To Obey

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “Searched.” Jake walked around the room, studying the walls, the chaos that had once been its contents, the wreckage of furniture. “A professional went through here today, but I don’t think the person or people who killed your father were professionals.”

  Susan tried to put together the pieces of Jake’s revelation. “So, one murderer or group killed him. A different one rummaged through the apartment today?”

  Jake turned to face Susan. “Your turn.”

  “My turn?” Susan started, then figured it out. “To tell you something. Okay. My father worked for U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “The deal was information that’s not common knowledge. We’ve spoken to your father’s coworkers; it’s always part of an investigation.”

  Susan doubted anyone at USR had told him John Calvin’s true nature. That was a secret they, and probably she, intended to take to the grave, if possible. “Fine. Did you know I spent time in the hospital last year—”

  “Recovering from an explosion at the mall from a bomb ignited by a child. Of course we looked into your past. We also spoke with one Lawrence Robinson—”

  “Robertson,” Susan corrected.

  Jake nodded once to indicate he accepted the correction as part of the narrative. “—who believes a group called the Society for Humanity was behind the bombings as well as the death of John Calvin, at least when it was still under investigation as a murder.”

  Susan turned him a withering look, then headed for the kitchen.

  Jake followed. “What?”

  “You’re still standing by the claim my father died of natural causes, some of which included gunshots, decapitation, and another murder.” The table had been flipped, the legs disassembled, the appliances strewn around the room. Someone had moved the refrigerator, but it still ran. She opened it, relieved to find some intact food, though an erratic assortment. Her father had a knack for concocting delicious stews and casseroles from the most unlikely combinations.

  Susan had always appreciated her father’s culinary skills, until this moment. Now she looked at the strange array of fruits and vegetables, the strips of lean chicken, beef, and fish with a new eye. She had already realized John’s robotic makeup accounted for his unwillingness to eat more than a bite or two in the presence of other people, including herself. Earlier she had blamed it on a neurosis caused by painful memories of family meals with Amanda. Later, he had claimed the accident caused him neurological damage, that foods lacked flavor or tasted strange and strong to him at inopportune times. He might vomit in a restaurant or at someone’s dinner table or have to excuse himself suddenly, not only insulting the host, but also causing everyone present to lose their own appetites.

  Now, Susan realized, he had limited capacity for digestion of any kind. She had always loved his cockamamie meals, and none of her friends had ever complained. She wondered if he used some sort of mathematical formulas to create the perfect balance of flavors, if he had a limited ability to taste, and if she had simply become accustomed to weird blends from early childhood so they seemed normal to her. She wondered how Jake would react to her reproducing one of her father’s recipes. Susan set to work on a salad incorporating nearly every intact food in the refrigerator.

  Jake looked over her shoulder. His closeness sent a thrill through Susan, something she had not experienced since Remington’s death. The irony of its source did not escape her. “What are you doing?”

  “I believe you promised me dinner,” Susan reminded. “So I’m making it.”

  “How is that me providing you dinner?”

  Susan shrugged, turning. He was so close, she nearly spun into him. “Do you want to make it?”

  Jake back-stepped. “I was about to say you wouldn’t want to eat anything I prepared, but I’ve never seen anyone put plums in a dinner salad before. If it’s just a matter of throwing everything in the fridge into a bowl, I can actually handle that.”

  Susan returned to her work, finding herself using John Calvin’s words. “There’s more to it than chucking together random foodstuffs. It’s a matter of proportion and proper blending, enhancing rather than overwhelming. Taste it and see.” Over time, we discover ourselves turning into our parents, whether we want to or not. What does that mean for me?

  “All right.” Jake righted a kitchen chair, tested it with a portion of his weight, then pushed it into a corner. “I think we’re safer eating on the floor.” He opened one of the cabinets to reveal shards of “unbreakable” crockery. “From the wooden serving bowl.” He picked up a couple of forks from the floor and carried them to the sink to wash.

  “So,” Susan said, sucking a bit of fruit juice from her knuckle. “Last I remember, we were justifying a diagnosis of ‘natural causes’ from a bullet-riddled, headless corpse.”

  “Bullet-riddled is a bit of an exaggeration.” Jake washed the forks under a steady stream of water, the dish-soap dispenser lying in pieces. “But I can hardly argue the point.”

  “We agree my father was murdered, then.”

  Jake shouted over the running water, then abruptly turned it off. He opened the cabinets under the sink, and water poured out onto the floor. “They took apart the pipes.” His voice sounded almost awed. “Thorough.”

  Susan continued working. “Who did? The natural causes?”

  “Checkmate,” Jake said. “Just between you and me, clearly murder. The party line: natural causes.”

  Susan whirled to face Jake again. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are they denying such an obvious killing? Why don’t they want to investigate?” Susan knew her next words would upset him. “We’re taught from infancy the police are our friends, we should go to them in our most vulnerable moments, trust them implicitly. How can I do that when my father’s been murdered and they’re lying to me, refusing to do anything to help?”

  Jake sighed deeply. He did not, Susan noted, have an answer.

  “Well?” she pressed.

