Afterlife

By EB

©2004

Chapter Five

"Sometimes I want to kick your stubborn ass."

Gil smiled faintly and kept on clicking his mouse button, scrolling down. "Nice to see you, too, Jim."

Brass sighed. "I'm surprised you didn't throw a punch while you were at it."

"I considered it."

"What the fuck were you thinking? Gil, you had no business going to Ramos's house. We'll be lucky if he doesn't file harassment charges."

Gil's smile slipped. "I didn't harass him," he said, glancing at Brass. "I asked a few questions. A few more than you or Catherine, by all appearances."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Brass sat down heavily in the other chair, brow furrowed with mixed anger and surprise.

"It means this isn't as cut and dried as you think."

"A little more detail would be appreciated."

Gil pushed the mouse away and leaned back in his chair. "Catherine told me Ramos didn't remember anything of the – incident. But when I asked him, he said he remembered a bit. He remembers you shooting him. And he remembers – the blood."

Brass nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, well, that adds up to pretty much nothing, if you ask me. Tell me he remembers what he did, and I'll get excited."

"So I asked him what he was doing there. Whether or not this was a regular hangout for him. He said no, that he'd never been in that particular area before."

"Probably lying. What difference does it make? I was there, Gil. I saw him."

"You saw him. But you didn't see the shooting." Gil leaned forward and took off his glasses. "Where'd he get the gun? It wasn't his."

"So he says. His prints tell another story."

"Prints, whatever." Gil waved his hand and didn't miss Brass's faintly shocked look. "Picking something up isn't the same as owning it. And shotguns aren't likely to just be lying on the ground, waiting for someone to come along."

Instead of looking angry or frustrated, Brass's expression had changed to one of distinct unease. "Gil, listen to yourself," he said after a pause. "What are you doing here?"

Gil lifted his chin. "Investigating Nick's death."

"From where I sit it sounds like you're grasping at straws. And for what? Does it matter where Ramos got the shotgun? He still pulled the trigger. And good thing I'm a decent shot, or he'd have probably blown me away while he was at it. The kid was out of his mind, so cranked up he was barely walking. And you think it's sinister that he doesn't remember shooting Nick? Christ, he probably wouldn't have recognized his own mother that day."

Gazing at him, Gil said, "A man in a black car."

"Huh?"

"Ramos said he was doing a favor for a friend. Johnny. Johnny, whom he hasn't seen since the – incident." He cleared his throat. "He remembers a man in a black car."

Brass leaned back, bring up a hand to rub his eye. "For God's sake, I drive a black car, you drive a black car. What the hell does –"

"I don't know. But I plan to find out."

"Okay, Gil, let's just put all the cards on the table. All right?" Brass laced his fingers together. "You're losing it. You're jumping at shadows, grasping at straws. The truth is this: You lost your partner two months ago. And you're looking for anything to keep from thinking about how much you miss him."

Stung, Gil recoiled. "Since when did you start practicing psychology?"

"Since you turned into a goddamn loose cannon, that's when," Brass snapped. "Nicky's dead, Gil," he added harshly, pointedly. "Look, I hate saying it, and I know you hate hearing it. But you buried him last month. You think this -–whatever it is – will bring him back? Huh?"

Gil licked his dry lips. "No," he whispered. "No, I don't."

"There might have been a guy in a black car. Sure. Okay. I can go with that. Some guy, who was probably Ramos's dealer, set him up with the shit he was on when he drew a bead on Nick."

"And the shotgun?"

"Could have bought it while he was flying, or stole it. He doesn't remember much else; why would he remember doing that?"

It was logical. It was terribly rational. Gil nodded. "Maybe."

Brass blew a frustrated sigh and flung his hands up. "Maybe? Yeah. A lot more plausible than whatever goddamn conspiracy theory you're cooking up, I'll tell you that much. You're making this complicated, and it isn't. Sometimes things really are exactly what they appear to be. The simplest explanation works."

Gil gave a stiff nod. "Occam's razor?"

"I dunno, Santa's toothbrush, whatever, but what I do know is that you're asking for trouble, Gil. You want to be suspended? You keep pushing at this case, you're asking for censure. And you know it."

"Your opinion," Gil said icily, "is duly noted."

