Adrasteia: Chapter 20
[Note: this fiction contains occult themes, drug use, language and crime]
INT. ORION LABS — LATE AFTERNOON
Orion Labs sat nestled on the outskirts of Albany, a squat, boxy structure from the 1960s, its dull gray poured-concrete exterior softened only by the flourish of crimson and gold maple leaves lining the cracked walkway. Once a beacon of modernity, the building now bore the melancholy of progress outpaced—sturdy, functional, and decidedly forgotten.
Inside, Regina stepped into a modest reception area, where linoleum tiles and fluorescent lighting gave the place a vaguely antiseptic feel. She approached the desk.
“I’m here to see Dr. Horowitz. Four o’clock.”
The immaculately coifed receptionist gave a brief nod and gestured to the waiting area. “He’ll be right with you.”
Moments later, a short, pot-bellied man in a rumpled lab coat came bustling through the doors. His thinning hair stood slightly askew, his bowtie sat crooked at the neck, and his thick glasses caught the light like a flashbulb. He looked every bit the brilliant, distracted academic who had been pulled from the middle of something important.
“Ah! Ms. Malcolm, yes? Right this way.”
He buzzed her through a secure door and led her down a sterile corridor, the hum of overhead lights filling the silence. They arrived at a tight, cluttered office, banked by windows. Towering stacks of forensic journals, medical textbooks, and unlabeled manila folders threatened to collapse at any moment. Papers spilled across his desk in gentle chaos, the byproduct of a mind too focused to concern itself with order.
The windows were large, though partially obscured by blinds drawn at awkward angles, casting stripes of dappled sunlight across the room. Regina took a seat as Horowitz rounded to his own, adjusting his chair with a creak.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. He studied her face with mild curiosity. She, in turn, regarded him with uncharacteristic caution.
“So. Detective. What brings you to my little corner of the world?”
“I need assistance.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “The kind that requires a very high level of expertise—and absolute confidentiality.”
That changed his posture. He sat up straighter, the lightness in his face dimming slightly. “I see. Well, you have it, detective. Go on.”
“It’s Sheriff, actually. Sheriff Malcolm.”
“Very well. Sheriff Malcolm it is, then.” he replied, politely.
“I understand you’ve served as an expert witness? In matters involving forensic evidence?” She shifted in her seat.
“Yes, many times.” He said tapping his desk, “Comes with the territory.”
She nodded, then reached for the leather messenger bag beside her, fingers brushing the brass buckle. “Recently, I met with another kind of expert. About a book. Not the kind you’d find in any accredited archive. It’s written in old script, predating printing press methods.”
Horowitz blinked once. His gaze dropped briefly to her hand on the bag, then flicked back to her face. “Interesting.”
“The book is at the center of an investigation.” She slowly unbuckled the flap, letting the suggestion of worn leather and parchment escape like a ghost rising from a coffin.
Horowitz reached out with a tentative hand. “May I?”
“Yes, but first—” Regina gestured to a box of latex gloves perched haphazardly on a shelf behind him. “Would you mind?”
“Oh. No, of course not.” he said, plucking a pair from the box, stretching them over his hands with the quiet snap of practiced care. “Quite right, quite right. Rare volumes should always be handled with gloves. Oils from the fingers—natural, corrosive—can do a great deal of damage to the pages over time.”
“Yes. Right.” She echoed the thought nervously. In truth, she didn’t give a damn about finger oil. She just didn’t want anything—spiritual, residual, or otherwise—transferring between him and the book.
Horowitz, now properly gloved, motioned again, inviting her to proceed. Regina reached into her coat pocket and produced a pair of winter gloves—clean, folded, and tucked neatly. She slipped them on, then carefully withdrew the book.
The air between them seemed to shift as the volume was laid across his desk. The room quieted. Even the hum of the overhead lights seemed to dim.
“Oh my…” he murmured, softly. He began to leaf gently through the text, his eyes scanning the curling script with reverence. “This is very rare indeed. Latin, I believe.”
“I want to know what it’s made from.” She said pointedly, interrupting his cursory examination.
He glanced up at her then—mild surprise registering behind his thick lenses.
“An expert I spoke with—they suggested the cover or binding might be—skin.”
Horowitz frowned thoughtfully, eyes narrowing as he inspected the outer edge of the cover. “Yes. . .I can see why they’d say that. Goat, perhaps. Possibly calf—vellum of some kind.” he continued his inspection.
“They said it could be—human.” She imparted quietly.
He paused. The air in the office seems to still around that word. Slowly, he closed the book, his fingertips resting lightly on the cover.
“Humph. I see. You’re referring to the practice known as anthropodermic bibliopegy—the binding of books in human skin.” He exhaled slowly. “Well. Not common, certainly. But not entirely without precedent.”
