In the morning glad I see/ My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Detective Stanley Kowalski pulled up the restored Victorian house on Fifth Street and bade his greetings to Mr. Kaminski, the elderly Polish gentleman who frantically called him earlier that morning. "Stanlislaus!" the weather-beaten man cried. "He's been at my tree again!"
He grasped Stan's fly collar and implored him frantically to do something.
"Calm down, Mr. Kaminski," Stan asked and waved the man to a more serene mode.
Stan patiently listened to Mr. Kaminski's account of how his next-door neighbour, Jerry, a small-timer, vandalized his property and took the apples from his tree. Mr. Kaminski was very fond of the tree; he had planted it for his late wife, Barbet. Jerry's stealing of the apples was more than petty theft, it was disturbing the dead.
Stan surveyed the damage. Though the leaves had fallen, it was still large and beautiful. But the branches appeared disturbed, bent and plucked of its fruit.
Stan was struck with righteous indignation. Mr. Kaminski was a gentle soul who owned very little after his heart-wrenching escape from the old country. He often talked about the quaint little village in which he grew up and its odd customs. And Stan listened. How could he not? Mr. Kaminski never raised his voice to anyone and the legends drew him in. Stan began to understand the land his birth mother came from, a solitary, smiling woman who died shortly after his birth. Mr. Kaminski was more than just an old man; he was a sage.
Stan rapped on Jerry's door. It opened a crack. A pair of dark brown eyes peered at Stan behind lanky locks of greasy hair.
"Yeah, what do you want?" the man asked rudely.
"Can I come in, Jerry?" Stan asked.
"Get lost," he blurted and tried to shut the door but Stan's hand forced it open.
"You've been at Mr. Kaminski's tree again, haven't you?"
Jerry leaned in the doorway.
"Can you prove it? I mean, the guy's not all together cranially, if ya know what I'm saying."
"If I find any apples in your kitchen, Jerry," Stan warned, "I'll deal with you myself, if ya know what I'm saying. You're not going to get away with tormenting an old man."
"Get yourself a warrant," Jerry told him and shut the door on his face.
Stan walked from Jerry's house and observed Mr. Kaminski replacing the twisted branches and tossing away the rotted apple cores. He lifted his head from the carnage and looked at the young man seriously.
"In the old country," he said ominously, "we water our trees with a difference."
Jerry hopped the fence to Mr. Kaminski's yard. It was three in the morning. The old man wouldn't even know he was there. He edged his way to the tree. Its gnarled branches summoned him forward. It was a weird thing, Jerry thought, but it did produce good apples. He picked one from its lengthy bough and bit into it. A sweet one. Good. Then it foamed and became bitter, like bile in his throat. Jerry tried to spit it out but couldn't. His mouth would not open. It was pasted shut. He could not breathe. Noxious fumes filled his head, his lungs deflated and his heart beat erratically. He grabbed at his chest and collapsed. His mouth now fell open, too late to repel the poisonous apple.
"From what deep, dark well do you draw the bile with which to cultivate the garden of your rage, Mr. Kaminski?"
Mr. Kaminski walked to Jerry outstretched beneath his tree. Stan joined him. He smiled fondly at the old man.
"Bardzo dobry (very good)," Stan said.
Mr. Kaminski smiled too. Indeed, he had watered his tree well.
He disappeared in the dead of winter...
Ray pulled out of his Riv and walked onto the hinterland. Trees sparse in their nature, snow blanketing the frozen earth and somewhere in the vastness of it all was Fraser. He had survived is whole life in the cold and emptiness. Why had he failed to come back now? Ray moved on. Benny was here somewhere, he said to himself over and over again. Ray heard low, feral yawlps. He turned around. A cream-and-white wolf jumped insanely, like a bronco horse. It was Diefenbaker. He was wasted thin with foam and blood seeping from the corners of his mouth and tufts of fur falling out. He growled lowly at Ray. What had happened to him? Ray pulled out his gun and shot in the air. Diefenbaker yelped and ran for cover. Ray walked through the trees. As he walked into the heart of the forest, the trees got thicker, the branches heavier and more vehement until Ray came across a shocking clearing. A black Jaguar was planted into the solid earth. The trees covered it with their branches as if to preserve it for Ray's arrival. The front end was utterly demolished. The windshield no longer existed and twisted, skewed metal debris was everywhere. The culprit, a murderer-tree, was lurched over the vehicle. Frost and loose branches obscured Ray's view into the car. Ray edged to the passenger door and pulled it open. Ray let out a piteous sigh. Fraser lay back against the driver's side. His cloudy blue eyes stared at directly at the tree that caused his death. Tears of blood seeped from the corners of his eyes and fell in diluted rivers on his pale cheeks. His palms were open. Through his chest, a thick branch, like a lance, impaled the Mountie. Ray waved his hand over the man's face and shut his eyes.
