Turn off the Light ch.23

It starts with a phone call. It's the simplest of things, commonplace, normal, safe—and though the ring is shrill, it doesn't have the slightest business being a portent of doom.

It would be simpler if the phone hadn't chosen half past two on a thunderstorm-cloaked midsummer night to ring.

As it is, that unpleasant sound pulls Peter from his sleep. With a groan, he rolls onto his stomach. He's vaguely aware of Leight's arm slipping off him (he honestly doesn't know how the man is still asleep) as he stretches to retrieve his cell phone from the night table.

He manages to grab it just after the third ring. "Peter Grayson," he says, fighting to keep the sleep out of his voice.

"Peter." The voice is deep but rough, gravelly, almost unrecognizable. It's a tone Peter has only heard from this man once before. "It's John Smith."

There's a stroke of lightning; everything is terribly bright.

"Captain," Peter replies.

His throat is dry with dread. His heart is hammering. His stomach is doing somersaults. His head knows that know good can come of this tone.

"Where do you need us to meet you?"

Thunder shakes the room.

"1518 Spruce. Apartment 17F."

"All right," Peter nods, committing the address to memory. "We'll be there soon."

"Good," the Captain responds, though it's clear that there's nothing good about this situation.

"Good," he repeats, as if he's trying to make a decision about something. Then, "It's about Raymond."

A flicker of lightning.

And he knows he's going to regret it, but he also knows he's going to find out sooner or later, so he pushes forward with sick curiosity.

"Is he—"

"Yes," the Captain cuts him off. "He is."

The boom of thunder.

In Peter's chest, something bursts. Maybe it was that small balloon of hope that he never quite let float away. The foolish belief that, even though they investigate murders everyday, one of them will never be a victim.

The silly faith that, as real as he knows death to be, it will never touch him, or anyone close to him. He was naïve—perhaps willfully so—and that makes the reality all the more painful.

"Okay," he says, although the feverish feeling that's migrating through his limbs is anything but okay, "we'll be there as soon as possible."

"Thanks," the Captain mutters brokenly. Then the line goes dead."

The phone falls from Peter's limp fingers. He wants to curl up in the fetus position, stick his head ostrich-like under a pillow, and succumb to the shock.

But he can't. He can't do any of these things, least of all deny or be shocked, because he needs to get the fuck out of bed and down to 1518 Spruce Street so Leight can solve this fucking nightmare.

But first, he needs to wake Leight up. So he rolls over, and he steels himself. He looks at Leight, so peaceful in sleep, and a part of him seizes up because he just knows that this is going to change them.

So he steels himself all over again, props himself up on one elbow, and places his free hand on Leight's arm.

Shakily, he murmurs, "Mal." There's no response, so he increases the pressure, raises his voice, "Mal, you have to wake up."

Leight's eyelids flutter open. He blinks into focus. The first thing he sees is the look on Peter's face. He sits up immediately.

"What's wrong? What's happened?"

Another flash of lightning illuminates the room.

"It's Raymond." He waits for the thunder.

Five counts, the storm is getting closer. It's unavoidable—a truth they can't escape.

"Raymond Fisher."

Leight stares at him, eyes blank, still mostly asleep. "We know a Raymond Fisher?"

"Yeah." Peter feels his throat clenching. "We do. It's the Lieutenant. He's dead."

The apartment building harks back to the 1930s.

It would fit perfectly in a gritty noir film. The rain suits it.

As Peter stares up at it from the street, he can't help but shiver.

It isn't cold, but it doesn't matter. He keeps shivering, even as Leight slides an arm around his shoulders and ushers him inside.

The lobby is too pretentiously furnished, too brightly lit, too fiercely air-conditioned.

The walls of the elevator are curved glass. He finds himself staring blankly as the elevator shoots upward; his stomach lurches because they're moving too (damn) fast.

Everything is blurry, dream-like, bathed in halos of phosphorescence. He wants to vomit, he wants to scream, he wants to cry; but all he does is shiver.

The elevator doors glide open at the seventeenth floor. It only takes a moment to find 17F; the door is ajar. They go in.

The apartment is, not surprisingly, a little tacky. It belongs—or belonged—to the Lieutenant, who thought the moustache he grew two weeks ago was the height of fashion, so of course it's tacky. It's a wonder that he managed to afford an apartment in this (fairly classy, if ostentatious) building, so it isn't a shock that he had to skimp on furniture and decorations.

Of course, "skimping" is setting the television on a box instead of buying an entertainment center, hanging posters instead of framed prints, or eating ramen noodles instead of real spaghetti; "skimping" is no excuse for buying a highlighter yellow shag rug, a fake potted ficus, or a purple lava lamp.

The apartment may as well be a tribute to the 70s, but that doesn't even make sense because the Lieutenant wasn't even born until at least 1975.

But it's futile (not to mention petty) to condemn a dead man for his bad taste.

The Lieutenant's body lies on the highlighter yellow shag rug. He's lying on his back, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, eyes open and glazed, lips parted and tinted blue. There's something perched on his chest, but Peter can't tell what it is from this distance.

The Captain's sitting on a beanbag chair in the middle of the living room, his face buried in his hands.

"Oh," he looks up at the sound of footsteps, "you're here. Good."

Once again, it's clear from the redness around his eyes that there isn't anything good about any of this.

"What happened?" Peter's voice is airy, distant, as if it belongs to a ghost instead of him.

"Suffocation," Leight says, hard and harsh. He steps away from Peter, brisk and abrupt, and goes to crouch beside the body.

Peter blinks. "How—"

"There's a spot of saliva on the dislodged pillow," Leight mutters absently, gesturing to a pillow that lies discarded on the floor instead of on the couch, "but it hardly matters."

By now, the Captain is a little more composed. His lips are drawn in a tight line.

"I got a call, about an hour ago, from Raymond's cell. He must have speed-dialed as soon as he could, but—it wasn't soon enough. He fought, but I guess he wasn't strong enough. He screamed. I heard him."

His eyes dart away, tracing paths across the ceiling and the poster-clad walls.

"I heard him die."

.

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