The look Brass gave him wasn't angry. Just tired, and deeply sad, and something else, something anxious and caring. Something he desperately wanted not to see. "Okay, Gil," Brass said finally. "Have it your way. You look tired. Get some rest, okay?"

Gil gave a stiff nod and said nothing, waiting for him to leave.

He made it the rest of the night without doing anything too irrational. It was a near thing, though. The take-it-or-leave-it work attitude he'd felt not so long ago was back, and nothing at the lab seemed fully three-dimensional. All flat surface gloss, no substance. None of it mattered, really. None of it changed anything.

He was gathering his things to leave when Catherine stopped by.

"Heard Brass had a few things to say about your visit with Hector Ramos."

Her voice held no accusation in it, only a weird kind of sympathy for which he had absolutely no patience. He turned sharply, fixing her with a stare. "And I've already heard your opinion on it, so why don't we just drop it?"

Her hands came up, a defensive gesture. She even backed up a step. "Whoa there. Sorry if I reminded you of something you'd rather not remember. But it's my case, all right? Not yours. I do have a vested interest here."

"Not as much as I do," he said immediately, not without some satisfaction. "Never as much as I do."

"Jesus, Gil. You think you're the only one suffering? You think you cornered the market on grieving for Nick?" There were tears in her eyes, out of nowhere, and he hated them, loathed them and her with a sudden ferocity that took him completely by surprise. "I miss him, too, you know that?" she added, shaking her head. "I miss him so goddamn bad. But he's gone, Gil, he isn't coming back."

And just like that, he felt everything fall apart. Curious, how a small part of him sat back, observing, noting the way he wheeled around, turned on her as if she were the enemy, not Ramos, not death itself. Just Catherine.

"I KNOW he's gone!" he bellowed. "God DAMN it, as if you have to REMIND me!"

"Gil, for God's –"

"Why does everyone have to say it? Would you tell me that? You've got all the answers, Catherine, you tell me why you and Brass feel you need to say it over and over again, Nick is DEAD, Nick is GONE!" He drew a whooping gulp of air. "Do you think I hadn't NOTICED? I know! I know I will never, ever see him again! So would you all stop REMINDING me?"

Catherine had backed all the way to the door. Now she gave a slow, minuscule nod. "Sure, Gil," she whispered. "I won't mention it again."

Oddly, her soft tone made him feel frantic, cornered. He gulped another lungful of air, but it didn't help. "I just want to understand, that's all," he said unsteadily. "That's all I want. To understand. Why."

Her expression crumpled, but she didn't say anything. Just watched him while he gathered up his things, and got out of the way when he headed for the door.

There were things he needed to do. Lingering questions, leads that demanded follow-up. But he drove straight home, jaw clenched over simmering anger. Nothing he was doing was that out of character, or indeed so unprofessional. It hadn't been him who'd missed the detail of the man in the black car. Or pursued the idea that Ramos wasn't supposed to even be in the neighborhood where Nick had been shot. It had been the very people who'd jumped all over HIM.

Embarrassed that they hadn't gotten the whole story? It was possible. He yanked the wheel viciously around a meandering Volvo, and shot the driver the finger when he honked. Very possible.

By the time he reached the house, he was trembling with tension and fury and a restless need for action. The kitchen was filthy. Christ, he'd really gone to hell lately, hadn't he? It smelled funny. Fusty, like an old man's apartment.

What had Nick been thinking? Leaving his police companion to wander out of sight, no thought to his own safety. How many times had he done that before? How many times had it almost been the last? Amy Hendler could have been the one. Had it not been for Gil's fortuitous realization in the front yard, she would have been.

Jesus, had he had a real death wish? If so, he'd succeeded. Late, but not for lack of trying.

He bagged up garbage and twisted the ties viciously, and carted six bags to the empty dumpster before stomping back inside. Bleach. That was what the kitchen needed. Environmentally unfriendly and wonderfully sterile. God, every surface was tacky, spotted with old grime.

And the fake IDs? Nick's secrets? What about those? What was going to pop up next week? A wife Nick had never told him about? A child? Christ, maybe that gigantic life-insurance policy was the intended payoff for something. Someone.

He scrubbed until his arm ached, rinsed and then cleaned the sink just as vigorously. Better, a little. The astringent smell of bleach filled his nostrils, drove away the vague mildewy odor.

