The Fury (2009) Read online

  a coffee shop, a bookstore and a multiplex movie

  theater. Scary to think that while you were busy

  munching on popcorn, evil lingered so close by, cloaked

  in formaldehyde.

  I approached the entrance tentatively. Who was I

  going to ID? I’d never met this man before last night,

  and now I was expected to point him out, feel some

  deep-down emotion like I’d known him my whole life?

  I’d never bonded with this person. Never done things

  most brothers did. Never played catch. Snuck a drink

  from Dad’s liquor cabinet. Never smuggled dirty maga­

  zines under our covers, or smoked cigarettes until our

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  lungs burned. I was identifying a stranger, yet expected

  to act like he was my blood. Impossible.

  Pushing the door open, I went up to the receptionist.

  He was wearing a white lab coat, and didn’t look a day

  over twenty-five. I figured he was some sort of medical

  intern, manning the phones while studying for his

  exams.

  “May I help you, sir?” he asked. His name tag read

  Nelson, Mark. He chewed on a pen while he waited

  for my answer.

  “I’m here to see Binky…er Dr. Binks,” I corrected.

  No sense ruining the illusion that Binks was a sane and

  respected member of the medical profession.

  “And you are…”

  “Henry Parker,” I said, taking my driver’s license

  from my wallet. “I’m here to identify Stephen Gaines.”

  The name felt foreign on my tongue, yet Nelson’s eyes

  melted with sympathy. He looked down at his desk,

  pursed his lips.

  “Right,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I didn’t bother to point out Nelson’s faux pas. That

  it was a little premature to console someone for their

  loss before they’d actually identified the body. Or that

  I felt no loss at all. How could I? Nevertheless, I told

  him I appreciated it. He asked me to have a seat while

  he paged Dr. Binks.

  I took a seat on a light blue couch. It was hard. There

  was a small table in front of me. No reading material.

  This wasn’t your typical waiting room. If you were

  here, I supposed not even Golf Digest could take your

  mind off of what lurked below.

  After several minutes, I heard the ding of an elevator

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  Jason Pinter

  and out strode Leon Binks. Binks was in his late thirties,

  graying hair matted against his brow. His eyebrows

  were as messy as his hair, a collection of short pipe

  cleaners bent every which way. The medical examiner

  was perpetually disheveled, as though he cared no more

  about his appearance than those corpses he worked on

  would. His hands always seemed to be moving, offering

  gestures that his dialogue (and lack of social skills) pre­

  sumably could not. I imagined that if, like Leon Binks,

  my whole life was spent amongst the dead, I might

  have some personality idiosyncrasies as well.

  “Mr. Parker,” Binks said, approaching me with his

  hand outstretched. I went to meet him, and he shook it

  vigorously. An awful smell wafted off of Binks, iodine

  perhaps. I didn’t want to ask, but I hoped he showered

  before attending any dinner parties. “Thanks so much

  for coming. Detective Makhoulian is downstairs

  already.” Then Binky’s eyes lowered, and he said, “I’m

  sorry for your loss.”

  I sighed, thanked him. “Can I see the body?”

  “Oh, of course,” Binks said. “Follow me.”

  Binks led me into a gray metal elevator. He took a

  key chain from his pocket, inserted it into a slit next to

  the sole button. Once turned, he pressed the button, and

  the doors opened. Once inside, he pressed a button

  marked M. For Morgue. The doors closed, and we

  traveled in silence, down several flights. Finally the

  elevator stopped and the door slid open.

  Whatever odor had been stuck to Binks was even

  stronger down here.

  Outside of the elevator, the hallway divided into two

  separate pathways. A plaque mounted on the wall had

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  arrows pointing in either direction. To the left, the arrow

  read, Morgue. To the right, the arrow read, Viewing

  Room.

  Binks began walking toward the right.

  I followed behind him as he opened a door and led

  me into a small room. A man was waiting for us inside.

  He was about five-eight and built stocky and muscular,

  like one of those NFL linebackers who had trouble

  seeing over the center but could deliver a hit like

  nobody’s business. His skin was dark, a neat goatee, and

  he wore a dark gray suit. He looked at me as we entered.

  “Detective?” I said.

  “Detective Sevag Makhoulian,” he said. He ap­

  proached and shook my hand. “For short, people call me

  Sevi.”

  “Makhoulian…what background does that name

  come from?” I asked stalling for time.

  “It’s Armenian,” he answered patiently.

  “Were you born here?”

  “I was born in Yerevan, my parents emigrated here

  when I was very young.” His accent was noticeable but

  not thick, and his suit was as American as they came.

  “Gotcha, don’t mean to pry.”

  “I know it’s your job to do just that, Mr. Parker. I do

  appreciate your coming down here on such short notice.

