“You have a point there, Doc.”
Dr. Morse removed himself from his compromising position, the final extrication letting out a loud burst of air. From outside, Detective Knox could hear Lane once again fighting to keep his organs inside his chest. Dr. Morse peeled off his glove, lightly placing it atop the trash heap, and turned to face his guest.
“Where did your partner go?”
“He's not used to this sort of stuff, so he can catch up on it later. What did you call us down here for?”
“I have some news about your case, and I thought it was better you hear it in person.”
“You're either setting me up for great news, or horrible news. Which is it?”
“Actually, I'm not sure.”
“Let me have it.”
“I ran the blood sample you brought back from where George Hobbes had been taken. It's definitely his, but I noticed something weird about it.”
“Weird how?”
“There were traces of drugs in his system.”
“That's not uncommon. Drugging someone is the best way to take them without causing a scene.”
“Yes, but these weren't those kind of drugs. There were traces of a mild anesthetic in the sample, a kind that needs to be administered in a hospital setting. It's not something you can put on a rag and have someone breathe in.”
“So what does it mean?”
“I can't say. That's your job to figure out.”
“So now I have a victim who was murdered in a locked room after being abducted and loaded up with anesthetic. None of this makes a lick of sense.”
Dr. Morse pulled a new glove out of a box, teasing the length of latex. He pushed his hand inside, feeling a sense of satisfaction he dared not reveal. The glove snapped against his arm as he checked the fit.
“Isn't that always the way?”
Chapter 24
A Badge Of Honor
Detective Lane was crouched against the tiled wall, his head held against the cold mosaic, to provide resistance to the reversal his tract was threatening. Not normally squeamish, Lane was disappointed in himself as he shook and retched, feeling weak in more than one sense of the word. He dealt with death on a daily basis, and no matter how high the tally of bodies had piled, he had never before been bothered by the grim realities. An iron stomach was a point of pride among the force, a badge of honor that showed they had been through hellfire and lived to tell the tale, which made his condition all the more shameful. Lane could have lived with the insult to himself, but he knew word would soon spread throughout the station, and he would become a laughing stock.
Faint traces of sound came through the door, just enough for Detective Lane to grasp the tenor of the conversation he was supposed to be a part of. He heard neither an exclamation of enlightenment, nor a pained howl of frustrated intemperance, which told him the mystery they were exploring had only gotten more mysterious. The optimist in him knew that the bleaker the prospects of cracking the case looked, the more doubt that poured from the sky to try to wash them into the gutter with the killer they could not catch, the end result would be that much more satisfying.
He had faith that the world contained enough vestiges of justice that the solution would be revealed at the last moment, and their tenacity and persistence would be rewarded. By whom he did not know, but Lane felt it important to remain confident in their own abilities, even if he could sense Detective Knox was struggling to do the same. In his eyes, Detective Knox was that fabled character from the stories that got passed around amongst the beat cops, the infallible oracle who could pull suspects out of thin air. Such myths do not take root without having a degree of truth to them, and Lane was sure that enough magic remained for Detective Knox to pull one more rabbit from his hat.
Detective Lane did not turn his head as the door opened, preferring to pretend he was invisible. Detective Knox looked at him, shaking his head, not at his partner's physical condition, but the fragile mental state he had created for himself. Knox had, like everyone, suffered his share of setbacks and embarrassments. The measure of a man is how those are dealt with, and Lane was failing the test.
“Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”
“No, I don't think I've quite hit bottom yet.”
Knox took a few steps, until he stood directly in front of Lane. He snapped his fingers, and Lane lifted his head in preparation for the lashing he knew was coming, one he knew he deserved.
“I know you haven't. Trust me, I know what it looks like. But you can't beat yourself up because you couldn't handle seeing something Doc did. Everyone knows the guy's a bit nuts.”
“I should be able to handle it.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I can't say I've ever seen anything like that before either. But I have bad eyes, and I'm practically the living dead, so maybe I'm not the best gauge of how to properly respond to things.”
“It wasn't even that it was disgusting on that level. Gross is one thing, but this was disturbing at a more sub-textual level.”
“Fancy word. What do you mean by it?”
“It was like I was seeing my entire childhood destroyed in front of my eyes. I don't think I can ever look at or remember a puppet again without tasting vomit in my mouth.”
“You should be more upset that you have fond memories of puppets. Those things are creepy.”
“This isn't a discussion about my childhood.”
“I know it's not, but at least you don't look like a ghost anymore.”
Without realizing what had happened, Detective Lane had regained control. He was no longer trembling, his stomach had calmed, and the color had returned to his face. By separating his mind from the moment, Lane had been rebooted, and felt up to the challenge of standing. His legs were soft, but not weak, as he rose. As soon as his knees locked themselves straight, Detective Knox turned and began walking. Lane lurched into motion, following along.
“I think I gathered that we don't have any answers yet.”
“No, we don't. As if we didn't have enough to consider, now we have to figure out why George Hobbes would have been anesthetized. Doc says it couldn’t have been to aid the abduction, so I have no ideas.”
“That is unusual. We'll figure it out, though.”
“You keep saying that.”
“They say if you tell a lie enough times, it becomes the truth.”
“I tried that before, but no one thought I was a nice person.”
“That's because you weren't lying, you were dreaming.”
“Well, look who's feeling better.”
* * *
Detective Knox’s desk was his retreat, a place where he could lose himself in his thoughts without having to put up with the pesky creatures that were always popping up at inopportune times, standing in the way of his happiness. Horror movies often started from the conceit of being the last man on earth, a fact that kept Detective Knox from enjoying such cinematic masterpieces, because he could not understand why the situation was supposed to be unsettling. He knew his thoughts veered close to the line of complete misanthropy, but he did not consider himself such a person. So long as people left him alone, his attitude was one of apathy, not hatred.
People rarely held up their end of the bargain. No matter how clear Detective Knox made it that he would rather not take part in the day to day drudgery of society, he continually found himself dragged into that slog. People were, to him, an annoying game of real life whack-a-mole. As soon as he got rid of one, another would pop up and stop him from enjoying the sound of silence.
This thought came to mind as Detective Knox turned the corner and laid eyes upon his desk. He had given consideration to laying down a circle of salt, using black magic to inoculate his personal space from the mouth-breathing masses, but he worried that the stained, sticky floor was not clean enough for the dark arts. Even evil, he reasoned, was not slovenly enough to abide by such a pitiful level of hygiene.