  Jake stopped examining the area under the sink. “Well, what?”

  The question was so obvious, Susan saw no reason to repeat it. Nevertheless, it seemed quicker than a staring contest, so she did. “Why are the police lying to me?”

  “I wouldn’t call it lying, exactly.” Jake examined the forks in his hand. “I just shared the information I was given: the autopsy report and the conclusions. I wasn’t in on the actual investigation, until you brought me here.”

  “You brought me here,” Susan reminded.

  “Well, yes. Literally.” Jake shook the forks to dislodge the water. No clean dishcloths remained. “But I wouldn’t have come if you hadn’t intrigued me.”

  “So I’m no longer the hysterical, delusional daughter?”

  “You never were,” Jake assured. “I’ve met plenty of those in my time. You don’t fit the pattern.” He looked around for a place to put the forks, then apparently decided no place could be considered clean, and held them. “Now let’s end this silly game and give each other all the information we have so we can solve this mystery.”

  “Cards flat on the table?” Susan went back to making the salad.

  “Cards flat on the table,” Jake agreed.

  “You first.”

  Jake laughed. “I should have known not to match wits with a highly educated woman.”

  Susan forced away a smile and focused more thoroughly on her salad. “Well, we can hardly go simultaneously.”

  “No, but…”

  Susan waited for him to finish, but he did not. She chopped carrots noisily with a bent knife. When she completed the task and he still hadn’t spoken, she turned to face him.

  “I don’t know how to phrase this, exactly. Believe it or not, I have a lot more at risk here than you do.”

  Susan tried not to take offense. “More than the life of your father?”

  “No,” Jake admitted, “but you don’t have that, either. I mean, that ship has sailed, right? I could lose m
y job, my career, and I don’t know how to do anything other than police work.”

  Susan stifled a laugh. After police work, anything else should seem easy. Safe. “You don’t know how to do anything other than put your life on the line for strangers day after day, outwitting criminals?”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s not all that exciting, but yeah. And I’m not keen on joining the Marines.”

  Susan topped off the salad with a fruity vinaigrette of John’s creation. “There. It’s done.” She tossed it with a flourish, sending bits of safflower seeds and endive springing from the bowl.

  Jake glanced over her shoulder again. “It looks…interesting.”

  “To interesting!” Susan carried the bowl to the clearest space she could find, then sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it.

  Jake handed Susan a fork, moved some debris, then sat directly across from her. He stabbed a bit of lettuce, peach, and grilled chicken in the same forkful and studied it dubiously. Finally, he put it in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. His expression brightened. “This is good!”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am, a bit,” Jake admitted. “What an eclectic combination.”

  Susan liked the adjective he picked. “That’s my father in a nutshell. Eclectic, at least when it came to food. Guess I inherited a bit of that.” She liked her own choice of verb a lot less. She could not have received any genetic information from John Calvin, though Lawrence had assured her they shared enough to fool a paternity test.

  Jake ate quickly enough, and in sufficient quantity, to convince Susan he meant the compliment. She enjoyed the salad, too; it reminded her of John Calvin and the simpler life they had lived before she started her residency. She suspected her return home after medical school had a lot to do with the SFH reexamining John Calvin and, eventually, coming to believe her biological father was still alive. And that had, ultimately, turned her blissful existence into an illusion, her childhood into a lie, the bond between herself and her father into a sham.

  Susan rerouted that train of thought to wonder, What power does the SFH have over the New York Police Department? That did not bode well. When the antirobot organization had made its move last year, Lawrence and her father had begged her not to involve law enforcement until they determined the proper time for it. This time, Lawrence had clearly hoped they could work together, but cooperation now seemed unlikely. Put the cards flat on the table. Susan took a deep breath, wondering if she was about to make a huge mistake. “Jake, why is the police department protecting a violent antitechnology cult?”

  Jake dropped his fork, then caught it in midair. The tines did not prove as agile, releasing their burden back into the bowl. “What? Why would you think that?”

  Susan put aside her own fork. “All I know is my father was killed, and it happened the same day he received a threat from the terrorist group that planted bombs all over Manhattan. The police are turning a blind eye.”

  Jake adjusted the fork back into its proper position. “I’m here, aren’t I? My eyes are wide open.”

  “Is your mind?”

  “Like I just said, I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Only after feeding me a false autopsy report and making me believe I could find my father’s body at a specific funeral home.”

  Jake took a couple more forkfuls, chewed, and swallowed before speaking. “Now, just a minute.” He waved the fork at Susan. “First, I only told you what was reported to me. I had the autopsy report and the name of the funeral home right in front of me. Second, didn’t you say earlier that the body disappeared under mysterious circumstances?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I sent you to a funeral home.”

  “Where they tried to convince me I had given them permission to cremate my father’s body, something I would never do, given that I clearly wanted to examine it myself. I visited the morgue the day he was killed, remember?”

  “So you say.” Jake licked his lips. He spoke the words matter-of-factly and with proper consideration, not accusatorily.

