Severed Relations

by Rebecca Forster

  "No, I swear."

  "Did she ever talk about the people she worked for?" Cori asked. "Did the man of the house hit on her?"

  "If he did, she didn't tell me. And she didn't like the woman much because she had eyes on her all the time. That drove Rachel nuts. Like she'd want any of the crap in that house." Webster looked from Finn to Cori. "Come on, you know I'm not good for the murders. That's really a bad scene. I've had a few scuffles in my time, but I don't kill people. So, are you going to pop me for the porn? If you're not, let me out of here. If you are, I want a lawyer."

  Todd flopped back in his chair looking miserable, lost, and alone. He didn't even look up when the door opened and an officer waved some papers at them. Finn collected them and then went back to the table.

  "Okay, Todd," Finn said. "We'll be talking to the D.A. about cutting you loose because you've been helping us out. You think of anything else that will help us about Rachel, you call. Are you good with that, my friend?"

  "You got it, man." Todd's face lit up. "Absolutely."

  "Detective Anderson."

  Finn invited her out of the room and that disappointed her a little. If she had her way she would have kept at Todd for days just to get her pound of flesh. As soon as they were out the door, he handed her the report.

  "His gun is clean and the tires on his car don't match the casts found in the back of the neighborhood. The car was a long shot anyway. It's the rental we want."

  "Then we are exactly nowhere," Cori sighed.

  "Maybe. I have one more question for our friend." Finn opened the door again and Todd Webster jumped ten feet.

  "Was Germany the only place Rachel shipped those tapes?"

  "Naw. She had clients in other countries."

  "Switzerland?" Finn asked.

  "Duh. They don't just make cheese over there, ya know."

  "You sick?"

  Georgia eyed Mort with great suspicion. He hadn't touched the stack of pancakes she had made especially for him.

  "Nope."

  "You going to work today?"

  "Maybe."

  "I gotta pay the rent end of the week," Georgia reminded him.

  "You'll have the money for the rent. Don't I always get you money for the rent?" he muttered and drank his coffee.

  "And the kids need some new clothes. I could use some new items myself," Georgia said, testing the water in case there was any advantage to this strange new mood of his.

  "How much?"

  "Five hundred?" she ventured.

  "Two fifty," he countered.

  Georgia met him half way. "Whatever you can spare, honey pie."

  "I gotta go. I might be back early, I don't know."

  Mort got out of his chair, dug into his pocket, and handed Georgia the cash. For a minute he just looked at her and then he kissed her cheek.

  "Thanks for breakfast," he said.

  "Sure thing," Georgia answered, more confused than ever. She couldn't remember the last time Mort thanked her for anything.

  When the front door slammed, Georgia flipped on the television. Good Morning America faded in. Refilling her coffee, she grabbed the latest People magazine and began to flip through it. Two pages were stuck together with syrup, an inconvenience that didn't bother her in the least. It was a two-page article, and Georgia never read anything longer than one page. She actually preferred the little paragraphs under the pictures. She turned past the stuck together pages. The television babbled on. Finally, she turned off the tube. There wasn't much interesting on it anyway. Just crime and news and politics. No hard luck stories.

  That was a bummer.

  Medium Man downed a fifth of Jim Beam hoping to sleep but all that happened was that he was thoroughly drunk at seven in the morning. He sat on the mattress under the window listening to the town wake up: trucks and cars, the sidewalk preacher revving up, Mexican ladies going to market. In his lap was his beloved knife and on his mind were his many sorrows.

  He was sorry he didn't remember his mother.

  He was sorry that he couldn't give the boy a funeral like the one he had seen for those kids.

  He was sorry the boy wasn't there because if he didn't have the boy to spend the reward money on, it would mean nothing when Mort got it for them.

  As he pondered these things, Medium Man found his addled mind losing the image of the boy and the memory of their sex that he had mistaken for love. Instead, he pulled up thoughts of islands and sun and going away from this place. So maybe he was wrong about one thing. He wouldn't be sorry to have all that money even without the boy. When he had it, he would go to those pretty islands alone. He would find another boy. Maybe not as good as the one he had but that was what he would do.

