Undead Reckoning
The characters in Forever Knight were created by James Parriott and Barney Cohen and are the property of Sony/Columbia/Tri-Star. The stories here are fan fiction. This story may be archived wherever by whomever.
UnDead Reckoning W Doherty
[This follows "Dead Reckoning" which was written for the 2011 FK FanFicFest.]
Come on baby... don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand… don't fear the reaper
--Don't Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
Previously (from "Dead Reckoning"):
Bert and Ernie, two somewhat roughed-up and ragged looking men were sitting in a row of chairs in the bullpen and along the wall outside of the captain's office. They were near the desks of Detectives, Knight and Schanke. One looked rather like a refugee from a discothèque, a blousy, flowered shirt, striped pants, and a haircut that made him resemble Sonny Bono. The other was dressed in a more modern style, but he looked as though he had been through a bar fight - there were a few rips in his shirt, some scrapes on his hands and face. He had seen better days.
- - - - -
Ernie started to get up, "I've got to ask who died."
He was blocked from going over to the detectives by another precinct policeman who walked up to him and Bert. Ernie looked at the out-of-date uniform of the youngish constable who himself looked like he'd been in a fight and needed to get home and change into a clean outfit.
The constable said to them, "It's alright, gentlemen, the detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others. Just be patient, please," he said, and walked on along.
- - - - -
The young disheveled constable came by again, "It's alright, gentlemen, the detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others. Just be patient, please," and continued on his way.
"What is it with him?" Ernie asked. Bert just shrugged.
- - - - -
Just then, the persistent constable came by them again, "It's alright, gentlemen, the detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others. Just be patient, please. And you, sir, yes, Mr. Ernest -" he looked at some papers he suddenly had in his hand, said Ernie's last name, and continued -- "come with me, they are ready for you now. We are going up to the 5th floor," which was an odd thing to say because the building had only four floors.
- - - - -
Constable Cornelius MacPherson was new to the force. Just out of school, still wet behind everything including his ears, with the eagerness of a new recruit. He put in as much overtime as he could. He was happy becoming a constable and wished only that his mother had lived long enough to see it. It had been just him and her at home, and she'd have been so proud.
Right after the bomb blast, he had been directing traffic, sending some people to the Division for interviews, others to a waiting area across the street from the bar, and a few poor souls he had to tell to just sit and wait, they were not going to be going anywhere but the Morgue, and who needs that kind of news.
An older constable directed Macpherson to accompany a body back to the Morgue, and then go to the station house to help organize the crowd of people who had been sent there. On the way to the Morgue, he had looked at a bombing victim: a youngish man, dark blond like himself, but unrecognizable since most of his face had been blown off. He shuddered.
And now that he had been assigned crowd control at the 96th Division, he continued his rounds reassuring the multitude of witnesses, clientele, visitors, etc. whom the detectives would call out for interviews as quickly as they could, but with a crowd like the one waiting in the detectives' ready room, it was going to be quite a while. And there was a line of more people stretching out the doorway into the hall and down the stairwell. "Where have they all come from," MacPherson wondered.
- - - - -
Eddie brought another body into the Morgue on a gurney.
"Sorry, Doctor Lambert, just got another one in."
"Not from that bombing, is it?" she asked.
"No, collateral damage. The young constable here got run over at the scene. He was supposed to be directing traffic, but . . . ."
Natalie went to the gurney and lifted the sheet. "Such a young man, what a shame." She turned back to Eddie and said, "Thanks, Eddie, I'll handle it from here."
She went over to her desk and sat down. She glanced over at the young man's body and said to herself, "I hope you aren't going to sit up." She sighed, and thought, I've got to get out here. She looked at the man's records, "No next of kin. Poor guy. Well, I hope, Constable, that you aren't in a hurry - well, no, I suppose you aren't. Here, I'll slide you into this nice, quiet drawer where you can rest, and the day staff will take really good care of you." She then got the paper work out to start the report on the body that had disappeared from the morgue earlier that night.
- - - - -
While at the 96th, MacPherson had seen some of the witnesses to the bombing come in, and, he had been calming the people ever since, telling them to wait, to be patient.
