Forgive Me, Alex (11 page)

Dad pulled me from a sleep filled with dreams of Alex, which included several appearances by Mom. I'd been out for hours.

"Tony, Chief of Police Bill Radlon is here and he needs to speak with us."

I emerged from my room in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, with hair that announced my many hours in bed. The chief glared at Dad, uncomfortable with my presence. He hadn't come to speak with
me
, but Dad couldn't face this alone.

The chief declined the offer of coffee, which we now lived on, and Dad poured himself another big cup. I filled one for myself as I struggled to come awake.

Tensions ran high, as if a giant vacuum had sucked the air from the room. The three of us sat around the kitchen table and stared at one another for several seconds.

Dad cleared his throat. "So, Chief, I hope you have some good news for us."

You must be kidding me. You're smiling? Are you blind to the look in the chief's eyes? How deep is your denial?

"Mr. Hooper, I wonder if we might speak alone."

God, there it is.

There could no longer be any doubt. Alex, the boy who'd been my Shadow, was gone. How would I survive without my Shadow?

Dad, with eyes that betrayed his devastating heartbreak, had reached the same conclusion. He stammered, "That won't be necessary, Chief. Tony should be here for this."

After a few seconds of silence and a grimace of indecision, the chief resolved to finish with it.

"Very well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but we've found Alex's body. I'm afraid he's been killed."

He wore the most curious expression, taken aback by our reactions.

One might easily have thought things were backwards between Dad and me, as he slumped over the table, rested his head on his arms, and sobbed uncontrollably. The chief cast his eyes down at first, unsurprised by Dad's expression of utter grief, but he now looked at me with what I could only assume was curiosity.

I'd hardly responded to his announcement because, deep in my heart, I already knew. This was not news, and I'd already cried.

I had no more tears to offer.

Dad's breakdown continued, and my sorrow for him was complete. Yet I felt more: pity, I thought. Strange that I should pity him. After all, didn't I suffer too? I walked over and held him as he sobbed. The chief observed again, perhaps thinking it odd that I should console my father, versus the other way around. He didn't know Dad.

The tears slowed to a drip as Dad raised his head and stared at the wall with blank eyes.

I stood and looked at the chief. "You said Alex was
killed
. In an accident? Or by someone?"

He looked back and forth between us, and resigned himself to the idea that I'd be doing most of the talking.

"He was murdered and...."

"And
what
?"

"And his body was dumped in the river."

"I see. Any ideas about who did it?"

A strange look again contorted his face, as if he silently demanded answers from me. They weren't so hard to read.
How can you be so casual? How can you be so cold? Do you have no heart? We're talking about your little brother here!

"No," he said. "We found him only a short while ago. Our investigation will take some time. We won't have the coroner's report for a day or two."

Dad flinched at mention of the coroner, and I placed my hand on his shoulder. He came only partially out of his mist, and returned to the discussion. "We'll have to make arrangements. Where do we go from here?"

"Once the coroner finishes with her findings, you may claim the body."

Dad jerked under another spasm—
the body
, rather than,
Alex
.

"First things first," Chief Radlon said. "We'll need you to come to the morgue to identify the body—a formality, but a necessary one."

When Dad failed to reply, the chief turned to me.

I nodded. "I'll take care of that. When do we do it?"

He was no longer surprised. Dad clearly couldn't handle it.

He said he'd pick me up at nine o'clock the next morning, Monday. He'd drive me to the morgue, where I'd do what I already dreaded, and then he'd bring me back home. I agreed to all that as I escorted him out.

I returned to the kitchen. "Dad?"

"I want to be alone for a while, Tony."

"Okay."

I drifted into my room and lay down, and the floodgates opened again. I still had tears, after all.

We entered the McHenry County complex, located off Highway 47 in Woodstock, and awaited an elevator in the lobby of the coroner's facility. Chief Radlon stood beside me and glanced over several times. I couldn't help but think the chief, offering the same gaze he'd worn a couple times the night before, suspected me of the unthinkable.

I squirmed and scratched the back of my neck, as if something were crawling up it.

I thought about coming right out and asking him, but this damn place was hard enough. And likely to get harder. Soon.

The elevator bell rang and the doors opened. Relief, anxiety, uncertainty, fear and dread—they formed a toxic soup on which I nearly choked.

The chief held out his hand and said, "After you."

