The Absence of Mercy (23 page)

She sat up quickly then and kissed him, before she could lose her nerve. His body stiffened briefly in response, then relaxed. She could feel against her chest the measured rhythm of his heart, as if it were her own—and when he kissed her in return it was at once safe and thrilling and everything she had hoped it would be.

“Could you lie here with me?” she asked after they had kissed for a while, and he did, wrapping her in his arms like a child. And sometime later in the silence that followed, as the light filtering through the window tracked its way across the wall with the afternoon's passing, it occurred to Monica that she was still capable of opening her heart if she wanted to, that her thirst for life might someday be stronger than the sum of her fears, and that there were unexpected events on the horizon—a future far removed from the pain and suffering she had endured over these many months. She did not feel whole again, and maybe she never would. But it was a start—a beginning—and starting, she realized, was the hardest part.

“What d'ya think, Dr. S?” Nat called over from the next room. He was holding a human liver in his hands. It was gray and cirrhotic, shrunken from its normal size by a lifetime of heavy drinking. “How much ya figure it weighs?”

Ben looked through the doorway of his office. “I'd guess 875 grams.”

Nat shook his head. “Too high, Dr. S. This thing is pickled. I'm goin' with 680.”

“Well, weigh it and find out,” Ben advised, turning his attention back to the papers in front of him.

“Let's place a wager on it,” Nat suggested. “An extra two days of paid vacation for me this year.”

“You didn't use all your vacation time last year,” Ben reminded him.

“That's why I need an extra two days this year,” Nat said. “I thought that shit carried over.”

“Nope. Use it or lose it,” Ben told him. “You've got enough perks and benefits already.”

“
What
perks and benefits?” Nat wanted to know, the liver in his hands temporarily forgotten.

Ben slapped his pencil down on the desk, exasperated. Trying to get paperwork done with Nat in the other room was like trying to enjoy a romantic, candlelit dinner with a three-year-old at the table. “Are you gonna weigh that thing, or not?”

“Sure. Yeah. Don't get all crotchety on me, Dr. S.” Nat walked over to the scale and placed the item in the metal tray. He paused for a moment, allowing the needle to settle on a number. Ben picked up his pencil again and began to—

“
Oooh,
Dr. S. It's 692 grams. You were
way
off.”

“Fine, Nat,” he said, without looking up. “It's 692 grams. Are you happy now?”

“Definitely.”

The blank diagnosis box at the bottom of the form stared up at Ben, challenging him to come up with—

“You owe me another two days of vacation this year.”

That did it. Ben closed the folder on his desk, got up, and headed toward the front of the building.

“Where you goin', Dr. S?”

Ben didn't answer. He snatched his coat off of the rack, opened the front door, and headed out into the frigid afternoon. The trees were barren now, their thin limbs stretched like black veins toward the sky. Ben placed a hand on the rail before proceeding down the short flight of steps, recalling the thin, nearly invisible sheets of ice he'd spotted this morning in the parking lot. The wind tugged at the collar of his coat. He pulled the zipper up as far as it would go, hunching his shoulders to protect his neck and the lower half of his ears from the chill.

At the bottom of the CO's front steps, he turned right and made his way along the sidewalk. It was mid-December, and there was snow in the forecast—quite a bit of it, from the weatherman's predictions last night. Ben had noticed this morning that the sky had taken on that thick, bloated look. By early afternoon the flakes had begun to fall, and a good two inches already covered the sidewalk. It crunched beneath his boots as he ambled along. When he got home this evening, he'd have a driveway to clear.

Home. Ben felt his gut tighten momentarily. There'd been trouble between him and Susan lately, although he had difficulty placing his finger on exactly why. Tangentially, at least, it seemed related to the two attacks on the teenagers earlier this year. It had been a stressful time for both of them, and Ben realized that he'd probably made matters worse by being so closely involved in the investigation. It was a topic Susan didn't like to talk about, and any attempt to broach the subject usually ended up in an argument.

Three weeks ago they'd gotten into it again. It had become evident over the past month or two that Thomas's relationship with Monica Dressler had extended beyond simple friendship. They'd been spending increasing amounts of time together, and there was little doubt from their body language and the way that they looked at one another that they'd become romantically involved. To Ben, this seemed like a good thing for the both of them, but after dinner one night Susan had gotten on Thomas's case about it. He'd heard them arguing upstairs in the hallway and had gone up to intervene—a mistake, he realized in retrospect. Susan had snapped at him, telling him to stay out of it. After a brief exchange, he'd found himself standing alone in the upstairs hallway, wondering how in the hell
he
had ended up coming off as the bad guy.

He'd caught up to her in the kitchen.

“What was
that
all about?” he demanded, angered by her dismissiveness.

“I don't know,” she responded harshly. “Why don't you talk to
him
about it.”

“I'm talking to you,” Ben replied, refusing to be bullied.

Susan turned to face him. Her jaw was set in that manner she had when she decided to really dig her heels in about something. “I don't think he should be dating that girl.”

“Monica? Why?”

“
Why?
Because she's fragile, Ben.”

“Fragile?”

“Yes, fragile.” She put a hand on the countertop, the other on her left hip. “She's been through a lot—too much, really. I think he needs to leave her alone. One way or the other, he'll end up hurting her.”

Ben was dumbfounded. “He's been
helping
her,” he pointed out. “You don't see that?”

She looked back at him, tight-lipped. “No. I don't.”

Ben walked to the table and rested his palms on the top of a chair back. “You know what I think?” he started. Susan simply stared at him, waiting. “I think you don't like him dating her because it's a daily reminder of the assaults. Monica represents something”—he pointed a finger at her—“that
you're
having difficulty dealing with.”

“What are you, a shrink now?”

“This isn't Thomas's problem,” he told her. “It's yours.”

