by E A Price
“Not at all,” said Raf, amiably. “We startled them while they were trying to do their job.”
Topanga’s eyes flickered doubtfully, but she wasn’t about to argue with the pretty, pretty man. “You better hurry and finish getting those blooms into the building,” she ordered the two men.
“Blooms?” repeated Raf with interest.
Topanga gave him a dazzling smile – all, straight white teeth and luscious red lips. “Yes, see.” She zipped open one of the black bags to reveal a multitude of flower buds. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yes, what are they for?”
“I’ll show you.” She led Isis – who elbowed Raf out the way to ensure that she was placed between the two of them – and Raf through the side door into the foyer of the building. In the center, there was a huge, opulent fountain, with blooms flowing through it. Even Isis, whose tiger was aggravated at that moment, had to admit it looked beautiful.
“We have to replace the flowers on a weekly basis,” explained Topanga. “Now, how can I help you?”
“We’d like to speak to Dr. Howler, please.”
“I’m afraid Dr. Howler is very busy…”
“Dealing with lawsuits?” suggested Isis, tartly.
Topanga snarled, and Raf took a sharp intake of breath. Yeah, she’s not so pretty now, is she? Thought her tiger, self-righteously. The panther closed her eyes, took a deep breath and smoothed her hands over her already pristine skirt. “I suggest you leave. If you want to talk to him, you should get a warrant.”
“Come, now, Toppy, that’s no way to speak to law enforcement,” called a genial voice, chidingly.
Topanga pursed her lips in irritation. “Dr. Howler, I really don’t think…”
Her objection died as he bounded up to Raf and Isis and shook their hands thoroughly. His voice and manner gave off a particularly genial Santa Claus vibe, but he looked like an undertaker. His face could be deemed lugubrious at best. He was definitely a human and in looks he was a short version of Lurch from the Addams Family movies. Yes, Isis loved those movies when she was a kid – what little girl didn’t idolize Wednesday Addams?
Raf introduced them again, and Dr. Howler clapped his hands together. “So, how can we help?”
“It’s a little delicate,” started Raf under Topanga’s hostile glare.
“Bodies have been going missing and we want to know if you’ve got them,” interrupted Isis.
Raf frowned at her, clearly unhappy at her directness. Even Dr. Howler was taken aback. But their reactions were nothing compared to Topanga. “How dare you?” she screeched and tried to take a swing at Isis. Raf, her sweet, but ultimately unnecessary shining knight, tried to intervene, but he was too slow. Isis already had the snooty panther in a headlock before he could gargle ‘watch out’.
Topanga wriggled and hissed while Isis pretended to yawn, and her tiger smacked her jaws together. Did she think this was her first time or something?
“You can let her go,” said Dr. Howler, with only a tiny bit of amusement in his voice. “Topanga, I’ll handle this from here.”
Isis spun the irate panther away from her, and Topanga staggered back. To put it mildly, her expression was not friendly. “But… but…”
“Why don’t you go back to your office and catch up on my diary.” It was issued as a suggestion, but the steely glint in his eyes was not lost on any of them.
Topanga threw a final death glare at Isis and stomped away. Dr. Howler turned back to Isis. “You don’t mince your words.”
“Well, let’s just say I’ve never been accused of being too subtle.” Too zealous, too loud, too violent – that list went on and on. “Does this key look familiar?”
Isis nodded at Raf and with a frown he produced the key they had found.
Dr. Howler shrugged. “It looks like one of the keys to the employees’ lockers.”
Isis raised an eyebrow and exchanged a significant glance with Raf.
The doctor spread out his hands. “Look I’m not happy that you’ve come to me, but I can understand why you have. Why don’t I give you a tour of our facility and we can talk. You understand that I can’t take you to some of the more sensitive areas where research is being done, but I can give you an overview.”
Isis nodded her agreement, and Raf grumblingly added his, still apparently pissed about her blabber mouth. Yeah, well, tough.
