John Burley - The Absence of Mercy

The face of the sheriff’s deputy who appeared in the doorway of Trinity Medical Center’s pathology lab that afternoon belonged to Tony Linwood, a friend of the Stevensons. Looking up from his microscope, Ben recognized the deputy immediately.

“Hello, Tony,” he said, smiling. “Nice to see you.”

“Doc.” Tony nodded. His youthful, often animated face appeared neutral, his body language guarded.

Ben, who had begun making his way around the large desk to greet him, registered the officer’s tone and stopped, his fingers resting lightly on the varnished wooden surface.

“What brings you all the way down to what we in the business lovingly refer to as the ‘bowels of the hospital’?” he asked.

Tony’s feet shifted slightly, a little restlessly. “Chief Garston has requested your presence, sir.”

Ben felt his stomach clench. Not again, he thought. And so soon ? He couldn’t face another one so quickly after the last autopsy. He simply couldn’t.

“Has there been another murder?” he asked apprehensively.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss things with you further, sir. I’ve just been asked to come get you.”

So formal. So guarded. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him: What if my presence is needed not as the medical examiner, but as the father of the victim ? A moment of panic seized him, and he was struck with the nearly overwhelming urge to rush at the deputy, grab him by the front of his uniform, and demand to know what was going on. (“ Is it one of my boys, goddamn it?! DID HE KILL ONE OF MY BOYS?!! ”) If he’d taken such an approach, it wouldn’t have gone well for him—family friend or not. When Deputy Linwood had received the call over the radio, the dispatcher had said, “Possible suspect in a 187, needed for questioning.” One-eighty-seven was the radio code for homicide, and in a town that almost never saw such a crime, Tony had little doubt which series of murders the dispatcher was referring to. Any sudden rush by Dr. Stevenson would have resulted in Ben lying face-first on the floor with the full weight of the deputy’s knee pressing into the back of his neck.

Fortunately, Ben suddenly recalled that the boys were with their mother and grandparents in Arizona, and thus well out of harm’s way. Which left him with one residual thought: Who’s it going to be this time ? He released a sigh of resignation. “Okay, let me get my keys.”

“You can leave your car here, sir,” Tony advised him. “I have instructions that you’re to come with me.”

Ben frowned. “I can just follow you, Tony. It’s not a problem.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I have specific instructions.”

Ben paused for a moment, considering. “ I have instructions that you’re to come with me ,” Tony had said. “ I’m not at liberty to discuss things with you further, sir .” He’d never received a police escort to any of the other crime scenes. So, what was going on here? He was having difficulty making the pieces fit.

“Tony—Deputy Linwood,” Ben said carefully, opting halfway through his sentence for the more formal address. “Am I under arrest for something?”

“No, sir,” the officer responded. “Not at this time.”

The trip in the police cruiser was a short one, and none of them spoke. There had been a second sheriff’s deputy waiting for them just outside the lab, and the officer sat in the front passenger’s seat, with Tony at the wheel. Ben was relegated to the back, where the doors could be opened only from the outside. A thick Plexiglas divide separated him from the officers, and his knees were smashed up against the back of the seat in front of him.

He had no idea whether sheriff’s deputies worked in unison, or whether two officers to a car was the norm. He suspected the former, however, and wondered whether the second officer had been dispatched in case there had been a scuffle. It was hard for him to imagine— ridiculous, even —fighting with the police. What did they want to question him about? He wasn’t guilty of anything that he could think of. And yet, here he was, sitting in the back of a cruiser like a common criminal.

It didn’t take Ben long to figure out that they were headed for his house. Still, when they rounded the bend in the road and his driveway came into view, he was absolutely stunned by the number of police vehicles parked outside. The cruiser came to a stop several houses up the street. It was the closest they could get given the veritable parking lot of official-looking vehicles stationed along the modest residential street. Several of his neighbors stood on their lawns and front steps, gawking at the spectacle.

“Wait here,” the sheriff’s deputy in the front passenger seat, unfamiliar to Ben, instructed him. ( As if I have a choice, Ben thought to himself.) Tony remained in the car, hands still gripping the steering wheel, although he’d already turned off the engine. Ben considered asking him again what this was about, but decided against it. If he was truly wanted for questioning regarding what appeared to be a fairly big deal, then perhaps the less he said, the better. He shook his head. He was already starting to think like a defendant. Boy, that hadn’t taken long.

He looked out through the dirty side window next to him. He could see Sam Garston approaching the car, accompanied by the deputy who’d ridden with them from the hospital. Sam looked grim and irritable. “What’s he doing in the back of the car?” he barked in their direction. “Let him out.”

Tony jumped out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear passenger door. Ben pulled himself into a standing position beside the cruiser.

“I’m sorry as hell to have to do this to you, Ben,” Sam said, drawing one of his large hands across the angle of his lower jaw.

“ I certainly hope so, ” Ben countered, not waiting for the man to finish. “Whatever this is about, Sam, I can assure you there’s no need for this sort of…”

“Ben?”

“… freak show …”

“Ben?”

“… I mean, I’ve got neighbors, for God’s sake! What’re they supposed to—”

“Ben, shut up,” Garston said flatly, and that did shut him up. Like a slap across the face.

Sam paused a moment, waiting for another outburst. The two deputies standing next to them glanced at one another, but said nothing. When he was certain that Ben was listening, Chief Garston continued.

“As I was saying, Ben, I’m sorry as hell to have to do this to you, but before we proceed any further I have to go over your Miranda rights with you.”

“ My Miranda righ— ” Ben began incredulously, but the large man in front of him continued speaking as if he hadn’t noticed.

“First,” he advised him, looking Ben directly in the eye to ensure that he was listening, “you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Ben felt as if he were hearing these words from a great distance. Sheriff’s deputies continued to mill about in his driveway and on the front lawn of his house. It seemed to Ben that their movements were slow and surreal, almost as if they were floating from place to place. To his immediate right, his next-door neighbors watched the exchange between him and the officers with fascination. Ben knew them both: Harry and Samantha Caddington. Susan was their family physician. Three years ago, she’d visited their son every day in the hospital while he was being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She’d sat with them for countless hours at the boy’s bedside during the worst of the illness. They both had. Now, Ben noticed, they wouldn’t even meet his gaze.