The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

  Cal sat down on one of the bar stools, and Brook started to spray down the shining white tiles with a lemon-scented cleaner. Was cleaning on her to-do list, or was Brook simply not able to sit still?

  “You want something? Coffee, bagel? You said you were hungry.”

  “I grabbed a banana, so I’m good,” Cal lied. She folded her hands. “I know about you and Jenna.”

  “I already told you about us.”

  “And about you and Randy.”

  Brook raised her eyes from her cleaning for a moment, the sponge stopping on the counter. “He talked to you, did he?” she asked, eyebrows up. Then she went back to wiping down the counter.

  “Yes. And that’s not the only thing he told me.”

  “Randy has an active imagination. He tried to get me into bed, like he does with everything on two legs, male, female, or other. He didn’t succeed. Anything else he tells you is wishful thinking.”

  So Brook was trying to make it about Randy rather than herself. Of course. Cal stuck with her game plan. “He also told me about Alan. About what really happened to Jenna. And what you know.”

  Brook continued to clean, intent on what she was doing. Cal took a glance around the studio apartment. It was neat and modern, unlike Jenna’s place. Lots of black, brass, and glass. Empty surfaces with a few accent pieces. Too stark for Cal’s taste. She was used to Starlight’s spiritual clutter and her own stacks of papers, mail, and magazines.

  “I don’t know what really happened,” Brook said, “since I wasn’t there. And this is Randy’s second story? Third? What’re we up to now? He always was a lying little shit.”

  Brook was cool and cagey, of course. Cal shifted on the barstool and made sure she had a clean line to draw. “Jenna was peddling drugs for you, but she didn’t want to do it any more—or didn’t want to expand your business. She refused to be pressured, you went to threaten her. You got Randy’s gun from their bedroom. Jenna tried to defend herself and you killed her.”

  That got Brook’s attention. Now she knew Cal wasn’t bluffing when she said Randy told her the whole story.

  Brook took a look around her apartment as if to emphasize that Cal was there alone, a subtle intimidation. “That’s quite the accusation. Like I said, Randy tells tall tales. I’m just a junior marketing tech, not a drug dealer.”

  “I think you’re both. Just like Pete Potoczek. Your supplier? Your partner?”

  Brook’s face remained bland, sweet and innocent. “Prince Petros? What does he have to do with it?”

  “He was dealing drugs too, wasn’t he?” Cal hadn’t really thought through all of the details, so she did some spitballing. “Maybe you were working with him…or maybe he got in your way too. Either way, he’s gone now, isn’t he?”

  Brook shook her head and ignored the topic of Potoczek. “Jenna. What a stupid girl.” She spat the words like a curse, and it seemed as if she’d decided to start talking some truth. “She dressed like a biker chick at the bar. Dressed in period on the weekends to play at the Renfaires. Puts on this tough front, fighting with sword and shield, like she’s all that. But when it comes down to it, she was just a stupid coward, and not even a skilled one.”

  Cal noticed how focused Brook had become on the target of her hatred, Jenna, even when she was dead and gone. “And you’re so different? Dressing like a fragile medieval lady. Acting so feminine, taking Jenna to church…you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You must be pretty strong to be able to twist her arm until it broke. Jenna wasn’t fragile.”

  Brook’s smile became hard and determined, and her eyes blazed suddenly, a transformation into a different person. “I am strong, stronger than Jenna. Stronger than you. But it isn’t just about strength. You ever hear of MMA? UFC? I thought about going pro for a while. It’s about skill, and will. My will is stronger than anyone’s. That’s what counts. What makes me better than the rest of you.”

  “You got Randy to confess to Jenna’s murder,” Cal said, startled but not surprised by the transformation. “But you couldn’t get Jenna to do everything you wanted, could you? In spite of the hold you thought you had over her, there was something she wouldn’t do for you. Some step too far. Murder?”

  Brook’s aspect altered again as she put down her cleaning implements and plucked a thin fillet knife from a holder nearby. She spun it casually in her fingers, no longer radiating anger. Now she seemed cold, clinical. “And where did refusing get her? She’s dead, and I got someone else to take care of Potoczek anyway. She should have obeyed me. She would have had her money and still been around to look after her son. Now…” She shrugged, as if Jenna’s death were a simple case of spilled milk.