So Fraser was dead. He pulled from the car and leaned against a tree. Why him? His time had not yet come, Ray thought. He would have to radio in and have the car pulled out and Fraser would be wrapped in a body bag unceremoniously like every other stiff. Ray could not bear the thought. He went back to the car. Fraser was not there. The branch still protruded through the driver's seat. The blood was even fresh. Ray pulled himself out of the car. What the hell was going on? Was he hallucinating? He circled the scene of the accident. No footprints, not even his. The trees wavered in the wind. But the day was calm and no breeze brushed the cheeks of anyone. Ray pushed his way through the thick branches to a clearing.
Ray ran from the forest to his car. He tried to start the engine. Nothing. He tried again, cursing and yelling at the thing. He stopped, frustrated and now very frightened. He heard a rustling in the back. He swivelled his head around slowly. Diefenbaker crawled from under a blanket and growled. Blood and foam escaped from his mouth. Ray got out of the Riv. Whatever possessed the forest, he had to get away from it. He started to run down the road. It was a back road cordoned off by the forest and the snow before it jackknifed onto the main highway. It took twenty minutes to get to the juncture by car. Running, it would take twice as long. Still, survival is a strange and desperate animal.
The wind howled like muted voices lost in the depths of the woods. Ray tried to shut them out of his mind. He would outrun the forest.
Around the bend Ray would reach the main highway. He could flag down another car and get to the city. He was just a few steps away. The stop sign ahead of him signalled freedom. He stopped suddenly. When he no longer heard the muted voices, he questioned his actions. What was he running from? A forest that was supposed to be alive, a dead Mountie, a ravenous wolf? Ultimately, it was his imagination. He turned again to face what it was that he was running from. He sighed with a relief that he thought had been endowed with. He laughed at himself. He was overwhelmed with the shock of the strange surroundings, the death of his friend, the prospect of being alone. Ray fell silent. Nothing stirred in anyway. The forest he faced was as quiet as when he first saw it. He had been so spooked for nothing. He let out a yell that broke the quiet. It was like taunting the bogie-man under the comfort of one's bed covers. He laughed a little and started again to the stop sign.
"Oh my God..."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But with mein of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door- Perched and sat and nothing more... Walsh poured himself another whiskey and ran his eyes over yet another volume of reports. His eyes were tired and he quiet frankly couldn't care less about his work. He sat back in his chair and swigged the whiskey down. On the corner of his desk, an aged picture of a young woman peered at him. Walsh picked it up and gazed at it fondly.
"Mary..." he uttered and bit his lip. He placed it down and shut his eyes.
The shutters moved and flapping noises echoed in the small office. Walsh looked all around. Not the bats again, he thought to himself. He looked at every corner of the room until his eyes fell on what it was that disturbed his revery. A black bird, not filthy but smooth of feather and sharp of beak, gazed at Walsh, penetrating the man with its evil yellow eyes. It perched itself above the tacky framed picture of the mayor and stared the way nothing had stared at Walsh before.
Walsh opened the window wider and waved his hand toward it.
"Hey, you! Get out!" he ordered.
The bird did not move. It simply stared with a greater intensity.
"What are you doing here?" Walsh asked as if he could expect a response.
The bird circled the office again and perched itself on the picture of Mary. Walsh grabbed it from the bird. It squawked obscenely.
"Stay away from her," Walsh warned.
