Cold

by Robert J. Crane

“Slay Queen,” he said, almost under his breath.

  Holloway fixed him with an icy glare. “She hasn’t killed anyone yet today, kid.”

  “That you know of,” I said. “And the day ain’t over.” I turned back to Sam. “Did our guy on the phone tell you what this was about?”

  Sam nodded slowly. “I didn’t have to look it up. I remember that funeral.”

  I looked over the cemetery. There had to be ten thousand plots, maybe more, in this place. “You remember that specific funeral?” I blinked a couple times. “For that specific Jane Doe?”

  Sam caught my implication. “Heh. I know, you’re thinking, ‘He’s old; how does he remember that?’ But I do, because of the specific circumstances around it. See, something not many folks know—we get a lot of rain around here—”

  “I knew that,” Burkitt said under his breath.

  “—and when you try to bury a body when it’s raining really hard,” Sam went on, like he hadn’t heard Burkitt (and maybe he hadn’t), “well…you ever been to a funeral?”

  “Too many,” I said.

  “You know how at the graveside, they leave the coffin on a lift and lower it down after a few words are said?” Sam asked.

  “Fancy ceremony for a Jane Doe,” Holloway said.

  “Mmhmm,” Sam said. “But you know how we do that, yeah?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Priest or preacher says nice things about the departed, some comforting words or a passage of scripture, and then—” I mimed pulling a lever “—down we go.”

  “Exactly,” Sam said. “Well, her funeral, see, we’d dug the hole the night before, and it started raining ’round midnight or so. By the time the service gets done and the coffin gets out here, we’ve got a nice tent set up, but water’s running in from all over, flooding into the grave. When we go to lower the coffin…it don’t go down all the way.” He was looking at me with almost glowing eyes. “Sat there about a foot from surface level.”

  Deandre nodded. “Now I remember that one.”

  “So, what do we do?” Sam went on, seemingly energized by his story. “Well, we bring in the backhoe and we bury her under as much dirt as we can. Which ain’t much as we shoulda been able to, if the grave hadn’t flooded.” He made a motion with his hand to somewhere in the darkness behind him. “So, yeah, I remember her funeral. Or at least afterward. And I got some good news for y’all, if you’re going to use those shovels I saw in the back—you won’t have to dig all that deep, I don’t reckon. Because odds are good, she’s real near the surface.”

  “Excellent,” I said, “because I didn’t get a full dinner in, and my colleague is very plastered and probably useless for this. You want to show us the way?”

  “Follow me,” Sam said, waving us on. He had a fluorescent lantern in his hand and turned it on, sending a white light radiating out in all directions around us. “It’s thisaway.”

  I followed behind Sam as he started a slow walk into the graveyard, taking us past a black, wrought-iron fence that encircled the place. It looked vaguely gothic to me, and a little chill shuddered its way down the skin of my back in the cool night. The heat of the day had gone away without a trace.

  “You say you remember the funeral,” I said. “Do you remember if anyone was at it?”

  Sam was quiet for a long moment as he weaved along, picking a path between the gravestones. “I know there were people there, that much I recall. Smallish crowd, as these things go. Ten or so, maybe. But I didn’t know any of the mourners, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Burkitt appeared behind me, shovels over his shoulder. “Do you know who paid for it?” He must have opened the hatchback and fetched them while I started after Sam, and caught us. “The burial plot and funeral?”

  “No, but Deandre can go give our office lady a call,” Sam said, nodding at him. “We’d have a record of that. The office is closed for the night, but it’s all online now, so she oughta be able to look it up.”

  “Everything online,” Holloway murmured, and his voice held the aura of bitching. “I tell you, I don’t know what this world is coming to.” He stumbled forward, passing me and catching Sam, and gave the caretaker a bump of the elbow—gently—to the shoulder. “You know what I mean, old timer.”

