Speak the Dead

by Grant McKenzie

  Aedan walked by the unlit church that doubled as the community’s licensed school, his boots crunching on a groomed pathway that wound through the flower and vegetable gardens, until he came to the massive rear wall. Some of the families who helped build the wall had written their names in the mortar. Aedan’s name was one of them, but he had been a younger and more carefree individual then.

  Leaving the garden path, he continued beside the wall until he came to a steel door inset into the stone. It didn’t have a handle or a lock. To open it, Aedan pushed one of the river rocks that made the wall. The rock clicked against a magnetic lock and swung out to reveal a computer keypad hidden inside. Aedan punched in his four-digit code and closed the stone lid as the sound of a heavy bolt being withdrawn from deep within the wall told him the door had unlocked.

  Pushing through the steel door, Aedan entered a private wooded acreage the community had allowed to stay untamed as a further measure of privacy. It was here that he felt most comfortable.

  After ensuring the door was locked behind him, Aedan made his way to a small, but pleasant, A-frame cabin tucked in the trees. The night was cold, but the sight of his home filled him with a comforting warmth. He had been on the road too long this time. The information that led him to Sister Fleur had turned into a ten-day excursion. Or more accurately, the ten-day conclusion to a twenty-five-year journey.

  Inside the cabin, Aedan crossed to the stone hearth that dominated one wall and lit a wood fire that he had left prepared for his return. As the dry kindling caught, he peeled out of his rank clothing and left them in a heap to be added to the fire once it was strong enough.

  Tired and dirty, sweaty and soiled, he entered his cedar-walled bathroom and turned the copper faucets to fill the six-and-one half-foot-long soaker tub. The long tub allowed him to stretch out completely with an inch to spare at both head and feet.

  As the tub filled, Aedan studied himself in the mirror. He truly had a horrendous face. It was the kind of visage that people would remember even when they couldn’t recall anything else. Ask for the length of his hair, the color of his eyes, or how tall he stood, and every potential witness would be dumbstruck. None were able to see beyond his deformity.

  It also itched like hell.

  Aedan reached into the medicine cabinet and retrieved a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a bag of cotton balls. He soaked the cotton with alcohol and rubbed the cold liquid against his scalp. After several passes, his ruined flesh began to pucker and peel away from his hairline like a snake shedding its skin.

  He continued to swab the alcohol down the center of his face and around his nose until a distinct ridge of melting flesh appeared. When he was satisfied with the progress, Aedan dug his fingernails into the ridge and pulled.

  The deformation tore under his grip and began to rip from his face in sheets of prosthetic rubber.

  After the worst of it was removed, Aedan blinked his right eye several times. Having been hidden in the dark for so long, the pupil was taking its time shrinking back to normal. The tender skin around it was painful and raw. The eye drops had done little to soothe its near-fortnight confinement behind rubber, makeup, and glue.

  Aedan looked in the mirror again and moved his lips into the shape of a smile. Beneath every mask, hid another, but at least he was almost back to the one most recognizable as his own.

  Before submerging in the bath, Aedan returned to the medicine cabinet and removed a small square of tinfoil and a butane lighter. He smoothed the tinfoil on the bathroom counter before holding it shiny side down over the lighter. Once the foil had blackened slightly, he removed it from the flame. Next, he opened a plastic bottle of generic painkillers and reached inside to remove a small bag of brown powder. After spooning a hit of the powder on the foil, he placed a short glass tube between his lips.

  When he returned the foil to the flame, the caffeinated heroin melted into a light maple liquid. White smoke curled skyward as the liquid ran freely across the squared foil. Aedan chased the dragon’s tail with his glass tube, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. The taste, a toxic mixture of bitter and sour, always made him think of what he would taste after death, a lick of the grave: wood, dirt, and decay.

  As weariness from the long journey began to drain his body, Aedan glided over to the bathtub and slipped in. He closed his eyes and felt his legs and torso liquefy in the bath’s warm and soothing embrace. He continued to melt until he was sunk up to his neck and the water lapped against his cheeks like a wave of velvet tongues.