Nick hadn't had any business skulking around the garage. Six months after the fact? What sort of moron would not have had his vehicle repaired in all that time? Guilty or not, the car wasn't the route to proving it. There were better ways, safer ways. Ways that didn't involve stepping away from a cop escort and walking into a stoner's path.

It didn't have to happen. It was stupid, Christ Jesus it was abysmally stupid of him. Why? Nick might play dumb sometimes, but he wasn't, never, so why now?

He paused, and thought, as if tasting something he'd considered before and hadn't had the nerve: Nick isn't coming back. Ever. He won't walk through that door in a few minutes, a little sweaty and bitching about how it's already so hot and it's not even nine o'clock yet. He won't take his gimme cap off and show me his hair, all sticking up in the front with sweat. He won't grin and peel off his shirt right there in the foyer, because he knows I have a thing for him sweaty. That smooth skin, gleaming with sweat. He never smells bad. He smells like Nick, that gorgeous smell, and I'll never smell it again, he will never BE here again, he's dead, the part of him that made him Nick was gone even before his body finished dying on that concrete garage floor. An instant, and then his brains were spattered all over the place, they found brain matter on the WALL.

He made a harsh, coughing sound, and his flailing hand struck the open bottle of bleach, sending it toppling over and the contents gurgling down the drain. With abstract interest he thought, It's all right, I needed to run some bleach through there anyway.

And then he was sobbing and sliding down to the floor, sitting with his bleach-damp hands turned palm-up, empty.

When the time came that night to go to the lab, he didn't move. He felt vaguely ill, muscles aching, his head pounding nastily. Too ill to go. Definitely. It might be catching.

He pulled up the coverlet and turned on his side, inhaling the scent of the pillow.

It was nearly midnight when Catherine called. Late, if he were off, but this wasn't an off night, he was simply ill. And awake when the phone rang, although lying still, relishing the stillness, the peace of it.

"I'm going to assume you aren't coming in," Catherine said, her tone a little formal.

"I'm coming down with something," he told her drowsily.

"Call me next time? I mean, we're swamped, all right?"

He nodded at the receiver, and gently hung up.

He slept dreamlessly, heavily, and awoke to sunlight and a clogged nose and a deep, throbbing ache in his thighs and calves. His throat was a tender misery. He sat up and coughed dryly, and slowly fumbled for his house shoes.

Later he thought there was something just about his getting sick then. As if his body had decided to reflect his state of mind. Sick at heart, as the saying went, and yes, he was. So sick. Sicker than he could recall ever being.

The cold he treated with aspirin and zinc and vitamin C, sniffed and used up the remains of his solitary box of tissues before going to work on the toilet paper. In the time he and Nick had had together

thirteen months eleven days seventeen hours plus or minus

he'd never been ill, although Nick had caught first a cold, then the flu, last winter. Now he could hear Nick in his mind, as if turning the tables on him: Zinc lozenges, Gil, that's the ticket. Clear you up in no time.

He conquered the cold in a couple of days, just a case of the sniffles after that. But he didn't go back to work. Being sick had given him an excuse to sleep, to rest more than he could remember doing in his life. And getting well -- There was always the chance of a relapse, as Nick had done in December. No, better not to chance it.

Running out of toilet paper made him finally decide to go to the store. But the trip exhausted him. He slept six hours with the groceries still sitting in their bags on the kitchen counter, waiting with all patience to be properly put away.

After five days, the doorbell rang. He blinked at the clock by his bed, and when the bell sounded a second time he rolled out of bed and shambled to the door.

"Jesus," Catherine said under her breath. "You look like hell."

Gil rubbed his eyes. "I've been sick."

"I know. I brought supplies." She raised the plastic bags she carried.

"Okay," Gil mumbled. "Come on in."

He sat at the table and watched her put things away, and thought about making coffee. His throat felt much better. But he was so tired.

"Have you been eating anything at all?" Catherine frowned at the contents of his refrigerator, then at him. "You've lost weight, haven't you? How much?"

Weight? He considered it dully, and shrugged. "I don't know."

"Want some coffee? Coffee sounds good," she replied to herself. "You have anything besides whole beans?"

He shook his head.

"Figures."