  Sam looked at him a little strangely. “Don’t reckon I do. Putting it all online made my job a lot simpler. I hated the old paper logbooks. You know how many of those we lost in Katrina? Now I have one of these boys input it, and it’s in the cloud in seconds. This place washes away, the records stay.” He pulled out a smartphone. “I’d look it up for you myself from here, but this phone lacks the necessary capacity to properly load the page in its browser. Too much information, too little brainpower.” Sam gave Holloway a little side eye that I was pretty sure my drunken partner missed, and he said, “Common problem going around, I imagine.”

  I stifled a hard laugh at Holloway receiving a sick burn from a graveyard caretaker. It was compounded by Holloway’s dumbstruck face, like he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what he’d just heard.

  Burkitt’s light chuckle finished quickly, right about the time Sam brought us to a stop. “Here we are,” Sam said, and there was a green mound and a small gravestone right in front of it, an angel carved into the surface beneath a simple inscription.

  I stared at it, trying to push away a foreboding feeling. The last time I could recall being in a graveyard like this was in the Necropolis in Edinburgh, Scotland. Good things had not happened there, and the grave I’d looked into had been intended for me.

  “You might want these.” Sam tossed me a pair of heavy gloves that had hung on his belt. “Probably a bit big for you.”

  “I’ll make do,” I said. Burkitt looked at Sam askance, but the older man shrugged; he only had one pair, and I was going to need them more, though I doubted Burkitt knew that—yet.

  “Oh my,” Sam said after about five seconds of watching me dig.

  It didn’t surprise me that this was the first time he’d seen a metahuman work. Seeing me do crazy shit on TV was a lot different than watching me dig up a grave in real life, and the sheer volume of dirt I moved in two and a half minutes had Sam almost gasping.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Holloway said, leaning against a nearby tree about two graves away, “she’s fast and strong and super blah blah blah. Let’s all be amazed and call her the Goddess of Death.”

  “That seems like an upgrade from Slay Queen,” I said, pitching a shovelful of dirt right at him. It hit him in the chest, exploding in a puff as he bounced off the tree in surprise and outrage. “Oops,” I said mildly, having already delivered another five shovelfuls onto the pile I was carefully making.

  “Why did you even buy a second shovel?” Burkitt asked, leaping clear of the grave as I started attacking the very ground he’d been standing on a moment before. I hadn’t wanted to say it, but he’d really been holding up my progress, and if he’d waited another minute to take the hint, I’d have told him to move myself.

  “To annoy Holloway by making him think I needed his help,” I said, digging a square foot of dirt out, eliminating the small patch where Burkitt had been standing in about twenty seconds flat. Now the grave was down three or four feet and I’d only been at it three minutes.

  “Up yours, Nealon,” Holloway said, still trying to brush the dirt off himself.

  “Don’t be so butthurt, Holloway,” I said, not missing a shoveling beat. “I can smell your hemorrhoid cream from here.”

  He was quiet for a second. “You can smell that?” he asked quietly.

  “Ewwww,” I said, pausing and making a face. “That’s what that chemical smell you give off from your pants is? I thought maybe you had some sort of jock itch you were treating.”

  “Wait,” Burkitt said, paused, shovel in hand, now towering a few feet above me at the edge of the excavated grave. “Can you smell people’s butts from a distance? Like a dog?”

  “I’m a real bad bitch,” I said, keeping my head down. “And
yeah, kinda. It all sort of fades into a background nasal symphony of—”

  “Oh, Lord, thank you for passing me over for these powers,” Sam said. “The last thing I need to be doing is smelling someone’s butt at twenty yards. Especially Miss Maisie Grantham’s.”

  “I don’t know who that is and I feel all the better for it,” I said. About ten seconds later my shovel made contact with something hard. I’d been carefully paring back the power of my digging the farther I’d gotten into the ground, making initial probing thrusts with the shovel and then, sure that the next six inches or so of dirt were clear, quickly scooping it out in a frenzy of metahuman speed.

  “Pay dirt,” Burkitt said, and Holloway staggered into view. He almost looked like he was going to pitch forward into the grave beside me, but Burkitt steadied him with the shovel’s handle just in time. Holloway didn’t even say thanks.

