Forcing a friendly smile onto my face, I made my way over to Marianne. The sun was low enough in the sky to paint a broad swath of the floor in jagged shadows as it filtered through broken and grime-streaked windows, and I had to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun off the river as I approached.
She looked up as I neared, eyes wary and haunted.
“Hey, Marianne,” I said. “Hey, Kudzu,” I said to the dog as I scratched its head. It gave me what had to be a puzzled look. Kudzu was a cadaver dog, and I had a feeling I confused the hell out of it. I smelled dead, yet I kept moving around.
“Hi, Angel,” the dark-haired woman replied, wariness fading slightly.
“How you holding up?”
“Shitty,” she said with a wavering smile. “But at least they seem to be done questioning me.”
I gave a grimace of sympathy. “Yeah, Marcus had to go through that as well.” It only made sense that, as soon as Ed was established as a suspect, the people closest to him should be grilled in case there was anything they could add to the investigation and search for him. I could only imagine that it was even harder for Marianne since they surely had to wonder if she’d been involved in any way. But apparently she’d requested to take polygraphs and voice stress analysis or whatever the heck was used nowadays in order to prove her innocence, and it had been enough to clear her of any suspicion.
Personally, I was relieved that she didn’t seem to be involved. I didn’t know her all that well, but from what I’d seen she seemed to be a genuinely nice person. It was bad enough that I’d been snowed by Ed. If Marianne had also turned out to be a zombie killer I’d have been seriously pissed.
A loud crash made us both jump. I spun to see that the workmen had peeled up an entire section of flooring and tossed it aside. “Time for me to get back to work,” I said. On impulse I leaned in and gave her a quick hug. “Hang in there. Shit gets better.”
She seemed shocked at first, then relaxed and returned the hug. When I released her she gave me a grateful smile. “Thanks, Angel. Maybe we can do lunch or something sometime…?”
“I’d like that,” I replied, only lying a little. I’d feel much better about hanging out with her once I knew for certain Ed wasn’t lurking somewhere close.
Squaring my shoulders, I made my way back to help separate the corpse from the wreckage. At least I had the legendary iron stomach going for me.
Chapter 3
By the time we got the body extricated and into the body bag, the evening sun was busily painting the sky over the highway in brilliant shades of orange and yellow while also making it hard as hell to see to drive. As I got closer to Tucker Point, election signs became more frequent for everything from school board to state senator, including several for the parish coroner, Dr. Duplessis, AKA my boss. Elections were still a few months off, but politics were a spectator sport in Louisiana, and quite a few candidates started campaigning well before qualifying even opened. I’d heard whispers that the coroner might actually face some competition in the next election, but even though it was doubtful there was anyone who could pose a real threat to Dr. Duplessis, he wasn’t taking any chances.
I heard my phone buzz with a text message, but I waited until I could pull into the parking lot of an XpressMart to read it. I wasn’t worried about dying in a car wreck, but I sure as hell didn’t want to do the same to anyone else.
In the past months I’d developed a much higher appreciation for the value of life.
It was from Derrel. No rest for the wicked. Just got a call re another death—accidental fall at NuQuesCor Lab. Meet me at front gate.
Well, it wasn’t the first time I’d gone from one death scene straight to another. I knew from experience that I could fit four bodies in the back of the van, though it wasn’t pretty. I texted back an “OK”, then pulled the GPS off the dash and stuck in the address he’d sent. Hunger nudged at me again, but I was pretty sure this was hunger for real food. At least part of it was, and satisfying that much would help keep the brain-hunger at bay—at least for a few hours.
This whole “controlling my urges” thing wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
I killed the engine of the van and hurried inside the convenience store. The girl behind the counter looked about my age, maybe twenty-three at the most, pale-skinned, with hair that looked like it suffered from a distinct lack of shampoo use. She lifted her head as I came in, gave me a vacant look before returning her attention to her phone. A brief wave of sympathy went through me. I’d done more than my share of shit jobs like that. And while there were lots of people who wouldn’t see my current job as a step up, I knew there was no comparison.
I quickly grabbed chips and a Coke, giving the clerk as friendly a smile as I could manage while I paid, silently urging her to hurry the hell up, and for chrissakes I’d seen roadkill move faster. She finally managed to fumble out something resembling the correct change, delivering it with the same glazed-eyed, slack-jawed look she’d worn the entire time I’d been in there.
Did I ever look like that? I wondered briefly. Probably so, I thought with mild amusement as I shoved my change into my pocket and hurried out. There’d been plenty of times I’d gone to work high as a kite.
My navel-gazing had me distracted enough that I nearly barreled right into someone about to come into the store.
“Oh, shit, sorry!” I exclaimed.
“Angel?”
As the door swung closed behind me I blinked and focused on who I’d run into. Hispanic, not much taller than me, and a little bit stocky. I didn’t recognize him at first, until I realized he was wearing a uniform. Khaki pants, black boots, navy shirt with an insignia shaped like the state of Louisiana with “Agent” and “Probation and Parole”…
Shit. This was my probation officer.
