Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 11:00:53 EST Reply-To: Russet McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russet McMillan Subject: Mortality Rate, Part 4 If you're missing any of the earlier parts, let me know. Mortality Rate, Part 4 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu When I arrived at Joe's the next morning, I found Barbara sitting at the bar nursing a coffee. She had gotten some clothes that fit better, but she looked kind of gray around the edges -- not exactly a surprise. I felt a little glow of smugness under my breastbone, that for once I wasn't the one paying the price of stupidity, but I managed to push it down. I'd been there often enough myself, and I knew how she felt. She managed to smile at me anyway, and when I asked after Joe she nodded toward the back rooms. I could just hear his voice having half of a phone conversation. I slid onto a stool and grabbed my own cup of coffee while I waited. Barbara cleared her throat. "I'm, uh, sorry about last night," she said shyly. "I guess I made a fool of myself, huh?" "Not really." I burned my tongue on the coffee and set the cup down while I waited for it to heal. Immortality has definite advantages. "We all have to let loose sometimes." I grinned at her. She sniffed. "Yeah. It was just -- this whole money thing. I've had lawyers and accountants after me for weeks, trying to get everything straightened out. I thought I'd come see Joe and get away from it for a little while -- live like a normal person just for a day, you know? Only yesterday wasn't so normal after all." "Yeah. In a few minutes your whole world turns upside down." I caught her giving me a surprised look. "It was just a few years ago that _I_ first found out about Immortals. I'm just lucky I learned the facts before I turned Immortal myself." She chuckled a little. "Yeah, things could always be worse. I'll keep that in mind." I checked my coffee again; it was just about right by now. "Anyway, it isn't me you should be apologizing to." She actually blushed. "Joe and I had a long talk already." Speak of the devil: Joe came out of the back with a frown on his face. "Hi, Richie. It looks like our plan won't be so easy after all. I can't seem to track down Anne Lindsay." "Did you call the hospital?" He gave me an impatient look. "Of course. She's just gone on maternity leave." "Oh, right," I remembered. "She must be due pretty soon now." "Any day. At least we know she won't be leaving town, but she's not at home and I don't know where else to try." "Maybe she's just shopping or something. We could try again later," I suggested. "If we want to." Barbara looked up. "What do you mean, _if_ we want to?" I shrugged. "What's Anne going to tell us that we don't know already?" "We don't know," Joe answered. "That's the point. She can tell us about Sarah Pirelli and help us figure out if that's our woman." "Why? What business is it of ours?" Joe leaned on his elbows, squinting at me as if I'd gone crazy. "This woman was killed on my doorstep. Her killer blew up my bar and gave you a hell of a headache. Don't you at least want to know who she is?" "Well, yeah . . . " I squirmed on the stool. I _was_ curious about this woman I was carrying around inside me, but last night when I was staring at the ceiling trying to get to sleep, it had struck me that it wasn't so different from what you get when you kill an older Immortal. I mean, Mako and Kristov both had a lot of history, and they'd taken a lot of heads. I didn't know much about any of their past opponents, but I got over that, after a while. Maybe it would be easier just to let the matter drop. There was a part of me that just wanted to forget the whole thing; it seemed so morbid, digging into the identity of a dead person. "What about her murderer?" Barbara demanded in a sharp tone. "Don't you want to see him pay?" "Pay for what? We don't know anything about her. Maybe he had a reason!" That sounded pretty lame, I realized as I saw Barbara's reaction. "Look," I said to her, "we all die by murder. All of us -- that's our fate. Does it really matter who did it, or why?" "It matters if he's going to go after other Immortals," Joe put in. "It matters if he's trying to make trouble for Watchers. We need to know who this killer is, why he did it, why he picked my bar of all places, and whether he's going to do it again." His gaze slid to Barbara's face. "_Then_ we figure out if he needs to pay or not." I sighed. "All right. But if we can't talk to Anne about this Sarah Pirelli, what do you want to do?" "We can go to her place," Barbara said promptly. "Find out what we can about her. Maybe her husband's home, we might learn something from him." "And obviously, if Sarah Pirelli answers the door, we can be sure it wasn't her yesterday," Joe pointed out. The address Joe had gotten from the hospital file belonged to a factory building that had been converted into a series of condos. Old dark brick, new white trim, and big windows on most of the wall space made it very artsy and upscale. It was the kind of place Tessa would have liked, but that thought was just a dull, faded ache. It was some fresher, sharp pain that twisted in my stomach and made me freeze until Barbara nudged at me to open the door. I slid out of Joe's