The Creation of Amy Read online

  The Italian cop returned with the knife in an evidence bag and asked, “Is this it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Morse answered, handing his clipboard to him.

  “Okay,” said the Italian police officer.

  Then the Irish one said to his partner, “I think that we are done here, let's go.” He then turned to Morse, “Thank you for your cooperation, and you have a good night.”

  “Thank you, sir. You too,” he said with a sigh.

  “Take care of that car!” the Irish officer added as they started toward their NYPD cruiser.

  “I will.”

  Morse closed the door, looked out the window at the car, and saw Heather in the back seat with a sad look on her face; some blood from her forehead where she was hitting it, and tears washing the blood.

  He felt awful and turned away saying to himself, “Damn, that sucked.”

  The next day at work, it seemed no one could know, but somehow everyone did. Co-workers started coming up to him, all of them asking about what happened.

  Then a friend of Heather's that worked with her, Cindy, started yelling at Morse, “You asshole! What did you do to my friend? You drove her crazy with some kind of mind games!”

  This was not a good scene for Morse, and then Phillips came to his aid and told Cindy, “Hey, back off. Your friend was not well, obviously. I know she’s your friend, but you don't know what you're talking about.”

  Cindy snorted, “Oh, yeah? What do you know? I got a call from her last night; they locked her up!”

  Cindy’s hair was a darker red than Heather had and had garish freckles.

  Director Ford stepped out of his office and boomed, “Hey!” He eyed each listener and continued, “Listen, this is what happened; I just got off the phone with not only the police, but also her parents. She had a nervous breakdown. It wasn't Robert's fault. Now back off, Cindy or I'll have to fire you as well,” he finished.

  Cindy huffed and retorted, “Well, he caused the nervous break-down.”

  “The only thing that he did was not fall head-over-heals for her, like she did for him,” pointed out Ford. “That right there is an indication to you of her mental state. I'm sorry, I had to let her go, and if you can't get yourself calmed down; do your job from now on, I'll have to let you go as well.”

  “Screw all of you! I've worked at better places than this! This place is full of arrogant narcissists who think women are toys! I quit!”

  She went to her desk, cleared it out, and left.

  “Alright, enough of this,” Ford bossed, “Get back to work.

  “Could I see you for a sec. in my office, Robert?”

  “Sure,” Morse consented as he followed into Ford's office and closed the door.

  Ford sat at his desk and there was a long pause as Morse stood waiting.

  He finally began, “Okay, I got the gist of what happened: she loved you, you didn't care for her, she was not well to begin with, but do me a favor, don't date anyone from the office again.”

  “Yes, sir, I won’t.”

  “You are free to go now,” Ford finished and Morse left his office.

  Phillips stepped into stride with Morse and said with a pained smile, “Sorry, man. I honestly didn't believe this would happen.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “I know you were only trying to help. Let's just go to work and forget about it.”

  A few weeks later at the local bar down the street from his home, Morse was sitting in a dark room with only a few other patrons, seeking relief from his feelings without success after the fourth drink. The black hole that opened after Elizabeth's death only seemed to be getting bigger and his attempt to make his life better only resulted in more pain. He did not believe that things could get much worse than they were now, but he would soon learn that they would get dreadfully worse.

  Just at what he thought was his lowest he could be, a woman came into the bar. She was wearing a green dress and had her blonde hair to the middle of her back. All the men in the bar were ogling her.

  She looked around at the motley crew of men in the room, then she saw Morse at the bar sitting on a stool. They gazed at each other for a moment and she smiled. He turned back to his beer and continued drinking, too good to be true, forget about it, he thought.

  She walked up to the bar next to Morse and ordered a drink.

  A white man dressed as an ethnic gang member said to the woman, “Hello, may I buy that drink for you?”

  She nodded yes. He said his name was Ryan, but she turned away from him and instead asked Morse, “Hi, you come here often?”

  Morse looked at her and shrugged, “Once in a while.”

