A Symphony of Hearts

Author's Note: I need help on editing this piece so that I can send it in as a polished story. I would appreciate the help of any serious editors in this matter.

A Symphony Of Hearts

The fluorescent light above Sam’s head flickered, casting shadows on the sterile white walls of the room around him. He sighed, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he peeled the latex gloves from his slender hands and tossed them into the trash. He stretched his neck and removed his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

It had been raining ever since he’d come in to work at twelve that afternoon, and even as Sam slumped into a cold metal chair more than ten hours later, the storm showed no signs of letting up.

He glanced at his watch. His vision felt slightly blurred, and the blinking numbers took several long moments to register in his mind. 10:43 P.M.

“Crap,” Sam muttered, reaching into the pocket of his white lab coat to pull out a small bottle of prescription medication. He popped two small round pills into his mouth and swallowed them dry, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes as he waited for his mind to clear. The room felt like it was spinning, but when Sam stood up and opened his eyes, everything felt considerably better. Life had returned to normal once again.

He returned the pill bottle to its place in the pocket of his lab coat, and grabbed his glasses from where they lay on the small metal table next to his tape recorder. He put them back on, trying to ignore the incessant humming of the fluorescent light above his head, but having little success.

“Now, what have we got here?” Sam asked himself, trying to fill the silence so that he had something with which to occupy his mind. He pressed the record button on the tape recorder, and remained silent for a few long moments, watching the wheels spin and the tiny red light flash. When he realized he was becoming distracted again, he set down the recorder and pulled on a clean pair of latex gloves.

“This is Assistant Medical Examiner Samuel Allen. The date is October 25, and the time is 10:47 P.M.” Sam took a chart that was on the end of a long metal table. “I’m doing the autopsy of Allison Cooper, age 26.” He set down the chart, and started to peel back the white sheet that would reveal the corpse.

“Jesus Christ!” He exclaimed, dropping the sheet in surprise. He quickly turned from Ms. Cooper, trying to keep the contents of his stomach down. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves as he spoke into the tape recorder.

“Cause of death appears to be severe trauma to the head.” Sam took one last breath and turned back. “She has a large railroad spike between her eyes,” He gingerly tilted her head to the side, “that goes all the way through to the back of her head.”

He let go of her head and peeled the sheet all the way down.

“Two more railroad spikes, one through each of her hands, and another two through each of her feet. Blood loss has been severe…”


* * *


The newspapers had dubbed him The Crusader, because of the manner in which his victims were killed: large spikes through the hands and feet, just like Jesus Christ. The only puzzling difference was the spike between the eyes.

Evan Allen was the lead detective on the case. So far he’d gotten by without speaking with the Medical Examiner who’d autopsied the victims, his own twin brother, Sam. The two hadn’t talked in years, ever since their mother, who had been the only one holding their family together, died. Though the truth was, the boys had never really gotten along. Even as children, it was always Evan outside, wrestling with boys twice his size, and Sam inside, reading a book.

But when his subordinates came back with from the Medical Examiners with little in the way of evidence, and he felt his case had come to a stand still, Evan knew that it was time to re-kindle old fires. It was 11:30 at night, but he didn’t care. If he remembered anything about his brother at all, it was that he always stayed up
late to read.

Sam picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?” His voice was quiet, but sure, just the way Evan remembered it.

“Hey, little brother! How’s life been treating you?” Sam felt his heart sink in his chest. He could hear his brother’s voice dripping with false enthusiasm, and he didn’t have the energy to play more mind games.

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Excellent, excellent. But I’m afraid that my call fits more under the category of business than pleasure,” Evan said, flipping through the crime scene photos. Sam slumped down into an armchair as a wave of relief hit him. He didn’t know if he could manage making meaningless small talk with someone he hadn’t talked to in five years.

“Of course. I’d heard you were the lead detective on the Crusader case. I assume that’s why you’re calling me.” To Sam, the formal façade was more natural than his true personality.

“Yeah, yeah. What’ve you got for me, little brother?” Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, already sick of Evan’s insufferably fake good mood.

“Nothing other than what I’ve told your people already. Though I am running some tests. I’ll be able to tell you something tomorrow, I’d say.”

