Edward Lee - Ghouls

“Belleau Wood.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Whizz that one by me again,” Bard was requesting of the phone when Kurt came in. The chief sounded confused; he held the phone as if it were antiquated, a burden to use. “An autopsy preliminary… I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said into the phone. Now his jowls were tensed, like corded suet.

Kurt sat down to wait. He didn’t know why he’d come; boredom, he supposed, had directed him here. The station office was dazzling in the clear light of late morning; it made him feel hot, edgy. Coffee bubbled like pitch from an old burner atop the file cabinet. Its stenching aroma hovered about the office, irritating and stiff as tear gas.

“What, right now?” Bard said. “But I don’t have anyone available right n—” He shot a glance to Kurt. “Strike that. I’ll have a man there in twenty minutes,” and then he rang off.

Kurt frowned. “Who was that?”

“South County. The M.E.’s got an autopsy report for us. Your duty of the day is to go and pick it up.”

“They found the bodies of those two girls?”

“No,” Bard said.

“Then what did they do an autopsy on?”

“I don’t know, and neither did the musclehead on the phone. He just said they had an autopsy report for us. So go and get it.”

Kurt’s stomach began to remember the last visit. “Look, Chief, I hate to stand in the way of police business, but I’m on suspension, remember? I’m not getting paid—”

“That situation can be arranged permanently, if you like.”

“Come on, seriously. I don’t want to go there again. The place makes me sick. Why should I go to a place I don’t want to go for no pay?”

“Because I told you to.”

“Read my lips, Chief. I-don’t-want-to-go-to-the-goddamned-county-morgue.”

“Read my lips,” Bard said. “You-can-go-to-the-goddamn-county-morgue-for-me-or-you-can-seek-future-employment-at-goddamned-Lucky’s-Car-Wash. Your choice.”

“So that’s the game. Employer-employee blackmail.”

Bard grinned. “’Fraid so, my boy. I’m too busy with all this paperwork to go myself.” ·

“Yeah, I can see that.” Bard’s desk, of course, was clear, save for April’s Police Product News. But Kurt had been blackmailed like this many times by Bard. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go to the—wait a minute. Send Higgins.”

“I can’t send Higgins. He took Glen down to county CID in Forestville about an hour ago.”

“CID? Why?”

“They’re putting Glen on the box,” Bard said.

Christ, Kurt thought. The box meant polygraph. “They didn’t arrest him, did they?”

“No, they just asked him to come down for questioning.” Bard rose to his feet, an effort worthy of applause. He filled a spider-cracked mug with coffee that looked more like very old motor oil. “Glen requested the polygraph—hell, he’s not stupid. Poor son of a bitch looked a wreck, though. That boy must sleep in a cement mixer.”

“He was hung over.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. He didn’t even look fit to drive, so I had Higgins give him a ride.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Chief. You had Higgins take him ’cause you thought he might try to split.”

Bard’s grin turned sly. “Gotta admit, the thought crossed my mind… Coffee?”

“No thanks. I’d need a better life insurance policy before I’d drink that spew. And I really find it hard to believe—”

“Keep your shirt and dick on, Kurt. I’m friends with Glen, too, you know. But I can’t let that obstruct operating procedure.”

Christ, Kurt thought again. Next they’ll be wanting me on the box.

Bard’s face shriveled up like wrapping paper when he sipped his coffee. “Anyway,” he said. “You never know. Anything can happen in this world, right? If Glen’s got nothing to hide, then why are you so uptight, or is it just the awesome vision of my presence that’s making you look like you’re about to shit your pants? Now’s his chance to prove he’s clean.”

“This isn’t Russia,” Kurt said. “He shouldn’t have to prove anything.”

“You can’t deny he’s been acting a little weird lately.”

“I can deny that easy,” Kurt lied, thinking, He’s always been a little weird. “He’s as straight as you or me.”

“Then why is he clamming?”

“He’s not clamming. Jesus, you sound like Lew Archer.”

“Lew Archer was a great detective.” Bard sipped more coffee, seeming quite pleased with himself. “Glen’s keeping his trap shut about something. But he won’t be able to do that on the poly.”

“Oh, shit, Chief. Those things are less reliable than Ouija boards.”

“LEAA says they’re ninety-percent-plus effective with an experienced operator.”

“I don’t care if they’re a million-percent effective. The things are a goddamned injustice; they violate civil rights.”

“Sounds like you’re turning hippie on me—”

“And why would Glen volunteer for a polygraph if he knows something?”

“It’s common knowledge,” Bard said. “Lots of nuts are subconsciously guided to self-incrimination—deep down they all want to be caught. All I’m saying is that you never know. I’m not shitting on Glen—hell, I’d love to see him come out of this clean as a cat’s ass, too. But just because he’s a friend of ours doesn’t mean he can’t lose an oar. Let’s face it, we don’t know him all that well. He works at night, we hardly ever see him. He could be the screw-loose of the century for all we know. Son of Sam was a security guard once. So was Chapman—”

“Oh, come on—”

“And if it’s not Glen, then who is it?”

The finality of the question lodged in Kurt’s throat. For a moment, he felt utterly displaced, his teeth on edge. He wished he could punch Bard right in his distrusting, smart-ass belly, watch his fist gleefully sink in fat.

“Anyhow,” Bard jabbered on. “We’ll let Glen worry about himself. In the meantime, I think you’ve got a job to do.”

««—»»

Kurt walked down the cold, antiseptic hallway like a man expecting an ambush. The petrifying fumes reached him even here and set off in his stomach an explosion of acid and disgust.

The office door was open; Kurt peeked in and found the pathologist’s anteroom unoccupied. An old Fedders air conditioner hummed clamorously from the room’s only window; cold air chilled his face. The door to the autopsy room, he saw, stood ajar. A shadow passed quickly across the drab cement floor. As boldly as he could, Kurt ventured in.

A cadaver enclosed in plastic lay on the autopsy table. A liver in a pan scale swayed slightly to and fro, like a hanging flower pot. From it fluid dripped pap pap pap onto the plastic. Kurt nearly fell back into the office.

Dr. Greene was lifting a brain from a large white bucket. He looked up, features roughed by fluorescent light, and said in a mock Scottish accent, “Tep a the marnin’ to ya.”

Kurt nodded, swallowing. “I thought you had night duty.”

“We got bodies piled up till next year’s Super Bowl, and my boss decides to take a week off. Somebody’s got to open these dead guys. Might as well be me.” Greene then picked up a long, narrow knife and began cutting the brain into half-inch slices, as one might slice a loaf of pumpernickel. He deposited each slice into another bucket marked HISTO in black magic marker. “Be with you in a minute,” he said.

Kurt looked away, but each time his eyes fell onto some new horror. A Stryker orbital saw hung from a nearby peg, its fine-toothed blade smudged with blood and hair. One shelf was stacked high with boxes of Parke-Davis cadaver bags; another stored cryptic chemicals in dark bottles. The needle on the pan-scale gauge indicated precisely 1601 grams.