“Oh,” chuckled Dr. Howler, “and to answer your question, no, I haven’t been stealing any bodies.”
Chapter Fifteen
“There is no mystery to Forever Young. We are simply trying to ensure that our clients reach the maximum potential of their life expectancy.”
Raf and Isis exchanged unimpressed glances.
Isis placed her hands on her hips as Raf watched one of the lab technicians shake a test tube. Standard scientist behavior. “Yeah, yeah we get it, you’re trying to extend people’s lives or at least the lives of the people who have enough money to fund your research. But what about the corpses?”
Dr. Howler shook his head unconcernedly. “We are constantly working on formulas to try and revive dead skin cells. Who better to test it on that people who are already dead?”
“Well, when you say it like that, it all sounds reasonable.”
“What we do here is not a secret, and we are not the only company trying to create the same formulas or the only one that uses cadavers.”
Isis gave him a shrewd look. “Are they also getting sued for using dead bodies without permission?”
Dr. Howler sighed, forbearingly. “If they were foolish enough to use the same medical supply company we were, then yes.”
“And what would their name be?” inquired Raf.
“Crowe Medical Supplies. I believe the LLPD will have a record of our complaint against them. However, we should have checked them out before we hired them.” He gave them a weak smile. “We’re paying for that now.”
“Quietly,” commented Raf.
“Yes, as quietly as possible. A lot of our investors wouldn’t be pleased if we attracted too much attention. They prefer for problems to just go away.”
“Presumably, you haven’t stopped testing. So where are you getting your supply from now?”
“Donations,” said Dr. Howler, reluctantly.
“Donations? Really?” Her tiger snorted with laughter. She tried to imagine Forever Young’s employees going from door to door asking people to give to their cause. Have you any spare bodies?
“People who are, let’s say not long for the next world, agree to donate their body to us in exchange for money for their family when they’re gone and also to pay for their funeral.”
She sneered at him. “So you’re saying you’ve been trawling hospitals looking for people about to give up the ghost, and then preyed on them when they’re at their weakest in order to get your donations.”
Dr. Howler had the grace to look a little sheepish. “It’s not quite that crude, but yes. We do important work here.”
Isis eyed the lab technicians as Dr. Howler started to wax lyrical about Forever Young’s mission statement. For the most part, they were oblivious or uncaring about what was going on around them and were focused on their work. A couple of them seemed a little off, though. One of them, a pale young man with dark hair and sunken eyes kept glaring at Raf and Isis when he thought they weren’t looking. The other was a small, mousy woman a few years older than Isis. She was a little nervy and frequently flicked her eyes around while she spoke in hushed tones on her cell phone. “No, no, don’t touch anything else – you’ll ruin the whole thing!” The nerdy woman tugged on her hair. “I’m coming home as soon as I can, just don’t do anything, I’m on my way.”
With shaking hands, the woman tidied her workstation and shakily walked towards Dr. Howler, only blanching a few times under Isis’ unwavering gaze.
“Uh, Dr. Howler,” squeaked the woman. “I’m thorry to interrupt.” Her lisp sounded exaggerated by her nervousness.
&
nbsp; Surprisingly, Dr. Howler avoided the meek woman’s eyes. “Yes, Leslie, how can I help you?”
“Would it, uh, be okay if I went home early? My, ah, kid’th thick.”
He blinked at her a few times. “Of course, you don’t have to ask. Please, just go.” He almost sounded like he wanted to get her out of there.
“Thank you,” muttered the woman and scuttled away as quickly as possible.
Dr. Howler tried to hide his grimace with a smile. “Now, where were we?”
“You were going to let us do a thorough search of your building,” tried Isis, saucily.
“I’m happy to show you what I can, but there are areas that off limits due to confidentiality. You’d need a warrant for them.”
Isis scowled and allowed Ms. Kitty’s rumble of discontent to escape, but Dr. Howler wasn’t moved. “My hands are tied; it’s nothing personal. If you come back with a warrant, I have no choice. But right now, I have shareholders and a board to answer to who are already smarting over the disaster with Crowe Medical Supplies.”