  Chuckling softly to himself, Aedan allowed his brain to dissolve into a pleasant state of euphoria.

  37

  “These women are ghosts.” Kameelah’s weary sigh filled the room as she looked up from her laptop. “Are you sure you don’t have anything else?”

  Jersey grunted from his prone position on Kameelah’s white leather couch. He was too tired to think, but racing thoughts of Sally and the danger she was in made it impossible to sleep.

  “That’s it,” he said. “And you know more about the Sister than I do.”

  “Well according to her driver’s license, Sally didn’t exist until ten years ago. And Sister Fleur still doesn’t. She draws a blank on every databank I have access to. Like I said, ghosts.”

  “Ghosts that somebody wants to hurt.”

  Kameelah closed her laptop and yawned. Jersey followed suit, his jaw aching from the power of it.

  “We need to catch a couple hours,” Kameelah said through another yawn. “I’m beat.”

  “We should go to the mission.”

  “It’s the middle of the night and even nuns need sleep. What good are you to Sally if you’re dead on your feet? If we had a clue, we’d follow it, but we don’t.”

  Jersey relented. “Just a couple hours.”

  Kameelah rose to her feet and stretched, her fingers reaching to the plastered ceiling. From Jersey’s vantage point on the couch she looked eight-feet tall.

  “I don’t make a habit of allowing strange men to sleep over.”

  “But?” Jersey allowed his eyes to drift into narrow slits, his eyelids struggling to remain at half-mast.

  “But Amarela says you’re just a big ol’ teddy bear.”

  Jersey snorted, “So does that mean we’re not gonna share a bed?”

  “Not at all. I like teddy bears.”

  Jersey’s eyes sprang open and Kameelah burst into laughter.

  “Gotcha!”

  Grunting again, Jersey rolled onto his side with his back to her. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he mumbled.

  If Kameelah responded, Jersey missed it. He was already snoring.

  When jersey opened his eyes a few hours later, Kameelah was crossing the hallway between bedroom and bathroom. Wearing mint green bikini briefs and a matching full-coverage bra, she was positively stunning.

  With generous hips and breasts, a tight stomach, long legs and skin as silky as melted chocolate, she was an ebony goddess. A goddess with a gun close to hand, but still.

  Kameelah caught him looking and came to a halt with one hand resting on the bathroom door. Her bicep bulged, the curve of the muscle surprisingly sexy, while her toned legs radiated power. A thoroughbred, Jersey thought as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, the kind that could kick your ass without breathing heavy.

  “You always spy on your friends?” she asked.

  “You always look this good in the morning?”

  The compliment caught her off guard, causing her to smirk. “I work at it.”

  “Me, too, but we must have different trainers.”

  “Good genes help, too.”

  “Oh, goody,” said Jersey. “I can blame my folks.”

  Kameelah laughed. “Wash up, we’ll grab a bite on the way.”

  Breakfast consisted of a large coffee and a sticky cinnamon bun from a local bakery.

  “You eat like this all the time?” Jersey sucked cinnamon, sugar, melted butter, and honey off his fingers. It was ridicul
ously messy but absolutely delicious. Served warm out of the oven in a little cardboard box with melting cream-cheese icing spread on top.

  “I treat myself once a week. Can’t be good all the time. Too boring.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m fat,” said Jersey. “Cause I’m so darn exciting.”

  “You’re not fat,” said Kameelah. “More husky. Besides, women prefer a little meat on their men.”

  “Is that so?”

  “We secretly fear that all skinny men are gay.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Jersey with a smirk. “Oprah did a special on it.”

  “Don’t be dissin’ my girl.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  38

  The Mission of the Immaculate Heart sat in a clearing surrounded by thick woods at the top of a country road that had more ruts and bumps than an antique washboard. Kameelah drove slowly, not wanting to overtax the suspension in her definitely-not-department-issue Jaguar XK convertible.