  He raised the bottle to his lips again and then set it down carefully on the floor. He picked up his knife and wiped it once more with an old shirt. When he was done he thought it looked like new. He decided he needed a better hiding place. It was too easy to reach it in the old place when he got upset. Just as he was trying to figure out where a better hiding place would be in a small room like his, just as he reached for the bottle again, there was a knock on his door. That was very confusing since no one had ever knocked on his door before. In fact, it took another few knocks for Medium Man to believe that it was his door being knocked on.

  He pushed himself off the mattress, so drunk he didn't even care that his beloved knife had fallen and skidded across the floor. He stumbled toward the door but ran into the old chair and had to right himself. Whoever was knocking wanted in bad, and for a crazy minute he imagined that it was the boy coming back to beg forgiveness. Then he thought maybe the boy was a zombie come to eat his brain, but Medium Man sorted out that it wouldn't be much of a meal. He was stumbling and laughing when he opened the door. When he saw who it was, he swayed with joy.

  "Oh," he murmured sweetly.

  "How are you, compadre?"

  Medium Man held the door open for his one and only buddy, a buddy who was better than a hundred boys.

  CHAPTER 40

  DAY 9 – NOON

  The call came from County USC Medical Center a half an hour after Todd Webster made bail. It came in twenty-eight minutes after Cori and Finn started shooting rubber bands at the wall of the office as they brainstormed their next move. Neither wanted to be the first to admit they were out of ideas. Yet like so many things in life, just when it seems the darkest a light shines.

  Now they were cooling their heels in the waiting room of the hospital that dealt with the worst of the worst, County USC. If there was a gunshot victim, this was where they ended up along with every indigent, illegal, gangbanger, and dirt-poor working stiff who had an accident or fell ill.

  "Promise you'll never let them put me in here no matter what," Finn said.

  "Promise me you'll never get shot," Cori answered.

  Finn couldn't make that promise, so he stood up and walked the length of the waiting room, trying not to look at the other people. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable in their presence it was that he and Cori made them nervous.

  "Excuse me? Detectives?"

  Finn and Cori came to attention for the doctor with the sweet voice and soft handshake.

  "I'm Doctor Meyer. You're looking for the young man who was brought in with a knife wound, correct?"

  "That would be us. Detective O'Brien," Finn introduced himself before he indicated Cori. "Anderson."

  "Nice to meet you both." The doctor's cheeks were rosy, her hair cotton-white. She looked like a storybook grandmother but was a front line physician. "I saw him in emergency. We transferred him to the third floor for surgery. He should be in recovery by now. Take the elevator on the left. I'll call and tell them you're coming."

  She kept her promise and on the third floor a young, crisply dressed nurse intercepted them, said the doctor would be with them soon, but could give them no information. She left them in another waiting room and it was exactly twelve minutes before Paul Craig appeared. The Medical Examiner look
ed out of place in a hospital where people were trying to stay alive. Behind him was Dr. Johnson, a petite young woman. Both were still dressed in surgical greens. She slipped the paper cap off her head. The detectives stood and then everyone sat.

  "Sorry you guys. He didn't make it," Paul said.

  "The poor kid had simply lost too much blood by the time we got him," Doctor Johnson added. "Everything from the kidney up was ripped like a zipper. Even if we'd been on scene it would have been tough to do anything more for him."

  "The good news, if there is any, is this: what killed him was the same weapon used on the Barnett girls," Paul said. "Not that it's going to do you any good to know that."

  "We know where he was found. It's a place to start." Cori looked at Doctor Johnson. "Did he say anything at all?"

  "If he was going to talk it would have been to the EMTs. You can ask them, but I doubt he could manage anything."

  The four people sat in silence. Cori ran the strap of her purse through her fingers and fiddled with her mom necklace while Finn clasped and unclasped hands that dangled between his knees. Paul Craig looked out the window, and Doctor Johnson cradled her head in her hand, catching a wide-awake wink of sleep before she started in again. She dropped her hand, smiled at them.

