To Obey

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Hollinger put his arms around Susan, holding her close and tight. Susan wondered if he did so against regulations, if he risked charges of misconduct, but it was exactly what she needed. She clung to him, sobbing into his chest, appreciating his warmth and support, his loss of decorum, more than anything else he could possibly have done. It meant a lot to know someone cared about her pain. Whether or not he fully understood it, he appeared to. And, for the moment, that was enough.

  Susan did not know how long she cried in the detective’s strong arms, but he made no move to pull away, never rushed her, remained in place until she finally regained control and broke the embrace. Only then he stood up and pulled a handful of crumpled tissues from his pocket, his dress shirt darkened by her tears. Silently, he handed the tissues to Susan, his pale eyes filled with genuine concern. They were grayish green, Susan noted, and they probably changed color depending on light and background. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her nose and eyes.

  “Sorry for what?” he said.

  Susan knew he did not expect an answer. Both of them were trained to remain composed and in control at all times, yet the idea of doing so now seemed beyond abnormal. “Tell me what happened. Please? I have to know.”

  Hollinger studied Susan briefly, as if to ascertain she could handle the news. “All we know for sure is there were two bodies: a female in the tenth-floor hallway and a male in apartment 10B.”

  A trickle of hope arose. “Are you sure it’s my father?”

  Hollinger cocked an eyebrow. “Would you expect other bodies in your apartment?”

  “I wouldn’t expect any bodies in my apartment.” Susan continued to wipe away tears. “My father should have been at work, but he came home early.” That reminded her of the Vox call she had received from Lawrence Robertson. For some reason, the director of U.S. Robots did not want the police to know about that call, and, for now, she would honor his wishes. However, if it interfered with finding her father’s killer, she would violate them in an instant. “I presume you performed a retinal scan?”

  Hollinger chewed his lower lip, fighting a scowl. He had probably grown tired of civilians watching detective and forensics programs, then telling him how to do his job. “Dr. Calvin still had his wallet, and the fingerprints matched.”

  That puzzled Susan a bit. She had thought the on-scene retina scan was the swift and simple gold standard of their age. Few people managed to avoid the database. Most parents had their children scanned and printed for security reasons. Public schools required it for all students in case of accidents and in order to activate lockers. Anyone missed in childhood was nearly always picked up when they joined an organization, purchased a door or safe lock, or committed a crime. Fingerprints worked as well but required the scanning of multiple digits as opposed to a single eye.

  “Do you want me to ID him?” Susan did not relish the job, but she did want to make absolutely sure. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, she dared to hope they had made a mistake. Though surely born only of desperation, she could not wholly banish it. Everyone had heard stories of a person pronounced dead who woke up screaming in the morgue. Such things did not happen anymore, at least she had never heard of an actual case, certainly not in the United States of America. The stories were either old, from a third-world country, or apocryphal.

  Hollinger looked distinctly uncomfortable. Susan supposed anyone would feel ill at ease discussing such matters with a family member, especially so soon after announcing his untimely death. “That won’t be necessary, Dr. Calvin.”

  “Susan,” she suggested.

  He barely nodded an acknowledgment. “There’ll be an autopsy, of course. To determine the cause of death.”

  “The cause?” Susan looked at him curiously. “I thought you said he was shot.”

  “I said he appeared to have been shot. You’d be surprised at how many times the obvious cause of death isn’t…the”—the detective fidgeted, obviously even more uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken—“cause…Are you sure you want to talk about this right now?”

  Susan knew she definitely did not want to focus directly on the hard, cold reality of her father’s death, the cavernous hole it would leave in her life, the grief threatening to overwhelm her the instant she opened her mind to thoughts of him. The longer she questioned the details, kept herself in professional mode, the longer she could avoid the ugly reality of her father’s death and what it meant for the future. “Please continue.”

  “Every murder warrants, and gets, an autopsy.”

  “Of course.”

