“Zendar the Mighty.”
“Zendar the Mighty?” I repeated.
Petal nodded. “I think it might be a stage name.”
“Yeah, me too,” I agreed, managing to suffocate my automatic sarcastic response. “I think you got all the information Olive has. Maybe you should move on to someone else.”
“Do you think so?” Petal asked.
“Absolutely.” Since Olive was now one of our prime suspects I wanted Petal far away from her.
“Okay. But I still need to find her a dress. Can you believe this is how clothing comes in?” Petal asked as she moved around a group of enormous blue sacks stuffed full of clothing. They were in groups in several places around the room. Maybe by what they were full of. Sacks full of dresses underneath the dresses hanging on the rails.
“Yeah, that’s awful …” I said and then scanned around. There were at least forty bags. And suddenly Sabrina’s comment about me missing a dead body came back to me. Would Magnificent Malcolm’s body fit inside one? And, more importantly, did I want to check? I already knew the answer to that. No, I didn’t want to check. I didn’t want to keep being the girl who found dead bodies.
But I’d known Magnificent Malcolm, even if it was only a little. Could I really let his body sit in one of these bags? Decaying. But then he was already dead. This was his alive dead body that I couldn’t do anything about anyway. Except this was a crime scene upstairs, right? Would the police have checked down here? What if the store was closed for days? What if these workers were lazy? Maybe he wouldn’t get found for another week or so. And then his family would have a bloated, gross, stinky corpse to bury.
“Shoot,” I said on a sigh. Yet one more reason against getting emotionally involved with people.
“Are you alright?” Petal asked.
I nodded. “I’m going to check the sacks.”
“For the dress?” Petal asked.
“No. For a dead body.”
“Okay, I’ll carry on looking for the dress,” Petal said, completely unperturbed.
I checked all the bags and found nothing but badly creased clothing. I was feeling proud of myself for my proactive action and a little giddy that I still hadn’t found a body.
“Finally!” Petal held the dress aloft. “There’s a pretty black version of it down here that you might like.”
I moved to the head of her aisle and my happy evaporated. Right at the back, against the wall, were several sacks I’d missed somehow.
“Will you pop that into a changing room for me and I’ll be right out?”
Petal frowned around us. “What are you going to do in here?”
“Missed these sacks.”
“I’ll help.” Petal hung the dresses on the rail and reached for one of the sacks.
I grabbed her hand before she could open it. I knew Magnificent Malcolm’s body would be in one of these sacks. I’d been playing Russian Roulette all night and I didn’t want Petal to find it. No, I’d have loved Petal to find it because that meant I wouldn’t have found the dead body for once, but somehow I knew the body was there. And I couldn’t let Petal find it. I couldn’t. It would haunt her.
I shook my head. “There’s only a few sacks.”
“Exactly, and it will be quicker with the two of us.”
“Y’know, Petal, I think you were right. We should try and include Anna,” I said.
Excitement rippled over Petal’s face. “Really?”
“Yep.”
Petal threw her arms around my neck, then grabbed the dresses and skipped to the end of the aisle. “I’ll fill her in.”
I waited until Petal was out of the room and began checking the sacks. I got to the third one and the way it bulged I just knew it wasn’t filled with clothes.
“Okay, Magnificent Malcolm, I hope you and your family appreciate this.” I peered into the bag and pulled the top layer of clothes off. A jumper got stuck on something inside the sack so I yanked and the bag toppled over to reveal Magnificent Malcolm’s startled but dead face. With a thick purple bruise around his neck. Strangled. Like Madame Zorina.
“Man, do you owe me for this,” I told his dead body and stepped around him to go and call an about to be even more grumpy Oz. And then my heel caught in a loose string from one of the bags. I stumbled forward, trying to save myself, but instead dove headfirst into a group of bags on the other side of the aisle. They parted beneath me, then tumbled down on top of me like skittles. One fell on my head before rolling away and the other across my lower back, where it settled. I twisted and tried to push the second one off, only to find that a heap of clothes wasn’t what was pinning me to the floor. It was another dead body.