Almost two years ago, while I was deep in my “Angel is a moron with zero judgment” phase—a phase which had lasted for most of my life—I’d made the mistake of trusting my then-boyfriend and had believed that there was nothing shady about a nearly-new Prius that he could get for me for only five hundred dollars. A couple of weeks later I was pulled over and promptly arrested for possession of stolen property, and spent a terrifying three days in jail before making bail. Eventually I was sentenced to three years probation.
I managed an unsteady smile as I clutched the chips and Coke to my chest like a shield. “Um, yeah. Hi, Mr. Garza. How’s it going?”
“I’m doing fine,” he said. His gaze raked over me, pausing on the insignia on my own shirt. “Still with the Coroner’s Office, I see.”
For a second I couldn’t figure out how the hell he would have known I was working there. I was a low risk offender which meant that I only had to meet with him in person every six months. Yeah, but I have to turn in those stupid forms, I reminded myself. Every month, along with a check for sixty-five dollars, I had to give all sorts of details about my living conditions, work situation, and any possible incidents that might affect my probation.
“Yeah. Still with the C.O,” I replied. “Two months now.”
“That’s some sort of record for you, isn’t it,” he said, mouth curving in a humorless line.
I fought the urge to hunch my shoulders or shuffle my feet uncertainly. “I’m doing a lot better now,” I said, possibly a little defensively.
“I see that,” he said. “I’m real glad to see it.” He didn’t look very glad, but then again, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile.
I cast a longing glance at my van. I needed to get going, but I couldn’t exactly blow my probation officer off. “Yeah, thanks. I, um—”
“How’s the studying going?” he asked, cutting me off.
My response was to blink stupidly. “Hunh?”
“The GED,” he said. “It’s one of the conditions of your probation, remember?”
“Oh, right!” I said, plastering a smile onto my face. “Sure, it’s going just great. I, um, I’ll be taking it in just a coupla months. No problem.” I ke
pt the smile frozen on my face while inside I cringed. God damn fucking shithole crapstains! I’d completely forgotten about that little detail. Since I was also a high school dropout, one of the conditions of my probation had been that I had to get my GED—the General Educational Development test which could serve as a substitute for a high school diploma.
He probably could tell I was handing him a line of complete bullshit. “Do you have a few minutes?” he asked. “There are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I can’t,” I practically gasped. “Sorry. I’m on call, and I just got texted to go pick up a body.” I fumbled my phone off my hip and waved it for emphasis.
He pursed his lips, but nodded. “Sure thing. But don’t forget, we do have a scheduled meeting next week.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through a couple of screens. “Wednesday. Nine a.m..”
“I’ll be there,” I assured him, smiling in what I hoped was a confident manner though I had a feeling I looked more manic.
“Good. Please don’t forget,” he said. “There are some important matters we need to discuss.”
“I won’t forget,” I promised. “I gotta go now!” I ducked around him before he could say anything else and practically sprinted for the van. I had a feeling he was watching me as I drove off, but I was too chicken to look back and see.
Great. My probation officer had “important matters” to discuss with me. There was no way in hell that could be a good thing.
And the GED…? I groaned as I followed the directions from the navigation system. Sure, I’d dutifully listened to the judge’s conditions when they’d been handed down. But, at the time, three years had seemed like such an insanely long time that I didn’t feel any sort of rush to get started on it.
And, more importantly, there’d been a little part of me that felt it didn’t matter. In three years I’d be dead, or arrested again, or something equally self-destructive. I certainly hadn’t been thinking of any sort of future.
But, I realized with a sense of mild shock, it had been close to a year and a half since that arrest. And now I had to learn all the shit from high school that I never bothered to learn back then.
I am so screwed.
It was probably a good thing that the trip to NuQuesCor was somewhat convoluted, forcing me to pay close attention to the GPS, and helping take my mind off my educational shortcomings.
The lab turned out to be not quite in the middle of nowhere, but certainly far from anything anyone gave a crap about. It was full dark by the time I pulled up in front of the building, and the only way I could be sure I was in the right place was because of the small cluster of emergency vehicles near the front entrance. A black Dodge Durango was parked next to an unmarked police car, and I saw Derrel leaning against the front grill. As I climbed out of the van he gave me a casual lift of the chin in greeting, then pushed off the Durango and started my way.
“Sorry it took me so long,” I said as I yanked the stretcher out of the back of the van.
“Not a problem,” he replied. “Crime scene is still taking some pics. Figured I’d meet you out here since getting to where the body’s at is a bit complicated. You ever been here before?”
I swept my gaze over the ugly white exterior, only now seeing an unlit sign that identified the place as NuQuesCor. Otherwise it resembled little more than a large white brick. A few narrow windows here and there marred the surface, looking out of place and rather pathetic.
“I didn’t even know this place existed before today,” I admitted.
Derrel’s eyes crinkled. “They’re one of the top tech employers in this part of Louisiana.”
I snorted. “Derrel, up until a few months ago my grandest career aspiration was to get off the night shift at the XpressMart.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Well, it’s also quite possible that NuQuesCor is the only tech employer of any note in this part of Louisiana.”
“Again,” I said, “minimum wage girl here.”
