The Corpse Wore Stilettos

by MJ O'Neill

  I had called ahead and let Sheila know I was coming. She sat waiting for me as requested, sitting on a bunch of produce boxes that sagged under her weight, smoking a cigarette and wearing what I guessed was a Tina Turner getup, complete with short sequined dress and spike-haired wig.

  She slid off the produce box to meet me, adjusting her skirt in the slide. “Hey, hon. I was so glad to get your call. I was practicing and just got off stage. I heard you had some trouble of the body-snatching variety.”

  “How’d you hear about my trouble?”

  “My girlfriend is a dancer, of the exotic type. She has friends in the same business as the missing girl. It’s all over the hooker grapevine that someone body-snatched a dead working girl. She was new, though, so no one knows much about her.”

  “There’s a hooker grapevine?”

  “Oh yeah, there’s nothing that working girls like more than juicy gossip, especially when it’s about one of their own.”

  “Did your girlfriend know who might have stolen the body?”

  “By the time the news got to her, she said they all thought you might be a voodoo priestess, trying to exorcise the girl’s bad spirits.”

  “I’m a lot of things, but a voodoo priestess isn’t one of them. I am trying to find the missing girl’s body, though. If your girlfriend hears any more, give me a call.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep my ears open. So, what goodies have you brought Big Sheila today?”

  I was a woman of few vices. I didn’t drink or smoke, and my sex life, when I had one, was boring and normal, devoid of fetishes. But I would literally provide offerings of small children to the gods for my shoe collection. To pay for Grand’s medicine, I’d been slowly and painfully selling my shoes off to Sheila and her friends. In times like these, I felt blessed to have particularly large feet for a girl. I was a size eleven, which made me popular with some in the drag crowd. Usually I had no problem moving a couple of pairs a week. If Sheila couldn’t use what I had, she always found someone who could. I pulled out the lime-green Manolo Blahnik sandal pumps.

  “Oh, hon,” Sheila said, the cigarette falling out of her mouth at the sight of them.

  I loved the idea of those shoes. The color was inspired, and they were super comfortable but not very practical. I didn’t have a lot of things that went well with lime. Plus, they had long leather ties that wrapped around the ankles, and sparkly bobbles on the toe straps. I’d been saving them for an emergency. Given my potential impending unemployment, I thought this qualified.

  “You’ve outdone yourself this time. No one’s going to get near these but me. How much?”

  “Two seventy-five firm.”

  “Will you take two fifty?”

  “Do I look like Wayne Brady from Let’s Make a Deal? ‘Firm’ means no haggling, and if you don’t want them, I’m sure I can find another buyer.”

  “You don’t have to get snarky, sugar. You can’t blame me for trying to get a bargain.”

  The transaction complete, I hit the pharmacy for Grand’s meds then headed to DC’s.

  DC lived near the university, on the third floor of an old brownstone with great bones and good upkeep. The building was probably a stunner in its day, a residence for some wealthy businessman and his family that hosted extravagant parties. Now it was gutted and stuffed but still loved.

  The apartment had been expanded and carved up into small units to serve as home to PhD candidates, more-studious-than-partygoing undergrads, and a host of young couples like DC and his partner, Kimi.

  I bounded up two flights of stairs and, standing in the hallway, heard the music blaring from their unit. I didn’t knock because no one would have heard it over the racket, anyway, but went right in instead, using the spare key DC had given me.

  “DC!” I yelled, looking around and moving through his apartment. The place was an eclectic mix of interests—part exotic plant- and bookshop, part As Seen on TV store, and part pharmacy. DC enabled Kimi’s perpetual hypochondria by always buying her something to save her life. Breathing machines, bandages, medical books, and pill bottles covered the floor and table. I wasn’t sure which of them had the infomercial obsession. Devices to tighten their abs, plump their lips, tone their skin, ShamWow the car, and slice and dice the perfect vegetable littered every surface.