  “You don't look like the typical bar type. I, myself, just come here to check things out. There are rarely men that I go for here, but I never pay for drinks,” she laughed.

  Ryan let his knees go a bit, rolled his head back along with his eyes, and then walked off.

  “My name is Amber, what's yours?”

  “Robert.”

  She put out her hand to shake his; he shook her hand quickly and then took another swig from his mug of Bud Light.

  “Ewe, I hate beer! It tastes like someone put used gym socks in water and serves it! I'm more of a martini girl, myself.”

  Morse nodded and said nothing with a look like, “Okay.”

  “So, what are your troubles, Robert? Why you here with the lower class?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, you look more like a college professor or a lawyer. You have a girlfriend, Robert?”

  “No, and that's by choice at the moment. Besides, I doubt I'd be good for a woman, anyway.”

  “Well, that's a shame. You seem like a man that could have anyone he wanted. Oh wait; you're gay, aren't you?”

  “No, I am not, thank you.”

  “Oh, I'm just kidding,” she said with a light touch on his arm. “Gee, lighten up.”

  Morse finished his drink, and thinking it was time to get going, said to her, “Well, Amber, you say? I'll pay for your next drink; I'm going.”

  “Why go so soon,” she whined. “Why don't I give you my number?”

  “Sure,” he said, and she wrote her number on a piece of paper, gave it to him, and he left the bar.

  Outside the bar, he paused and started walking down the sidewalk home.

  “Excuse me, Robert,” Amber said from behind him. “Here’s your money for that drink. I decided there was something better to do than sit in there.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, taking his money. “What's that?”

  “Well, I want to get to know you, stranger. Where you headed, home?”

  “Yeah, I am. I'm a little buzzed, so if I'm walking funny, that's why.”

  She laughed, “Hey, I'll catch you if you trip.”

  Morse felt suspicious of Amber, as she was excessively outgoing.

  “Okay, what do you really want? Are you a gold-digger, or do you see me as an easy mark? Wait, you're an escort, aren't you?”

  She stopped and snorted, “Escort! Do I look like a slut to you? I just thought you seemed like a nice guy, and I wanted to hang out with you. Wow, you must have been burned by someone.”

  “You have no idea. Well, it was nice chatting with you, Miss Amber.”

  “Wait, you live here?” she said taking in the drab exterior with a dubious expression. “Looks like an old garage,” she concluded.

  “Yeah, I own the building. My apartment’s on the second floor.”

  Amber, a woman with an outgoing personality and a powerful will, worked her cuteness to the max at this point.

  “Awe, let me see your place.”

  Morse’s guard relaxed in her scent and smile. In the cool New York breeze, she smelled great, not from cheap perfume, but a classy woman's scent. She also had beautiful blue eyes, unlike doll's eyes, but clear with character, completed with a face of an angel’s.

  “Sure.”

  Unlocking the door, he welcomed her inside. To the left were the
garage, the lift, all the tools, and his black Dodge Charger.

  “O-o-o-o-o,” she cooed when she saw the car.

  Forgetting her manners, she immediately went to the hot rod and ran her fingers over the fresh paint.

  “Is this your baby?”

  “Oh yeah, she's all mine. I just got her back from the body shop a week ago.”

  “Sexy,” she sang. “See? You don't seem the type to drive one of these.”

  She walked around the car, “I see you with a Mercedes or something.”

  “Why does everyone say that?” Morse said, feigning frustration.

  “Well, you do.” She scanned the garage, “You do the work on the car yourself, huh?”

  “What I can do, yeah. I'm planning on a new engine soon.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she asked never taking her eyes off the car. “What's it got, a Hemi? I notice that it's an R/T.”

  Morse nodded his head.

  “You know cars?”

  “Yeah, my brother knows everything about cars. He's had all kinds, so I sometimes helped him, which was fun. Any friends help you with this?” she asked now, peering inside at its interior.

  “No. It's my little project, but I may need a little help with the engine.”

  “Ha,” she chortled with a glance back at him. “I'm not an expert, but I'd help you, sure! Let me see your apartment now.”