"Where the hell did you come from?!" Walsh asked again. "No, never mind that. I want you out!"
The bird landed again on the picture of the mayor. It squawked a Plutonian oration. Walsh pulled out his revolver and shot the bird.
"Nevermore," he said and poured himself another whiskey.
Ah! Changed and cold, how changed and very cold! With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes...
Thatcher buried her head in her hands. The sunglasses were of little relief. Who said it was easy being a vampire?
The door jarred. Three people entered the main floor of the Canadian consulate. At last, Thatcher thought, some lunch. She edged to them.
Constable Benton Fraser had invited Detective Ray Vecchio and Officer Elaine Besbriss to read a report on curbing jaywalking. It was doubtful that they were very interested but wow! duty-free stuff!
"...There is, therefore, no need to torment the muskox," Fraser concluded.
"I didn't know that tormenting the muskox was such a problem in your country," Elaine wondered.
"Indeed, it is Elaine," Fraser concurred. "It has escalated from muskox-tipping to organized tormenting." "I'd like to say I cared," Ray added, "but I don't. Let's see the report."
"Yes, of course, Ray," Fraser agreed and went to his desk.
Thatcher prepared her fangs and neared Ray. Ray turned and seemed surprised, oddly enough, to meet her.
"Oh, hi, Inspector Thatcher," Ray greeted her sunnily and shook her hand.
She withdrew her hand as if acid had been poured on it. She concealed her smoldering hand from Ray.
"Your hand is wet," she noted with a degree of controlled pain.
"Oh, sorry," he apologized, "I just came from Mass and I guess there's holy water on it."
"Pity," she rasped.
She turned to Ray again. He pulled a chain from under his shirt.
"My sister came back from Rome and gave me this Papal cross. Nice, huh?"
Thatcher's eyes stung. She would have to abandon this one. There were other fish in the sea. She turned to Elaine and Fraser who looked at the report.
Elaine sneezed.
"I think I'm coming down with a cold," she surmised. "You should eat stuff with garlic in it, then," Ray suggested. "I eat stuff with garlic in it all the time and I'm quite healthy."
"What and have bad breath?" Elaine gaped.
"I, too, hate garlic on my breath," Fraser admitted.
Thatcher was thrilled. Lunch at last.
"I'd much rather take these odourless garlic tablets," he said and offered her one.
Thatcher stormed out of the main office to where Turnbull worked.
"I'm off to the blood bank, Turnbull," she muttered and stomped her way out.
Turnbull nodded and ran his tongue on the edge of his fangs. No lunch for him either.
He left it dead, and with its head He went galumping back...
It was a full moon. The night was cold and starless and under the bridge, two men circled a scarlet pool collected on the cement dock. Dewey looked at the corpse. It was quite a fall from the bridge to the hard cement dock. Pity its head did not accompany it.
"Terence Quimby, Councilman Terence Quimby," Huey supplied looking at the dead man's wallet.
"Great," Dewey huffed. "Let's keep the press off of this."
A man in white overalls approached Huey and Dewey.
"Nice night for a jumper, eh?"
Dewey scoffed at the man's lack of decorum. The man squinted.
"What? No head? We'd better see to that."
The coroner bagged the body and moved it to the mortuary. Nothing more could be done that night.
Dewey slid into his desk. It was a crisp, cool morning. The leaves rustled. School children were decked out in their Halloween finery. All of Chicago built itself up for a crescendo of a horrific kind, at least in its imagination. Everything seemed to be ready. But still, for Dewey, no head. He sipped his coffee. A memo landed on his desk. A stick man minus the head wandered aimlessly with the caption: Excuse me, have you seen my head? Dewey crumpled the offending memo amid the snickers of his peers. "Hardy-freaking-har, guys!"
Laughter became more audible and Dewey's annoyance became more pronounced. This feeling lapsed when a woman clothed in black sat his desk. She dabbed tears away from the corners of her eyes.
"Detective Dewey? I am Mrs. Quimby."
Dewey offered her a Kleenex.
"Ma'am, I am sorry about your husband. I am doing everything in my power to resolve this..." "Detective, I am here to discuss one thing only," she admitted. "It seems that in the course of his accident, my husband...well, he no longer has a head."