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope,” I said, gently sweeping away the dirt from the surface of the coffin, first with the shovel head, then squatting down and doing it with my gloved hands. Sam was at the edge of the grave now, too, his fluorescent lantern providing a guiding light. I’d unearthed the top of it, and the cracks where it opened were pretty obvious, the bowing surface reminding me of the arena at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. “Any tricks to opening it?”

  Sam shrugged. “Not particularly.” He peered into the grave. “Hm. That ain’t one of our lower-priced models.”

  “You’re saying this is a higher-priced coffin?” I asked, squatting on the bottom section, where, presumably, the feet would be. Sam just nodded. “Curiouser and curiouser.” I lifted the front of my blouse over my nose, skeptical that would do much to help against the olfactory assault I was about to experience, assuming there was a corpse in here. “Doesn’t look like anyone clawed out of it, that’s for sure.”

  “You think there’s a body still in there?” Burkitt asked, leaning over now.

  “Why wouldn’t there be?” Sam asked. His brow was deeply furrowed, eyes shining in the light.

  “Long story,” I said. “Let’s find out for sure so we don’t have to waste an explanation for Sam before we know.” I braced myself, putting a hand on the side of the coffin, the seam where it opened. “One, two—”

  I heaved the coffin open, and my shirt over my nose did nothing for the smell. Nothing. My eyes burned, it was so fierce and immediate, like years of rot had been waiting to escape given just a half a chance. There was a collective gasp above me and I knew that the rest of them must have caught the stench, too, like death and swamp water had mingled and come to rest here, forever, brewing in an ever more potent mixture.

  Until now.

  It took me a few seconds to regain my composure, to blot the burning tears out of my eyes and look into the coffin. Once I was done, I shut it, quickly, in hopes that the smell would go with it.

  It didn’t, not entirely, but it helped.

  “I guess that answers that,” Burkitt said. Holloway was gone from graveside, and I heard him heaving up his guts not too far away.

  “Why would you have thought the body was missing?” Sam asked, dropping his own shirt from around his nose. His eyes looked clear.

  “We thought she might have been a meta,” I said, “and still alive.”

  “That was not a long story,” Sam said. “You could have told me that in three seconds.” He looked back down at the closed coffin and waved the air in front of him. “Well, now you know she’s still in there. What next?”

  I looked up at Burkitt, and he looked back at me. “We send this back to a coroner with a strong stomach for a second round of testing, I think.” I put a hand on my hip. “And then…” Holloway was still retching, one hand on the tree he’d been leaning against not long ago. No ideas were forthcoming, and I saw no reason to sugarcoat it. “And then…hell if I know.”

  27.

  “I want to believe this means something,” I said, staring at a note that Deandre had handed us when he’d come back to the open grave, “but it just doesn’t.”

  “I’m not sure it actually does mean anything,” Burkitt said. He was standing over my shoulder, looking at it while a coroner’s assistant was loading the coffin. A few Louisiana State Police were lingering around the graveyard near us, looking bored.

  The note read, “Rouge Future, LLC,” and that was it. Deandre’s call had turned up no phone number, just an office address here in New Orleans and nothing else. “Well,” I said, looking at it again, “at least we know who paid for this lady’s funeral. In theory, at least.”

  “We should be able to look up the owners of the company,” Burkitt said. “You want me to call it in to the office? Clemons is probably still working.”

  “Have at it,” I said, handing him the note. I saw Sam standing by Holloway and headed that direction to intervene, if necessary.

  As I approached, I heard Sam say, “Son, I know the whiskey is strong, but you just gotta tell it no.”

  “I’m fine, old man,” Holloway was saying, but then he went to retching again.

  “Stubborn fool,” Sam said as Holloway bent over and heaved again. “Won’t listen to anything or anyone.”

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” Holloway said between gurgles and spits.

  “That’s what I told myself for years,” Sam said, looking at me sagely.

  “Don’t try to talk him out of drinking,” I said, as Holloway launched into another round of heaving. “This is the most interesting thing that’s come out of his mouth all day.”

