The Dead Detective

by J. R. Rain

  “But if I bury you in your back yard, somebody’s going to dig you up when your house gets sold,” I tell him as we help him into the back seat of my Toyota. A couple of medics are copping a smoke out here in the parking garage and overhear me, giving me startled looks.

  “Under…pool…deck,” says Burchhalter. “It’s…new.”

  “What’s he saying?” asks Tamara.

  “He wants us to bury him under his swimming pool. I brought a couple of shovels―they’re in the trunk.” She looks appalled at the prospect of all that digging, and I don’t blame her.

  But once again, the woman surprises me. Several hours later after darkness has fallen, when the last of the fire inspectors has left the premises and the rain has slowed to a sullen drizzle, she’s the one who does most of the dirty work, shoveling up turf and hefting it onto Burchhalter’s lawn like a construction worker. A little round one. She’s like the Eveready Bunny; it’s all I can do to keep up. By now, we’ve been joined by Bull McGuinness, who is useless for this kind of work in the real world. He just idly lounges on a deck chair while we dig, blowing smoke rings and offering advice.

  I tell him to make himself useful and talk to the dead man. On the way over here, I tried to explain to Burchhalter exactly what had happened to him, but he was surprisingly disinterested. I told him about Gana Kali and the Gypsies, as well as the summoning ceremony; when that didn’t get a rise out of him, I quizzed him about exactly what had gone down―where he’d woken up, who’d shot him, etc. He didn’t remember any of the details of his becoming a mulo; he’d apparently gone straight home from the incident and gotten so drunk that he didn’t even notice the bullet hole in his chest until the next day. After a bender lasting a few more days, even his Loot at Vice managed to notice his absence, so he was ratted out to the department shrink, Dr. Phil. Which was how we’d been hooked up. In the meantime, Sergeant Burchhalter had been summoned to commit a murder that’s likely going to remain eternally unsolved, like the Black Dahlia.

  If I have anything to do with it, at least.

  It feels like forever, but finally by digging through a flowerbed, we manage to scoop out a sort of kayak-shaped hollow under the far side of the pool big enough for Burchalter to clamber down into, wearing the remains of my burned-up rubber rain slicker over his hospital wear, to sort of half lie, half crouch inside. First Tamara fills his coat pockets with salt, then we pour the rest in and pack it all around inside his makeshift crypt. You know, just to make sure he’s going nowhere.

  He instantly goes totally silent and inert. I explain to him what happens next: that we’re going to shovel all the muddy soil back over his grave and that when we do, Bull and I will show him how to make the jump out of his undead body into the world of the dead. Once again, this part goes on for longer than I thought it would. In the dark, it takes us forever to restore the section of lawn and the flowerbed we’ve dug up back to something even remotely resembling the way we found it. By now, we’re both utterly exhausted and Tamara’s hands are covered in bleeding blisters.

  “Burying a body always looks so easy on TV,” she says ruefully. “I guess that’s because it’s always a shallow grave. Maybe we can stick to digging those in future.” Living with me is really not having a good effect on her. She’s covered almost from head to foot in mud, and I realize I must look pretty much the same way.

  This time when Bull tells Burchhalter to imagine he’s in a swimming pool, I have to stifle a laugh. “He is in a swimming pool.” Or under one anyway. McGuinness just glares at me. Finally, we get Burchhalter’s ghostly spirit up and onto the ‘astral plane’, as Lorna likes to call it. Though for some reason, the term always reminds me of those Qatar Airlines commercials. You know, with the James Bond guy sipping wine. In fact, Burchhalter floats so far up above us, I have to talk him down again by tugging on his lifeline, while Rabbi Tamara stares at me uncomprehendingly. I guess to her, it looks like I’m talking to myself while doing a mime version of the Indian Rope Trick.

  “So what do I do now?” Burchhalter asks me, once I haul him back down to earth and he gets what’s going on with the glowing, humming landscape he finds himself in.

  “Start a new life. Or death, I guess is a more accurate way of putting it. Maybe Bull can take you out for a drink.”

