Peter Clement - Mortal Remains

“I do. This comes from one who has been there. Don’t let yourself get bushed. You remind me of myself after Marion left.”

On the drive home Mark turned the radio up loud, hoping a dose of music would blast his brain free of the day’s dregs. As if the Bradens and the McShanes weren’t enough, the last thing he needed was a little homespun advice. He knew Dan meant well, but the guy’s butting into his private life irritated him. The trouble was Dan had no one to care about, nothing coming of the attempts he’d made to start dating again. Being a forty-year-old cop in a town most people considered as exciting as Mayberry, he’d only been able to muster a few summer romances with women who’d come here to vacation. Predictably, they left in the fall.

Not much different from his own ladies, he had to admit, and cranked up the volume even more as the strains of a familiar song filled his Jeep.

Flashing along tendrils of mist, his high beams picked up a truck parked over on the shoulder of the road. Nearby a huddle of men, most of them still carrying their rifles, were lined up taking a piss. One of them toasted him with a silver hip flask as he passed.

He belted out the chorus as loud as he could.

Saturday, November 17, 2:30 P.M.

Metropolis Club, New York City

Feeling gloomy and foolish, Mark was back at the bar picking up his second glass of white wine. He was gloomy because of the event itself – a memorial service for a woman who’d died twenty-seven years ago. The tributes by high school, college, and medical school classmates had seemed thin and hollow to him. No one captured Kelly’s real warmth and sense of mischief. Rather, they’d remembered her as some kind of hardworking, self-sacrificing tin saint. And Samantha McShane. The woman made a complete ass of herself, droning endlessly how she suffered over the loss of her beloved daughter. Her lengthy, self-aggrandizing remarks made him sick. By contrast, Chaz’s tribute to his wife came across as surprisingly dignified and tender.

He sauntered to the far corner of the impressive mahogany-paneled room, took a healthy swig of wine, and looked over the small crowd. Oh, yeah, he felt foolish all right. How in heaven’s name had he convinced himself that he was going to find leads by talking to the people who came to this service?

A prick named Tommy Leannis, a plastic surgeon who’d been a resident with Kelly, had blown him off, seeming afraid that the Bradens wouldn’t approve of his talking with the coroner. Another med school friend of Kelly’s, Melanie Collins, made him feel uneasy with her not-so-subtle sexual come-on. She was at least fifteen, maybe twenty years older than he, and a good-looking old gal, but her assertiveness was a turnoff. She helped in one thing she told him, though. She’d said that “a person could hide everything but two conditions – being drunk and being in love” – and that Kelly definitely had been in love at the time she’d disappeared. In love… the man in the taxi. Damn, he had to find that guy.

Braden Senior had been smarmy as ever when they’d exchanged a few words, and Chaz seemed even more nervous than he had been in Dan’s office. Mark got nowhere fast with either of them. Time to toss back the rest of his wine and leave, he decided, when he spotted a tall, slim man with a very attractive blond woman on his arm, one of the few couples he hadn’t yet approached. He put down his glass, went over, and introduced himself.

“Ah, Dr. Roper, the coroner on the case,” Earl said. “I’m Dr. Garnet, but call me Earl. This is my wife, Dr. Janet Graceton.”

They all shook hands

“So tell us,” Earl continued, “what’s your connection to Kelly, other than having had the investigation dumped in your lap?”

The comment took Mark by surprise. “How did you know it was a dump? You’re not connected with NYPD are you?”

Earl laughed. “No, I’m in ER at St. Paul’s Hospital in Buffalo, though some of my staff probably think of me as a cop.”

“And I deliver babies,” added Janet, her smile bright. “We’re definitely not with the police.”

“But bureaucracy’s bureaucracy,” Earl continued, “and I’ve had a lifetime of stuff shuffled my way. As soon as I saw the article in the Herald , I figured they were sloughing the whole thing onto you.”

“I’ll say they did. Though I would have done whatever was necessary anyway, to bring Kelly justice. She was a very special lady.”

“You knew her?” Earl asked.

“Only as a kid.”

“Really. What do you remember of her?”

“Like I told everyone here, I remember the important stuff for a seven-year-old boy. She could ride a bike like the wind, had a jackknife dive to die for, and when it came to cannonballs, no one on the dock was safe.”

Earl laughed again, even though his eyes remained sad. Mark found him more sincere than those who’d gushed over Kelly at the service. He immediately liked Earl Garnet.

“What else?” Earl asked.

And Mark had figured he’d be the one asking the questions. “Well, I guess what I recall most was how much fun she was. She always made me feel great.”

“She sometimes mentioned a Dr. Roper. Was he your father?”

“Yes.”

“She spoke very highly of him. Said he was the one who gave her enough confidence to apply to med school.”

“I know she sure liked talking with him. They’d spend hours together in his study. He actually was her doctor for a while. I found his old file on her in our basement.”

“It must be especially sad for him, knowing someone murdered his protégée.”

“At least he was spared that. He died nearly a couple of months after she disappeared.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It was all such a long time ago.”

“Yet her disappearance must have been painful for him and for you. Did he ever talk about it?”

Boy, this guy likes to probe, Mark thought, also realizing that he didn’t mind. Earl seemed genuinely interested. He could tell by his eyes. They never wavered from him. “Actually, I didn’t know she had vanished. My father told me only that she’d gone away, and I had no idea I’d lost her until much later. As a result I haven’t any traumatic last-time-I-saw-Kelly stuff to cloud my memories of her.” He found himself smiling. “So all of them are pretty happy. My favorite even now is of us spending hours on the dock, swimming and joking together. She especially liked watching the clouds and making crazy interpretations out of the shapes.”

Earl’s face suddenly grew animated. “Ah, yes, Kelly and her cloud game. It was fun-”

“You played it with her?”

“Yes-” He seemed to stop himself, his expression growing serious again. “It must be hard for you, investigating who killed her, yet having been so close.” Oddly, he sounded guarded now.

Shit, surely this man wasn’t going to suddenly bottle up the way Leannis did. Then he noticed how still Janet Graceton had gotten and the sideways look of astonishment she gave her husband.

The moment hung there, the seconds elongated.

He didn’t figure it out.