"Yes, Mrs. Quimby."
She put her hand on his.
"Please. Find it. I can't bury him without it. I won't find closure until...everything is restored." Dewey nodded but it wasn't an easy task.
Dewey had Fraser stand in one place. He lived with the Eskimo, Dewey reckoned, so he would be able to locate a human head.
"Okay, Fraser, where is it?"
Fraser seemed at a loss. He shrugged at Ray.
"Well," he began. "The victim jumped from the bridge at a height of about one hundred and twenty metres. His body impacted here," Fraser pointed to a reddish indentation on the cement, "but only after having something break his fall thirty metres above point of impact. His head must therefore be..."
Fraser climbed the steel beams to the approximate point. He rubbed his gloved hand along the inside of a beam. Blood, twenty-four hours old. No head, however.
"What do you see, Benny?!" Ray called.
"His head impacted here, but I don't see it."
Dewey huffed and slapped his forehead. He could not afford a setback.
"Fan-freaking-tabulous!"
Ray shrugged.
"You've been at this all morning, Dewey. Just get something to eat," Ray advised. "You'll get a better handle on things then."
Fraser climbed down.
"He's right, Detective. A head cannot have gone far."
Dewey reluctantly agreed.
"Okay, Italian or Vietnamese?" Ray asked.
Fraser nodded
"We can sort this out with the simple game of tails or..."
Fraser saw Dewey's disapproval. "Or not quite tails," he corrected himself. "How about Vietnamese," Dewey offered and stamped away.
Dewey, Fraser and Ray sat before steaming bowls of noodle soup brooding.
"That head is somewhere," Ray surmised and began to eat his soup.
Fraser clasped some noodles with his chopsticks.
"Ray is right, Dewey," he agreed, "it seems to have defied physics, that's all."
Defied physics his back passage! Heads just don't disappear. Dewey stirred his spicy beef soup. He gasped suddenly. A fleshy cranium with dull red hair and several cuts and contusions stared at him from the soup.
"Hi, there, Detective Stupid!" it sniped. "I'll tell you where my freaking head is! It's right-freaking-here, Smart-Boy!"
Dewey recoiled from the table and screamed. Ray and Fraser were instantly alerted. The other patrons at the restaurant stopped eating and looked at him.
"The soup! The soup!" he screamed.
"Okay, so it's hot!" Ray yelled. "Cool it down already!"
"No!" Dewey screamed. "The head is in there!"
Fraser observed the soup. No head. Well, that was a surprise. He arched his right eyebrow.
"Hmm? Perhaps, Detective Dewey is rather obsessed with the case."
"The hell I am!" he cried back. "I saw the head!"
Fraser and Ray stared at him. Had he lost his head, figuratively speaking?
"Um, yeah, okay," Ray concurred. "If you say so."
Dewey looked again. The head was gone. He slumped down at the table shaking his head in disbelief. He would not eat.
"Oh, come now," Fraser reasoned. "I'm sure Councilman Quimby washed his head before he placed it in your soup."
Fraser and Ray snickered at the sick, little joke. Dewey, slighted by his peers and sickened by the vision of Councilman Quimby's head, still could not eat the soup.
Fraser and Ray piled into Dewey's car. The head no longer seemed an issue with them. But Dewey, however, was still haunted by it. He pulled away from the restaurant. He drove down the main street and stopped at the lights. He could faintly hear Fraser and Ray talking.
"Hey, Dewey!" Ray called. "Is that Quimby's head in that store window?"
Dewey bit on his lip and ignored Ray's snide attempt at humour. He felt a sudden weight on his lap. He looked down.
"Hey, Dewey! Do I look like a head to you?!"
The head jumped onto Dewey and bit his face. Dewey screamed, thrashed and punched the gas. He drove recklessly through the streets knocking over mail boxes and grocery stands. The passengers in his car were thrown about violently. Dewey could hear the head laugh at his terror. The car finally wrapped itself around a telephone pole. Dewey, Fraser and Ray reeled back. Dewey trembled. The head was gone.
