Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 20:37:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Wess Subject: Double E: Part 7 At about 5:30 that evening, Carrie and I were heading towards the morgue. She had called in advance to tell her mother that we were going to drop in. Despite the fact that her mother was the Chief Medical Examiner, I had a feeling she wouldn't openly discuss Georgina's murder with us. Yet, this little fact didn't seem to worry Carrie. "Leave it to me," was her solution. "There is one thing that has been bothering me though, Elijah," she admitted, then instructed me to turn left. "So let's say we find out who did it. Then what? We knock on his door, unarmed, and yell 'we know you killed Georgina!'" "I've been thinking about that, too. Listen, I don't usually invite people to meet my family, but there is one member of my family who might help us." I checked the dashboard clock. "After our cheery trip to the morgue, would you like to join my family for dinner?" Carrie beamed. "I'd love to! Turn right here, by the way." I found the stark reality of the morgue a shock to the nervous system - the unforgiving white light on the dead, the sheets hiding that their insides were completely out. The empty faces. The harsh scent of antiseptics. One of Carrie's mother's assistants, a smart cookie named Lisa Ying, was closing a drawer on a gunshot victim when we arrived. Ug-ly. Carrie's mother was washing up. "Give me half a minute," she said. "Take the full minute, mom," Carrie replied. She poked around the place until she found several Georgina photos tacked to the wall. Slyly, she slipped the photos into her shoulder bag. "So what brings you to my humble office, honey," Carrie's mother called out. She turned off the faucets, dried her hands, then faced us. I noticed how much Carrie looked like her: shoulder-length red hair, and deep green eyes. Carrie casually turned from the wall, tucking the photos further into her bag. "I was just going to introduce you to my friend, Elijah, here. Mom - Elijah. Elijah - mom." Carrie's mother showed her pearly teeth. "Terrific to meet you," she said, extending her hand. "And also, I came to let you know that I will be eating at his house tonight, if that's okay." "Of course, of course! I have to work late anyhoo, a car accident victim that needs looking at. I'll just let your father know that he is on his own for dinner. Lucky I bought those frozen pizzas..." her voice drifted off. There was an unsettled silence were Carrie and her mother were both smiling in a spacey manner. Maybe what made it so unsettling was the fact that we were standing over a dead person covered in a sheet, and we were smiling. Minutes later, Carrie and I were walking back out in the dull, autumn sun. "That was smooth," I muttered. "You don't think she'll notice the pictures are gone." "No, didn't you hear her? She's basically already moved onto her next-dead patient. We'll look at these photos later. Let's go eat some dinner!" "Now no matter what you hear or see tonight, you have to promise you want use it against me," I said, cutting the engine, staring up at my house. "Oh, Elijah, come off it!" "No, I'm serious. My family is nuts. My grandmother still thinks her friends and cat are still alive." Carrie shrugged. "And my mom cuts dead people for a living, what's your point?" I guess I didn't have one. My mother was at the open screen door. "Elijah," she called. "What are you doing sitting out there in your car? You're late for dinner." She paused at the sight of Carrie. "Who's your little friend?" "Mom, this is Carrie Fisher. She's joining us, I hope you don't mind." "Not at all! Not at all!" Carrie was full of peppiness, something I kind of liked about her. "Hello Mrs. Temime! Elijah has told me a lot of good stuff about you!" "Oh and she's charming, too!" my mother smiled. My grandmother stood two feet back from my mother. "Carrie Fisher, huh?" she said, eyeballing the visitor. "You looked quite good in the come-hither, slave uniform for the movie. In fact, after I saw the movie I was inspired to buy a similar one and wear it for Elijah's grandfather..." My mother suddenly cut across her, blushing. "Uh - Elijah, you and Carrie can sit at the end of the table." Carrie was having trouble stifling a laugh. I just rolled my eyes. We wandered into the kitchen. "Hello, Eliot," said Carrie to his back. Eliot obviously recognized her voice. He jumped, startled, and turned, his eyes narrowed. "You look surprised to see me," she commented. Eliot said nothing. He knew we were up to something. I felt his eyes boring a hole through the side of my head. At all cost I avoided making eye contact. Once we were