She’d been stabbed in the back. Rigor was present but not complete, suggesting she’d been dead less than eight hours, give or take. I’m not a medical examiner, but I am a corpse whisperer. I know the stages of death.
When I placed my hands over Veronica’s body, Dr. Blanchard got cold feet.
“Ms. Nighthawk, what I stated outside earlier was my opinion. I believe I have the right to approve the raising of a corpse in my capacity as the medical examiner. And if asked that question, I will say so. But you do not act under my authority, and I did not instruct you to raise this corpse. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand what you’re trying not to say. If asked, you’ll testify to your opinion that you can authorize the raising of a corpse. But since you didn’t authorize me to raise this corpse, I’m screwed, blued and tattooed. Is that about it?”
“Precisely.”
Spineless asshat.
I glowered at Doc, then turned my attention to Harry. “Raising can be a little…unpredictable. You ready?”
He stared at my hands poised above Veronica’s body. “Ready as I’m going to be.”
The moment I closed my eyes, I felt the familiar burning sensation in my palms that signals energy flowing from me into another body. Then I prayed. The prayer wasn’t long and it wasn’t audible. It was me asking for God’s guidance in the use of this awesome, terrible gift He’d given me.
“Veronica, in the name of God, I command you to rise.”
Her eyes blinked once. Twice.
“Awaken, Veronica. Awaken.” Energy arced from me in a sea of brilliant tendrils.
Her eyes snapped open, and she bolted upright on the table.
Doc Blanchard gasped and stumbled away from the gurney. Harry held his ground, eyes unblinking and fixed on Veronica. She grabbed my hand and squeezed reflexively then darted her eyes around the room.
The dead find the raising process confusing, even terrifying. That’s the part I regret most, causing them even more discomfort than they knew at the moment of death. “Veronica, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where you are?”
She glanced around the room again as if analyzing her surroundings, the morgue drawers, the instruments, and the gurneys filled with bodies. Then she peered into my eyes and asked the same question they always ask.
“Am I…dead?”
“Yes. I’m afraid you are.”
She shivered once. More of a shudder, really. Like the notion of death frightened her.
“Do you know how you died?”
She frowned and squeezed her eyes closed.
“Did you have an accident?”
“No.”
“Did someone hurt you?
She opened her eyes and nodded.
“Do you know who hurt you?”
“No. Didn’t see.”
My heart sank. All this and the woman had no idea who’d murdered her.
Harry jumped in. “Do you know why you were killed?”
“Find book.”
Harry and I glanced at each other.
He moved closer and peered into Veronica’s eyes. “What book?”
“My book. Find book.”
Harry’s voice took an edge. “Where is your book?”
“Stretch.”
“Focus, Veronica,” I said. “Where is your book?”
“Stretch,” she repeated.
“Stretch what?” I tossed up my hands and sighed.
“Stretch,” she said with a listless shrug. “So tired. Sleep. Need sleep.”
Time for a new question: “You called into CPD and said you had dirt on someone. Who was it? And what was the dirt?”
Her eyes grew wide and her lips began to tremble. “No. No, no!”
She pushed me away and tried to get off the table. I held her in check, which freaked her out more. Zombie hunting rule number seven: never agitate a freshie. Things go pear-shaped faster than you can scream, “Run!” Something or someone had scared this girl shitless.
Damn it. We were so close, but we’d gotten all we were going to get. It was time to let her go. I sat behind her on the gurney, put my arm around her waist, and pulled my Ka-Bar from its sheath. “We’ll find who did this to you, Veronica. You have my word. I know you’re tired. Close your eyes now. Go to sleep.”
I slid the knife into her brain stem, quick and easy. When she collapsed back against me, I slid out from beneath her and laid her shoulders back on the gurney.
Doc bowed his head. Hard-ass Harry wiped his eyes. I swallowed my feelings and strolled to the sink to wash off my knife. No one said this was easy. I just wish she’d seen her killer.
