The Askew Oracle
AU. Had only the writers of Haven sorted out Duke's whole 'Dying-At-The-Hands-Of-A-Person-With-A-Guard-Tattoo' thing, he'd have lived to tell the tale!
I like to think it would have gone something like this...
Duke arrived at The Grey Gull early. He didn't like Inventory Day, but like a lot of things in life, it was something that had to be done. Besides, Bren would be in shortly, and between the two of them, they'd soon make short work of it.
"Soonest started, soonest finished," he muttered, as he unlocked the door and shut off the alarm.
The sun was just beginning to peer over the horizon as he put on a pot of coffee, wondering if Audrey were awake yet upstairs. He glanced over at the Bailey's behind the bar back and smiled slightly; but then he remembered that she wasn't at home anyway-she and Nathan had gone to his place after dinner.
He rounded up the last of the empty bottles from last night, and had just taken them out to the recycling bin, when he heard someone behind him.
He turned, and was met by two hands that clasped around his face, the world instantly blurring and dimming.
Duke had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a Guard tattoo on the man's arm as the world faded from his view.
So this is how it ends, he thought, and then darkness overtook him.
Audrey was just pouring herself a cup of coffee, as Nathan turned over the pancakes.
"Maple or blueberry syrup?" he asked, smiling, as she gave him a good morning kiss.
"Both," Audrey smiled.
"Ew," Nathan grimaced, but in a teasing way as he set the plate down on the table, and then noticed a vehicle turning into his driveway.
"Dwight's out and about early," he remarked, as the truck pulled to a stop in front of house.
"Maybe he's here for the pancakes," Audrey chuckled, but her smile faded as she noticed Nathan's expression, and turned to look out the window with him.
Dwight still had not gotten out of his truck. He sat behind the wheel, his face grim, as though he had to work himself up to coming to the door.
Nathan felt a foreboding chill pass over him, or would have, had he been able to feel.
"Something's wrong," he said as Dwight finally climbed out of the cab of the truck and walked up the steps, where he was met at the door by Nathan.
"Nathan—Audrey," Dwight greeted, his voice low.
"What's the matter? Is it a Trouble?" Audrey asked.
"N-no; or at least, I don't know," Dwight replied. He hesitated for a long moment, and then spoke again. "We had a call-out to the Gull this morning," he went on slowly. "Brenda Jarvis came into work early today—"
"Inventory Day," Audrey interrupted, grinning. "Duke hates it."
"Yeah," Dwight said slowly. "She came in to give him a hand with it—and she found Duke collapsed in the alleyway," he went on, seeing their shocked faces. "She called for paramedics, and I came out myself when I heard the call on the scanner."
Nathan felt the foreboding chill grow into dread.
"What happened? Was Duke robbed? Is he all right?" Audrey asked her voice anxious.
"No, nothing was taken," Dwight went on, his tone soft and gentle, and Nathan's dread tied knots in his stomach. "The paramedics told me they did what they could; but they said it had been too long."
"It had been too long for what?" Audrey asked, her eyes filling, and Nathan clutched her hand in his as he realized what Dwight was trying not to say; but had to tell them.
Please don't say what I think you're trying to say, Dwight, he thought, aware of the lump that was growing in his throat. Please don't say it. Say anything but that.
"Is Duke—"he heard himself croak.
"Yeah," Dwight uttered, almost inaudible. "I'm sorry guys, but—Duke is dead."
"No. No, he can't be," Audrey burst out, her eyes watering. "H-he can't be dead!"
"Why?" Nathan asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "What happened to him, Dwight?"
"We don't know. Gloria's there now. There's no evidence of a struggle, not a mark on him anywhere, so he didn't die a violent death. Gloria says maybe heart failure; she won't know until his autopsy. I'm sorry."
"H-how can she say heart failure? I saw him last night, he was fine!" Nathan protested. He just couldn't comprehend it; Duke Crocker was dead.
Audrey grabbed her jacket, tears streaking her face.
"I want to go to the Gull," she sobbed, and Nathan put his arms around her. "I want to see him for myself."
"They were getting ready to transport him to the morgue when I left, so that's where he'll be," Dwight told them. "I wanted to notify you in person instead of hearing about it on the scanner. I'm sorry—I know you guys were close."
Nathan nodded, numb with shock and disbelief, and held Audrey tighter as she sobbed inconsolably.
"We'll go see Gloria," Nathan told her. "And then we'll start trying to find out what happened." He looked at Dwight. "I want to run the investigation myself."
"Nathan, you're too close to this," Dwight argued gently. "I'm running the investigation personally. If somebody hurt Duke—we'll get them, I swear."
