Blaze Tuesday and the Case of the Knight Surgeon (Special Edition)
Chapter One
There was nobody waiting for me when I stepped off the elevator. There was no paperwork. There weren’t even any calls asking for confirmation on anything that I’d been working on. I had gotten to work on time, like usual. The difference was that there was nothing for me to do except sit and wait. I didn’t even have any pencils to throw into the ceiling. Not that it would have worked, really, the ceiling was made of concrete, like the walls, and painted the same clinical white.
The dull hum of the fluorescents above me felt like it was trying to drill into my skull and make me insane, and it would succeed if I let them. The shiny metal surfaces of absolutely everything in my office seemed too bright in the lights and I was seriously considering turning everything off for a few minutes, if only to stave off the headache threatening to make me cry.
Instead, and mostly because I didn’t want to have to explain myself for the third time this week, I pulled my industrial sized jar of ibuprofen out of the cooler. I took more than the recommended dosage, but I wasn’t worried about overdosing on Advil. I just needed some relief. I chugged back half a bottle of water with my pills and debated calling upstairs for some poor sap to bring me a mountain of caffeine and some donuts. I’m sure someone would be willing to run an errand for me. It seemed like it was a boring as hell day.
My name is Kali Mason. I’m a coroner, or as I call myself, a failed surgeon. I’m pasty white from all the bloody time I spend in the labs, I keep my hair cropped into a short, messy cut to keep it out of my face and to give the smell of death less to cling to. I’m old enough to know better, but if it’s a big deal, I’m in my mid-thirties and I’ve been doing this job way too long for my own good. I’m not a genius, but I’m good at what I do and I’m all about getting results.
Oh, and I guess stopping murderers from walking free is another thing that I try to do, but that’s not really my job description. I just point the cops int he right direction and then let them take all the glory for apprehending criminals. I work in the basement of the Seventeenth Precinct in New York. I’ve been here way too long, but I somehow can’t leave. I feel like there’s something left for me to do here before I pull a Blaze and hightail it out of here. I just haven’t figured out what my higher purpose is yet. Believe me, as soon as I do, I’m getting the hell out of here and I’m not looking back. Its not worth it to keep smiling and nodding when your morals are being gnawed at.
I’m fully aware of how absolutely awful the cops upstairs are, and I know that the corruption runs way deeper than even Blaze thinks. I’ve seen it. I’ve had offers, and threats, made. I’ve never taken the offers and the threats seem to stop when I remind people that I can dispose of a body in less than twenty minutes and I have the surgical, and chemical knowledge to kill a man discreetly.
No one accepts drinks from me anymore, and the threats have stopped.
Blaze doesn’t need to know, either. I think he’d fly off the handle. The poor guy is wound up tighter than an OCD railway conductor’s pocket watch, and Blaze certainly doesn’t run on quartz precision.
It had been a slow day, there were no calls, no bodies, nothing. I hadn’t seen anyone come down here, and I certainly hadn’t spoken to anyone since I let myself into the precinct this morning. I was both grateful and annoyed by it. Usually, I’d be processing DNA samples, or comparing fibres or something. A lot of the time rookies would just come downstairs to see what I was a doing and to flirt with me. Today, there was nothing but the hum of the lights to keep me company. I hadn’t even brought a book. It was too early for lunch, and the thought of calling one of the cops upstairs for a mid-morning pick me up of coffee and donuts was becoming more tempting by the minute.
I hoisted myself up onto the shiny metal autopsy table that I used as a desk in the secondary room of the morgue and tucked my feet under me, Indian style. I stared sullenly at my short, chipped nails and I wished that it was feasible for me to wear nail polish to work, at least once.
My annoyed whininess and wish to be more girly was cut short by the telltale buzzing noise of the freight elevator reaching the basement. It meant a body had arrived, and I was probably happier than I should have been about it. I slid off of the table and adjusted my navy scrubs. I grabbed my lab coat from where I’d tossed it earlier, draped over a microscope, to be honest, and puled it on, straightening the folds of crisp white linen against my arms and sides as I rushed to meet the body.
It was a scene I’d seen a million times before; couple of EMTs, couple of cops, all piling out of the freight elevator doors. The gurney rolling down the silent hallway with the telltale black body bag on top, all crinkly tarpaulin and bulges from the corpse.
I flashed the lead EMT a smile. He was an old friend from school who I didn’t get to see very often. He was absolutely beautiful, too. Tall, muscular with sharp features and skin the colour of the burnt sugar on top of a creme brûlée. His eyes were the most beautiful hazel colour and they glinted with flecks of green and gold.
If I wasn’t already a sort-of taken woman, I’d have been asking for a coffee date. Although, to be fair, I”m pretty sure that he was gay.
