“I knew you’d come,” he said. “I figured out you didn’t stand me up on purpose, so I gave you another chance.”
“Thank you for that,” Dan said. “You’re right — I didn’t mean to stand you up the last time.”
Reggie held up a warning finger. “But this isn’t a date — you still owe me.”
“We’ll arrange something. I’m curious to know what you found.”
“Right this way.”
Reggie grabbed his flashlight and keys. Dan followed him to the basement and down the indented stairs once again. The atmosphere felt fraught, as though they’d come for a secret tryst. Dan hoped Reggie hadn’t made up an excuse just to get him alone. He brushed the thought aside as if brushing a cobweb from his mind.
They soon came to the blue door. Everything looked the same inside. The Star-X locker was intact. Reggie nudged Dan and pointed to the right, where a padlock had been cut.
“I remembered the tenant moved out and never came back, so I took a hacksaw and broke in.”
The door swung open. The space was empty.
Dan turned to Reggie. “What am I looking at?”
Reggie smiled. “Watch.”
He stepped inside and went to the adjoining wall, removing three boards, one after the other, until there was a space large enough to slip through into Star-X’s locker. He gestured for Dan to follow.
“Come on.”
Dan slid into the darkened space, lit up haphazardly by Reggie’s flashlight. He could make out a low-lying cot with a chair set beside it. As with the arrangement of the chair and couch in Sam’s apartment, it felt monastic, as though someone had sat a vigil there.
It reminded him of an abandoned Jesuit lodge he’d discovered one summer when he and three friends stayed at a family cottage. Days they’d spent in the water, holding their breath and competing to see who could stay under the longest. Dan had always turned out to be the winner. He’d thought his record was three and a half minutes until one day he emerged to find scared looks on the faces of the others. Four minutes, they declared. How did you do it? Willpower, he said, though in truth he didn’t know. You start to feel like you could stay down there forever, he told them. After that it’s easy. One afternoon, tiring of this game, they canoed to the end of the lake. There they spied a cabin with the words Villa de moi-seule hand-painted on the lintel. They’d heard the rumours that monks practised self-flagellation, and approached the cabin nervously, thinking of the horrors they might find. When they’d looked in, however, all it contained was a cot with a thin blanket and a single chair set at one end.
“And there’s this,” Reggie said in a whisper, pointing the light to a cape hanging on the back of the door.
Dan fingered the garment. High-quality leather, hand stitched by a talented craftsman.
“Check the inside pocket,” the super said excitedly, holding the light high. “But be careful not to touch it with your fingers.”
Dan felt a lump. He pulled the fabric aside and peered in. A small wooden box lay nestled at the bottom.
Reggie held out a handkerchief. “Take it out with this,” he said. The amateur sleuth.
Dan retrieved the box. The lid gave way with a gentle tug, emitting an odour of something long dead. Inside lay the last thing he might have expected to find there: a set of dentures. But not just any dentures. He held them up to Reggie’s light. It was a full set of teeth with glittering canines extending into a pair of fangs stained dark red.
“It’s blood,” Reggie said.
“It looks like it,” Dan agreed.
“It is blood. Look how it’s dried and flaking around the edges.”
“I think you’re right.”
“I am right.”
Dan set the teeth back in the box, closed the lid, and slid it back into the pocket of the cape.
“There’s more,” Reggie said excitedly. “Under the bed.”
Dan gave him a curious look then knelt and peered beneath the cot. A knife blade glinted in the flashlight beam. He pulled it out; it too was stained red.
“And this,” Reggie said, pointing his light to the floor where an uneven spot on the concrete showed a similar discolouration. “I think something bad happened here. What do you think?”
“Good sleuthing is what I think.”
Dan sat on the chair. He took Reggie’s flashlight and shone it around the space. Apart from the cot and the cape, there was little else to see.
Reggie nodded eagerly. “You see? I told you we’d be good to work together.”
“You’re right. Now let’s put everything back the way it was and get out of here.”
They stepped back through the opening into the next locker. Dan watched as Reggie replaced the boards, closing the gap with careful gravity, wondering if he’d done all this just to impress him.
The super turned to him. “So what do you think?”
“I think it looks like a film set.”
“Sure, they make videos down here. But it’s creepy, eh?”
“It certainly is that,” Dan agreed, thinking of Edie Foxe’s repulsive achievement.
“So what do we do now?”
“We need to let the police know what you found —”
“No way!” Reggie looked startled by Dan’s suggestion. “You can’t tell anyone. I’d lose my job if they found out about this.”
“It doesn’t have to come from you,” Dan said. “Remember — I’m the furnace inspector. You can tell your boss I paid an unexpected visit.”
“But still, he’d know I let you in.”
“Reggie, someone has to tell them.”
He shook his head. “No. I found it. It’s my discovery. You can’t tell anyone. If I thought you would blab about this I’d never have shown you.”
“Then what do you propose to do?”
“I’ll think of something. Leave it with me.”
“Okay. For now, at least.” Dan looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go.”