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“I think it’s because you’re a bad person, hon,” Anna said from the head of the aisle.
“Thanks for your input, Anna,” I said as I tried to push the body off me without actually touching it. “Do you think you could get Oz for me?”
Anna moved to the doorway and yelled, “Oz? Bridget’s killed someone else.”
Chapter Eleven
“Is it me? Am I missing something? Is there some sort of magnetic pull, or something, that draws you to dead bodies?” Oz asked. We were sitting on a window ledge at the back of evacuation point A. I’d folded up a piece of cardboard so my white jumpsuit didn’t get dirty but I’d sat down next to him when he asked.
“You don’t get it? Imagine how I feel,” I said as I watched my housemates move around the space, each trying out their new questioning techniques, invigorated by the discovery of the two new bodies.
Oz nudged my knee with his to pull my attention back to him. “Anna said you said you were looking for a body.”
“Anna was eavesdropping?” How had not I noticed her in the stockroom?
“That’s really not the point here,” Oz said.
“Maybe not to you. Did you ask her to keep an eye on me?”
Oz sighed. “Bridget, you’re in trouble every day. I can’t be there all the time to watch you.”
“So you thought having Anna, who is not my adjustment companion anymore but now a lowly parolee like me, spy on me would be a good idea? You thought that would help her adjust to her new living arrangement?”
“At least I can trust her to tell me the truth.”
I reared back and nearly slid off my piece of cardboard. “Whoa. Uncalled for. You say I never tell you the truth but when do you ask me? Not until something happens and then you ask me with attitude. You never say ‘Hey Bridget, what happened?’ It’s—”
“And if I had asked what happened you’d have said you found him,” Oz interrupted before I could find my rhythm.
“I did find him!” I hissed, trying hard not to screech. We already had the covert attention of pretty much all the GBs and the not-so-covert attention of everyone else.
“Anna said you were looking for him,” Oz growled at me in his version of a whisper.
I folded my arms and stared directly in his face. “Is that a question or a statement?”
Oz inhaled a long breath and blew it out slowly. “Were you looking for a body?”
“No. Yes. Not exactly,” I said and all were technically true.
“This is why I don’t ask you.”
“No. I didn’t intend to look for a body. But, yes, when I saw the sacks I did suspect Magnificent Malcolm might be hidden inside one. And I wasn’t looking for his body, not exactly, more like I was trying to check it wasn’t there. So, no, yes, and not exactly are all honest answers. And I knew nothing about Allseeing Eric. I was not no/yes/not exactly expecting that at all.”
“And this is why I don’t ask you because you can twist an answer to fit my question.”
I pointed a finger in his face. “That’s unfair. You asked me. I’ve told you.”
Oz wrapped his hand around my finger and pulled it down out of his face. “Why were you not exactly looking for his body?”
“I used to deliver mess
ages to Magnificent Malcolm when I was a facilitator and I saw him today in Arrivals. He was always nice to me, so I wanted to make sure the alive police would find his body before it got all rotted and disgusting. For his family. I wasn’t, however, expecting to find Allseeing Eric at all, which was who I was referring to in my previous comment about unexpectedly finding dead people.”
“Why did you think his body would be here?” Oz asked.
“Because when Charon was here last night he said ‘people’ were going to die, not ‘a person’. Then I saw Magnificent Malcolm at Arrivals and assumed he was here too because it was too much of a coincidence.” And that was all true. It wasn’t all of the truth but it was all still true.
“Do you have a suspect for who killed them?” Oz asked.
“No.” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Not a lie. I didn’t have a solid suspect. I suspected a lot of people. Like all GBs and anyone with a brother. Mainly Olive. And Tina because I thought she was suspicious. And Treble for no reason other than I didn’t like him.