“Good morning, Kali!”
My smile widened, just hearing his voice. He was born in the States, and spent most of his time here, but he’s been all over the globe, studying in India and Britain. He spoke calmly, like a proper British gentleman and something about it seemed so refined, and even though he didn’t have an accent, the way he spoke always made me tingly.
“Brahma!” I opened my arms and he embraced me without hesitation. “You seem happy to see me!”
“I’m always happy to see you, my friend! I just wish that you would accept my invitations to go out and fraternize outside of work!” he teased me.
I shrugged. “What can I say, I live a busy life of quiet solitude down here in the crypts.” I nodded toward the body bag. “What kind of present have you brought me today?”
Brahma snorted a laugh. “The usual kind my dear. A dead body.”
“Hmm,” I mumbled, leading the way to the morgue. “Nothing fancy? No death-defying story about this one? You didn’t fish him out of the river, did you?”
“I think you’ve been spending too much time with that detective friend of yours,” Brahma chided me as he parked the gurney. “Where should we put this?”
I shrugged. “On ice for now. I’ll get to him in a little bit.”
“Hold that order.”
I looked around Brahma’s shoulder to the chief of the precinct walk into my morgue.
I had a very unladylike and altogether Blaze moment of silent cursing in my head as Chief Fredricks filled the room like a storm cloud. That was probably a bad metaphor, since the chief is a huge black guy, but there was something about his disposition today that seemed stormy. He was in a bad mood and it radiated off of him in a quiet, calm energy that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I don’t think I have what Blaze calls a ‘cop sense’ but something was certainly setting alarm bells off in my head.
“Sorry sir, I didn’t know there was something important to do?”
Chief Fredricks gave me a look that I interpreted as ‘don’t mess with me today, Kali’ and I held back any more snarky comments.
“Put him on the table,” the Chief demanded.
Brahma and his partner did as they were told, peeling away the black body bag and replacing it with a white sheet until I was ready to get to the autopsy. Brahma’s partner folded up the body bag wordlessly as Brahma covered the corpse respectfully.
“You can go,” Chief Fredricks said to the EMTs, and my beloved Brahma.
“Are you certain?” Brahma asked. “We’re not in a rush and I’m sure that Doctor Mason has some more questions.”
The look the Chief gave Brahma could have curdled milk. I have never seen Brahma cowed before, but he wilted under that stare and nodded wordlessly. He gave me a hag-hearted wave and nudged his partner and they disappeared back
down the hallway.
I tried not to show my disappointment, whether that was working or not I couldn’t say, but Chief Fredricks didn’t look as pissed off when he turned back to look at me.
“Sorry sir,” I mumbled.
“Nothing to apologize for,” Chief Fredricks replied.
I nodded and looked over at the dead guy under the sheet. “This is top priority?”
“The very top,” he confirmed with a nod.
“You gonna tell me anything else about it?”
“There’s not a lot to tell.”
“Is it mob-related?” I asked hesitantly.
“I’m not sure.” The Chief admitted.
“Has this got anything to do with that Wayside case Blaze just solved?” I pressed on.
Fredricks shrugged. “Again, I don’t know. Just do your job and call me if there’s anything out of the ordinary, all right?”
I stared at the Chief and folded my arms across my chest. I was like five-foot-seven on a good day, and the Chief was over six feet tall. He could probably break me in half, and at least bench press me if he got it in his mind to try. I didn’t want to make him mad, but he was skirting the issue and I didn’t like it. I fixed him with my most serious glare, the one I usually reserved for getting Blaze to agree with me, or for scaring off rookies who were getting on my nerves.
“Are you expecting there to be anything out of the ordinary?” I asked calmly.
Fredricks shrugged. “I just want you to be thorough and keep an eye out for anything that might look weird, is all.”
“That means yes.”
“It means watch yourself and be diligent,” he corrected. “You know the score.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked, eyeing the body on the slab worriedly.
“Kali, I’m not a dirty cop,” Fredricks assured me, plaint a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You of all people should know that. Believe me, if this was dangerous, I wouldn’t have brought it in here. Nothing is more important to me than the safety of my people. I need you on this one because you’re the best at what you do, and because I can’t trust any of the other coroner’s in this city. I don’t know who knows what and who is dirty, so please, just trust me on this and let me know if you find anything weird, okay?”
I wrinkled my nose but sighed. Arguing with the Chief wouldn’t get me anywhere but reprimanded and forced to do it anyway. Something told me that this wasn’t going to be as simple as I seemed to think it was. I nodded slowly and he clapped me on the shoulder, muttering his thanks as he turned and left me in my morgue with more questions, and my headache.