A chill had seeped into the passageway. The furnace chugged on as they passed it, obliterating the silence. Dan saw the orange glow around the door. He didn’t like the look of it then any more than he had the first time.
“Wanna come back to my place?” Reggie asked as they climbed the stairs and locked the door behind them. “We could chill, smoke some dope.”
Reggie waited hopefully as Dan shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do that, Reggie.”
“Okay, but you still owe me that date.”
“I won’t forget this time.”
Reggie smirked. “Yeah, right. Famous last words, eh?”
TWENTY-FIVE
That Sinking Feeling
THE CORONER’S OFFICE CALLED THE next morning. Dan made an appointment for two o’clock that afternoon. Then he called Woody and asked to meet for coffee in the same café they’d met at previously. It would be a difficult interview, Dan knew, but one he felt was necessary.
Woody’s expression was jovial when he arrived, but Dan’s sombre mien brought a worried look to his face. Again, the owner fussed, but even he seemed to sense the gravity of the situation, his greetings less effusive than on the previous visit.
Dan waited till the coffee was set in front of them before speaking.
“How are you, Woody?” he asked at last.
“I’m okay, but I have this awful feeling you’re going to give me bad news about something.”
Dan nodded. “You’re right. Nabil Ahmad’s body was pulled out of the harbour two days ago.”
Woody looked away. Dan saw something register privately in his eyes before his gaze returned to Dan’s.
“I’m real sorry to hear that.”
Dan took out his cellphone and held up the nude photo of Nabil. Woody took the phone without a word. He studied it a moment, as though to verify its authenticity, then handed the phone back to Dan.
“It’s mine. I took it.”
“Why did you lie to me about knowing him?”
Woody spread his palms across the table. For a moment, he didn’t speak. Dan waited.
“I was afraid,” Woody said at last. “When you said he was missing, I just thought it was better to stay out of it entirely.”
“But you knew I was looking for him.”
“I couldn’t have told you anything, Dan. I didn’t know where he’d gone. I didn’t even know he was missing until you told me. It was just … I made a stupid decision.”
“Were you lovers?”
“I … yeah. I just didn’t know what good it would do to tell you.” His face wore a twisted expression. “I mean, it wouldn’t have helped find him sooner, would it?”
“I hate to think so, but it might have.”
“But how?” Woody was nonplussed. “I mean, what we had was so long ago.”
Dan looked sharply at him. “How long ago?”
“Maybe a year or more ago.”
“Not more recently?”
Woody shook his head. “No. Not at all. He was seeing someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He never told me except to say it could never work out between them. Said they were worlds apart in their thinking.”
“How did you meet?”
“At the Y. He wasn’t out to anyone. I paid him attention, flattered his ego by asking to take his photograph, and the next thing you know we ended up in bed together.”
“Just one of many,” Dan said.
“You know me, Dan. I never stick around. That’s just who I am. No hard feelings, right?”
“No, of course not. No hard feelings.” He waited. “Did you know about the websites he operated?”
“Not at first. That came after I was with him. When I knew him he was too naive and closeted to do anything like that. It was like I gave him permission to be himself. He was doing security guard work when we met. He barely made enough to live on. I told him he had a beautiful body and people would pay to see it online. I didn’t think he’d actually follow my suggestion. But he did.”
“How’d you find out about them?”
“Nabil was angry with me for a long time. Really angry. He said I lured him out of the closet and left him high and dry. When he showed up at Spearhead, I suspected it was a trap. Like he wanted to get revenge or something. He told me what he was doing. Said he was making a lot of money, lots of guys wanted him. I think I was supposed to feel jealous or something.” He shrugged. “So when you said he disappeared, I wondered if it had something to do with the sites.”
“You got worried you might be blamed.”
“Something like that.” He nodded and looked away. The coffee was getting cold on the table between them. “I never said my standards were high. I offer good times, a whirl on the Ferris Wheel, and then I’m gone again. I always feel I let everyone down eventually, myself included. I just never wanted to see anyone to get hurt by it.”
Dan picked up his cup and drained it, then set it down again. “Okay, well, thanks for being honest now.”
Woody looked worried again. “So, where will you take this?”
“Nabil mentioned you in his diary entries. If it goes to court, I’ll have to drag you into it.”
Woody stared at him for a long time. “Really? You’d do that to me?”
“I would. No hard feelings, though.”
When Dan arrived at the morgue, the pathologist from the previous afternoon was outside finishing a cigarette, the hollows of his cheeks sunk deep in a death’s mask with each inhalation. He looked Dan over as though sizing him up for a body bag, then ground the butt beneath his shoe and waved him over.
Dan extended a hand. “Hello, again. Dan Sharp.”
“Good afternoon. Stuart Morgan.”
“Thanks for seeing me. I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”
“Not at all,” Stuart replied, though his smile said otherwise. “I have to say I’m impressed. You’ve got friends in high places. The chief called personally to ask me to give you my report. Preliminary findings only, of course. The full report will take a few days longer.”
“Understood,” Dan said.
Inside, Stuart indicated a vending station at the far end of the hall. “Would you like coffee? Something to eat, perhaps?”