  Peppered among the clutter were DC’s babies—his lush plants, vibrant green even though spring was barely a week old, and his books. That was how DC and I had originally connected. We were both voracious readers, and DC was one of the most knowledgeable people I had ever met. Kimi wasn’t allowed near his plants and constantly complained about the number of books lying around.

  DC stood in front of an enormous TV, wearing a St. Louis Rams jersey that was so big for his slight body, I couldn’t tell if he had anything on under it, and a white headband that stretched around his brown head in sharp contrast to his darker skin. Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” music video blared from the big screen. Next to DC, a gray-and-white Persian cat stood strapped into the harness of a vertical slingshot, bouncing to the beat.

  “DC!” I yelled again.

  A high-pitched scream exploded as he turned around, clearly startled. Once he realized I wasn’t a serial killer, a wide smile slid across his face. “Lock up your corpses. Kat is in the house!” he said, pausing the TV.

  “Not funny,” I said but smiled anyway. I could always count on DC to lighten any situation.

  He opened his long, skinny arms. “Come get a hug and tell me all about it.”

  DC wasn’t tall or robust but possessed a commanding presence nonetheless. He was petite for a male, no bigger than five six, animated and energetic in everything he did. He used relaxer on his longish hair, making it silky smooth. He had a sleek figure that never seemed to gain an ounce, even when he tried. Cheekbones any high-society girl would have died for accentuated the smoothest, most beautiful skin I’d ever seen.

  I found the hug to be unexpectedly nice. I wasn’t overly emotional like DC, but it felt good to be surrounded by a bit of sympathy.

  “Now, how did you manage to lose a body?” he asked, taking my hand and leading me to the couch.

  “It’s your fault.”

  “My fault?”

  “Burns McPhee.”

  “Oh, honey, if you ran into Mr. Tall, Dark, and Broody, that’s hardly cause for casting blame.”

  Under different circumstances, and if I hadn’t been on a man hiatus, nursing my mending heart, I might have been inclined to agree with DC.

  “So Burns McPhee stole your body?”

  “No, not exactly. He was trying to help me keep it from getting stolen. I think.”

  I relayed the whole story—how the body had been sneaked away in the sexavator, Burns and Flynn chasing after it with their guns, the white van, and the anonymous tip to the police about my being on the take.

  “It’s like an episode of NCIS. So who was the woman, and why do people want to steal her smelly remains? And who among our morgue brothers and sisters sold you out?”

  “You think it was someone at the morgue too?” I asked.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. You said someone tipped the cops that you were on the take and called it in to Dr. Hawthorne before he even got to the morgue, so it was before anyone had even seen you there. Meaning that it was someone who knew you would be working, and since you and I switched shifts last minute, that only leaves people with access to our posted schedule. We have a traitor in our midst.”

  That was why I loved DC. People always judged him by his appearance, but he was quick and smart.

  “We have to find out who the traitor is so that I can get unsuspended and we can have a safe and trusting work environment. Feeling unsafe in the workplace can cause unnecessary weight retention, you know.”

  “If by ‘we’ you mean ‘you,’ I think it’s a terrific idea.”

  “You’re the one who gave McPhee the bright idea that he could stroll into the morgue anytime he wanted and peek
at bodies. A part of the story I conveniently left out when I talked with the cops, by the way. And now I’m on probation.”

  “Well, true.”

  “You know how badly I need this job. I’m making a list.” I pulled my notebook out of my purse. My chronic indecisiveness had several side effects, one of which was my list making. Anything that needed sorting or deciding required me to make a list, sometimes culminating in a decision tree, often leading to a task plan. If I was ever worried or anxious about something, which was pretty much all the time, I wrote it down. My current worry list consisted of:

  A prostitute who doesn’t look like a prostitute, who gets her dead body stolen

  Creepy body snatcher

  Backstabbing-rat morgue worker

  McPhee and his merry band of misfits

  “So, how do you know him, and why did he come looking for you last night?” I closed the cover of my fuzzy pink notebook.

