health care; the artificial smells of disinfectant seem to be fading, no longer hanging in her nostrils.

  Three and a half hours of wandering the halls and there is no sign of her brother. David is gone. He is nowhere to be found and the orderly who had taken him away seems to have disappeared. Suzanne exhales in frustration. Now, instead of her feet wandering, Suzanne’s mind begins to do just that. The disappearance of David has redirected her emotions in so many ways, from heartbroken to worried to angry. At one point she had even begun to battle hysteria, but now there only is exhaustion. Suzanne tells herself to go back to the hotel and get some rest, sleep tonight and face tomorrow rested and ready.

  But Suzanne does not have the energy to get up and all she can do is offer a catatonic stare to the others in the ER waiting room. She looks around. Strangely, the place is more or less peaceful, with only a handful of people sitting quietly to one side and a few hospital personnel moving about. Then, in a way that seems both completely surprising and nothing more than business as usual, the air takes on a charge, like the impending thunder after the flash of lightning. There is a commotion to Suzanne’s right as two nurses and a doctor rush toward the outer doors. When the trio is a few steps away, the glass doors slide open and two emergency medical technicians wheel in a patient covered with a wet, bloody sheet. The doctor is barking orders and quizzing the EMTs as they roll the patient to a treatment area. Seconds later more emergency personnel arrive, running, taking action.

  Suzanne wonders if this how the scene looked early this morning when it was David’s turn to suffer an appointment with mortality.

  “No pulse,” one nurse calls out. “We’re losing her.”

  “Okay people,” the doctor says. “Minimal prep, we have to take to care of business, and someone call Doctor Schmidt. I’m going to need help on this one.”

  And then the event is over, the explosion of energy is gone, as quickly as the thunder had rolled in the waiting room falls back into near silence. The patient and host of medical personnel disappear into a room, the sliding doors hiss open as the EMTs head back outside to the ambulance, the excitement evaporates. But Suzanne knows, just out of sight, this event is anything but over. Somewhere doctors and nurses are struggling to keep that person alive. Suzanne knows she’s been given a glimpse of what had happened when David arrived here last night. In some strange way, she finds it comforting to think—to hope that everyone had worked hard to save him.

  Suzanne waits a few minutes then walks to the nurse’s station. She had stopped at so many st
ations trying to find her brother, asked so many questions in the last three hours, that it was almost second nature.

  “Excuse me,” Suzanne says. “Can you tell me what happened to the person who just came in here?”

  The receptionist looks up and shakes his head. “Sorry, Ma’am, that’s confidential.”

  “I don’t want to know who it is, just what happened.”

  The man looks around then, in a hushed tone, says. “Gunshot wound, an elderly woman, I don’t think she’ll make it.”

  The air seems to charge again. The outside doors slide open once more and two people, a young-looking woman and an older man, rush into the emergency room.

  “Where is she?” The woman says to the receptionist. “She’s here, right?”

  Suzanne steps aside and the man says, “Name of the patient?”

  “Damn it, boy,” the older man says. “She just came in, not five minutes ago.”

  “Marion Dubois?”

  “Yes,” the woman says. “Yes, that’s her. Where is she?”

  “They’re preparing her for surgery.” The man’s expression softens. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dubois is in critical condition, the doctors are doing everything they can. We’ve got one of our best surgeons on the way.” He reaches for a clipboard. “I need to ask you some questions. I----”

  “Can’t this wait?” The man says. “Where is she?”

  “Sir, she’s about to have surgery, you can’t see her right now. But I need to ask some questions regarding her health. We have to know if she has any allergies, things like that. This information is important to her doctors.”

  Not wanting to seem intrusive, Suzanne moves away, returning to the waiting room. She thinks about leaving, going to her hotel room, but feels compelled to stay. Taking a seat, Suzanne watches the man and woman, obviously husband and daughter, as the receptionist questions them. A gunshot wound, Suzanne thinks, how awful. Who would shoot an old woman?

  Eventually, father and daughter complete their unwanted interrogation and sit down a few yards from Suzanne. Worry is fixed upon them, anguish is painted across their faces like the dark clouds of an oncoming storm. Suzanne knows she is looking at mirror images of herself. She knows these faces are a reflection of how she looked at five-thirty this morning as she waited for her flight out of LAX. She knows that is how she looked to the limo driver as he offered his hand, helping her out of the car. Right now, at this moment, they are who she was twelve hours ago.

  Out of nowhere, an image of Sawyer Clark emerges in Suzanne’s mind, it flashes then disappears. Suzanne smiles to herself, it is a memory of a friend then she catches herself. How odd, thinking of Sawyer as a friend. On the heels of that image, Sawyer’s voice echoes through Suzanne’s mind, “You may not understand it”, Sawyer had said. “It may have been a sin, but David meant a lot to me. I don’t know why, I don’t know what happened to bring us together, but I was in love with him. I’m sure of it.”

  Suzanne shakes her head. It was a sin. Sawyer is a married woman and she’d had sex with a man who was not her husband. Suzanne didn’t need to understand anything, Sawyer had broken a vow, destroyed a sacred trust.

  “I was in love with him,” Suzanne’s memory hears Sawyer saying. “I’m sure of it…” The memory of Sawyer’s face appears once more in Suzanne’s mind. A gracious smile, soft, welcoming eyes. Then Sawyer’s voice comes into sharp focus in Suzanne’s mind, the words almost visible in her brain. Those words drift through and around Suzanne’s mind. “I don’t know what happened to bring us together…”

  Suzanne looks at the two other emergency room inhabitants. She sees father and daughter huddled together, sharing this time of uncertainty, this moment of pain, of loss. And she knows. Suzanne knows something has happened to bring the three of them together.

