Free The Absence of Mercy by John Burley Page B

“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.
    â€œ 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.
    â€œ 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?”
    â€œThat’s enough, Mr. Tanner.” Carl Schroeder took the man by the arm and tried to lead him away.
    â€œ FUCK YOU!! I WANT TO BE WITH MY SON!! ” Tanner protested wildly, trying to shake off the detective’s grasp.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œI’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 if I would’ve behaved any differently.”
    â€œWell, I’m sorry anyway. It’s just . . .” For a moment his face struggled for control. “It’s just that I . . . well . . . I don’t want him to be dead.” This last part came out so softly that, if there had been any other noise in the room, Ben would not have heard it. Phil Tanner’s eyes filled with tears. “When I got home this morning and he wasn’t there . . . and then they told me that a boy had been found in the woods . . . I just . . .”
    â€œIt’s okay,” Schroeder said. His voice was calm and empathic. Ben stood in silence, studying a thin strip of grout between the floor’s tiles as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.
    Tanner looked up at the detective. “I just didn’t want it to be him . I thought . . . you know . . . I thought maybe I’d come here and it wouldn’t be him. I wanted it to be someone else’s son. Not Kevin. Not my boy. That’s what I was hoping for.