The Corpse Wore Stilettos

by MJ O'Neill

  We pulled into the driveway of a long white building. On it were painted large red stripes that ended in nested circles. The sign on the front read, “The Bull’s Eye—It’s a blast. Call 785-GUNS for All Your Party Reservations.”

  From the back, Neutron unloaded a bunch of hard cases that I assumed carried guns.

  The front door opened directly before a counter. A stereotypical redneck stood behind it, reminding me that stereotypes existed for a reason—beard, ball cap, and a belly that had obviously done its part to support the local beer business. He was reading a tabloid. I couldn’t see which one, but the article had something to do with aliens. When the bell rang, signaling that the door had opened, he looked up.

  “Been a while,” he said, barely glancing away from his paper. He eyed DC and me curiously. “I won’t ask. Sign them in under you. Burns is already here. You’ll have the place to yourself.”

  “Thanks, Marv.”

  We walked into a long space with separate lanes, like in bowling, but instead of pins at the end, there hung targets. Some were round with circles. Others looked like outlines of bodies. As I looked around, the gunfire startled me. Burns stood in the far lane, his arms outstretched and aimed at a target quite a distance down the lane. As he continued to fire, a black hole formed over the paper target’s heart. When he finished, he holstered his weapon, took off his hearing protection, and pulled in his target.

  “You’re gonna teach me to shoot like that, right, Burns?” DC yelled.

  “You finally made it,” Burns said, walking up to us.

  “We had a detour,” Flynn said, rolling his eyes. “You’ll be lucky if I let you anywhere near a gun today. The first thing we’re going to cover is gun safety.”

  “That’s ironic coming from people who shot up my greenhouse. Don’t you think that’s ironic, Kat?”

  “You can go sit in the car,” Flynn said.

  “Okay, okay, gun safety, but only because I’m a marked man who needs to defend myself.”

  For the next half hour, Flynn and Burns explained how guns were put together and all the possible ways they could fire accidentally. Flynn emphasized these points with DC, strangely not his usual rude self, full of passion for the conversation. We practiced taking the safety on and off several models, and he taught us how to put together one of the automatic weapons that Burns kept standard. Finally, we were ready to try our hand at firing something.

  Burns went to get the guns, and Neutron handed me a pair of what looked like old 1970s headphones. He started to hand a set to DC.

  “Oh no. I am not putting that thing on my handsome head.”

  “Why not?”

  “It will make me misshapen.”

  “Misshapen?”

  “People of my persuasion don’t have the cushy bush on top of our heads that you whiteys do.”

  “You have to wear something. You don’t listen now. I can’t imagine if you went deaf.”

  “You’re gonna have to figure something out, because I am not wearing those things.”

  Neutron went to the front and talked to Marv. When he came back, he was holding two giant blue marshmallows.

  “What am I supposed to do with those?”

  “Stick ’em in your ears.”

  “I can’t put those in my ears. My ears are dainty. Momma always said I could never wear wire glasses on account of my dainty ears.”

  “You can stick ’em in your ears, or I’m gonna stick ’em somewhere else,” Flynn finally chimed in, his patience completely gone.

  DC proceeded to put them in his ears, but they stuck out at least an inch. He was right— his ears were dainty. The blue marshmallows sticking out of his head made him look like a Blue Man Group reject.

  Neutron handed me a pair of safety glasses.

  “Now this, I’m prepared for,” DC said, pulling out a pair of shades from his leather jacket.

  Once we all had hearing and eye protection on, we headed to the alleys. In a nod to Flynn’s already-frail patience, Neutron shepherded DC over to one of the alleys several stalls down, and Flynn took his own.

  Burns came over and handed me a gun. “The Glock 19. Good gun for lightweights like you. Better safety than a .38, has a slim profile, which eases concealment, a mild recoil, and with sixteen rounds of 124-grain ammo, you are well armed for any confrontation that you might run across. If you can't defend yourself with sixteen rounds, you’d better turn and haul ass.”

  I held it in my hand for a moment, amazed at how heavy it was.

  “It’s a five-point checklist. Every time you pick up a gun, you need to run through the same five things in your head—stance, grasp, grip, sight, trigger. You do it over and over until it’s muscle memory. Aim at the target.”