He leaned back slightly, letting the book rest on the desk, and adopted a more didactic tone.
“The practice dates back centuries, though by the early twentieth, it had fallen thoroughly out of favor. Even among physicians—who were, more often than not, the ones commissioning such things—moral sentiment eventually caught up. Most such volumes were bound using the skin of unclaimed cadavers. Rare medical texts, anatomical references… kept in private collections. Hidden.”
He taps the cover gently, a glimmer of clinical fascination in his voice.
“Of course, the topic tends to attract urban legends. Grim tales of commemorative editions of Grey’s Anatomy bound in the flesh of dust-bowl okies, shiftless unfortunates, harlots or drifters—-.” He scoffed lightly, though there was no real amusement in it.
Regina felt her face flush. “Doctor, I—”
“Oh, forgive me.” He lifted a hand in apology and smiled sheepishly. “A bit of gallows humor. Occupational hazard. Spend enough time with the dead, and you develop certain. . . defenses.”
Regina gave a terse nod, but her jaw tightened slightly.
The book remained between them like a silent third party, as he continued his examination. This time he turned his attention to the binding. It was dense with unspoken history and something else—something darker, impossible to classify under any branch of known science.
Regina’s eyes drifted momentarily to a photo framed on a cluttered side table near the window. In it, a slightly younger Dr. Horowitz stood among a group of smiling family members, all wrapped in prayer shawls. His hand rested on the shoulder of a boy—perhaps his grandson—grinning in the glow of what must have been a bar mitzvah ceremony. It couldn’t have been taken more than two or three years ago; Horowitz looked almost exactly the same.
The picture threw her off for a beat. It was jarring—after what he’d just said. She hadn’t expected it from a man with roots so clearly embedded in faith. But perhaps, she thought, that was exactly why he’d said it.
Still, she hated how her gut had lurched—less at the content of his remarks, than at her own discomfort. As if some inner line had been crossed. She forced herself to refocus.
“Dr. H—if we could just hurry this along——?”
“Do you know why I got into this business?” he interrupted.
Regina looked up from her watch, surprised at the shift.
“One word. Nuremberg.” He whispered it like an invocation. “Never again would any of them walk free. Not if science could catch them. That’s what I decided. There would be justice. Measured, irrefutable justice.” His eyes were hard behind the lenses.
This, she thought, was perhaps the core of him. “Will you help me, then?”
He watched her then, sensing more.
“All of these victims had one thing in common.” She continued.
“What was it?” he asked.
“They were all Christians. And they went like lambs to slaughter.” Her remark landed heavily. Horowitz’s face didn’t change, but she could see the wheels turning. The parallel was unmistakable.
“Yes. I will help you.” He said, resolutely.
“I’m working under a tight timeline. I believe this book—whatever it is—is the key to solving the Shannon Falls murders.”
At the name, something flickered across Horowitz’s face. Recognition, perhaps. Or dread.
Horowitz shifted in his chair, his tone wholly professional. “I see. Well… we can begin by swabbing the outer cover. Perhaps take a discreet snip from the interior backboard, here—” He opened the book carefully, gesturing with one gloved hand to a corner where the material was already fraying.
“Fine.” She reached into her coat and produced a sealed evidence pouch, placing it flat on his desk. “These are the samples I’d like it tested against.”
Horowitz glances at the envelope. Then looks again. His brow furrows.
And then he understood. “You want DNA profiles run on these samples, and then compared to a profile of the book, to see if there are matching samples?”
“Yes.”
A pause stretches between them like a held breath.
“This will take time. Several days, at least—possibly more.” He said, gravely.
He rested one hand gently on the book’s cover, as if trying to feel its weight beyond the physical. “Will you leave it with me?”
Regina shook her head. “I can’t. It’s too important. It’s the key to breaking this case wide open. And if it’s what I think it is, it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”
He nods slowly, understanding more than she says.
“Then I’ll do what I can, with what I have.” Horowitz rose from his chair, then. “Bring it, and come around to the lab with me.”
They stepped into a quieter corridor, the sounds of humming lights and distant air vents settling around them like a well-oiled machine. Just as they neared the lab, a secretary came zipping around the corner in a blur of beige cardigan and pearls.
“Oh, Sheriff—there was a call for you at the front desk just a few moments ago. He’s on hold. A Rod somebody.”
“Rodriguez?” Regina posed.
“Yes, that’s him.”
Regina turned to Horowitz. “I’m sorry—I need to take this.”
Horowitz merely nodded. He stepped forward, pushing open a glass door etched with the Orion Labs seal, pausing in the threshold.
“Very well. Just have Peggy buzz you in when you’re done.”
“Yes, I will.”
Regina followed Peggy back down the hall to the front desk, lined with old phone directories and a dusty jar of peppermints.
“Oh, this one?” Regina said, picking the receiver of a guest phone at the end of the reception desk.
