The Seeing by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781469725949
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2003-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Bennett ran a trembling hand through his hair. It was late, three-thirty in the morning. And in spite of everything that had happened tonight, he was exhausted. He yawned widely, then winced. His swollen throat felt raw and stiff. All of his muscles were sore and his entire body ached—especially his right knee, which throbbed like a toothache.

The morgue was the last place he wanted to be right now.

He sat on a wide, wooden bench outside the coroner’s office while he waited for Woody to finish up inside. There were twice as many forms to complete this time, twice as many papers to sign. None of which, Bennett knew, really mattered much right now.

The Nelsons had come in two hours ago for the formal identification. Bennett was upstairs in Woody’s office at the time, sipping a steaming cup of cocoa. He hadn’t been down here to see it...but he’d certainly heard it. Margaret Nelson’s wails had rolled up to him through two floors.

Bennett came down twenty minutes ago to look at the other body. As he did, his hand had drifted up to the dark ring of bruises around his throat. They’d known from the Social Security card found in the old man’s wallet that his name was Harold Gilbride. And Bennett, of course, had recognized him at once.

Another old man, he thought miserably. And another child.

And he and Woody were getting nowhere.

Bennett closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He swallowed, wincing again at the bright spark of pain in his throat.

I’m in over my head this time. This is just too much, way too much.

Then a familiar voice drifted up to him. It was the one he’d heard at his bedside as a child for weeks after Mom died, when nightmares woke him in the middle of the night and left him feeling scared and hollow. It was the voice of the man who had been gone for more than ten years now, but was still somehow never very far away.

Be strong, son.

Bennett leaned forward wearily and buried his face in his cold hands. He stayed that way for a long moment. Then he lowered his hands, clapped them softly together, and slowly began to nod his head.

“I’ll do my best, Dad,” he whispered. “You know I’ll do my best.”

The door to the coroner’s office opened. Woody stepped out. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, rubbing at his neck like a man suffering from a nasty case of whiplash. His expression was bleak, his face grim. He sighed deeply and glanced down at Bennett. “How you holding up?”

Bennett shrugged. “I’m okay. My throat feels like I swallowed about a hundred fishhooks, but I’ll make it. How about you?”

Woody didn’t answer. His shoulders slumped as if hundred-pound weights had been fastened to them. He sat down heavily on the bench beside Bennett. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes. The hallway was silent for a while.

Then Bennett said, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

A deep breath.

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