Deadhead, page 3
“I know, right.” he cried.
Spencer stood up again and stretched his back. He checked his watch and looked around the graveyard. His eye fell on the large yellow digger that sat nearby. He nudged Regan with his foot and pointed to the earthmoving machine.
“I think I’ve worked out an easy way to get this done.”
Regan followed his eye and groaned. “We’re going to steal that digger aren’t we?”
“Not steal. Borrow, like Mum’s car. It won’t leave the graveyard and I’ll put it back after I’ve finished.” Spencer said this as if he was doing the digger’s owner a favour by converting it.
“Do you know how it works?”
Spencer shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
Quite difficult as it turned out. Spencer resorted to the process of trial and error to learn how to drive the digger. This resulted in two crushed ornamental trees, several stripped gear cogs, a cracked gravestone and the near decapitation of Regan, who only just managed to duck out of the way of the digger’s wildly swinging blade.
After ten minutes of carnage Spencer finally wrought control of the machine. The clawed bucket at the end of the earthmover’s gigantic pneumatic arm ate through the dirt like a ravenous dog demolishing a plate of sausages. Earth showered the surrounding area and by the time the blade struck the wooden top of Garret’s coffin it looked like the grave had been blown up rather than excavated.
Spencer let out a triumphant whoop. “That’s how you dig up a coffin.”
“A skill bound to come in handy often,” observed Regan dryly as she moved to the edge of the hole and peered inside.
Spencer climbed down from the digger and joined her by the grave. Half of the coffin lid had been unearthed. Spencer grabbed his shovel and clambered into the pit. He waved to Regan.
“Give me a hand to pry the lid off.”
Regan picked up her spade and worked her way into the grave.
“You really know how to show a girl a good time,” she said as she wedged the blade of her spade into the edge of the coffin.
“It’s not like this is a date.”
“That’s lucky because it would be the worst ever.”
Spencer brushed the remaining dirt from the coffin lid and moved to the other end of the wooden box. He positioned his shovel under the lid as Regan had done.
“On three?”
Regan nodded.
“One. Two. Three.”
Spencer and Regan put their combined weight on the handles and pushed hard. The heavy wooden lid screamed as it was pried free. The harsh shriek was exactly the sort of sound you’d expect to hear in a cemetery, as if a ghoul had risen from the dead and was railing against whatever had taken its life.
Spencer watched his friend reel backwards as she anticipated a stench from within the coffin. He fixed her with a bemused smile.
“He’s not going to stink, he’ll have been embalmed.”
Spencer peered into the coffin and examined its contents.
The corpse of constable Garret Hunter was in remarkably good condition. There was bruising on his forehead and his skin was stretched and unnaturally pale, as if the colour had leached out. There were early signs of decomposition around his right eye but aside from that he looked like an anaemic man sleeping. As Spencer had predicted he had been buried in full dress uniform, the blue fabric standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin.
Spencer looked a little disappointed when he saw the corpse. “He’s not looking quite as dead as I’d hoped,” he muttered.
Regan stared at him, unable to disguise her astonishment. “What are you talking about?” she said pointing at the body. “That’s as dead as it’s possible to be.”
“That’s not what I mean,” replied Spencer. “I was hoping he’d look a bit more drawn and ghoulish.” He brightened. “Never mind, I can scuff him up a bit in the lab.”
“Seriously?” said Regan as she backed away from the coffin.
Spencer went over to his friend. “Look,” he said calmly. “I know I’m sounding a bit callous but if this is going to work I have to behave like a surgeon or a cop would. They take emotion out of the equation and just get on with the job. Cops make jokes about corpses all the time.”
Regan was unconvinced. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“Possibly not but we can’t think of this guy as a person anymore. He’s not, he’s a tool and we need him to stop me from ending up like he did. Okay?”
Regan gave a small nod and Spencer gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“Right. Now give me a hand to get him out.”
Removing Garret’s body out of the hole proved to be much harder than Spencer had anticipated. By the time he and Regan had dragged the corpse to the surface they were sweating heavily and gasping for breath.
“This had better be worth it,” groaned the girl.
Spencer flashed a confident smile. “It will be. I’m one hundred and twelve percent certain.”
• • •
The harsh light in Spencer’s mother’s basement made Garret’s corpse look even paler, which neither Regan nor Spencer would have believed possible. The dead cop’s skin had turned from an alabaster white to a sickly green and the upheaval had caused his right eye to droop, which pleased Spencer immensely.
The body lay on a medical table that Spencer had ‘borrowed’ from the back of a Saint John’s ambulance. Garret was nearly naked with just a pair of briefs preserving his modesty. The rest of the room looked like the combination of a medical laboratory and electronics workshop. A tall, thin fridge with glass doors stood against the wall and hummed. It was full of beakers and jars holding a variety of multi-coloured liquids and samples, including pickled rodents and insects. Petri dishes containing, what Spencer described as ‘diseases waiting to happen’, sat on the lower shelves. Beside the fridge was a series of shelving units stacked with test tubes, vials, syringes and microscopes. Circuit boards, wires, soldering equipment, small motors and cameras were housed in boxes on a nearby work bench.