  I looked at him for a moment, not really understanding the request.

  “Number-one rule in shooting—don’t think. Your head will get in the way. Aim at the target, and we’ll adjust your feet.” He looked down at them. I was wearing my exceptionally sparkly Giuseppe Zanotti tennis shoes. He rolled his eyes, but I was sure I saw a smile.

  I took the gun, squared my feet like they do on TV, and stuck my arms out in front of me. Burns came behind me and moved one of my feet back and shifted my hips to a forty-five-degree angle. His breath was warm on my neck. I inhaled to control the electricity flowing through me.

  “It’s a fighter’s stance. This needs to become second nature.” He then pushed my back so that my shoulders moved forward. “Nose over toes. It will help you manage the recoil and allow you to fire quicker.”

  Next he adjusted the gun in my hands. First he pushed the gun way up the top web part of my hand, then he turned my thumb down.

  “The higher the hand, the lower the bore axis. That means much better control of muzzle jump and less movement when it recoils. If it moves, you won’t hit the target. Now, grip. Squeeze the daylights out of it. If you hold it soft, you’re likely to try to grip harder when it goes off, and then you’ll move. Imagine it’s my neck,” he said with a smile. “Now, when you go to shoot, stop looking at the target.”

  He whispered it in my ear. The flutter of air was so soft I instinctively closed my eyes.

  “Once you know where the thing is you want to shoot, you don’t look at it anymore,” he said.

  “How on earth can I hit anything if I’m not looking at it?”

  “You want to be looking at the front sight”—he pointed at a place on the gun—“not the rear sight and not really the target, although you need to be target aware,” he said, pointing at the target as well. Next, he put his hand over mine. “Finally, you pull the—”

  And before I could blink, he squeezed my finger back on the trigger. The gun let out a loud bang, and I let out a loud squeal, jumping closer into him. His embrace tightened around me. I was surprised at the sound, given the hearing protection.

  He kept his hand over mine for several more shots, each time letting off the pressure so that eventually, I was pulling the trigger all on my own. Each time we squeezed, I squealed. I sounded like I had the hiccups. We reloaded the gun a couple of times. I still wasn’t getting anywhere near the target.

  “You’re thinking about it too much still. You have to turn off that big brain of yours and let the motion take you.” He wrapped himself around me, holding the gun along with me. “What’s your favorite color?” he asked softly in my ear.

  “What?” I asked and tried to turn my head toward him.

  He pushed my head back toward the target with his chin. “Getting to know you. Mine’s green. Close your eyes and tell me what your favorite color is.”

  “Bright blue,” I replied, and I felt him let go a little. I squeezed the trigger. I opened my eyes to see that I had hit the target. Not a bull’s-eye, but I was on the paper at least.

  “Yes!” I yelled and turned in his arms, looking up at him.

  Burns looked proud, causing my anti-man defense barrier to slip.

  “Better,” he said, giving me a squeeze b
efore he let go. “Do it again.”

  “Did you see me?” DC came rushing over, Neutron in tow, holding one of the targets. It had a tiny hole in the top right corner, nowhere near the picture on the target. “I’m a natural.”

  After another hour of my hiccup squealing, I started hitting the target. Although it was still unlikely I would kill anyone coming at me, there was a good chance I wouldn’t kill anyone else by accident and that I could at least inflict some damage. Although, given my compulsive squealing, it was a safe assumption that I wouldn’t have the element of surprise. I signed up to come back and practice some more.

  Neutron took me home and walked me to my apartment.

  “I can take it from here, Neutron. Thanks for your help today. Mom and Grand are inside.”

  “Boss’s orders. I promised I’d make sure you were in safe and sound.”

  “Who’s the twelve-year-old?” Grand asked as we came through the front door.

  “Maybe I should grow a beard,” Neutron said.

  “They let twelve-year-olds grow beards? Do you need shots for that?” Grand asked.

  “This is Neutron, Grand. He’s a professional hacker.”

  “I think the internet’s another way for the government to steal our souls,” Grand said.

  “Nine million people a year have their identity stolen,” I said.

  “These days, it’s everywhere. Even coffeepots have IP addresses,” Neutron added.

  “They can spy on me through the coffeepot?” Grand asked, eyeing the kitchen.

