Donovan inspected some open books on the desk. “Scorpions?”
“Some light reading for the trip.” The priest busied himself finding more volumes. “What are you and Joann up to this holiday weekend?”
“Tomorrow we’re taking my motorcycle upstate to a bed and breakfast.” Donovan moved a coffee table book and saw something underneath it. “What’s this?”
The priest picked it up and brushed the frame off with his palm. He smiled. “This is actually why I wanted you to meet me here. It’s for you.” He handed it Donovan. Under the glass was a copy of his master’s thesis. “It’s one of the best I’ve ever read.”
“Where did you—?”
“I made copies to submit to the university for your degree. This is the original.”
The title page faced him. Donovan remembered the night he’d printed it on his computer, the culmination of countless hours of reading, research and writing:
DESIRE OR DESTINY?
Free Will Versus Predestination In
The Faustus Legend
“Yeah, it came out pretty well, I guess.” He was so touched he was embarrassed. “Thank you. For everything.”
“This is quite an achievement.” The priest embraced him in a bear hug. “Enjoy yourself this weekend, and this summer. This fall you’re in for a whole new experience. A doctorate requires a tremendous amount of energy.”
“I’ll be ready.” Donovan didn’t want to think about going for his PhD. Instead, he gestured at the books. “Scorpion mythology is pretty heavy reading for a plane ride.”
“It’s for something pretty heavy.”
“Really?”
“I would presume so.” Father Carroll returned to the bookcase and selected another book. “I was asked to research this by the police.”
“I remember something about scorpions in the news about a week ago. The guy killed in the hotel. Is this connected to that?”
“It seems logical, but I couldn’t say for sure. All I was asked for was some background on scorpions and their meaning in mythology.”
“Need any help?”
The priest glanced up at his tone. He read Donovan’s face and said, “Donovan, you are the best student I’ve ever had, and I welcome your input, as always. I believe, however, God has for you a destiny in life greater than ‘research assistant.’”
“It’ll lighten your carry-on bag.”
“This field is rarely about personal comfort.” He continued to gaze at the bookshelf, but Donovan recognized him weighing options. He’d seen Father Carroll do this in class, but this time he seemed more…intense? “I suppose I could make a few calls before my flight leaves, to make certain it’s acceptable. If you really want to…?”
“Research scorpions? No problem.”
“You’re certain this won’t interfere with your plans?”
“Not in the slightest,” Donovan assured him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“All right, then.” Father Carroll began to gather some of the books into a stack. He glanced up. “Why are you smiling?”
“Are you kidding? I tend bar for a living. Helping a police investigation beats the hell out of pouring mojitos in midtown.”
***
Later that night, with Joann stretched out across her king-sized bed fast asleep, Donovan went out to the living room of her Brooklyn Heights loft. All the excitement of finishing his Master’s, the overwhelming relief, left him both euphoric and drained.
And now…what?
He stood naked and inspected his body in the mirror of a night-black window. He’d never achieved the chiseled, zero-percent body fat look of a gym rat, but he never worried when he rode the subway either. He knew he could take care of himself. That, however, wasn’t the issue, at least not in a physical sense.
“What would you interpret my manner to mean?” Your meaning has been clear to me for a long time, Conrad.
He considered Joann’s father’s words in a more charitable light.
Of course he’s skeptical. He and The Colonel were practically separated at birth. Talking to one is like talking to the other. They’re men of action. An academic job doesn’t impress either of them.
The final words of the commencement came to him:
“Enjoy this moment, but use it.”
His lips curled up.
Okay, I will; professionally, I’m helping a police investigation. Personally…
When he considered what he really wanted, the answer was actually a question:
I wonder if she’ll marry me?
The thought made him smile all the way back to bed. Quietly he lifted the thousand count sheet and spooned behind Joann, but before sleep came, one final question occurred to him:
Why would the police need to know about scorpions?
TWO
WHERE DEATH DELIGHTS TO HELP THE LIVING
W
hen Joann went work the next morning, Donovan returned to his apartment on West 48
th
Street to do Father Carroll’s research. It was difficult to maintain his focus; the idea of proposing marriage was so big he found himself daydreaming about their life together. He liked what he saw. The books remained untouched until, with some reluctance, he put the idyllic images away and got to work.
The priest had offered no guidelines regarding pantheon or creed, asking only for information on the religious and mythological significance of scorpions. Donovan worked through the morning into mid-afternoon, and around three he paused to run out to a local cheesesteak place. He was satisfied with the amount of information he’d accumulated—scorpions and their images exist in nearly every major culture in history—but troubled he had no idea how to present his data to the police.