  “Burns McPhee is my guardian angel. I’d be dead, a mere footnote in history, if it wasn’t for him. A few years ago, before I met Kimi, I ran into some trouble walking to the bus alone from one of my meetings.”

  By “meetings,” DC didn’t mean AA or Kiwanis. DC was a registered officer of the Greater St. Louis NORML chapter, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He ended up working at the morgue through a medical contact in his pot business. The morgue work was temporary until he could get enough money to open his own plant emporium. In addition to the many legal herbs that DC currently sold on the side, he also had a line of medical marijuana. Once Missouri legalized medicinal marijuana, he believed he would be able to patent his more potent line and become more famous than the Jackie O rose.

  “It’s a long story, but let’s just say McPhee and his crew rescued me with their ninja moves from a group of Southern Confederates carrying very large firearms.”

  “So you ran into some ugly skinheads and McPhee saved you?”

  “Now you know how I hate stereotypes, Kat. It’s bad for your karma, but more or less, yes. He, Flynn, and Neutron saved me.”

  “Neutron?” I asked.

  “Bug-eyed boy genius. Another one of McPhee’s strays. He collects them.”

  “So who’s Flynn, besides someone in obvious need of roid rage therapy?”

  “As I understand it, Flynn’s been with Burns since they were kids. They were in the Army together. Served in Afghanistan. Flynn is Burns’s muscle. He scares me on account of...”

  “On account of what?”

  “On account of he doesn’t like me. He says I talk too much.”

  I smiled. DC did talk too much. It was part of his charm. The fact that it irritated that obnoxious Flynn was a bonus.

  Before DC could continue, the cat let out a shriek. DC made a beeline for the cat contraption.

  “What is that?”

  “This is a state-of-the-art cat-a-ciser. I told you Dr. Telner, our pet therapist, had recommended one for Morpheus and Niobe. Dr. Telner believes if Niobe has a forum where she can feel strong and powerful, she’ll stop trying to chew Kimi’s face off in the middle of the night.”

  Even after all these months, I didn’t quite understand DC and Kimi’s relationship. They didn’t seem like a fit, but they had been together for a while. I knew Dr. Telner had also suggested couples counseling for them, but Kimi wouldn’t go, leaving them at an impasse. Kimi had given him an ultimatum, saying either the cats had to go or she would. He looked distraught as he cuddled Niobe in his arms.

  “I’ve had Morpheus and Niobe since they were babies, and they’ve always been so sweet. But since Kimi moved in, it’s been one thing after another. Last night they peed in her ostrich-leather purse. So the cat-a-ciser has to work. Dr. Telner said he doesn’t normally sell it to patients but that we’re a special case. It’s a bargain at two ninety-nine.”

  “Three hundred dollars on a cat treadmill!”

  “Yeah, but they’re my babies. What can I do? I have to take them to Momma’s. Kimi says they can’t stay here anymore. Let me change, and I can fill you in on the rest on our way.”

  A few minutes later, DC came out looking like a completely different man, wearing a butterscotch-colored suit, his hair slicked back into a short ponytail.

  “We are not driving that junk heap of yours. We can take the cruiser.”

  DC’s car was the biggest Lincoln Town Car ever manufactured. The seats were plush maroon velvet, and there was enough room to have a small party in the back. I’d met DC’s mom, aka Momma Claiborne, a couple of times before. She was a remarkable woman, strong and sophisticated and approachable and warm. She raised DC and his brothers herself, their dad long gone, while successfully running her own cosmetics business. Her family was originally from the South, but they moved up here after a particularly nasty round of hurricanes in the early 1970s. Her house was a large, fully restored Victorian. It was pink with red trim, but it wasn’t that obnoxious Pepto-Bismol pink, more of a mauve. No house in the neighborhood looked like any other, and giant oaks kept watch over them all. Momma’s house stood at the end of a long street, looking grand, much like Momma Claiborne herself.