  "Do you need me for anything else?"

  "We'll need the death certificate," Cori said. "Paul, can you put him at the head of the line and get us an autopsy report? Distinguishing marks, prior injuries. Fingerprint him. Dental X-rays. Basically everything including anything we didn't think to ask for."

  "Sure," Paul said.

  Dr. Johnson promised to do the paperwork and have the body ready for Paul's people within the hour. Finn got up as she left and then asked Paul:

  "Where are his things?"

  "I was kind of counting on him pulling through. I hijacked a bed in an actual room no less."

  "You must be Irish, Paul. You're an eternal optimist." Finn clapped him on the back.

  It was a double room and in the bed near the window was a man who looked suspiciously healthy and was puffing on a cigarette while he watched television. He grinned and nodded to them.

  "That's illegal." Cori pointed to the cigarette. The man grinned and nodded again.

  "He doesn't speak English," Paul said as he spread a plastic sheet on the bed and gave each of them a pair of latex gloves. He opened the cabinet near the empty bed, reached in, and came out with a white plastic drawstring bag. He tossed the bag at Finn.

  "Here you go."

  "Cori?" The doctor threw her a backpack.

  While Cori sifted through the backpack, Finn reached inside the bag and pulled out a pair of bloodied, pleated khaki pants, a white shirt, shoes that were worn down at heel and socks. He dug into the pockets. The clothing was still damp with blood and smelled the worse for it. The pants had been cut off the victim; the shirt had been shredded up the back by the attack and cut up the front and sleeves in emergency. He turned the shoes upside-down and the socks inside out.

  Cori emptied the backpack: over-the-counter acne cream, a toothbrush, five dollars, a couple of t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and some underwear. No journal, no matches, no bus ticket, no I.D.

  "Sorry," she muttered.

  Finn looked at all of it. He fingered the clothes. First the old things: jeans, t-shirts, underwear, and then the khakis and the white shirt. He lingered over the khakis and shirt. They were cheap and the fabric a blend of nothing natural. The clothes were not stylish, but there was something distinctive about them.

  "These are brand new," he said. "The pants and shirt were brand, spanking new. His shoes are old, but the socks are new."

  Finn turned the collar of the shirt over the back of his hand and saw that the label was intact, but all it told him was that a huge manufacturer had the thing stitched somewhere in India and that it was never to be bleached. The pants, though, were a store brand.

  "White Horse. It's on Hollywood and Vine."

  "I'll give them a call," Cori said.

  "I'll need a description of the victim," Finn said.

  "Skinny. Five eight. Really bad skin. Severe cystic acne that was untreated." Paul shook his head. "Dark brown, shoulder length hair that wasn't too clean. Light gray eyes. If anyone remembers him it's going to be because of the acne. It was one of the worst cases I've ever seen. Disfiguring."

  Cori listened carefully and repeated the description to the woman on the other end of the phone. The woman was the owner of the store and remembered him well. Cori raised her shoulder, balancing her phone while she dug into her purse for her note pad. When she hung up she held up the pad.

  "He came in with another man. The clerk remembers because that guy was always touching the kid and he was kind of jumpy. She can take a look at the clothes and identify them if we want." Cori flicked her notepad with her nail. "And she told us where we can probably find the other guy. He signed the book at the front of the store. You know, the kind you sign when you want to be on the mailing list. We've got an address for John Kramer."

  "You don't know how much this means to me, you comin' here just when I was so sorrowful. You didn't even know I was hurting, and here you are. Here you are. My good, good friend."

  Medium Man stumbled into Mort's arm. Mort pulled back. Medium Man went with other men. Mort thought that was a sick and terrible thing to do. Unfortunately, Mort wasn't fast enough. Medium Man had his arms around his neck, and his face was against his chest. That felt weirder than weird, so Mort pushed the man and held him away.

  "You're in a bad way, buddy," Mort said as Medium Man's knees buckled.

