Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Page 10

  How can I educate old people like Brick? We live in alternate universes. Outside this office, there are worse things than caffeine and arriving late for work. People my age are jacking horse tranquilizers into their foreheads with hypodermic needles. They’re eating boogers from each other’s noses to get the residue of Methamphetamine floating in their snot.

  Thinking of ways to get Aurelia deported and still wondering why a good Catholic Latina would become a Mormon, I limp deeper into the building’s bowels. On my left are several empty rooms once used for treating patients. Stuffed to their ceilings with boxes, the rooms now serve as storage for Brick’s various projects. While our patient list dwindles, the boxes pile up.

  Avoiding Aurelia, I sneak into one of the empty rooms and make one last try to call Ang.

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Crap. To hell with this. All of it,”I say. “Why should I care what’s happened to her? Why should I care about anything, other than the fact I’ll be dancing Ang’s shift again tonight?”

  My left foot screaming, I limp toward the front reception area, fisting the hallway wall. “Stupid beige thing with its rich Hyde Park wallpaper—”

  What’s wrong with me?

  I’m late. Like Stoke says, Yeah? So.

  I haven’t called the cop. Yeah? So.

  If he arrests me—he does. I’ll be a criminal like everyone else in my family. Maybe then I’ll fit in. Besides, there’s nothing I can do, nothing I wantto do. I’ve run my butt off getting here, trying to be on time, trying to call people, find Ang, find my stupid brother—

  My brain freezes, the anger I feel building pushing up and getting ready to explode. Robin’s forgotten I made him an appointment with a dentist who specializes in repairing teeth damaged by meth. Doesn’t he know? I was too busy the first time. Now I’m tracking him to see if I’ll have to call again and make him yet a second freakin’ appointment.

  And what about Mr.“call me before eleven?” Doesn’t he know I’m not on his schedule? I’m on the university’s schedule. And Brick Verbote’s. And Omar’s. And Robin’s and Ang’s. There’s only so much time in my day, and it’s one helluva fight to get a bus from campus to Hyde Park, even for someone with two good feet.

  As always, I lecture myself. “Alaina, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re here. You’ve made it.”

  It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright.

  Absorbing my much needed buck-up speech, I sneak down the silent gray-carpeted hallway. Just when I think I’ve made it safely to work late and without getting one of his lectures, the door to Brick’s lab flies open. My boss, six-four and built like Hulk Hogan, fills the hallway, blocking my path.

  “Alaina, I’ve been looking for you. We need to talk.”

  Oh, crap. He’s going to fire me.

  * * *

  I freeze. Could Aurelia already have reported me this soon? I search my brain for an excuse for being late. You see, Brick, I spent last night jacking a Coke truck and committing robbery.

  Figuring Brick doesn’t need to hear about my life outside the office, I keep quiet and watch a frown posing as a benign smile spread across his face.

  “You’re late,”he says.

  Yeah? So. I lean in a defiant closed hunch against the wall, feeling my backpack sinking into the textured wallpaper. Rich people’s walls have uses after all, I guess. “Uh, Brick, I can explain—”

  Fact is, I can’t.

  We indulge in a stare-down. For a few seconds, I get this irrational sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Brick Verbote’s huge hand, clenching my shoulder, frightens me. I feel his strength as his fingers dig in before I shrug him off. He could crush me if he wanted to. He could jerk me up off the floor without half trying. He could—

  “Sure, sure,”he says, finally, letting go of my shoulder. “I know you’re busy, but try to be on time, okay?”

  Holy crap. Why am I so frightened? Brick Verbote really is a brick, in a rich old white bread genius sort of way. I admire him. He single-mindedly pursues one passion: bite wounds. His only problem? His clients, whose derelict records I manage, get little of his attention. He spends all of his time working on his“projects.”

  And damn, are they macabre. But they’re also fascinating. Brick’s an odontologist. He studies bite wound patterns on victims of serial biters, who frequently become serial murderers. He’s got a project in his lab right now he’s been working on: Meera. We don’t know her real name, not yet. Newport PD picked up her remains from a dumpster in the alley near Omar’s. Campbell County has had her mutilated body in their morgue for weeks, over in Kentucky.

