Dying to Meet You

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"Hey hon, why don’t you head home? I can get these last two bodies tonight. You have a family to go to,” Lafayette told her orderly, “It’s Thanksgiving, Mark.” 

Mark was the oldest of his siblings, and he was the man of the house. He took care of his mother and younger sisters. Lafayette knew he needed a break; he had been working too many hours recently. He was a good kid and a diligent worker. All the other orderlies had gone home for the holiday, but Mark was insistent on staying. Lafayette’s family didn’t celebrate the holiday, so she was fine with taking on more work. It would ease a bit of Mark’s stress. 

“Lafayette, I can’t leave you! It’s almost nine o’clock,” he replied. 

“Mark. Go home. I’ll be by around four to help Mama Young cook, ok?” She grabbed 

her cart and made her way to the cold storage. 

“Alright, alright,” Mark rolled his eyes, “I’ll let her know,” and begrudgingly clocked out. Lafayette was confident she could get these done before midnight, as she’d been doing this with her mother for years before she got her official certification. It was a burdensome process, but she loved it. It was relaxing to have a set of precise steps to follow. Each body would take about an hour and a half to complete, then be sent to the funeral home after Thanksgiving. 

She pulled the first body from the freezer and hefted her onto the cart. This woman would be easy to embalm. Lafayette had already read her file. The woman’s name was Dottie Smith, and she died of a stroke. It said in her file she was a retired author. Lafayette wondered what books she wrote. She shooed the thought from her mind, trying to focus. Although she liked to get to know the patients, she knew it best to isolate herself from them. 

First, Lafayette had to disinfect the body (sometimes her orderlies would forget that step and then get sick the next week). After she disinfected the body, she needed to move the limbs to combat rigor mortis. Lafayette then made a small incision in the carotid artery and the jugular vein. Once the incision was made, she inserted a tube that pumped embalming fluid into the carotid artery, and another tube into the jugular vein. One tube pushed fluid through, while the other drained it. The idea was to extract all blood from the body. Three gallons of fluid needed to be pumped for the entire body to be properly embalmed. Then, an incision was made just above the belly button. All other bodily fluids got pumped out with a suction pump. The last step was to inject all organs with the most potent embalming fluid. Lafayette closed the incisions. Normally, the funeral home would pick the body up the next day and prepare it for a funeral. 

It only took an hour for Lafayette to fully embalm and disinfect Dottie. When she wheeled Dottie back to the cold storage, a loud bang echoed throughout the entire mortuary. “This old building.” Lafayette rolled her eyes. Hopefully, it was nothing serious. 

Lafayette placed Dottie on her steel bed, then shut the drawer. Before she got the second corpse out, she needed to look at its file. She hadn’t seen this one yet. He had just come in yesterday, and she hardly had the chance to understand him. It was a part of her process, reading a patient’s file. Without doing so, she would have no empathy in her work. 

________________________________________________________________ 

Lawson 

Spencer Elliot 

 

DOB 11/15/1989 

DOD 11/21/2023 

Sex M 

Hgt 5’-10” 

Wgt 175 lb. 

Eyes BLU 

 

Current Occupation: Private Investigator at Lawson Private Eye 

Prior: Marine Corps Lieutenant 

Honorable Discharge in 2016 

 

Gunshot Wound to the heart. Bullet has not been removed; subject died on scene. Identifying tattoo on right shoulder - Rampant 

Lion. Picture attached. 

________________________________________________________________ 

“Hello, Spencer! My name is Lafayette, and I will be your doctor today,” Lafayette said to the unmoving corpse. She checked the picture of the tattoo and compared it with the one on Spencer’s shoulder. It was a beautiful tattoo of the rampant lion. The tattoo wasn’t quite the equivalent of the Scottish coat of arms. It was far more elegant, almost like a real lion. Lafayette reached out to touch the lion, and the muscles in the shoulder twitched. It made her jump, but she brushed it off. It was not uncommon for the bodies to have some residual tension, which caused post-mortem spasms. 

“Ok . . .” she whispered, “Gotta remove the bullet.” 

