Afterlife

By EB

(c)2004

Chapter Thirteen

"My neighbors are going to have a field day with this," Liz remarked, turning the key in the lock. "Liz Stokes, bringing home a young man."

"Not that young," Gil said dryly.

"Next to me, you look like a teenager, honey."

He rather doubted that, but just smiled.

The house was immaculate, as always: a showplace, beautifully landscaped and decorated, ready for a slot on a home tour. Until two years ago, Liz and Hank had still lived in the house where they'd raised their seven children, a rambling two-story Colonial. But it was far too big for two people as busy as they were, and so the old place had been sold, replaced with this Georgian affair. It didn't look particularly lived-in, because it wasn't very; Hank kept a townhouse in Austin, where he lived more than half the year while he was working, and Liz herself didn't make that much of a mark. It was beautiful, and rather forbidding, although Gil would have bitten his own tongue off rather than say as much.

Liz put her keys on the spindly-legged table near the door and kicked off her shoes. "Want a drink? I do."

"That'd be good, thank you."

"The guest bedroom's upstairs, down the hall, last door on the left. Put your bag up and I'll make the drinks."

He stowed his suitcase in the indicated bedroom. He and Nick had never stayed with Nick's parents as a couple; visited, yes, but their trips to Dallas had been few, and they'd bunked with Megan's family, Nick's middle sister. That house had been cluttered and noisy with three children and two dogs. This bedroom felt like a hotel room, not at all welcoming.

He glanced in the mirror over the dresser and reached up to finger his chin. Needed a shave, and he'd love a shower, while he was at it. But scruffy and road-rumpled would have to do right now. Liz was right. They had a lot of work ahead of them.

Downstairs, Liz was already sipping another martini, and Gil took the second glass. Seating herself at an elegant cherrywood desk, Liz said, "If I'm lucky I can catch a couple of people still in the office."

Gil stood awkwardly still, drink untasted in his hand. "What about Hank?"

She didn't look at him. "Hank comes later. I know what I'm doing, Gil."

He gave a nod she didn't see, and finally sat in a chair near the desk.

By seven Liz Stokes had called two judges, the Dallas County medical examiner's office, and someone who Gil believed just might have been the governor. He wasn't sure; the alcohol was cutting in, and he was exhausted and vaguely sick at his stomach.

"You have to call him," Gil said when Liz hung up the phone again. "Please, Liz. Tell him what we're doing."

Other than a vaguely thoughtful expression, her face was blank, regarding him as if he were nothing more than another piece of furniture in the room. "I've got to call the service," she remarked. "I need to messenger your test results to Peter Wise. ME."

"Elizabeth," Gil urged, leaning forward. "Nick's father needs to be told."

"I can't!" she snapped. "Not yet."

"Why? For God's sake, Liz –"

"Because he won't support it. You don't know what you're dealing with here, Gil, you never have." Liz touched her empty martini glass, and closed her eyes briefly. "You're Catholic, or at least you started out that way. You know the Church's stance on exhumation."

"But –"

"It has to be done. And it won't be, if Hank finds out. Not until it's a done deal. Then I'll call him."

"Jesus," Gil whispered. "Liz, that could mean -- You're sacrificing your marriage –"

"There is nothing," she said coldly, "nothing on this earth I would not do for my son." Her voice broke on the last word, and she cleared her throat. "Nothing. I believe in God, Gil, I believe in my faith. But I won't have some virginal priest telling me I have to accept what's happened to Nick. My husband can divorce me, and the Church can goddamn well excommunicate me, but I WILL find out the truth." Her eyes felt like embers placed against his skin; her gaze burned. "If Nick is alive -- Then I'll find out. And God help the people who stand in my way."

He had no choice but to nod.

As it happened, Liz Stokes never had to call her husband at all. Someone, it was clear by the following morning, had taken it upon themselves to fill him in. And Gil awoke, groggy and disoriented in an unfamiliar bedroom in a strange house, to a crucifying headache and the sound of raised voices.

He bit back a moan and made himself get out of bed. He knew that second voice. Knew it well, even if he'd never heard it raised in anger. Nick's father was home.

He showered fast after swallowing a handful of Excedrin, put on the least wrinkled of the clothes he'd brought, and patted his hair down before venturing down the stairs. Long before he saw Hank, he knew it was worse than he'd thought. This was the worst combination of factors: personal grief and fury mixed with the righteous indignation of the unquestioningly faithful. And Liz was meeting him every inch of the way.