  “Asshole,” Holloway said, gasping for breath. He’d puked up everything his stomach had and was now trying desperately to get a breath in.

  “Back atcha,” I said. “Thanks for your help, Sam.”

  “Wish I could do more,” Sam said, nodding as he took his cue and headed off.

  “You need a couple shovels?” I asked. “I bought ’em and I don’t need ’em anymore, now.”

  Sam shook his head and smiled. “You might want to hang onto them. This is Louisiana.” And he started to walk off, ambling into the dark.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Holloway asked, finally turned our way, face about as pale as mine usually was. “Some kind of a riddle?”

  “Lots of secrets ’round here,” Sam said, vanishing into the dark. “You might not be done digging.”

  “Huh,” I said. “So, it kind of was a riddle.” I thought about it a second. “And maybe also literal.”

  “What do we do now?” Holloway asked, seemingly done with his vomiting for the moment.

  “Probably hit the hotel, call it a night,” I said, looking at the dark skies above.

  He nodded along. “That sounds good. I could use a shower.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “wash off that vomit and hemorrhoid cream; you’ll feel like a brand-new man.”

  Holloway’s head sagged. “I don’t even have words to express how much I hate working with you.”

  “Really?” I sunk a hand around his arm and helped him upright. “Because I am having just the grandest time babysitting your dumb ass, lemme tell you. Highlight of my career, right above saving the world those five or six times.” I dragged him along, keeping him from tumbling over.

  “Got a record on ownership of Rouge Future,” Burkitt said as we returned to him. He eyed Holloway for a second before taking up the dumbass’s other arm and helping me along back toward the parking lot. “Mitchell Werner. Clemons found a business number and gave ’em a call. They open at eight tomorrow.”

  “We should drop by and talk to them, then,” I said, giving up and just slinging Holloway’s arm over my shoulder. He’d stopped resisting, but I could tell by his breathing that he was still awake and listening. He’d apparently just given up on his gross motor functions and decided letting me carry him was easier. “Anything else Clemons came across?”

  “Yeah, one thing,” Burkitt said, taking up Holloway’s other side. “He said the autopsy report—the original—wasn’t entirely complete. Had some stu
ff missing. He flagged it, but the coroner that performed the autopsy was gone for the night. They said he’d call back first thing in the morning, and they’ll fax over a copy if they can find it before then, but…” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t expect much action on that this late at night.”

  “I was just telling Holloway we were probably done for the evening,” I said. This graveyard was so big, and I was already tired of dragging the lunkhead along. “Which will give him a chance to sleep it off before having three more rounds of scotch for breakfast.”

  “I’m done, I swear,” Holloway mumbled. “No mas.”

  “Sure you are,” I said. “And I’m going to stop making fun of you for your ass cream and sparkling personality, too. Any minute now, really.”

  “So, uh…how’d you get stuck with this guy?” Burkitt asked me once we’d dumped Holloway in the back of the SUV and closed the door.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said, hand planted on the car door handle, ready to open it once we’d finished talking about the passenger inside. “I mean, I’d assumed I’d burned off all the shit karma I’d accumulated in my life during that whole ‘running from the law’ phase of my life, but no, apparently I have more to atone for.” I shrugged. “Or my boss hates me.” I pretended to think about it. “Yep. That’s probably it. Also, I called Director Chalke the Assistant Undersecretary for Wanking, and she probably holds a grudge.”

  Burkitt’s eyebrows almost reached orbit, they rose so fast. “Wow. That’s gutsy.”

  “What can I say? I like to live on the edge.”

  We got in and he started it up. “Back to the hotel crime scene?” he asked.

  “Yeah. They did offer us a free room, after all, and since Holloway paid for dinner on his company credit card, we probably ought to offset that. I don’t think the scotch he ordered was cheap.”

  Burkitt settled into silence as he got us back on the freeway. As we passed the cemetery, the flashing police lights played a familiar red and blue visual melody. I’d certainly seen that particular display enough times to last a lifetime.