7 Brides for 7 Bodies

by Stephanie Bond

  “Call and raise fifty,” Wes said, pushing the bills forward. Playing with a clear head for the first time in a long time gave him a renewed appreciation for getting clean. He was firing on all cylinders and the cards had fallen his way all night.

  The cook pointed his chin at Wes. “Hey, man, are you related to that fugitive named Wren the police brought down?”

  Wes straightened. “He’s my dad.”

  “You’re lyin’,” Snappy said.

  “Nope.”

  They were all staring at him.

  “Are you some kind of crime family?” Plaid asked.

  “I’ve seen the inside of the city lockup,” Wes said casually. He didn’t add that he’d been scared to death and had taught the other inmates how to play poker to distract them from how beat-upable he was. To add to his street cred, he gave a knowing nod all around. “I work for a loan shark called The Carver.”

  Snappy and Plaid’s heads pivoted to the cook.

  “You didn’t say he was an ex-con.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was strange that he was getting great cards all night.”

  “I want my money back.”

  “Yeah, I want my money back, too.”

  The cook leveled a dark gaze on Wes, then retrieved a cleaver from the cutting board behind him. “I think we all want our money back.”

  Panic blipped through Wes’s chest. “Wait a minute, fellas. I don’t cheat. And I’m not an ex-con. I was arrested, but I got community service, for God’s sake.”

  Plaid narrowed his eyes. “You don’t cheat, huh? Show us your cards.”

  Wesley swallowed. He’d gotten the straight flush fair and square, but it wasn’t going to look that way.

  He tossed his cards at them, grabbed two handfuls of wadded bills in the center of the table, and sprinted for the back door. Just as he flung it open, the meat cleaver imbedded in the wood next to his head with a thwack. He preferred to believe the cook had missed on purpose, but didn’t stop to ask.

  He darted across the dark parking lot with the sound of pounding feet closing in behind him. Wes decided Plaid must’ve played football in high school the way the guy caught up to him and slammed him down on the asphalt. And Snappy must’ve played soccer because he delivered a pretty decent kick to the ribs. And the cook must’ve been a volleyball star the way he picked up Wes and spiked him into a dumpster.

  He landed face down and spread-eagled in something wet and foul but—thankfully—soft.

  Wes lay still, listening. The guys mumbled and cursed as they gathered the scattered bills. Someone kicked the dumpster, sending a gonging vibration through his entire body. Their voices faded as they made their way back to the pub.

  Wes gingerly lifted his head and rolled over, wincing at the sharp pain in his side. Once he pulled the rancid remains of salad from his face, the view of the stars in a cobalt blue sky was actually pretty nice. He decided to lie there for a few minutes and think about the gorgeous straight flush he’d been holding—that kind of magic didn’t happen often.

  In his pocket, his phone vibrated. Thinking it might be Coop again, he dug it out.

  It was Meg.

  Call him selfish, but he wanted to hear her voice. He connected the call and brought the phone to his ear. “Hi, there.”

  “Hi, yourself,” she said sourly. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

  “Nah,” he lied, then settled back into a day’s worth of food sludge. “How’s Aruba?”

  “Hot...and not as lush as you might think. It’s like a big desert.”

  “A big desert surrounded by turquoise waters and pink skies?”

  “Well, there’s that.”

  “Are you having a good time with your folks?”

  “Not particularly. I miss you...some.”

  His heart pinched. “You’re just bored.”

  “That’s probably it,” she agreed. “What are you into?”

  He lifted his free hand and slung off a clump of mashed potatoes. “All kinds of fun.”

  “Nothing new, huh?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her his father was home after years of being on the lam, then he heard her name being called in the background.

  “I have to go,” she said with a sigh. “My parents are dragging me to some kind of musical and then to dinner.”

  Dinner and a show with his parents sounded like heaven on earth. “Bummer.”

  “We get back late Sunday, so I guess I’ll see you Monday at work?”

  His day of reckoning, when he had to come clean about his impending fatherhood. “Guess so.”

