‘What d’ya think, Dr S?’ Nat called over from the next room. He was holding a human liver in his hands. It was gray and cirrhotic, shrunken from its normal size by a lifetime of heavy drinking. ‘How much ya figure it weighs?’
Ben looked through the doorway of his office. ‘I’d guess 875 grams.’
Nat shook his head. ‘Too high, Dr S. This thing is pickled. I’m goin’ with 680.’
‘Well, weigh it and find out,’ Ben advised, turning his attention back to the papers in front of him.
‘Let’s place a wager on it,’ Nat suggested. ‘An extra two days of paid vacation for me this year.’
‘You didn’t use all your vacation time last year,’ Ben reminded him.
‘That’s why I need an extra two days this year,’ Nat said. ‘I thought that shit carried over.’
‘Nope. Use it or lose it,’ Ben told him. ‘You’ve got enough perks and benefits already.’
‘What perks and benefits?’ Nat wanted to know, the liver in his hands temporarily forgotten.
Ben slapped his pencil down on the desk, exasperated. Trying to get paperwork done with Nat in the other room was like trying to enjoy a romantic, candlelit dinner with a three-year-old at the table. ‘Are you gonna weigh that thing, or not?’
‘Sure. Yeah. Don’t get all crotchety on me, Dr S.’ Nat walked over to the scale and placed the item in the metal tray. He paused for a moment, allowing the needle to settle on a number. Ben picked up his pencil again and began to –
‘Oooh, Dr S. It’s 692 grams. You were way off.’
‘Fine, Nat,’ he said, without looking up. ‘It’s 692 grams. Are you happy now?’
‘Definitely.’
The blank diagnosis box at the bottom of the form stared up at Ben, challenging him to come up with –
‘You owe me another two days of vacation this year.’
That did it. Ben closed the folder on his desk, got up, and headed toward the front of the building.
‘Where you goin’, Dr S?’
Ben didn’t answer. He snatched his coat off of the rack, opened the front door, and headed out into the frigid afternoon. The trees were barren now, their thin limbs stretched like black veins toward the sky. Ben placed a hand on the rail before proceeding down the short flight of steps, recalling the thin, nearly invisible sheets of ice he’d spotted this morning in the parking lot. The wind tugged at the collar of his coat. He pulled the zipper up as far as it would go, hunching his shoulders to protect his neck and the lower half of his ears from the chill.
At the bottom of the CO’s front steps, he turned right and made his way along the sidewalk. It was mid-December, and there was snow in the forecast – quite a bit of it, from the weatherman’s predictions last night. Ben had noticed this morning that the sky had taken on that thick, bloated look. By early afternoon the flakes had begun to fall, and a good two inches already covered the sidewalk. It crunched beneath his boots as he ambled along. When he got home this evening, he’d have a driveway to clear.
Home. Ben felt his gut tighten momentarily. There’d been trouble between him and Susan lately, although he had difficulty placing his finger on exactly why. Tangentially, at least, it seemed related to the two attacks on the teenagers earlier this year. It had been a stressful time for both of them, and Ben realized that he’d probably made matters worse by being so closely involved in the investigation. It was a topic Susan didn’t like to talk about, and any attempt to broach the subject usually ended up in an argument.
Three weeks ago they’d gotten into it again. It had become evident over the past month or two that Thomas’s relationship with Monica Dressler had extended beyond simple friendship. They’d been spending increasing amounts of time together, and there was little doubt from their body language and the way that they looked at one another that they’d become romantically involved. To Ben, this seemed like a good thing for the both of them, but after dinner one night Susan had gotten on Thomas’s case about it. He’d heard them arguing upstairs in the hallway and had gone up to intervene – a mistake, he realized in retrospect. Susan had snapped at him, telling him to stay out of it. After a brief exchange, he’d found himself standing alone in the upstairs hallway, wondering how in the hell he had ended up coming off as the bad guy.
He’d caught up to her in the kitchen.
‘What was that all about?’ he demanded, angered by her dismissiveness.
‘I don’t know,’ she responded harshly. ‘Why don’t you talk to him about it.’
‘I’m talking to you,’ Ben replied, refusing to be bullied.
Susan turned to face him. Her jaw was set in that manner she had when she decided to really dig her heels in about something. ‘I don’t think he should be dating that girl.’
‘Monica? Why?’
‘Why? Because she’s fragile, Ben.’
‘Fragile?’
‘Yes, fragile.’ She put a hand on the countertop, the other on her left hip. ‘She’s been through a lot – too much, really. I think he needs to leave her alone. One way or the other, he’ll end up hurting her.’
Ben was dumbfounded. ‘He’s been helping her,’ he pointed out. ‘You don’t see that?’
She looked back at him, tight-lipped. ‘No. I don’t.’
Ben walked to the table and rested his palms on the top of a chair back. ‘You know what I think?’ he started. Susan simply stared at him, waiting. ‘I think you don’t like him dating her because it’s a daily reminder of the assaults. Monica represents something’ – he pointed a finger at her – ‘that you’re having difficulty dealing with.’
‘What are you, a shrink now?’
‘This isn’t Thomas’s problem,’ he told her. ‘It’s yours.’
She studied him for a moment. ‘Well, you’re right about that.’
Ben exhaled slowly through his mouth, trying to dissipate some of the anger. There was no use in them fighting about this. If she could just see –
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess you know just about everything.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ he protested, holding up a hand. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘No, Ben,’ she’d replied, leaving the room. ‘It’s not.’
It had been three weeks since then. The next day they’d made their apologies, sure, but things hadn’t been the same between them. It was the little things, he realized. They no longer took time to discuss the events of their respective days, for example – focusing instead on coordinating their schedules around the activities of their jobs and children. Their conversations were more formal, less personal, and they’d begun treating one another with the sort of cool politeness reserved for houseguests who’ve overstayed their welcome. Ben couldn’t help but wonder whether this was how it felt to embark on those first few steps down the twisting path toward divorce.
He stopped and looked up at the sky, a pregnant gray canopy lying low above the earth. The precipitation was coming down harder now, the heavy flakes catching in his lashes. Visibility was worsening, the sun already riding low on the horizon. He ought to close up the CO early today, make sure everyone got home before dark. The course of his walk had taken him on a winding loop through the park and an adjacent neighborhood, such that he was now back where he had started. He ascended the steps to the front of the building.
A small plastic bag, partially covered by the snow, leaned up against the door. He looked around, then stooped to pick it up, dusting off the powdery whiteness. In another hour, he realized, it would have been covered completely. They wouldn’t have found it until the steps were shoveled the next morning. He opened the bag, peering inside, wondering what sort of –
‘Oh my God,’ he whispered, the plastic package slipping from his fingers, the blanched, lifeless content spilling out onto the snow. He turned and gripped the wrought iron rail beside him, his body bent at the waist as if he’d been kicked low in the midsection. He could feel his knees buckling, the bile rising high in his throat, the world going dim and distant around him.
Lying in the snow, the palm turned upward in an act of supplication, was what remained of a human hand.