Gloria stood watching in silence, doing her best not to cry as the paramedics wheeled in the stretcher with its black body bag strapped atop it, and handed her a clipboard, which she scribbled a signature on. One of them laid a gentle hand on her shoulder briefly, before they departed.
She exhaled a shaky sigh, and carefully unzipped the bag, revealing Duke's face, and wiped her eyes. She laid a tender hand against his cheek, pale and cold under her touch.
"You tried so hard didn't you, kiddo?" she asked him, her voice breaking. "You tried so hard for this crazy town."
There was a noise at the door, and Vince and Dave Teagues came through it. Dave took his hat off as they approached the stretcher, and they looked down at Duke.
"So it is true," Vince said softly. "What happened to him, Gloria?"
Normally, anyone asking that question before she'd had a chance to do anything would have gotten their heads bitten off; but Gloria just didn't have it in her right now.
"I don't know. He wasn't shot, stabbed, bludgeoned or strangled," she exhaled. "There's not a mark on him anywhere."
"Perhaps Duke had an aneurysm?" Vince thought aloud.
Gloria shook her head. "No indication it was any type of hemorrhage, cerebral or otherwise."
"Maybe Duke had some hidden medical problem with his heart," Dave suggested.
"The only problem Duke Crocker had with his heart was it was too big when it came to this town," Gloria answered and the Teagues nodded agreement.
"Do Audrey and Nathan know yet?" Vince asked.
"Dwight went to notify them in person," she got out before she spied the blue blur of the Bronco as it squealed into the parking lot, and she scrubbed her eyes dry.
"Here—help me get him out of this bag so they don't have to see him like this," she growled, and Vince and Dave helped her ease Duke's body from the bag as the door beeped and Nathan and Audrey came inside. Audrey choked back a sob, and Nathan's eyes watered for a moment before his expression hardened once he saw Vince and Dave there.
"Did you two know anything about this?" Nathan asked without preamble. "Is this the Guard's handiwork?"
"No!" Vince said his tone heated. "Nathan, I swear to you I know nothing about this—either of us," he gestured at Dave, who nodded empathically.
"We wouldn't hurt Duke, Nathan, you know that," Dave said. "We're as much in the dark as you are."
"I hope not," Nathan answered evenly. "Because if I find out you knew anything about this and said nothing or you try to hide it from us—I'm going to be very, very upset."
Audrey ignored them, and bent down to cradle Duke's head in her arms, and kissed his forehead.
"What happened to you?" she questioned, as though Duke would answer her. "I'm so sorry, Duke," she cried. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me most," she wailed. "Y-you've helped us so much, and when you needed me, I wasn't there. I failed you, and I'm sorry."
"Audrey, you couldn't have known," Dave told her compassionately.
"It isn't your fault, Audrey. None us know when our time on earth is going to be through, my dear," Vince put in kindly.
"I know it doesn't help; but for what it's worth, Audrey, he didn't suffer," Gloria sniffled. "I won't know until after his autopsy, but it looks as though his heart just stopped beating."
Audrey ignored them; just holding Duke in her arms, studying his face. His expression was calm and relaxed, and Nathan had the strange thought that it looked almost as though he were simply asleep, save for the fact that he was dead.
He reached down and put his arms around Audrey, who fought against him, but he persevered.
"Audrey—there's nothing you can do for him now," he said softly in her ear, his voice breaking. "You can't fix him. Duke's gone. Now we have to let Gloria do her job to find out why."
"I want to stay," she sobbed.
"No," Nathan said. "Don't do that to yourself, Audrey. This isn't your fault." He half-wanted to stay himself; but the thought of watching Gloria cut Duke's body open and pull his organs out was a memory he didn't want to have. "We have our work to do too. We have to find out what happened to Duke."
Audrey nodded, sniffing, and then gently laid Duke back down on the table, smoothing his hair back down.
"I'll call you the minute I find anything out," Gloria told them.
"Do you know if Duke had any family left?" Vince asked.
"Why?" Nathan's voice was harsh, and Vince looked taken aback.
"I was only asking—for Duke's obituary for the Herald."
"I think there was another older brother, somewhere or other," Nathan said woodenly. "I think Duke might've met him twice in life. His mom—I don't know."
Vince nodded. "I'll look into it," he promised. "I'm sorry, Nathan. I know you and he didn't always get along—but—"
"Yeah. Thanks, Vince," Nathan said, and he put a hand on Duke's shoulder, as though to make sure he was really there, and held it there for a long moment before he and Audrey departed.
"Well, we'll leave you to it, Gloria," Vince exhaled, and also touched Duke's arm. "You'll let us know what you find out, won't you?"