“Do you have a motive for his murder?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Are you trying to trip me up?” I twisted to face him. He didn’t meet my eyes. “Do you have a suspect in this?”
“No, I’m merely trying to establish what you’re doing. If you’re investigating. What you know.”
“Why don’t you ask those questions then? You say I twist information to fit your questions. How about you ask me a straightforward question.”
Oz didn’t miss a beat. “Are you investigating this?”
Officer Leonard appeared in front us before I could answer. “Officer Salier. You’re not keeping Ms Sway all to yourself, are you? There are plenty of people here who would love to talk to her.”
“And yet she’s my ward, Officer Leonard, so I can keep her all to myself,” Oz answered with a smile that wasn’t really all that smiley.
“Really? I’d have thought you’d have been much more focused on your recently returned ward than Ms Sway,” Officer Leonard said as he glanced over his shoulder.
I peered around him to see Katie actively conversing with a small group of people. “Is she talking to those people?”
Officer Leonard nodded. “She certainly is.”
“I can see all my wards just fine, I’m grateful for your concern, Officer Leonard,” Oz said in a tone that said he was not grateful for his concern at all.
“Is there any reason why you would be monopolising Ms Sway?” Officer Leonard asked.
“She found two dead bodies. She’s upset.”
“That’s unfortunate, as you’re needed.” Officer Leonard gestured behind him.
“By who? For what?” Oz asked.
“Your ward, once again, found multiple dead bodies. Questions are being asked. And they need to be asked of you.” Officer Leonard gestured again for Oz to follow him.
Oz spared me a glance that brimmed with all sorts of “behave” commands and then disappeared into the mannequin jungle with Officer Leonard. It had never occurred to me that Oz would get in trouble for me finding dead bodies. And then I realised Officer Leonard had purposely removed me from Oz’s company so I could snoop.
I wandered over to Pam, who was talking to a small group of ladies all around Pam’s age.
“No, I think you must be cooking it too long, Doris. I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t sink like that when you take it out.” A lady in navy trousers and a tucked in crisp white blouse was shaking her head, her wispy, over-tonged, over-hairsprayed hair barely moving.
“I’m definitely following the recipe,” said the lady I assumed was Doris. She was short, pale and dumpy.
“Are you using butter or marg because—” Pam cut herself off when she saw me. She had the good manners to look embarrassed that she was talking about baking instead of questioning people. “Oh, everyone, this is Bridget, one of my housemates.”
Pam introduced me around the circle but their names had disappeared from my brain before Pam had finished the introductions. I wasn’t sure if that was a dead thing or I’d always been that way. Funny how I didn’t notice until I was dead, though. Also funny how it hadn’t seemed important until I was dead. Although, when I’d been alive I’d not found a dead body every other day, so it wasn’t like I’d had to keep track of people for suspect reasons.
“Oh, you’re the girl who keeps finding dead bodies,” the navy trouser lady said.
I nodded. “Yep, that’s me.”
“That must be so awful for you,” Doris said.
“It’s not the best, and actually”—I glanced over my shoulder and lowered my voice—“I was hoping you ladies might be able to help me with something. I had a watch. It was a gift from my brother for my last birthday before I died.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Pam said. It took me a second to realise that she wasn’t playing along—she seriously thought I had a brother. All my housemates needed a proper schooling in deception.
“I don’t really like to talk about it. Do any of you ladies have brothers?” I asked and all four of the ladies shook their heads. “None of you?”
Doris glanced around the group and spoke for everyone. “No.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected any of these ladies to have a brother who was at university but you were never too old to try something new so I’d figured it was a base worth covering. Although just because they’d denied it didn’t mean they were telling the truth. And it didn’t mean they weren’t murderers. “Well, I was in the stockroom yesterday looking for a top and I figured I’d try it on while I was in there. Anyway, I took my watch off and hung it on one of the rails. I forgot about it and then that whole dead body thing happened. I went back in there tonight to look for it and that was when I found the bodies. I don’t suppose any of you saw anyone heading in there either yesterday or today, did you?”