  After analyzing Meera’s bite wounds, Brick will make a forensics report to Newport PD and the FBI. Or if the killer is caught and goes to trial, he’ll testify as an expert witness. We’ve got a routine. Brick pursues his work back here in his lab, and I sort through the paperwork mess he’s created up front. Sometimes he invites me to his lab to assist. That’s why I keep this job. It’s been a challenge, but I’ve put patients’ records back in order. Brick still fights my efforts to schedule patients when he’s deep into one of his projects. And by the distant look in his eyes, he’s ready to gallop back into his lab and blow off two afternoon appointments.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, Brick,”I again mumble. “I had . . . a crim quiz.” I feel terrible, but it’s only partly a lie. I did have a crim quiz. I didn’t take it, a detail I fail to share.

  “Well, sheesh.” His voice a rumble, he wields a scalpel with the ferocious dexterity of a Cincinnati Philharmonic conductor. “You are duty bound to your parents to make good grades.”

  I bite back a response. He thinks I have parents who give a crap whether I make it through college? “Sure,”I agree, shrugging. Who cares if my rich boss thinks everyone’s a nice Mormon?

  “Alaina,”Aurelia shows up and interrupts, her awful timing rivaled only by the malicious glint in her eyes,“a man’s been calling from some place called Omar’s . . . a bar . . . ?”

  I step back when Brick, looking startled I’d get a phone call from a bar, waves the scalpel in the air to emphasize his displeasure. In his gaze I see the same scathing disapproval I saw earlier in Professor Levin’s eyes.

  “Um, Brick—”

  “A bar? Oh, my heaven,”he says, slicing air with the scalpel.

  He’s unusual for a Mormon. Or for that matter any man. Brick’s rich and at fifty-nine still unmarried. He doesn’t chase women or even waste his mega-millions on red sports cars. He doesn’t spend it on landscaping, either, not by the looks of this place’s rundown exterior. He has no vices, other than being annoyingly unaware of his surroundings, which makes it easy for me to sneak in late, except today.

  Vowing to murder Aurelia, I wince. My left ankle’s fired up from where I fell on the sidewalk. The pain’s a sure sign there’s a serious problem coming down the old crapper toward me. I hide a yawn, born of an overwhelming desire to crawl into one of Brick’s storage rooms and go to sleep—right after I settle with Aurelia.

  “I’m sure it’s a mistake, Aurelia,”I say, arguing. “No one ever calls me here.” And even if they did, Ang and Stoke use my cell phone. They’d never call the front desk.

  “Wrong,”she says. “He said he was calling you from Omar’s, a . . . bar. He has an Indian accent,”Aurelia adds, dark eyes aglow with vengeful success. She’s officially guaranteed I’ll be fired. “He’s called several times and left messages. For you.”

  Brick’s gaze hardens. He waves the scalpel more madly: we’re talking William Tell Overture.

  Sweat pops on my forehead. “For me? A phone call from a bar?”

  I’ve no friends with an Indian accent who’d be calling from a bar. Sheesh, Brick.

  “I’ll check the answering machine,”I say, hoping Brick’ll hurry back to his lab and Aurelia will self combust. That would get me off the hook for now.

  “Alaina, come with me,”Brick says. “Aurelia, you go buy donuts.” He whips a wa
d from his lab coat’s pocket and peels off a twenty. “Here.”

  It’s not the stellar size of Brick’s wad, although I’ve seen none bigger. I mean, he’s loaded, no secret. It’s the visual exchange between him and Aurelia that creeps me out. Are they colluding? Is he getting Aurelia outta here so he can fire me?

  “Whatever,”I say. Am I afraid? Hell no. I’m a college student. If I disappear, it’ll be all over national news. Everyone will come looking for me. Of course, maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Brick won’t kill me. Maybe he’s finally decided it’s time—I’m being fired.

  Chapter 14

  With these dire images clouding my exhausted brain, I turn on my heel. Worried, head down, I follow Brick to his lab, his sanctuary.

  “Come in, come in,”he says, impatient. “We’ve work to do.”

  Whew! Brick isn’t going to fire me, but . . . is he going to kill me?

  Mindful of his skill with the scalpel, I keep my distance, watching him wave it in the air above the remains of a cadaver he’s been trying to identify for NPD.