  «»

  “Goddamnit, Cody. Why aren’t you answering your cell phone?”

  Hunched over his drink, Cody glances up at the mirror that stretches from wall to wall behind the bartender, looks in the direction of the voice that has just spoken to him. In the mirror’s reflection is Derek Simmons.

  The bar is starting to fill up and Derek has to skirt his way around handfuls of bodies seated at high, round tables. Cody picks up his glass and takes another swallow.

  Held up by raw oak beams, the bar—called BBC, Before Building Codes, has a high ceiling and Tiffany lamps that splash random pyramids of light, making the place feel alternately forbidding and intimate. On the west side of the French Quarter, it was in BBC that Derek and Cody had first gotten drunk together. As such, it did not really surprise Cody that his friend had found him here.

  Now at Cody’s side, Derek wants to tell him about Marion, wants to blurt out that she has been shot, but he senses something else is wrong, so he holds back.

  “Everything all right?” Derek says.

  Cody shrugs and spins his half empty glass between his fingers.

  Derek glances up and down the bar then eases onto a barstool.

  “What’s going on?” Derek says, his voice softer now. “Are you fucked up?”

  “No,” Cody grumbles. “I should be, but I’m not.” Cody scowls, nudges the glass of bourbon and says, “This is only my second drink in three hours. I got no buzz, the bartender isn’t happy with me and I am definitely not fucked up, what do you want?”

  Derek shifts his weight, looks at Cody, and ignores the implied accusation. “So what’re you doing here,” he says. “What happened?”

  Cody frowns, thinking about the question then says, “Laroche put me on hold. Before now I was, you know, just taking an unscheduled vacation. But now I’m out, I’m off duty.”

  Easing toward them, the bartender nods at Derek and says, “Can I get you anything?”

  Derek shakes his head. He knows Jamie needs Cody at the hospital, he knows Cody will want to be there with her and Gus. Right now, the invitation to drink seems irreverent, an incident of unfortunate timing. The bartender starts to walk away but Derek reconsiders.

  “Wait,” Derek says. “Beer. Sam Adams.”

  “Which one?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Boston Lager, I guess.”

  “Coming up.”

  Derek looks at Cody and says, “What happened, why are you off duty?”

  Cody draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I don’t know exactly, but…”

  “But what?”

  Cody doesn’t answer right away. He draws a fingertip across his eyelid, rubs, he waits, deciding how to answer. Moments, almost minutes, pass and Derek is about to speak when Cody exhales loudly, swallows and says, “I’m being framed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cody’s right shoulder lifts, a weak shrug. “What do I mean? Well, it’s pretty simple, I’ve been set up for something I didn’t do, and I can’t figure out how or why.” Cody scoops up a handful of popcorn, cramming it into his mouth. “That’s what I’m doing here. I’m trying to figure this whole thing out, but it’s not working. I can’t make all the pieces fit.”

  “Framed?” Derek says, taking his own handful of popped corn. “How so?”

  The tone is a giveaway, Cody knows his friend does not believe him, but he decides to plow forward. It did not matter now.

  “Well,” Cody says. “This morning they found the guy who tried to shoot me. Hank Mitchell, he was NOPD and he’d been cut to pieces.”

  “Cut?”

  “Butchered, sliced and diced. With a goddamned sword, if you can believe it.”

  “Oh shit,” Derek says, his voice low and quiet. But his tone is flat, a precursor to what he says next, “A cop? And they think you did it?”

  Cody nods, shrugs. “Well, not officially. No one has actually accused me. If that was all of it I don’t think Russell would’ve suspended me. But they found another NOPD body this afternoon.” Cody looks hard at Derek and says, “Eric Hansen, the guy who was with Tina McGrath out on J.P Oil Road, was shot in the head with my gun. Jesus, you believe that? My f
ucking gun.”

  Shock? Surprise? Cody cannot tell the difference, but some powerful emotion is evident on Derek’s face and Cody knows he has just lost one more supporter. Even Derek will have his tipping point, the moment when the quicksand of friendship becomes a threat to career, when personal commitment becomes professional suicide. Cody looks away, picks up his glass, takes another swallow of bourbon and knows they have just reached that moment.

  There is a silence between them as Derek absorbs this news. Hansen is dead? Derek thinks. How can that be? Why didn’t I know? Everyone connected to my operation is getting killed.

  A soft clinking of glass, the touch of flatware against dinner plates, voices, all of these sounds drift about the room, surrounding them. For just a moment Derek remembers the old days, when he and Cody came here to talk, to review the case against Nance Kozlowski, when two cops came here to get drunk. For just a moment Derek considers telling Cody everything, but if his gun had shot Hansen, did Cody pull the trigger?

  The bartender arrives with Derek’s beer, sets it down and asks, “Keeping a tab?”

  Derek shakes his head. “We won’t be here much longer, just ring it up.” He jabs a thumb toward Cody. “I got his, too.”

  The bartender casts a look at Cody. He nods, turns away.

  When the bartender is out of earshot, Derek says, “Your gun? How’d that happen, you lose it?”

  Cody shrugs, shakes his head. “No, when Hansen found me this morning lying on the roadside, he took my gun.”