Corpses Say the Darndest Things: A Nod Blake Mystery

by Doug Lamoreux

  *

  This was exactly the situation I did NOT want to be in. Love was no Adonis or Kratos, but he was muscled and mean; not to mention ten years younger and crazier than hell. Back in the good old days, the night I'd busted him for his last long prison stint, he'd bitten off – and swallowed – the finger of one of the jail attendants placing him in his cell. Physically, I guess, it wasn't that big a trick, less than an ounce of raw meat plus the index distal phalanx (the fingertip bone to the first knuckle). But hell! It still gave me the willies.

  Now I chased Eddie into what, at first, looked to be a poorly lit junk yard but, going in after him, turned out to be the back forty of a tile and brick stoneworks. I slowed down because I'd lost sight of him in a labyrinth of shadowed hiding places. Brick, any color you want to name, but heavy on reds, browns, and whites, in stack after stack of varying heights, all along the fence row and projecting in, five yards there, ten yards there, twenty there, back to the street to the right and for as far as the eye could see into the lot to the left. Not that you could see far; I've been in vaginas that were better lit (pardon my French). I paused trying to let my eyes adjust again to their new surroundings and, (okay, I admit it), trying to summon a little courage. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't afraid of the wayward cowboy. I'd whipped him before and enjoyed it. I was afraid of the creepy murdering rat-bastard, with no inkling of right or wrong, using the dark as cover. There were a million hiding places, uncounted tons of brick weapons, and a hundred places I'd have rather been just then. I moved into the yard and the stacked brick fence line behind me became an expansive miniature skyline.

  I passed a collection of concrete cisterns, looking like sepulchers, stacked atop each other on pallets and slipped into the shadows of a group of trees growing like an oasis just off-center in the lot. In the distance, the lights of a few stray cars glinted as they made their way through the neighborhood, then quickly disappeared. The brick yard was as quiet as a tomb and, though I'd slowed to a crawl, my heart was racing and I could feel the blood thundering at my temples.

  The yard's interior was more of the same, stacks of bricks, tiles, shingles, bags of mortar, concrete, sand, and gravel, a city of building material, all stacked in imposing squares, rounded heaps, or rising in mini towers into the dark night. All were segregated again by use, color, and design, separated by gravel lanes wide enough for semi tractors to maneuver their flatbeds. Leaving the Greek myths and nodding to the Romans, the place seemed a shopping mall for Hercules. The feeling was heightened by an empty flatbed with a rounded red cab sitting immobile as a sleeping monster in the shadows to my distant right. Another, with a yellow cab, lurked nearby to my left waiting for the motion that morning would bring. Somewhere beyond, behind, beside them, Love was hiding with murderous intent and hunting for him in that maze was like looking for a pool cue with one end.

  Ignoring the notion he might be hunting me, I stealthily made my way. I entered a section of the grounds roughly fashioned into thinner mini-streets fronted by stone hills, masonry mountains, and endless walls of displayed designer brick. I should have paid more attention to the bricks because, when I passed, they were full of people. One of them, Love I'm guessing, came out playing magician and doing a trick; he tried to pass a metal bar through my head. It was probably a crowd pleaser but I was too busy falling to be sure.

  The whole world had Chicago confused with Las Vegas and my head confused with a one-armed bandit; every player in town was hitting it. Which brought to mind (for the ump-teenth time during that caper), the stereotype of seeing stars when you're hit on the bean. The question was, do you? The answer, sisters and brothers, is: the universe belongs to you. As I fell I saw millions of them glistening brilliantly, and their orbiting planets, moons, and hurtling comets, salting the air (I'd never have seen pepper in that night sky) above, and reflected on the glassy surface of the deep black lake into which I was falling. Then came a crash like the shatter of glass and all the stars fell with me.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I woke to muted rock and roll, the Stones playing Shattered somewhere in the distance. I was still in the brick yard, surprised to be alive, and alarmed to look down and see my face fractured. Not to feel it, to see it, busted into a hundred pieces. That blew my mind. I lifted my head, amazed it came up in one piece, and stared down to see I'd been laying on a broken mirror. Dizzy, I stood, staggered like a sot and, finding my balance, limped to the street fence line. I saw the red and blue lights of squad cars away but closing in. In on what? Me? If so, why? Who'd called them? They had to pass the yard to get to the gate. I ducked out of sight with a bad feeling building. Something told me to get out of there without meeting the boys in blue. The Stones faded and, as distantly, AC/DC came on warning me I was on the Highway To Hell. Like I didn't know.