Nothing matched and most of the equipment was old and worn, except the electronic equipment which looked suspiciously fresh out of the box. Despite the eclectic mix of equipment everything was well labelled and organised, clearly the product of a brilliantly structured but disturbed mind.
Neither Spencer nor his mother could afford any of the equipment in the room so it had been stolen, found in bins behind hospitals or electronics stores, or borrowed from school. Spencer was amazed at the quality and quantity of medical equipment that was thrown away. Technology was moving at such a pace that perfectly serviceable apparatus were quickly superseded and ended up in e-waste bins. He’d become an extremely effective scavenger.
Spencer had installed a small work station in the room. A laptop computer and iPad sat on the desk beside a number of remote control units. He had obtained the hardware as part of a ‘goods for services’ transaction he initiated with a couple of rich jocks from school. They received fake ID’s as part of the bargain and could now enter Jezebel’s Exotic Dance Club with impunity.
The temperature in the room was cool; goose bumps stood out on Regan’s arm. Spencer didn’t seem to notice, he had the metabolism of a polar bear.
“What happens now?” Regan asked quietly, a shake in her voice.
Spencer’s reply was practical. “The embalming fluid will have kept his body in good nick. They put a cell conditioner in it which prepares cells for absorption and breaks up blood clots. They also use disinfectants, nutrients and cellular proteins which will have preserved his arterial system, so all I have to do is drain the fluid and replace it with this.” He picked up a beaker that contained a luminous blue liquid. “It’s a highly oxygenated lubricating solution I developed. It’s similar to blood in that it will transport vital chemicals around the body, eliminate waste and regulate body temperature but it also contains microscopic sensors which will help run a series of servo motors I’m fitting to all his major organs and joints. Essentially, the human body contains everything we need for movement, I just need to get it all working again.”
Regan looked puzzled. “How are you going to get the fluid circulating through his body? His heart has stopped.”
“We’ll soon get that puppy beating again.” Spencer patted Garret’s chest. “I’m attaching a booster pump to his heart which will help it operate as it used to. He was fit and young before he died so his organs should be in good condition. It’s just a matter of jump-starting them again. I tried it on a dead mouse and it nearly worked.”
“Nearly?”
“Yeah, the heart started again but the mouse blew up. I think I used too powerful a motor.”
Regan stepped quickly away from Garret’s corpse. “Eww,” She spluttered. “He’s not going to explode is he?”
“Shouldn’t think so,” replied Spencer absent-mindedly.
The boy picked up a complicated control unit from his work station. It contained a video screen and thumb operated rods, like you’d see on a high-tech helicopter remote. “He’ll be brain dead by now but that doesn’t matter; we don’t need him to think, just move. I’m fitting cameras behind his eyes which will relay everything he sees back to me. A microprocessor in his brain stem will relay my orders to the electrodes in his reconditioned blood which will fire sensors and boosters on his limbs plus stimulate his existing muscles. Then ‘bang’ our boy’s walking again. In theory anyway.”
“Will he be able to talk?”
Spencer shook his head. “Only through me. I’m connecting a speaker to his voice box and I’ll use a synthesiser to speak.” The boy grinned. “Wait ‘til you hear the voice I’ve selected. It’ll scare the crap out of Carl and his mates!”
“Cool,” said Regan, impressed.
Spencer picked up a scalpel and turned to his friend. “You may not want to watch this?”
Regan’s complexion began to resemble the colour of three week old milk. She nodded quickly and left the room.
Spencer leant over the corpse of constable Garret Hunter and took a deep breath. He pressed the razor sharp scalpel into the skin on the dead cop’s chest then began to cut.
Chapter Three
Cadence Green knelt and examined the spot where two weeks previously her ex-partner’s body had been pulled from the Yellowbridge River. A fisherman had spotted the corpse washed up in reeds twenty metres from shore and a police dive squad had retrieved the body.
Crime scene investigators had already combed the area but Cadence didn’t trust their findings. For good reason. Garret Hunter’s death had been recorded as an accidental drowning. The official investigation concluded he’d gone for a late night stroll by the river, tripped, knocked his head on a rock and drowned. Cadence concluded this was bull crap. She’d worked with Garret for two years and he had never gone for a late night stroll, not even once. In fact, he was openly scornful of people who did. The only things that would get him out of the house at night were work, a date, or a game of twilight football.
She also knew he was on a case. It was a job they should have been working together but they’d had an argument earlier in the day, ironically about teamwork, and Garret had left in a huff.
Cadence was furious he had continued the investigation without her. If he hadn’t been killed she would have shot him.
The policewoman rose, took some cleaning wipes from a small, black, nylon bag she had strapped to her belt and wiped mud from the knee of her dark blue police uniform trousers. She looked around, scanning the lush riverside scenery for anything that offered a clue as to why her partner had been there. Her eye fell upon the ruins of an old shed that stood set back from the river. She could just make out an old stone wall running beside it. The building was in poor repair but would offer a good view of the area.