“Good. Well done.” The silence hung in the air for several long moments.

“So, how’s the investigation going?”

“Not bad,” Evan easily lied, “We’re not staking too much stock in this. I mean, sure it’s a serial killer, but it’s probably just some religious nutcase. Not much more.” Sam found himself nodding along.

“Right. Well, I’ve got some work to do. I’ll call you tomorrow, when I have something more to tell you.”

“Sure! Until tomorrow.” The line went dead.

Sam gently returned the phone to his cradle, and stood up, rubbing his eyes. In the years since high school, he’d grown to become his own person, no longer shy little Sam, walking in Evan’s shadow, and that was the way he liked it. He had a successful career on his own, and the last thing he wanted to do was fall into step behind Evan.

He grabbed a small pill bottle off of his desk and popped two pills into his mouth, swallowing them dry as he slumped into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.


* * *


The sun was high in the sky, and Sam shielded his eyes as he walked into work after only four decent hours of sleep. He yawned as he waved to the few strong souls brave enough to work with the Medical Examiner, and the small number of nervous interns.

“Mr. Allen!” Sam smiled as he fell into step with Anna Maverick, the elderly widow who’d been working as a secretary ever since he’d started his internship.

“Good morning, Anna, it’s wonderful to see your shining face.”

“You flatter me. The test results you ordered are in. I put them on your desk. And,” her voice took on a more somber note, “you have two more Crusader victims to autopsy. Good luck on finding something new.”

“Thank you, Anna.”

Pushing into his office, he slouched down in his chair. A mug of coffee sat steaming on his desk, and Sam smiled as he picked it up.

“Ms. Maverick, you are an angel.” He picked up the reports as he sipped at his coffee, but the contented smile soon fell from his face. His brow knitted together in thought, and he stared at the reports. It was five full minutes before the full realization hit him, but when it finally did, he was angry.

The drive to the precinct seemed to take forever, but only because the threat of the coming confrontation had worked itself into a knot in the pit of his stomach, making him nervous, and putting him on edge. He managed to complete the trip without crashing, though it seemed like a small victory compared to everything that was going on around him.

It didn’t occur to Sam until he pushed through the double doors into the hustle and bustle of the 32nd Precinct that he should have called first. The strange looks and double takes that flashed his way only served to tell Sam that he hadn’t grown apart from his brother as much as he would have liked to believe.

It didn’t take him long to find his brother’s desk, smack dab in the middle of the busy room. He slammed down the folders with the test results on the desk and stared across the table at a mirror image of himself, sans glasses.

“You lied to me,” Sam said, trying to keep his voice steady with little success. “How are we supposed to get anything done if you can’t even tell me the god damned truth?”

“Sam, calm down…”

“I will not calm down!” Everything had grown silent around them. “You haven’t changed, you know that? Religious nutcase, my ass! Read it, Evan. Cause of death: hydrogen cyanide poisoning. Does that sound like any average Joe to you?”

Evan looked nervously around at his on-looking coworkers, offering them fake smiles in hopes that they would turn their attentions elsewhere. He turned back to his brother and leaned in closer.

“All right, I knew about it,” he said, his voice considerably lower than Sam’s. “I didn’t think it would have anything to do with your investigation of the matter.”

“That’s right, Evan, you don’t think!” His voice was lower, but the anger still seeped through. “If you tell me that it’s some average Joe, I’m not going to be looking for things like this. You need to help me so I can help you. Damn.” He turned away, looking absently at the other officers slowly getting back to their work as he let his anger stew and tried to ignore the people that glanced his way.

“What do you want me to say? Yes, I lied to you. So what? You found it anyway, and now I can get back to work.” Sam shook his head.

“Same old Evan. Even when mom was alive, all you cared about was your own image. You didn’t care about your family then, and you don’t care about us now. You don’t even care about these victims! All you care about is making yourself look good. All you ever wanted was to be better than me. You don’t care if he gets away and slaughters a hundred women. As long as people still like you.” He turned on his heels and walked out, trying to ignore the anger that burned in his chest. He’d spent years walking in his brother’s shadow, being the shy, quiet twin. Even as adults, Sam was the more studious and introverted of the two, working a satisfying job with little recognition while Evan earned medal after medal for his bravery on the police force. It wasn’t that he was jealous, Sam preferred his life to Evan’s any day, but he was sick of being treated like dirt by the one person who was supposed to understand him.