As he ate, he debated how to approach the problem. Should he focus on Egypt, on Isis and Selket? The Scorpion Man of the Gilgamesh epic? Maybe he ought to explore the alchemical process of evolution, lowest to highest, scorpion to eagle via the
serpens mercurialis
? Or examine Sadrafa, the half-scorpion, half-serpent god who predated Mithras in ancient Iran? Dorje Drollo of Tibetan Buddhism? The way scorpions represented the treachery of Jews to medieval Christians? All of it? Unlike any paper he’d written for school, this “assignment” had no context that might help draw conclusions. He wanted to do Father Carroll proud, which meant figuring out what the police wanted and giving it to them.
But how?
Wadding up his cheesesteak wrapper, he went to the loft kitchen above his living room. A bundle of
NY Post
s sat next to the garbage can, and he went through them until he found:
BUGGED!
MAN STUNG TO DEATH
A close-up of a scorpion, alien and threatening, dominated the page. He skimmed the story and saw it was pretty much as he’d remembered: a man had been found dead in a midtown hotel bathroom, victim of scorpion stings. In an incredible sequence of events, the woman in the room next to him had just flown in from Nevada, and the scorpions had apparently come along in her luggage, gotten free, and caught him unaware.
Or not.
If this was just a bizarre accident, the cops probably wouldn’t be asking about religious and magical significance of scorpions.
In the story was a quote from an NYPD detective sergeant named Fullam. If this
was
the case that needed the research, he would have been the one who contacted Father Carroll.
I wonder if his name will open any doors?
***
“Mister Denschler was extremely unlucky to have been in such the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Doctor Pommeru. “Of the thirty species of scorpions native to the United States, only the Arizona bark scorpion is capable of causing a lethal reaction in humans. Those are what killed him.”
Fullam’s name had opened the door to an appointment with Doctor Shad Pommeru, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy. He was a thin, frail man with a habit of nodding his head, birdlike, every few seconds. He and Donovan were on a small elevator, descending from the main floor of the medical examiner’s building to the morgue in the basement.
The doors opened, and they stepped out into a small, well-lit area with offices opposite and to their left. A faint odor of spoiled meat permeated everything. Double doors to their left led to the street-access ramp. A water-stained wedge of wood propped one open to let in a spring breeze. It didn’t help. A pair of men in security guard uniforms nodded to them. Silence cocooned the scene.
“The freezer is around this way,” Pommeru said, taking the lead. “I prepared the body after I spoke to Sergeant Fullam. He asked me to give you my complete cooperation, and so I shall.”
“Thank you.”
He did?
“I don’t think this will take too long.”
Pommeru nodded and pulled the stainless steel door open. A fresh gust of spoiled meat wafted out. Donovan stepped to one side, trying not to think about the cheesesteak he’d eaten as the doctor wheeled out a sheet-covered gurney.
“Arizona bark scorpions do not deliver all of their venom in one sting,” Pommeru said, “The envenomation creates pain and swelling, like a bee sting, but would not normally be fatal. An amount of poison this large, however, left him no chance of survival.” He paused before lifting the sheet. “Did Sergeant Fullam explain entirely the condition of the body?” Donovan shook his head. “Ah. Well. Be prepared.”
Donovan hadn’t given much thought to whether he’d be able to deal; in truth, he’d never seen a body that hadn’t been embalmed and lovingly prepared for a funeral. “Okay.”
Pommeru pulled the sheet aside.
The corpse looked lumpy, misshapen, like a human-shaped bag filled with water balloons. Tiny stab wounds pocked Denschler’s skin, each a dark entry point atop a bump. The bumps had swollen to different sizes, turning his body into a topographical map on which the scorpions had climbed. Lines in his face suggested an expression of abject terror even two weeks after the event. “Oh.” Donovan breathed slowly. “I see.” Most startling was a gaping burgundy gash between his legs. His genitals were missing, and the wound had crusted over like dry aged meat. Donovan looked away.
“What happened to his—?”
“The Arizona bark scorpion is carnivorous.” The doctor consulted some papers on a clipboard. “Official cause of death is a combination of cardiac arrest and respiratory failure, induced by the introduction of thirty-four separate doses of scorpion venom. Tissue analysis indicates he was still alive while the genitals were, ah, consumed.” He offered the clipboard. “Is there anything else in particular you need to know?”