“I’m good,” Dan said.
“Yes, some prefer not,” he said. “Well then, come with me.”
Dan followed him down the hall and into the elevator. They waited in silence as the doors slowly closed on the light of day then reopened in the basement. In the same cold room they’d been in previously, Stuart pulled out a drawer containing a body bag as casually as if he’d been opening a bureau for old linen.
“People often ask if we ever make mistakes. In fact, it does happen. Historically, the point of keeping bodies in storage was to give them time to revive in case they weren’t actually dead.” He patted the bag. “I’m sure it would be extremely uncomfortable to wake up in one of these, but better than not waking up at all. There was a recent case in Europe where a woman was declared dead then woke up two days later. I gather her doctor lost some credibility.”
His nicotine-stained fingers struggled with the bag’s zipper. It held for a moment then gave suddenly, revealing Nabil looking much as he had the last time.
“Have you determined how long he was in the water?” Dan asked.
“An excellent question. The answer is ‘not precisely.’ I can, however, make an educated guess. No less than one week, but more likely closer to two.”
Dan calculated back: according to his brothers, Nabil had vanished a little over two weeks ago.
Stuart continued. “Drowning results in a condition known as hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen supplied to heart and brain. Sometimes cold water can slow this effect. There are cases on record of people being revived with little or no mental impairment after being in the water for an hour or more. Rare, of course, and in your friend’s current state not likely to happen.”
He unzipped the bag the rest of the way, leaving Nabil fully exposed.
“In the case of someone recovered from water, it becomes essential to look for clues telling us the decompositional rate. Determining the post-mortem interval is often a challenge. Water temperature is the determining factor. To put it simply, bodies decompose more slowly in cold water. At first there will be indications such as the wrinkling of skin or the loosening of hair and nails. But by the second week, there will be a detachment of the skin itself, particularly in the digits.”
He held Nabil’s left hand, palm up, turning it from side to side as though giving Dan an ironic wave.
“Our skin is made up of both dead and living tissue. When immersed in water, dead tissues absorb water like a sponge and start to swell, putting downward pressure on the deeper layers, resulting in irregular patterns known as wrinkles. This is what causes the ridges on your fingers when you get out of a particularly long, hot bath.”
He lay the hand gently back at Nabil’s side.
“People think we perform magic here. In fact, it is a form of magic, looking at a corpse and asking it to tell us how it got here. The necromancer’s art of making the dead speak. It was once commonly believed that the last thing a dying person saw was trapped as an image on the retinas. Therefore, if you were murdered, your murderer’s image would presumably be imprinted there. Not true, of course. Similarly, others believed that the last thoughts a person had could be made known by touching the body. Also untrue, in my experience. On touching a dead body I’ve often thought of nothing other than what I would be having for lunch in an hour or two.”
“And what was the cause of death in this case?” Dan asked.
“Another excellent question. And one for which I can give you a precise answer.”
Light shone through a frosted window at street level. Movement caught Dan’s eye, the interplay of light and shadow, the footfalls of everyday people heading to work assignations, business lunches or romantic trysts, ticking off life’s comforting ebb and flow wh
ile it lasted.
“Sometimes,” Stuart continued, “the answer to how a person died is obvious, as when we get the body of someone who hanged himself or who was pulled from a car wreck. Other times, we’re fortunate to have eyewitness accounts. Barring these, however, we look for outward signs. Age can be a clue. For instance, the highest number of heart attacks occur in the fifty to sixty age bracket. Obesity and a history of smoking are also telling. We eat, drink, and make merry, while inside the worm gnaws silently away at the bud, the canker eating us away from inside.”
He gave Dan a hard look. “Are you a smoker?”
“No.”
“Heavy drinker?”
“Not currently.”
“Hmmm,” he intoned mysteriously. “And by the looks of you, you’re in top physical shape and still under fifty. Nevertheless, it frequently happens to men in their forties.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dan said.
Stuart yawned and gave Dan a guilty look. “Perhaps I’m the one who should have had coffee,” he said.
“I can wait if you like.”
“No reason to.”
A Y-incision extended from Nabil’s pelvis to his sternum. Stuart slipped on a pair of latex gloves, raising the edges of skin as gently as if he were lifting a veil from a bride’s face. A mishmash of colours and shapes revealed themselves, the red lozenges of the lungs set alongside ropy, yellow ribbons of fat and the purple, sausage-like string of intestines. Death casually revealed as if in the window of a butcher shop.
Dan was thankful he hadn’t had that cup of coffee.
“Where the difficulty for a pathologist comes in trying to determine a precise cause of death is when the antecedent factors are not known and there are no eyewitness accounts or obvious signs of trauma.”
He closed the skin flap with a sigh, as though disappointed by its reluctance to share its secrets.
“We already know your friend, Mr. Ahmad, was in the water, so we don’t really need evidence of that. We do, however, need to remember that not all bodies pulled from the water died by drowning. First we have to ask why they are in the water. Sometimes people have too much alcohol in their systems and we may conclude that they simply fell in. In your friend’s case, however, there was no alcohol in his system.”
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