Cause of Death Read online

  For some reason, they suddenly tasted bland to him.

  “He’s going to win, you know,” Screech said when his plate was finally clear.

  Drake sipped his coffee.

  “Who?”

  Screech hooked a chin toward the paper that dangled over the edge of the small table.

  “The lawyer. He’s going to become the next mayor.”

  Drake’s eyes darted to the image of Ken Smith, smiling a pearly-white smile, his hair so perfect that it was hard to imagine that is anything but fake.

  Everything about the man looked fake.

  “How do you know?”

  Screech scoffed.

  “You mean besides the ten-point lead?”

  Drake grunted.

  “Well, because he has the support of the police department, for one. And you probably know this better than most, but once a candidate has the support of the boys in blue, all the other dominoes will soon fall into place.”

  Drake’s eyes scanned the photograph, trying to figure out where Screech had gotten his information from.

  Is it common knowledge that Ken paid off the force? That Ken Smith had Sergeant Rhodes tucked so deep into his back pocket that he could smell the man’s farts even before they left his ass?

  He thought not—if anything, the NYPD liked to keep their inner workings to themselves. That is, unless a disgruntled and depressed detective decided to contact the Times about doing an exposé.

  The photograph in the newspaper depicted a smiling Ken Smith, standing outside the library that Thomas had inaugurated only a few days before his death.

  And there, at his side, was a man in a sport coat, his head turned back toward the building. The man was in profile, his face obscured by shadows, but Drake knew that Adam’s apple anywhere, he recognized the harsh outline, could imagine it bobbing up and down like a whack-a-mole with every swallow. It was a lump that he had stared at for years.

  It was Sergeant Rhodes.

  Drake’s eyes narrowed, and he turned back to face Screech, who was busy chomping on a slice of bacon that he had stolen from his tray.

  The real question, he realized, was how Screech knew that this man was Sergeant Rhodes.

  Chapter 11

  He worked silently, slowly removing the unconscious man’s clothes. The naked man was overweight, on the verge of morbidly obese, with pasty white skin and patches of dark hair that sporadically covered his chest and upper arms. Thankfully, he was already in the tub, for which the man wearing the black gloves was grateful.

  He doubted if he would have been able to get him in there on his own.

  Satisfied, the man leaned back and observed his victim, who was slumped in the cheap plastic tub, one fat arm overhanging the side, the other squished up against the tiled wall. His massive chest rose slowly, rhythmically, with every labored breath. His face was placid, his cheeks sagging. He observed the man, much as he had the others, for the briefest moment, watching and listening to the air wheeze out of his nose and mouth.

  The fat man in the tub shuddered slightly, and this set the man in the gloves in motion. He leaned forward and grabbed the victim’s pale hand. In it, he placed the large metal knife that he had taken from the kitchen. Then he wrapped his fingers over the other man’s, squeezing the pudgy digits around the handle.

  Without hesitation, he scraped the blade over the man’s right wrist, moving from the base of his palm halfway to his elbow. The knife left a gray line in its wake, which remained dormant for nearly a full second. And then the blood started to ebb out of the slit, a slow trickle that soon became a steady stream.

  The man stirred, and his eyelids fluttered. A moan left his mouth.

  Releasing the victim’s hand, he switched the knife to the other palm, and repeated the process on his left wrist. When this wound started to pump blood, the man suddenly awoke.

  “Wha—what’s happening?” he blubbered.

  Red streaks splashed the white tub and sprayed across the wall as he tried to force himself to a more erect seating position.

  It was no use; he was too fat, and he had already lost too much blood.

  For the briefest moment, their eyes met, and the man calmly crossed his gloved hands over his knee, once again observing the fat man.

  “Sleep well, my friend. Sleep well, knowing that you served a worthy cause,” he whispered as he watched the man die.

  Chapter 12

  Beckett fumbled to retrieve his phone from his pocket. It was a near-impossible task; his fingers suddenly felt swollen, his sure-handed surgical prowess abandoning him.

  He felt like a toddler trying to free his fingers from Chinese finger trap. Eventually, he managed to get his phone out, but now he had forgotten who he had intended to call.

  A hand came down on his shoulder, and Beckett yelped, jumping away.

  “Woah, Doc, you okay?”

  Beckett whipped his head around to look at one of the uniformed officers he recognized from downstairs. The man was squinting at him suspiciously.

  “We managed to finally get the girl out of the apartment—seems like she was a good friend of the deceased… claims it wasn’t suicide. Says that the man wouldn’t commit suicide, no way, no how,” he hesitated. “Was it? Was it suicide?”

  Beckett opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He simply stood there, trembling slightly, sweat forming on his forehead despite the cold air filtering up to him from the open door behind him.

  The officer reached forward and went to put a hand on his shoulder again.

  Beckett pulled back.

  “Don’t touch me,” he managed to croak. The officer stared for a moment, confusion and then hurt forming on his young face. “Sorry. I’m just not feeling so well all of a sudden.”

  The officer’s expression softened.

  “That’s alright. It’s the weather, I bet. You know, wet hair and cool air and all that.”

