Jon Merz - Vicarious

Kwon took the bag. “You owe me big for this.”

“I’ll score you some Celtics tickets.” He looked around the office. “How long’s it going to take?”

Kwon shook his head. “Well, gee, I have to get my miniature drill, saw, and scalpel. Then I'll just rig up a freaking electron microscope so I can actually see the guy's insides.”

“How long, Kwon?”

“You see that corpse over there?”

Curran glanced at the closest gurney. “What about it?”

“That’s a human. Or it was. That’s what I get paid to cut open. Mice tend to fall outside my job description.” He sighed. “It’ll be a few hours.”

“You do the pedophile we tagged yesterday?”

Kwon pointed at the gurney again. “That’s him. I was all set to start until you brought me the shake-and-bake furry dude here.”

“Maybe I’ll stick around then,” said Curran.

“What — now you got a green brain fetish?” Kwon shook his head. “Just for your sake then, I’ll change the order of the PM so we can get to the brain first.”

“Is that allowed?”

“I’m the damned ME, Steve. I’ll cut him open proper after I show you his skull. I don’t think anyone will be upset if we aren’t all that proper with a scumbag chicken hawk like this.”

“Probably not.”

“Remember the drill?” Kwon drew back the sheet and took out the body block. Curran placed it under the pedophile’s head.

Kwon leaned in and began cutting with a scalpel behind the right ear.

“Shouldn’t I have my apron on for this?” asked Curran.

Kwon glanced up. “Why? This isn’t the bloody part. I’m saving you from the organ removal.”

“Kind of you.”

“Get some gloves though, we have to do the double yank thing now to expose the skull.”

Curran pulled on the latex gloves. “I’ll take the front again.”

Kwon nodded. “On three.”

On the count, Curran pulled hard and found the skin actually came off easier than it had on Lauren’s brother the other night.

Kwon cranked up the Stryker saw and began cutting around the top of the skull. He finished and set the machine down. “Okay, off with the top and we can confirm if this is another one of the Soul Eater’s victims.”

Curran frowned. It sounded so odd hearing Kwon use it matter-of-factly like that. “You going to put that down in the case file as cause of death?”

“Hell no. Business and personal beliefs don’t coincide very often in this world. I’ll keep my opinions to myself.”

“Pop it.”

Kwon tugged the top of the skull and it came off with the same squishy sound Curran heard before.

“Crap.”

Kwon nodded. “Green as an Irishman drinking beer on St. Patty’s day.”

Curran started to say something but stopped.

The green brain said enough.

He drove back to headquarters and got himself situated at his desk within twenty minutes. He had ten emails waiting for him as well as a pile of faxes about four inches thick on his desk.

“Popular guy today, Steve,” said one of his fellow detectives. “The fax machine’s got diarrhea for you today. Been beeping since this morning when you left.”

Curran fingered the piles of paper on his desk. “This everything?”

The detective nodded. “So far. Day ain't over yet, though.”

Curran took the next three hours and pored through the faxes, most of which were case files from the cop in California. There'd been eight murders in Los Angeles. Eight! Each one more mysterious than the last. In each case, the chief medical examiner ruled the cause of death as heart attack brought on by acute spike in adrenaline levels.

Like they'd been scared to death.

Curran took a look at the backgrounds of the victims. All of them, he concluded within five minutes, all of them were evil.

An arms dealer, a drug dealer, a lawyer who defended only the worst criminals, the leader of a girl gang in East Los Angeles, various leaders of organized crime syndicates, and a serial killer — all had died mysteriously.

The Soul Eater’s been busy, he thought. He frowned. Great, now he was thinking of this guy in supernatural terms.

He sighed and leaned back. What the hell had happened in here last night? He’d already fielded enough questions about Harry to make him feel awful. The detectives had grown attached to the little guy. So had Curran.

And now he was dead.

Curran flipped through the other reports on his desk. Other cases from around the country. After Curran left the FBI, the killer hadn’t stopped. But Los Angeles showed the most deaths and tightest concentration. The other cases seemed piecemeal — scattered around the country in single and sometimes double incidents.

Was the killer being careful?

Or was there some method to his madness?

To give the supernatural theory a go, it might make more sense that he had a mission of sorts. But if the killer was simply insane, then there’d be no figuring out the formula he used to pick his victims.

The only way they’d catch him would be to be there as he was killing.

Curran wasn’t so sure he wanted that.

In fact, a big part of him simply wanted this guy to disappear out of his jurisdiction so Curran could go back to busting gangbangers and frustrated divorcees who off’d their ex-spouses.

He wondered about Lauren again. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep her image out of his mind. He reached for the phone but stopped. She’d be out now, wouldn’t she?

He sighed.

His phone rang.

Curran heart jumped. Maybe it was Lauren. He grabbed the phone.

“Homicide. Curran.”

“Get your ass down here.”

“Jesus, Kwon, I only just left you a few hours ago.”

The phone went dead in his ear. Curran hung up, grabbed his coat and jumped into his car. He made it back down to Albany Street within ten minutes.

Kwon was waiting for him when he walked in.

“Hit the flashing lights did you?”

“You sounded so serious,” said Curran. “So, what's up?”

They walked through the swinging blue doors and into the autopsy room. Kwon gestured to a small table and handed Curran a set of latex gloves.

“Your little mouse there shouldn’t have croaked.”

Curran looked at him. “You finished already?”

“Yeah. And I know what you're thinking. I'm a physician. I don't know crap about animals. But I was going to be a vet before I switched. And if that's not good enough for you, I phoned up a buddy of mine who works for the vet school at Tufts out in Grafton. He drove up and took a look.”

“He still here?”

“No. Had to teach a class at one. But he confirmed my initial findings. The mouse — Harry you guys called him? He was in perfect health. No doubt helped by the large amount of handouts you clowns down at homicide must have fed him.”

“The guys loved the little scruff,” said Curran. “They were pretty bummed when they heard the news this morning.”

“Yeah, well, I don't know if you want to go spreading this around. Probably just better to let them think he was on his way out anyway.”

“Are you telling me what I think you are?”

Kwon motioned for Curran to look closer at Harry's still corpse. “See here?”

“The flap?”

Kwon nodded and handed Curran a small pair of tweezers. “Check it out.”

Curran bent and used the tweezers to snag the edge of the flap.

He lifted it.

His heart sank.

Kwon’s voice came close to his ear. “Want a magnifying glass?”

Curran shook his head. “No.”

He let the flap go and stood back up. “I take it mice brains aren’t supposed to be green, either?”

“Not according to my friend.”

“Nifty.”