  Mort grabbed him under the arms and half dragged him toward the mattress. He was both heavier than Mort would have expected and in better shape. With a grunt, Mort tossed him on the decrepit, dirty mattress. Medium Man dropped and rolled until he was on his back, spread eagle, eyes closed, head lolling from side-to-side.

  Mort pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and scoped out the little apartment. It was a pathetic place with nary a mark that would claim it as Medium Man's. In his home Mort had hung many things on the walls that were symbols of who he was: posters of fancy cars and fancy women, the mirror he got down at Harry's bar that lit up so the beer bottle was a pretty amber color, a picture of him and Georgia at city hall the day they got married, pictures of his kids that Georgia had taken by real professional photographers since the time they were babies. Mort loved those pictures. He had a favorite chair and had even helped Georgia pick out wallpaper for the bathroom. She didn't do a very good job hanging it, but it was the thought that counted. It was always the thought that counted.

  Medium Man, on the other hand, lived as though he had disappeared but didn't know it yet. The furniture that came with his room was worn and ugly. The walls were bare. Old nails were visible where someone had once hung something. Faint outlines of those things still showed on the soiled walls. Hell, the nails were still in the wall. What would it have taken for Medium Man to hang something from those nails? The chair should have a pillow on it. That would make the place look homey. While he was looking around Mort saw the knife sticking out halfway from under the chair. He picked it up. Medium Man was definitely in a bad way if he left his knife on the floor.

  "Mort, oh Mort. I want to tell you something." Medium Man rallied. Mort attended to his associate. It was the least he could do, considering.

  "Yeah? What is it?"

  "I had me a friend I really loved, Mort. Like you love Georgia. I loved him so much."

  Mort's knees cracked as he got down close to Medium Man. He wanted to hear all about this since a friend could muck things up plenty. Plus, Mort was curious. He didn't think this guy knew anybody but him.

  "Yeah? Why don't you tell me about him?"

  "Oh, he was a good kid. I loved him," Medium Man blubbered. "That money? I wanted it for him. I was going to take him to this island. I really loved him, Mort. I really, really loved him."

  Tears filled Medium Man's eyes
. He threw his arms over his face but he could not console himself. His head whipped from side to side but the rest of him was eerily still as if he were tied down. Mort didn't like it when Medium Man got all strangeoid on him, so he took the man's arms away from over his eyes. He saw the blood on Medium Man's shirt and pants. This was looking worse by the minute.

  "So what happened?" Mort asked. "He dump you for someone else?"

  Medium Man rolled onto his side so he lay closer to the edge of the mattress; close enough that he could reach out and touch Mort but he didn't. Instead, he pulled up his knees and clasped his hands to his chest like a child.

  "I killed him," Medium Man whispered.

  "Why'd you do that?"

  "He tried to leave me." Medium Man's head pounded into the mattress as he wailed and grieved. "I didn't mean to hurt him, but I saw him running away. I gave him everything, and he was leaving me, and I just got so mad. You understand that dontcha, Mort? I mean, what if Georgia was runnin' away from you?"

  Mort thought about that. If she didn't take the kids he wouldn't mind too much. It would be sad, but he sure wouldn't kill her if she did. Mort didn't answer Medium man's question because he had one of his own.

  "You sure he's dead?"

  "He's so dead. I'm sure he is so dead," Medium Man answered, his eyes half closing as he gave in to grief and booze.

  "You tell him anything about us?"

  "Oh, no. Not about us. I took him to the funeral, but I didn't let him get out. I didn't say why we were there." Medium Man sighed. "I didn't tell him nothin' about you, or work, or nothin'."

  "You friggin' idiot. You shouldn't have even been at the cemetery." Mort's hands came out of his pocket and he slapped the fool right across his head. Medium Man screamed and put his hands over his ears.

  "He didn't ask why we were there and he's dead, Mort. He's so dead, and I'm going to be sick."

  Mort dropped the knife to the floor and was grabbing Medium Man by the shoulders when a thought hit him like a ton of bricks.