“What about access to your employees’ lockers so we can try our key?” she asked hopefully if a little grumpily.
“Again, confidentiality. I can give you the names of everyone in the company, that’s really a matter of public record, but any more than that…”
“A warrant,” muttered Isis as Ms. Kitty harrumphed. “We get it. Has anyone reported their key missing?”
“The keys are regularly lost, a number of my employees are absent minded. Security keeps spares but they don’t tend to log who loses theirs. If someone loses their key, it’s not a big deal. Anyone who found it and wanted to use it would need to get past several locked doors and alarm systems before they got anywhere near the lockers.”
“Thank you for your time,” said Raf smoothly before Isis could open her mouth to start complaining.
Dr. Howler shook their hands and actually seemed to be genuinely benevolent toward them. Although, it was kind of hard to tell from his naturally gloomy countenance whether he was sincere or not. So much for the hope that he was some kind of mad scientist.
*
“I didn’t sense that he was lying!” Isis blurted it the moment they got in the car.
“Oookkkkkayyyy,” Raf said, slowly as he started the engine.
“You were pissed when I immediately told him about the dead bodies, but I did it for a reaction. When people lie, especially humans, they give themselves away with either a change in scent or breathing quicker. The differences are usually tiny, but easy to spot if you’re paying attention. I thought that shocking him would get us somewhere, but either he’s good at covering up guilt or he’s really not our guy.”
Raf rubbed his forehead. Life with Isis would never be dull, he’d say that much. Out of the three people there, he was probably most surprised by what she said. “Just give me a heads up next time, I almost had to scrape my jaw up off the floor.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of loose cannon.” She grinned at him, toothily.
“That’s not usually a compliment.”
“Don’t care. So where are we with Forever Young? It’s a pretentious a-hole of a company, but do we think they’re stooping to stealing stiffs?”
“I don’t know. That guy Howler didn’t seem like he was lying, but he wasn’t exactly shocked to be accused of grave robbing. He recovered from that pretty quickly. Maybe he’s just a great liar.”
“My new best friend Topanga the panther went berserk over it.”
Raf smiled. “Panther, really? Huh. But, yeah, she did. Guilty conscience, maybe.”
“Plus a couple of those lab rats seemed a little off. There was that woman, Leslie – the way Howler spoke to her didn’t seem quite right. I swear, he almost seemed afraid of her. And there was another in there, a young man who looked like he was a cult short of a suicide pact.”
“Howler said we could have the list of his employees. Let’s get that and do a background search, and while we’re at it, let’s check out Crowe Medical Supplies. Maybe they’re back in business.”
“Oh, I love it when a plan comes together. Just one thing.” She leaned over to him, her lips hovering over his. “You have foam, right here.”
*
“Igor! What were you thinking?” whined the doctor, not in anger, but in frustration.
He took on a hangdog expression. “Bored. Accident.”
“You’ve ruined…oh… look at it!” The doctor went on to complain about the mess he made, and how their beloved was never going to be reborn at this rate. “No more football!”
Igor growled unhappily. That would suit him down to the ground. It wasn’t his fault that he accidentally messed up the equipment with a poorly thrown football. He had to do something to occupy his time. Of course, the fact that he chose to throw the football around in the lab was kind of telling.
“Don’t look at me like that,” grumbled the doctor. “Next time you’re bored, read a book.” The doctor then ordered him to get rid of the human arms they had accidentally required. They didn’t need them and they would just take up freezer space.
Igor pouted, not that the doctor noticed. “Yes, doctor.”
*
“Titan! What are you doing, you naughty boy? Titan, don’t run away from Mommy.”
Mrs. Constantinides groaned as her usually faithful Chihuahua pelted away from her. “Bad Titan, stop right now!”
