Something new I am working on, just a little short story that I will have available for download before the end of February!
Blue Lips
My hands are cold. Freezing. The beds of my nails are purple, tiny vessels constricted. The blood is being drawn away from my limbs, being kept for the survival of my most important organs. My body reacts without context, and my fingers are chilled to an aching point while the rest of me is wrapped up tight in my coat. The rain is relentless; the city lights shining reflections in slick streets.
There has been a death, on this Pacific Northwest night, and I have been called out to the scene; but, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why. I haven’t been a cop for two years now, and my pathology residency is still just in the hospitalist phase—just an intern in the lab, looking through the magnifying eyepieces of microscopes, trying to discern one type of tissue from the next. Every day I leave work with a neck ache and the soreness of strained eyes. One year in and I’m absolutely certain I won’t make it through the next three. But, I gave up law enforcement for a reason—an excellent and valid reason. Going back would break more than one promise.
I became a doctor before I became a cop, but something stopped me from entering into residency at the usual time after graduation. Something about it wasn’t right; something about the way in which my life was heading. To this day, I don’t know why I did it, but after medical school, I joined the police department. It’s where, until two years ago, I had spent the last five years of my life. It was an identity; one that had to be shed. I cannot go back.
Yet, here I stand, hair soaked from the downpour, fingers purple from the cold, staring down without feeling at the body of a dead man, blood already washed away with the rain.
Why am I here?
Cenk Ataseven stands across the street, hidden under a plain black umbrella as he gathers report from a uniform on crowd duty keeping the sidewalk clear. Cenk and I know each other from what surely was another life. He started at the academy the same year I did, but within three years had transferred far west following family to the progressive lands. Here, he recycles nearly every item he can and keeps a compost heap in his modest backyard. Anytime I cross his path, he chides me for the paper cup in which I carry my coffee or the bad habit I have of ignoring the signs and throwing every scrap of garbage in the trash can. We didn’t get along when we were academy cadets. Still don’t. There is a permanent rift between us two, something I don’t think either of us could put a finger on and pinpoint in order to stitch it up. I don’t think either of us cares that much; but, still, when I moved to the city I looked him up nearly first thing. I came out here to erase my past, but the second my feet hit the ground, I was already trying to connect my new life to my old. I regretted it nearly immediately; definitely after he invited me to dinner. I am just not the kind of person that gets along with Cenk Ataseven.
And, yet, here I stand, looking down at the body he’s caught as the lead homicide detective on this beat. He called me here, to look down at this dead body, and I cannot fathom why.
The black umbrella bobs hurriedly toward me. Cenk is dark and somber beneath it.
“I’m sorry to call you out here,” he says without sounding sorry at all.
“What’s up, Cenk?” I ask through the waterfall that has become my face. Cenk is standing just far enough away to keep me on the perimeter of the umbrella cover. He stays high and dry, but I never minded a little rain.
“Do you recognize this guy?” He asks stiffly, jerking his shoulders toward the body on the ground at my feet.
“I can’t see his face,” I state plainly, staring my alive companion down with what I hope is a terribly irritated expression.
“Right,” Cenk says as if the world suddenly makes absolute sense. He turns and with one hand cupping his mouth he yells over to the uniform, “hey, come help me with this body!”
“Shouldn’t you wait for the Medical Examiner?” I ask with boredom.
“Nah, it’s fine. This is important and all the evidence is washed away anyway.”
“Right,” I answer, but it’s a mutter and Cenk is already handing me the umbrella so he can manhandle a dead man.
“Hold the damn thing over me! This suit was a gift!”
“Jesus,” I mutter, holding my arm out farther so the umbrella shades the detective from wetting his suit.
With a huff and a grunt, the two cops flip the body onto his back. Cenk straightens, smoothing out his jacket before reclaiming the umbrella.
“So?” He asks, his eyes impatient.
“Cenk, half of his fucking face is gone.”
The detective sighs. “Just look, would you. He still has his eyes—that’s what counts.”
I blink the water from my eyes and hold Cenk’s gaze for a long moment. Then, with jaw-clenched, I kneel next to the body and tilt my head so that I can look into his glazed eyes.
After a long moment—I’m honestly just trying to annoy my old co-worker more than I am studying this man’s face—I lift myself back to standing and address the detective again.
“No idea who he is. Why? What does this mean?”
“He had your card,” Cenk says simply, pulling a small, crumpled paper from his pocket. “Found it in his wallet, your old number’s on the back—your home one.”
I haven’t had a landline in years, and the only time I carried a business card was that last year I was a cop—a detective myself, special victims, rapes and worse.
“I don’t understand,” I say though I do. “It’s gotta be a coincidence. Someone gave it to him; I don’t know. I’ve never seen him.”
“You sure?” Cenk asks again, this time producing the dead man’s license.
“You couldn’t seriously just show me this?” I ask, brandishing the ID.
Cenk shrugs. “Might look different.”
I sigh and study the face on the card. Scraggly for sure, a fairly long beard and wavy hair all in a mess, but clean enough. He looks healthy in the picture, well-fed. On the ground, he is a shadow of this man, skin and bones, pock-marked skin.
“No, Cenk, sorry,” I say, feeling more defeated than maybe I should. I had back the license and tuck away my hands in the pockets of my trench.
“It’s an old address. I think he’s been out here for a while, living like a John Doe, no home, no name, no worries.”
I shoot the detective an indignant look.
“‘Cept maybe where to get his next fix.”
“There are hundreds of homeless in this city, Cenk. It’s a systemic thing,” I add in a chiding tone.
“Don’t lecture me about issues in the system,” he bites back.
“Whatever,” I mumble in reply. “Is there something you think I can do for you?”
“Tell me why this guy has your card.”
“Cenk, if I knew, don’t you think I would have shared that information half-an-hour ago? Does this look like something I would do for fun—stand over a dead body in the pouring rain?”
Cenk looks away, “I’m running down who has that number now, if anyone. See if this guy has been calling looking for you.”
“Yeah, well, when you find something pertinent to my involvement, just give me a call.” I turn to walk away.
“I don’t have your number.”
“Wait—what?” I turn back to the detective. “You called me out here.”
“At the hospital. I looked you up in the hospital directory. I thought I remembered you’d said you were working at Memorial last time we spoke.”
“How can you not have my number? I called you on it when I got it; you’re—depressingly—the first person I called when I got to town.”
He looks stunned, but it passes in a moment.
“I got a new phone—the contacts got all fucked-up—look it doesn’t matter, just give me your new number, okay?”
I shift my weight and study the man before me for another minute more.
“No,” I say, simply, and turn to walk away.
“What the fuck, Olesya?”
“You found me once,” I call over my shoulder. “If something comes of this, which it won’t, you can find me again.”
With that, I hurry back to my car and blast the living shit out of the heater on the drive home.
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