Deep-Fried Homicide (The Laurel Falls Mysteries Book 1) (32 page)

He pulled his clothes carefully over his naked form and eased his socks on over his feet. He saw that the wire from the toe tag had left a deep and lasting impression in the flesh of his big toe. He made a mental note to reference it later, during his law suit.

Shoes came next and then he thrust his worldly possessions into his pockets and strode to the door. He wasn't sure what was going on, but there was one thing he was certain of: He didn't want anyone associated with this place to see him; he wasn't about to let them stop him. Whatever had led them to think he was dead, he was very sure they didn't take kindly to corpses just up and walking away.

He pulled the large wooden door open and peeked through the crack. The hall was quiet; it seemed empty. Testing the waters, as it were, he pulled the door further open and stuck his head through this larger opening. Nothing.

With the all the courage he could muster, he stepped into the hall and began the long trek toward the exit. A sign on the wall proclaimed gratitude for donations made to Bellevue. So that's where he was!

He was halfway to the exit door when a woman clutching a large stack of files rounded the corner, headed directly at him.
Act casual,
Paul thought, and he pressed on at a leisurely pace. As he drew even with the woman, she pressed one hand to her mouth and made a face, turning her eyes away from him and hurrying past.

"What the…?" Paul grumbled. People here saw burn victims, lepers and other physical atrocities on a daily basis. What could possibly make her react so strongly to him?

When he reached that corner of the hallway, he drew to a stop in front of the convex mirror at the corner of the ceiling. Screwing up his face and his courage, he looked into it. Yep! That was his face, his hair…
God but I've got great hair!
he thought. But there was something else; something…gross.

Peppered across his face were a dozen or so dark patches, no larger than a nickel. They were more than merely dark; they were black. Black raised patches had sprouted on his face. He immediately swept his sleeves up and looked closely at his arms. A few of the patches were growing there, too.

"What the freak?" he growled, feeling the burn of panic rise in him again.

He hurried on with a renewed desperation. What in the hell had happened to him? The last thing he could remember, he'd been working. They had been finishing up inspections on the Manhattan sewer lines, getting ready for the re-build.

The exit lay directly ahead of him. Beyond that, people milled about a small waiting area and gathered at a nurses' station. Paul ducked his head and hurried. If they spied him, they might try to stop him and he wasn't about to spend one moment here that he didn't have to.

Twenty more steps and he was out the door into…darkness. Somehow, whatever had happened to him had kept him here for a while. The last thing he remembered was daylight. Now it was night, and Paul's eyes didn't seem to want to adjust to it. Neither did his mind.

His last coherent memories were of being at work, in those sewer lines, with…Matt! That was what he had to do. He had to call Matt and find out what the hell was going on.

Paul reached into his pocket and drew out his cell phone, still with half a charge. The familiar wallpaper blazed at him as he awakened the device. Linda. Linda's face had graced his cell phone and computer wallpaper since the day he had met her. In the beginning, she had been a pipe dream, a fantasy girl who somehow managed to end up in a fantasy marriage to him and who, through tricks of his own imagination, had managed to be happy about it. A year after meeting her, he was about to make that fantasy real.

Paul shook his head and tried to focus. Someone was coming out of the doors behind him and he slipped into the shadows cast by failing bulbs and full trees to avoid detection.

Matt was second on his contact list and Paul tapped the screen to dial the house. One ring, then two, then…

"Say words!" Matt was stoned. He always answered that way when he was stoned.

"Matt! God! I'm glad I got you."

"Hello?" Matt seemed confused.

"It's Paul, you goof. Listen…."

"Who is this?"

"Look, I just want to know what happened to me. We were…"

Apparently, Matt had checked his caller ID. "Dude, this is bogus. Totally not funny, Man. Paul is dead and you're using his cell phone to call me…"

"No! Listen, this
is
Paul. I'm not dead. I just…"

"Are you fucking crazy or something? This is a sick joke, using my best friend's cell phone to punk me! Calling me up in the middle of the night and growling like a …"

"Goddammit, Matt! Listen!"

