Inanimate (36 page)

Matthews Bizet’s house was small, the
lawn unkempt. It was a wonder he managed to convince any woman to
come here at all.

“
So much for the quiet
approach”
Graham said to Murdoch quietly. On the fourth kick the door
swung open wide, slamming off the interior wall. Oates moved in
cautiously, it felt unusual to have his gun aimed so low as
standard but it was necessary for the situation. The two detectives
followed him in as well with Graham going first as per the norm in
their partnership. MacNamee watched from the stoop as the three men
communicated non-verbally, fanning out to cover as much ground as
possible while still watching each other’s back. He thought it
quite impressive that despite the fact these three men had never
worked together, they were able to co-ordinate their movements with
nothing but simple gestures. Graham and Murdoch together were a
very successful partnership. It was accepted between the two that
while Graham was quicker to react to scenarios Murdoch was the most
observant. By standing back behind his partner Murdoch would watch
for potential dangers and communicate them to his partner by
momentarily taking his thumb off of his poised weapon to click his
fingers. This immediately told Graham to halt as a potential danger
was near. In fact, by developing this system over time, these two
were not only very skilled at securing large areas but they were
(right now) incredibly adept at covering Sheriff Oates. Oates
rounded the corner into the hall, noticing the floor here was dark
with blood seeping from the closed bathroom door. With a light
whistle he signaled the other two cops, as if any perpetrator in
the house wouldn’t find a birdcall strange. Graham moved towards
Oates. Murdoch moved with his back to the wall, covering the rears
of his counterparts. Moving softly through the blood, Oates pushed
open the bathroom door and saw the terrible sight beneath his eyes;
the once beautiful hacked up remains lay taped to the floor. With
his gun-free hand he covered his mouth; his gag reflex had long
since retired but the smell of blood always unsettle him. With his
head he gestured to Graham to move past him while Murdoch moved
towards Oates to cover. MacNamee stood alone outside; the heat
drizzled around him, mixed with windy wisps in the southern air. It
was then that he heard it. That same voice he heard in Connor’s
room, calling out for him.

“
MacNamee” it
hissed.

He
turned around to see Dummy, in broad
daylight, watching him from beside a tree on the other side of the
lawn. Raising a hand, Dummy slowly waved, grinning at
him.

“
Sh...Sheriff!” he
stammered.

His first call for help was so quiet so
he forced himself to be louder.

“
Sheriff!”

Dummy
disappeared behind a hedge just as
Oates ran out.

“
What
is it doc?”

“
The dummy, I saw him over
there
!”

MacNamee
pointed towards the tree. With only a
slight hesitation Oates bounded across the lawn only to find
nothing.

“
It’s gone doc!” Oates
said as he headed
back towards him.

MacNamee
jumped with fright as the two
detectives came out the door.

“
House
is empty Sheriff,” said Murdoch. “Did
you see anything?”

Oates
shook his head.

“
No,
it’s gone. I’ll call the boys to come
clean this mess up. I’ll need to wait here to talk to them, you two
go down on Earl’s bar, it’s on the main street, easy to
find.”

“
Who
are we looking for?” asked
Graham.

“
Billy
the bartender and Brian Bichel; they
should be the easiest to find right now. If Brian isn’t at the bar
I’ll get in touch with Matthew, he’ll know where to find
him.”

“
Ok Sheriff”
acknowledged Murdoch, and the
two men headed to the car in search of names from the
list.

Across town Jacobs and Matthew
pull
ed into
the morgue parking lot.

“
I think I’ll just wait in the
car”
said
Matthew nervously.

“
Why?” Jacobs
asked.

“
I just don’t like morgues
that’s all.”

“
Son, no-one
liked morgues, there’s nothing
to like about them.”

Matthew couldn’t understand why
Jacobs kept calling him son, there could only
have been ten years of an age
difference between them.

“
Even so, I’m gonna wait
here.”

“
No. Sorry, but I can’t let you
do that, not with these things on the loose. Come on, man
up.”

Reluctantly Matthew
agreed. Entering the
small building first Jacobs stopped in front of a homely young
receptionist.

“
Good afternoon. I’m Sergeant
Jacobs; I’m here to see Ralph Murray.”

The girl sighed and looked up. Right
away Jacob’s could tell she was not a pleasant girl. Thanks to her
drooping, uninterested stare, he did not even have to call upon his
fabled cop-gut instinct for this judgment either. The fact was
pretty apparent to anyone who met her.

“
He’ll be in the examination
room, just down the hall there
.”

Matthew walked in just after the girl
spoke and he immediately dropped his head to the floor. He had
slept with her only a couple of weeks back and had quite abruptly
asked her to leave the next morning. She did so but she wasn’t very
happy about it at all. Matthew had ran into girls he had slept with
before, after all, the town was not that big but he had never been
forced to be in such close proximity to one that left him on bad
terms until now. Luckily for him she didn’t notice him standing
behind Jacobs.

“
It’s funny” Jacobs
said before he
headed down the hall, “The Sheriff’s office called earlier and no
one answered.”

“
That’s no surprise, it’s usually
only me who
answers the phone around here and I’ve got to took a break
sometime…even against Mr. Murray’s better advice.”

The young lady’s voice was tinged with
bitterness. Jacobs ignored her griping; knowing that had he been
the girl’s employer he would have already fired her.