  “You have met Meera a few times now,”he says, pointing to a stainless steel gurney. “I’d like your opinion this morning.”

  “Okay, sure,”I say, grateful, feeling excited. Now and then Brick remembers I’m a crim major. Kinda sweet. Brick’s actually involving me—Goshen Gimp—in a live forensics investigation.

  Meera’s kept me in suspense since Brick first brought her various parts in through the back door, some of her packed in a U-Haul box, some in a Yeti cooler. The rest of Meera remains in the Newport, Kentucky morgue. But some of her bones, munched on by her killer, lay strewn like witch’s scree on the stainless steel table, alongside the rubbery impressions taken by Brick from the bite wounds on Meera’s body, what’s left of it. Whoever killed her ate most of Meera and then kept her around, chewing on her bones like they were snacks. She’s a mess.

  “Have you thought any more about how we can identify her?”Brick asks.

  “I—guess not,”I say, pondering the problem of Meera’s identification, but wishing he’d quit it with that scalpel. It’s unsettling, Brick’s scalpel waving, although I admit I’m still fascinated with the stainless steel scalpels and knives for shaving bone and the titanium pics for digging, plus the gnawed femurs and tibias and collar bones strewn on Brick’s stainless steel lab table.

  “What’s her race,”Brick asks. “Caucasoid or Negroid?”

  “Indian,”I say, not falling for his trick question. He’s quizzed me this way many times before, so I’m used to his treachery.

  “Age?”

  “Not more than twenty-five based on the wear showing on her teeth,”I say. Like a pair of jeans or old sneakers, teeth wear with their owner. The more wear, the older the vic. I’ve learned this from Brick, who takes a strange sadistic delight in teaching me.

  “Why would someone do this to her, Brick?”I ask, concerned with her murderer’s motive.

  “As you know, Alaina”—nice benign fatherly smile but stern tone of voice—“I’m not in the business of determining why.”

  I know, Brick. Your job is to help the LEOs find out whose big teeth have been munching on Meera.

  We examine the photos of Meera’s shoulder, the meat looking bruised and stringy, munched on like a Ketucky Fried Chicken drumstick. Then we compare these to the dental impressions. If it’s not photos he’s inspecting, it’s those rubbery impressions he’s made of Meera’s bite wounds. Brick knows bite wound patterns better than he knows his own bicuspids.

  Drawn to Meera’s tattoo, I stare.

  “It’s a Hindi symbol,”Brick says, watching me inspect the photo of her ankle. “She was tattooed by her parents when she was a baby. The tattoo identifies her caste. She’s merchant, not Brahmin. It tells us she’s from India.”

  Below the tatt in the photo is another tattoo, a pair of initials in English: G.M. “Looks like she had that one added later,”I say. “Maybe years later.”

  “Yes,”Brick agrees. “The ink is a different color, not faded like her caste tattoo.”

  “It’s probably from a local tattoo shop near campus. That tatt’s not traceable,”I say. “It could be put there by any artist, by anyone, even Meera.”

  “Not traceable by the local yokels, that’s for sure,”Brick agrees with a snort. He lives to make fools of cops. It’s weird he likes to make trouble for them, since his work supports their efforts, but that’s Brick.

  I stare at the initials. G.M. G.M. G.M. They are speaking to me. Have I seen them somewhere before? Maybe. But where? And what are they saying? What, what, what?

  “Newport PD is circulating photos of the tatt in NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database for missing and unidentified persons,”Brick says.

  I nod, agreeing. “It’s difficult figuring out her identity using the tatt.”

  While NCIC stores a gazillion tatts, however, there is only one set of teeth in the entire freakin’ universe like Meera’s. No one else has them. Not her parents, whoever they are. Not any of her siblings, if she had any. Not a rabbit, or a dog, or an alligator. No one in God’s universe has now—or will ever have—Meera’s teeth.

  “Everyone alive has a set of teeth as unique as their fingerprints,”Brick says, practically reading my thoughts, enjoying another chance to lecture. “The teeth outlast the body after death. Burn a body to a char or toss it into a wood chipper, whatever. The teeth remain.”