  “Why would I do that if I was going to allow them to destroy the body without allowing me a peek?” Susan shook her head. If Jake tried to answer, it would only annoy her. “That signature was a forgery, more likely an electronic stamp. It will probably perfectly match my patient-charting signature.”

  “So…this is all an elaborate conspiracy.”

  Susan shrugged. The conclusion was inescapable, at least to her mind.

  Jake sighed heavily, then returned to eating. “I’d be lying if I said this was the best salad I’d ever tasted, but it comes very close. It’s great.”

  “My dad’s were better,” Susan said by way of apology, even though the situation did not require one. “Are you denying there’s a conspiracy? That the SFH has somehow managed to convince the police not to investigate?”

  “I can tell you emphatically the SFH is not in cahoots with the police.”

  “How?”

  “With my lips, Susan. How else could I tell you? You don’t expect me to punch up a document certifying that the police and the SFH don’t work together, do you?”

  Susan doubted she would have believed it even if such a document existed. She would have given it no more credence then the false autopsy report or the fraudulent consent for cremation. Susan realized Jake had denied only one portion of her accusation. “So, the police are in cahoots with someone other than the SFH.”

  Jake pursed his lips. He clearly would have preferred not to answer, though he did. “Let’s just say we have a hierarchy. We sometimes have to answer to authorities higher than ourselves.”

  They continued to eat in silence while Susan mulled that bit of information. It was Jake who finally broke the hush. “Are you suggesting the body was stolen in order to cremate it to prevent you from examining it?”

  Susan did not like the direction of the questioning. She did not want to reveal Lawrence Robertson’s role in the theft. “What better way to keep me from questioning the autopsy results? If I had had a chance to see the body, I would have known for certain the report was faked.”

  Jake found the flaw in Susan’s argument. “Except you didn’t see the body, and you’re still convinced the report was faked.”

  “Yes,” Susan pointed out. “But only because I did see the pathology log chronicling the missing head, and was present when the pathologist discovered the body was stolen, a fact that whoever tried to pull off this elaborate deception clearly didn’t know.”

  “Hmmm,” Jake said around a mouthful of food.

  “Hmmm?”

  “I’m trying to put this all together, but I think I’m missing some critical pieces of the puzzle.” Jake looked pointedly at Susan.

  Susan chewed and swallowed her own mouthful. “Apparently I am too.”

  They stared at one another. There was nothing more Susan felt she could tell him, should tell him. He seemed straightforward, and she had no proof he had deliberately lied to her; but he clearly had some information he did not intend to share. She had a sneaking suspicion he was playing her, teasing out the information she had managed to gather in order to find the most effective way to get her to drop her own investigation. She was not going to give him any more ammunition, and she doubted she could tweeze anything further from him, either.

  Jake placed both forks into the empty bowl and placed it into the sink. “I’d do the dishes, but it would only cause a flood.”

  Susan glanced around the kitchen, despising the destruction, wanting everything back in its proper order. “Is the investigation finished?” She made a motion to indicate the apartment.

  “You mean mine? Or the police in general?”

  “Both. Either.”

  Jake nodded. “I’ve got the general idea. I think I can glean any additional information from the pictures of the scene when the police first got involved. Is there anything else you want to show me?”

  Susan could not imagine anyone could get more than
the impression of near-complete destruction. “I guess not. I can’t think of anything.”

  “Fine.” Jake headed for the door. “Thanks for a great and interesting meal. Where would you like me to drop you off?”

  Susan made a broad gesture to indicate the room. “I think I’m just going to stay here and try to salvage as much of my dad’s security deposit as I can.”

  The detective hesitated at the door. “Are you sure? I can take you anywhere. Don’t worry about it being out of the way.”

  Susan did not want to admit she had not even considered the possibility she might be inconveniencing him. “I’m fine. I’m going to have to deal with this sometime. I might was well pick up the pieces of my home while I’m picking up the pieces of my life. Put all the grieving together.”

  Jake removed his Vox from his wrist and proffered it to Susan. She did the same with her own. Each entered his or her number, then returned the proper Vox. As he put Susan’s Vox back into her hand, he closed his fingers around hers. “Susan,” he said so softly she had to strain to hear him. “I’m on your side; I need you to understand that. If anything happens, if you need anything, call me anytime.”

  Susan nodded, waiting until he released her hand to restore her Vox. “I’ll be all right.”

  Jake clipped his own Vox back in place. “Be careful. And don’t try to handle this alone.”

  “I have friends,” Susan assured him. “And a boyfriend.” She did not know why she felt the need to add the last part, perhaps more for herself than for the self-proclaimed gay policeman.

  “Yeah, all right.” Jake did not question, though Susan projected the doubt she suspected she would feel in the same situation. If she had a boyfriend, why would she choose to stay in the ruins of her former apartment instead of accepting a ride to his place? In truth, Susan did not know why she preferred to sit amid her memories rather than return to Kendall’s far more comfortable apartment. She could convince herself she wanted to mourn by herself for a time, and she needed to escape any mention of Winter Wine Dementia Facility until her outrage fully passed and she could laugh about Dr. Mitchell Reefes. But, the truth was, she could not fully grasp the reasons why she just wanted to spend some time alone.