  As we pulled up to the house, Momma Claiborne was sitting on the front porch, hatted in a bright-white spring bonnet, sipping on a drink. The hat matched her flower-print dress in bold spring colors. As a large woman, she could get away with wearing bold, flowery dresses. She waved as we got out of the car.

  “Hello, Miss Kat,” she said as I walked up the steps to the front porch. “How are you doing, hon?”

  Everyone was “hon” to Momma Claiborne, males and females alike. Even though she’d lived in the Midwest, or what she called The North, for forty-plus years, her accent was still thick.

  “I’m fine, Momma Claiborne,” I said and ran up to give her a hug before I went to help DC with the cat carriers.

  “Except for the body snatchers,” DC added.

  “Well, it is body-snatching weather. Hello, son, have you brought me your fur kids?”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “You know I’d much rather have real grandkids.”

  When Kimi had moved in with DC, Momma Claiborne had started leaving bridal magazines everywhere and asking when he was going to give her grandbabies. Instead, he brought her cats.

  We headed to the back of the house to a sun porch full of plants and flowers starting their spring bloom and let out the cats. This was where DC was most comfortable, with his plants. From the road, it wasn’t easy to tell, but the house sat on over an acre of land, one of the pluses of living in the Midwest; houses were sprawling. In the back of Momma Claiborne’s house sat several greenhouses that DC used to grow his plants and herbs.

  We had a seat on the settee.

  “So how does McPhee rescuing you lead to him being in the morgue and trying to steal my body last night?” I asked.

  “That’s a whole other tragic tale. All I know is that since the prostitute killings started last spring, he’s been in the body business. I think it has something to do with Gillian Mathers.”

  “Gillian Mathers?” I searched my memory bank for the name. “Isn’t she the dead reporter from the Post?” The occasional conspiracy theory about her death had been the only thing to push my dad off the front page every now and then. “What does he have to do with her?”

  “Rumor has it Burns and her were an item in high school and maybe longer.”

  “Okay, but I thought the reporter’s death was a robbery gone wrong?”

  “Apparently, about six months ago, she called him with a story about some psycho serial killer murdering prostitutes. She asked for his help. Less than a week later, she turned up dead. I’d say he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence and maybe also that he’s nursing a bucket of guilt.”

  “So you’ve been letting him play peek-a-boo with any dead prostitutes that come into the morgue?”

  “I owe him, and I always pay my debts. Plus, just look at him. He’s like a walking tragedy. He took Gillian’s deat
h really hard. The police have swept it all under the rug and are getting nowhere on the prostitute murders. He’s one of the good guys trying to make something right. I didn’t have any moral objections to that.”

  I thought back to the way McPhee looked when he told me about the death of his best friend potentially being connected to the missing girl. That look in his eyes. He looked like a strong man trying to hold it all together. For a moment, I felt sorry for him. Still...

  “So if he’s one of the good guys, why wouldn’t he corroborate my story to the police, then?” I asked.

  “After Gillian was murdered, Burns and the local police exchanged some troubling communications. My guess is he’s pissed off the cops enough and doesn’t want to get himself in any more trouble. That, or he knows something he doesn’t want them finding out.”

  “That Detective Driscol sure didn’t like me mentioning McPhee at all. His forehead went all wrinkly, and he started rubbing the bridge of his nose, like he was stressed out. And I can’t believe they think I was in on it.”

  “Well, you might have ties to the Italian mob.” He smiled big.

  “Oh, please. About the only things Italian in my family are my dad’s suits and my love for gelato. But you’re right. Someone at the morgue is trying to make it look that way. Who would do such a thing? I’ve been so nice to everyone.”

  “It’s not your fault, really. People here just don’t appreciate free fashion tips.” DC got up and started fussing with his plants.

  I hugged the accent pillow to my body and contemplated the situation with my coworkers. DC and I had hit it off instantly. We were reading the same book the day I started. He had noticed me drooling over his scientific journal collection, and I helped him pick out the perfect accessories to go with his suits.