Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 14

"FOR THE LOVE OF God," breathed Special Agent Bill Brodham.

He was standing in the Parsons' living room looking down at a body that that been twisted into a nightmare. Its body was covered in a black cloak, but he could see the toes of the man's black shoes, pointing at the ceiling. Mottled blue palms at the ends of splayed limbs. The wide bulge of a muscular chest.

The body was definitely on its back.

But its face was buried in the carpet.

"Someone sure did a number on him," said Agent Vickers, who was standing behind Brodham.

The two agents had arrived at a scene of mayhem. Three firetrucks were parked along the curb, their crews dousing the last flames licking the interior of a blackened shell of a car. A coroner's sheet lay in the street over an irregular bumpy shape about a dozen feet from the wreckage. Bits of scorched metal and safety glass were spread all over the street and the surrounding lawns. A gearshift poked out of the side of a mailbox across the street, rubber head partially melted away.

The rest of the street was crowded with half a dozen police cruisers, overhead lights blinking overlapping red-and-blue patterns through the night air. A crowd of sleepy neighbors was gathered at the edge of a yellow strip of police tape that had been hastily strung around the house and the burning vehicle.

Brodham glanced at his watch. 3:15 A.M. Twenty-four hours almost to the minute since he'd been dragged into this mess. He thought of Clarice and wished he'd taken an extra few minutes to wake her up and give her a proper kiss. The vision of her clear skin on the soft, warm bed, pale moonlight seeping through the windowshade, had the far-off quality of a dream. Except for his brief moments of unconsciousness in the ambulance, he hadn't slept. It felt like a week had been crammed into a day's time. His whole body ached, and the spot on his chest where the rifle shot had hit him had begun to itch.

Brodham stole a sidelong glance out the window that overlooked the street. Even at this ungodly hour, the neighbors had come streaming from their brightly lit homes. The crowd had already grown since he'd gone inside the house, and the media trucks would probably show up within the next 20 minutes. He needed the two bodies out of here before then.

"Mark it, then bag it. Yesterday," he instructed an EMT who was kneeling with his fingers on the dark wrist belonging to the twisted corpse on the carpet.

"It's a stiffy," the man said, craning his neck to look at Brodham through wire-rimmed glasses. "We'll get a guy out here from the morgue. It's out of my hands."

"I said bag it," Brodham repeated, flashing his CIA badge. The EMT looked around for help. A uniformed officer caught his eye and sidled up.

"I'm Detective Owen Callaway. Can I help you with something, mister..." Callaway fished for a name.

"Special Agent Brodham. This is Special Agent Vickers. CIA. This body is material evidence in a matter of national security. Bypass the direct line and get him and his friend," Brodham jerked his head toward the street, "into an ambulance immediately."

"I can't do that, sir," Callaway said. "We're required to fully investigate all matters of home invasion that occur within our jurisdiction."

"And I'm here to override that order," Brodham said evenly.

"I'll need to see a written subpoena before this body can be moved," returned Callaway. He seemed nervous beneath his calm demeanor. "This is a, uh, highly unusual case, and nothing is happening without the authorized paperwork."

"Looks perfectly normal to me," said Brodham, eyeing the bruise-colored flesh and stringy black hair of the corpse's mangled head. "Vickers?"

"Looks like a picture of health," Vickers left the bench. "Must have spilled some paint on himself. That's all."