  Once the cops had passed, I scaled the fence and used the shadows to get away from the brick yard. I tried to think along the way. I assumed of course that it had been Love who brained me. Likewise, I assumed (though I didn't know) it was Love that had called the police on me. Putting me in the barrel was starting to become somebody's habit and just then Eddie was heavy on my mind and suspected of everything. Mind you, I had no clue if any of my thinking involved facts, made sense, or was merely part of the brain damage I feared I'd suffered, and added to, as a result of my clumsy snooping.

  Disoriented, my noggin thumping, I hugged the shadows until an opportunity presented itself to stumble in front of a cab. The poor startled driver managed not to hit me. I wrestled the door open, fell into the back, and returned the favor by trying not to bleed on the seat. You'd think he might have appreciated the effort, but no. He called me a number of names implying doubt in my heritage, sexual orientation, and sanity, then bitched me out for running into his path. He had a valid complaint so I let him rant, ignoring him until his lips stopped moving. Then I told him to take me to a pay phone.

  “Stupid son of a bitch,” he said, winding up. “You're lucky you're not dead.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “aren't we all that way.”

  Through clenched teeth, quashing my own crappy disposition and rewording it into a polite request, I repeated my need for a phone. He didn't seem all that willing, mad as he still was, but once I dropped a couple of dead presidents onto the seat beside him he put the cab into motion. He even waited while I made the call. While I dialed, slowly, the numbers going in and out of focus, two more squads raced by. I showed them my back and listened to the phone ring.

  Finally, it picked up. “Gina. It's Blake.” The church secretary asked a groggy question, then an excited one, while I caught my breath. “No,” I told her. “I'm not. I need your help. I need to see you. No, I can get there. Give me the address.”

  *

  The cab made a circle at the end of a long, ill-lit, and all but deserted culvert and stopped. I tipped the driver to ensure all was forgiven and we were life-long pals then oozed out in front of the address Gina had given me; surprisingly, just a stone's throw from Market Street and the home of the late Riaz family, the scene of my most recent arrest, most recent mental freak-out and, excluding tonight's club to the brain, most recent brush with death. In other words, too close for comfort. It was a large apartment house of red brick, painted gray when Pocahontas was a papoose and now all-but faded back to red. It rose six stories while the rest of the places on the dead end block, small mom and pop businesses and a scant few residences, had either been abandoned or leveled. Having begun a misguided attempt at renewal, the city had lost interest it appeared and moved on without a backward glance. It stood like the last grave marker in an ancient cemetery. I tried to picture the sexy secretary, and her long legs, in this moldering red-gray tombstone but she wouldn't feature. But what did I know? How much did a church staffer make anyway? In the distance behind the apartment building, beyond a wide and overgrown empty lot, stood a foreboding conglomeration of connected square buildings with a tower at its center black against the cloudy night sky. If m
emory served they made up what once had been an old brewery long since closed down. A recycling company had moved into portions and, to the best of my knowledge, the rats had claimed the rest. The eerie set-piece behind seemed a fitting backdrop for the lonely apartments.

  With a last admonition that I, “Watch where the hell you're goin' next time,” the driver revved his cab's engine and left me. Aching beyond my ability to describe it, particularly between my ears, I limped toward the apartment building. I passed between two concrete planters decorated with flowers and garden rocks on either side of the entryway steps. I would never have noticed before but lately rocks interested me. Each contained pea gravel, six large gray and black stones arranged in what, if my head hadn't hurt so badly, would have been an aesthetically pleasing configuration around red flowers. No, I don't know what kind of flowers they were.