While she bustled around grinding the beans and cleaning out the coffee pot, he stirred himself enough to get out milk. One sniff, and he hastily put it back, reaching in again for the half-gallon Catherine had brought him.

"Cereal?"

"In the cupboard to your left."

She took out Nick's Cheerios and sliced a banana over a bowlful before taking the milk away from him and sloshing it on top. "Here," she said brusquely, holding out the bowl, a spoon sticking out. "Eat. Put some color back in your cheeks."

Catherine ate a toasted bagel while he worked on the cereal. Funny, but once he started eating he couldn't stop. Ravenous, maybe it had been a while since he'd last bothered to have something to eat. Was it starve a cold, feed a fever, or the other way around? He could never remember.

When he refilled his bowl he caught a tiny smile on Catherine's face. It didn't feel odd to smile back. His cheeks actually felt a little hot. Not fever. Just rueful embarrassment.

Another banana, and he leaned back in his chair, stifling a belch behind his fist.

"Better?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I didn't realize I was that hungry."

"You needed food. You've probably lost ten pounds."

"That's a good thing, actually."

"Not an approved diet plan."

"Maybe not."

Her smile faded. "We missed you this week," she said after an awkward pause. "We – I," she corrected with a quick shake of her head, "was worried about you."

"I'm all right," he said automatically.

"Are you, Gil? Really?"

He met her eyes – kind look, kind woman, perhaps his closest friend, Catherine or Jim, or maybe both – and drew a careful breath. "I – fell apart," he whispered.

Her hand slid across the table, fingers gentle on his own. "I know."

"And I'm not sure I'm – together again. Yet."

"There's no timetable. Take as long as you need."

He turned his own hand palm-up, so that their fingers interlaced. "It's funny," he said in a rusty voice. "It comes in waves. You know? There are times when I think I'm really fine. And then it all – boils up."

"I saw you boiling," she said dryly. "Believe me."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that, you didn't deserve it."

"You've been holding a lot in. Pushing it down. But sometime these things – they gotta come up. Out. It was bound to happen."

"Still."

She gave him a sweet smile. "Apology accepted."

"How are you?"

"Me? Fine."

"Really?"

She rolled her eyes, but her fingers were tight in his. "Yes, really."

"Thanks for the groceries."

"I just got sandwich stuff, fruit, that kind of thing. You want fancy, you get your ass out of bed and get it yourself."

He chuckled and said, "That I can do."

They drank second cups of coffee in mostly silence, companionable, not uncomfortable. Finally Catherine set her mug on the table and looked squarely at him. Her smile had vanished. "You feel up to talking about some things?"

He regarded her, and nodded. "What things?"

"Hector Ramos."

He waited for a return of the rage, or that terrible lancing grief that had prostrated him in the kitchen almost a week ago. When neither came, he gave another, cautious nod. "Sure."

"911 got a call last night, to his address. When the paramedics got there Ramos was in cardiac arrest."

He gaped at her. "He –"

"Medics did their best, but he didn't respond." She sighed. "They pronounced him at Desert Palms, about ten-thirty."

He gave a tight nod. "Overdose?"

"That's Robbins' initial conclusion."

Unsteadily, Gil said, "Not so surprising, I don't suppose. He was a longtime user."

She nodded, but her grim expression deepened. "There's a wrinkle, Gil. He ODed on heroin."

"I thought he used metamphetamines. Crank."

"He did. And cocaine, I think. But there were no track marks on his arms. No skin popping, no nothing. Robbins checked pretty thoroughly."

"Sniffed it?"

"No degrading of the nasal tissues."

Gazing at her, Gil cleared his throat with difficulty. "Do you want me to say it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "You don't have to. It looks suspicious to me, and Jim agrees."

"This wasn't voluntary."

"It's early yet. But no. No, I don't think it was."

A ripple like ice water ran up his spine. He sat up very straight in his chair. "He was murdered," Gil whispered.

"It's a possibility."

He broke her stare, gazing down at the tabletop without seeing it. He closed his eyes briefly, breathing deep and slow. When he looked up, he found her watching him alertly.

"I need a shower," Gil said crisply. "And then maybe you and I and Brass should have a talk."

Catherine nodded. Her expression was utterly relieved. "Yeah," she replied. "I think so."