Switch

by Grant McKenzie

  ‘Zack, is that you? I can’t find Kalli. He won’t tell me where she is.’

  ‘Jasmine!’ Zack jumped to his feet and walked away from the table. ‘I thought you were—’ His voice caught in his throat and his body began to tremble so badly he could barely stand.

  Once he’d turned the corner to the washroom, out of sight of the cops, he sank to his knees on the dirty floor and grasped the concrete-block wall for support.

  ‘Find her, Zack,’ Jasmine pleaded. ‘Do anything he asks.’

  ‘I am. I will . . . anything.’

  ‘Touching,’ said the electronic voice.

  Zack closed his eyes, not wanting the sound of Jasmine’s voice to leave his head. She sounded so scared, and yet he knew it wasn’t for herself. She was focused on Kalli, their fourteen-year-old daughter who loved to draw horses and still secretly sucked her thumb in her sleep.

  The same daughter who, along with his wife, he believed had been blown to bits before his eyes.

  ‘Don’t hurt her,’ Zack said. ‘I’m begging you.’

  ‘You know what I want.’

  Zack held back a sob. ‘I had most of it. I liquidated everything—’

  ‘Did I ask for most?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Stop snivelling. I can help you fulfil your obligation. Are you interested?’

  ‘Yes,’ Zack agreed instantly. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Here’s what I need you to do . . .’

  12

  Officer Dale Ryan escorted Sam to the glass-and-steel lobby of the Portland Justice Center. Located in the heart of the city, the building housed not only the Portland Police Bureau, but also four courtrooms and the 676-bed maximum-security Multnomah County Detention Center. For criminals, that meant they could be booked, tried and locked up without travelling any further than the elevator.

  Ryan signed him in at the reception desk, the relief of having turned over responsibility clear upon his face.

  ‘Good luck, Mr White. I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Sam nodded slowly. The effects of the blue pills had begun to wear off, making him feel tired and defeated. He wasn’t even sure if his voice would still be audible if he opened his mouth to speak.

  A slim, middle-aged Latino woman rose from behind a plastic desk as Ryan retreated.

  ‘Would you follow me, please, Mr White? You’re expected upstairs.’

  The woman flashed him a quick smile – a rapid flexing of cheek muscles delivering minimum friendliness – before unlatching a security gate in the reception desk and inviting him in.

  With his feet on automatic pilot, Sam followed her to a bank of elevators.

  Inside one of the elevators, the woman waited for him to join her, then pushed the button for the thirteenth floor. Before the doors closed, however, she flashed him another false smile and exited without a word. Except for two security cameras with blinking red lights, Sam was left alone in the shiny metal box.

  When the doors opened again, a woman with bright orange lipstick, a massive bosom and a mop of fiercely dyed peroxide-blonde hair gestured for him to come over to where she sat behind another ivory desk.

  Sam didn’t like the look of her or the floor’s stark decor. He decided to stay where he was and closed his eyes.

  A tug at his elbow jarred him awake. This time the blonde was directly beside him, and she looked even scarier than she had from a distance.

  ‘You’re expected, Mr White.’

  The blonde tugged him out of the elevator and escorted him through a maze of desks to a small office against the far wall. The room contained two wooden chairs, a plain cafeteria-style table and a fake leather couch.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ the blonde said. ‘The detectives will be with you shortly.’

  After the door closed behind him, Sam crossed to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the city. He flinched when he saw his reflection floating in the tinted glass. The weary face that stared back at him had aged a dozen years in the last few hours.

  Sam turned to the couch. It looked worn and soft and too inviting to ignore. He slumped on to the cushions and laid his head on the armrest. It was less comfortable than it looked, but his eyes were already closing.

  Sam jumped when the door opened just moments later, the cacophony from the large room beyond crashing in.

  Two detectives entered the room. They were both neatly dressed, but only one of them carried it with style.