  “I know,”I say, stepping back from Brick’s reach. I dance topless in a ratty Newport bar filled with perverts. Could I end up like Meera? It’s occurred to me more than once. Berta Colby, for all her faults, taught me: trust no one, but suspect everyone. That includes Brick.

  “You notice anything else . . . unusual?”Brick asks.

  “No,”I say, my gaze wandering to the door. Good thing no clients call Verbote Dental any more, since I’m supposed to be up front answering those phones that never light up.

  No need to worry, though. Brick’s focus returns to Meera’s bite wounds. He’d rather identify a bite wound over having sex. They’re Brick’s business, his only business. And may our dear Heavenly Father himself help anyone who tries to escape Brick’s discerning eye once he’s drawn a bead on their teeth. Working for Brick, I’ve learned tons about teeth—and mouths.

  “I see nothing unusual,”I say, and then add,“Um, I better get up front and check our phone messages.”

  Brick follows me out of the lab and into the hallway.

  “Brick, is Aurelia back with those donuts yet?”I ask, trying to unload him.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Alaina, I’ve hired someone from a temp service to help Aurelia . . . ahem . . . run things up front.”

  I stare, my mouth forming a big fat“O.” Is this why he sent Aurelia for donuts? “Are you firing me?”

  “No, oh, no, no, no,”he says, shuffling.

  Brick’s not the nervous type, so he’s hiding something. What?

  “Aurelia says . . . theysay I need to give you a performance review.”

  “Uh-huh,”I say, uncaring who this mysterious“they”might be. I still have my job, so what do I care about a performance review? In another semester, I’ll graduate. I’ll be in New York. “Whenever you’re ready,”I add, wanting to grab Brick’s scalpel and saw off my foot. The pain’s increasing. It’s that bad. “I really need to get up front, Brick.”

  He blocks the hallway, his eyes filled with a wild blank stare, like Sea Biscuit at the starting gate. Carrying my backpack, overcrowded with makeup and black curtains and rubber bands for my harem outfit, in case I have to dance Ang’s shift tonight, I turn and rock past him toward the front office.

  * * *

  Dear God, I’m limping, and it’s still early in the day. What’s worse, when I miss my ballet class, my left ankle turns into a pissy crybaby begging to be stretched. Today, however, after I leave here, instead of going to my ballet class, I’ll have to go looking for Robin.


  How’m I gonna dance at Omar’s if Ang doesn’t show again tonight?

  “Oh,”Brick yells,“I forgot to tell you, I don’t know who, but—”

  I rush down the hallway, back turned against him, waiting for him to clear his Einstein brain of cobwebs. “Spit it out,”I want to yell, but say nothing, keep moving.

  “Didn’t Aurelia tell you? Someone is here to see you. Oh, and . . . ,”he says, tossing the words against my retreating back,“you have a guest in the reception room.”

  I halt. My backpack slams against my shoulder blades. Favoring my left ankle, I turn and stare at Brick, last night returning in vivid detail.

  Maybe it’s the cop.

  My heart leaps, then stops. I remember his message—call me before eleven—and I want to run.

  I can’t—

  I’m not ready—

  Robin—

  “Who is it, Brick?”

  “I didn’t ask. I leave new clients to you.”

  Jaw drop. We haven’t had a new client in months. “New clients?”

  Brick smiles. “Nice teeth. Nicest I’ve ever seen.”

  My gut flip-flops.

  So the cop’s found me here?

  “Okay, I’ll . . . take care of it.”

  I struggle to recall his smile, but it was too dark in Omar’s last night to see the Viking cop. I turn and rock down the hallway, a gut-knot gathering. It’s him. Who else could it be?

  Correcting my limp, I sigh. At least when I’m hauled out in cuffs, I’ll be clothed this time, not like last night.

  “No, screw that!” I dump my backpack and pull off my hoodie. I’m wearing my dancer’s body tights underneath, the black scoop-neck top molded to my ribcage. He liked my ladies last night, so maybe I can use them to distract him again today.

  Feeling better equipped to meet Detective Hawks, I hurry toward the front office, planning my next move. I’ve got to take his focus off Robin. As Berta Colby’s daughter, I’ve learned how to use my body to get what I want. And right now I want my brother—and me—to stay out of jail.