  The lobby was wider than it needed to be with two used tables, three comfy-looking easy chairs, lots of scattered old newspapers and magazines, and a mop of gray hair atop a front desk clerk who batted an eye, just one, as I passed then returned to whatever it was he was reading without any indication of having been moved in any way. A door on the right claimed there were stairs beyond. I took its word for it but continued by. Stairs were out of the question. Beyond stood an elevator, open and waiting. I didn't like elevators. As a rule they left my stomach on the ground floor. But, all things considered, I was grateful for this one. I sank against the inside wall, took a second to make out the fuzzy fourth floor button, and gave it a push. I expected a quick trip in the direction of the angels. Instead the lift growled like an angry demon and, slowly, began an upward trudge. I cursed my luck, finally reached the fourth floor with my life, and escaped the trap elevator swearing `never again'.

  Hunched in pain, I sagged against the frame when Gina opened her apartment door. My suit was trashed and I could feel the skin tighten as the blood coagulated and dried on the side of my face.

  “Heavens, Blake!” she gasped. “What happened to you?”

  “Ran into an old grudge.”

  “Come in. You look terrible.” She looked lovely in a soft blue robe with a show of pink jammies at collar and cuffs and mere hints at what lay beneath. I know, disgusting of me to have noticed but, really, I wasn't dead. Then again forget my noticing. There was nothing I was going to do about it because, let's face it, I was almost dead. She gave me her shoulder and, with it, a shock of static electricity that dilated my eyes. Touching Gina, touching anybody, was quickly moving down on the list of things I wanted to do. She didn't seem to notice the jolt as she ushered me into her living room and helped me to the couch. “What were you doing, trying to convince someone you were Sylvester Stallone? Let's sit you down,” she said, “before you fall down.”

  Barely had my bruised butt dented the cushion than she told me the police were looking for someone of my description. She'd turned her scanner on after I'd called. My brain was too scrambled to even wonder at a devotee of Reverend Delp having a police scanner. It had no time to unscramble because immediately after she asked if it was me. Then, swear to God, she asked if I killed Katherine Delp? It was quite a leap but that wasn't the end, in fact it was only the beginning. From there she quickly ran the gamut. I could hardly keep up. Did I kill the Riazs? Nick Nikitin? Nick's brother? She worked herself up to near hysterics and it took almost more effort than I had to follow. It's no fun defending yourself against unfounded charges. Try it when your head is playing snow globe.

  I denied all, of course, and eventually, shakily, managed to calm Gina enough that she could put two and two together. With some simple math under her belt (even her soft velour belt) Gina could see it was all nonsense and accepted my side of the story. Trust me, with all I'd been through that night, that week, it was nice to be believed even if only grudgingly. She relaxed.

  I needed to. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “Apple juice. Milk. Hot chocolate?”

  To look at her from the outside you'd have sworn she was an adult. “It's quicker,” I told her, “if you just say, No.”

  “Is that your hair,” Gina asked, reaching, “or is there a lump under there?” She touched the back of my head.

  Katherine Delp screamed. No, not from the grave, and not out loud. Gina touched me and, in that instant, Katherine screamed in my head. She screamed, then went silent as death, her scream replaced, overwhelmed by those of Nicholas and John Nikitin as they too died horribly – all over again. I saw nothing while this was happening, nothing but a blinding flash of blue-white light as if I'd been struck by lightning. Then my vision, my extra vision, my psycho-vision cleared. I was standing on the dimly lit street… outside of the Riaz house. I heard an engine rev. An engine? The engine. Geez, not again! This time I screamed.

  “Don't be a sissy.”

  I winced, groaning at the real pain in my head and, as the vibrations of the imagined pains ebbed, opened my eyes and turned to glower at Gina. It seemed that it had been her touch that had sent me away… away to Market Street or wherever my cross-wired mind had gone. It was her voice that had called me back to her apartment. Her voice that had… called me a sissy.