"Poor kid," Dave said sadly, and they left Gloria alone with Duke once more.
She studied him for a few moments more, and then exhaled, hard.
"We'll wait till Intern gets here, huh?" she asked him, and covered him over with a sheet.
Nathan and Audrey pulled up to the Gull, and he winced, seeing Duke's truck parked in its usual spot outside as they walked into the building, as though he were at work, and not lying on a table in the morgue.
A million memories were crowding his mind as he surveyed the bar, seemingly seeing Duke everywhere. It felt strange and empty here now with him gone. It just didn't seem real that he wouldn't be here anymore; never hear his call of 'Hi, Nathan', never wonder what con Duke would up to next, never being able to rely on him in a pinch again, and he felt an immense sadness, knowing that Duke didn't survive to see the end of the Troubles. Even after all they'd been through, he'd just never thought that one day, Duke wouldn't be around anymore.
Audrey had cried steadily the whole drive here; but once they'd parked, she'd dried her eyes, and taken a few steadying breaths before looking to Nathan.
"Up and at 'em, huh?" she said, a tremulous smile on her lips.
"Yeah," Nathan replied softly, and held her close for a moment, choking down the softball-sized lump in his own throat. There would be time enough to shed their tears for the loss of their friend; but for now, they had to find out why he was gone so suddenly.
Audrey spotted the corner table, where Brenda was slowly rubbing the spots from the silverware, stopping every so often to wipe her face, and they made their way over to her.
"Hi, Brenda," Audrey greeted softly. "Still polishing the silver?"
"Duke hates spots," she half-laughed. "Kind of seems so pointless now—but he—"she sighed heavily, laying the fork down. "He always wanted them spotless."
"Brenda, what happened this morning?" Nathan questioned.
"I came in, noticed the door was unlocked, but I didn't see Duke. You know Duke—he wouldn't go off and leave the place open like that. Besides, his truck was outside," she went on, Nathan and Audrey nodding agreement. "I called out to him, but he didn't answer. I started to go upstairs to see if he was in the office, or maybe he'd gone to take you coffee—"her voice broke. "A-and then I saw the back door was open; and Duke lying in the alleyway."
She paused to dry her eyes, and Audrey handed her a napkin from the holder.
"I-I thought at first he was asleep or he'd passed out," she said, mirroring the same thought that Nathan had had at the morgue upon seeing Duke.
"I turned him over, and—he felt so cold," she whispered. "He wouldn't respond, so I called the ambulance," Brenda quavered. "And then when they got here—they said he was—dead. That he'd been dead for probably about five hours, which is weird."
"Why weird?" Audrey asked.
"B-Because I closed up last night with Duke, and he made a joke about being on the turnaround, he called it," she told them. "Close up then turn around and open."
"What time was that?"
"Three a.m., and Duke was back at six, because that's when the computer software said the alarm was turned off."
"Which meant that Duke was still alive at six am," Nathan finished for her, his mind ticking. He glanced at the clock behind the bar, which told him it was now 10:30; only an hour after Dwight had told them their best friend was dead. "But what does that mean?"
Vicki had arrived by now at the morgue, and after Gloria had steadied herself with a stiff shot, the pair set to undressing Duke, carefully folding his clothes, noting the items retrieved from his person, and tucked them into an envelope.
Vicki laid out Gloria's instruments as Gloria finished getting ready in her surgical garb and Vicki stood for a few moments looking down at Duke, her expression unreadable. He'd always been good to her, she remembered; he'd flirt with her on occasion, teasing her he was going to steal her away from Ben one of these days, and her expression saddened.
"It's so strange to see him like this," Vicki murmured.
"Hard seeing people we care about in here," Gloria answered gruffly as she finished swabbing Duke's chest with alcohol and readied to make the lengthy Y-shaped incision that would open Duke's chest and abdominal cavities.
Vicki looked puzzled. "No, I mean he looks strange."
"How do you mean he looks strange?" Gloria demanded.
"How long did you say he's been dead?" Vicki questioned.
"Paramedics said they estimated Duke had been deceased for around three to five hours when they got there at 6:45," Gloria read aloud from the report. She sighed, and then picked up her scalpel again, bending towards Duke.
"Just strange, that's all," Vicki remarked.
Gloria laid her scalpel down, and looked over her glasses at Vicki.
"What are you trying to say, Victoria?"
Vicki wavered, unsure.
"Come out with it, girl. Do you know something about this?" the older woman demanded.
"No, no!" Vicki blurted out. "It's just—"
"It's just what?"
"How come he doesn't look dead then?"