  Apparently Brook had decided to speak openly of her crimes, believing nothing could be proven. Or perhaps intending to eliminate another witness with the knife she held. Cal turned away slightly and dropped her left hand to her hip as she thought through the implications of what Brook said.

  Realization blossomed in Cal’s mind as she reviewed what Brook just said. Killing Potoczek. That was what Brook had asked Jenna to do. The step Jenna refused to take. And it wasn’t a slip on Brook’s part. She wanted Cal to know. Like all narcissists, she wanted others to recognize how clever and powerful she was.

  “You’re right,” Cal said slowly. “It didn’t do Jenna any good. It left Alan without a mother. And you without a lover. Or, more to the point, without a servant, a dealer, a henchman.”

  Brook snorted. “She was just a tool. I can always find more. You’d be amazed at how easy it is, at how many people want to be used, how cheap they come. They’re interchangeable.”

  But Cal didn’t really believe Brook thought people were interchangeable, otherwise she wouldn’t feel so compelled to punish and denigrate those who’d crossed her, “And Randy? Now that he’s obviously not going to take the fall, don’t you want him back?” Of course not, but Cal was digging for a reaction.

  “Why would I want someone I already dumped?”

  “I heard it was the other way around. I heard he dumped you.”

  Brook’s hand tightened compulsively on the knife, and Cal was glad there was a peninsula bar between them. “No one dumps me!” Then she shrugged and smiled. “But he’ll go to jail anyway for lying to the cops. Besides, his life is destroyed. That’s satisfaction enough.”

  “But you weren’t satisfied with destroying Jenna’s life. You had to kill her, right? You lost it, blew her away because she wouldn’t murder Potoczek and let you, what, take over his business? After everything you’d done for her, and after you thought she’d do anything for you.”

  “That’s right,” Brook spat, shaking the knife like a trophy. “I gave her everything she wanted. Love. Sex. Money. Security. And she couldn’t do one little thing for me, whining about her conscience. I owned her, lock, stock, and barrel. She owed me everything. Telling me no was...”

  “Ungrateful? Selfish?”

  “Yes! The ungrateful, selfish bitch. Isn’t it typical, you do something for someone and they knife you in the back.” Brook punctuated her words with a stabbing motion.

  “Every time,” Cal agreed, eyes still on the blade. Her face felt hot and flushed, like that moment when she pushed all her chips in on a big bluff, the peak of danger. Maybe she should draw her weapon and back out of the apartment. She had enough for Homicide to consider Brook the prime suspect…but the game hadn’t played out yet. Cal was not one to leave the job undone.

  So Cal stayed, and spoke. “It was a mistake that led to her death.”

  “And yours.” Brook flipped the filet knife at Cal’s face. Cal jerked aside instinctively, the move so unexpected and the blade so unbalanced that it missed by a clear foot.

  But that gave Brook the chance to slip around the counter before Cal had a chance to draw. A slim, straight double-bladed dagger appeared in Brook’s hand. Cal hadn’t seen her pull it, hadn’t seen where it had been hidden.

  This was the knife Jenna had been trying to protect hersel
f from. Brook’s weapon of choice. Cal, still off-balance from dodging the throw, stumbled off her barstool. This turned out to be lucky, causing Brook’s economical thrust to miss.

  “Rostislav!” Cal shouted.

  Brook didn’t seem to notice the yell, but feinted at Cal’s eyes with her free hand while coming in under with the knife again.

  Cal reacted instinctively, moving to block the weapon but missing. It stabbed straight into her torso—and her Kevlar vest. It failed to penetrate the high-tech material.

  She grappled with Brook. The small woman’s muscles were like iron. Even though Brook had apparently manhandled the larger Jenna, it still surprised her.

  “Rostislav!” Cal yelled again, more of a scream this time, and chopped Brook weakly in the face with the heel of her hand.

  Brook merely grinned. “Pussy,” she said, slapping Cal’s block aside and slashing with her knife along Cal’s arm. The windbreaker took part of it, but Cal felt a hot line drawn along her skin and muscle.