  The first detective looked almost effeminate. His golden-brown hair was perfectly shaped to complement his long, smooth face and his short sideburns were cut to a matched razor’s edge. His fingernails had been manicured and buffed, and his shirtsleeves were fastened at the wrist by an expensive pair of gold cufflinks.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Mr White,’ he began. ‘I’m Detective Hogan and this is Detective Preston.’

  In contrast to his partner, Preston wore a cheap polyester suit and had a sharp crease around his forehead as if he had just removed a hat. He was the broader of the two, and his heavy gut was cinched behind an oversized western-style buckle. His height was enhanced by a pair of well-worn, alligator-skin cowboy boots.

  Sam nodded hello.

  ‘We understand you work armed security, so you’ll know how this works,’ Hogan said. Friendly, brother-in-arms, let-down-your-guard stuff.

  When Sam finally spoke, his voice was weak and parched.

  ‘No one has even confirmed that Hannah and MaryAnn are dead,’ he said. ‘All I saw were two white bags. Are you positive they didn’t get out of the house before it exploded? We had a smoke detector. I checked the battery myself. Maybe they’re at a hotel or—’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you—’ began Hogan.

  ‘The remains of two bodies were recovered from the ashes, Mr White,’ interrupted Preston in a gruff Texan drawl. ‘The coroner is working on them now.’

  13

  Chief Medical Examiner Randy Hogg looked more like a soft-rock crooner than a county coroner, and he liked it that way.

  After slipping on a gangsta-style hairnet, Hogg snapped on a pair of disposable vinyl gloves and moved to the matching set of stainless-steel autopsy tables. Both bodies, blackened to the core, had been removed from their travel bags for his examination.

  Hogg studied the corpses and felt a dull thrum deep in his belly. Even after all these years, there were some cases he had trouble distancing himself from and fire victims were at the top of that list. He hated how the heat melted away the fat and shrunk the muscles, scalp and skull into the stuff of nightmares.

  Even though he knew they were just meat now, the look on what was left of their faces – a dying scream made flesh – sent a chill up his spine. The adult victim was the worst, as a heavy object, possibly a support beam from the collapsing ceiling, had landed on her head. The object had flattened the skull and cracked the eye sockets, but that wasn’t all. The force of the blow had also crushed cheek and nasal bone, shattering the lower jaw and elongating the mouth to disturbing proportions. Investigators still hadn’t found all her teeth.

  As his assistant videotaped the cadavers with a palm-sized digital camcorder, Hogg began his cursory exam.

  Looking at their charred, twisted exteriors, Hogg could guess what awaited him internally. Determining their sex was fairly straightforward as the hips were key giveaways. He could tell from their shape that the older victim had given birth at some time in her adult life. But he knew it would take close examination of the remains, plus comparisons to dental records, DNA and X-rays, to determine accurate identities. All of that would take time. Which, in turn, would annoy the hell out of the investigating officers.

  Keep positive, Hogg reminded himself.

  He took several deep breaths – inhaling through his nose and releasing it, hissing Cobra style, through his mouth – before returning to the bodies.

  Both victims were locked in pugilistic poses, their fists and arms drawn up toward their chins. Skin and muscles tended to
contract because of the intense dehydration caused by fire. This made entry to their internal organs (if they hadn’t been completely cooked or liquefied in the blaze) difficult.

  Not impossible, Hogg told himself, just difficult.

  ‘Dr Hogg!’

  Hogg turned to his cinematographing assistant. ‘Yes, Sally, what is it?’

  Sally was excited. ‘This one’s holding something. I think it’s a doll or a – no, it’s a bear, a stuffed bear.’

  Hogg moved swiftly around the table to join Sally who was trying to get a better angle on the tiny object with her zoom-enabled camcorder.

  To the naked eye, the scorched entity beneath the younger victim’s blackened hands was barely discernible. Hogg lowered a magnifying glass from his macabre chandelier of tools to examine the object in closer detail.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘It is a bear. Its stuffing must have been made of fireproof material.’