  “Sure,” says Bull. “But he’s gonna need some kind of grubstake to get himself started here in Shadytown.”

  I have a sudden idea.

  “Sergeant, you keep much cash in the house?”

  “A few grand,” Burchhalter says. His ghost self is in better shape than the burnt rump roast we just buried. His shade looks slightly more human than his physical remains, even if he’s still missing his eyes and hands and part of an arm. Shit, I should have taken the time to attach something to his wrists, even just hooks made from coat-hanger wire. I make a silent resolution when all this has blown over to buy a couple of cheap jointed wood hands, the kind art students use, and come back and burn them in his swimming pool so he can easily find them. If that would even work.

  “Well, now it’s burned to a crisp somewhere in all that mess,” I tell him, meaning his money. “Maybe you can find it.” I nod at the smoldering ruins of the house, one skeletal side still partially standing in the real world. On the other hand, the destroyed half looks pretty good in the ghost world. New and modern. “Bull won’t mind acting as your banker.”

  “Anything for a brother officer,” says McGuinness greedily, and the two spectral figures wander off together to sift through the ash. For once Bull’s found somebody in worse shape than him―even worse than the Gimp―to hang with. I’m hoping the dead detective gives the sergeant at least a few of any bills they find.

  Tamara and I straggle back to the car through the debris strewn across the side-yard, dragging our mud-caked shovels behind us. The Toyota is parked at the top of Burchhalter’s driveway this time; true to form, the department’s motor pool guys have already showed up to tow the Crown Vic back to the police lot. Tamara asks me what just happened. With me and the two ghost cops, I mean. She finds the whole process fascinating. She even says I’m “so lucky” to be able to visit the land of the shades anytime I want; she’s wanted the power to do so all her life.

  “But you already have it.” I explain to her about lucid dreaming; that dreamers visit the other side every night. “The trick is you have to stare at the palm of your hand so that you become aware in your dream and can control it. Or at least that’s what Lorna says.”

  “Really?” Tamara sounds super excited; it’s a miracle she’s got any energy left at all. “So I could try it? Would you be my spirit guide, or whatever they call it, if I did?” Great. Why is everybody so into visiting Shadytown anyway? I mean, I’d give anything not to be stuck halfway, just to be normal and alive again. To be a real girl.

  But I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

  And then I have the weirdest thought. I’ve been too frantic and busy to think about it yet, but what if this allegation by Devon actually succeeds in making my life turn to shit―or hounds me out of my job? Or maybe even gets me the unwanted attention of the Federal government? What would I do then? Suddenly the notion of being set free like Burchhalter to, well, maybe not live, but to dwell in a place where being dead is normal, looks pretty attractive. I’m beginning to vibe on how the monster in the movie feels when the peasants with the pitchforks and the flaming torches show up at the castle gates.

  I come to a sudden stop. “Tamara, I need you to promise me something.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Anything.” And I realize…she thinks I’m sort of flirting with her. Without being aware of it, I’ve grabbed both her shoulders and am staring intently into her eyes. Damn, now I’m vamping everybody. Everybody human, anyway. Something else mulos do, according to the legends. They have glowing eyes and mesmerize people into doing their bidding. I definitely need to work on my skilz in that department.

  “Promise me you’ll do that for
me if I ever need you to. You know, bury me like that―maybe I’ll get somebody in to dig up a strip of the concrete floor in the basement this week. And then lay a false one.”

  It takes her a minute to realize I’m not kidding. “Well, okay, Rishya. Sure―I guess. But I’d really, really hate for it to come to that.” Now her big doe eyes look a little teary. “Besides, I’m not sure I could do it alone, I mean, not if I had to drag your body around first. I guess I could always ask one of the cantors to help me, though,” she adds after a while.

  That’s the trouble with rabbis; you never know for sure when they’re being serious. But I decide to play along.

  “I’ve always wanted a religious funeral,” I tell her.