Lafayette cautiously opened the wound a little wider, so she could insert her tweezers. She had to put on her surgical loupes, so she could better see the injury. It appeared the bullet wasn’t too far into the heart, it barely nicked the epicardium. The bullet had somehow lodged itself in the loop of the aorta. If the medics had arrived on time, she was confident Spencer wouldn’t be on her table right now. Poor man, Lafayette thought, He’s not much younger than me. Carefully, she wedged the copper head of the bullet out. She dropped the bullet in a small sterile tin. She placed the tin on her counter, then Lafayette snatched her suture kit from its shelf. Cleaning embalming fluid off the skin was a painstaking experience, so she wanted to close the wound as soon as possible. There wasn’t much blood that escaped the bullet hole, thankfully. Lafayette tried to recall her anatomy classes in college; why wouldn’t the wound bleed? Maybe it was because the heart wasn’t pumping. That made the most sense. 

She sprayed disinfectant on her sponge and began with the bullet wound. She would have to stitch from the inside out. One set of stitches would close the wound on the heart, then another would close the wound on the skin. A little blood escaped when she sutured the heart, but nothing happened when she did the skin. As she gently wiped his skin with the sponge, she thought up a story of how Spencer died. A private eye, like those old 40’s movies. What would he have gotten himself tangled up in to deserve a bullet to the heart? Perhaps a cheating husband caught Spencer snooping around and put an end to him. Or maybe he caught wind of a CIA operation, then was silenced by the very government he used to serve. He could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time; when all the sudden... BAM! 

Lafayette pulled the white sheet down to his waist and rolled him onto his side. She held him there so she could sponge his side and his back. And then Spencer’s eyes shot open, a blinding, bleeding blue. She swore it was a trick of the light, but he looked panicked. His eyes were darting around the room. Lafayette had never seen this before! Then, Spencer sat up. Lafayette jumped back, holding her sponge as if it was a weapon. Spencer held up his hands in surrender. 

“What the fuck?” she yelped.  

“I’m so sorry,” Spencer said with a deep voice, smooth and level. He didn’t sound at all perturbed or distressed. His eyes told a different story. He looked scared. 

“You’re dead!” Lafayette kept her back to the wall. She could barely hear her own thoughts with how loudly her heart was beating. The thrum of her pulse was in her ears, making it difficult to hear what he said next. 

“I don’t know how to explain this.” He kept his hands up as if he was trying to prove he wouldn’t hurt her. 

“I’m dreaming! I must’ve fallen asleep at my desk.” She pinched her arm. She still felt pain. No, no, this was reality. 

“I assure you; this is not a dream. I was in the military from the time I was 18 to when I was 26- well, it’s hard to explain. Have you ever seen Captain America?” Spencer was delicate with his words as if anything could scare Lafayette off. 

“Yeah, I guess I have,” she said quietly. She kept her eyes on him, wary of what he was going to say next. 

“Just like Steve Rogers, I was selected for an experiment. They wanted to make me have regenerative powers, like Wolverine or Deadpool. I don’t regenerate as fast as they do, so it takes hours and hours for a serious wound to heal, instead of seconds. Does that make sense?” He pulled the sheet up to his chest, covering his bare chest. Lafayette tentatively nodded her head. 

What would mom do? Lafayette thought. Her mom had moved to Quantico from Toulouse in France and built the Auclair Mortuary from the ground up. Lafayette’s mother used to have grit and logic. But how could she have applied logic to this situation? This was all but logical! Even Spencer had made a reference to superheroes -- who are fictional! So of course this couldn’t be real! 

“What’s your name? My name is Spencer,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. 

“Lafayette,” she managed.  

“Do you have my clothes, Lafayette?” Spencer smiled softly. 

“I have my orderlies’ scrubs. Your clothes were sent to your next of kin. I don’t know, I can... I can take you back home?” Lafayette said tentatively. She had already cleaned everything to prepare for Spencer. If she wanted to leave, all she had to do was clock out and lock the mortuary. But she couldn’t just leave the man here. That would be cruel. 

“That would be lovely. May I have them?” he asked. Spencer Lawson, the superhero. It seemed like his superpower wasn’t regeneration, but it was having good manners. Lafayette did as he asked, handing him one of the extra sets of scrubs she kept for Mark and Gregory. Spencer went to the employee restroom to change. He returned no more than five minutes later, with the white sheet neatly folded.  

