strength from the peace before waking to the hard choices in her path.
Mr. Cutter sat motionless in a steel folding chair in the dark of his closet. The rise and fall of his chest was his sole motion. He hadn't been tempted to cheat just because no one was looking. Inside him everything pumped and squirted and oozed. You couldn't help that.
He'd sat in the chair for hours, spine erect, knees together, hands atop his thighs. He'd been a good boy.
Until an hour ago. He'd been unable to hold his water and though he'd fought it no quiver of hand, not a single bounce of leg he'd had to let go. Just a few drops at first, but instead of giving relief, it only heightened the agony and he'd finally relaxed his insides and let the liquid flow out.
Once there would have been hell to pay, he'd thought, the release spreading hot and acrid down his legs, pooling in the cupped seat. But not anymore. Everything was changing. His pictures were coming true: he was making them come true.
He thought about going to the secret room where he kept his dream and worked on it. But today was a business day and he had outside work to do and the outside face to wear.
After several minutes Mr. Cutter stood haltingly and kneaded his frozen thighs and cramped buttocks. He walked stiffly to the bathroom to shower. On his way he selected his tie for the day. Socks. Shoes.
He inspected his pants, picking at lint, being a good boy, tidy. He almost passed through the kitchen without stopping today was a busy day, had to crank it in gear but his favorite drawer called to him.
Everyone had a secret helper. He removed a long knife, a bread knife Mama's bread knife. She made good bread but he'd have to behave to get it. Since he'd peed himself he wouldn't have been allowed any bread.
Bitch! A sharpening steel came out next, and Mr. Cutter whisked the blade over the steel. The sound was music. He'd once been to an ice hockey game and his heart screamed its joy at hearing skates make the same sound cutting over ice, in their wake the flakes of perfect cold, whisk whisk whisk.
Pulling into the morgue lot caused the bottles to rattle in my trunk.
Every bit of liquor in my house was back there. I'd even pitched in the Listerine; to a sick drunk alcohol is alcohol.
Ava had reached the threshold of Truth: admitting the problem existed.
It was my job to pick up a squirming, biting Truth in both arms, dump it squat in the middle of Clair's lap, and hope Ava still had a job afterward. I pulled into a protected hearse bay by the side entrance.
It was early and the door was locked. I hit the buzzer. Willet Lindy, carrying a toolbox, let me in.
'Don't tell me you do the plumbing, too, Will.'
He rattled the box. 'If it's busted, I fix it, if it's needed, I requisition it, if it's impossible, I lie about it.'
'I need to see Clair. She in?'
Lindy winced. 'Yes. But it's annual budget time and we're one pro sector short today. Keep your distance so you don't lose an arm.'
Walking the hall to her office I kept pasting a bright smile on my face and it kept slipping off like a Halloween mustache.
'Morning, Clair,' I said, eyeballing through her half-closed door. She wore a dark jacket and simple white blouse. Beneath the desk she'd have on a skirt and heels. Glair's lanyard-strung reading glasses perched on her nose as a fountain pen hovered above an official-looking form.
'I'm busy, Ryder. No time for chit-chat.'
'It's important, Clair.'
She reluctantly gestured me inside. 'Mind if I close the door?' I asked.
Clair narrowed a puzzled eye and nodded. I sat in a worn leather wingback chair opposite her ancient oaken desk. As a high-ranking public employee, ME, Clair could have demanded the full decorator treatment including thousands of public dollars' worth of furniture, drapes, shelves. Instead, her only concessions to office were the removal of the overhead fluorescents in favor of warmer light from floor and desk lamps, and an ergonomic chair that probably cost ten bucks more than the ones supporting the chunky gals at the license bureau.
In my line of work reading upside down is helpful. I saw the header on the official-looking form beneath Clair's pen: REPRIMAND.
I pointed to the form. 'Is the reprimand to Dr. Davanelle?'
'I don't think that's any of your…' Clair paused and wearily closed her eyes. 'Why do I think a bad morning is about to get worse?'
'She's at my place,' I said. 'She couldn't work today and yesterday because she was drunk. She's been drunk since Saturday. She's a mess, Clair.'
She tossed the pen on the desk and rubbed her eyes. 'That explains a lot. In the past six months she's called in sick seven times. Four of her sick days were Mondays. 'Lost weekends,' probably.'
'Probably,' I admitted.
'You know how I run this place, Ryder. I have three paths to handle the bulk of the medical procedures. I handle as much as I can, but mainly I'm up to my ass in administration. I need people who show up on schedule and work.'
'She'll get treatment. It's a disease, Clair.'
She picked up the pen and poised it over the reprimand. 'I can't have an alcoholic here, Ryder, even one in treatment. The position demands attention to detail. And in the end, no matter how capable or well meaning she is, it's not her ass on the line, it's mine. My department, my reputation. She's out of here.'
The pen point pressed at the paper. I caught the word capable in Clair's description and threw a desperate rope to it. 'Dr. Davanelle is good at her job, capable, as you say?
'Allowing for age and experience, she's the best I've ever seen. When I was interviewing for the position only one person came close, Dr.
Caulfield.'
Caulfield was a fresh-from-school pathologist hired six or seven months back. He was performing an autopsy on a low-life S amp; M practitioner named Ernst Meuller when a bomb in Meuller's lower bowel detonated. It was speculated Meuller had crossed someone inventive with explosives.
Dark-humored cops dubbed the perp the 'Bottom Bomber,' and figured he'd gotten Meuller pass-out drunk, inserted the device, and left Meuller to awaken, attempt to remove the device, and die horribly. The hard-living Meuller foiled his nemesis by succumbing to a heart attack in his drunken sleep. The only casualty was Alexander Caulfield, who lost three fingers and a career. The case remained unsolved, an enigma.
I said, 'If Ava was so good, why'd you hire Dr. Caulfield?'
Clair took a deep breath. She set the pen aside, stood, and walked to the window. 'I don't expect you'd understand, Ryder.'
'I've amazed others. Try me.'
There was a long pause as she stared into the clouds.
'I'm inflexible and unyielding,' she said as if reciting from a sheet of paper. 'I demand excellence from my staff every minute they're here, and have no desire to involve myself with their lives when they're not. This is a hard job anywhere in the country, especially for a woman.' She reached out and put her hand against the window as if confirming its existence. 'Don't take that as whimpering, Ryder; the hardships are ingrained in the system and will be for years to come. I have to be tough to make it work.' She turned from the window. 'But I wasn't sure I could be completely unyielding with a woman pathologist.
I'd remember the struggles I'd encountered, make allowances, maybe even …' Clair grasped at the air if if trying to pluck the perfect words from it.
'Become empathetic?'
'Whatever. The whole dynamic and personality of the office might change.'
'With a man you could maintain distance.'
'Only after Dr. Caulfield's… incident did I question why I'd hired him, what my motives had been.'
'And you hired Dr. Davanelle.'
She sat behind her desk again, the reprimand beneath her fingertips.
'It was always her or Caulfield. They were on a different level than other applicants.'
'But you managed to avoid empathy, though, didn't you, Clair? You pushed hard.'
Her voice tightened, defensive. 'She was new and new people make mistakes, Ryder.'