Harry and I headed over to Cap’s office to deliver the bad news. Although Cap was concerned about the lack of information Veronica provided, he was more concerned with a procedural hiccup.
“You did what?”
“We didn’t get the court order but I raised her anyway.”
“You didn’t have an order?”
Cap’s face turned a shade of magenta I’d never seen before. “Why the hell didn’t you stop her, Harry?”
“Don’t look at Harry. It was my call,” I said. “You wanted me to raise her, so I raised her. End of story.”
“He was supposed to get the order first and then you were supposed to raise her.”
“But he couldn’t get the order.”
Cap rubbed his face with his hands. “You’re missing the point. Do you have any idea what kind of a shit storm you could find yourself in?”
Obviously, Cap didn’t know me very well. I live in a swirling vortex of shit. It comes with the territory. If I worried every time I ruffled someone’s feathers, or broke a rule to get what I needed, I’d never accomplish anything.
“You should be thanking me,” I said in a haughtier tone than I’d intended. “Maybe Veronica couldn’t tell us who killed her, but she gave us something. She mentioned a book. We just have to find it. And by the way,” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handwritten invoice. “Here’s my bill for the other night.”
Cap ripped it from my hand and glared at it. “Other than today’s, I’ve only given you one assignment. You’ve billed me for two here.”
“Two biters, Cap.”
“Harry killed one of them.”
“There were three. He killed one, I killed two. Pay up.”
Cap scribbled his initials at the top of the bill and tossed it in his outbox.
My stomach rumbled. “Anything you could do to expedite that would be appreciated.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Cap could be a dry son of a bitch, sometimes.
“If we’re done here,” Harry said, getting to his feet. “I’ve got some background work to do.”
“Oh, we’re done.” Cap eyeballed me, so I took one last shot.
“If it would be easier, I could just add my charges for the raising today to the bottom of that invoice. They’d only have to cut one check. And since it was a raising, I get paid double. Up and down, remember?”
“Goodbye, Nighthawk.”
6
Who’s Going to Mop the Floor?
Harry and I walked out of Cap’s office together. He had the investigative piece of Veronica’s murder to work on, and I had plans of my own. We’d found one biter hole, but surely there were others.
“Other than the Third Street viaduct, where in town would I likely find some zombie nests?”
Harry ran his hand across his comb-over and paused. “First place I’d tell you to look would be the abandoned subway tunnels. Next, I’d try the old Hudepohl Brewery building off Interstate 75. Then, maybe The Crosley Building on Arlington Street.”
We turned to go our separate ways, and Harry called back over his shoulder. “Shout if you need me.”
The guy knew his stuff, and he wasn’t half bad company. What the hell?
“Hey, Harry. I work part-time at this dive called The Blue Note. Over on L
iberty. I’ll be there tonight from eight to twelve. Stop by if you get bored.”
His face lit up. “Dallas’s place? I know it well. I’m in there more than nights than I should be. Sure. I’ll stop by.”
I climbed on my Lowrider and headed for Camp Washington to check out The Crosley Building. I’d whizzed past it at seventy miles per hour on the way into town, but I couldn’t say I’d noticed it.
I pulled to the curb a couple of blocks back on Arlington and took in the view. The building was massive, eight stories tall, and sprawled for hundreds of thousands of square feet. Most of the façade had broken away and lay beside it on the ground, along with endless amounts of broken glass and crumbling brick.
What impressed me most was its potential to hold an army of biters. Deserted, isolated, and unwelcoming. The perfect place for a nest. I sniffed the air and got a whiff of decay. Harry’s instincts had been right. The other buildings nearby were in similar condition and no doubt had their own smaller dens of deadheads.
I made a mental note to check with Cap. Maybe he could find out if The Crosley, or any of the surrounding properties, were scheduled to be razed. If they weren’t already on the list, I’d recommend they be added. Of course, when that time came, we’d either have to go in guns blazing, or develop a tactical plan to waste the rotters as they scurried out of their hidey-holes and onto the streets, like a multitude of cockroaches. Public relations-wise, a surprise attack in the dead of night, while the city slept, would play better.