“Not anymore,” he said.
“Not anymore,” I agreed, somewhat surprised at how certain I was of that fact.
“Good deal,” he said. “All right, let’s get to it. Oh, and you’ll need your badge and ID.”
“My badge…?” Grimacing, I returned to the front of the van and spent a slightly frantic few seconds digging through my belongings. To my relief the badge in question was still at the bottom of my purse where I’d tossed it after it had first been issued to me, along with my Coroner’s Office ID card. I retrieved both, then went ahead and grabbed some extra gloves and stuffed them into the side pocket of my cargo pants.
Derrel had his badge clipped to the front of his belt, and I quickly copied him. He gave me an approving smile, then together we headed up the sidewalk to the entrance with the stretcher and the empty body bag in tow.
The inside of the building was a lot more impressive. The double glass doors opened up into a large two-story lobby that looked more like the entrance to a hotel than a lab. Panels of burnished metal covered the walls and the floor was a grey marble with dark black flecks. Off to the left was a shuttered coffee stand along with an assortment of tables and chairs. Beyond that were couches and coffee tables, with an odd sculpture of what I thought might be birds in flight looming over the seating area. A balcony/walkway type thing overlooked the lobby, with a set of curving stairs and an elevator off to the right. And in the center of the lobby was a circular desk, but instead of a concierge it was manned by a security guard who gave us both a tight-faced glower as we approached.
I was asked to produce both badge and ID, which were subsequently scrutinized as carefully as a bouncer would in a college town. For that matter the guard looked like he could totally be a bouncer—tall and thick. Thick neck, thick shoulders, thick arms. Even his nose was thick.
Fortunately my ID looked sufficiently authentic, and I was allowed to continue on to a doorway on the far side of the lobby, this one manned by another dour guard who required us to sign in on a clipboard. I hid a smile at the sight of Deputy Marcus Ivanov’s neat signature further up the page. He was busy tonight as well.
We finally passed through the door and entered a stark white hallway with lots of closed doors. No marble back here, just regular industrial white tile that made my shoes squeak. I felt a low hum of machinery and heard the occasional distant beep. The doors all had numbers on them, but no signs or labels to indicate what went on behind them. I also noted that all but a few had specialized locks that required a fob or keycard.
“What’s the deal with all the security?” I murmured to Derrel. “Is this a government building or something?”
“Not anymore,” he replied, keeping his voice low as well. “Used to be a NASA computer center a couple of decades back, but NuQuesCor took over the building about five years ago. They’re private, but they work on some government contracts. From what I gather they mostly do nutrition science, sports supplements, vitamins, and the like. But even though they aren’t NASA anymore, they still likely have a fair amount of proprietary information that they want to protect. Hence the security.”
“In other words, they’re afraid of industrial espionage, that sort of thing?”
“Exactly.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “What could an industrial spy want in a nutrition science lab?”
“Well, suppose they come up with low-fat low-sugar food that doesn’t taste like complete ass,” he said. “They don’t want someone else coming in and stealing it before they can patent it, right?”
“Ahhh, gotcha. It all comes down to money.”
He snorted softly. “It always does.”
We came out abruptly into another two-story area that appeared to be a lunchroom. By my guess it was in the exact middle of the building to judge by the hallway entrances on all four sides. There was no “hotel lobby” look to this, either. This was more of the plain white décor. Walls, ceiling, even the staircases to my right and left were white. The only d
eviations from the color scheme were the tables and chairs, all made from what looked like aircraft aluminum.
Yellow crime scene tape had been strung across each of the hallways, and I saw a number of onlookers peering toward the stairs to my left. There, crumpled at the foot of those stairs, was the body.
I figured he was in his late fifties or maybe early sixties. Short grey hair, somewhat aged and lined face. He was dressed in a dark blue uniform that looked to be the same as the one the other security guards wore, though I saw that he was missing a shoe. A trickle of blood tracked from his ear, which I’d come to learn meant a bad head injury. But that was easy enough for me to figure out, since there was another pool of blood beneath his head. From what little I could tell, it looked like this guy had tumbled down the stairs, landing at the bottom with enough force to crack his skull open.
Hi there, darlin’. My name is Angel, I thought. I’ll probably eat your brain sometime soon. I hope you don’t mind.
I held back the snicker and managed to maintain a properly serious expression. I wasn’t the smartest chick in the world, but even I knew that laughing at a death scene was pretty uncool.
In the couple of months I’d been working for the St. Edwards Parish Coroners Office I’d probably been on more than a hundred death scenes. Some were tragic and heart wrenching—which was anything that involved kids; a few were truly bizarre—such as the guy who choked to death on a sex toy; but the large majority were simply in the category of “ho hum, another person died and I get to go pick them up.”
It wasn’t that I was jaded. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. But my views of death had certainly come a long way from the screwed up chick I used to be. I mean, I was definitely still a chick, but I wasn’t screwed up. Well, not as screwed up. Or rather, I was screwed up in different ways.
This death scene looked like it was going to be one of the ordinary ones. No kids, no sex toys, no batshit craziness that I could see so far.
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