Participants:
| Scene Title | Special Delivery |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Zachery recieves a very special delivery to his morgue from Daniel Linderman; A corpse, courtesy of Kain Zarek. |
| Date | September 22nd, 2008 |
Harlem: County Morgue
The clock on the wall reads 10:03am, the red second-hand ticks at what feels like ever-slowing intervals.
It has been by no means an ordinary month for this morgue, and by no means has that trend been changed any time soon. This morning a delivery truck arrived at the Morgue, an unmarked white box-truck which proceeded to dump upon the shoulders of Zachery Miller an unwanted addition to an already complicated day. The delivery was — as would be perhaps custom for a morgue — a corpse, courtesy of one Daniel Linderman. The body was bagged, delivered directly down into the examination room and quickly placed on one of the rolling trays of a body-locker. The delivery men, professionals as they were, left explicit instructions for Zachery, "Don't open the bag, don't open the locker. Wait for Mr.Zarek to arrive."
Mister Zarek? It had a certain ring to it, a ring that resounds of Linderman. While Zachery is no particular stranger to the criminal underpinnings of New York City, it isn't something that usually sullies his (mostly) reputable business. It would seem though, that time and time again, situations piled up for the young coroner, and now it appears that the briefcase left unmentioned by the delivery crew upon Zachery's examination table, and the orders he was informed to follow, have indicated that "mostly-reputable" was slowly sliding into "disreputable".
All in all, it hasn't been a terrible morning. Not yet, anyway.
Despite it having been literally hours since Zachery met with the surprise of the unexpectant body and briefcase, the ticks of the clock have gone anything but unnoticed. The coroner's brow is creased as he paces up and down the examination room, dressed in his usual scrubs and stopping every now and then to look up to the briefcase.
The briefcase had been opened, closed, opened again and closed once more. Then, just for good measure, the process had been repeated one last time. Money. A lot of it. This was bad, right? Very bad? Very very bad?
But it was also a lot of money.
Somehow the morgue seems even quieter than usual today. Which might have to do with the dieners that had been sent home. Nothing to do today, he'd said. He'd page them if something came up. Which it won't. Or will it? Should he have had people here? Maybe the whole thing is a hoax? Or a trap? Zachery simply cannot stop asking himself questions, and hasn't been able to ever since this whole mess started. It had not been a terrible morning, no, but it had been a nerve-wracking one.
"Well, Doc, Ah gotta' say this sure is a nice setup you got yoourself here." No buzzing from the front door, no knocking, just the sound of the door to the examination room opening, followed by the sound of a strong southern drawl and the jingling of keys. "Fancy digs." Stepping thorugh the door as if it was his morgue, a tall and well-dressed man with sandy-blonde hair down to his shoulders was spinning a ring of keys around one finger, his other hand lazily stuffed into the pocket of his slacks.
Eyes wandering about the room, he soon settled them on Doctor Miller, and then the briefcase, "You look like you ain't had your mornin' coffee yet." His head quirks to the side, a broad and all-too-pleased smile cutting across his face as he stands in the open doorway, still spinning the keyring on his extended index finger.
Zachery's stopping in his tracks as soon as the unfamiliar voice sounds. He watches the other man closely, head tilting upward slightly as he looks the stranger over. Er.
"No, yes, I — " He starts uncertainly, before straightening up a little and making an effort to look a little less like he'd just been pacing around for God knows how long. He clears his throat in an attempt to sound a little less perplexed, too — sadly to no avail. "Mister Zarek, I presume?"
"Right as rain, Doc. Kain Zarek." He swings the keys around one finger again, then catches them in his open palm, sliding that hand as well into a pocket as he walks. "I heard tell you got yourself a stiff up in here that you weren't expecting?" One brow raises in a coy expression, "Well Ah'm just the man who helps make those kind've things make sense." There's a certain cock-sure way in which Kain handles himself, as if everything he says and does is part of some bigger scheme, and the grin on his face only goes to show his confidence in these matters.
Walking over to the corpse lockers, Kain traces one hand over the numbers, stopping at the one the delivery men had used. He pulls the door open with a muffled click, then slowly slides the tray out, "What we've got here is what Ah like t'call a little bit of necessary evil, Doc." Beginning to unzipper the bag, Kain looks down at the body as it's revealed to him and to Zachery. It's hard to tell — at first — what the gender of the corpse is, as it is missing the vast majority of its face. Once the bag gets unzipped the rest of the way, though, the breasts and slender body frame explain its femenine origins. A woman, presumably a woman suffering a point-blank range shotgun blast to the face from the looks of it.
