the Forgotten Man (2005) (4 page)

I put down the phone, then went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. The dead man had a head like a praying mantis and I had a head like a rutabaga. I didn't look anything like him. Nothing like him. Nothing.

I went down to my car and made my way to the morgue.

Chapter 4

Invisible Men F rederick Conrad, which was the name he now used, hustled through the trailer park toward his truck when Juanita Morse lurched from her double-wide like a brown recluse spider springing a trap.

"Frederick!"

She hooked his arm with a dried-out crone's hand, trapping him even though he was frantic to leave.

"Frederick, you were so nice last week when I was down with my legs, bringing my groceries like you did. Here, this is for you, a little something."

Frederick fell into character without missing a beat, hiding his fury with the lopsided Frederick Conrad grin everyone knew so well. He pressed the dollar back into her hands.

"Please, Juanita. You know better than that."

"Now you go on, Frederick, you were so nice to see after me like that."

So Frederick took the dollar, feigning appreciation, his furious rage arcing like downed power cables while his eyes remained calm. He wanted Payne to come home. He needed to find out what happened. He was terrified that Payne had confessed.

That traitorous prick, Payne. (Payne Keller being the name he now used.)

"You really don't have to, Miz Morse, but thank you. Is your leg better?"

"It still burns, but at least I'm not down. I put the heating pad on this morning and took the Tylenol."

Frederick patted her hand as if he gave a shit about every burning pulse in her withered body.

"Well, if you need anything else, you let me know."

Pat-pat. Smile. You hideous hag.

Finally rid of her, Frederick hurried to his truck, wanting to crush her nasty throat just to grind the bones. He fired up the Dodge, then slowly drove the two-point-six miles to Keller's gas station, Payne's Gas Car Care. Frederick was well known as the slowest driver in town.

He parked behind the service bays, hung the slow-witted grin on his face again like an Open For Business sign, and sauntered into the office.

"Hey, Elroy, I called three or four times this morning, but you didn't answer. You hear from Payne?"

Elroy Lewis was Payne's other full-time employee. He was a skinny man in his late forties with a roll of flab melting over his belt and yellow fingers from chaining Newport cigarettes. Lewis's dog, Coon, was sleeping in the middle of the floor. Coon, a lazy dog with bad hips, wagged his tail when he saw Frederick, but Frederick ignored him. Lewis put his elbows on the counter, and sulked.

"No, he didn't, and I gotta talk to you 'bout that. We got stuff to talk about."

Frederick stepped over the dog and made his way to Payne's office, doing a pretty good job of pretending everything was okay.

"Well, he called me last night, and said he was gonna give you a call. I guess he got busy with his sister."

"Goddamn, how long is it gonna take that bitch to die?"

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Elroy, sayin' something like that. She's his sister."

Payne Keller had disappeared eleven days ago without a word or note to anyone. When Payne turned up missing, Frederick fed Elroy a bullshit story about Payne's sister being T-boned by a drunk driver, but, truth was, Frederick had no idea. Payne's sudden disappearance terrified him. Payne could be anywhere and might say anything; Payne and his buddy, Jesus, confessing their sins.

I hope you're dead, you bastard. I hope your heart split open like a rotten grapefruit. I hope you put a gun to your head. I hope you're dead, and I hope to hell you didn't take me with you.

Frederick had decided to cover their tracks, and prepare for the worst. Elroy followed him into Payne's office.

"Well, I'm sorry about his sister, but it's goddamned rude, you ask me, him leaving without a word. The wife and I are going to her parents' next week. Payne knew I had that time off and said I could go."

Frederick rounded Payne's desk, took the keys from the top drawer, and flashed the big easy grin.

"Then go, Elroy. That's why Payne called last night, to ask if I'd cover for you. I said sure."

Elroy looked doubtful.

"You will?"

Frederick came back around the desk as a white Maxima pulled up to the self-service pumps. A teenage girl got out, looking confused by the pump. Frederick noted how Elroy stared at the girl.

"Heck, Elroy, I don't mind. You'd do it for me and we'd both do it for Payne. No problem."

Now Elroy looked guilty for being pissed off.

"Listen, when you talk to Payne again, tell him I wish the best for his sister."

"I'll tell him. You bet."

"I never knew Payne had a sister."

"You better see if that girl outside needs help. I gotta swing up by Payne's to feed his cats."

Elroy glanced at the girl again, and Frederick knew what he was thinking; the tight low-cut jeans, the cropped shirt showing a fine flat belly, the dangly thing in her navel.

Sure enough, Elroy said, "Yeah. I'd better get out there. C'mon, Coon."

Elroy nudged Coon to his feet as Frederick went back through the service bay to the storage shed in back of the station. He used Payne's keys to unlock the three padlocks and the steel security bar that kept the shed safe. He found the shovel and a two-gallon can Payne used to bring gas to stranded motorists, then searched behind the boxes of air filters, brake fluid, and Valvoline for the old Tri-Call vending machine Payne used to have out front for peanuts and Snickers. Payne and Frederick had better hiding places for their secret things, but Payne kept the shed to stash their goods.

Frederick checked to see that Elroy was busy with the girl. As if on command, Coon planted his face square into the girl's kibble. Elroy made a big deal of scolding the dog as the girl laughed, then grabbed Coon's face so he could sneak a cheap rub on the girl's privates. Frederick had seen Elroy run that trick a hundred times. Elroy trained his mutt to head straight for the cush bush, and Coon never let him down.