  And I must say I enjoy your work. Insightful, not to

  mention how nice it is to see a young man achieving

  success based on something other than setting fire to

  hotel rooms. It’s a shame we had to meet under these

  circumstances. Curtis Sheffield speaks very highly of

  you.”

  “How’s Curt doing?” I asked.

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  “Aside from the bullet in his leg? He’s just peachy.”

  Makhoulian said this with a slight smile. Last year Curt

  had taken a shot that nicked his femoral artery while

  looking for a family that we believed had abducted a

  child. He’d been assigned to desk duty since then, and

  I was lucky to have remained on his good side. Though

  he hated being off the streets, I think he secretly liked

  the attention from the opposite sex. Nothing sexier than

  a guy who took a bullet for a good cause. “Anyway, I’m

  sorry for your loss, Henry.”

  “It’s not really my loss,” I said. “The first and only

  time I met Stephen Gaines was a few hours ago.”

  “Well then,” Makhoulian said, “if his death isn’t your

  loss, whose is it?”

  “Someone else’s,” I replied. “Just not mine.”

  “Somebody cared for this guy,” Binks interjected. We

  both stared at him. The M.E. was right. Yet as much I

  tried to, I still didn’t know what to think about every­

  thing.

  The viewing room resembled a typical examining

  room, if all the machines and instruments had been

  removed. The only thing remainin
g was a long metal

  table. The table was covered by a sheet. Underneath the

  sheet was a body, about six feet long. Most likely be­

  longing to a man named Stephen Gaines. A man who

  was presumably my brother.

  “Before we begin,” Binks said, “be warned that

  there’s been extensive damage to the cranium.”

  “Extensive?” I said, looking at Makhoulian.

  “That’s right,” he said. “From the damage, we can

  gather that the muzzle of the murder weapon was held

  less than a foot from the back of his head, a 9 mm fired

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  at near point-blank range. The apartment we found him

  in wasn’t a pretty sight.”

  “From the wounds,” I said.

  “Not just that,” Makhoulian said. “We found…how

  can I put this simply… paraphernalia. Pipes, needles.

  You name the drug, it looked like Gaines was on it.”

  I took a deep breath, said, “How old is…was he?”

  “Turned thirty a month ago,” Makhoulian said. Four

  years older than me, I thought. Still a young man.

  “He’s cleaned up the best we could, but…” Binks

  said, his voice trailing off. He knew from the look on

  my face that this was best done quickly, with minimal

  cushioning. “Anyway, here he is.”

  Binks leaned over the body, took two folds of cloth

  between his hands and gently pulled the cover back until

  it stopped just below the corpse’s neck. From there I

  could see the victim’s head. Or at least what was left of

  it.

  Stephen Gaines was lying on the table faceup. A half

  dollar-size hole was blown out of his forehead. I could

  see the man’s skull and brain, both shredded from the

  bullet’s impact. His eyes were closed, thankfully.

  When that cover came down, I felt like everything

  in my body dried up. My insides felt like a black hole,

  my heart, lungs, my blood, all of it drained away.

  “That’s him,” I said. “The man I saw on the street.”

  “This is your brother?” Binks said, eyes raised,

  curious more than sympathetic.

  “According to the detective here,” I said.

  Binks nodded, his mouth still open, as though ex­

  pecting me to relate just how this felt. The truth was I

  wasn’t sure yet. I’d seen enough corpses, visited enough

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  morgues to have been able to distance myself for the

  most part from the realities of death. A reporter could

  go crazy letting each individual horror pile up upon

  their psyche. Like a doctor, you couldn’t think of blood

  as blood, but more a by-product of your work.

  “Where’d you say he was found?” I asked.

  “Apartment near Tompkins Square Park,” the detec­

  tive said. “Odd place for someone with your brother’s

  seemingly…limited means to be these days. Twenty

  years ago, maybe. But now? That’s the heart of Stuy

  Town. All young families and old folks.”

  I nodded, trying unsuccessfully to process this while

  staring at the body.

  “That’s the exit wound we’re looking at,” Binks said.

  “The bullet entered just below the back of the right

  parietal bone and exited through the forehead with a

  slightly upward trajectory.”

  Makhoulian took over. “The first entrance wound,

  combined with what we know about Mr. Gaines,

  suggests that his killer was right-handed and slightly

  shorter than him.”

  I listened to this. “Wait,” I said, looking at Makhou­

  lian. “You said ‘first’ entrance wound.”

  Makhoulian eyed Binks. Then he turned back to me.

  Binks said, “There was a second entrance wound. It

  went right through the occipital bone in the back of

  Gaines’s skull. That bullet was still lodged in his head

  when Gaines was brought here.”