“
Oh ok, just down the hall
you said?”

“
Yes, straight to the end
there
.”

S
he pointed down the corridor.

“
Thanks
,” Jacobs said forcing a
smile.

Matthew
pretended he was rubbing his face as
he walked past her in an effort to remain incognito. Matthew walked
with Jacobs; the truth of why he didn’t want to come in started to
flicker into his mind.

He was thirteen when he first came here
right after his father was killed in a car accident. His mother had
to come in to identify the body while he waited in the hallway. He
remembered thinking how lifeless the place seemed; not only in
reference to the corpses it housed but the color scheme of
everything was just so depressing to him. The walls, the floor, the
doors, even the lightshades were painted in one single
unimaginative color. He vividly recalled, “mental redecorating” as
he called it. He would focus his gaze on a particularly drab part
of the hall, really staring at it. Gradually he would start to add
some color to it, even some plants and pictures. This was his way
of taking the focus off the fact his dad may have been lying dead
in the room next to him. The reason he started doing this was,
ironically enough because of the windows. Windows that were
normally designed to add brightness or color to an area were being
used on the doors that separated sections of the hallway. All you
saw when you looked through the windows was another hallway,
painted equally as drab as the last. The room that Jacobs was about
to go in to was the one that housed his father’s body and, although
he found it strange, he actually liked this room. Filled with
surgical apparatus, the floor was a spotless white and almost
everything else was shiny stainless steel. Just like how bright
yellow stood out on pitch black, this room shone, sticking a finger
up to the rest of the drab dingy building. Jacobs opened the door
to this room (the examination room) and, although the lights were
off, the small light that filtered in from the corridor seemed to
reflect off every shiny surface in the room, giving the illusion it
was brighter than it actually was. Jacobs stepped in with Matthew
following more cautiously behind. He knew the only way he could
feel remotely comfortable in her was with more light. Matthew
groped around in the dimness trying to find a switch. When he did,
the soft hum let them both know the lights were coming
on.

“
Hello?
Doctor Murray?”

Jacobs called out even though he knew
it was stupid. The doctor was unlikely to be standing in the dark,
but calling out was standard practice.

“
Wait here.”

Jacobs said much to Matthew’s
shock. Matthew did not want to tell Jacobs why he didn’t want to be
in the
room;
instead he tried to appear tough.

“
No problem.”

Jacobs
turned and walked down the corridor;
leaving Matthew alone. In the quiet, only a leaking faucet could be
heard. The timing of the dripping was not uniformed however,
suggesting that the faucet was not broken. It was more likely
someone had turned the tap off recently but there were still a few
drips left to fall. Matthew did not think of this however, in fact
he did not even hear the dripping; he was lost in the room. The
sterile atmosphere had triggered images in his head. Flashing like
little lightning bolts, memories shot into him. He recalled, as a
boy peering through these glass doors, watching Ralph Murray
introduce his mother to the freezer where his father was being
stored. Although her body blocked his vision, he was able to watch
her shake and then weep uncontrollably as his father was unveiled
to her. No stranger to misery, Murray consoled her a little before
rolling the body back into the freezer in the wall, and closing the
steel door behind it. Matthew loathed the fact people were cut up
and put in the cooler like leftovers once they were
dead.

“
You did that with leftover
turkey on Thanksgiving”
he thought
“Not with people.”

“
Are you sure Doctor Murray is in
there? He didn’t leave while you were on break or
anything?”

Jacobs
talked down to the
receptionist.

“
No, he wouldn’t do that, he
always
tells
me before he leaves. He’s very big on protocol.”

“
Well it
looks like he just broke protocol
because that room is empty.”

The receptionist
shrugged.

“
I don’t
know what to tell you.”

“
I’m shocked
,” Jacobs said sarcastically
before turning back down the hall into the examination room. “Let’s
go, he’s not here.”

Matthew simply
stared at the
examination table.

“
What
are you staring at?” Jacobs asked,
trying to follow his gaze.

“
Ralph Murray has been the town’s
coroner for as long as I can remember.”

“
So?”

“
Which
means he had to have been reasonably
good at his job.”

“
I’m sure he was terrific.
What’s your point?”

“
What kind of a coroner
would
leave
behind all that blood?”

Jacobs
looked over at the table, finally
understanding what Matthew was getting at. He had been in morgues
many times and was so used to seeing blood that he had not thought
this strange until Matthew’s amateur eye pointed it out.

“
Wait here
again.”

The cop sighed and walked back down the
corridor to reception.

“
Who was the last person
your boss was working on today?”

The receptionist sat with her
celebrity magazine
in hand. She had no interest in the whereabouts of her
boss, the coroner and it showed in her responses.

“
No idea
.”

“
Well what time does he usually
go for lunch?”

“
Um…I think around two” she said,
not looking up.

Jacobs
reached over the desk and snatched
the magazine away from her, tossing it over his shoulder to the
floor.

“
Look, I get it! You’re young,
and you want to be out with friends instead of working right? I
understand that I really do. You probably hate your boss am I
right? Am I hitting the nail on the little empty head here? The
truth is…I don’t give a shit! Find a way to make yourself more
helpful or I’m going to lock you up for obstructing a police
investigation.”

The receptionist
sighed, completely
unfazed by Jacobs’ threat.