Sinful Silence Page 5

  When he made the last turn, he saw another desk outside the door to the morgue. That door was to the left of the desk, but the hallway continued past the desk to another set of double doors with a camera mounted over the top. A series of parallel black streaks recorded the path where gurney after gurney of dead stiffs were wheeled in from the intake bay.

  “Agent Jordan Blake, FBI. They are expecting me.” Jordan flipped open the badge for the second time in ten minutes. More than he had in the last several weeks.

  There was no signing in, or recording his name. Instead, the guard looked up from his newspaper long enough to check the picture on the identification against the person holding it and then leaned back to punch the door release. With a click, it opened, and Jordan walked inside.

  As if it were some cruel trick, he found himself in another green wall white tiled hallway with offices on either side. Most were still dark, but the one two doors down had a light on inside. With no other options, he walked to that office and knocked on the doorframe. Inside a middle aged Asian man sat behind the desk in green scrubs and a white lab coat, consumed in a report that was splayed out over his desk. He mumbled to himself as he jumped back and forth between pages. His forefinger on his left hand traced each observation he reviewed.

  Jordan knocked harder on the door frame. This time the occupant looked up with narrowed eyes and a pinched expression. There was an awkward silence between the two as Jordan waited for a greeting that never arrived.

  Jordan introduced himself to answer the question he hoped was in the other man’s mind. “I am Jordan Blake, from the FBI.” Again, he flashed his identification. The third time in the last twelve minutes. If he wasn’t careful, he might develop carpel tunnel from flipping it out so much.

  “Oh, the paranormalist?” said the man.

  “Para-psychologist,” Jordan corrected out of instinct, not that the man seemed to mind or even care as he slammed the file shut on his desk and pushed back.

  “Sharon Carter?”, he asked while his fingers flipped through several folders in a vertical stand on the corner of his desk. They found the one they were in search of and pulled it out and placed it under his right arm. “Follow me,” he said. There was no introduction, or nice to meet you as he passed Jordan and led him down the hall.

  The two men walked further down the hall to another room where the man reached in and flipped on the lights and said, “wait here.” The room was like the hall, white tile floor and green walls. What was new was the stainless steel sink against the far wall and the row of cabinets along the other. Jordan walked in and did as he was asked. There was an eerie silence in the room with only the hum of the fluorescents to keep him company. Behind him, a few rooms away, there was a metal clang and the sound of something sliding. Having been in a place like this more times than he cared to remember, Jordan recognized the sound of the opening of the cold locker and the sliding of the slab that contained a body. His instincts clicked in and moved to the far corner of the room to make room for the gurney that would soon follow.

  The wait wasn’t long before a gurney with a black vinyl bag rolled in. The man positioned it in the center of the room and then pushed it toward the sink where the end snapped into place. “So how does this work?”, he asked while he unzipped the bag. “Do you say a prayer or sprinkle some holy water over the body to get it to give up its secrets?”

  Jordan ignored the sarcastic nature of the question and tried to respond as professionally as he could. “Nothing like that. I just observe to see if I see anything out of the ordinary.” That was the simplest way to explain it. There was no set script to what he looked for in situations like this. It could be anything from a certain type of injury that appeared to be more ritual to something self-inflicted like Marjorie Davis, 54, of Warsaw, Pennsylvania. At first examination, the coroner ruled her death a homicide from a severely broken neck, but something about the crime scene photograph that accompanied her file bothered the thirty-four-year veteran. Her head had turned around more than 180 degrees. When Jordan arrived, he examined the skin of her neck to find the tell-tale stretch marks and rips in the skin that confirmed the coroner was correct. It had actually rotated around by more than 360. There were no external bruises that would hint at where the attacker gripped her head to exert the force necessary to cause such severe internal damage. On a hunch, Jordan had the coroner check her back. Her corpse crunched as he moved her. No further examination was needed to know her back was broken too. Jordan knew exactly what the cause was, and even though his superiors trusted him, it took three days before they agreed to adjust the cause of death. He made several visits to the crime scene to try to detect and track down the specific malevolent spirit that had done this, but he felt nothing.

  The man pulled the edges of the bag open exposing the nude body of a mid-20’s African American female. At first look, Jordan saw the typical ‘Y’ shaped incision that started at the points of the collarbone and ended at the lower abdomen. Beyond that, there were no signs of trauma. He scanned every inch from head to toe, and asked. “Any external injuries before the autopsy?”

  “None,” was the only answer he gave, leaving Jordan wondering why he was called.

  “Toxicology?”, Jordan asked.

  “The labs are still out, but the preliminaries showed nothing. She has no history of heart or other health issues. A perfectly healthy woman of 28,” the man reported while Jordan studied her hands. He only did so based on experience. He once found skin caked under them. That in itself was not an unusual discovery. The one time he found the skin of the victim’s own scalp there was unusual. After a two week investigation, which included interviews of her family who finally admitted the woman talked about hearing voices and feeling others’ emotions, told him she was an empath. The voices in her head drove her to such a point of delirium that she attempted to scratch them out. An infection set in, causing toxicity.