  “I thought you said he was shot point-blank,” I said.

  “How can you shoot someone in the head twice from

  point-blank range?”

  “Only the first wound was delivered from close

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  range,” Binks said, his voice growing softer. His fingers

  traced the path of a bullet as he showed where the first

  bullet entered Gaines’s skull. “The second was delivered

  from about four feet away. From a downward trajec­

  tory.”

  Binks raised his arm with his forefinger and thumb

  cocked like a gun. He pointed it at the floor to demon­

  strate the likely scenario. He continued, “There were no

  muzzle burn or gases expelled from the second shot.

  Despite the brain matter, the wound itself is oddly

  clean.”

  “What does that mean?” I said.

  “Well,” Binks said, scratching his nose with a gloved

  hand. “The impact and the trauma suggest the initial

  shot was fired from very close range. The brain matter

  and impact site…”

  “Impact what?” I said.

  “It’s where the bullet impacts after exiting the body,”

  Makhoulian said. “In this case, ballistics found the first

  bullet in the wall about six feet off the ground. But they

  didn’t find the bullet itself.”

  “So the killer took it,” I said.

  Makhoulian nodded.

  Binks continued. “The entry wound is nearly devoid

  of gases or burn marks. Considering the devastation

  and the impact site, it has all the marks of a point-blank

  shooting. See, normally when a bullet is fired, espe­

  cially from close range, the wound will leave burn

  marks on the flesh, which is literally seared from the

  heat. In this case, the burn marks were nearly unde­

  tectable.”

  “Why?” I asked.

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  Jason Pinter

  “My guess?” Binks said. “The killer was using a

  silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kind

  of professional silencers you see in movies, that screw

  on like a lightbulb. Usually they’re homemade, a length

  of aluminum tubing filled with steel wool or fiberglass.”

  “Forensics is checking for both,” Makhoulian added.

  “It’s not just professionals who use them. Some

  hunters use silencers out of season. Even guys in their

  backyards shooting beer bottles who don’t want their

  neighbors to hear. Of course, there’s a chance the killer

  simply did it the old-fashioned way,” Binks said, “and

  covered the muzzle with a pillow. The killer didn’t need

  to be an expert in weaponry. In fact, there’s a reason you

  see that in the movies. It’s not going to dampen the noise

  completely, but as a quick fix—”

  “Please,” I interrupted, pleading to either man.

  “Explain to me what the hell all this means.”

  Makhoulian said, “It means whoever killed your

  brother shot him once in the back of the head with a

  silenced weapon. Then while he was lying on the

  ground, dying, the killer shot him one more time to

  finish the job. Your brother wasn’t just killed, Henry. H
e

  was executed.”

  4

  I followed Detective Sevi Makhoulian out of the

  examiner’s office. An unmarked Crown Victoria sat

  outside, and Makhoulian approached it. He leaned up

  against the door. He took a white handkerchief from his

  jacket pocket and wiped his forehead. I stood there

  watching him, unsure of what to do. What the next step

  was.

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re so convinced

  Stephen Gaines is my brother. And even if he is, why

  did you call me? ” I asked. “I barely spoke two words

  to Gaines in the entire thirty seconds I knew him. So

  again, why me?”

  “You weren’t our first choice, Henry,” Makhoulian

  said, pocketing the cloth. “The first person we called

  was James Parker, your father. And Stephen’s father.”

  “Wait,” I said. “We had the same father?”

  The detective nodded with no emotion. “You thought

  you were related through osmosis?”

  I hadn’t had much time to really think about every­

  thing, to consider what all this meant, but if Makhou­

  lian was right and Gaines was my brother, we had to

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  share a parent. And I could never picture my mother

  holding on to that kind of secret. There was no way she

  could keep that from me.

  My father was another story.

  From the first time I could think clearly, I recognized

  my father was the kind of man, who, if not your blood,

  you would go out of your way not to know.

  Even as a younger man, he was mean, belittling,

  nasty, vicious. Violent.

  That man was fifty-five now. In the last twenty years

  he’d never held a steady job. Never made enough money

  to move out of the house I grew up in, never desired to

  give my mother anything more than he had when they

  married. If anything, he took much of it away.

  He preferred swinging from branch to branch on the

  employment tree, always looking for a vocation where

  the bosses didn’t mind if you showed up late, left early

  to drink, and showed no ambition to rise above foot

  soldier. Comfort was given highest priority. When I

  began to write first for my school paper, then took

  various internships before taking a paid job with the

  Bend Bulletin, James Parker approached it like I was up­

  setting the gods of apathy. And hence upsetting his life.

  The harder I worked, the more work came home with

  me. My editors and sources would call at all hours of