"He's our SON," she said, in a tone so arctic Gil felt the chill in his bones. "And he might very well be ALIVE. I don't give a damn about your ethics! I want my son back!"

Pausing outside the door, Gil drew a deep breath, listening to Hank's retort. "It's a sacrilege," he told her, heat to her frost. "Who put you up to this?"

"No one PUT ME UP to anything, Henry! For God's sake –"

"Yes, for His sake! You hid this from me, you called the GOVERNOR'S office, and all because you knew how our Church feels about this! It's against everything we stand for!"

"We stand for truth. And if that grave is a lie, I'll find out."

"There are other ways, Liz!"

"What other ways? Tell me, and I'll do it! But this –" Gil heard paper rattling. "This says that blood isn't Nick's! Who did we bury? Who did we GRIEVE for, Hank?"

A tiny silence, and Hank gave a throttled inarticulate sound. "I'm calling Father Lenier. Maybe he can make you see what you're –"

Gil froze in place when Hank came around the corner. Rearing back, gray eyes narrowing with mixed surprise and no surprise at all. "Well," Hank said after a beat. "It's the DNA man himself."

"Hank," Gil agreed slowly.

Liz appeared in the doorway, face white and drawn. "Gil, please give us a moment."

"Of –"

"No." Hank kept on gazing at him. A tiny smile played at the corners of his mouth. "I should have known this was your idea," he said to Gil. "Exhumation's all in a day's work for you, isn't it? Let's have another look." He advanced a step. "I won't sacrifice my son's immortal soul for your grasping at theories," Hank said viciously. "I held my peace with Nick's decisions, because he was an adult, and it was his right. But now he's dead, and I'll be DAMNED if I let you keep interfering!"

Gil made himself nod. "If he's dead," he said as steadily as he could, "then I'll bow out and leave you to it. But I'm not convinced he is. Liz isn't, either. And I don't know of any other way to prove who is in Nick's grave."

"You can justify this all you like, but it's still an abomination."

"The abomination," Gil retorted, "was the manner in which we were meant to believe Nick died. The abomination would be letting go when we know the evidence suggests something to the contrary. Tell me, Hank, what's more important to you? Your church, or your son?"

Hank's mouth worked, and then he gave a hoarse thick cry and punched Gil in the jaw.

For an admittedly elderly man, Hank Stokes had kept in shape. The blow sent Gil sprawling backward, landing on his ass on the third stair step and catching a rap on the wall that immediately rendered his entire right arm numb. He sat stunned on the stair, reaching up to finger his jaw with his functional left hand, while Liz grabbed her husband's arm and held on tight.

"HENRY! My GOD, stop this!"

"Get out of my house," Hank grated, ignoring her and staring with lethal focus down at Gil. "Get out!"

"He'll do no such thing," Liz said, brushing past him. "He was Nick's partner. He has every right –"

"Nick is DEAD!"

"NO!" She whirled, faced him so close their noses were almost touching. "He's NOT!"

"Liz –"

"Nick is ALIVE!" She grasped Hank's suit collar, actually gave it a shake. "Your son is nowhere near that grave! There's no sacrilege! There's JUSTICE!"

He went very still, staring at her with eyes so terrible Gil had to look away.

"Don't you see?" Liz continued in a slightly softer voice. "Oh, Hank, we didn't bury our son that day. Wherever Nick was, it wasn't there. And we can PROVE that."

"He would have told us." Hank shook his head slowly. "He would never have let us believe -- Believe that he was –"

"Maybe he couldn't. Maybe whatever made this happen, he was afraid for us, too. For Gil. For everyone. And maybe when we have the truth, we can HELP him. Hank, don't make me do this alone." Her voice shook, her hands dropping to hang limp at her sides. "Don't push me away when Nick needs us BOTH. Please, oh God, please."

Hank's wandering eyes searched out Gil, stared at him with a new flavor of intensity. "Who is it?" he asked hoarsely. "Who did we bury?"

Gil's jaw ached miserably. He sighed. "I don't know that yet. But it's not your son."

"Where -- Where is –"

"I don't know where he is. God, I wish I did."