He didn’t even break pace. With a groan, the seventy-six-year-old ambled after him. Get a dog walker, her son had said. Don’t kill yourself running after the little scamp when someone will do it for you. Boy, she should have listened.
Titan disappeared down an alley between a Hola Sunshine restaurant and a Happy Hearts Donut shop. Perhaps when she finally apprehended her impish pet, she’d relax with a couple of donuts and a cup of coffee. Maybe the coffee crème filled one and one of the pumpkin spice.
“Titan, what are you doing?”
She found her tiny dog alternately growling and trying to drag something out from behind a dumpster, something at least twice his size and covered in a black plastic bag. Mrs. Constantinides peered at the bag and let out a blood-curdling scream.
Titan blinked at her before she snatched him up and ran away as quickly as she possibly could. Leaving behind a half chewed, half open, black plastic bag containing a set of severed arms.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’ll do a more thorough search of Forever Young’s employees and I’ll e-mail you the results as I do them. You know before they started trying to extend life, they were focused on freezing people’s heads so that they could eventually be reattached to new bodies in the future. That whole company is hinky.”
“Well, jinkys, Velma, keep me posted,” teased Isis.
“You got it, Daphne,” chirped Jessie as she hung up.
“That was Jessie,” explained Isis.
“So I gathered,” responded Raf, dryly as he rumpled Brimstone’s fur.
Yep, Isis had managed to lure him back to her apartment. Hey, they needed space to go over the case without interruptions. Thankfully, Cleo the annoying ghost had made herself scarce. However, her three cats were all over Raf. Sluts.
Isis explained everything Jessie had discovered about Crowe Medical Supplies. The company was now defunct, and the CEO Howie Granger and his three employees, his wife and two sons, had apparently packed up and left town. They closed their bank accounts, donated all their furniture to charity, stopped their daily newspaper, and vacated their home – which was a day away from being taken over by the bank for welching on their mortgage payments. After checking through Mrs. Granger’s sister’s e-mail account, Jessie found photos of Mrs. Granger and her family on a beach in the Cayman Islands. Yep, they had packed up, taken their ill-gotten gains and were now in permanent residence in the Caymans.
Raf chuckled as Lucifer scaled his chest and rubbed her head against his chin. Whore, rumbled Ms. Kitty. Yeesh, she was actually jealous of her house cat – how low c
ould she go?
“If need be we could find out if the Grangers were in the Caymans at the time of the robberies,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Way ahead of you, one of the date stamps on the pictures Jessie found…”
“Illegally,” interjected Raf, disapprovingly.
She ignored him; he was all cute when he was righteous. His frown actually made his dimples stand out more than his smile. “Had yesterday’s date on. I know they can be faked but, it seems unlikely that they would sneak back here to restart their business on the sly. I think they’d be more likely to set up in another city and start swindling people in a whole new location. Apparently, their thing wasn’t grave robbery. No, they had an arrangement with a crematorium. Someone working at the crematorium pretended to burn the bodies and gave them to the Grangers instead.”
“As good as grave robbing,” commented Raf. “I’m surprised we haven’t heard anything about it.”
“They only supplied to Forever Young, and their lawyers are working overtime to keep it quiet.”
Raf smiled as Minion purred like a freaking motorboat under his teasing fingers. Hussy. Although, she knew first hand just how talented those fingers were. “How did anyone cotton on to their creepy shenanigans?”
“Unofficially, one of Forever Young’s avid benefactors was being given a thorough tour of the facility.”
“More thorough than ours, I’ll bet,” he grumbled.
“And she caught sight of one of the bodies and it just happened to be her neighbor’s son, whose cremation she attended less than two days previously.”
“That was unfortunate.”
“To say the least,” smirked Isis. “She raised holy hell, then suddenly all the employees of Crowe Medical Supplies were nowhere to be found, and the crematorium worker showed up in Mexico.”
“Damn, not good.”
“Hmmm, you know, we haven’t really considered the option that whoever is stealing the bodies is just eating them.”