We rode the elevator down in silence, but my heart thumped like a jackhammer in my chest, threatening to explode at any moment. I wiped a sleeve across my temples and forehead, where sweat dripped down and stung my eyes. I wanted to tell Chief Radlon this was a terrible mistake, that Dad should be doing this. I couldn't—

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. I stepped through and halted, glancing up and down the hallway. Nowhere to escape.

The chief tapped my shoulder and said, "Right this way."

My chest tightened further as we approached two sliding glass doors, the bold letters "MORGUE" stenciled on the outside.

He put a hand out to stop me. "Listen, Tony, I'd say this is a simple exercise we're about to go through, except that I know how difficult it can be."

All I could think to do was nod in response.

"All we need," he said, "is for you to make an official identification, and then we can leave. If you want more time in there, that's fine. You just let me know. However, you shouldn't draw it out." He took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and sighed. "You should remember Alex as he was during your best times together. Not like this. Let's go in, get it done, and get out. Okay?"

I squeaked, "Okay," and the sound of it took my mind right to Alvin and the Chipmunks for some damned reason. I almost laughed, and I might have done so had I not been on the verge of tears, more frightened than I'd ever been.

The chief opened the door, and I gasped at the smell. The room reeked of that hospital antiseptic quality, and something more—deeper, fouler. I could think of little to which it compared: the Fox River on a particularly bad day, perhaps. Although I'd once touched Mom's corpse, I'd never
smelled
death.

The room contained two tables, each holding a body covered by a dark plastic sheet. The coroner sat at a desk at the edge of the room, and I had to do a double-take. Coroners should be fat old men with rumpled hair and heavy glasses, who removed organs with one hand while eating a tuna fish sandwich with the other.
She
was blonde, probably in her thirties, with great legs—just plain hot. A poor fit for the stereotype.

She stood and walked toward us.

"Dr. Singer," the chief said, "this is Tony Hooper. He's here to identify the boy we brought in."

She nodded and offered a polite smile. "Mr. Hooper, Chief Radlon."

She looked taken aback, undoubtedly surprised by my age. Not for the first time, I wished Dad had possessed the character to meet this responsibility.

"It's right over here," she said.

It's! It! You're calling Alex "it?"

My anger, or sorrow, or incredulity—or whatever the hell it was—must have been evident. The doctor's shoulders sagged as she sighed and averted her eyes.

Good! You
should
be uncomfortable, calling Alex "it."

She motioned to the chief, and led us to the examination table where a corpse lay under a black plastic shroud.

Oh God. That's Alex.

She guided me to the side near one end, and waited for the chief to situate himself at the head of the table.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know this is difficult. Are you prepared?"

Unable to speak, or to find oxygen in this lifeless place, I nodded.

The doctor folded the sheet back to expose Alex's head and a few inches of his chest. I didn't move. I barely breathed. His face, grim and stiff, looked as though he'd fallen into a vat of flour. One of his eyes, though closed, appeared terribly disfigured.

I stared for several seconds, frozen, trying not to shiver beneath the goosebumps that erupted all over my body, trying to quell the shaking in my hands, the quivering in my lips, the churning in my gut.

Chief Radlon broke the silence. "Can you identify him for us?"

Once again, I nodded. I started to say something, but managed only a grunt, my words choked off by something huge and unknown in my throat. It could have been a rhinoceros.

He pressed me quietly. "Is that Alex?"

My vision blurred beneath pools of silent tears, and I nodded. Both the chief and Dr. Singer diverted their eyes at that awkward moment. I made them uncomfortable. Hell, I made
myself
uncomfortable.

I whispered, "Goodbye Hoopster," and reached under the sheet to hold Alex's hand for a minute, to touch my baby brother one last time.

Where's his hand?
I pulled back the sheet to find it and— "No! No! My God, what did you do to him? No!"

"Tony, wait," Dr. Singer said. "
We
didn't do that to Alex. That's how Chief Radlon found him."

What? Someone chopped him up? Oh God, why? Alex! Oh Alex, what have I done? I'm so sorry. Alex. Alex.

The room spun and everything faded to gray. I tried to fight off whatever attacked me—like a thousand blowtorches—and stumbled backwards into the cold steel vaults. My legs buckled and I collapsed to the frigid floor, propping myself up with trembling hands, shivering and gasping, unable to breathe. The gray faded darker.

The blackness was coming for me.

"Tony! Listen to me! Look at me!"

I could barely see Dr. Singer. She leaned over and cupped my face in her hands. She smelled of mint and flowers. And death.

"You have to listen to me, Tony. This is important. Okay?"