Hank reached out to touch the wall, bracing himself against it. His age showed terribly in his face, deep lines gouged into the skin. "I grieve for him every day," he said dully. "I think every day, My son is dead. My sweet son, my CHILD. He was – such a good man, I can't –"

Gil sat very still, not daring to touch his throbbing face, while Hank crumbled, finally let his wife touch him, put her arms around him and her face against the starched white fabric over his chest.

"We'll find him," she whispered, eyes closed. "Hank, we'll find him, we'll get him out of – whatever he's gotten into. But we have to see that body. We have to. There's no other way to proceed."

He said nothing to her, but his hand stroked her back, and finally his terrible gaze lifted. "Sorry I hit you," he told Gil huskily.

Gil nodded.

One benefit to being in Texas, Gil soon saw, was how expedited everything was after that. Nick's parents, as Nick himself had a few times admitted to Gil, were very well-connected indeed, both at the state and, somewhat less so, at the federal level as well. The Stokeses knew a great number of people, and in the way of politics, were quick to call in their markers.

The result was a rapid progression toward the exhumation of Nick's gravesite. By Gil's third day in Dallas, everything was in place. All that remained was a circuit-court judge's signature, and since that particular judge had been a personal friend for years, not to mention hired Cabe Stokes as a clerk fresh out of law school, that was pretty much a shoo-in.

That evening, Gil called Al Robbins.

"I've already reserved your ticket. All you need to do is show up in the morning."

Robbins paused briefly, then said, "All right, then. You remember my caveats?"

"All I want is to make sure things are done right, Al. Would you be satisfied yourself with anything less?"

"Probably not," Robbins agreed. "True."

"I'll see you at the airport."

"You're sure you know what you're doing, Gil?"

Gil sighed. "I think so. But it's out of my hands at this point in any case. Once Nick's family got involved…"

"Well, if I'm taking tomorrow off for a trip to Texas, I have things to finish up. Call me if there are any changes."

"Of course."

There weren't any, of course, and he drove the next morning back to DFW with a hot, tight ball of dread already solidified in his belly. Nick's – or whoever's – body had been in the ground long enough to seriously degrade. What they would be digging up would look terrible and smell worse. He remembered Nick's smell, that sweet summery smell. But there would be no summer present in the autopsy bay. Only a different kind of bloated sweetness, the ripe richness of decay.

And beneath that surface anxiety, a dread of a wholly different flavor. Because what if, after all this, after this struggle and confrontation and perseverance, it turned out that the only person buried in Nick's grave was Nick himself? Nick, who had been dead nearly three months? What if no one had been wrong? What if –

He took a sharp turn and gritted his teeth, forcing those thoughts down. No, wherever Nick was, in whatever shape, he was a long way from that shady cemetery with the many silently beautiful grave markers in Highland Park. Gil didn't know why yet, didn't have any but a few tantalizing fragments of a far, far larger puzzle, but this much he did know. It would not be Nick they exhumed today.

It felt both odd and very, very good to see Al Robbins in the bustling terminal. He wore a backpack, having efficiently navigated the crowds. His bearded face was a sight to salve Gil's homesick eyes.

Safely ensconced in the car, Robbins gave Gil a penetrating look. "Have you slept since you got here?"

Gil put the rental in gear and glanced around for traffic. "More than you might think," he said absently. "Just a headache."

"Not surprising, considering the stress you're under. Nice bruise there." He lifted his chin, indicating Gil's discolored jaw. "Do I want to know?"

"I'll be all right."

"Everyone sends their best, of course."

"I appreciate that," Gil said awkwardly.

It was refreshing to see the gravitas with which the Dallas staff approached Robbins, too. He might be an old familiar colleague to Gil, but he lost sight at times of the fact that Robbins was a respected member of the forensics community in his own right; published many times over, turning down requests for speaking engagements on a regular basis. Robbins commanded a certain level of attention above and beyond his irregular presence at this fraught autopsy, and Gil appreciated that, as they went inside and down to the basement of the cavernous building.

"How's your wife?" Robbins asked Clemons, the bluff-faced state ME. "And your son?"

"Dale's at UT now." Clemons looked pleased to be asked. "Studying pre-med at the moment, can you believe it? I thought he'd do anything but medicine, but he surprised the hell out of me."

"Sons can do that," was Robbins's mild, meaningful reply.