  “I'll get some ice.” She disappeared, rattled things, slammed things, shook things in another room and returned with a bag of ice. She started for my head but I threw up a hand to stop her. In no hurry to repeat the performance of Traumatic Murder Theater on the stage inside my skull, I smiled my appreciation, thanked her, and applied the ice to my head on my own.

  “Let's get this off of you,” she said, then helped me remove my jacket; a painful operation that took longer than you'd think. As she chucked the ruined coat away, out of the blue, she asked, “You don't carry a gun?”

  I spend a lot of time in left field by myself but that question caught even me off guard. When I recovered, I told her, “You sound disappointed.”

  “Of course not,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed and blushing rose. “It's just with your being a policeman…”

  “I was a cop,” I told her. “I used to be a baby. I don't carry a bottle anymore either.”

  “There are some subjects,” she said, “you're a little touchy about, aren't there? Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before you bleed all over my couch. Can you make it to the bathroom or…?”

  “I'm fine to walk.”

  Gina's bathroom was as light and filled with fragrance as you could possibly imagine. A lug like me had no business there. I stood facing a brilliantly lit mirror with Gina behind helping me off with my shirt. Amid the many bruises she saw, and unexpectedly touched, was an old raised circular scar on the upper right of my back. Electricity shot through me again. This time, it was not the fast boat I'd been taking (too frequently) across the river Styx and into hell. It was merely the jolt that springs when the time, the touch, is right between a man and a woman. My reaction, for the first time since I'd entered her apartment, was not one of pain. I took a breath. “What's that?” she asked.

  I stared into the mirror and stiffly answered, “It was a bullet hole.”

  “You were shot? You don't like to talk about it?”

  “There's nothing to talk about,” I told her. “It was a bullet hole. Now it's just another scar.” I was having trouble concentrating. My head was spinning, for several different reasons, and she was not helping the situation. “Do you have any acetaminophen?”

  Gina slipped around me, her left breast brushing my arm, and searched the medicine cabinet. She extracted a bottle and, holding it up, apologetically asked, “Ibuprofen?”

  I carefully, sadly, shook my head. “I'm allergic.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Do you know Eddie Love?” I asked.

  The early morning had moved on and, cleaned and bandaged, I had moved with Gina into her living room. Like her, it was too attractive for the neighborhood it was in. Dehydrated, thirsty, and without palatable options, I settled on black coffee and we settled into her couch. “I've never heard the name,�
�� she said, pouring me a topper. “Who's he?”

  “Doesn't matter. I'm just knocking down the cobwebs.” She didn't know it, but not knowing Love was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  “Does he have something to do with the condition you arrived in?”

  “Forget it,” I told her. I didn't know for certain why I was there. It had seemed the place to go when I was injured. Once there, I'd started thinking of this blonde creature in a heavily social way, if you get my drift. But, now I was a welcomed guest, I felt like a private dick again with a thousand questions racing through my brain and the desire (like the need for food and water) to interrogate an important witness, no matter how luscious, at my fingertips. Feeling it, I also felt a corresponding mood change. When I'm in that mood, I don't answer questions, I ask them. And the first rule of detecting is don't loiter in the asking. Time and pace are tools, like chisels and wrenches, for prying lids and tightening down thumbscrews. For free I'll warn you, sisters and brothers, beware of detectives making polite conversation. No such beast exists. Suddenly, without meaning to, I was pressing Gina. “Let's switch to Reggie Riaz. He told me he'd never missed a crusade.”

  She smiled like she was doing a toothpaste commercial. “He was old faithful, all right.”

  “Gina, Reggie and Rocio were not with the crusade the night Katherine was killed.”

  She looked a question, then turned her gaze inward, giving it some thought. Finally she nodded in agreement. “That's right, they weren't. Rocio was sick. I remember thinking how sweet it was, Reggie staying behind to take care of her.”

  “Riaz lied to me.”