  With scalpel and tweezers, Hogg gently cut the top half of the toy bear from the child’s rigid grasp. Beneath the animal’s protective shadow, a tiny patch of unmarred skin, no larger than a matchbook cover, shone from the girl’s chest like a tiny, perfect island in a rough charcoal sea.

  The bear had protected a secret, and the revelation of it made Hogg gasp.

  14

  Sam reeled at the confirmation as if slapped in the face. Detective Hogan flashed his partner an angry scowl.

  ‘Please excuse my partner’s bluntness, Mr White.’ Hogan settled into one of the chairs. ‘He’s better with crime scenes than people.’

  Detective Preston snorted and, turning his back to the room, looked out of the window as though he had lost interest in the interview.

  ‘Did they suffer?’ Sam instantly wished he hadn’t asked, as there was only one answer he could bear to hear.

  ‘They wasn’t laughin’,’ Preston muttered.

  ‘We’re sure they didn’t,’ interjected Hogan. ‘The house went up like a bomb.’

  Sam flinched.

  ‘What caused it?’

  ‘You tell us,’ Preston said.

  ‘The fire marshal suspects the furnace,’ said Hogan. ‘Gas leak—’

  ‘And that ain’t something that happens everyday,’ interrupted Preston.

  Sam spun to glare at the detective, a surge of rage bubbling within. ‘What are you implying?’

  Preston turned with arms folded tight across his barrel chest.

  ‘This ain’t my first rodeo, Mr White.’ Preston’s drawl made him sound both polite and condescending at the same time. ‘And I find it damn suspicious that a modern furnace equipped with automatic shut-off valves would fail in such an almighty manner.’

  The last modicum of colour drained from Sam’s face.

  ‘You don’t know me,’ he said weakly. ‘To think I could even contemplate . . .’ The sentence went unfinished.

  ‘We’ve looked at your bank records,’ Preston continued. ‘You’re not faring too well. Credit card debts, a large interest-only mortgage, furniture bought on one of those don’t-pay-till-Judgement-Day plans. Need I go on?’

  Sam ground his teeth. ‘I would never hurt my family.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t mean to,’ Hogan jumped in. ‘Maybe you just wanted to collect on the house, but something went wrong . . .’ He left the theory hanging there, like live bait.

  Sam closed his eyes for a moment, attempting to regain control of his emotions. ‘What good does collecting on a house do if the bank owns it all?’

  ‘Good point,’ Hogan agreed, still trying to be friends.

  Sam turned to Preston. ‘And as you’ve investigated my finances, you also know that none of us had life insurance. So where’s your fucking motive now?’

  Preston snorted. ‘Money is only one motive for killing a wife.’

  ‘And child?’ Sam’s voice was ice.

  ‘We’re still looking into that.’

  Sam rubbed his face with both hands. His palms were gritty and the friction pulled at his skin, causing tiny tracks of pain. The sensation was an unpleasant comfort.

  ‘If it was my fault,’ he said quietly, ‘something I did or fucked up somehow, you won’t even need a trial. I’ll gladly slit my own throat.’

  ‘We’ll hold you to that,’ Preston said.

  Hogan flashed his partner another annoyed look before reassuring Sam.

  ‘We know you were at work when this tragedy occurred,’ he said. ‘We’re just trying to figure out how or why it happened.’

  Sam picked at the corner of the tabletop with his thumbnail. Mute.

  ‘Do you know anyone who drives a large Mercedes?’ Hogan asked.

  Sam looked up, eyes narrowing. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘A neighbour saw a four-door sedan parked across from your house at the time of the explosion. The neighbour believes it was a metallic Mercedes, although the explosion knocked out the street lights and it was difficult to see. A man in a dark suit drove it away before the police arrived. The witness says it’s possible the man was injured in the blast. Naturally, we would like to talk to him.’

  ‘You checked the hospitals?’ Sam asked.

  Behind him, Preston snorted.

  Hogan nodded. ‘Nothing yet.’

  Sam chewed the lining of his inner cheek as he rolled the information around in his head to see where it fit.