  “Okay...bye then.”

  “Bye,” he said on an exhale, then ended the call. His nose wrinkled. The special of the day must’ve been shrimp gumbo. He lifted his sleeve for a sniff—no, crawfish.

  Wesley stared up at the stars and imagined he was half a world away, lying on the beach with Meg, with the scent of hibiscus flowers in the air. He missed her, too—present- and future-tense...because even when she got back to Atlanta, she was long gone to him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DUSK WAS STARTING TO descend as Hannah angled the Audi into a spot at a curb in a trendy West End neighborhood. Lights poured from the entrance of a 1960s-era apartment building. A police cruiser and Coop’s van were parked on the lawn near the front door.

  Hannah was out of the car practically before it stopped moving, but Carlotta understood how she felt—her pulse was elevated, too. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed being part of the exclusive club of body movers.

  Even though—as Coop had informed Hannah on the phone—the death wasn’t suspicious and he only needed a second person on the scene as a formality, it was still more interesting than sitting at home waiting for Randolph to call.

  Although she worried where Wesley was and what he was doing that would cause him to miss a call from Coop. She hoped he wasn’t in the gutter with Liz—ugh.

  “Do you think it’s a suicide?” Hannah asked, practically skipping. “Or a dog mauling? Or maybe it was bad hamburger—I heard on the news there was another recall.”

  “Take the enthusiasm down a notch,” Carlotta chided as they approached the door where a uniformed officer stood guard. “This is the worst day ever for this person’s family.”

  “You’re right—sorry.”

  They showed the cop the morgue ID’s Coop had given them. “Second floor,” he said, then stepped aside to allow them into the foyer.

  They took the stairs. A small knot of people stood awkwardly in the tiled hallway, one woman in particular looking distraught and stroking the head of a black terrier. The group stared toward a door where another uniformed officer lounged against the frame, talking on his cell phone. When Carlotta and Hannah walked up, he gave them an appreciative once-over and dropped the phone from his mouth. “Can I help you?”

  “We’re here for the body,” Hannah said, her voice low and dramatic, as if they were auditioning for a TV show.

  The cop’s eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

  “We work for the morgue,” Carlotta corrected, then held up her ID. “Cooper Craft is expecting us.”

  The officer looked dubious, but let them pass.

  When they stepped inside the apartment, Hannah’s phone rang. She cursed, but pulled it from her bag. “It’s Chance, let me tell him I’m going to be late.”

  Carlotta nodded, hiding her amusement that Hannah was answering to anyone, much less Fat Boy.

  The apartment was a little shabby, Carlotta noticed, but it had good bones—high ceilings and wood floors and tall windows. The decor was trendy and masculine and straight from the pages of a Crate & Barrel catalog, so she gauged the occupant as a thirty-something male. And from the sparse amount of furnishings, she guessed he lived alone.

  Had he also died alone?

  A framed photograph on a bookshelf caught her eye. In it, a handsome man had his arm around a pretty girl—they were dressed up for some event and were smiling wide. S
omething about them seemed familiar, but she finally decided it was the kind of happy photo that came in every picture frame.

  “Back here,” called a voice she recognized as Coop’s.

  She moved in the direction of the pleasant sound and found him standing in the doorway of a bathroom, holding a clipboard. Cooper Craft was tall and lean and had a ready smile for her. “Hi, there.”

  “Hello yourself.”

  The last time she’d seen Coop, she had been at Peter’s house, on the verge of leaving for the Vegas trip that had been pre-empted by The Charmed Killer’s attack and subsequent arrest.

  “For someone who’s been through as much as you have, you look...” He reached up and pretended to adjust his glasses. “Good.”

  She smiled. “Right back at you.”

  He dipped his chin. “I guess we’ve both had our trials lately.”

  They shared an understanding and somewhat wistful glance. There was a time when Carlotta had thought something deeper than friendship might flower between them, but she and Coop suffered from a case of terrible timing.

  “Hiya,” Hannah said behind them.