  Apparently looking for a reason for Susan’s sudden focus on the autopsy, Hollinger tried, “When they’re finished, they put everything back together. Any incisions are carefully hidden. You can still—”

  Susan waved him off. She had given the speech herself to families concerned an autopsy would preclude an open casket ceremony. “I did my pathology rotation in med school. I know the drill. I really want to know where he’s going, to know he’s in competent hands, to be able to find him to make…” Grief threatened to overwhelm her again. She swallowed hard. “…arrangements.”

  “Excuse me a moment,” the detective said, then spoke into the air. “No, we’re not quite finished yet. Probably a few more minutes. I’ll let you know.”

  Hollinger switched back to Susan without losing the thread of the previous conversation. “I’ll let you know where they took him as soon as I know. If there’s space, he’ll most likely go to Hasbro. They’re the best.”

  Susan had no idea the hospital served as a morgue in addition to performing the standard medical autopsies on patients who died in the hospital with uncertain or suspicious diagnoses. Then again, she had never needed that information. “I’m doing my residency at Hasbro, so it would be foolish of me to disagree with your assessment.”

  The detective sat down next to Susan on the bench. “Not pathology.”

  “Psychiatry,” Susan said. “But we’re still the best.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  A tremor rushed through Susan’s hands, then encompassed her entire body. Still chilled in every part, she felt herself shivering uncontrollably. She glanced at her Vox, reading the temperature at a balmy 76 degrees. The arm above her Vox resembled plucked gooseflesh, and a wave of nausea swept through her.

  Hollinger studied her, then gestured to someone near the elevator. “The scene is secured. They want to know if you’re feeling up to examining it.”

  Susan nodded. The more she had to do, the less she focused on her own pain, on the realization of a desperate loss. “Let’s do it.”

  Hollinger spoke into the air again. “Mel, I’m bringing Dr. Calvin now. Are you ready for us?” He glanced at Susan, whose stomach roiled, then tipped his head to listen for the distant answer she could not hear.

  Susan had a sudden urge to crawl into her own safe bed and take a long nap, fueled by the absurd notion that, when she awoke, everything would return to the way it was that morning. Maybe if she approached Chase Aberdeen more tactfully, if she ignored Mitchell Reefes’ stupidity, a deity in whom she did not believe would restore the world to its proper order.

  Apparently unaware of Susan’s inner turmoil, the detective continued, “I’d like to get your take on the scene while it’s still a safe place to go.”

  Focused on her father, Susan had not considered that. “The killers? Did you catch them?”

  “Not yet.” Hollinger’s tone made it clear he saw no possibility of failure. “They were gone before we arrived, apparently. As far as we can tell, they killed your father first. The woman probably surprised them in the hallway, and they shot her, too.”

  Guilt flashed through Susan, worsening her nausea. A person of good character would have worried for the other victim as well as for her father. She had completely forgotten about the woman. “Who?” Her mouth had gone painfully dry; the single word was an effort.

  But Hollinger understood the question. He heade
d for the stairs. “Samantha Elizabeth Cottrell, age thirty-two. Do you know her?”

  “Neighbor,” Susan forced out, then realized something important. “She has three young kids. Are they all right?”

  The detective nodded. “I apologize for the walk. We shut down the elevators trying to catch the…killers.”

  Susan sensed he had stumbled over jargon. The climb suited her. It would give her time to prepare herself for a fresh look at no longer familiar surroundings. Also, she hoped the exercise would warm her up and decrease the queasiness threatening to overtake her. Hopefully, exercise would channel the blood flow from her digestive system to her limbs.

  Detective Hollinger led the way at a fast and steady clip, and Susan followed him closely. She found herself obsessing over the word “apparently.” They were gone before we arrived, apparently. Apparently. But what if they remained somewhere, hiding in the building? What if they were waiting for all the police to leave before claiming more victims? The idea of blithely sleeping in the place her father was murdered became unbearable. She could imagine herself lying in bed, alone with her thoughts, sobbing uncontrollably while the killers made short work of her as well.