Jesus.
Donovan stared at the body, trying to store the image even as his natural revulsion resisted. With a sense of relief, he accepted and scanned the clipboard. There was a lot of jargon he didn’t quite understand. “I can’t think of anything right off. Could I have a copy of this?”
“Take that; I have the original.”
“Thank you.” He watched Pommeru cover the body, and suddenly felt a coward for his squeamishness. “Let me give you a hand.”
Pommeru nodded, hauled open the door and grabbed the gurney’s front. He led Donovan to the freezer’s left rear wall. The smell of spoilage in here was much stronger. He bumped another gurney as he adjusted his end, and a movement startled him. The body on that gurney was covered by a sheet up to its chin, with a wooden shaft sticking out of one eye socket. When Donovan jostled the gurney, the shaft had wiggled. He continued to not think about the cheesesteak as he stepped back out and suppressed a shudder.
“If you have any other questions,” the doctor handed Donovan a business card. “If I am not here, you may call my cell phone.” He gestured back towards the way they’d come. “Please excuse me if I don’t see you out, but I have some work to do.”
“No problem. Thank you again for your time.”
Donovan rode the elevator back up to the building lobby and collected his motorcycle helmet from the security guard at the lobby front desk. On the wall behind the desk was the motto of the Office of the Medical Examiner:
Taceant Colloquia Effugiat Risus Hic Locus Est Ubi
Mors Gaudet Succurrere Vitae
The guard had already provided him with the translation:
“Let conversation cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where
death delights to help the living.”
Donovan pushed the lobby doors open and went out to First Avenue, eager to clear the smell of the morgue from his nostrils.
Ate his balls; Jesus!
His mind churned as he walked slowly towards the Vulcan.
If this all happened the way the paper said, involving Father Carroll doesn’t make sense. So the cops must think the scorpions were used as a weapon to murder this guy Denschler. By whom? And why? And did the scorpions really
eat his balls
—gah!—or did something else happen? Did someone take them for some reason? Maybe that’s what Fullam wants to find out. Maybe a sexual angle is where I should approach from. Scorpions? Gelding the victim? There can’t
not
be a connection.
He swung his leg over the motorcycle and sat. Donovan’s current bike was a Kawasaki 900 Vulcan, midnight-metallic blue with gray and white trim around the gas tank and side panels. Chopper-style without any exaggerated features, it had a curved black leather seat, slightly elevated handlebars and a profile lean enough to allow him to ride between traffic.
The image of the wound, dried out and blood-crusted, made him cringe.
Pommeru said he was alive when it happened. And he could see it, too, unlike that guy with the arrow in his eye—
He sat upright on the bike.
Arrow. Scorpion. Genitals…
A pattern started to appear. He frowned, considering it for a moment, then slipped his helmet on and started the Vulcan. Rather than head back uptown, though, he circled the block and parked at the top of the morgue’s street ramp.
He left his helmet on the bike and went back down the ramp and through the swinging doors. The guard office was empty. “Doctor Pommeru? It’s Donovan Graham.” He jogged down the hall and around to the freezer door. “I wanted to take a look—”
The freezer door slammed open. Donovan saw a flash of white—the doctor’s coat—as the little man flew out at him. They collided and bounced into the opposite wall. Donovan’s head cracked into the tile. He saw stars. Pommeru looked past Donovan’s shoulder, eyes widening. Donovan started to turn. A gurney shot like a cannonball from the freezer, crashing into the wall. The body on it flopped off, landing on top of Donovan. Donovan gasped and thrust it away. Someone big—someone
huge
—stormed out. Dressed in a ragged black suit, he was roaring and violent and Donovan only caught a glimpse of his face before the giant snatched two handfuls of his leather jacket. With no effort he raised Donovan’s body off the ground. Donovan kicked his steel-toed boot at the giant’s kneecap. The giant grunted and dropped him. Donovan launched himself at the enormous midsection. He plowed his shoulder into the giant’s stomach, drawing a “whoosh” of breath fouler than the smell of corpses, and followed it with two hard punches. The giant stumbled, then swung clumsily. Donovan ducked under the blow and charged again, bulling the giant back towards the open freezer. The giant pounded an arm down on his back. It felt like a telephone pole hitting him, and Donovan dropped like he’d been shot. He rolled over and shoved the gurney. The metal table clanged into the giant. Donovan seized Pommeru’s coat and dragged him away.