all seated around the table, my family began interrogating Carrie. Questions were shot at her with rapidity. Like, "where do you plan to go to college when you graduate?" "who's your role model?" and "have you been in any other movies besides Star Wars?" Carrie answered all the questions, laughing at the Star Wars one. "And have you ever seen a gun like this beauty?" my grandmother finally said. "Isn't it lovely?" My mother almost keeled over. "Where did you get that!" "It's Paul's" my grandmother said, twirling the gun around. All eyes were on my grandfather, ex-cop, who was hunched over his dinner plate. "Well, my god," my mother shouted, "put it away! Someone take the gun from her before she kills herself!" The cylinder was open and clearly empty of rounds. I didn't know much about guns, but I knew this one couldn't go bang without bullets. I have to admit it was a pretty cool gun. It had a stainless frame and carved wood grips. It was a Smith and Wesson 5-shot revolver, model 60. A .38 special. Easy to use, easy to carry. "It's empty," I said. "There are no bullets in it." "I don't like guns at the table," my mother said. "And the dinner's getting cold. I'll have to reheat the gravy." The conversation slowly drifted away from the gun. Pretty soon Carrie was talking about different stories she wrote in the newspaper, wooing my mother at least. No one had been paying attention to my grandmother. She was still playing with the gun, aiming and sighting, getting used to the heft of it. I realized there was a box of ammo beside her plate. A scary thought skittered into my mind. "Grandma, you didn't load the gun, did you?" "Well of course I loaded the gun" she said. "And I left the one hole empty like I saw on television. That way you can't shoot nothing by mistake." She cocked the gun to demonstrate the safety of her action. There was a loud bang, a flash erupted from the barrel, and the turkey carcass jumped on its plate. "Sweet Jesus!" my mother shrieked, leaping to her feet, knocking her chair over. "Dang," Grandma said, "guess I left the wrong hole empty." She leaned forward to examine her handiwork. "Not bad for my first time with a gun. I shot that sucker right in the gumpy." My father had a white-knuckle grip on his fork, and his face was cranberry red. My grandfather was hooting uncontrollably, and Carrie was snorting, torn between whether or not she should laugh or feel sorry for the now broken plate. And I actually thought I caught a flicker of a smile cross Eliot's face. After dinner, Carrie and I were hidden from the rest of the family in my room under the eaves. Sitting cross legged on my bed, Carrie said, "So, what, is your grandmother the one that's going to help us?" Her eyes watched me as I hurriedly tried to tidy a few things up, attempting to make my bedroom look presentable. I shook my head. "No, actually, I plan to ask my grandfather," I said, shutting my sock drawer with my hip and scooping down to pick a mess of dirty clothes. "He's an ex-cop. Just as senile as my grandmother and that was his gun at dinner. He probably has handcuffs, too..." Carrie saw where this conversation was heading. "Elijah, you can't be thinking about carrying around a gun! You'll get thrown out of school!" "I wouldn't take it to school. Just on our trips to investigate." She bit her bottom lip. "Do you even know how to use a gun?" "I can learn," I said simply, shrugging. "There's a shooting range in town." "Also, you need a license. Carrying a concealed weapon is seriously frowned upon. I was thinking we could just carry around some kind of defense spray. You know, spray the bastard, get him down on the ground and cuff him." "We'll use the gun as intimidation," I suggested, sitting down opposite her on my bed. "The only way this is going to work though, is if we have a recorded statement from the killer that he or she murdered Georgina. Otherwise the cops won't bust the killer if we bring the person in, they'll bust us." Carrie reached into her hand bag and pulled out the photos she took from the morgue. She spread them out on my bed spread. The moment I saw the photos I almost lost dinner. Carrie was looking a bit sickly as well. She swallowed over a lump in her throat. "Okay, let's take a look." It wasn't pretty. Death rarely was a peaceful, religious experience to my mind. It was the nasty end, indifferent to saint and sinner. But this was shocking, like a stage deliberately set to offend. Georgina was beautiful still, a cameo face with a tumbling waterfall of blonde hair, blue eyes that stared glassily at the ceiling, long, milk white limbs. They weren't artistically arranged now, but spread lewdly so that the dead woman formed a final