Gloria looked back down to Duke, taking him in, and she realized that was what had been nagging at her all morning, summed up in one simple sentence by a first-year intern—he didn't look dead, and she cursed herself mentally for not seeing it sooner.
"Help me turn him over," she gestured at Vicki, and the pair rolled Duke onto his side, examining him briefly before they lay him back flat on the table. Gloria examined his limbs, looking into his eyes, before she glanced up at Vicki, a faint smile on her face.
"Seems like this old gal's learning from you today," she told her. "I think you may be onto something here, kiddo," Gloria sniffled, and Vicki smiled timidly.
Nathan and Audrey hurried back to the morgue after receiving Dwight's strange message about Gloria's discovery, and they hastened their steps, hearing loud voices coming from the morgue, finding Gloria fending off Dr. Owerton, standing between Duke's body and the doctor while Dwight was attempting to referee the argument.
"Dr. Verrano had a close personal relationship with the decedent," Dr. Owerton was saying. "We do have other cases, and she is letting her feelings for the deceased interfere with her professionalism!"
"How dare you question my professional integrity!" Gloria shouted, and Owerton flushed, but remained polite. "And for the record, 'the decedent' had a name, so use it."
He is an odd little man, Nathan thought. If anyone had thought Dr. Rudy Lucassi was a strange bird, it was only because they hadn't met Calvin Owerton yet.
"All I was saying is that I could do the autopsy on Mr. Crocker and spare you from having to do it," the doctor said, stepping towards the table. "It wouldn't take more than an hour or so."
Gloria grabbed an office chair, gesturing at him with it, and Dwight and Nathan intervened.
"You see what I mean?" the doctor demanded of Dwight.
"As she is Chief Coroner, if Dr. Verrano has a reason for holding up on the autopsy, I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt," Dwight said sternly.
Owerton compressed his lips into a tight angry line.
"Then I'll just have to go over your head then, Chief Hendrickson," he said, and stormed out.
"Why do you care so much about the delay in Duke's autopsy?" Audrey demanded of him suddenly, and he turned and looked at her, his eyes glittering behind his glasses, and Audrey had the feeling that Dr. Owerton wasn't just merely interested in sparing Gloria the task of performing an autopsy on a friend.
Does he know something about Duke's death? she thought. And if so—what does he know?
"All I am trying to do is to see that this office is run competently," Dr. Owerton said, and Gloria reached for the chair again, but Dwight stopped her.
"One more crack like that and you're gonna be on the table next to Duke!" she bellowed, and Dr. Owerton stormed out through the swinging doors.
"Creep," Audrey muttered. There was something about the odd little man that just didn't sit right with her.
"Now, what is all this about, Gloria?" Dwight said. "Why haven't you done Duke's autopsy yet?"
"Because I don't think he's really dead," she told them.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the three of them stared in mute shock at her for a moment, before Dwight's expression softened, and he put his hands on Gloria's shoulders.
"Gloria-I know it's hard. But he's gone. Duke is dead," he told her gently. "The paramedics confirmed that he'd been dead for about four or five hours when they got there." He paused a moment. "I know what dead looks like, Gloria. I saw a lot of it in Afghanistan."
"I'm sure you did, Dwight," Gloria commiserated. "But I bet you've never seen dead like this."
"I don't understand," Audrey said.
"That makes two of us," Nathan replied.
"Intern pointed it out to me, and she was right. Look," Gloria told them, gesturing them around Duke's body on the table. She reached down, and took his hand in hers, closing Duke's fingers easily into a fist before she picked his arm up, bending it at the elbow, and then returned it by his side.
"Duke has no rigor in his body whatsoever," she said, grunting slightly as she lifted his shoulder up, showing them his back. "Also-there's no post-mortem bruising from his blood settling."
"Which means-" Nathan prodded, hoping against hope.
"I don't know. I hooked him up to an EKG-he's got no pulse or respiration, at least, none recordable," Gloria went on. "But I don't think that Duke is actually deceased. If Duke were dead, he'd be in full rigor by this time, he'd have bruising on his back, he'd be a grayish color," she went on, picking up his hand again. "His fingers and toes would have turned blue, nearly black, by this time."
"I'm still not getting what you're saying," Dwight puzzled.
"Look," Vicki put in, opening a morgue drawer and drawing out a sheet-wrapped form. She uncovered it, revealing an older man. "Mr. Jorgensen died of a heart attack early this morning. He came in just before Duke did. They've both been dead around the same amount of time," she gestured. "You see how much different he looks than Duke?"
The trio gathered around the drawer, and they could see that there was indeed a marked difference between the man in the morgue drawer and in Duke.