“Oh, Bridget, I didn’t realise.” Pam covered her mouth with her hand and for a moment I thought she’d twigged and was playing along but something about the pity on her face told me she’d bought the story too. “Do you think someone might have stolen it?”
“I’m not accusing anyone. I just want it back. I saw someone dart out to the back stairs last night, maybe to hide it, but I didn’t get a good look at them.” I brushed a fake tear from my eye. Pam caught me in a sideways hug. “It meant so much to me.”
“I saw one of the GBs go in the stockroom last night,” said Doris, not questioning why the thief would be hiding a watch on the back stairs. “I didn’t think much of it at the time because they go everywhere, but it was strange he went into the stockroom.”
“Do you know which GB it was?” I asked.
“Treble,” Doris said. “I remember because I heard him give you that warning for putting that horrible Janice woman in her place. And then he hovered around for a bit, then went into the stockroom. I’m not accusing him of anything, mind.”
Hadn’t Treble come from the back of the department store when I’d been chasing Jeremy down? But if he’d killed him wouldn’t he have been worried that Jeremy had seen him. Maybe that it would trigger a memory? Or maybe Treble just stabbed him from behind.
“I saw your murderous housemate go in. I was heading that way to get a top that hadn’t been tried on by everyone but when I saw her go in I changed my mind,” said Navy Trousers.
“Were they in there at the same time?” I asked. Katie had been having an affair with someone during her first few months in the afterlife. Maybe she was the kind of girl who always needed a boyfriend. Or co-conspirator.
“Your housemate went in there not long after we got there so I don’t think so,” Navy Trousers said and then added quickly, “But she could’ve gone back in later.”
“I saw Janice and the girl who always wears olive go in there. And that other parole officer.” A lady in pink shorts nodded her head in the direction of Oz.
“You saw Oz go in there?” I asked. I wa
s pretty certain Oz hadn’t moved from his cash desk perch all night.
Pink Shorts shook her head. “No, the one next to him. Tarik. And he was in there for a while too.”
“So was that pretty redhead,” another lady said and nodded to a girl in her early twenties who I was pretty sure was making goo-goo eyes at Tarik. “I want to say her name’s Samantha but I’m not sure. I don’t think they would’ve noticed your watch, though. If you know what I mean?”
“Oh, really?” I said, throwing a covert glance over my shoulder at them.
“I’m not implying anything,” Pink Shorts said in a tone that was definitely implying something.
I nodded at her. “Of course not. And none of you saw anyone heading for the backstairs, looking a bit shifty?”
“No. Sorry,” said Navy Trousers and all the rest shook their heads.
“You ladies have been really helpful, thank you so much,” I said and made sure my gratitude came through in my voice. “If no one else has any more names to add, I think I’ll go and see if Lucy’s friends saw anything.”
“I really hope you find your watch,” Doris said, leaning forward to grab my wrist. “Stealing is so despicable.”
“Thanks, Doris,” I said and gave them all a polite nod. I was about to head over to Lucy but then I saw Petal talking to Tina and the Tattoo girl.
“You’re right, Clare, death is so hard on everyone,” Petal agreed. Clearly, no one had paid any attention to Sabrina’s “how to effectively question a suspect” workshop.
“It must be hard on you too,” Tina said to me as I approached.
“It’s getting easier,” I replied and it was the truth. “When I first died it was hard. But now, since I know death isn’t the end, finding dead bodies all over the place doesn’t upset me so much anymore.”
“I suppose that’s a positive way to look at it,” Clare, formally known as Tattoo Girl, said.
“I’m more concerned with whoever is killing them.” I glanced over my shoulder and lowered my voice. “I mean, yeah, it’s not great they’re dead but it’s less great that there’s someone running around killing people.”
Dead and Buried: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series Book 4) Page 13