  “Okay, but don’t expect to be impressed.”

  They went upstairs to the living room where Morse was still painting. How long he lived there would take some thinking for him to recall, but he had time clean the paintbrushes. Yet, they never moved since the time Heather spent her last night there. Along with the nasty flooring, and belongings strewn about, there lingered in the air some sort of heaviness. Oppression he named it, and he was certain it smelled, but his nose could not detect it any more.

  “Well,” she breathed, “this place could use a woman's touch.”

  They chatted on the couch a while and she left.

  Six months later, in a natural pace they bloomed into a couple. Morse had not been this happy in a long time. He loved her, a feeling he never believed he could feel again. Work was the same, and when he came home from work that evening, he went to his Charger with the new Hemi sitting in the engine bay still incomplete. Feeling grateful for how lucky he was to find a woman that helps him with his car, he smiled with satisfaction.

  Taking a bathroom break, he went up to his apartment. When he turned on the light, he saw something in the corner of his eye, so he turned to look at the tub. He gasped. A horror to behold, in the tub nearly full of bloody water was a naked woman, her eyes locked in their death stare. Heather had slit her wrists and she was cold. He yanked her out of the tub and bound her lacerations. He tried CPR on her, but she was gone.

  He called 9-1-1 and the paramedics came, asked questions, and stayed for hours combing the bloody scene. Heather apparently broke in through a window just after he went to work, so she had been dead for hours.

  After the police left, Morse, numb from what just happened, cleaned the bloody tub. He decided to call Amber, but as of late, she was usually busy with her real estate agent job. Morse decided to take a cab to her place.

  When he got there, she was not home. Therefore, he decided to take a stroll for a bit, seeing the displays of the different closed businesses, then hailed cab for home.

  Only moments after seating himself in his favorite chair, Morse received a knock on his door. It was Phillips.

  “You called?” Phillips asked him with concern creasing his brow.

  “Yeah, things are shit here again.”

  He explained what happened with Heather as he showed him the tub.

  Phillips was aghast. “Wow, guy, if I knew this, I would not have pushed you to see that girl. I'm really sorry, man. Why don't you sit down for a minute, Rob? This may not be the best time to tell you this, but I saw Amber at Central Park. She was with some other guy.”

  “What?” Morse furrowed his own brow now. “Well, it was probably her brother,” he dismissed.

  “Hey, I know that you are really in to her, but she is no good. The way that she was making out with the guy, I seriously doubt that it was her brother,” Phillips contended.

  “Bull shit,” Morse cursed. “I don't believe you,” he huffed as he leapt from his Lazy-Boy chair. He contemplated, considering of all the times within the last month that she had not answered her phone or had not been where she said she would be.

  “Oh, boy,” Morse said. “I do believe you. I’ll tell you what, I'm just going to make sure; she will be by tomorrow. But, you know that I'm not going to work tomorrow. I'm all messed up.”

  “I understand,” Phillips acknowledged. “Do you need an eye witness? I'll tell the girl off.”

  “I'll be fine,” Morse assured, and Phillips went home.

  Exhaustion beset him from the day's events, so he locked the door, and went to bed.

  The next morning around nine o’clock, Morse arose and reluctantly showered in the tub Heather died in yesterday, while pondering the possibility that Amber, a woman he cherished, was a cheater. The nausea he had twinges of within the last few weeks from Amber's less than attentive behavior, had churned into a full gut-wrenching feeling with Phillips's sighting of her at Central Park. There was swirl of different types of emotional pain within him, especially the guilt of being somewhat responsible for Heather, but he was trying to avoid thinking too much. He got dressed, checked his phone, but Amber had not called, so he undertook working in the garage.

  Dressed in old jeans and a plain white pocket t-shirt, he walked around the Charger. “Great,” he complained. “My beautiful car has now been tainted.”

  He stopped in front of the machine looking at the 426 Hemi engine replacing the old 440. “Old girl, it's time I finished you.”