  “You mean except for that fact she is,” Jordan started, but as his head rose to look at Dr Liu, a cold flash overcame him and he felt like he had been punched in the stomach and struggled to catch his breath. Both hands gripped the rolled edge of the steel gurney and pushed his body up to a standing position. “is dead,” he continued with a croak. “Any chance I can get some water, and a pad for some notes. I seem to have forgotten mine,” Jordan paused and leaned forward, his hands still clamped to the gurney. He read the name tag dangling from the man, “Dr Liu.”

  “Yea, I guess,” Dr Liu said with a huff of an exhale. He looked back at Jordan several times before he reached the door.

  Once he was out, Jordan let go of the gurney and collected himself before he turned his attention to the cause of his troubles. “Okay, why don’t we just make this easy, and you go ahead and tell me what happened here?”, he whispered.

  The ghostly image of the young woman standing in the corner said nothing. They never did. That would make it too easy. Instead, she stood there, translucent in a white top and jeans. He knew from experience that was what she wore when she died. She watched his every move attentively. Jordan rounded the gurney closer to her. She didn’t move. She didn’t even try, not that he was a threat to her.

  “So, what is it?”, Jordan asked.

  Her head tilted from side to side as she looked at him.

  “You got to give me something.”

  Again, she tilted her head as she looked at him, then she raised both arms and turned her palms toward him. This meant something. Jordan knew it. Everything they did was their way to respond, he just needed to figure it out, and he wasn’t exactly a professional at charades. She turned her hands over and back showing him both sides of her hands.

  “Come on Sharon. Tell me your secret,” he asked while studying her form.

  Her left hand reached over and pointed out a spot on the underside of her right forearm as Dr. Liu walked in with a white paper cup of water and a small yellow notepad. Jordan accepted the cup and took a quick and much needed sip that soothed his d
ry throat. His eyes still on that spot where she stood. Her left hand still pointing to the spot on her right arm. Her eyes leading him back to her body. Then he got it, and almost dropped the cup.

  Jordan didn’t rush around the gurney, but it wasn’t a slow meander either. When he reached her right arm, he turned it over, exposing the underside of her wrist. He took another quick glance up at her image and where she was pointing at on her arm. When he looked back at her body, there it was, just below the elbow almost undetectable unless you were looking for it, which he was. A needle prick, that caused just a small point of discoloration in the skin.

  “What’s this?”, Jordan asked.

  “What’s what?”, Dr Liu said. For the first time since he and Jordan met him, he appeared interested.

  “Right here,” Jordan pointed out the spot.

  Doctor Liu rushed around the gurney and grabbed a pair of gloves out of a box sitting on top of the cabinets. Both gloves were on before he reached her side, and two gloved fingers rubbed over the area and then stretched the skin just a touch to expose it better. “How did I miss this?”

  “It’s kind of small,” Jordan said, throwing him a bone while trying not to seem smug. He knew full well if it wasn’t for his spectral assistance, he would have never noticed the area.

  The urgency in which Dr Liu examined the area told Jordan he was disturbed by the miss. He asked Jordan to step back while he took several photographs of the area and then made his own notes. “The toxicology will tell us what we need to know. I guess you wasted your time coming up here.”

  “It’s my job,” Jordan said while he observed the professional at work.

  ”Well, this is my job,” Dr Liu said as he repositioned her arm for another picture. A yellow tag with a number was adhered to the skin just below the spot. “And, it is obvious I need to pay more attention. Real sorry you had to come here.” He placed the camera on the back counter and returned to the gurney and started zipping up the bag.

  Jordan watched as she disappeared into the darkness. Her face appeared to take one last look at the world as Dr Liu pulled the excess up before zipping it the rest of the way closed. This was always a sad moment for Jordan. A moment of finality only rivaled by the closing of a casket. Every life was precious, and everybody had a tragic story. One that he had to find.

  Dr Liu said, “Well, I guess that is about it.”, and grabbed the gurney and wheeled it toward the door. Jordan followed him out, but stopped and took one final look back. He expected to see a pleased look on the girl’s translucent face. Instead, what he saw forced him to stop in his tracks. She stood there pleading with her hands and eyes. Her mouth was moving a million miles a minute trying to convey something to him. Nothing came out, but it didn’t need to. The message was well received. The spot was not the entire mystery. Something was very wrong.

  8

  There was a knock at the door, but Jordan didn’t hear it. Not because he was too far away. The dining room he converted into his office was just off the main entryway and from there he could hear anything and everything that went on outside his walls. From the conversations had by people taking an afternoon stroll to the constant conversation his sixty-three-year-old neighbor Ms. Dillard had with her Pomeranian during their walks. Something he finds both sweet and sad. It is one reason he made an extra effort to speak to her whenever he saw her out and about. Megan did too. They had developed some kind of bond that Jordan didn’t understand.