“Mon Dieu,” Lafayette murmured as she put the sheet in her “to be washed” cupboard. 

“Would you mind telling me where I am? Which mortuary?” Spencer crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. 

“Auclair Mortuary,” she replied. 

“Oh, I know Claudia Auclair. She’s friends with my coworker,” he beamed. 

“Claudia’s my mother. You can, um- can type your address into my phone.” She unlocked her phone and handed it to him. Lafayette was trembling. Should she even take him home? Spencer was just some random man who woke up on her table. Could she trust him? He seemed like a good man on the outside, but he could have been shot because he wasn’t a good man. 

“Would you happen to have my personal belongings? My keys, wallet, phone, gun, etcetera.” Spencer gave her phone back to her. 

“Your next of kin has everything except your phone and wallet. She asked me to keep them with you, so I did,” Lafayette took his items out of her personal drawer. 

“Excellent! Vanessa’s my sister, and she knows about my regeneration.” Spencer took his items and tucked them into his pockets. 

“Sorry I didn’t have any other clothes for you,” she murmured as she turned off the lights. 

“It’s no worry.” He held the front door open for Lafayette. She locked the mortuary, then unlocked her car. It hadn’t gotten cold in Quantico quite yet, but the wind brought a freezing chill to her bones. She had half a mind to call Spencer a taxi and send him home. Normally she wouldn’t just let strangers into her vehicle. Yet some part of her wanted to know more about him. To know more about how he got on her table. 

“My car’s nothing special,” she blushed, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Lafayette planted herself in the driver’s seat, then plugged Spencer’s address into the GPS. It was only after she plugged it in that she realized he lived in the same apartment building as her. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“You- I- We live in the same complex. The one on Fuller Heights Road, right?” Lafayette stuttered. 

“Yeah, that’ll be me. I live on the-” 

“If you say the third floor...” 

“How’d you know?!” 

“We live on the same floor too! What the hell?!” 

“Must be fate that brought us together.” 

“I wouldn’t call it fate. Some sort of twisted joke, maybe.” 

“You seem just thrilled you have a new friend on your floor.” 

“Listen, étrangèr, I've never had a patient wake up on the table. I pulled the goddamn bullet from your chest. Your heart wasn't even pumping! Don’t take any offense to this, but you’re freaking me out!” Lafayette couldn’t keep her true emotions from seeping into her voice. She quickly regained her composure. 

“I'm sorry. This has only happened once before, and I didn't end up in a corpse cooler. Thank you for your patience.” Spencer cast his eyes down. 

Lafayette said nothing. She turned her music up and kept her eyes on the road. This still felt so surreal to her. A dead man was sitting next to her. He lived on the same floor as her, too! Maybe what Spencer said was correct; it was destiny that the two had met. She was still having this crisis as she pulled into the parking garage. Destiny couldn’t have been intervening now. Not after she lost her father and sister. Not after her mother became a social recluse. Not after all her newfound responsibilities. Destiny had no place in her life. The two walked in silence together, all the way to their own apartments. They were right across the hall from each other. Of course! 

Just before the two of them entered their apartments, Lafayette blurted out, “Hey, wait! Why don’t we exchange numbers?” Maybe fate did have a hand in their meeting. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Why did she even say anything? 

“That’s a great idea! Hey, maybe you can help me find who ‘killed’ me, yeah?” He pulled out his phone and unlocked it. 

“I’m no detective,” she mumbled as she put her contact information in his phone. Lafayette pulled out her own phone and handed it to Spencer. 

“Don’t worry, I’m sure someone with your skill set will come in handy,” he winked. She sent him a simple text, and his phone buzzed no more than half a minute later. 

“Au revoir!” She waved half-heartedly. 

“Arrivederci!” He tipped an imaginary hat at her. Lafayette couldn’t help but smile. She would do whatever she could to help him find his killer. 

Her phone started to ring, playing the Star Wars main theme. It was Mark. Why would he be calling her at such a time? It was nearly one in the morning now. He should not be up in the first place. Lafayette answered it, putting the phone to her ear. 

“Lafayette, you’re not going to believe this,” Mark said, his voice hoarse, “You need to get over here, and quickly!”