Cadence jogged up a slight rise to the shed. She made it to the top with no discernible rise in her heart rate. Cadence was in her late twenties and was in peak physical condition. She worked out at the gym five times a week and attended regular kick-boxing classes. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her tall muscular frame; this wasn’t due to a racehorse metabolism (as several jealous co-workers claimed). It was down to pure hard work and rigid discipline. She wore no make-up on her angular face. Her dark hair was close cropped and brought out the startling blue of her eyes. Cadence knew she was attractive and played down her looks as much as possible. She wanted people to judge her by her abilities, not her appearance. It was an uphill battle.
The policewoman moved toward the entrance to the shed. She paused at the door, unease pricked at her skin. Cadence didn’t consider herself to be a spiritual or psychically attuned person, she was way too pragmatic for that, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something sinister had happened here.
She surveyed the interior with revulsion, the room was filthy. Trash littered the floor and the air carried the stench of decay and the unmistakable whiff of solvents. Screwed up plastic bags, their innards gummed together with yellowing glue, were strewn about the floor. Discarded packets and cigarette butts were scattered amongst rotting timber and rubble. The shed had obviously been used as a hang out by street kids and runaways. Cadence made a mental note to pass the information on to the local cops so they could include the location in their evening patrols.
Her inclination was to walk back out the door but she took a deep breath and stepped inside, thankful for her heavy, police issue boots. Moving with caution she picked her way through the refuse until she had a clear view of the river. The first thing she noticed was the shattered remains of the boat ramp. The local council had erected a tape cordon around the structure warning that the ramp was out of use and unstable.
Cadence decided to head to the river and inspect the damaged dock more closely. She stepped forward. Her foot hit something solid. She glanced down, apprehensive about what she’d stepped on. In this shed it was bound to be something unpleasant. At first, all she saw was discarded newspaper and plastic shopping bags, then a glint of silver caught her eye. Cadence brushed the rubbish away with her foot and was astonished to uncover a virtually new Nikon Camera. It looked like the camera she and Garret carried in their patrol car. Cadence ran through the list of effects that had been included in the report on Garret’s death. There was no mention of the camera. She plucked the Nikon from the floor, wiped it clean and turned it on.
As she flicked through the menu of recent photos her chest tightened. Garret stared at her from the small screen. Her dead partner laughing as he posed with a dog the two of them had rescued from a drain one month previously. Cadence bit hard into her lip trying to blot out the sorrow and rage she felt at seeing her partner again so unexpectedly. Garret’s death had infuriated her. She was incensed that he’d gone on patrol without her and furious he’d got himself killed. There was guilt there too, a lingering feeling that if she’d been there she could have protected him. This culminated into a single minded focus to track down and punish those responsible by any and all means possible. Cadence tasted blood in her mouth and released her lip from her teeth. She spat and dabbed her mouth with a tissue before returning her attention to the camera.
Cadence flicked past the older photos. She was surprised to see so many of her. She scrolled to the most recent shots. The policewoman discovered a series of grainy images taken in low light that would need enhancing but Cadence could make out two heavy looking guys wearing Death’s Disciples Motorcycle Club patches. The remaining shots featured a jet black speedboat approaching the boat ramp, which Cadence noted, was still intact when the pictures were taken. She spooled through the camera’s menu and checked the date the photographs were shot. It was the night Garret had died.
This was proof that her partner had been working on the evening of his death. She felt anger returning. She briefly wondered if he hadn’t called because of a misguided attempt to keep her safe. Cadence let out a short barking laugh at the thought. She realised she was romanticising Garret in death. He probably didn’t give her a second thought, ambition taking the place of common sense as he tried to crack the case by himself. Stupid, stupid, selfish fool!
Cadence placed the strap of the camera around her neck and picked her way down to the boat ramp.
She pushed aside the tape and walked warily onto the badly damaged decking. The ragged, splintered, wood testified that something of a reasonable size had ploughed into the jetty. Cadence believed it was probably the boat she had seen in Garret’s photographs; however, as an experienced policewoman, she didn’t deal in belief, she dealt in evidence. She edged toward the dock’s main supporting pillar. The wooden beam had sustained considerable damage in the smash and slewed backwards like a miss-hit nail. The wood was scarred and large chunks had been gouged out. Cadence could see black paint embedded in the timber. She reached into her pouch and removed a small glass tube and a knife. She carefully scraped flakes of paint from the wood into the tube, sealed the opening and placed it back in her hip pack.
She walked the scene for another half an hour, took a cast of tyre tracks she found near the ramp, then returned to her car. She stored the cast and the pack containing the paint flakes in the boot then settled into the front of the car to work.
Cadence reached under the passenger seat and retrieved an iPad. She switched it on then attached a cable between the camera and the tablet. Before long the photos had downloaded. Cadence sharpened and enlarged the shots. No matter how closely she examined photographs of the boat she could find no registration or identification. This told her several things. Firstly, it wasn’t a fishing boat, otherwise it would have been named - probably something corny like: ‘A-Fishy-Nardo’. The same went for pleasure craft: ‘Ski Ya Later’? So, it was a working boat, most likely used for smuggling or other illegal purposes. Secondly, Cadence guessed it was probably housed nearby. The river police often checked boat registrations so whoever owned it wouldn’t risk travelling far without certification.
