“Okay,” she replied as she tucked her belongings beneath the counter. Glancing at us, she smiled and said, “Good morning.”
“It’s been quiet so far,” Kingston told the receptionist as she vacated her chair. “But do me a favor and hold my calls for the next hour or so, okay?” She shot us a quick glance and added, “I have a feeling I’m going to be busy for a while.”
“No problem.”
Still clutching the latte, the doctor re-addressed herself to Ben as she snatched the pastry-filled bag from the countertop. Giving her head an animated nod toward the doorway where the receptionist had gone through to slip around behind the counter, she said, “Why don’t the three of you come back here and try to un-complicate this situation for me.” Holding up the bag while she turned, she added, “And fair warning. I’m eating this while I listen, and I don’t share my apple fritter with anybody.”
We were gathered in Doctor Kingston’s office with the door closed. She was seated behind her desk and, as promised, working very hard at making a portion of the huge pastry Ben had supplied to her disappear. Felicity and I were on the opposite side of the workspace, parked next to one another in a pair of moderately comfortable but still patently institutional-style chairs. Ben, on the other hand, was standing off to one side, in a not-quite-relaxed posture, with his back firmly against the wall so that he could see the entire room, including the door.
My friend had taken up his usual sentry-like position once the rest of us had settled in. He did this most everywhere, but I especially noticed it whenever he was at a morgue. I’d once asked him about the peculiar habit, and he had simply grinned and said, “Don’tcha ever watch zombie movies, white man?”
I knew the answer was intended as a joke; or at least, I assumed it was. Still, I suppose I couldn’t really blame him if it wasn’t. After all, his unofficial partner was a Witch who talks to the dead-or used to, anyway. In his mind, I doubt zombies were much of a stretch.
“All right, Detective Storm, let’s hear it,” Kingston said, focusing her attention squarely on him as she swiveled her chair his direction then leaned back with a piece of apple fritter between her fingers.
“Like I said,” Ben replied, executing a one-shouldered shrug in the process. “We just need ta’ have a look at the body.”
She nodded. “Okay. Why?”
“Part of the ongoing investigation.”
“Detective, I think we can all agree that’s fairly obvious. After all, it’s what we do,” she replied. “And before we waste any more time, you’ve already told me that it’s complicated, so let’s not go there again. How about something new and different that I don’t already know?”
Her demeanor was serious but didn’t seem particularly adversarial. At least things were starting off better than I’d seen them go during some of our visits with her city counterpart.
“Come on, Doc…” Ben groaned. “I’m just tryin’ ta’ do my job.”
“That makes two of us.”
“So let’s make it easy,” he said. “Give us ten minutes. Fifteen tops, and we’re outta your hair.”
“Look, Detective, the latte and fritter got you this far, but you’re going to have to work for the rest,” she explained. “Besides, I’m not saying no. I just want you to bring me up to speed before I allow the three of you to traipse around an autopsy suite. I don’t care if it’s only for sixty-seconds. My turf, my rules.”
“We just want ta’ check a coupl’a things against the stiff we have downtown,” Ben replied. “That’s all.”
“Before we’ve even started the post?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “See. It’s not a big deal.”
“If it’s not a big deal then it can wait for the preliminary autopsy report, correct?”
Ben muttered, “Aww, Jeez… Doc…”
“You’re going to have to try a little harder, Detective.”
“Well, technically the fact that I’m workin’ a case here should be enough, don’tcha think? It may be your turf, but I’m the one with the shield.”
“Oh, I have one too,” she replied. “Want to see it?”
Ben shook his head. “Yeah, I know. But mine says COP, not DOC.”
“That doesn’t really matter.”
“This investigation is being run by the MCS.”
“I understand that, but since you showed up unannounced, it makes me wonder exactly what’s going on.”
“Friggin’ wunnerful…”
“Well, how about this,” she offered. “What do you normally say to Doctor Sanders at the city M.E.’s office in order to get through the door with her?”
“Honestly?” my friend huffed. “I try not ta’ say anything ‘cause that just starts an argument. We usually sneak in when she’s at lunch and then end up gettin’ caught anyway.”
“Easier to apologize than to ask permission,” she observed.
“With her, pretty much.”
Doctor Kingston dipped her head and chuckled. “Well, at least you’re honest about that.”
“Yeah, well I figure she’s already told ya’ about it at some point, so lyin’ ain’t gonna help me any.”
“You really are a very good detective,” she joked.
“Okay, come on, Doc… Are we just wastin’ our time here or what? I can get my lieutenant on the phone if that’s what you’re needin’ for us ta’ make this happen.”
She tore off a small piece of the fritter then popped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Once she swallowed, she nodded as if agreeing with herself then looked up at him and said, “Okay, so tell me this…when do we get to the part where you tell me about the WitchCraft?”
Ben snorted and splayed out his hands in surrender then looked over at me. “All right, Row. I’m done. You’re on.”
Problem is, “on” was the last place I wanted to be.
CHAPTER 20
Usually, whenever I would find myself sitting in a morgue, I’d be in a much worse state than I was right now. The pain trying to claw its way out through the side of my skull would be so intense that I’d be wishing for a family-sized bottle of aspirin. And, the voices inside my head would be so loud that I’d want to wash every last one of those pills down with enough alcohol to send myself into a coma.
What’s worse, all of that torment would be happening before I had even come face to face with the corpse of the victim I was trying to help. It was all just part of the territory.
But today that simply wasn’t the case. For all intents and purposes, outwardly I was just fine. Of course, that determination really was dependent upon your particular point of view. I was certainly stressed, but for a change, the cause behind it was definitely grounded in the here and now, as opposed to the preternatural ether.
The simple fact was that, after all the years of inescapable chatter, the silence filling my head at this very moment was, to say the least, unnerving. Hearing the tortured souls of the dead had become my norm, so their glaring absence was an alien concept as far as I was concerned-especially here, in a place where they normally gathered as if they were attending a morbid party being thrown in their honor.
In a very real way, the unbreakable quiet had taken with it not only their voices but my own identity as well. I was no longer “The Witch” who helped the police. I was just some guy going through the motions and trying to pretend nothing had changed, when in fact, almost the exact opposite was true; nothing was the same. This minor personal epiphany made me realize that when Miranda had said she could make the voices stop, she had not been making an offer for the purpose of bribing or even baiting me; she had been issuing a clear and explicit threat.
And now, obviously, she was making good on it.
However, as bad as this oddly foreign experience seemed to be, it was actually the least of my tortures at the moment. The worst actually had an unseen manifestation, which took the form of a sinking hollowness in the pit of my stomach. But, unlike its ethereal cousins that normally plagued me under circumstances such as these, this one was of my own making. My rampant fear regarding the horrific vision Ariel had guided me through was now fueling my reservations about allowing Felicity to go forward with standing in for me as a conduit. If the added fuel wasn’t bad enough, explaining the process to Doctor Kingston was fanning the flames even more. And, quite simply, every last bit of it was starting to make me feel physically ill.