  When Jersey raised his eyebrows at the sporty two-seater with its aluminum-alloy shell gleaming in a metallic shade he later learned was called Emerald Fire, Kameelah had grinned and pointed at the custom license plate. It read: BabyGrl.

  “Nobody loves a baby girl like her rich daddy,” she explained.

  Three-quarters of the way up the winding road, Kameelah slowed even further and pointed to a dirt path that vanished into dense, dark woods.

  “The Sisters were attacked down there,” she said. “Less than a mile from the Mission.”

  “He must have stalked them.”

  “Or lay in wait,” said Kameelah. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

  “He leave anything behind?”

  “Nothing that offered any leads.”

  When the car rounded a corner and broke from the tunnel of trees, the Mission came into view. A circular driveway made of crushed white rock led to a series of simple, boxcar-style buildings connected end-to-end like a game of dominoes. Each building was painted a gleaming white and had the flat roof and boxy architecture of a Spanish pueblo. With small windows and monochromatic paint job, it reminded Jersey of a D.I.Y. building kit that was still in a state of construction.

  Kameelah parked the Jag in front of a wooden door that announced its importance by being sheltered beneath the only canopy in sight. Kameelah walked to the door and knocked as Jersey scanned the exterior for any sign of religious affiliation. He didn’t see any.

  “Where are all the crosses?” he said aloud. “I thought these places loved their symbols.”

  “This isn’t your typical Mission,” said Kameelah. “The sisters broke away from the Catholic church to form their own order. This was a couple decades ago, right after the Pope at the time publicly chastised them about their methods.”

  “Methods?” Jersey asked.

  “I’ve brought a few women here myself,” Kameelah explained, “when other avenues failed. The nun who runs the order specializes in helping the most vulnerable among us. Nearly all of her recruits are survivors of one kind or another, and some of their stories would rip your heart to shreds.”

  She locked eyes with Jersey and continued, “It’s difficult to work sex crimes and still enjoy being in the presence of men. Some of the women within these walls have been subjected to such heinous acts of abuse that the total eradication of your gender wouldn’t be enough to slack their thirst. Most women discover the Mission after they’ve hit their lowest point. Some decide to stay, but many try to return to the same fucked-up world that stomped on their soul. The rate of suicide among abused women would shock you. The sisters here can only do so much.”

  “And now some bastard has struck at their heart,” Jersey said.

  Kameelah nodded grimly. “You better stick close. I don’t want to find you buried out in the woods. The paperwork would be a nightmare.”

  Jersey’s stomach jumped when the door opened suddenly behind Kameelah and a woman with a face like a stewed apple beamed out at them. She was dressed in a flowing, long-sleeved dress the color of a robin’s egg with a white habit and matching bib collar. Apart from her wrinkled face, the only exposed flesh was a pair of hands with skin so transparent that blue veins and the outline of bones could be seen within.

  “Sister Gillian,” said Kameelah. “We’re here about Sister Fleur.”

  “And Sister Emily,” the nun answered with a sad shake of her head. “A terrible, terrible tragedy. One soul in Heaven, the other fighting to stay on Earth.”

  “If it’s possible, we would like to see Sister Fleur’s room.”

  “Of course, dear. Come inside.” She opened the door wider and reached out to squeeze the woman’s arm. “It’s good to see you again, Kameelah. Pity it’s always under such horrible circumstances.”

  As Jersey caught up to them, the nun released Kameelah and turned to him. “To answer your question, detective, the entire building is our cross. If you were to view us through God’s eyes, you would see this.”

  “Ahhh.” Jersey had no other response.

  They walked the long, narrow hallway toward the sisters’ living area. As they did so, the elderly nun hooked her arm around Jersey’s. She smelled of cigarettes and peppermint, and her energy belied her age.

  “I don’t know what Kameelah has told you,” said Sister Gillian with a husky growl, “but I still like men. Not all of them mind. Heck, not even most of the selfish buggers. But a few. I still like a few.”

  “Ahhh, that’s good to know,” he said awkwardly.