On the other hand, he was getting a little irritated at the detectives. They seemed to come and go and none of them ever interviewed the witnesses. Oh, once in a while, he'd find papers in his hand for a specific witness and he'd go call them up and send them off to the powers-that-be who were doing the main interviewing. He really had no idea what happened then because the interviews were in another part of the building. He just sent them along, and assumed that they were taken care of and/or left 'cause he didn't see any of them again. None of the detectives in the squad room, however, ever seemed to do any of the interviewing. Once in a while, that Detective Knight would question someone in one of the interview rooms, but MacPherson never got any feedback.
When he first saw Knight, he thought for a second that he was the dead bombing victim until Knight turned around and had a face. But then, that had been a while ago, now that he thought about it, and Knight hadn't been on the force at the time. Knight'd come to the squad room much later.
"Gee," he thought to himself, "how long has it been since I had a chance to go home and get some clean clothes?" But before he could dwell on it, another group of witnesses to some crime, a bar brawl this time, had come in. Only one of them, an 'Ernie' had been sent to the chairs to wait. He dutifully went over to him and the other man who was sitting there and told them, "It's alright, gentlemen, the detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others. Just be patient, please."
- - - - -
MacPherson looked up as a new crowd of witnesses started coming in. Apparently a voodoo practitioner had set off a large number of bombs. He started to direct the people to empty chairs, when he heard a new voice.
"Officer MacPherson! Come with me please."
MacPherson turned and looked at a well-dressed detective, who had spoken with an air of confidence and authority. MacPherson replied, "It's alright, gentlem - uh, gentlemen, the - uh, huh? But these people, sir . . . ."
"They will be taken care of, young man. Another officer will be handling crowd control. You need to come with me over to the elevator, and I'll escort you to the interview rooms. The 'powers-that-be' will answer all your questions, get things straightened out, and get you going on your way. Our apologies for having taken so long to get to you."
MacPherson nodded gratefully, "Uh, thanks, but I'm hardly dressed -"
"Don't worry about that, Constable. It's o.k. and we'll take care of it," the new detective person said. And, he led MacPherson off towards the elevators and his 'appointment' with the powers-that-be. MacPherson was just glad that something was finally happening.
- - - - -
Detective Don Schanke came over to a hippie type guy sitting outside of Cohen's office - he wondered where she was - and looked at the papers in his hands and told the man, "You're Bert, right? It's o.k., man, the other detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others, which from the look of it will be a week from next Tuesday. Just be patient, o.k.?" Schanke was vaguely aware that he had been asked to keep the crowded ready room calm and quiet. Apparently, Vudu's bombs had hurt a heck of a lot of people because there was a whole crowd waiting to be interviewed.
As he turned to show the others where to sit and wait patiently, he thought he saw Nick disappearing around the corner, but then he realized that this was about the third or fourth time that had happened. He also wondered how his suit had gotten so torn up. He wanted to go home and get his other one, but Cohen didn't seem to be around to ask. He thought about calling Myra and to let her know where he was, but every time he got near a phone he got distracted by the victims, stragglers, witnesses, whatever they were, who were stumbling in.
He would go over to them and said, "It's o.k., people, the detectives will be with you as soon as they finish up with the others. Just be patient, right?. Oh, by the way, would any of you be interested in some Souvlaki? I could place an order." They just nodded 'no' and Schanke shrugged and walked off to continue with crowd control.
- - - - -
A bit later:
"Captain! Captain Cohen!" Schanke practically shouted when he spotted her coming into the squad room. "Captain, what's going on here, there are so many people, and look at me, I look like something out of 'Dawn of the Dead', and I gotta call Myra - "
"Don," she said as she walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, "There's been a slight mix-up. You aren't supposed to be here. Come along with me, we'll go up to the fifth floor and get things straightened out."
"Well, o.k., Cap, uh, Captain, but just let me call Myra - "
"Don, she and Jenny are being taken care of. The sooner we get upstairs, the better it will all be."
"Yeah, well, I guess - wait a minute, Captain, we don’t have a fifth floor."
"Ummm, no, that's something else that needs a little explaining. Come, here’s the elevator, let's just get on and get this over with."
"O.k., hey, do they have anything to eat up there? I'm starving; I could really use a cup of coffee and a donut."
- - - - -