"Also, Duke hasn't been in refrigeration yet," Gloria went on. "He should be starting to smell about now, and he doesn't smell like decomp. He smells like that sandalwood soap he uses."
Gloria laid his hand down once more, and picked up her penlight, shining it into Duke's eyes. Nathan could see that although Duke's pupils had no reaction to the light, his eyes looked normal.
"Duke's eyes should be cloudy at ten hours of death, but they're not," she finished. "So either he drank enough to somehow pickle himself, in which case I should be even more pickled than than him," she cracked, drawing faint smiles from Dwight and Nathan. "Or this is something else," she finished soberly. "I think somebody did this to him—somebody who's Troubled."
"You think this a Trouble?" Audrey asked, instinctively clutching Duke's arm. "Who would do such a thing to him?"
"Somebody who wanted him dead," Nathan said. "If Gloria had done Duke's autopsy already—"
"He'd really be dead," Dwight finished.
Audrey looked back down to Duke, stroking his hair, and she glanced back up at Gloria.
"Do you think that he's—aware, somehow?" Audrey questioned. "Does Duke know what's happening to him?"
"That I can't answer, Audrey," Gloria exhaled. "But until we find out one way or another, I'm not autopsying him, and neither is anyone else, and that goes double for Dr. Creepy out there!" she shouted at the doors, returning to her usual feisty demeanor.
"I agree," Dwight replied. "Gloria, you keep Duke here with you. No autopsy until we get some answers on whether this is a Trouble or not."
"And if it is a Trouble?" Nathan asked.
"Then we make them fix it, whatever it takes," Audrey said through gritted teeth, and bent down to kiss Duke's forehead. "We will fix this, Duke," she told him. "I promise you I will make them fix you back."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then we'll come to that bridge when we get there," Audrey finished for him, feeling that faint spark of hope catch fire. "Keep him safe, Gloria."
"They'll have to take him over my dead body," Gloria promised.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Nathan said dryly. "First thing, we need to go to the Rouge and see if there's any mention of a Trouble like this in the Crocker journal."
"I'll start going through the Gull's surveillance tapes," Dwight told them. "See if anybody's been following him around, looking for an opportunity to use this Trouble on him. It stands to reason that the person who did this would be on there."
"I'll check with Beatty, see if anybody suspicious has been hanging around the Rouge," Nathan spoke, and the three of them went their separate ways.
Nathan and Audrey went aboard The Cape Rouge, where Nathan found the journal easily enough, glancing through the writings of assorted Crockers through the years.
Audrey, however, kept thinking back to the encounter with Dr. Owerton in the morgue.
"Where did that Owerton guy come from? He's not from around here, is he?" she asked Nathan.
"Originally, yeah, he was," Nathan mumbled, turning the pages of the journal. "Came back after his brother Lawrence died last year. You remember—that stabbing case. In fact, Dr. Owerton was going around saying that it was Duke that had killed him. Dwight finally had to have a talk with him about it."
"But Duke didn't kill him," Audrey replied.
"No, he didn't," Nathan exhaled, tossing the book down. "There's nothing in here about a Sudden Death Trouble or anything like it."
"Well, if there's nothing here," Audrey said. "You know the next stop."
"Vince and Dave," Nathan agreed. "Let's see if they can tell us anything."
In his office, Dwight was perusing the video footage of the Gull, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He observed customers going in and out, the wait staff and kitchen performing their usual jobs, even Duke putting in an appearance here and there.
Unfortunately, there was no footage of the alleyway, as Duke didn't have a camera out there.
Pretty sure that's because there were things Duke got up to that he didn't necessarily want caught on film, Dwight thought to himself.
He hit PAUSE, and rubbed his eyes, taking a sip of his lukewarm coffee, and then he noticed something. Paused coming in the doorway of the Gull was Dr. Owerton.
Dwight remembered spotting him on earlier footage as well, so he rewound it to see if he was right.
"And then again," he muttered, seeing the doctor appear on video footage at least four other times. "Why do I get the feeling you aren't there for the food, Dr. Owerton?" he questioned the screen.
At The Haven Herald, Nathan and Audrey entered the office, finding Vince looking through some papers.
"Any findings from Gloria about Duke yet?" he asked Nathan.
"No. Gloria's holding off on his autopsy," Nathan said.
"Oh? Why the delay?" Vince questioned.
"Vince, have you ever heard of some type of Death-Touch Trouble?" Nathan asked. "Where a person looks dead, but they actually aren't?"
Vince and Dave exchanged glances.
"I know that look," Audrey told them sternly. "Out with it."
"Well-mind you, this is all rumor now-that there had been a family around here some fifty years ago that was said to have been able to cause such a thing."
