Read Online Grave Doubts by John Moss - Free Book Online Page B

do?”
    “They rassle. We don’t really hit each other. Mostly we rassle ’til someone says ‘Uncle.’ Sometimes you have t’say ‘Give.’ Then they stop.”
    “And what if there’s a bully who won’t stop?”
    Morgan didn’t have an answer.
    “Now try to hit my face,” he said. “That’s it, punch, punch, thrust, punch, break through. Good boy. Watch what I do.”
    To Morgan’s surprise, his father parried against his gloves then slipped through his defence and hit him on the side of the chin. Morgan’s hands dropped to his side. His father had never hit him before, and he had never even been spanked.
    “Now hit me back, David. Come on, come on,” he taunted.
    Morgan watched his opponent’s hands jabbing the air, waited, then struck. To his surprise, his small fist broke through his adversary’s guard and landed square on his nose. His father reeled back on his knees, shook his head to clear the buzz, looked at his son through glistening moisture released by the jarring of his tear ducts.
    “Damn me, boy. What the hell are you doing?”
    Morgan was appalled. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” he said. It was the only time he had ever called him that.
    He wanted to hug his father, to forgive him for making him do it.
    “Don’t be sorry,” his father said. Then to Morgan’s surprise he started jabbing away at his son’s instinctively raised fists. They were adversaries again.
    “What’s my name, boy?”
    His father never called him “boy.”
    “Fred!”
    “That’s right, David. Know who you’re fighting. Always know.”
    With sudden deliberation he reached through and landed a glancing blow against the side of his son’s head, but leaving himself open, so that Morgan rolled with the punch and came up underneath with a solid blow to his father’s chin.
    “Good God, David. You’re a little bugger.”
    Morgan stared at him sullenly, daring him to strike back. His father got up off his knees, rising to his full height. Morgan stared up at him. This was his father again.
    “And never lose your temper. If you do, you’ve lost the fight.”
    When his father reached out to tousle his hair, Morgan flinched infinitesimally.
    “Now get the hell out of here,” his father said as he stripped off the socks from his son’s clenched fists. “Go out and save the world from bullies.”
    Morgan remembered his father standing tall and powerful in the middle of the living room, but he also remembered the terrible sounds of him wheezing and coughing up tobacco-soaked phlegm as Morgan strutted out the front door.
    While they were stopped at the Yonge and Eglinton intersection, Miranda glanced over to see if he was going to break. He seemed relaxed.
    “Okay,” she said. “Okay, tell me what’s going on, Morgan. You win.”
    “Win what?”
    “Whatever. You can’t set the rules if you don’t know the game.”
    “My goodness,” he said. “You only coin clichés when you’re riled up about something.”
    “Aphorisms. You can coin an aphorism. I’m not riled up.”
    “But you would like an explanation.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “They’re not old, are they! They’re recently deceased. The whole thing was a set-up, wasn’t it? A gruesome illusion, a joke? Right?”
    “You’ve got it.”
    “You’re kidding!”
    “For sure.”
    “Is it our case?”
    “It is.”
    “Oh, well done, Morgan.”
    “I dropped into the forensic pathology lab this morning.”
    “Because you had nothing better to do on a Saturday off?”
    “I wanted to talk to Dr. Hubbard.”
    “Come on, Morgan. She’s got cantilevered tits and Olive Oyl hair. Not your type at all.”
    “No?”
    “She looks like a raunchy popsicle.”
    “I can’t picture it.”
    “Morgan, if she ever let her hair down, her cheeks would sag to her chin.”
    He had never known Miranda to be so bitchy. She had good instincts, and she didn’t hesitate to judge by appearance, but usually she was subtle. A cocked eyebrow, the trace of a smile. She was