The call ended and Paul's shoulders sank. The sound of laughter reached him and it made him sad. Why had Matt said that he was dead? Why couldn't he understand what Paul was trying to say?

"Growling?" Paul's face sank further into a frown and he shuddered.

Well, if he couldn't get anything out of Matt on the phone, he would just have to see him in person.

H
aving worked for the city for nearly ten years, Paul knew the streets of New York like the back of his very spotted hand. Spotted!
Were those there a moment ago?
He wondered. Images of disease of the week movies popped into his head, with the men in contamination suits gathering up and herding the infected. Was that what he was? The infected? Patient zero? He briefly entertained the notion that he might be walking the streets, infecting hundreds of people as he passed. That was just too ludicrous and he dismissed the idea as a product of panic.

He set off in the direction of his apartment. He and Matt had been best friends ever since fourth grade when Matt's mom had moved into Queens and dropped him into the public school system. Matt had been like a shot in the arm to Paul, who even then had taken himself too seriously. Matt was a goof, a class clown, a sometimes lazy-ass who never quite did well but always meant well. So, after graduation, Paul had taken an apartment with Matt, gone to work for the city to put himself through college, and two months later he'd managed to get Matt his first and only decent job.

One foot after the other, Paul plodded in the direction of their apartment. He didn't want the population at large to see him, so he avoided the subway and kept to the shadows as he walked. It was nearly five miles to their place, a long walk, but do-able. He picked up the pace a bit, desperate for answers.

New York City at night was, if anything, more lively than in the day. Bright blotches of neon color splashed across the sidewalk, flashing headlights strobed through the darkness. Paul had lived here all his life and there was nowhere on Earth he would rather be….except LA.

LA. That's where Linda was. He had met Linda at college and it had been love at first sight. She was blonde and gorgeous and smart. And the best part of all that was that she thought the sun rose and set on Paul. If they had been on a soap opera, they would have been a super-couple. He'd been studying engineering at NYU, she…English. Nine years later, he was finishing up his ten-year stint with NYC Public Works, in the hopes of getting a small pension. She had been offered a teaching position at UCLA, a promise of tenure in two years (English professors didn't seem to stay put for long) and the opportunity to work on her PhD.

So, Linda had gone ahead to LA with the idea that Paul would follow as soon as his ten years with the city were up. He only had two weeks to go. Damn the luck.

Paul passed the third ice cream store in as many blocks, his head low and in true New Yorker fashion, not meeting the eyes of anyone. So far so good. Another two miles and he could interrogate Matt.

Linda. His mind drifted back to her. A sudden stab of terror ripped through him as he remembered the ring he had bought her. They had lived together for four years and he had been about to propose when the offer came in from LA. So, being the cautious and wise man that he was, he had tucked the ring away with the idea that he would propose to her as soon as he made the move to Cali, and then only if their relationship survived the separation. That ring was now neatly tucked into his underwear drawer.

One more mile. A finely-dressed lady with an equally finely-dressed little boy passed him. As they did so, the child looked up and caught sight of Paul's face. The boy tilted his head and scrunched up his face, then made the proclamation: "Eeeew!"

Paul turned his head away and frowned again. For a naturally happy guy, he sure was frowning a lot.

Two more turns and Paul was staring at their apartment building. It was short and squat, converted from an old Brownstone. It still bore the bomb shelter sign that had been posted there in the sixties. He fished out his keys as he approached it, his mind spinning circles around the questions he had.

He let himself in the front door and took the stairs to the second floor, where his apartment awaited him. The key slid home and Paul turned it, listening to the gratifying turn of the tumblers inside. He pushed the door open a few inches and met resistance.

"Matt! Hey, Matt!" he called in through the crack in the door. He was rewarded with the sound of footsteps within.

Matt's eye appeared in the crack of the doorway, heavy-lidded and blinking stupidly. He was, indeed, stoned. "Paul? Oh my God!"

"Undo the chain, Matt. Please."

"Dude…you're dead." He said it more as a matter-of-fact than as a threat.