Looking completely unimpressed - Zachery's default expression - appears to be a bit of a hard task at the moment, for the coroner. He still looks utterly puzzled, lifting a hand to rub at one of his temples as he saunters closer to the lockers. He aches to protest against Kain's actions, but something is keeping him from actually doing it. He shouldn't have looked inside the briefcase, most likely.
"S-so," Reaching the corpse and getting a look at its face, he flinches. Not out of disgust, but… well. People don't usually kill themselves by shooting themselves in the face. Nor has he come across many accidents like this. This only confirms that this has to do with a murder. "This concerns me… how? You can't just walk in here and — " He stops, frowning up at Kain. There was an end to that sentence, but it seems to have gone lost in that anxiety showing on his face, there.
Kain demures with a pursing of his lips that turns into a shit-eating I sure as hell can smile. "What we've got here, Doc, is a clear case of unexplained murder that's going to need some 'splainin done." Reaching inside of his suit-jacket, Kain retrieves a pair of leather gloves, donning them delicately before opening up the bag a bit, "This little missy here is going to be what Ah' like t'call a ringer, as it were." He removes from within the body-bag, a waterlogged wallet, laying it down on the rolling tray. "What we've got here," He opens the wallet with two fingers, motioning to identification, credit-cards, liscense, all tucked away along with some money. "This here's some identification, and what we need you to say, is that this body here." He taps the corpse on the sternum with two fingers, "And this identification here." Fingers strike the wallet, "Are the same gal, it's as simple as that."
Kain's eyes drift up from the wallet to Zachery, a smile still plastered on his face, head canted to the side. "Now if this goes all nice and smoothly like Mister Linderman wants," He motions over to the briefcase, "There's another one of them headed your way lickity split. If we get any trouble…" Kain's eyes divert to the corpse slowly, then as they come back up his smile turns more into a smirk. "I think we've got an understanding, hm?"
And just like that, the nervousness dissipates.
"Wait. That's it?" Zachery asks, flexing his hands by his side as his eyes flit between Kain's face and what's left of the corpse's. "I…" Not even bothering with gloves, he reaches for the woman's head to turn it - as far as it will - his way. "That's practically— that's— that's easy. I can do that in…" He stops again, his eyes narrowing slightly as his fingers linger on the dead skin.
"I can do that. It's just… Linderman? Really? I mean, I don't usually do these sort of things." Not that he seems to mind very much. It's certainly more interesting than the usual corpses. He suddenly frowns at the influx of information from the body. With a headshot like that he hadn't expected so much more to be wrong with it, but then again- Linderman.
"That's it, Doc." Kain slides his gloves off slowly, "The official police report's in plastic in the bag. She's already been processed from the crime scene. We just need you to finish up the paperwork," He folds the gloves, then slides them inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket. "You'll probably get some nosin' around from the local cops, but Ah trust you can handle that fancy footwork?" He shifts his eyes over to Zachery for a moment, then back to the briefcase. "Consider this kinda' like an entrance exam." Kain's hard-soled dress shoes clack on the concrete floor with each footfall, "Pass, and some more opportunities open up for you." He pauses by the briefcase, turning to look over his shoulder, "Mister Linderman thinks you're a special one," He cracks a thin smile, "Ain't you lucky."
"Ain't I, indeed." Zachery mumbles, his tone of voice making it more than clear that he isn't at all decided on the matter yet. There's plenty to think about, but he's guessing declining the man's offer right here and now would not end well either way.
He breaks the skin contact with the corpse, stepping back to scratch the back of his neck with the other hand as he makes his way over to one of the cold, metal sinks in the room. "Now… if you'd excuse me. I'm not sure whether I should be thanking you, or tell you to get the bloody hell out." Quickly, he adds, "I'm going to opt for the first one for now, but I hope you understand my confusion."
"That's a normal reaction." Kain says with a crooked smile, walking away from the desk the briefcase is settled on, "If things all go as you'd like, Mister Linderman will be contacting you again." Kain's eyes drift over to the corpse on the rolling tray, then back to Zachery, "You go buy yourself somethin' nice," He adds, standing by the open door to the front office, "Ah hear that helps the guilt nice and fine." His brows raise as he says this, smiling broadly to the coroner before removing the key ring from his pocket. "Ah'll jus' go on ahead an' show m'self out." Without a goodbye, Kain saunters out, closing the door politely behind himself.
The click of the door closing was deafening in the silence. Like a any exit from this scenario having been closed off. A decision made.
Heavy and hollow.
 September 21st: You're Very Analytical |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 September 22nd: Deconstruction |