  Coop looked past Carlotta and pivoted his body to block the doorway. “Um, ma’am, you shouldn’t be in here.”

  Carlotta bit back a smile as Hannah rolled her eyes. “Coop, for fuck’s sake, it me.”

  His jaw dropped. “Hannah?”

  “I’m in disguise,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Long story.”

  Coop looked at Carlotta, and she gave a tiny shrug.

  Hannah clapped her hands together. “What have we got?”

  Coop recovered and opened the bathroom door wider to reveal the body of the man from the photo lying on his back, dressed in moto coated Diesel jeans and a crisp Theory button-up shirt. The scent of his cologne—Jarold Jett’s fragrance, unless she was mistaken—still hung in the air.

  “His name is Greg Pena,” Coop said. “Thirty-two years old, looks like he fell and hit the back of his head on the tub. He has a goose egg.”

  “Fell?” Carlotta asked.

  “Slipped on something maybe.” Coop gestured to the smooth soles of the man’s Cole Haan loafers. “There’s a dried sticky substance on the floor over there.”

  The bathroom sink was littered with grooming products. Carlotta saw something white sticking out from under the shower curtain gathered to one side of the tub. She bent to retrieve it. “Cap from the mouthwash bottle,” she said, pointing to the open bottle on the sink. She set the cap on the corner of the aged tub.

  “He fell on spilled mouthwash?” Hannah asked. “If I die like that, promise me you’ll make up a better story.”

  “I’ll make sure you get a spectacular headline,” Carlotta said, then looked up at Coop. “Maybe he didn’t slip. He could’ve passed out for some reason.”

  Coop nodded. “Maybe he was diabetic, or dehydrated. Regardless, it looks like a fluke accident. If he’d fallen a few inches to the right or left, it might not have been fatal.”

  “Could someone have hit him on the back of the head?” she asked.

  His mouth twitched, then he pointed to a dried brownish smudge on the edge of the tub. “Looks like that’s the point of contact.” He gave her a wink. “Sorry, Sherlock, this one seems cut-and-dried.”

  Duly chastised, she bit her lip and nodded.

  “Who found him?” Hannah asked.

  “A neighbor lady. His dog was barking and she knew something was wrong.”

  The teary lady holding the terrier. “How did she get in?” Carlotta asked.

  He shrugged. “She must’ve had a key—maybe she dog sat for him. Does it matter?”

  “I suppose not.” Carlotta nursed a barb of sadness for the handsome man who was only a couple of years older than she. Single, she deduced from the bare ring finger on his left hand, although the woman in the picture seemed special. One minute he was getting ready to go out—perhaps on a date...and the next minute he was mortally wounded by the porcelain-covered cast iron bathtub in his rental. So much for the good bones in this mid-century building—a newer apartment would’ve had a less lethal acrylic tub insert.

  “I’ll get the gurney,” Coop said.

  “We can go ahead and bag the body,” Hannah offered, picking up the thick gray plastic bag folded neatly nearby.

  Coop hesitated. “Can you manage, Carlotta?”

  She rubbed her healing shoulder. “I think so. If not, we’ll wait for you to return.”

  “Okay.” He handed her the set of body tags he’d filled out. “Keep an eye out for family. You know what to do.”

  She nodded, although she was instantly nervous when he left. Dealing with dead bodies on a death scene was one thing—dealing with live bodies on a death scene was something else altogether.

  “Let’s do this,” Hannah said. She tossed Carlotta a pair of latex gloves and snapped on a pair herself, then unfurled the heavy body bag. “I’ll lift if you tag the body.”

  Carlotta swallowed—she’d never handled that little detail before. She scanned the set of three perforated tags Coop had handed her. On each he had printed in neat capital letters the name of the deceased, the address, the date, and the time. The first tag indicated “Attach to Bag.” That one she tore away and slipped into a little plastic window on the stiff body bag that smelled like a new shower curtain.

  The second tag read “Attach to Toe.” She grimaced—that one would be affixed at the morgue.