  Again Hollinger seemed to read her mind. Susan supposed he had enough experience to figure out relatives’ concerns at a time like this. “I highly recommend you find somewhere else to stay for a while, preferably with a good friend or relative. Do you know someone who will let you do that?”

  Susan nodded dumbly, certain Kendall would let her stay with him. If not, there were other residents to ask and always the hospital on-call room, or even the couch in the charting room in a pinch. She did not relish the thought of a quiet, empty hotel room.

  Though in reasonably good shape, Susan was panting by the time they reached the tenth-floor landing. She took a bit of solace from the realization that even the slender police detective had some trouble speaking wholly normally. He turned to face her, his hand on the knob. “I want to prepare you…a bit. The second body…landed near…the stairway. The body’s gone, but there’s still…evidence of what happened. I assume, Doctor…you’re not squeamish.”

  Susan frowned and shook her head. As a medical student, she had watched two members in her class faint when confronted with their first surgical patient. Both men, they had suffered for their temporary weakness for the remainder of the rotation. Most doctors would rather die than appear delicate to peers; but, at the moment, Susan felt she could be forgiven for losing her nerve, no matter what form it took. “I can handle it,” she growled, not at all sure she could.

  Detective Hollinger turned back to the door, and Susan closed her eyes. When she opened them, she knew, the world would never be the same.

  Chapter 11

  Susan kept her eyes squeezed shut; it stung too much to open them. The familiar sounds of New York City night surrounded her: the hiss of glide-buses, the not-quite-discernable conversations of debarking passengers, the occasional loud honk from a disgruntled driver, and the intermittent shouting of people arguing, too drunk or foolish to realize the lateness of the hour.

  Susan opened one eye a crack to glance at her Vox. It was 4:23 a.m., a time when wise and normal people were sleeping. She could hear Kendall’s deep, rhythmical breathing beside her, and she shifted to her back carefully to avoid waking him. She had an excuse for missing work the next day. So did he, but she doubted his would garner as much sympathy, and Mitchell Reefes would likely throw a tantrum if neither of his residents showed up and he actually had to deal with a patient directly.

  Susan managed to open both eyes, examining the off-white ceiling through painful slits. Hours of crying had swollen her lids to three times their normal size. She had always thought of her father as the ideal man and assumed all other daughters felt the same way about their own. Not until middle school did she discover that emotions toward the paternal parent, for those who even had one, spanned the gamut.

  John Calvin had always been protective without being suffocating, had nurtured Susan’s dreams and never demeaned them, had steered her constantly in positive directions. His advice was sound and logical, but he never inflicted it upon her, allowing her to go her own way, to make her own mistakes. She could never remember him losing his temper or his cool even when life handed him unfair or difficult situations; and she could not recall him uttering the words “I told you so” in any circumstance.

  Quiet dignity defined John Calvin. Always there to solve Susan’s problems, he never visited his own on her or, to her knowledge, on anyone else. He helped anyone in whatever way he could, avoiding ill-tempered or -willed individuals without uttering a single negative word about them. An obsessive reader and listener, he never seemed to forget anything, yet he indulged Susan’s desire to watch favored programs repeatedly. Though wholly committed to Susan, he never asked the same of her, never deliberately made her feel uncomfortable or guilty for living her own life. She could not imagine anyone ever wanting to harm him.

  Yet harm him they did, and it was clearly no accident. Whoever killed her father had done an extensive search, slashing mattresses into useless rags, flinging the stuffing from the sofa, scattering the contents of the cabinets, and tearing all the shelves and pictures from the walls. Clearly not common thieves, they had left gutted electronics, her father’s wallet, and the pearl necklace Susan had inherited from her grandmother, the only valuable piece of jewelry she owned. They had taken John Calvin’s palm-pross and Vox, all of the VFDs, anything on which any kind of media could be recorded. Other than that, Susan could not tell what was missing.