"But they all died off," Dave put in.
"Not entirely," Vince admonished. "You remember they had that funeral parlor that went out of business back in the early Seventies. Lettie Neal owned it."
"Yeah, but she was an Owerton before she married Bradford Neal," Dave reminded his elder brother. "She owned the parlor along with her brother Larry."
"Larry Owerton—you mean Lawrence Owerton?" Audrey heard herself asking.
"The guy that was killed last winter," Nathan put in.
"No, he died years ago. Her brother was Lawrence Senior—Lawrence Junior is the guy that was killed last winter," Dave spoke. "The family had moved away back in '72 after that scandal. Larry came back a few years ago, ran that little hardware place out on the highway till he was stabbed to death last year. Dr. Owerton came back to Haven after his brother's death."
"The scuttlebutt on the grapevine is that Dr. Owerton blamed Duke for his brother's death," Vince remarked, glancing over his glasses at the pair.
"Yeah, Dwight talked to him about it," Nathan put in.
"That wasn't Duke's doing, and you know it," Audrey said sternly.
"You mentioned a scandal. What scandal?" Nathan replied, hoping to keep things on track.
"Lawrence Senior had proclaimed a man dead, and right in the middle of his autopsy, he revived," Vince said. "Course, he didn't survive for long, though, not with his inwards splayed out all over."
"Horrible," Dave shuddered.
"And Owerton was blaming Duke for his brother's death. But he didn't do it, he was with us that day," Nathan said. "You think Owerton is our guy?"
"One way to find out—let's go talk to him," Audrey answered, and reached for her bag.
Gloria glanced up from her paperwork, then got up and walked over to the stretcher where Duke lay, and examined him again. No breath stirred in his lungs, no pulse beat in his veins, and yet his skin remained supple and unblemished, his joints flexible, his eyes firm and clear.
"I don't know if you can hear me in there, honey," she told him. "But Nathan and Audrey are hard at it, trying to find a way to fix you back." She looked teary a moment, and blinked hard. "And you owe Intern dinner on you," she went on. "If it hadn't been for her, I'd have opened you up and pulled everything out and never known I'd killed you doing it."
She didn't see the door behind opening up, or the figure creeping stealthily towards her, until she felt gloved hands grab her from behind, a chloroformed rag pressed against her face, and she slid silently to the floor.
The figure stepped over her unconscious form, and wheeled Duke's stretcher toward the door, easily loading it into the back of a hearse before driving away.
Nathan and Audrey spotted the hearse leaving the morgue.
"Must've come for Mr. Jorgensen," Nathan remarked as they parked and went inside.
"Gloria?" Audrey called, "Gloria, we're—Nathan!" she cried, spotting Gloria on the floor.
Nathan raced over to the older woman, turning her over gently, relieved to feel her breathing, and he patted her face, Gloria groaning at being awoken.
"Gloria—Gloria, c'mon, wake up," he urged.
Audrey looked around the room, seeing no sign of Duke anywhere.
"Gloria, where's Duke, what did you do with him?" she asked.
"I didn't do anything with him. Oh, they got the drop on me, didn't they?" she moaned. "He's not on the stretcher by my desk?"
"There's no stretcher, he's gone," Nathan told her.
Gloria came around fully, and she looked dismayed.
"Gloria, is Dr. Owerton here? We need to speak with him," Audrey said.
"You think that little weasel-?" Gloria ground out angrily. "Let me find out he hurt that boy, I'll have his guts for garters!"
"Get in line," Audrey replied.
"It had to be that hearse we saw leaving," Nathan told them. "I'll get an APB put out on it. We have to find Duke."
In an abandoned funerary parlor, Duke was laid out on a mortuary table as Calvin Owerton circled him slowly.
"Our family has always had a rather—unique—ability," Owerton was telling him. "Sleeping Death, our dad called it," he continued. "The body shuts down completely. No heartbeat, no pulse or respiration, and the body cools down almost instantaneously to resemble the fact that the person died some hours before. Family lore says we used to be assassins, much like yours," he needled. "We were employed by families who wanted rich relatives gone," he chuckled. "Of course, when medical science advanced, we turned our abilities to more—creative methods."
He smirked at Duke. "I thought it'd have been a lot harder to get you, but all I had to do was just walk up to you," he jibed at Duke. "It would've been poetic justice to let that old witch finish you off on the table with an autopsy, but she delayed it," he ground out savagely. "And as much as I'd like to do it myself, time is short, so we'll have to speed things along."
He reached for a garment bag and unzipped it, extracting a black suit and white shirt.
"Want you to look your best, after all," Owerton smiled.