Ray pulled Dewey's collar.
"What the hell was that about?"
"The head..." he tried to say.
"There is no head, you moron!" Ray cried. "You nearly had us killed! Who the hell do you think you are?! Fraser?!"
"Yes, Detective Dewey!" Fraser angrily concurred. "Who do you think you are? Me?"
Both he and Fraser left Dewey in the car.
"I'm going back to the bullpen myself," Ray swore. "If we drive with you again, we may never get there alive!"
Dewey was a wreck. He left the scene of the car accident. No one would believe his story anyway. He staggered in the bullpen bruised and collapsed on his desk. Stan dropped his files and ran to him.
"Hey, Dewey, man, are you okay?"
"I was just in a car accident," he whispered weakly.
"You should be in a hospital," Stan gaped.
Dewey shook his head.
"The head, the head caused it," Dewey said. He grabbed Stan by the shoulders. "Councilman Quimby's head has come back to haunt me!"
Stan tried not to laugh but failed. His arm swung over Dewey's shoulders.
"Hey, guys! Get this! Dewey thinks Quimby's head has come back for him!"
The officers in the bullpen roared with laughter. Dewey gaped.
"No! It's true!"
They roared still.
Dewey felt defeated. Didn't anyone see it? He stared helplessly at the laughing faces. But one face in particular caught Dewey's eye. A swollen, cut face that was tickled pink with laughter.
"Hey, Dewey!" it cried. "I believe you!"
The head hopped around and landed on the coffee table. Dewey's eyes followed it. Fraser went pale all of a sudden. "Oh my God!" he cried.
At last, someone saw the head, Dewey thought.
"Are those brownies?" Fraser asked and ventured to them.
Fraser ate a brownie oblivious to the laughing head near the plate.
Dewey leaned against the desk, aghast, sickened, confused...
Dewey opened his eyes. He looked at the clock next to him. Six AM. The day had not yet begun. It was all a terrible dream. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and sighed. Tossing once, he smiled at his somnabulent folly.
"Good morning, Dewey!" the head laughed once and roared as Dewey screamed.
So sweet even in the silence, on the eyes That image steep in death...
Francesca swung her bag over her shoulder and entered the dark precinct. She would get right to work on the reports before the morning. Wouldn't Stan be put out? He could not call her a slacker then. She smiled quietly to herself and made her way to her desk. She switched the light on in the hallway. The bulb fizzled and cracked. That was rather odd. It had just been changed that morning. Francesca huffed and made her way to her desk.
In the bullpen, a slender form was slumped over Francesca's desk. Her eyebrow arched. Who was there and why? Francesca neared the figure.
"Hey..."
It was Elaine. She appeared to be asleep. Francesca touched her.
"Elaine, what are you doing here? Wake up."
Elaine flopped back. Her face was wet. Francesca turned on her desk lamp.
"Oh my God!" she gasped.
Elaine was unconscious. Her eyes had been ripped out of their sockets. Francesca backed away, suppressing a scream. A shuffling alerted her to the centre of the room. Stan bumped into his desk and fell.
"Stan!" she cried.
She ran to him.
"Stan," she breathed, "Elaine is dead....Stan?"
Stan looked at her. His left eye was gone. He put his blood-stained hand to her face.
"What happened to you, Stan?" she cried. "Your eyes..."
"We don't need our eyes any more, Frannie. Don't you understand?"
Stan pulled out his other eye and gave it to her.
Francesca screamed and bolted from him. She locked herself in Walsh's office. Stan fumbled his way to the door and banged on it. Francesca picked up the telephone and dialled the number to the thirty-third precinct. The telephone became dead. She cried. She backed away from the telephone.
"Francesca? Francesca? Is that you?"
Walsh's chair spun around. Fraser faced her, his cloudy blue eyes torn from their sockets. Francesca screamed and recoiled. She backed through the window to the cold cement below.
Ray looked out of the window incredulously. His green eyes popped wide open. Fraser wiped the blood from his cloudy blue eyes. Stan and Elaine looked out of the window as well.
"Wow, Benny," Ray remarked. "You really know how to freak people out."