  The body was gone by the time the police brought Susan on the scene. She had looked diligently for the standard chalk outline that seemed to magically appear in every police drama she had ever seen, but she never found it. Apparently, the crime-scene investigators relied solely on pictures of the body before they removed it. Susan had also prepared herself for huge amounts of blood. The female body in the hallway had left a scarlet pool, so the sparse splatters on the carpet and across the shredded sofa in their apartment surprised her. Her medical training had kicked in, despite her personal relationship to the corpse. The best explanation for the paucity of blood was a spine shot, which enraged her. The killers might have shot her father in the back while he was trying to cooperate with their demands. She supposed wounds in the lower torso would not bleed as much as those nearer the heart, but every head wound she had ever seen bled profusely.

  By the time the police had finished with Susan, Kendall had come to collect her. Exhausted, she had gone with him quietly, taking the glide-bus to his apartment and spending the next several hours sobbing in his arms. To her surprise, he proved a gallant and competent consoler, remaining silent most of the time but sneaking in the right words at the appropriate moments. Her father had been right about one thing; Kendall knew her better than anyone else, understood her circumstances, and cared deeply for her.

  When Susan found herself emotionally drained, unable to say another word about her father, they had naturally switched to all topics deeply personal. She had learned a lot about Kendall, things he usually hid behind an impenetrable mantle of humor, his interests and fears, his early history, his most exhilarating and embarrassing moments. She also discovered Kendall had received many of the same unsubtle hints from friends, coworkers, and family that the two of them belonged in a relationship together.

  That had naturally led to Susan’s admission of virginity, how she had finally found Remington, a man she cared for enough to end it for, only to have him snatched from her life forever just hours after they had decided to consummate their love. Kendall had confessed to being nearly as inexperienced as Susan. Their shared pain, their closeness, physically and emotionally, had made the next step inevitable. They had made love amid the explosions, pops, and whizzes of the Independence Day fireworks, flashes of multicolored light intermittently sailing past the bedroom window.

  And now Susan lay awake, wondering how an act so boring and unco
mfortable had toppled kingdoms and civilizations, driven otherwise normal men and women to break sacred vows, supported the highest-grossing industry of all time. Had their purity rendered them clumsy and self-conscious, or was one or both of them simply bad in bed? Did they lack the necessary chemistry for lovers, or was she neurologically or endocrinologically abnormal? Perhaps she was undesirable, unattractive; Kendall had seemed to have great difficulty keeping focused on the task. Or maybe the medical problem was his.

  Susan sighed, confronting the inescapable logic she would rather avoid. The guilt of seeking pleasure on the night of her father’s murder had, most likely, stolen any joy she might have garnered from the act of lovemaking. Or, perhaps, she subconsciously worried about dishonoring Remington’s memory.

  Susan rolled toward Kendall to study him in his sleep. He looked boyish and innocent, strands of orange hair flopping over one closed eye, features slack, lips slightly parted. His face did not remind her of angels, as slumbering faces often did to lovers in romance novels and movies, though moonlight slipping through a gap in the shade did bring out blond highlights in the otherwise clown-orange hair. She had never had a particular attraction to redheads, had never pictured her husband or children that way. Even when she had contemplated making changes to her own appearance, she had imagined herself as a blonde or raven locked, perhaps even auburn, but never copper or carroty. Freckles had never occurred to her, either. She neither loathed nor loved them; they were simply not on her radar.

  Eyes desperately stinging, Susan closed them again, holding them tightly shut. The pain brought back clear memories of the day before. She relived the puddle of blood in the hallway, surrounded by spilled garbage, the carpet stained deeply red, the side wall splattered with rusty brown patches. Even with the body removed, there was no question about the means of Sammy Cottrell’s death. Something moving at high speed had struck her, splashing her blood across the wall, and she had exsanguinated swiftly on the floor.