  Beckett resisted the urge to chastise the man, to call him an idiot. No one got sick from cold air.

  “Yeah, must be,” he said instead. Then, with a deep breath, he turned back to the hanged man.

  His name was Dr. Edison, Eddie, Larringer, and he was a student in Beckett’s forensic pathology class. In fact, it dawned on Beckett that Eddie was the one who had been missing from the exam earlier in the day.

  I guess this is as good a reason as any to miss a test, Beckett couldn’t help but think. And then he felt sick to his stomach. Of all the horrific homicide scenes he had attended, of which there had been many, he had never once come across the body of someone that he knew.

  “Well,” the officer said softly. “Was it suicide?”

  Beckett steeled himself and observed the body again, thinking about how Eddie had been slowing down as of late, his answers in class becoming more erratic. These were clear signs of stress, and his grades were suffering because of it. In fact, Beckett had already come to the conclusion that he would keep Eddie back a year, just to make sure that he was ready for the big leagues.

  And now… this.

  Looking up at Eddie, Beckett realized that there was something oddly familiar about the way he was hanging, about the way his eyes bulged and were surrounded by broken blood vessels.

  He swallowed hard.

  “Yeah,” he said in a dry voice. “It certainly looks like a suicide. Let’s bag his hands for evidence just in case and get him down, shall we?”

  Chapter 13

  Try as he might, Drake couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. And for some reason, he had the sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the young doctor, Eddie Larringer.

  After pancakes, he spent the rest of the day sipping on whiskey and watching the boring meanderings of Mrs. Armatridge and her husband, who, for the record, was confined to a wheelchair for ninety-percent of the day. This did little to help him ignore the nagging sensation in his gut.

  This one is different; it’s not the same person, not the same cr
ime. It’s been staged… he’s been murdered.

  Drake was sitting on the worn couch in his apartment, drink in hand, cell phone in the other. The TV was on in the background, but even if pressed he would’ve have had a hard time recounting what was on.

  And then there was the finger bone on the glass table, lying like an abandoned pile of salt.

  He watched as Mrs. Armatridge went to the kitchen, said something to herself, then reached for a large knife. The woman teased it from the block, and held it up to the light. In her reflection, Drake caught sight of a small smile she had on her weathered face.

  What’s she doing? he wondered, thankful for the distraction.

  A flicker of movement from the upper right quadrant caught his eye. The maid, a one Consuela Ortiz, was helping Mr. Armatridge rise out of bed. As she leaned forward, lowering her full breasts level with the man’s face, she helped swing his legs over the side of the bed. Except that wasn’t all she did; Drake could have sworn that he saw her small, tanned hand sweep over his lap.

  This in itself wouldn’t have seemed out of place—after all, she was helping the man into his wheelchair and incidental contact was to be expected—but it was her face that made Drake frown.

  A smile, one that was just wide enough to reveal a flash of white teeth, fleetingly appeared on Consuela’s young face.

  His eyes flicked to Mrs. Armatridge, who was curiously running her finger along the blade of the knife as if testing the sharpness of the edge.

  Drake took a sip of his drink and shook his head, silently admonishing himself for such morbid thoughts.

  That’s all in the past, Drake. This isn’t a murder scene—you’re done with those. You’ve moved on. Get a grip.

  And then an idea struck him.

  I should go out. Go to a bar. Meet someone. A woman, perhaps.

  His eyes flicked to the bone on the desk, and for the first time since Ivan had placed the envelope on the table at Patty’s Diner, he didn’t feel the accompanying pang of guilt in its presence.

  Drake shut off his phone, and put it on the table beside the bone and then stood. Stretching his back, he sighed, then made his way to his bedroom.

  Yes, he thought with something akin to pleasure, I should go out.

  He grabbed a clean V-neck t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans from the top drawer of his dresser and put them on.

  Then, with a smile, he made his way to the front door, not even casting so much as a sidelong glance at his past life.

  ***

  Barney’s was a local pub adorned by stained glass windows out front and a long bar that stretched the length of the pub, crafted from what had once been a massive piece of driftwood, inside. There were more taps standing at attention above the bar than there were kegs, but there were still enough kegs to satisfy even those with very specific malted barley tastes. The bartender was a friendly man who had a decade on Drake—pushing closer to fifty than forty—with a severe look, but an air that suggested approachability.

  Or at least, that was what Barney’s had been three or four years ago when Drake and Clay had spent the occasional lazy afternoon inside its doors.

  Now, however, Barney’s was a completely different animal. For one, the massive wooden door had been replaced by two large gentlemen wearing black t-shirts that were two-sizes too small. In fact, there didn’t appear to be an actual door at all. Behind these two men, Drake could see that the massive bar had been replaced by something sleek and black, and the worn leather booths Drake had become accustomed to had been usurped by waist-high tables made of some sort of reflective material. Barney’s interior was dim, but as he squinted into the darkness, it was suddenly punctuated by bright flashes of light.

  Drake knew that he was grimacing, but couldn’t seem to scrape the expression from his face.

  Barney’s had gone from a majestic lion to some sort of autistic neon leopard.

