cigarettes, so they’d gotten the message. She was calling them on it.
Looking out at the majestic skyline, he couldn’t believe nine years from their funny moment had passed so fast. Yep, lots had changed since then. He kept his and Fergus’s pact, but now, he placed three inside before heading to work. The perfect number. One in the morning, another right after whatever lunch he was lucky enough to grab, and the last saved for the back porch while staring at the stars before he called it a night. The extra room afforded him more matches in the event he screwed up on getting a flame, which was about half the time.
Max ran a thumb across the engraving she left as a constant reminder of their promise, chuckled, and slipped the case into his breast pocket.
“Less is more,” he whispered. So true.
Cutting down sure as hell made it easier to run the track and think when he wasn’t coughing up a lung, but he knew full well he’d never stop. The years had already taken away entirely too much. He was keeping this one and the fond memories called from just slipping the case into his pocket.
The distinctive sound of fluorescent bulbs flickering to life inside the blue and white sign attached to the Medical Examiner’s office had him shaking his head. He harbored a feeling this fucked up case might cause a full pack and a lighter to start riding in his pocket real soon if not careful.
Max continued appreciating the scenery and quietness of the early morning, refusing to move from his perch until the ash closed in on the filter. All too soon, he ground Marlboro number one into the provided ashtray and popped a mint into his mouth. He enjoyed his habit but rejected breathing his pleasure into anyone else’s face.
A hard yank proving the door unlocked, Max walked six paces, pressed a faded red button next to a caged window, and leaned on the short Formica-encased ledge sticking out from the dull green wall. He wondered how many times his elbow had pressed against the rickety thing, surprised it hadn’t cracked off years ago.
Frankie peeked through the small opening, held up an index finger, and walked away. Relieved to find his buddy on duty instead of Tiffany set his shoulders into normal position. After two years, she still acted like a newb on the first day. He wondered where he found the patience to hold his tongue as she went all airhead on him and rummaged through filing cabinets for something sitting on her desk the entire time. The inevitable giggles at finding them after a round of insistent finger pointing to help the dizzy blond ran his spine like razor wire, though expected on each encounter. If nothing else, she stayed a consistent goof and lucky to claim the doc as her great-uncle. If not for the blood ties, the little bit of fluff would’ve been gone a long time ago.
No doubt, Frankie ranked as top-notch. The guy stuck every toe tag on new arrivals, kept fastidious paperwork, and stood by with the right words and expressions as family members identified their dead. While on Frankie’s watch, a cop never lost a victim or endured a relative’s instance of false hope upon seeing the wrong face uncovered. Max recalled years ago as a tall, lanky kid strolled in the first day on the job, sporting wide sky-blue eyes full of sympathy and easy to well with tears. Not anymore. They were as world-weary as his were now.
Glass partition snapped into the side slot, Frankie handed over the roster of victims and pushed back the red ball cap failing an effort to subdue dark hair curling around his ears. “Doc’s ready for you. Bay eight. He finished up about thirty minutes ago. Worked all night.”
“Good man.”
Frankie buzzed him in.
Max draped his jacket over an arm and settled his breath. This visit was only a formality, another item required to check off his to-do list. There’d be no trial to use the findings or groundbreaking forensic pathology to prove the right killer stood before a jury of her peers. No, the entire event presented the urgency in allowing devastated families to move forward in the grieving process and collect their loved ones. He’d know each one of his victim’s names and stats before the hour ended. Now it got personal.
Faced with a maze of hallways he could navigate in his sleep, Max decided to pick up the pace and get this done and over. He gave the list one more glance and pushed inside the designated room considered the most spacious until finding ten bodies dominating the scenery. Nine covered gurneys lined in a row failed in removing the image of their original positions on the store tile. Another rested in the far corner—in the dark. It had to be Mary.
The significance of its distance from the others led Max to believe Frankie recovered a little bit of humanity and decided to honor the victims by ensuring their killer never got close again. Even the sheet claimed an unusual color—puke green muted against a sea of pristine white. A soft voice pulled his attention away from Jason’s loved one.
“Hi, Max. Let’s start in order.”
He joined Dr. Cecil Deming as he pulled back a sheet and revealed the young man behind the counter. Max dragged his patience front and center, preparing himself. The need didn’t rise from viewing a dead body, but the doctor himself. He liked Deming well enough, but the man got exceedingly enthusiastic at times. He always reminded Max of a mad scientist with the thin body honed from forgetting to eat, shock of white, haphazard Einstein hair, and wireframe glasses refusing to sit at the top of his hooked nose. And so, it begins.
The fanatic for detail didn’t mind sharing every nuance, no matter how tired he was. It would all be in the report, but Max pursed his lips and let him share in the joy of his work. By time they made it down the line and stood next to the male victim found in the grocery aisle, Max couldn’t stop his mind from drifting after hearing, “Gunshot to the back of the head. Instantaneous death,” for the fourth time. No, the lapse in attention wasn’t from boredom or the force feeding of information he already knew, but the idea of lying on one of these tables in the future.
Everyone would park it on a cold slab one day, but he wondered how many gave any thought to strangers seeing all the imperfections they took painstaking care to hide from the world throughout their short existence. The ugly panties worn on washday Sunday, a protruding gut from not knowing when to set the beer down, the drunken tattoo dare won and later cover of the little swastika with a Band-Aid over a fifteen year span, or dreaded lint stuck in a belly button are no longer private matters.
Yeah, unfortunate last memories.
The first time he and Fergus walked their naïve asses inside a morgue and stared at two naked bodies with stab wounds to the throat, they’d both promised to forgo weird tattoos, change their underwear every day, and keep in shape no matter how old they got.
“Go out handsome” rolled out of Fergus’s crazy mouth on their eventful day. It stuck. Max checked back into the conversation upon hearing Deming’s voice speeding up with unbanked enthusiasm.
“All of these were precision shots meant to cause the most damage. Lower gut, hearts, and heads. But this one. Whoa. He must have pissed her off something fierce.”
Sheet snapping back with a flare worthy of a magician, doc waved a hand over the seven bloodless holes in the store manager’s chest. “What do you see besides overkill, Detective Browning?”
Max caught the gist as the doctor tapped next to an entry point two inches above the right nipple and then drifted alongside two more angling toward the belly. His finger followed an invisible line up to the one sitting center mass. The instant a gloved finger traced down to the other side and then tapped next to three more angling in a direct line up to the left pec, Max whispered, “W.”
The doctor’s head bobbed up and down in excitement. “Bingo!”
A