“Sam, wait…” The half-hearted plea seemed too little, too late, and Sam ignored his brother’s voice as it faded off into the distance. He was sick of this, sick of playing games.

He pushed open the double doors, sighing as the cool blast of air hit his hot cheeks. He slouched into the front seat of his car, reaching into his lab coat pocket, furiously searching for the pill bottle. As much as he wanted to pretend that the pills were only for headaches, he was only fooling himself. It was the endless amounts of stress that he underwent every day that provided the need for such a strong anti-anxiety medication. Sam pulled out two pills and swallowed them dry, leaning his head back and gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. Boys don’t cry, he thought, the words of his father echoing through his mind like a broken record. But as many times as he tried to remind himself, he was helpless to stop them.

“I hate you,” he muttered, “I hate you.”

It wasn’t until he had pulled back up to the parking lot at work that he realized that he didn’t know if he’d meant Evan… or himself.


* * *


It was after midnight when Sam left his office. Ever since his fight with Evan, he’d been determined to prove that he was the bigger person, and that he could provide the bit of information that would lead to the capture of the Crusader.

His apartment building gave off an ominous air as he pulled into the parking lot and killed the motor. Sam had never much liked the place at night, since it always made him feel like he was the victim in a low-budget horror film. He summoned his strength and headed towards his apartment, using the thoughts of a nice hot shower and a comfortable bed to ignore the gloomy undertones of the irritating fluorescent bulbs in the parking lot, and the dark, menacing staircase.

He felt something was wrong when he jingled his keys in the lock, only to find that his door had been left open. A wave of nervousness hit him; He’d been sure that he’d locked the door when he left the house that morning. Trying to push the circumstance to the back of his mind, he opened the door wide, grappling for a light switch. Sam nearly fell over when the overhead light illuminated the room, revealing the horrors that had been hidden in the darkness.

His apartment was in shambles around him. It didn’t look as if anything had been stolen, but all his possessions lay in ruins. His mirror and picture frames had been shattered, and his garage sale sofa had been torn to shreds with a knife. All the books had been ripped from the shelf, their pages torn out and scattered. Sam stood in shock for several long moments before he bent to pick up the lifeless novel at his feet. He felt like he was holding the remains of a dear friend, and in a way, he was. Books had been Sam’s comfort in his anti-social world; when he was alone, books offered the warmth that he needed to keep himself going.

Fear rippled through his body as he slowly stood, still clutching the wrecked copy of Robinson Crusoe. He moved slowly across the room, careful not to step on the innards of any one of his dear, departed friends. The mess was everywhere. Even the walls had not been spared gruesome abuse.

His bedroom door was open a crack, but Sam was afraid to look inside. Like the low budget horror film that he felt like he was trapped in, it seemed like the worst of the matter was yet to come. He would not be disappointed. He pushed open the door, again feeling for the light switch.

It was everywhere. Blood on the walls, blood covering the torn sheets of his bed, blood soaking into the bright blue carpeting that he’d had installed only last month. Sam felt his stomach churning when he saw the bloody carcass of a pig in the corner of the room, and he turned around and vomited, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the ground. He straightened, glad at least that the blood all over the room didn’t belong to a human. He reached into his pocket for his pills, and quickly took three, afraid that this time, two just wouldn’t do the job. He needed to calm down, and he needed to do it fast. Tears of anger and fear streamed down his face as he grabbed for the phone, hurriedly dialing 9-1-1.

“Hello, this is 9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency?” Sam was about to answer when he looked up at his headboard. He felt his mouth suddenly dry up and his muscles stop working. The phone tumbled from his hands to the floor.

“Hello? Hello?” Sam could hear the voice of the nice woman on the other end of the line calling, but none of it registered in his mind. All he could do was stare at the message, painted in blood and nailed to the wall with a large railroad spike.

YOU’RE NEXT, SAMMY BOY.