  Still, despite his apprehension, Drake took a step forward. As he did, the bouncers moved closer to each other, blocking the open doorway.

  “Fuck this,” Drake grumbled and turned, intent on heading back to his car and getting the hell away from this electric eyesore.

  But a voice from within, which somehow managed to pierce the dull thud of dance music, hollered his name.

  “Drake? That you? Jesus fucking Christ! Get your ass in here!”

  Drake turned back and squinted hard, and as he did, the strobe lights flashed, and he caught sight of the bartender, of the man he knew as Mickey Roots. His severe expression was gone, and his narrow faced seemed to have filled out slightly, aided by the presence of a thick gray mustache.

  “Hey Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, let him in! Let Drake in!” Mickey shouted, waving an arm dramatically.

  The bouncer’s faces twisted into matching scowls, but they wordlessly parted to allow him passage.

  And yet Drake hesitated. Part of him thought that this bar had become some sort of portal that would transport him to another dimension.

  This wasn’t him.

  He was the old Barney, this was… this was like a title of an early Tom Wolfe novel.

  But why was he clinging to the old Barney? The old Barney meant staying at home, staring at his cell phone, at the finger bone, thinking of Clay and Chase and times long past.

  “Fuck this,” he repeated, only this time, it felt good to say the words. Holding his head high for the first time in what felt like forever, he moved toward the open door. As he passed the bouncers, he said, “Why thank you, Tweedle-gentlemen.”

  Chapter 14

  Beckett stumbled into his NYU office, breathing heavily. The image of Eddie’s face, eyes bulging, foam at the corners of his mouth, was etched on his retinas, embossed on his mind.

  He was so distraught that at first, he didn’t notice that Suzan was still sitting at his desk.

  “Dr. Campbell?” she said softly, making him jump. He wiped the sweat from his brow and then brought his hand in front of his face, confused and worried that it was still trembling. “You alright? You don’t look so well.”

  Beckett stared at her for a moment, unable to prevent himself from seeing her eyes widen, her tongue turn purple and swollen and hang from her heart-shaped mouth.

  A shudder ran up his spine, and he had to physically shake his head to regain control of himself.

  “I’m fine,” he said, then bit the inside of his lip. “I’m not, actually. Hey, are you done correcting the exams?”

  Suzan frowned.

  “On the last one,” she informed him. “But I really think that you should go over them just in case. Some of the answers…”

  Beckett waved a hand dismissively.

  “Don’t care about the answers. Did you come across the exam for Eddie Larringer?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

  Suzan looked down and flipped through the stack of exams.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Beckett felt his heart flutter in his chest.

  “Did he skip the test?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. He began to think a little more about the events of the day, trying to piece together why things felt so strange, when this foreboding sensation initially began.

  Was it when at the cafe this morning, getting his usual coffee when the woman with the piercing blue eyes had bumped into him, spilling her latte on her cream-colored blouse? When she’d cursed him as if he had done something wrong?

  No, that wasn’t it. That was a usual occurrence for New York.

  Well then, what?

  “Beckett? Do you want me to go? To let you sit? You still don’t look well.”

  “No,” he grumbled. “Just keep grading, please.”

  And then it hit him. The strange feeling had come over him when the PowerPoint images had started cycling.

  It was the image of the man who had died from positional asphyxia that had set him on this course.

  Beckett snapped his fingers, causing Suzan to startle.

  Yes! That’s it, th
e sweater was different!

  “Beckett?”

  Beckett walked over to her side of his desk.

  “Scooch,” he said, and she slid her chair to one side. Beckett reached down and opened the door to his desk.

  Two days ago, someone had left a folder with images from the exam on his desk. At the time, he thought it was the Dean of Medicine, but he had been so busy he hadn’t bothered to follow-up on it.

  Only now, it wasn’t there.

  He rubbed his chin and squinted at the myriad of branded pens, stress balls, and USB drives adorned with one pharmaceutical name or another.

  “Suze, can you pull up the images from the exam on the computer?”

  Suzan nodded and started punching away at his computer. He had left it open and it didn’t require a password… against school policy, of course, but he didn’t much care for policy.

  He cared about solving problems, mysteries, and for some reason, despite the obvious signs that Eddie had committed suicide, he was beginning to think that there was something deeper going on here.

  Something insidious.

  The PowerPoint started running and Beckett stared closely at the image on the screen. As expected, it depicted the man bent over on his own neck. The man in the striped sweater.

  It is different, he concluded, remembering how the stripes had been vertical in the image that had been left on his desk, while these ran horizontally.

  The image flicked over to the next image, this time of a hanged man. Suzan accidentally clicked the mouse and the next slide appeared, showing an obese man in a bathtub, his wrists slit.

  “Wait! Go back!”

  Suzan clicked again, and Beckett felt his blood run cold.

  “No,” he moaned, and for the second time this day, the second time in as long as he could remember, Beckett felt fear course through him.

  This image was of a man hanging from the ceiling, a drop ceiling tile removed, one end of a faded rope wrapped around a water pipe, the other around his neck.