  The last one specified “Attach to Personal Effects,” which was more applicable if the deceased had become separated from his clothing, wallet, or jewelry at a hospital or at the scene of an automobile accident. Carlotta left the second and third tags connected to each other and, crouching over the still form of Greg Pena, she gently tied the string of the tags through a tiny buttonhole in his shirt. Beneath her fingers, the smooth skin of his chest was cold, indicating his heart had stopped beating some time ago. Overcome, she blinked back sudden tears. What they did was a necessary and honorable service, but the randomness of death sometimes took her breath away.

  However, since Greg Pena deserved her professionalism, she pulled herself together.

  Even Hannah, with all her bravado, moved her hands hesitantly before finding a hold on his shoulder and belt loop to angle his body enough to allow Carlotta to maneuver the unzipped bag beneath him. The space in the bathroom was tight, but through a series of tilts and scoots, they were able to get the bag around him. Hannah started to zip it closed, and got all the way to his pale face before she stopped.

  “I’ll let Coop close it,” she said. “He might need to do something...else.” She sat back on her heels and surveyed the bathroom covered with white ceramic subway tile. “What do you think about this apartment?”

  “It’s nice. Why?”

  “I’m looking for a place to rent.”

  Carlotta raised an eyebrow. “Aside from this being an incredibly inappropriate topic of conversation over the body of the current occupant, I thought you were shacking up with Chance.”

  Hannah made a face. “He’s crowding me. And the matrimonial melee at the bride Expo has me a little spooked—that event would be a good setting for a horror flick.”

  From the direction of the entrance, a commotion sounded. Carlotta heard raised voices—a man’s and...two women? One female voice was strident and agitated.

  “She has to go in there! Get out of our way!”

  They must have succeeded in pushing past the officer because the sound of determined footsteps grew louder. Carlotta and Hannah both scrambled to their feet. But in their haste to get out of the bathroom, they became entangled like Velma and Daphne on a Scooby Doo cartoon and went down on the tiled floor.

  When Carlotta looked up from her sprawled position, two red-faced, pony-tailed women in exercise garb were staring down at them.

  “Who are you?” the woman in front demanded. Then she looked past them at the bagged body and screamed.

  The other woman turned he
r from the sight and hugged her, shushing and patting. When Carlotta made eye contact with the second woman, she gasped.

  “Tracey?” As in, Mrs. Dr. Lowenstein. Although the woman was practically unrecognizable without her fully made up face and perfectly coiffed hair.

  The woman’s eyes bugged from her blotchy face. “Carlotta? What on earth are you doing here?”

  Tracey’s voice was accusatory, as if Carlotta somehow were to blame for the incident itself. She picked herself up as elegantly as she could manage and dusted herself off. “I’m, uh...working.” She signaled Hannah frantically to close the bathroom door.

  Tracey’s face went stony. “Oh, right...you mentioned your morbid little part-time job.”

  Carlotta tried to ignore the disgust that rolled off the woman like a cloud. “Are you a friend of Mr. Pena’s?”

  “Greg is Iris’s fiancé,” Tracey said, still patting the other woman.

  “Was,” Hannah said helpfully as she closed the door.

  The sobbing increased in decibels and suddenly Carlotta realized why the woman in the photograph had looked familiar—she was the woman who’d been with Tracey at the Wedding World Expo.

  “I’m so sorry,” Carlotta murmured as Coop strode up behind the women, his mouth set in a grim line.

  Iris lifted her head. “What h-h-happened to Greg?”

  “Mouthwash mishap,” Hannah supplied.

  “Ma’am,” Cooper cut in smoothly, giving Hannah a warning glance, “if you’ll come into the other room, Officer Merritt will answer your questions.” He gently guided Iris away from the scene, letting her lean heavily on his capable arm.

  When they were out of earshot, Tracey turned a condemning glare on Carlotta. “So it’s true—you actually handle dead bodies?”

  “Um, I help to move them...yes.”

  Tracey made a revolted noise. “Can’t someone else do that?”

  “Yes, but I don’t mind.”