  Even though we both look like mud people, I have a stop to make before we go home. Two, really; on the way to the stationhouse, I drop Bull and his new cop pal, Burchhalter, off in Little Malta to do some bar-crawling and hopefully dig something up on that creepy guy Drago, the dead Wise Man. The clock is ticking, and if I don’t find a way to get to Gana Kali pretty soon, there will be no way to stop her turning more cops into zombies. And when she runs out of cops…

  Which is pretty much what I tell the Cap when I get to his office. “Jesus, you look like crap,” he says to me, after the duty sergeant leaves the two of us alone there.

  “Thanks. I took care of Burchhalter.”

  “You mean he’s―?”

  “As good as. Let’s just say he won’t be axing grandma again.” Old cop joke.

  “Yeah, okay. Don’t tell me anything more. But meanwhile, what the fuck do I say to the mayor’s people? I mean, we’ve got half the department working double overtime to close a case that you’ve already wrapped up―that’s five more uncleared homicides that will turn into permanent cold cases after God knows how many weeks of wasting money and resources.”

  “Christ, I can’t believe you’re bitching me out for solving this, Cap! For fuck’s sake, just tell them the truth―you and I worked it out, and I was on my way to arrest the man when he blew himself up. Then the medics let the body go up in smoke. All the evidence supports it. The mayor will get his closure, and the top brass will want to cover it up, because Burchalter was a dirty cop.”

  Quirk sighs heavily. “Yeah, he was that. Stupid son of a bitch made me look like Snow White. Used to beat his wife too, until she finally left him the second time he put her in the hospital. She was a friend of Lenore’s.” Lenore is Quirk’s wife. Who, according to the rumpled pillow and blankets on the couch, still isn’t letting him back in the house. “Even so, the asshole didn’t deserve this. Neither did the vics. Hell of a thing…” His voice trails away.

  Quirk’s familiarity with Burchhalter was yet another reminder to me, if any was needed, of what a closed old boys club The Job still is. No matter how many years I put in, I’d never crack the inner circles. In fairness, though, I’d always felt like an outsider―in school, at college. Even in my marriage. Now I wasn’t even human anymore, it only made the feeling worse. But realistically, what other line of work was I gonna get into? Mortuary science? Necrophiliac hotline chat?

  “Amen to that,” I say, thinking of the two Gypsies I shot in the head. Maybe I’ll get a similar absolution someday. That no matter how bad I was, I still didn’t deserve the fate that lay in store for me.

  “Okay, I guess that might be the way to go. You’ll need to give your interview to the arson dicks, so I’ll prep the paper trail on Burchhalter to cover your story. It will have to be an APB though―I can’t fake a post-dated arrest warrant.”

  “Right. But…you do realize this problem isn’t just gonna go away, Cappy. I mean, Burchhalter’s gone, and that dumb boot Howell’s more or less out of the picture, but Gana Kali ‘s going to keep doing this until I stop her.”

  “So stop her. You’re sure there’s just one person doing this?”

  “No, there are others working with her, but I think she’s the only one who has the power or whatever to summon.” And I hope I’m not completely wrong on that score―because if so, I’d have to pretty much follow my own advice to Patrolman Howell and move to Duluth or someplace. With Tamara, so she could salt me every night. Like, forever. “Anyway, I need something from you, Cap. I need a couple of throw-downs.”

  He turns bright red and stares at me like a wild boar about to go berserk and charge. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Detective Dadd,” he finally grits out between clenched tusks. “You want me to give you illegal drop pieces?”

  I nod. “If you want this plague to end. And keep it, you know, under wraps.”

  He leans back in his chair. “Well, that goddamn ship is already sailed, now you’re on CNN. We’ve had two local TV channels staking out the main lobby Downtown―the only reason they aren’t outside this building right now is they still think you’re working out of Central with the rest of the Trapani murders task force. As it is, our phones have been ringing off the hook with reporters wanting to set up interviews.”

  I shrug. “So what? It’s too stupid a news story to have any legs. If I keep avoiding them, they’ll give up. I’ve got a medical report that says I’m not a zombie. Besides, even if they catch me on camera, so what? I’m not staggering around with blood dripping out of my mouth or―what?”