The subway tunnels and the Hudepohl Brewery would have to wait for another day. It was a beautiful, crisp afternoon, and I knew where I wanted to go next.
I slowed my Harley to a crawl as I passed through the gate at Spring Grove Cemetery. It had been a while since I’d been there. Three years to be exact. The day I buried my father. The grounds were gorgeous and peaceful, just as I remembered them.
My parents’ graves were north of the Dexter Mausoleum, near a small grove of trees. I sat beside their headstones and chatted with them as though they could hear me, filling them in on my life and how I’d stuck to the rules they’d taught me. At least, for the most part. They would have been proud. Especially my mother.
My stomach growled. I’d missed lunch by several hours, and I needed to check on Headbutt before I started my shift at The Blue Note anyway, so I left, promising my parents to return so we could finish our one-sided chat.
By the time I pulled into my driveway, it was nearly five o’clock. I opened the kitchen door and Headbutt raced past me into the backyard. His bathroom schedule hadn’t been uppermost in my mind. I’d have to rectify that. Owning a pet was new to me. At least he hadn’t left me any puddles or piles to clean up.
I tore into a bag of Doritos and eyed the bottle of Jack with lust in my heart, but decided against it. I had to be at work by eight. Besides, with any luck, Dallas might slide me a few freebies on the side.
My whiskey ruminations were interrupted by Nonnie Nussbaum’s voice filtering through the door. “Stop that! Naughty golem. I get you with broom. Shoo. Shoo.”
I peeked through the curtain and moaned. Headbutt stood at the fence line, hiking his leg and squirting pee through the chain link onto Nonnie’s rose bushes.
“I get you,” Nonnie screamed as she flew from her porch, broom in hand, and zeroed in on Headbutt. Apparently, he didn’t care for her any more than I did. He barked nonstop until I sprinted outside to the porch. Nonnie glared at me over the top of the fence.
“When you get big ugly dog?”
“Just last night. I—”
“It pee on my roses.”
“Sorry,” I said, although I truly didn’t give a rat’s ass. “C’mere, Headbutt. Here, boy. Here.”
I clapped my hands.
He ignored my command, turned from the fence and drifted aimlessly through the yard, sniffing everything he passed before plodding back to the porch. The look in his eye said, “I didn’t come back because you called me; I came because there’s food inside.”
Mrs. Nussbaum wrinkled her nose. “Head…butt? What kind name that?”
“His name,” I said with a forced smile. “Let’s go inside, boy.”
I opened the door and Headbutt trotted inside, earning himself a Dorito — partly because he did as I asked, but mostly because he was a rabble-rousing rule breaker like me. I knew there was something special about Headbutt the moment I laid eyes on him. Well, that and the fact that he knew how to handle a rotter.
He and I spent some bonding time in front of the TV watching The Westminster Dog Show. I scratched his belly and shared a few more of my Doritos with him. I even made fun of the micro, mini, teacup floofy-haired bitches so he wouldn’t get a fat dog complex. Somewhere along the line we both took a nap. When I got up to leave for my shift at the bar, he fixed me in his sad bulldog gaze, triggering an instantaneous guilt trip.
I promised him that I’d be back as soon as my shift was over. He lay on the register vent, a dog beholden to no man, closed his eyes, and dismissed me.
Damned, if I didn’t like that dog.
The Blue Note was packed to the rafters when I walked in at a quarter ’til eight. I reached for the mop, but Dallas shook his head.
“I need you behind the bar. You can clean later when things slow down.”
We worked together like a well-oiled machine, pouring, mixing and popping tops. I washed more glasses that night than I’d washed in my entire life.
Along about ten, Dallas poured a double shot of Jack and slid it over to me. “Think of it as a tip.”