  Morse submerged himself in his engine replacement.

  Later that day, Amber arrived, knocking on the door. Morse answered it grimly.

  “Hey,” Amber said. “You called, but I'm sorry, I was busy redecorating my apartment.”

  As she was placing her purse on a bench, Morse confronted her, “Are you cheating on me, hon?”

  Whirling around, she gasped, “What?”

  “I'm not the jealous type, but I do tell the truth, and a good friend of mine said he saw you at Central Park making out with some dude. Also, you haven't been calling me back as much, and when I went over to your place last night, you weren't even there.”

  Amber froze, looked at the ground, and then back up at him. “Um, I don't know what to say. Are you spying on me?”

  “Oh, so now you're trying to turn this around on me? Well, to answer your question, no, I'm not. A friend just happened to see you at the park.

  So, it's true then?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Morse turned away from her, going back to his car.

  Amber began to get emotional and gushed, “I love you, baby. He means nothing to me, it just happened.”

  “No,” Morse said, “we're done. Get your shit and get out, but thank you for respecting me enough not to lie to my face.”

  Amber started crying and went upstairs to collect her belongings she left there. When she returned she asked, “What's the police tape for?”

  Morse answered curtly, “It's none of your business, just get out.”

  Leaving, upon the threshold she turned back, “I'm sorry, honey.” Her remorse was evident, “I'll let you calm down and call you later. We need to talk more.”

  “Out,” he said resolutely, and she left.

  In the silence of the garage, sanity got lost, and Morse found his liquor stash, sat in an old chair facing his Charger, and began to drink.

  A week later, he had been living on delivered pizza and hard liquor. Not answering phone calls from work, Phillips, or Amber, he even had not been answering the door. Thick sheets smothered any sunshine that could have come through the windows. Morse was once more in a deep depressio
n.

  As he was polishing the now completely installed engine, the phone rang, then there was a knock at the door, and he heard Phillips calling from outside, “Hey, are you in there?”

  Morse snapped out of his obsessive need to make the engine compartment perfect and answered the door.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Phillips demanded. “I was about to have the cops knock the door down.” As he scanned the space, he saw pizza boxes everywhere, bottles of whiskey and beer, with the windows all covered with sheets nailed to the frames. Alarmed, he remarked, “Whoa, buddy, this isn't healthy.”

  “I'm just coping my own way. I'll be better soon,” Morse promised.

  Observing the car and the perfectly cleaned engine, Phillips advised, “You better get back to the office tomorrow or Ford is going to fire you. I'm going to help you clean this place up, buddy, and I'm going to make sure you get to work tomorrow.”

  “Mike,” Morse assured, “I don't need your help for this; I'll get my shit together.”

  He went back up to the living room and collapsed in his Lazy-Boy. Phillips followed him and sat on the edge of the ratty couch as though he had somewhere else he had to be soon.

  “You should see that counselor you were seeing after Liz's passing, I want you to call him,” Phillips urged.

  Morse flicked on the TV, flipped through the recorded DVR events, and put on Star Trek: The Next Generation, to an episode he had not seen in a while.

  Phillips persisted, “Did you hear me?”

  “I hear you and I will call him. I'll clean up, and I'll be at work tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” he relented. “Call me if you need anything.”

  Repelled, Phillips moved to leave and Morse added while continuing to face his television, “Thanks for trying to be helpful. It just hasn't been easy lately, but I'll see you at work.”

  Turning back, Phillips lit up, “Okay, because we're working on some really amazing stuff that just came in, you'll have to see it to believe it. It's completely lifelike skin.”

  Morse looked at Phillips, nodded his head, and said, “Can't wait to see it. Have a good night.”

  “You too, bro,” he said and left.

  Chapter Four

  Morse could never have conceived this innocuous moment would change the direction of his entire life forevermore as he watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. One of his favorite shows, this episode was about Lieutenant Commander Data, an android officer on the star ship, Enterprise, attempting to reconstruct his creator's work.