  ‘Anything you’re not saying?’ Preston asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  Preston walked forward until he was looming over Sam. ‘Maybe this man was waiting for you to get home; collect on some outstanding debts. Gambling, drugs, underage women. You know, the kind of things you Hollywood types enjoy.’

  If Sam hadn’t been feeling so suicidal, he would have laughed. ‘I never made enough to start pissing it away, Detective. You would know that if you read my bio.’

  ‘I did,’ Preston said. ‘Even Googled your name.’

  ‘Doubt I showed up.’

  ‘Got a couple hits from when you played a scumbag on Magnum.’

  ‘Long time ago.’

  ‘That must rankle.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘You move on.’

  ‘The wife make you give it up?’ Preston pushed.

  ‘It was mutual.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Preston grinned, showing teeth. ‘Come on, man to man, it’s never mutual. The wife barks and we either get in line or get the fuck out, right?’

  Sam stayed silent, a building rage warming his cheeks.

  ‘She made you give up your dream – lights, action, the works – and you fucking hated her for it. Everything changed because of the kid, right? Can’t play dress-up any more when you got responsibilities.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Sam’s fist slammed on to the tabletop. ‘You know nothing about me or Hannah or MaryAnn . . .’ His voice broke, anger turning to tears. ‘You just . . . don’t know.’

  Sam lowered his face into the crook of his arms and began to sob.

  Detective Hogan, his face impassive, glanced at his partner. Preston shrugged and slowly walked back to the window. He looked down on the scurrying ants in their colourful array of matchbox cars.

  A few drops of rain splashed against the glass as if in sympathy for the broken man weeping inside.

  15

  Sam stood on the sidewalk outside the Justice Center, unsure of where to go. The detectives had offered him a ride, but Sam declined. They had told him not to leave town, but didn’t offer any alternatives for sticking around.

  The fact he was homeless, penniless and in the worst state of mind he had ever known hadn’t seemed to cross their minds.

  He walked aimlessly around the building, filling his lungs with oxygen and fighting off a deep, clawing desire to step into a hole and sink for ever into its depths. Looking up, he noticed engravings of famous quotes about justice etched on the building’s walls. He read them as he walked, seeking some message of comfort.

  He finally stopped at the south-west corner beneath the words of Martin Luther King, a man
who surely understood the unbearable weight of loss.

  Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Millions had found comfort or been rallied by those eight powerful words but, on this day, Sam didn’t care about justice. What did justice have to do with something as senseless as losing your family?

  ‘Hey, mister! Mr White! This is for you.’

  Sam turned towards the voice and blinked his eyes into focus. He was surprised to find he was still standing outside the Justice Center even though he couldn’t say where he thought he should be.

  A bike messenger in a clunky, oversized helmet and cherry-tinted wrap-around sunglasses was shoving a brown padded envelope at him.

  ‘There must be a mistake,’ Sam said. ‘I’m not the person you want.’

  ‘Your name Sam White?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘It’s for you, man.’

  Sam accepted the envelope.

  ‘But how . . . ?’

  The messenger pushed off without a backward glance and began to peddle hard. After he turned the corner, there was a blare of car horn and the sharp screech of tyre, but no fleshy crunch to delay traffic.

  Sam squeezed the envelope, feeling something small and hard nestled within. It was the size and shape of a bar of soap.

  He looked around, studying the faces of passing strangers and cars in the street. He saw a silver Mercedes roll through an amber light at the corner, its back windows heavily tinted.

  In Sam’s hand, the envelope started to ring.

  He hesitated only a moment before ripping open the envelope and removing a small flip phone from within. There was no note.

  On the fifth ring, Sam answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Just listen, Mr White,’ said a voice, its tone digitally scrambled to sound deeper and slower than normal speech. ‘Your family is alive.’

  ‘What?’ Sam’s voice rose in pitch.

  ‘The dead woman and child,’ continued the voice, its words slow and deliberate, ‘aren’t yours.’