A group had gathered outside the autopsy bay. Gil saw Nick's parents, along with several people he didn't know. Two, introduced by Liz Stokes, turned out to be lab employees; the remaining three, including two colleagues from the DA's office, and one heavyset silver-haired man whose name revealed him to be the Lt. Governor of Texas.

Stolidly, Gil shook hands with everyone, ignoring as best he could the glimmers of recognition in the forensics' staff's eyes. He, too, was visible, and that combined with the relative notoriety of being the man who was today digging up the body of his male lover meant everyone was watching. He could not allow himself the luxury of visible reaction. The outcome was a known thing; he simply had to endure until such time as that was made apparent to everyone else.

Hank Stokes looked as tired as Gil felt, casting an uneasy look at him and the bruise lingering on Gil's jaw. "You look like hell," he said gruffly under his breath. "You sure about all this?"

Gil met his hooded gaze squarely. "I better be," he said. "Hadn't I?"

Hank didn't reply.

Liz kept her distance, her face set in formal, stony lines while the coffin was examined, only showing a hint of her distress when the lid was finally lifted. The smell drove away her coworkers, and the Lt. Governor, Patrick, made an inarticulate noise and fled after them.

Impassive as a judge himself, Clemons handed out eucalyptus-rich ointment to those who felt squeamish, and proceeded.

The body, Gil saw, was more decomposed than he was expecting. Of course this was north Texas: the humidity level here was much higher than what he encountered in Las Vegas, and decomposition progressed at a correspondingly faster rate. As with many bodies he'd seen in the past, the process was hindered by embalming, making it a curious question as to which parts of the body resisted nature the longest. The body's face, of course, was long gone; it had been buried without it. But the trunk and upper extremities were comparatively less far gone than the lower half of the body.

Clad in familiar protective garb, Robbins stood silently near the body's missing head, his eyes grim and focused on the remains. Clemons gave him a fast glance. "What you expected to see?"

Robbins nodded. "This appears to be the same injury I noted in my original examination, yes."

"Anything else?"

"Not at this time."

Gil felt a cold hand on his wrist, and gave Liz Stokes a startled look. Her face was waxy-pale, and sweat beaded her upper lip. "This isn't my first exhumation," she said in a low, thick voice. "But I don't remember the smell bothering me so badly before."

Gil thought about reminding her this was no ordinary case, and decided against it, settling for covering her icy hand with his own.

Comparing the findings with Robbins's original report took time, but from all appearances this body here was the same as that Gil had escorted from Vegas back to Dallas those months before. Watching Clemons bare the ribcage, examining the internal organs, Gil felt a sudden wave of vertigo. Was this Dallas, or home? It was cold, and the smell was unbearable. He swallowed bile, and then Robbins's voice sounded near his ear.

"Come over here, Gil. Sit down."

He let unseen hands perambulate him to a chair, and shook his head, blinking rapidly.

"Maybe you should sit out the rest," Al said kindly, his face drawn with concern. Behind him Liz hovered, giving him an anxious look.

"What?" Gil managed.

"You nearly passed out. If this is too much –"

"No," Gil said flatly. "I'll make it. I have to."

Robbins gave a slow, patently unconvinced nod. "Very well."

It was nearly done, anyway; a fact for which Gil was privately grateful. With a deep sigh, Clemons turned to look at all of them. "All we can do now is wait. As you know, it will take some time to see DNA results and do a comparison. Why don't y'all head home, get some rest?"

Gil thought about objecting, but Clemons was correct, and his headache bid fair to becoming a real monster. It made sense, and so he waited while Nick's parents thanked the ME, and then followed obediently while the bulk of the party filed out.

"I'll take you to your hotel," Gil said to Robbins outside, taking great gulps of the hot humid air.

"I'm not sure you should drive. I'll grab a cab, Gil. No need."

"It's all –"

"Gil," Liz interrupted. "Don't play Superman this late in the game." Her tone was both sour and fond, and Gil thought bleakly it was a tone he'd heard her use more than once on her son. "We'll take care of him," she added to Robbins, after shaking his hand once more. "We'll call you in the morning, how's that?"

"I appreciate it."

"Thank you for making the trip. I know it was short notice."

Robbins looked grieved suddenly. "Nick was a friend," he said thickly. "It was the least I could do."

Liz gave him a slow nod, and took Gil's arm. "Home, then."