Air. I need air.

"It's still preliminary," she said, "but there are some things I can tell you with absolute certainty. Alex died when a sharp object, probably a knife, punctured his heart. You must understand that death was
instantaneous
."

She snapped her fingers to provide effect.

"The mutilations were inflicted postmortem," she said, "
after
death. We know that by the way the blood clots. Whatever sick reason the killer had for performing those mutilations, Alex felt
none
of it. He was already gone."

She paused and watched me, waiting for a response, no doubt, or some indication that I'd heard her. I fought to regain my composure, and to let my breathing settle closer to a normal rate. The shaking diminished, but I still couldn't speak. I could only stare at her.

"It's true," she said. "As bad as it seems, it was completely painless. It
had
to be, because he would have died instantly."

I wiped the tears from my face, and took several deep breaths to regain control. A minute later, or two minutes, or a week, I pushed against the floor, and the chief helped me up.

Dr. Singer walked back to the table and began to pull the sheet over Alex.

"Please wait." I said it barely loud enough for anyone to hear. "I'm okay. Please, let me see Alex's face—just his face—one last time."

The doctor looked to the chief.

He peered into my eyes before turning to the doctor and nodding, and then produced a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.

I used it to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. "Thanks." I offered it back.

He shook his head and flicked his hand as if to say,
you keep that
, and said, "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." I shuffled to the table and looked down at Alex.

My heart weighed a thousand pounds, and my eyes pooled with fresh tears. My throat almost closed again as I whispered, "I love you, Hoopster."

I reached out and placed my hand on Alex's left cheek.
You're so cold.
I wanted to rub his cheeks, to make my baby brother warmer.

"I've always loved you, and I always will. I know you're in the best place now. Say 'Hi' to Mom for me, okay?"

I bowed my head and allowed the tears to flow freely, and stuttered the last words I would ever speak to the most important person in my life.

"You... always were... a goo— a good boy."

I turned and stalked toward the door without raising my head, determined to forever etch in my mind the memory of Alex's warm love—
not
his cold cheek.

***

Across the hall in the men's room, I stood at one of the sinks and turned on the water. I looked in the mirror, seeing only Alex on that ice-cold table, and ran for one of the stalls.

I emptied my stomach—once, twice, three times—and wiped the sweat from my face again. After spitting a dozen times in hopes of getting the foul taste out of my mouth, I flushed the toilet and left the stall.

I slunk back to the sink, where the water was still running, and cupped my hands to rinse my mouth a few times. I splashed water on my face and hair, and glanced at the mirror as I leaned on the sink. I couldn't face myself, so I stared down at the water swirling down the drain, and drifted into a fog.

After some unknown seconds or minutes, I splashed more water on my face, then stood up and looked to my left for a towel. Nothing. I looked to my right, and there stood an observer, just inside the door.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." Chief Radlon walked forward, snagged a couple paper towels out of a dispenser along the way, and handed them to me.

"Thanks. I'm sorry about losing it in there. And in here. I think I've managed to get myself together."

"You have nothing to apologize for. Take whatever time you need."

I managed a weak smile, and wiped the towels over my face and hands.

"You know," he said, "I thought you might actually have been involved in Alex's death, somehow. It was hard to imagine, but family members are the first likely suspects for a reason. Long history."

I shook my head and sighed. "I wondered about that. The way you looked at me earlier, while we were waiting for the elevator, and yesterday at the house too. I thought you looked kind of... strange. Suspicious."

"Well, after what I saw across the hall, and in here, I'm not suspicious anymore."

I didn't know how to respond.

"I mean, let's face it, nobody's
that
good an actor." He smiled.

I actually chuckled, as if a hundred pounds had rolled off my shoulders. "No, I guess not."

He patted me on the back and said, "Do you need more time?"

"No, it's okay. I'm ready to go." I pitched the wet towels into the trash. "We still have a lot to do over the next couple days but, geez! I have no idea where to begin."

"I'm sure your dad will know what to do."

Dad? Really? I don't know. Maybe.

The chief must have read my emotions. He appeared concerned, even angry. "And if you need any help at all, I'll be happy to do what I can for you. Don't hesitate to ask. Not for one second!"

He placed his hand on my shoulder, and kept it there for the entire walk back to the car. I felt suddenly smaller, crushed by the whole experience, but the chief's hand comforted me. It felt safe. Strong. Certain.

We exchanged awkward smiles, but said nothing more as we got in the police cruiser and pulled out of the county complex.