car and stood on the pavement breathing slowly and shallowly, as if there was an awful smell in the air. As we headed for unit G, I dropped back a pace and stepped over to walk behind Barbara. I didn't know why, at first, until I looked down and realized the paving stones were loose on the other side of the walk. You couldn't tell by looking at them -- I just _knew_ somehow. I opened my mouth to warn Joe, but the first loose stone had already turned under his shoe. He caught himself by shoving his arm in a hedge up to the elbow, and brushed my hand away with a scowl. I didn't feel any better knowing it _was_ partly my fault. Joe stumped his way to the door of the unit and hit the bell. There was no answer to the door after three rings and a knock. Joe glanced right and left and tried the knob. "It's locked," he said softly. I could think of half a dozen ways to break into the place, but that would leave evidence. I wasn't really sure I wanted to go in, anyhow, so I was surprised as anybody when I heard myself say, "Wait. There's a spare key." "How do you know?" Joe asked. I squeezed along a few feet between the hedge and the side of the building to where the dryer exhaust vent came out of the wall. There inside the lip of the vent was the key, just where I knew it would be. When I stuck it in the lock, my hands knew just exactly how to pull it out one millimeter before turning so it wouldn't stick. I blinked at the white carpet visible through the open door. "This was her house," I said certainly. "The woman who died." It wasn't really a memory in the normal way -- the knowledge was just there in my bones, as if this was one of the foster homes I had lived in before my earliest memories -- except I never had foster parents that lived anyplace half so nice. I didn't want to go in, but at the same time I did. I wanted to run away and be someplace that didn't wake these feelings, these thoughts that weren't mine -- but at the same time I wanted to explore, to learn more about Sarah Pirelli, to put the memories in their proper places. I stood half dazed in the entryway -- Sarah had called it the foy-yay -- while Joe and Barbara argued about whether they should snoop through the house. "All right, but make it quick," said Joe finally. "We don't know when he'll be back. And for God's sake don't touch anything!" I wandered after them, seeing everything with a stranger's eyes. I noticed a dead leaf blown in on the carpet and picked it up. The newspapers on the coffee table were scattered out of order -- how did I know what order they were supposed to be in? -- and my fingers itched to straighten them. "What's that?" I said, leaning close to the arm of the couch. On its silvery-green surface was a smeared brown stain. "Looks like blood," Barbara whispered. "I knew it. I knew it!" "Don't jump to conclusions," Joe ordered gruffly. "It could be anything. That stain could have been there for years." But it hadn't; I knew it hadn't. I knew what was happening to me, even though I couldn't tell how to make it stop. I just couldn't understand why a pint-sized woman, two months Immortal, who had never taken a head or even lifted a sword, should live on inside my mind when tough old Mako or that bastard Kristov went quietly to rest. I could only guess that maybe it was because I never knew her. When one of Mikey's trains or Kristov's stupid paintings pops into my head, I know what it is and I push it away. But I never met Sarah Pirelli. I never knew her as anything but a body without a head, a yellow flowered sweater turned scarlet, a life completely eclipsed by death. How was I supposed to fight what I couldn't recognize? I needed to know about her. Maybe Sarah Pirelli was like a restless ghost, wanting vengeance. Maybe if I found the mortal who had killed her, I could lay her spirit to rest. So I walked through her house and tried to learn what I could, tried to find out about her. I could tell curiosity was a dangerous habit to get into. This whole thing had started yesterday, when Barbara asked me what I got from the quickening. Now when some strange image tickled my awareness, I grabbed for it instead of pushing it away. So more of them crowded in. Is this how you get lost? How you go crazy? Was I going too far? "Over here," said Joe in a flat voice that made me jump. We were in the basement, which doubled as a garage because the ground level was lower at the back of the building. There was the oil spot where the car parked, off center, and tools on the walls, all carefully arranged and mostly unused. In the corner, on the floor, lay some gardening tool with a wicked, curved blade. A sickle, I guess; I never bothered to learn much about farming. There was a rough crosspiece nailed to the wooden handle for some reason, making the thing lie in an awkward tilting tripod on handle and crosspiece and the curve of the blade. The steel was thick with crusted blood that had dripped and spattered onto the floor beneath it. Dark smears marked the wood of the handle. Barbara caught her breath, almost a sob. "I knew it!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Her husband. I knew it!" I couldn't take it any more. I ran up the stairs and out of the building. =========================================================================