No Mercy. John Burley

that intuition, and –

      ‘Excuse me. Dr Stevenson?’

      Ben looked up from his desk, his eyes clearing. The CO’s secretary stood in the doorway of his small office, looking in on him.

      ‘What is it, Tanya?’ he asked.

      ‘That was Detective Schroeder on the phone,’ she said. ‘He’s here with the boy’s father. They’re pulling into the parking lot now.’

       Chapter 10

      Phil Tanner was a tall, lanky man with a weathered face and a darkened, sun-battered complexion. He still wore his work clothes from the night before – faded dungarees and an old navy blue button-down shirt that bore the unmistakable bulge of a pack of cigarettes (Marlboros, if Ben had to guess) in the front pocket. Detective Carl Schroeder stood beside him, wearing a dark suit with a maroon tie. His black gelled-back hair matched the color of his shoes perfectly. He was shorter than both Ben and Phil Tanner by several inches, but his build was lithe and wiry, his eyes cool and watchful, and Ben imagined that in a physical altercation the detective was a force to be reckoned with. Schroeder introduced the two men in a brisk, practiced manner.

      ‘Mr Tanner.’ Ben greeted the boy’s father, shaking the large, calloused hand extended in his direction.

      The man nodded slightly, saying nothing. He stood tense and rigid in the hallway.

      ‘Sir, I know this must be an extremely difficult time for you,’ Ben continued. ‘You are welcome to come sit in my office for a moment until you feel that you’re—’

      ‘Where’s my boy?’ Tanner responded, looking over Ben’s shoulder into the next room. His voice was deep and gruff, the product of too many years spent smoking too many cigarettes.

      ‘Well, we were hoping you could identify—’

      ‘Let me see ’im then.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Ben agreed. He led the two men into the next room. He had taken as much care as possible to prepare the boy’s body – his face, anyway – for viewing. His injuries had been severe and disfiguring, and Ben was no plastic surgeon. Suddenly he wanted more time to work on the boy, especially that gaping bite wound across his left cheek. He’d been able to pull the wound edges together using a series of horizontal mattress sutures, but now it didn’t seem nearly sufficient to withstand the eyes of the boy’s father.

      ‘The wounds were fairly extensive,’ he explained to them, somewhat apologetically. ‘There’s been some significant disfigurement to the face.’ Ben carefully folded down the edge of a cloth blanket he’d placed over the body prior to their arrival. He tried to brace himself for the father’s response.

      Phil Tanner was quiet for a long moment, studying the boy’s marred but placid appearance. He looked upon him with a surreal and uncertain fascination. In the front room the phone rang, and Ben heard Tanya answering it. ‘Coroner’s Office,’ she said, and Ben silently kicked himself for forgetting to have her put the phones on hold during the visit. The sound seemed to break Phil Tanner’s trance, and he looked up at them with confusion.

      ‘That ain’t my boy,’ he said, and Ben exchanged a surprised look with Detective Schroeder.

      ‘That’s not your son, sir?’ Schroeder asked.

      ‘No,’ the man answered. He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Wait. That’s not exactly right. What I mean to say is that, yes, it is my son, but it … it’s just that he don’t look like my son.’ He searched the faces of the two men standing before him, attempting to make himself understood.

      ‘He’s sustained some injuries that alter his appearance,’ Ben explained again.

      ‘I can see that for myself, Doctor.’ Phil Tanner’s eyes flashed at Ben, who took an involuntary half step backward. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

      ‘Take it easy, Mr Tanner,’ Detective Schroeder interjected in a calm and level voice. ‘Something like this always comes as a great shock. I can assure you that Dr Stevenson was not implying—’

      If Phil Tanner heard him, he didn’t seem to notice. His left hand groped beneath the blanket, finding the boy’s cold, insensate hand. He grasped it tightly.

      ‘Kevin?’ he asked, puzzled and unbelieving. ‘Kevin? Kevin?’ His voice rose steadily in pitch and urgency each time he spoke the boy’s name. The words echoed slightly off the room’s concrete walls. They had a hollow, lonely sound, like a knock at a door that will never be answered.

      At last Tanner looked up at Ben, his eyes pleading. ‘That ain’t my boy, is it, Doctor? I mean … Jesus … Tell me this ain’t my son lyin’ here on this table with his face torn to pieces! Tell me that, won’t you, Doctor?!’

      ‘Mr Tanner, please,’ someone said without much conviction. Ben wasn’t certain if it had been Detective Schroeder or himself.

      ‘Kevin?’ the boy’s father went on, his voice continuing to escalate. ‘Kevin? Son?! Kevin?? Tell me this ain’t you!! Kevin, are you dead?! ARE YOU DEAD, BOY?!!’

      There was no answer from the form beneath the blanket.

      ‘What did they do to you?!’ he asked the dead boy lying pale and mute before him. ‘WHAT … DID THEY DO TO YOU?!!’

      At that last tortured utterance, Phil Tanner’s feverish eyes leapt up at Ben and fixed themselves upon him as if Ben, himself, had been responsible for the boy’s death.

      ‘I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY DID TO MY BOY!!’ he said again, only this time it wasn’t a question but an accusation. Ben took another step backward. His left hip bumped into a small metal table supporting an electronic scale. The scale skittered to the edge of the table, hung on precariously for a brief moment, then went crashing to the tiled floor below. The sound was thunderous in the small room, and Ben could hear Tanya’s voice calling from the front desk, ‘Dr Stevenson? Is everything okay?’

      ‘That’s enough, Mr Tanner.’ Carl Schroeder took the man by the arm and tried to lead him away.

      ‘FUCK YOU!! I WANT TO BE WITH MY SON!!’ Tanner protested wildly, trying to shake off the detective’s grasp.

      ‘You will spend the night in jail if you don’t get a hold of yourself,’ Schroeder said quietly but sternly. ‘That’s enough!’

      Phil Tanner looked from the detective, to Ben, to the body lying on the table before him. His eyes were wide and uncomprehending. The muscles of his neck and forearms bunched and jerked beneath his blue shirt, and Ben thought to himself in a strangely detached way that if Tanner leapt for him across the table, he would break to his right and make for his office. If he could get the office door closed, he’d be out of harm’s way long enough for Detective Schroeder to subdue the man. Fight or flight, Ben thought randomly. Let Schroeder do the fighting; he was trained for it. Ben would opt for the latter.

      Suddenly, as quickly as it had come, all of the struggle within Phil Tanner was gone. His eyes appeared to clear a little, but the inner strength he had brought with him when he arrived was gone. His shoulders slumped forward, his body bending at the waist as if he’d been sucker-punched low in the gut. A calloused hand touched the table where his son lay supine beneath the sheet, but Tanner would not look at him. For a long time he said nothing, staring at the broken remnants of the tattered scale splayed out across the floor. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper.

      ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.’

      Schroeder placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘You’re under a great strain, sir,’ he observed. ‘Under similar circumstances, I don’t know