Frederick unlocked the vending machine, and fished out a leather case about three feet long. It was heavy, but the weight was comforting. He tucked the case under his arm, relocked the shed, then brought everything to his truck. Elroy was still pretending that he was trying to keep Coon off the girl's goodies, and here was the girl, red-faced and laughing, but not getting into her car. Frederick pumped two gallons of premium into the can (figuring the premium would burn hotter), loaded two cans of propane into his truck, then tooled away. Elroy never even glanced over to see.

A couple of miles along the road, Frederick pulled over and opened the case. A cut-down Remington 12-gauge pump gun was inside, already stoked with six rounds of number-four buck. Jammed in with the shotgun was a plain white envelope holding a thousand dollars in twenties and matching Illinois driver's licenses-both now out of date-but showing Frederick Conrad and Payne Keller with different names. Frederick jacked a shell into the chamber, tucked the shotgun under the front seat, then pulled back onto the road.

It crossed Frederick's mind to stomp on the accelerator and rip out of town, but that would be like waving a red neon flag. If Payne hadn't ratted him out, running would be a major mistake - their mutual disappearances would be obvious to even the dumbest cops. Frederick had to find out what happened to Payne, and he had to get rid of the evidence.

Payne's place was only another mile ahead, all by itself and hidden by trees so no one could see what they did.

Chapter 5

T he Department of Coroner was split between two modern cement buildings at the edge of the County-USC Medical Center , across the river from the main jail. The north building housed administrative offices for thirty-five or so coroner investigators, and the south building housed the labs. The medical examiners parked their vehicles at the front of the buildings, but the bodies were delivered at the rear. Probably so the patients at the Women's and Children's Hospital wouldn't see the stiffs. I parked across the street and met Diaz outside the main entrance. She had changed into jeans and a blazer, and was holding what looked like a gas mask with two purple cylinders jutting from its face.

I said, "What's that?"

"It's a particle filter. We have to wear them when we go down to the service floor with the bodies."

"Why do we have to wear something like that?"

"TB, SARS, Ebola - you wouldn't believe what these stiffs are carrying. This one's mine. We'll get something for you downstairs."

"Ebola?"

Ebola was the African virus that dissolved your cells so you melted into a puddle of goo.

Diaz shrugged as she turned away.

"They say wear it, I wear it. Let's get this done so I can get some sleep."

The receptionist gave us visitor passes, then we took the elevator down to the service floor. The smells of disinfectant and cavity blood hit me when the doors opened, and we stepped out into a lavender hall. An ultraviolet light burned high on one wall, and a bug zapper hissed as it cooked a fly. Germ control.

Diaz led me around the corner into another long hall where two steel gurneys were parked, each bearing a body wrapped in heavy translucent plastic. Red liquid pooled within the plastic.

"I thought we needed masks when we were with the bodies."

"You're not going to catch anything. Don't be a sissy."

I tried not to breathe.

The coroner investigator was a tall man with framed glasses and bushy hair named Dino Beckett. I had seen him at the crime scene, but didn't meet him until he emerged at the end of the hall and Diaz introduced us. He was wearing a cloth mask like doctors wear in an operating room, and handed a similar mask to me.

"Here, pull the elastic band over your ears and squeeze the metal strip across your nose."

I did like he said while Diaz pulled on her larger mask.

"How come her mask is bigger?"

"Her mask filters one hundred percent of the air, which is what you're required to wear if you go in the autopsy room like the homicide detectives. The mask we're wearing only filters ninety-five percent of the air."

"What about the other five percent?"

Diaz said, "Jesus Christ, Cole, don't think about it. Where is he, Dino?"

We followed him into a long narrow room where the air was cold. A rash of goose bumps sprouted over me, but not from the chill. Racks on the walls were stacked from the floor to the ceiling like bunks in a submarine, with each rack holding two bodies. The bodies were wrapped with murky plastic, but not so murky that you couldn't see nude bodies within. Feet poked through gaps in the plastic, some with tags wired to the big toe. I tried not to look, but bodies filled the wall.

Beckett said, "This is nothing. We have three rooms like this."

"Are all these people waiting to be autopsied?"

"Oh, no. Most of the bodies you see here are waiting to be claimed by their next of kin, or identified."

"You get many you can't identify?"

"We bag around three hundred John Does a year, but we put a name to most of them. Doesn't matter where they come from, either. We've had illegals from Mexico, Central America, even China, and we've run'm down. We'll name your guy, too."

Several pairs of feet were so translucent I could see a dim smudge of bones within the flesh. Beckett explained that some of the bodies had been on the racks so long the fluids had drained from the tissue; they had been waiting for years.

Beckett brought us past the racks to a gurney at the far end of the room.

"Okay, here we go. You'll need gloves if you want to touch something."

We gloved up, then Beckett peeled open the plastic. John Doe #05-1642 was naked, with a brown paper bag between his knees and a case file clipped to the gurney. The bag contained his bloodied clothes, which would be placed in a drying room before they were examined. Beckett removed the bag, then stood back.

Diaz said, "Jesus, Pardy was right. This guy thought he was the Illustrated Man."

Beckett grunted at the body like it was a lab specimen.

"Weird, huh? I've never seen one like this, the way he did it. All the tats are upside down."

Crucifixes of differing sizes and designs dotted his forearms and thighs and belly, all of them upside down. The tattoos were upside down because they were self-inflicted. They would have been right-side up as he looked at them when he pushed ink into his skin. Some of the crosses were brittle thin lines, but others were blocky structures with shading and shadows. Weeping Jesuses and upside-down words were spread between the crosses: PAIN, MERCY, GOD, FORGIVE ME. They looked like they had been drawn by a child. I felt queasy. These marks were not religious; he had desecrated himself.

When I glanced at Diaz, she was watching me again. I felt a bubble of irritation.

"What is it? You think I look like him?"

"You don't look anything like him. Do the tattoos ring a bell?"