My Life as a White Trash Zombie

by Diana Rowland

  Yet there was only the barest whiff of it here.

  “Hey, Derrel,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice nice and calm and casual, even though a strange uneasiness was working its way through my gut. “What’s the guess on cause of death?”

  “Hang on a sec and we’re gonna see what we can find out,” he replied. He jotted a few more notes on his pad, then set it down on the desk and tugged on gloves. “With the amount of decomposition and all this purge fluid surrounding him, it’s going to be tough to tell how he died unless there’s some obvious trauma still evident.”

  I didn’t respond to that. I knew what we were going to find. At least, I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Still when we turned the body, I felt an odd relief that I hadn’t been imagining it.

  “Well, how’s that for ‘obvious trauma’?” I asked, looking down at the caved-in back of the guy’s skull. Maybe I was starting to get the hang of this whole undead thing.

  Derrel let out a low whistle. “I think that qualifies.”

  I flicked a maggot off my glove as Derrel went outside to tell the detectives that it looked like a homicide. A large black fly buzzed in a low drone around my head, and when I waved it away it joined the others congregated against the window. I straightened as Sean entered. He gave me a pained look as he pulled the mask back onto his face.

  “Angel, I have no idea how you can stand this stench,” he said. “Derrel’s been doing this for long enough that I think he doesn’t have any smell receptors left, but you . . . ?” He grimaced as he snapped pictures of the skull and the injury while I held the body in position for him. “You are one tough chick.” Then his eyes crinkled, and even though he had the mask on, I could tell he was grinning at me. “Or maybe you’re seriously sick and twisted, in which case you are so in the right line of work.”

  I laughed. “Gotta be the second one,” I said. “I’m not tough!”

  He finished taking his pictures, and I walked out with him. I knew it would be a while before I could take the body since it was pretty obvious it was a homicide, which meant that the detective assigned to the case would need to go in and do whatever it was that detectives did. About all I knew was what I’d seen on TV, and considering how much of what I did differed from the TV version, I figured I was most likely misinformed on ninety percent of the details.

  I pulled off my gloves, leaned up against the front of Derrel’s Durango to wait. I’m tough, huh? That was a new one. I had to admit, I was kinda tickled at the thought.

  “How are you doing, Angel?” a familiar voice asked to my right.

  I turned with an automatic smile before realizing who the speaker was. And my sunglasses are up on my damn head, I thought with a mental cringe. “I’m all right, Deputy Ivanov,” I replied, keeping the smile on my face. Fuck it. I wasn’t the one who’d been arrested. I wasn’t going to hang my head in shame simply because my dad could be a real piece of shit. “I’m doin’ all right,” I said. “Thanks.”

  His eyes crinkled as he gave me a smile of his own. “You know, it’s all right to call me Marcus.” Then his eyes swept over my face, and I had to resist the urge to stiffen. “You sure don’t bruise easy, do you? I’d have thought you’d have a real shiner going there.”

  “Um, lucky I guess. And I, uh, put ice on it.”

  He grimaced at my stilted response. “Sorry, I’m doing that ‘insensitive dick’ thing again. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  I shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. Shit happens, y’know?” An awkward silence fell and I flicked off another maggot that had managed to make it up to my forearm.

  He chuckled. “I bet you never thought you’d ever be casually flinging maggots around.”

  I had to laugh. “Oh my god, no kidding. I used to gag if someone spit on the sidewalk in front of me.”

  “You know . . .” Marcus paused, and it looked as if he was getting up the nerve to say something. I waited, and a few seconds later he continued, “I was the Resource Officer at your high school for a short time. I’d only been a cop for a few years and usually those assignments are given to the guys with a lot more experience, but the department went through a phase where they were shuffling everyone around.”

  I had an odd feeling I knew where he was going with this, but I went ahead and said, “Oh?”

  His smile looked slightly abashed. “It was about five years ago. I, uh, remember you.”

  It was tough but I forced myself to not look away. “You remember when I left?”

  He gave a slow nod.

  I made a face. “Not one of my better moments.” I didn’t mention the time he’d arrested me. So far that incident was unspoken between us. Taboo. I far preferred it that way.

  He shrugged. “Maybe so. But, at the risk of sounding like a pompous condescending ass, you’re doing a good job of getting over it.”

  “Took me a while.” And dying.

  He smiled. “I mean it. It’s like you’re not the same person you used to be.”

  God, if he only knew. “I’m not. I mean, I am . . . it’s, well, um, I’m trying to figure out who I am.” I winced. Holy shit, that sounded kooky. “Uh, you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” he said with a slow nod. “I think we all have to go through that at some point.”

  “Yeah,” I said. And some of us needed a kick in the ass first.

  “Look, I know this is the last thing you want to talk about, but I wanted to ask you . . . .” He trailed off, looking strangely uneasy.

  “Ask me . . . ?” Ask me to dinner? Ask me out for drinks? Ask me if I wanted to see what he looked like under that uniform? Yow, where’d that last one come from? But no, he’d said it was the last thing I’d want to talk about.

  He took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you to please not bail your dad out of jail.”

