It Worked!

The blood had long dried. A widow was somewhere in the dark crying for her loss. The man was wearing a black striped shirt and work trousers. The silver buttons were stained red. Thank God his eyes were closed.

“Six hours.”

“That’s it?”

I stood, feeling my knees crack in warning. Jesus, I was getting old. The detective’s face was grave, but, then again, aren’t they always? He smelled like stale cigars.

“What do you mean?” I clicked my pen and stuffed it back into my front pocket.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You come here from DC, I have to wait a fucking hour because my boss is hard up for anything female, then you spend three seconds with our guy and all you gotta say is ‘six hours’? Give me a break, Lady Doc,” he said as he chewed the inside of his cheek.

I inhaled. The worst part of my job was coming. I was so tired of telling people, “I’m not a doctor. I’m just an analyst.” It reminded me of Dr. McCoy always telling Captain Kirk, “Damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a botanist.”

“What’s the difference?” Detective Johnson shifted the bulk of his weight to the other foot while one of my crew snapped a photo of the poor dead guy. Did I really have to explain it again?

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“I didn’t go to med school, and I don’t have a doctorate. You called me to find out how long the guy’s been dead. That’s what I did. Six hours.” I tucked a strand of black hair behind my ear.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Detective Johnson’s gaze left mine to fasten on the poor sap. “He’s been missin’ for eighteen.”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I shrugged. “Not my jurisdiction.”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">A smile pulled at the fat man’s mouth. “I think I might like you after all, Lady Doc.”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I didn’t need him to like me. After another sigh, I was stalking toward the medical van to discard my gloves. But as I passed my colleague, he stopped taking photos and lowered the camera.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“What the...?”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“Did I miss something?” I asked.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“He...he blinked...”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The guy was a newbie. I should have known he would get a bit floopy on me. My gaze roamed over the dead man once more.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“Cameras are flashin’, kid. Your mind’s playing tricks on you.” I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I started to walk back toward the medical van. For a moment, I stopped to chuckle to myself. ''He blinked. Really? Come on.'' He’d been stabbed seventeen times, his heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing, and he’d lost a gallon of blood. He didn’t blink.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Still, something wasn’t right. The police cruisers still had their lights flashing, but the sound of whirring cameras had dissipated. It was too still; too silent. Great, the kid got so scared, that he stopped taking pictures. I was going to have to save this one again.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I whirled around. But as soon as I took in the scene and each piece clicked into place in my brain, I knew this was no ordinary case.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">In front of me, the man who had been lying dead in a pool of dried blood for six hours was sitting up. His eyes were so wide, I could see the whites. Everyone else was frozen solid. My crewman had gone and pissed himself, he was so scared.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The man blinked. Once. Twice. Then, he looked down at himself and fingered the torn holes in his shirt. A smile broke across his face. His shoulders shook. He began laughing maniacally, cackling into the night.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“Somebody call an ambulance!”

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words until I was running toward the detective. When I was at his side, I clawed the rough material of his tan trench coat.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“Call a God damn ambulance! Why are you just standing there!?” Finally, once I’d startled him into next Sunday, he fumbled in his coat for a cell phone. While he was dialing 911, he put a finger in his other ear to block out the insane laugh of the dead man.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">I’ll never forget the guy’s words as they hauled him away, either. They chilled me to the very core. Sometimes I even dream about them.

<p style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">“It worked! It worked!”