X dead center of the floor. There was a hole in her forehead. Blood had splattered on the polished floor, pooled, dripped, and stained. There were splashes of it on the lacquered wall. "I can tell you right off the bat that Eliot did not do this," Carrie said, trying to overcome the gruesome photos. She met my eyes. "In fact what I see in these photos is probably the reason why the police haven't arrested him." I felt like I was missing something. "What do you see?" Her finger nail traced Georgina's X. "Look how her body is positioned. Perfectly done. If you ask me, only a skilled killer would have shot her then took the time to position her. An amateur would have shot the victim and ran, assuming Eliot is an amateur." She paused. "Do you have a magnifying glass?" I scrambled off of my bed, fished through my desk and handed her a magnifying glass. I watched over her shoulder, smelling the sweet scent of perfume trickling from her, as Carrie held it up to one of the photos. To the right of Georgina's head was a large end table. Carrie was focusing on the side of the end table, something that was carved into it. A miniscule version of an eagle, wings spread wide out. Just the way Georgina had been positioned. "The killer's trademark," I muttered. Carrie looked up at me. "Something isn't adding up. They said Georgina was killed somewhere between midnight and six am. How a killer could wander into a house, kill a girl; take the time to not only position her, but carve an image into wood without waking anyone else up in the family is beyond me." "So you're saying the parents helped in her death?" "Not necessarily - but I also wouldn't buy the story that they were just innocent parents who found their daughter dead one morning." She checked her cell phone clock. "I better get going. We'll talk more tomorrow. I'm glad to have met your family. You can try to get that gun and handcuffs, but I'll stick with mace." We walked out to my car, and on our way down the porch steps, Eliot was heading up the driveway. He was jogging, white iPod cords dangling from his ears, shirt off, hard chest glistening with sweat. Calvin Klein waistband barely visible above the waistband of his gym shorts. Once we were in the car, I could tell Carrie was watching Eliot's bare back enter the house. "If you don't mind me saying so, the only way Eliot could kill is with his looks." On the outside, I just rolled my eyes to the high heavens and started the car. But on the inside, I could still see Eliot's chest and became increasingly warm and stiff. At that moment I vowed I had to have Eliot. So the questions remained: Is he innocent? And is he straight? I decided I would use his teacher as a starting point tomorrow. Somehow I felt there was more to the story than just sexual urges between a teacher and her student. Deep in thought, I slowed down for a red light, enjoying the company of Carrie and laughing about dinner. I turned to look out the driver's window and gasped at the sight of Rocky Katz standing at the window. "Been looking for your car to come strolling up this street again," he said. I then realized that we were right by the gym. "Bet you're surprised at how quiet I move. Didn't even hear me come up on you, did you? That's how it's always gonna be. You're never gonna hear me until I pounce. And then it's gonna be too late." I took a slow breath to quiet my heart. My hand slowly slid over the locks of the door. I was relieved to find that they were still locked. Rocky had his hands pressed against the closed window. He had spotted Carrie. "Who's your girly friend?" He licked his lips. "Hey baby," said Rocky, making gross kissing noises. I stared at the red light, gripping the steering wheel, trying to decide if I should just run the light. It wasn't a busy intersection. At one point my heart had slowed down enough to say something back to Rocky, but now it was pumping at full speed. I guess I was waiting for a sign to motivate me to floor it. Rocky trying to open the car was that sign. Carrie yelped as he pulled at the handle with teasing anger. With his muscles I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to rip the whole door off. I floored it. The little P.T. Cruiser jumped to life and soared through the red light. A horn blared, tires screeched, and an on coming car came to a sudden halt. Carrie was cursing under her breath. She sat up in her seat and looked in the rearview mirror. Rocky was standing in the middle of the road, laughing. "So," Carrie said nervously. "You think your grandfather could give you that gun?" I was just as nervous as she was. "Y-y-yeah. W-with some practice I'll be fine." I gave her a hesitant smile. She did not return it.