  Cal kicked low, trying for the knee, taking a slash to the thigh for her trouble, but it gave her a chance to back up and grab a barstool, holding it in front of her with both hands. She contemplated trying to draw, but her right hand and the supporting ribs and musculature felt so limp and frail, she wouldn’t be able to hold the shield if she did.

  Brook seized one leg of the barstool and jerked it toward her, slashing and stabbing, forcing Cal to let go.

  God, I’m so stupid, Cal thought as Brook advanced toward her. Overconfidence, that’s your main problem, her father had told her more than once.

  Overconfidence had prompted her to follow Nina Stanger’s order to help defuse a bomb that almost killed her. It had gotten her into a dozen deadly situations that she barely got out of. Now, as Brook said, it was going to mean her death.

  Cal’s hand was dropping instinctively to her weapon as cop reactions took over, even while knowing she was too close. Twenty-one feet was the doctrinal distance needed to draw and fire. Anything inside that, and officers are trained to use close combat techniques instead—baton, hands, improvised weapons. Trying to draw a gun without enough time and space to fire only took focus off what was really important.

  Yet she did it, out of options in the small room.

  And, just as training showed she would, she failed.

  She had her hand around the grip and her finger on the holster release when the blade entered her side, below the edge of the Kevlar. Cal tried to scream, but the pain caused her to only whimper and fall. She tried to draw, but Brook kicked her hand away from her holster, and then plucked the gun from it.

  “I tried to tell you,” she said with a cruel grin as she wiped her knife on her sleeve and put it away in a forearm sheath hidden under her long-sleeved sweatshirt. “Nobody stands against me. I train long hours for situations like this. It’s too bad you’re a woman, though. I much prefer making men suffer. Women, I try to help. To raise up, to empower, to give opportunities to master their lives. So you see, in a way, I admire you. You stood up to me. Good for you. You’d have made a good employee in my growing empire, if only you knew your place. That’s the problem with you mundanes, you know. Nobody knows their FUCKING PLACE.” This last came out as a spitting scream.

  “Empire?” Cal gasped out, desperate to keep Brook talking. She felt the pain in her side dull slightly as she clutched it, trying to stem the bleeding. Where was Rostislav? She’d told him to—

  Cal’s phone buzzed once, then stopped. She reached for it, but Brook took it and flipped it open to look, and then pushed the cancel button to send the call to voice mail. “Sorry, nobody home,” she singsonged, tossing the phone aside. “Surprised anything got through at all. Reception sucks in this apartment. I actually like it that way. Good excuse to dodge calls I don’t want.”

  A loud knock came on the door.

  Brook’s eyes narrowed. “Keep quiet or I’ll shoot you in the face with your own gun.”

  The knock came again, more of a pounding.

  Brook moved over to put her eye to the peephole.

  Cal took an agonized breath and shouted, “Rostislav, help!”

  The door exploded inward, knocking Brook backward. The gun went flying, but Brook rolled to her feet and whipped her blade from its sheath.

  Rostislav stepped into the room, Tokarev pistol dwarfed in one giant fist. He pointed it at Brook. “Put knife down, little girl.”

  Brook spat deliberately, blood and spittle landing at Rostislav’s feet. “So Corwin isn’t as stupid as I thought, but she’s just as pathetic. She needs a man to pull her sweet little ass out of the fire. A man with a gun. What do you weigh, big man? Three-fifty?”

  “So so.”

  “And you need that gun against me?”

  “Rosti, no!” Cal gasped. “Don’t play her game!” Like I did? Do as I say, not as I do.

  Hypocrisy can get you killed, her father once said.

  He might still turn out to be right.

  Rostislav showed his teeth and reversed the gun to place it on the floor. He then slid it to Cal, who picked it up awkwardly in her mangled hands. “No worry, Cal. If I cannot handle one such suka, put me in ground.”

  “That’s more like it.” Brook slid forward like her Dancer surname, blade floating. “And thanks for busting down my door. It will make setting up a nice self-defense scene so much easier. You two break in, a disgraced ex-cop and a Russian thug, each with a gun. Against all odds, the pretty young girl manages to kill them both. News at eleven.”

  “You are full of fantasy.” Rostislav took up a boxer’s stance and walked forward, feinting with stolid jabs. “Once I get my hands on you, I vill break you.”