Dwight put out an APB on the hearse and a BOLO on Calvin Owerton, in addition to Guard personnel prowling the countryside.
They had already been to Owerton's home, finding no trace of him or Duke, and had even gone back to the Rouge on the off chance that he might have taken Duke there.
"We have to find him, Nathan," Audrey said.
"I know, Audrey," Nathan soothed. "We'll find him."
"Why would he take Duke?" she questioned. "What'd he ever do to him anyway?"
"Owerton felt like Duke murdered his brother," Nathan replied.
"Well, Duke didn't do it, we know he didn't, because he was with us at the time of the murder," Audrey pointed out. "If he's taken him and buried him-"
"We've got patrols on all cemeteries and funeral homes," Nathan reassured her. "We'll find him."
The mention of funeral homes stirred something in Audrey's memory. Something Vince and Dave had said earlier and she took out her phone, and dialed The Haven Herald.
"Haven Herald, Vince Teagues, Editor-in-Chief speaking," came Vince's voice on the line.
"Co-Editor-in-Chief," she heard Dave's sharp retort.
"Vince, it's Audrey. Listen, you mentioned earlier that the Owertons had a funeral home that had gone out of business," Audrey began.
"Yes," Vince replied.
"Good thing too, they were terrible morticians," Dave remarked over the speaker phone. "Uncle Dan said they had so much rouge caked on Aunt Vera's face she'd have dropped dead all over again from the shame of being seen like that in public."
"What was the name of the place?" Audrey asked her voice strained.
"Well, let's see here," Vince muttered, and she heard the clicking on his computer keyboard. "It was—oh, yes, it was called Elysian Fields Funerary Parlor."
"Where was it?"
"It was out on Harrington Road, just before you got to Eastside Cemetery. Building's still there, I believe."
"Thank you, Vince," Audrey blurted, and hung up. "I think that's where he took Duke," she told him.
"Then let's go," Nathan said, trotting toward the Bronco.
"I'm afraid there'll be no funeral for you," Owerton told Duke. "Not that you deserve one anyway, you murdering bastard," he swore at him.
Owerton had dressed Duke in a plain black suit, with a white shirt and an orange-and-yellow tie with a matching pocket square, his hair neatly combed down.
Nathan and Audrey sped toward Harrington Road. Behind them was Dwight's pickup, and a squad car, sirens blaring as they hoped to reach Duke in time.
The building came into sight, and Nathan felt fear clutch at his guts as he read the faded, peeling sign—Elysian Fields Funerary Parlor and Crematorium, and with a sickening feeling he realized exactly what Calvin Owerton had in mind for Duke. He stomped the gas pedal to the floorboard, the old Bronco taking the curve so sharply Audrey squealed as she slid around in the passenger seat.
"Nathan, slow down, we can't save Duke if we're dead too," she scolded.
"I don't think Owerton's planning on burying Duke," Nathan blurted. "I think he's gonna cremate him."
Audrey paled, her expression horrified, and then turned resolute.
"Then go faster, Nathan," she urged.
Nathan slid to a stop in the weedy gravel parking lot and Audrey was practically out the passenger door before he brought the Bronco to a full stop.
He raced alongside her, and pounded on the mortuary door.
"Open up, Haven PD!" he shouted. Getting no response, he kicked at the door, Dwight coming to join him, and between the pair of them, managed to get the old door open.
They pushed into the foyer, and ran toward the chapel, folding chairs strewn about askew, but there was no sign of either Owerton or Duke, and they headed for the back of the building.
"Sounds like the cavalry have come to your rescue," Owerton told Duke as he closed the lid to the cheap casket. "But they're going to be too late!" he finished, as he threw the switch on the conveyer belt that led into the crematorium.
Dwight and Nathan burst through the double doors, and Owerton whirled around.
Audrey was horrified as the wooden box slid into the flaming crematorium, knowing their friend was inside.
"Nathan, save him!" she shrieked.
Nathan lunged for the oven, as Owerton pulled a gun, but Dwight fortunately was faster, and shot Owerton in the shoulder, who dropped it.
"Let the bastard burn!" he croaked. "He killed my brother!"
"No, he didn't!" Audrey shouted at him, leveling her own pistol at him. "He was with us the day of the murder!"
Nathan reached for the handle of the casket and managed to pull it out of the fire, the wood smoking and charred, hoping that Duke wasn't on fire inside it.
"Nate, your hands," Dwight said, seeing the smoke coming from beneath Nathan's palms.
"Can't feel it," Nathan grunted, as they pushed the casket off the conveyer belt and onto the floor, Duke tumbling out like a rag doll.
