M Sellars - Perfect Trust

Even though it was clearly marked, it was easily possible for someone to drive past the building on an almost daily basis and not even realize just exactly what it was. It looked like nothing more than just another office building, and even the sign above the door didn’t truly betray the fact that inside was the final stop for those departed from this world under suspicious circumstances. In fact, it was more than likely that the majority of the civilian population of Saint Louis didn’t even know that this was more that just a business office, it was the place where bodies were dissected in search of hidden answers.

But, unlike the majority, I knew those details all too well.

I’d been here more than once, and each time when I had taken my leave, I’d been completely devoid of any desire to ever return. Still, it seemed that I always ended up back here whether I truly wanted to be or not. Even worse, it was sometimes at my own behest.

Like right now.

It had taken a good while to talk Ben and Felicity into allowing me to come here and view the remains of Debbie Schaeffer. Neither of them was particularly keen on the concept, least of all my wife, so she had taken the most convincing by far. If that weren’t bad enough, my friend was absolutely no help. I had been completely on my own in accomplishing the task.

I suppose in some ways it was understandable. For one thing, Ben was already treading on thin ice with her, and both their tempers were only now beginning to cool as it was. Add to that the fact that my coming into direct contact with the young woman’s remains didn’t exactly fit with his concept of keeping me as far removed from the investigation as possible, and there you had it. The combination was easily more than enough to make him unwilling to help me plead my case.

Considering the fragility of the current truce between Felicity and he, I can’t say that I blamed him.

Not much anyway.

I might have simply given up, gone ahead without her, and then suffered the consequences later if it hadn’t been for one simple fact-I needed Ben in order to get into the morgue, and his tenuous agreement with the plan was entirely contingent upon her being present to keep an “ethereal eye” on me just in case I started to slip.

At one point, in a failed attempt to change his mind, I had made the mistake of again mentioning the fact that Felicity may not be able to do anything about it whether she was there or not. For that remark I promptly ended up working double time, not only to win over my wife but to re-convince my friend as well.

When all was said and done, it was already half past eleven when we climbed into Ben’s van and made the trek downtown. The intensity of my own stress level finally decreased a fraction as soon as we were under way. Unfortunately, the quiet ride also allowed for earlier forgotten nuisances to return full force.

I was completely out of nicotine gum, and my inexplicable desire for a cigarette was now reaching unnatural proportions. What was worse, I still had no idea why the cravings had come upon me. I hadn’t even been this bad when I was actually addicted to them. It was becoming increasingly harder for me to keep the outward manifestations at bay. At the moment I was only slightly to one side of irritable, and I was traveling directly toward it at high speed.

The impending collision wasn’t going to be good at all.

“You ain’t plannin’ on doin’ any of that hocus-pocus stuff where you become one with the corpse, are you?” Ben asked me as he levered the gearshift into park and switched off the van’s ignition.

“That’s not something I actually plan, Ben,” I answered with an impatient edge to my voice. “It just has a tendency to happen.”

My wife expressed her feelings on the subject in a single terse sentence. “It might not if you kept yourself grounded.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, right.” Her voice held more than a hint of sarcasm.

“Don’t even go there.”

Felicity paused for a moment, obviously taken aback by the sudden bite of my words. “Excuse me?”

“Forget it,” I answered, shaking my head. “Just forget it.”

Emotionally, I was poised to bite her head off. Logically, I knew she was correct and that I had no valid reason to do so. But, that bit of reality didn’t make the urge any easier to quell.

I simply couldn’t afford to take it any further. If I let the comment bait me, it would only serve to re-kindle the argument we’d just barely settled less than thirty minutes ago. With all of us on edge as we were, such an altercation could turn ugly fast.

Given my current state, very ugly, very fast.

“Look,” Ben interjected. “I’ve had enough arguin’ for one night. Now, the last time we were here I seem to remember ya’ havin’ ta’ come outside to get away from all the ghosts or whatever ya’ see in there.”

“Lost souls,” I offered flatly.

“Fine. Lost souls, ghosts, ooga-boogas, whatever…it’s all the same ta’ me ‘cause I can’t see ‘em. I just wanna know if all that shit is gonna send ya’ over the edge or somethin’ like last time.”

“They weren’t the real problem last time,” I explained, fighting to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “It was the fact that I was channeling the actual death of a victim that…”

“Don’t split hairs with me, Row,” he interrupted. “I need ta’ know whether ta’ take ya’ in there or start the fuckin’ van and get outta here right now.”

“We already talked about this back at the house, Ben,” I shot back a harsh rebuke.

“Yeah, well B.F.D. Is it gonna be a problem or not?”

I gave up and told him what he wanted to hear. “They won’t be a problem.”

Apparently, he was a little short on trust at the moment.

“Is he yankin’ my chain?” He directed his question to Felicity.

“Aye, he is. But if we take some precautions, I think it will be okay.”

“You think it’ll be okay?”

“What do you want? It’s not like I do this every day, you know.” A mild spark of anger flashed in her voice. She was tired; we all were. Her own irritability was showing just as Ben’s was, and I’m certain my uncharacteristic moodiness wasn’t helping in the least. As I had suspected it would, the night was getting longer by the moment.

“Okay, okay,” Ben returned, a slight defensive note in his voice. “I’m not exactly an expert on this Twilight Zone crap myself y’know.”

“Are we going to sit here and fog up the windows, or are we going to go in?” I asked impatiently.

“When I’m ready,” Ben said. “Why don’t ya’ tell me again just what it is that you’re expectin’ ta’ find out?”

“We’ve already discussed this too.”

“Yeah, and we’re discussin’ it again.”

Truth was, I didn’t really have a good answer for the question. All I knew was that someone was communicating with me from the other side, and all indicators now pointed to that someone being Debbie Schaeffer. Coming here was the only way I knew to “complete the call,” so to speak.

“I don’t know.” I gave him the only answer I could. “A clue or something. You know, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve ever done this.”

“Yeah, I know,” he affirmed, “but in the times I’ve seen ya’ do this I’ve also seen it go south. Way south. You’ve almost died on me twice. Three’s a charm, white man. That’s ‘zactly what we’re tryin’ ta’ avoid in case ya’ missed that earlier.”

“Think positive,” I grumbled.

“I am thinkin’ positive. I’m positive I ain’t willin’ ta’ trade your life for a handful of flaky clues in a murder investigation.”

“Look,” I sighed, desperate to at least get out of the confines of the van. “It took me half the night to convince you two that we should come down here, so can we just dispense with this never ending committee meeting or whatever the hell you want to call it?”