  “Movie quotes won’t save you,” said Brook, stepping in under a jab to aim her blade at the big man’s armpit, moving like lightning.

  Rostislav’s reaction, though slower, was much faster than Cal expected, and she realized he’d been sandbagging. Instead of trying to block or avoid, he let the knife go into his ham-sized biceps and clamped down, trapping Brook’s hand and arm. With his other hand, he whipped his palm across her jaw with an audible crack, and her head lolled.

  He let go with his clamping arm enough to allow Brook to slide to the floor, unconscious, and he reached up under to draw out the blade from his flesh. “I keep this for trophy. Only woman to put knife into me. Very dangerous girl.”

  “Yes she is, and no, you can’t keep the blade. It’s evidence. She’s got more accomplices and I need her arrested and questioned and sewn up tight.” Cal groaned. “Call an ambulance, will you?”

  Rostislav dropped the blade point-first to stick in the hardwood floor and sank to his knees beside Cal, his arm clamped to his side to retard the bleeding. “Sorry, solnyshko. You are hurt?”

  “Ambulance.”

  Rostislav fumbled for his cell phone and dialed. “No service, this place. I try to call you before, no bars.” He looked around.

  “I don’t think she has a landline,” said Cal, nodding at the wall and the empty phone socket.

  “I must go find signal.” Rostislav dragged Brook one-handed to prop her against the sliding glass balcony door, across the room from Cal. “If she wake up, shoot her.” He retrieved his own gun and holstered it, and placed Cal’s in her hands.

  Cal braced her pistol and nodded. “Go fast and come back.”

  When Rostislav’s heavy tread had retreated down the stairs, Brook’s eyes popped open. “For a big man, he hits like a bitch,” she said, reaching up to belie her words by rubbing her jaw. “I’ve been punched harder by Catholic schoolgirls.”

  “Don’t you even move,” Cal grated, holding the gun steady.

  “Or what? You’ll shoot an unarmed woman who’s already been beaten up by a man? Yeah, that’s gonna play well with the cops.” Brook rolled to her knees and to face away. “Go ahead, shoot me in the back. I don’t think you’ll be able to explain it.” She held up both hands in a pantomime of stick-’em-up. “No? Well, I think t
his is my cue to exit stage left.” She reached for the balcony door handle and flipped up the catch.

  “Stay where you are!”

  “Or what?” Brook giggled and slid open the glass door. “Bye, sweetie. Catch you later.”

  Cal ground her teeth and struggled not to pull the trigger, but she was no murderer, and as a civilian, without immediate threat to life and limb, she had no legal right to blow Brook away. At least not in California, and particularly not in San Francisco.

  Maybe she should move to Texas, where “she needed killing” was a credible defense.

  Then Brook was gone.

  Meat ran in the open door, gun in hand. “Cal!”

  “Balcony. Girl. Killer,” Cal choked out.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied. “It’s Brook.”

  Meat swore and ran after Brook. He blundered through the balcony door, shoving it the rest of the way open, and swore again. “She went over the edge,” he yelled.

  “Where’s Manson?”

  “Back of the building. Not close enough to the balcony to see her go over. It was too high, we didn’t think she could…”

  “She can. Do you see her?” Cal tried to make sense of what he was telling her. Did Brook fall?

  “Climbed down the balconies below until she got low enough to jump and run away. Like a damn spider monkey! Most women don’t have that much upper-body strength.” His tone was apologetic. Cal knew what that meant. Manson hadn’t caught her at the bottom.

  “Where’d you come from anyway?” Cal said, her adrenaline high starting to fade and her vision graying.

  “Mickey called, told us. You shouldn’t have come here alone, Cal.”

  “Not alone. Rostislav…”

  As if on cue, Rostislav stomped up the steps. “Ambulance on way, Cal,” he said as he entered and stopped short at the sight of Meat, gun in hand. “Hello, little guy.”

  Meat grinned. “You’re the only man that can call me that.” He put away his hand cannon.

  “If you guys are done with the bromance, I could use a pillow,” Cal said, groaning.

  Both lunged for the love seat and nearly fought over a throw pillow before Meat snaked it away and under Cal’s head. “You just take it easy, Cal. You’ll be back in the hospital in no time.”