  Somehow I managed to keep my face immobile while my thoughts went crashing into a tangled heap. “Hunh?”

  “Don’t bail your dad out,” he repeated, eyes on me. “I know this is tough on you, but you shouldn’t be the one to get him out.”

  “ ’Cause I’m the victim,” I managed to force out. Wow, my voice almost sounded normal.

  “That’s right.” He scrubbed a hand over the short brush of hair on his head. “Give yourself a few days peace.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but I didn’t need to hear it. I knew what he wanted to say. He didn’t want me to be that victim. He gave a shit. Maybe he was like this for everyone, but it didn’t matter. I still couldn’t help but relish the tiny spark of warm glow that it gave me.

  “Okay,” I said quietly.

  The smile he gave me in return was tinged with relief and worry.

  “Hey,” I said before he could say anything else that would make the mood even weirder or break it entirely. “You wanna grab some coffee or something someday? I mean, some time when I’m not crawling with maggots,” I added with a laugh that sounded nervous to my own ears and probably sounded desperate and pathetic to his. I totally braced myself for him to hem and haw and say that he couldn’t or had a girlfriend or something. I was shocked instead when he gave me a nod.

  “That sounds nice. And I’m cool with the no maggots thing too.”

  We were saved from any more possible awkwardness by Derrel’s piercing whistle to get my attention. I looked over to see that the homicide detective was exiting the house.

  “I’m up,” I said, as I pushed off the front of the Durango. “It was nice talking to you.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that coffee,” he said, surprising me by giving me a wink.

  I turned away with a silly grin on my face to collect a maggot-covered body.

  Chapter 19

  Dad called the next morning. I was expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  “Angel, it’s your dad,” he said after I answered. Not “Dad” but “your dad.” In case I wasn’t sure, y’know? “Baby, I’m real sorry about what happened.”

  I sat on the couch an
d pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “I know. You were drunk.”

  “I was wrong, honey. I . . . I dunno why I get so worked up.”

  Because you feel like a failure, I thought. I’m a fuckup, which means you failed as a dad. But I wasn’t a fuckup anymore. Or at least not as much of one. He couldn’t see that. Or maybe he didn’t want to see it. Then he’d be the only loser in the house.

  “Can you come bail me out, please? I been here a day and a half now. They keep it so goddamned cold in here, and I’m hurting bad.”

  Shit shit shit. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Dad. Maybe if you tell them you’re in pain they can take you to the clinic?”

  “Why can’t you come bail me out?” He sounded tired. Old. I felt older. Yeah, he’d been a complete piece of shit, but he wasn’t always like that. Not always. Sometimes he came through for me—like the day he took me to the ER with broken ribs and arm when I was twelve. I could still remember the dull pain in his voice as he told the police to go and arrest his wife, because he knew that if they didn’t she’d end up killing me. She’d been mentally ill—I could see that now. But all I’d known then was that Dad was saving me and at the same time betraying my mother. I’d loved him and hated him.

  Still did.

  The knot in my throat made it tough to talk. “I can’t,” I said, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Dad. I . . . don’t think they’ll let me bail you out,” I lied. “And I don’t have any money left, remember?”

  He was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d hung up. It was only the noise of people talking in the background that told me he was still on the line. “Okay, baby,” he finally said. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I choked out.

  Then the background noise cut off, and I knew he’d hung up.

  I sat there with my head in my hands for several minutes, then called the jail up and asked to have my number blocked from the inmate phone system. He’d get out eventually, but I wasn’t going to help. And I couldn’t take any more calls like this.

  Go me, I thought dully. I’m not that victim.

  Chapter 20

  I was starting to figure out that Derrel had a sixth sense-thing going on, where he knew exactly what to say to make people feel better. Even if sometimes that something was absolutely nothing. Not even an “I’m here if you need someone to talk to”—which is usually even more unhelpful than staying out of it completely. And that old “If you need anything, let me know,” is also a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but then you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, “Hey, remember when you said to let you know if I needed anything? Well, I’m feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, because if I could have a clean kitchen, I’d feel like I had a bit of a head start.” You’ll never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick.

  What would be so much better would be for the person who spouted the useless “if you need anything just ask” platitude to fucking go over to the person’s house and clean their goddamn kitchen without being asked. Go over and say, “Hey, you go take care of your kid or your work, or go take a fucking nap. And when you get done, you’ll have a clean kitchen. And, no, you don’t owe me a goddamn thing. Someday the shoe will be on the other foot, okay?”

  And that was the sort of shit that Derrel did all the time. He never breathed a word or a hint, but he was too tapped in to the gossip to not know what was going on with my dad. He didn’t ask me why I was so quiet, which was more of a relief that I could have possibly expressed. And no, he didn’t come over and clean my kitchen, but when I met him at a death scene later in the morning, he stopped me before we went inside the condo and handed me an insulated cup full of hot chocolate and a paper bag with an egg and bacon biscuit in it.

  “You’re too skinny,” he told me. “And if you don’t eat it willingly, I’ll hold you down and make you eat it.”

  I took the bag from him. I had absolutely no doubt that he would do exactly that.