My favorite kind of tip, after money. And I was raking in the bucks that night, busy as it was. If this kept up, Headbutt and I might be eating spam once in a while.
Around ten-thirty, Harry walked in the door looking rode hard and put away wet. Dallas, busy packing beer tubs with ice, looked up and threw him a quick wave.
“What you having?” I asked.
He slumped onto a bar stool and sighed. “Surprise me.”
I brought him back a Guinness and a shot of Crown. “On the house.”
“A boilermaker? Haven’t had one of these in years. Don’t mind if I do.”
He dropped the shot glass into the beer and tossed it back. A real pro, but then, most cops are, in my experience. Hell, I’m not judging. I’m right there with them. Me and Jack Daniels.
For the first time that night, the crowd began to thin. My other customers were still nursing their drinks, so I poured Harry another Guinness, then leaned across the bar and took a well-deserved break.
“Tell me about the real Harry Delk,” I said. “Wife? Kids? Batshit crazy mistress who ties you to the bed with scarves?”
Harry spit a mouthful of Guinness down his shirt and laughed. “No to all three. Kind of a workaholic.”
He threw back some peanuts and wiped the Guinness off his shirt.
I considered setting him up with Tiffany but talk about an odd couple. It took all I had to squelch my grin. Not ten minutes later, Tiffany showed up.
She made a beeline for Harry and held out her wrists. “Okay, Officer. Slap on the cuffs. Let’s get this over with.”
Harry snickered and crossed his arms. “I haven’t arrested you since I made detective. Give one of the other cops a chance.”
“Really,” I said, raising my brow. “You two know each other?”
Tiffany winked. “Harry and me go way back, don’t we?”
“As far back as your arrest record, anyway.”
“How ’bout buying your favorite working girl a seven-seven? For old time’s sake.”
He chuckled and pulled a five from his pocket. “Nighthawk, bring the lady a drink.”
I served her up and she wandered away, with a final wink at Harry.
“Now, I’m gonna do my thing over there.” She pointed to an empty stool beside a lonely looking guy. “Just pretend you don’t see me.”
“See who?” Harry smiled as she strutted away, shaking her money-maker like a maraca.
He turned to me, rolled his eyes, and changed the subject.
“I got to see you in action today. A little unsettling, but highly impressive, by the way. How ’bout I pick you up tomorrow morning, say nine o’clock? We can poke around the murder scene, ask a few questions — maybe find the book Veronica was talking about. I’ll show you how a fat-assed dinosaur cop runs an investigation. Two to one, I find something the officers on the scene missed.”
“Two to one? I’ll take those odds. You got a deal.”
The door burst open, bringing our conversation to a halt. Two uniforms, grim-faced and eagle-eyed, marched across the floor. Clearly, they hadn’t come for beer and pretzels.
Dallas cut them off at the pass. “Can I help you, officers?”
“We’re looking for Allie Nighthawk.”
Harry glanced at me.
I looked at him.
Dallas didn’t flinch. “May I ask what for?”
“Police business, sir.”
One of the uniforms kept his eyes on Dallas, while the other officer strolled around the room, checking out the patrons. I leaned a little to my left, hoping Harry’s big-ass comb-over would block me.
It didn’t.
“Allie Nighthawk,” the officer said, as he pulled the bracelets from his utility belt and cuffed me behind my back. “You’re under arrest.”
“What the hell for?” I asked.
“Gross abuse of a corpse.”
“Say what?”
Cap’s aforementioned shit storm had arrived. A category five, from the look of things.
And Little Allie couldn’t resist the urge to beat me over the head with it. How do you do it? Every time I think you can’t top yourself, you do. Truly outstanding.
The words, “Bite me, bitch,” tumbled out of my mouth before I could shove them back in.
Harry winced and turned away.
Dallas shot me the stink eye.
The bar patrons gawked and mumbled among themselves.
Life Among the Tombstones Page 4