“Just one moment. I’ll transfer the call.” Peggy nodded politely.
Regina picked up on the first ring and spoke quietly. “Rod?”
“You can run, but you can’t hide. Bailey always knows where you are,” he began in his usual joking tone. “Yeah—hey, look, I did what you asked. My snitch has a name for you. Tina Phillips. . . .”
“Her dealer was a chick?” Regina whispered into the phone, incredulous, as her heart quickened.
“No—nobody can remember his name—her dealer—but Tina was really tight with Brandy. Maybe she knows this guy’s name. The word on the street is she packed up and left shortly before Brandy’s overdose.”
“And where is she now?” Regina queried, trying to keep her voice low.
“Word has it she went back home. She’s living with an aunt now in Brooklyn. I got the address right here—-”
“Hold on, let me get a pad and a pencil—-.” Regina whipped around and quickly grabbed a pen and a sticky note pad from the desk. Peggy was busy on another call.
“Go—-” she said in almost frantic anticipation, and quickly scribbled down the address he gave over the phone. “Ok, you said 2117 East Charleton, apartment A, right?”
“That’s it, yeah.” He paused, sensing the slight tremor in her voice. “Are you going over there tonight? After dark?”
She recalled suddenly Clay’s words.
Then do me a favor? Take Collins or Rodriguez with you.
“—Yes, I’m going. Tonight. After I get done here.” Oddly, she felt like a child making excuses to a parent after staying out too late.
“Well,” he said, the disappointment rising in his voice, “remember—it’s Brooklyn. Don’t get shot.”
“At least it’s not the Bronx.” She said sarcastically. “Look, this girl might be the only one who knows his name. I have to go.”
She hung up. For a moment, she just stood there, hand still on the receiver. Strangely, she felt like she’d just broken a promise. But, she had a name now—not what she had hoped for—but it was something. One step closer. To him. Everything felt more real now.
Peggy buzzed her through. The lab doors slid open with a gentle click and a puff of filtered air. Inside, bright fluorescent lights glinted off stainless steel surfaces and rows of sealed glass cabinets. The scent of ethanol and rubber gloves clung to the chilled air.
Dr. Horowitz was already at work, sleeves rolled up, gloved hands moving with clinical precision. His assistant, Evan Karlsson—a rangy young man with a mop of dark curls and tired eyes—was absorbed in compiling a DNA profile at the far counter. Other techs bustled quietly in the background, the gentle clinking of glass and whirring of equipment underscoring the gravity of the space.
“Alright. Let us see the manuscript.” Horowitz reached out with a gloved hand.
Regina stepped forward and removed it carefully from her satchel. She handed it to him, watching as he held it gently, reverently, like a surgeon inspecting something once alive. Still gloved, he flipped to the back cover and ran his fingers along the spine, feeling for any loosened strip of binding. Nothing. It was pristine.
“This book likely came from someone’s private collection. It’s in excellent condition.” he said, continuing his examination.
He set it down, reached for a pair of tweezers, and began to gently probe the inner spine. After a moment, he managed to dislodge a pair of tiny, fibrous samples. One he slipped into a labeled test tube. The other he transferred onto a glass slide.
Sliding the slide beneath the lens of the microscope, he leaned in. A moment passed. Then:
“It does appear to be consistent with epithelial cells… of some type.” he remarked with expertise.
“How long before we know something definitive?” Regina probed with anticipation.
“Normally, it would take several days—” Horowitz remarked distractedly, collecting more sample from the spine. “This book appears to have been rebound at some point.”
“I was told it’s a copy.” Regina’s gaze locked onto his, her expression plain but urgent.
“For you? Three days.” he said finally.
“Two.” She countered.
He paused. Then, almost amused, replied. “We will try. I make no guarantees.”
He picked up the book and handed it back to her, then gently guided her toward the door. His tone shifted, quiet and inquisitive. “By the way… why not send the samples to Washington? The FBI is involved, no?”
“Because the FBI’s currently tied up in Chickahominy County. Another girl went missing up there. She’s since been recovered, but they’ve got one guy working the case—and he’s spread pretty thin.” She explained. “I don’t have two days for the courier to get these to D.C., five more while the labs run tests, and another two waiting on results. I have three days. That’s it.”
“Why just three days?” he looked at her quizzically.
Regina moved toward the hall. “It’s complicated. But, it suffices to say that I need to know what this book is made out of in two days time, just in case I need an extra day to prepare. Call me the second you have something.”
He nodded as she trotted away, her boots echoing down the sterile corridor.
Behind her, Horowitz turned back toward the workbench. The buzz of the lab hummed around him as he bent over the microscope again, adjusting the focus with a frown of concentration.
Outside, somewhere in the windless quiet of the Catskills, three days ticked down, like a detonation device.