  “Besides,” he added with a wicked smile, “you should always be well fed going into a death scene. There’s nothing worse then puking on an empty stomach.”

  “I have never and will never puke on a death scene,” I informed him around mouthfuls of bacon and egg biscuit.

  He grinned. “I’m beginning to think this is true. You’re getting to be pretty damn hardcore. Amazing the stuff we can survive, isn’t it?”

  It was the closest he ever came to saying something meant to be comforting. Yet I was more comforted and reassured and all that than I would have been if he’d given me a big ol’ hug or anything weird and touchy-feely like that. Actually, if he’d given me a hug I’d have probably freaked the hell out, because, well, that would have been seriously weird. But then again, I was about as far from touchy-feely as you could get. Unless you’re fucking me, don’t put your hands on me.

  I finished up the biscuit and hot chocolate, and followed Derrel into the condo with the stretcher and body bag.

  There was no crime scene tape or sign-in log—only a deputy at the door who directed us toward a bedroom in the back. I left the stretcher in the foyer and followed Derrel with the bag.

  We were in a condo on the south end of Tucker Point in a complex that advertised itself with terms like “luxury” and “high end.” Through the bedroom window I could see the Kreeger River, and I’d seen on our way up that the bottom floor of this condo had a walkway that led to a private dock where a modest-sized boat was parked. The condo had all of the modern touches—stainless steel appliances, wood floors, marble counters. The furniture in the bedroom was solid and elegant, all in a matching dark oak—unlike the thrift-store variety selection in my own house. The bedding was a rich red and gold brocade and looked expensive as hell, though right now it was stained with vomit and saliva.

  But not egg-and-bacon-biscuit vomit at least.

  The source of the vomit lay sprawled on her side, eyes half-lidded and dulled by death. She looked fairly young—maybe mid to late twenties or so. Pretty and slender, she had shoulder-length brown hair subtly highlighted with red and blonde, tendrils of which snaked through the congealing mess of puke beneath her head. Bubbles of spit lingered on her mouth, and I could see the remains of a dark red lipstick. She was wearing a pink tank top and panties that looked like they came from Victoria’s Secret instead of Walmart, and her nails were nicely done with a French manicure. I could see flecks of pills in the puke, and about half a dozen baggies containing more pills on the nightstand.

  It wasn’t too hard to figure out how she’d died.

  “Theresa Anderson. Twenty-nine years old,” Derrel muttered with a shake of his head.

  My mouth formed a grimace as I scanned the room. “Living the dream, and it’s still not enough.”

  “Depends on how you define ‘the dream,’ ” he replied absently.

  Snorting, I casually poked through a pile of papers and file folders on the nightstand. “What, you mean ‘money isn’t everything,’ blah blah blah?” I shrugged. “I mean, yeah, money sure as shit helps, but—” I swept my gaze around the room again. “I mean, look at this place. It fucking rocks.”

  I expected Derrel to argue the point with me, make the case that even rich and successful people could get overwhelmed or whatever, but he simply gave a slight nod while he scrawled notes. “It’s a waste,” he said mildly.

  “It’s fucked up,” I stated. “She has money, a great place to live.” I scowled down at the papers. Legal briefs, letters. Nothing terribly ominous. Looked pretty boring to me. “Looks like she was some sort of hotshot lawyer. I bet there was never any question about her going to college.”

  Derrel made a noncommittal noise in his throat while he peered at the body.

  I moved over to the bookcase, trailing my fingers through the thin layer of dust. A reed diffuser gave off a pleasant f
lowery scent that mixed oddly with the smell of puke. There were more law books here. A few books with lofty titles that sounded like they’d been featured on Oprah or some such thing. Nothing that looked fun or light-hearted. “Maybe she couldn’t handle the pressure,” I said with a shrug, then sighed. “I dunno. I’m talking out my ass. Was it a suicide?”

  “Hard to say,” he said, lifting his eyes from his clipboard. “Cops didn’t find a note, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Most suicides don’t leave notes. And Dr. Leblanc is usually reluctant to rule it a suicide unless there’s a fair amount of certainty. I expect this will get ruled an accidental overdose.” He shook his head. “Likely started out small—the occasional anxiety med, or maybe Adderall or something to help her get through her classes. Then it grew from there until she was dependent on it.”

  I fell silent at that, and my emotions tumbled strangely as the two of us wrestled her into the body bag. That theory hit a little too close to home. I’d narrowly escaped being found in a similar situation—though most likely in far less lovely surroundings. But it felt strange seeing that regular, upscale people went through shit like this as well. I mean, I’d known it on a logical level, but somehow I’d still always believed that drug abuse and overdose was limited to the loser segment of the population.

  I smiled without humor. No. Where I went wrong was believing that being in the loser segment had anything to do with income or social class.

  Derrel bagged up the various pills, then helped me maneuver the stretcher out of the condo and into the van. I wonder if she bought her pills from Clive. Certainly a possibility, though I knew there was a hefty market for pain meds, and plenty of people looking to make a buck that way.

  Derrel’s phone rang as I was closing the back doors of the van. He made some notes on his pad and then looked up at me, expression sour. “Busy day today. Good thing there’s room in there for more than one body.”