  The nun’s eyes sparkled with mischief and she squeezed his arm tighter. “And you don’t have to worry, it’s only the evil ones we bury in the woods.”

  Walking in front, Kameelah turned her neck and winked back at them. The delight on her face showed she was enjoying Jersey’s discomfort.

  The hallway led to a central hub that branched off in three directions. The hub was designed as a central meeting and reading area with assorted, over-stuffed chairs scattered around in singles and pairs. The focus, however, was a large three-quarter-circle couch that faced a well-used, wood-burning fireplace. The conversation couch could comfortably seat twelve.

  Glancing up, Jersey saw the ceiling was slightly pyramidal in shape and constructed mostly of glass. On a clear day, the room would be bathed in sunlight, and on a rainy one, the fire would offer cozy comfort.

  Sister Gillian led Jersey through the empty hub to the hallway on their left.

  “You’re Catholic,” she said.

  “Lapsed,” said Jersey.

  “No such thing. You either believe or you don’t.”

  “I lost faith in the church.”

  “Then we have something in common.”

  Sister Fleur’s room was a cozy cell with a small window that looked out on a rose garden. It also contained more modern conveniences than either Kameelah or Jersey expected.

  The single bed was utilitarian, but it was dressed in a colorful quilt and complementary pillowcase. A small nightstand beside it contained a collection of books and an adjustable reading lamp. A pair of wireless headphones rested on the bedpost. Jersey suspected they were tuned to a small flat-screen LCD television mounted on the wall at the perfect height for watching in bed. The room also contained a portable microwave oven, a small bar fridge, and a corner table that boasted a shiny aluminum iMac computer.

  “You have Internet access?” Jersey asked the nun.

  “Oh, yes. We run wireless broadband throughout the Mission. There are so many troubled souls out there, we try to spread the word as far as we can. Our podcasts are proving very popular.”

  Jersey tried to hide his surprise, but Sister Gillian caught it.

  “We’re very modern now, detective,” she said. “God’s word—the true word—is needed more than ever. What kind of messengers would we be if we ignored the latest advances in communication?”

  “Makes sense,” Jersey agreed, but then a troubling thought flashed through his mind. “Was Sister Fleur i
nvolved in your podcasts?”

  “Why, yes.” The nun beamed. “She has a perfect speaking voice. Not too fast, not too slow. It’s almost hypnotic in its cadence, like waves on a beach. I could listen to her all day.”

  Jersey turned to Kameelah. “Maybe that’s how her assailant found her. Her voice led him straight here.”

  The nun gasped. “Our podcasts are messages of peace and hope. We deliberately try not to antagonize—”

  “I’m sure they are,” said Jersey. “But it wasn’t the message our attacker was listening for.”

  “Do you mind if we look through her computer?” Kameelah asked. “It may have some answers.”

  “Of course,” said the nun. “We have nothing to hide.”

  39

  Sally awoke to the knowledge that she was not alone in the room.

  She bolted upright. “Who’s there?”

  A dark figure stood by the window. The morning light shining brightly through the glass created a two-dimensional silhouette with all the curves of a brick: solid and stocky with broad shoulders, strong back, and wide hips.

  “It’s only me, child.”

  The figure turned from the window and approached the bed. As the silhouette drew nearer, it blossomed into a heavyset woman in her mid-sixties with lifeless shoulder-length hair the color of decaying chestnuts. Her face was round and plain with a wide, upturned nose, and a double chin. Makeup might have brought some life back to her slack, colorless skin, but there was little she could do about a large port-wine birthmark that spread in a teardrop shape from below her left eye to encompass all of her left cheek and part of her chin.

  Her clothes reflected a definite need for order and control with a matronly dress in unflattering blue checkers, pulled in at the waist by the thick straps of a white baker’s apron, similar to the one Mrs. Shoumatoff had worn back in Portland.

  Sally’s gaze returned to the woman’s face. Her eyes were a surprisingly arresting shade of violet.

  “Who are you?” Sally asked.