"Matt, I'm not dead. I promise. Now, please, open the door."

The door slid shut and Paul heard the sound of metal against metal. Matt pulled the door open and blinked rapidly at him. "Is it really you?"

"Of course it's me, you doofus." Paul chuckled and moved to hug him. Matt backed away.

"The paramedics told me you were dead. They hauled you away."

"Well, I'm not dead. Obviously, they were wrong." Paul paused, wanting this to sink into Matt's drug-addled brain. "But you have to tell me what happened."

"Dude, you look like shit." He moved aside as Paul made his way deeper into the apartment. "Your face is all fucked up and…why are you making that sound?"

"What sound?" Now Paul felt anger welling deep in the pit of his stomach. "Tell me what happened."

Matt took another step backward. "You may not be dead, but you look like death warmed over. Seriously, man, you should really be in a hospital. I think you've had a stroke or something."

"I haven't had a stroke and I'm not dead." Now, he was yelling. The frustration had a choke-hold on him and he couldn't manage to calm himself. "But I need you to tell me what happened."

Matt blinked stupidly.

"Are you hearing a single word I'm saying?" He took one step toward Matt and watched his friend's face pale.

"I think I should take you to the hospital. You need some help." Matt proffered his hand, palm up, to his friend.

Paul looked at the hand, then back to Matt. His chin sagged to his chest. "I…just need…to know what happened to me."

Matt's tone was softer now, more sympathetic. "Paul, you look like shit. And I can't understand a word you say. Please let me get you some help."

Frustrated beyond anything he could remember, Paul did something so uncharacteristic that it scared even him. He lunged forward and grabbed Matt by the shoulders, shaking him hard and screaming. "I don't need help! I need answers! Now, shut the fuck up and tell me what happened to me, dammit!"

Matt whimpered, winced, and pulled away from him.

"Oh God! I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Paul let him go and backed away, feeling the hot sting of tears and guilt well up in his throat. He sank into the chair and let his head fall into his hands on the dining table. "I'm just so…scared."

After a few seconds, he lifted his head slowly and looked across the table. An old pizza box lived there, along with his dirty coffee mug, a magazine, two pens and a legal pad with some scribbling on it.

Paul grabbed the pad and one of the pens and began to write furiously.

"I can't remember what happened. Tell me," it said.

He shoved the pad in front of Matt's face and raised his eyebrows.

Relieved, he watched as Matt sank into the chair next to him. "You really don't know what happened to you?" Paul shook his head and Matt nodded. "Okay, I'll tell you what I know."

Paul tried on a smile, which must have come across as more of a sneer because Matt made a face and looked away.

"Okay, so we were working down in the tubes out where they're doing the renovations. You know, the sewers that run past all those factories and shit? We were almost at the end, taking those readings.
Last one of the day
, you said. There was this big pile of old trash from when they had originally built those sewer lines and you had to climb over it to get to the other side and take the readings. You wouldn't let me go because you said I was too clumsy and I would rush it.

"Anyway, we were talking and you got over the top of that rubbish, still talking. Then you said something about it being really gross over there and something about a puddle of blue goo. You cursed when you stepped in it. I remember because I laughed and made a joke. You know, 'Some days you step in it, some days you don't.' Then you came back over the top of the trash and you were all covered in that blue shit.

"So, we walked back to junction eight-twenty-three and climbed up and out. The stupid blue stuff glowed in the dark down there, but once we got topside, it was gone. We were walking back to the truck when you doubled over. You dropped straight to the ground and started rolling all around like a dead fish or something. I called nine-one-one and by the time the EMTs got there, you had stopped having fits. But they said you were dead.

"Dude, they put you in a body bag and hauled you off to Bellevue. I followed just to make sure they weren't screwing up, but the doctor came out and told me you were dead. He said they didn't know what of, but that you were just dead. They asked me if you had any next of kin and whatnot. I gave 'em your parents' number. Man! I wish I'd have known you weren't really dead. Did they screw up or something? What's going on?"