Owerton looked at Duke with disgust.
"Sure you'd say that," he said angrily, holding his shoulder. "He's your friend. And cops have been covering for Crockers in this town for years anyway, everyone in Haven knows that."
"Duke didn't kill your brother," Dwight put in.
Owerton snorted derisively. "That's what you say."
"No, it's the truth," Audrey told him. "Do you know how Duke's Trouble works?"
"I don't know and I don't care."
"Duke didn't kill your brother," Dwight told him. "If he had, your Trouble wouldn't have worked on him because you wouldn't have it anymore. That's how his Trouble works."
"It takes it from the entire family when a Crocker kills a Troubled person," Audrey said a little gentler. "If he'd done it, you wouldn't be Troubled anymore. You wouldn't have been able to do that to Duke."
Nathan checked Duke over. His clothes were hot to the touch, but it didn't seem as if he'd sustained any injuries.
"How long does this—whatever this is—take to wear off?" Audrey asked Owerton.
"About twelve hours," Owerton said weakly. "It should wear off any time now."
"So it would have worn off while he was in there," Audrey answered, glancing at the giant oven. She felt a red-hot wave of anger sweep over her. "You'd have burned him alive," she went on, her finger tightening on the trigger as the thought of Duke trapped and burning inside the box played in her mind.
Nathan put his hand over hers, pushing down the pistol.
"But we stopped him," he said gently in her ear. "This isn't the way to do this, Parker."
"And you call Duke a monster?" she questioned, her voice quivering as Owerton lowered his eyes, the realization he'd nearly murdered an innocent man settling in on him.
"I got him," Dwight told her as he handcuffed Owerton. "Go tend to Duke."
Audrey glared at Owerton once more before she went over to Duke and knelt down alongside him, Nathan helping her to cradle him.
"Come on, Duke," she said softly. "Come back to us."
Duke gave no response; no sign that he was alive, and they began to fear that Duke had revived in the casket; only to be suffocated by the heat and smoke.
"Nate, what if he came to in there?" she asked tearfully. "Come on, Duke, wake up, please," she cried.
"No sign of smoke inhalation," Nathan muttered, checking Duke's nose and mouth. He eased him back down, readying to begin CPR, when Duke's skin flushed They saw his chest begin to rise as he took a breath, his eyelids fluttered, and opened, looking around him, and then up at his friends.
Audrey smiled and held him close, tears streaking her face again, but this time, they were tears of joy.
"What happened?" Duke croaked, struggling to sit up, his muscles sore after twelve hours of inactivity. "Man, I hurt," he grumbled, and then paused looking down at himself. "And would you two care to tell me why am I dressed like a traveling preacher?"
"It's a long story," Nathan said.
"They usually are in Haven," Duke sighed.
After a stop at the hospital to treat Nathan's hands and to make sure Duke was okay, the trio was back at the Gull, watching Vicki tuck into the largest steak and lobster dinner they'd ever seen, as Duke sat down in the booth, squeezing in between Vicki and Gloria, who was on her third drink.
"What do you call these?" Audrey asked, looking at the whitish concoction.
"What else? Zombies," Duke grinned.
"So how does it feel to be back from the dead?" Nathan asked, fumbling with his drink through the heavy gauze wrapped around his hands from the second-degree burns he'd sustained. Duke nudged the drink a little closer to him, and Nathan gave a slight nod.
"Wish I could tell you," Duke replied.
"So you don't remember anything that happened," Gloria asked, and Duke shook his head.
"Nope—last thing I remember was someone reaching out at me," he began. "I remember seeing a Guard tattoo on his arm." He thought a moment. "Just like Vanessa predicted," he murmured. "But I didn't stay dead."
"For which we're very grateful," Gloria half-slurred, and kissed his cheek noisily.
"Owerton had a Guard tat, even though he wasn't actually in the Guard," Dwight said, approaching the table. "I guess he saw it as a mark of vengeance."
"So what are they gonna do with him?" Audrey asked.
"Right now, we've got him at the Freddy," Dwight replied. "Apparently, his guilty conscience got to him about almost killing Duke and he had some sort of a mental breakdown on the way to the station."
"All I know is just keep him away from me," Duke muttered. "What'd he do to me anyway?"
"He killed you, basically," Nathan told him. "He's got some kind of Sleeping Death Trouble. We all thought you were dead. Everybody thought you were dead."
"It's just as well you don't remember anything, kiddo—trust me, I'm going to do my best to forget this day," she mumbled, and drained the glass dry.
Duke glanced at Nathan and Audrey, seeing agreement in their faces, and wisely decided not to pursue any further answers. Some things were better left alone.