  My boss is staring suggestively at the caked mud covering my clothes. And, okay, my cheeks. And I’ve probably got some in my hair.

  “Okay, okay―you try digging a deep grave in the pouring rain sometime.”

  “Too much information, detective. Just saying―go home and clean yourself up before you get in front of any TV cameras.”

  Which is always good advice for anything you have to do in life, pretty much.

  ne of the female uniforms had taken Tamara into the downstairs bathroom and cleaned her up while I was talking to the captain; then a couple of older guys in Robbery had hit on her while she was getting coffee. My little rabbi friend claimed total disinterest in guys, but I’d already noticed that whenever she got any attention from men or women, she glowed a sort of pink color afterwards.

  I guess she and I were a little alike in that. Between the attention and the coffee, which is basically just a foul-tasting hyper-caffeinated tar-sludge the way we brew it in the stationhouse kitchen, she was pretty wired all the way home. Which was when I made a big mistake. She’d been so great all day that I just sort of agreed to the thing she wanted most from me, even though I knew better at the time.

  Tamara was still driving; since it was nearly midnight, I was terrified that I might be summoned at any minute, and I didn’t want to be behind the wheel when it happened. She was chattering away about everything we’d just gone through and peppering me with more questions about the other side: you know―what it’s like and who I’d met there; that kind of shit. That’s when she reached over and took my hand.

  “Rishya, I have to ask you something really important,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “I wasn’t going to say anything―I was planning to wait until you were ready, but I can’t stand it any longer. I just have to ask…”

  “Okay.” I had that old familiar sinking feeling, knowing that I was about to agree to something I was gonna be really sorry for later.

  “It’s because of my work. A lot of people think of being a rabbi―or a priest―like it’s a job. If they think of it at all, which they mostly don’t. But it’s not a career, it’s a calling; I got into it because of the spiritual side of it. Sort of like the journey you’re on, though I guess being a zombie isn’t exactly what the Mishnah had in mind. Anyway, honey…tonight, when you go into the Olam Ba-Ha―that’s what we call it in Judaism, the Afterlife―I want you to take me with you. Please? I need to see it for myself. I mean, how can I counsel people, how can I give them hope and offer them assurances about their death if I don’t even know what I’m talking about?”

  “What do you mean exactly by ‘take you with me?’”

  “You know, like in all the things you’ve been telling me. I
want you to intercept me when I’m dreaming in bed tonight and talk me into a lucid state. So I can see everything clearly and remember it afterwards when I wake up. Please? I need that certainty. I mean, I already know from everything you’ve told me it’s no Gan Eden on the other side and there are lots of scary people there, but I have to find out for myself sooner or later, right?” And so she started wheedling. Which I really can’t resist from her for long, given the circumstances. I mean, my life is sort of in her hands. And really, it’s not much for her to ask, considering all she’s done for me. Anybody else would be proposing. Or asking for a really humongous bank loan.

  But that’s how I ended up getting stuck babysitting my housemate tonight. I’m back up on the rooftop looking down at my salt-protected body in my bed. Lorna, by the way, is nowhere to be found―she’s stopped sleeping with me now that Tamara’s spreading salt around my bed, and I don’t blame her. And what’s doubly stupid about this is that I know I should be resting up and getting some sleep for once; I’ve rarely felt so bone-weary in my life. But I can’t help myself. I have a secret reason. Just like last night when I hung around the roof all night (in vain), I’m hoping to run into Wiley Fontenot again.

  You know, the super-hot lieutenant. My Dream Soldier…

  On the way home, Tamara and I made bets as to just how many news trucks we’d find staking out my house, but either they were respecting cop privilege―it was an unwritten crime to expose the home address of a police, though the rule got broken often enough―or else the media had already moved on. Both, I was hoping.

  Because the place was deserted, except for a yowling little black and white calico cat demanding to know where the hell I was and why hadn’t anybody fed her. And a huge, very expensive bouquet of red roses on the front steps with a note from Val that read, “Maybe I didn’t make it clear how much the other day meant to me. Mea culpa. I’d like another chance to fix that.”