  There was a second set of knocks, but still Jordan didn’t move. He was busy constructing his ninth email since he boarded the flight in Richmond. The topic was the same, but the argument was stronger each time. At least that was how he saw it. So far he had received no response. The last email resorted to using a bulleted list of facts and evidence which used bolds and underlines to draw the eye to the point he wanted to make. It had to be perfect, so he was on the third draft of said email when two hands massaged the base of his neck sending him leaping from the chair.

  His reaction seemed to amuse Megan who let out an explosion of loud laughter, almost knocking herself to the floor, but found the wall. Both hands covered her face, and the heels of her shoes clattered on the hardwood floor as she stomped up and down. The dark blue dress she wore over black hose, and her hair pulled straight back hinted at why she was there, a night out.

  “What the hell?”, Jordan exclaimed as he circled the table, stretching to compose himself.

  “Sorry,” she said, but to Jordan he heard nothing apologetic about it. His skin was still crawling. “Did you forget about dinner?”

  “No,” Jordan said, coming back around to his laptop. “I remembered. What time is it anyway?” He had considered calling her for dinner the night before, but when he found out about his early flight, sleep became a need that was stronger than staring into her green eyes. She texted him about dinner while he waited in the TSA line in Richmond and he gave a quick, “K,” in response. His mind was on other things at the time. In fact, it had been on the same topic since he left the coroner’s office.

  “It’s a little after seven. Our reservation is at eight,” she said.

  “How exactly did you get us reservations at 22 Square?”, Jordan asked. 22 Square was one of the most popular dining spots in all of Savannah and usually had a week or longer waiting list for reservations. Longer in the summer when tourists flooded the historical town to take in some of the history of the old south, and for some the even older south. It was one of the most haunted cities in the world, and the people that lived there fully embraced that with tours, stories, and just an overall extra appreciation, respect, and display of the supernatural. In some areas, they still celebrated the black arts of voodoo. A tradition that went back to its day as a pirate port.

  “I did a...” she started, but Jordan interrupted.

  “... a reading. You did a reading for the owner. That’s right.”

  “That is right. His father never saw him open the restaurant, and he wanted his opinion, his approval. Something he didn’t get a lot of growing up,” Megan explained. She had moved from the wall and stood in front of Jordan’s laptop. A single finger on her right hand traced along the top edge of the screen.

  “Did he? “

  “You will have to watch the episode to find out, “Megan said with a flirtatious smirk. “You still watch, don’t you?”

  “I barely have the time to watch anything,” Jordan said. He watched in horror as the finger that traced the top edge of the laptop screen started to push down; it pivoted on its hinge ever so slightly. “Don’t!”, he screamed, startling Megan away from the laptop. A few deep breaths helped him regain his composure and he looked at her with an apologetic glance. “I need to finish this.” The tone was a forced calm while inside, his heart still pounded.

  “Oh,” was her only response as she backed away further, before huffing away to the living room.

  “Sorry, it’s just an email that I need to finish.”

  “Okay,” she said, still sounding a little shaken. “But you need to hurry. You need to change.” Jordan looked down at what he had on. Before he could utter a response she added, “I am not walking in looking like this with someone in jeans and a t-shirt.”

  “Just a few minutes. I promise,” said Jordan as he sat back down at the laptop and attempted to pick back up where he left off. He found it without difficulty. His fourth point he felt he needed to stress stronger. In the other room, the television turned on creating a slight background noise. Not that it distracted him. There were many a day where the silence of the house got to Jordan where he would turn on a twenty-four-hour news network or something just to hear the sound of voices droning in the background.

  The only distraction came from the scream, “Ha, you do watch. You have it setup to record every episode!”

  Jordan didn’t remember. There was nothing to say. Megan had caught him red handed, and he was sure he would hear about it through most of the night over dinner. With the final touches comp
lete in the email, he clicked send, and then closed the laptop himself before going to his room to change. When he passed by the living room, Megan was sitting there enjoying watching the latest episode of her own show. He smiled as he heard her compliment her own choice of outfit for the show.

  Before he changed, he washed his face with cold water. He had hoped it would refresh him and clear the thought that had consumed him for most of the day. It didn’t. His mind was already rolling around iteration ten of the email. Every attempt was made to shove the thoughts aside like the clothes he shoved away in the closet as he looked for appropriate attire to be Megan’s escort for the night. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. There were hangers of white shirts and dark slacks, bureau attire, hanging there with only a few interruptions here and there with a pair of khaki pants and a single light blue shirt. Both were gifts from Megan, who said he needed to have a little more style. Style was nothing that the bureau was concerned with. Jordan’s normal style was jeans and any one of his variety of t-shirts in his chest of drawers. All of which, Megan had worn at one time or the other. She looked better in them than he did.

  Jordan knew he would get both a look and criticism if he walked out of his room in a plain white button up on and dark slacks. That left only one remaining option. The outfit that was a gift from Megan. He would just have to deal with hearing her gush over her great taste when she saw him wear it. Something she did every time she saw it. It was also an outfit he had only ever worn when going out with her.

  “Still hitting the gym, I see,” Megan said. She was leaning against the door frame looking at him with a lust filled gaze. His shirt off and the khaki pants pulled up to the waist, but unbuttoned.