She studied him for a moment. “Well, you're right about that.”

Ben exhaled slowly through his mouth, trying to dissipate some of the anger. There was no use in them fighting about this. If she could just see—

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess you know just about everything.”

“Now wait a minute,” he protested, holding up a hand. “That's not fair.”

“No, Ben,” she'd replied, leaving the room. “It's not.”

It had been three weeks since then. The next day they'd made their apologies, sure, but things hadn't been the same between them. It was the little things, he realized. They no longer took time to discuss the events of their respective days, for example—focusing instead on coordinating their schedules around the activities of their jobs and children. Their conversations were more formal, less personal, and they'd begun treating one another with the sort of cool politeness reserved for houseguests who've overstayed their welcome. Ben couldn't help but wonder whether this was how it felt to embark on those first few steps down the twisting path toward divorce.

He stopped and looked up at the sky, a pregnant gray canopy lying low above the earth. The precipitation was coming down harder now, the heavy flakes catching in his lashes. Visibility was worsening, the sun already riding low on the horizon. He ought to close up the CO early today, make sure everyone got home before dark. The course of his walk had taken him on a winding loop through the park and an adjacent neighborhood, such that he was now back where he had started. He ascended the steps to the front of the building.

A small plastic bag, partially covered by the snow, leaned up against the door. He looked around, then stooped to pick it up, dusting off the powdery whiteness. In another hour, he realized, it would have been covered completely. They wouldn't have found it until the steps were shoveled the next morning. He opened the bag, peering inside, wondering what sort of—

“Oh my God,” he whispered, the plastic package slipping from his fingers, the blanched, lifeless content spilling out onto the snow. He turned and gripped the wrought iron rail beside him, his body bent at the waist as if he'd been kicked low in the midsection. He could feel his knees buckling, the bile rising high in his throat, the world going dim and distant around him.

Lying in the snow, the palm turned upward in an act of supplication, was what remained of a human hand.

“No fingerprint matches,” Detective Schroeder announced, returning his cell phone to the black leather case clipped to his belt. They were sitting in Sam's office at the station. Outside, the night had fallen, although the snow continued to plummet to the earth with unrelenting intensity. There was already two feet of accumulation on the ground, and the latest weather report was predicting an additional twelve to fifteen inches by morning.

Detective Hunt had been peering out the window. He turned around, his face grim. “It's gonna be a bitch trying to locate the body in this. Even if we knew where to look . . .”

“We'll search the vicinity around the Coroner's Office,” Sam said. “Given the manpower we have, it's the best we can do. Although I doubt we'll find anything,” he added.

Carl shook his head. “The specimen was transported to the front steps of the Coroner's Office from someplace else. Otherwise, why bother with the bag?”

Ben stood up from his chair and crossed the room restlessly, his fingers pressed to his forehead. A headache had formed behind his right eye, making him feel nauseous and light-headed. He'd dry-swallowed four tablets of ibuprofen thirty minutes ago, but couldn't say they'd made much of a difference. “What I want to know,” he said, “is why was it delivered to the CO?”

“Good question,” Carl remarked. “We were hoping
you
might shed some light on that one.”

“I have no idea,” Ben replied. “I wish I did.”

The sound of a snowplow could be heard on the street below. It was the only vehicle that had passed this way over the last hour.

“Maybe he was doing us a favor,” Nat suggested from the corner of the room, and all eyes turned to him.

“What do you mean?” Detective Hunt asked.

Ben's assistant shrugged. “It would've come to the CO eventually, along with the rest of the body. In a way, he saved me the trouble of transporting it.”

“You know anyone who might do that?” Carl asked, one eyebrow raised.

Nat thought this over for a moment. “Naah,” he said. “Not that I can think of.”

Danny turned to Ben. “The bag wasn't there when you left the CO for your walk.”

“That's right,” Ben confirmed. “It was sitting right up against the door when I returned. If it had been there when I left the building, I'm pretty sure I would've noticed it.”

“So someone watched you leave, knew you were coming back, and placed it there for you to find.”

“Or just happened to deliver it while I was out of the building,” Ben pointed out. “I doubt it was left there for me personally.”

“Why not?” Sam asked, leaning forward in his chair. “It seems pretty clear that it's a message.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “He's taunting us.”

“Us . . .” Sam placed his big hands on the desk in front of him. “Or
you,
Ben?”

“For Christ's sake,” Ben replied, working his right temple with the palm of his hand. The headache was worsening, despite the earlier dose of analgesic. “Why would he be taunting
me
? Just because I'm the one doing the autopsies?”

Sam's face was still, his eyes studying the surface of his desk. “I don't know,” he said. “But it's something to think about.” He looked up at the men gathered in front of him. “Well . . . I don't think there's anything more we can do tonight. Let's call it an evening, shall we?”

“I'll contact Agent Culver in the morning,” Carl told him.

Sam nodded. “That's fine. Let's get a few boys to shovel a hundred-foot radius around the Coroner's Office in the morning, and have the forensic team go over that area for anything useful. Ben,” he said as the others were filing out, “can I have a word with you?”

Ben looked surprised. “Sure,” he said, closing the door to the office when it was just the two of them.

Sam looked across the desk at him for a moment. “I have a question for you, Ben, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way—but how well do you know Nathan Banks?”

“Nat?” Ben asked incredulously. “Pretty damn well, Sam.”

“Mm-hmm,” the chief replied. He swiveled his chair to the right so that he could look out the window. “He's an interesting fellow, wouldn't you say?”

Ben laughed. “Interesting. Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Left-handed, is he?” Sam inquired, recalling the hand with which the boy had gripped the pen during his completion of the paperwork earlier that evening.

Ben's face lost its humor. “About ten percent of the population is.”