  “Cool, huh? I can show you how to dodge Big Brother if you’re interested. Excellent statue,” he said, pointing.

  I didn’t know when it had happened, but sometime in the last couple of days, Grand had gone shopping at the old house. This large, ugly statue of a dog that doubled as a side table—the table’s surface atop the dog’s head—sat perched next to Grand.

  “You should have seen us trying to move this baby on the moped. They won’t let me have a dog here. With Claude going away on business, I need companionship.”

  “Where’s Claude going?”

  “He didn’t say, but he might be away for a bit. Oh, you got a package today. Some new messenger service brought it. He was a bit rude.”

  “What kind of package?” Neutron asked.

  His tone told me that warning bells were going off in Neutron’s head.

  “It’s on the table.”

  The package was a small white Styrofoam cooler. It didn’t have shipping labels on it or anything else like a normal package. “Is it ticking?”

  “Ticking? We’re going to get exploded?” Grand asked. “Take it in the bathroom, away from my antiques. No one cares if the toilet blows.”

  “It’s not ticking,” Neutron confirmed. “Bombs don’t tick these days, anyway.”

  “Then maybe we shouldn’t open it. Do you have any of that FBI bomb-checking stuff?” I asked.

  Neutron took out his pocketknife and slit the tape that secured the lid to the body of the cooler. Slowly, he lifted the lid. Steam came out of the cooler.

  “Boiling witches’ brew?” Grand asked.

  “No, it’s more like dry ice,” Neutron replied.

  The smoke from the dry ice cleared. Inside the cooler was a rectangular white card.

  Katherine, I thought of you when I saw these. I’m sure you can see why.

  Neutron lifted the card out of the box. Underneath it, staring at me, were two bright-blue eyeballs sitting in a pool of blood.

  Chapter 15

  “Thank you for coming in, Ms. Waters.” Detective Lambert sat down across from me at the table in the interrogation room. She carried a file with her.

  Burns and I were still debating whether to turn over the eyeballs to the police. Currently they were in Burns’s freezer. He was adamant that they get any forensic evidence that might be on them, that Neutron hack any DNA or fingerprint-matching database, and that neither Burns nor I needed any more police attention until we both had a better idea what the heck was going on. I found it hard to argue with that logic.

  “My family is always happy to assist St. Louis’s finest. You know, not many women can carry off the pantsuit as well as you, Detective.” I hadn’t been pleased to get the summons that the detectives wanted to see me, but I was determined to make the best of it.

  “Uh, thanks. I think.”

  “Will Detective Driscol be joining us?”

  “He’s not available at the moment.”

  Her eyes shifted. She was lying. I turned around to look at the two-way mirror. When I turned back, she grimaced.

  “I understand they’ve set a date for your suspension hearing.”

  “Yes. Next Thursday. I’ll be glad to get it behind me.”

  “From what I hear, you don’t have any worries. Some members of the board are even calling for the hearing to be dismissed.”

  “Really? I’m preparing diligently and am confident of a successful outcome. My former meditation specialist, Kindar, says proper visualization is important for creating positive outcomes.”

  “Does that preparation involve Burns McPhee?”

  “Of course.”

  She looked surprised at my candor. They were obviously following either me or Burns or both of us. So there was no sense in denying we were working together. “He’s the sponsor of the morgue makeover and community open house that I’ve planned as a goodwill gesture. You and Detective Driscol should come. The morgue is an important partner for your department.”

  “I’ll see if we can fit it in. Seems like an odd use of your time, under the circumstances.”

  “Part of the reason I’m in this mess is because the elevator that leads from the morgue to the main hospital wasn’t properly secured. And you have to admit, the incident involving Billy Idol and the security footage has further complicated my situation. You’re aware that Mr. McPhee runs a robust security firm?”

  “We’re aware, yes. I have no problem with you and McPhee teaming up to better secure the hospital facilities. I have big issues with you interfering with an ongoing police investigation.”

  “Oh, Detective, I highly doubt that a socialite throwing a party would be considered interference by either the hospital board or a jury.” I shot her a coy smile.

  Lambert took a deep breath. “Should we consider you suddenly wanting to visit your father ‘interference’?”

  Then it dawned on me—my request to visit must have triggered a call to them.

  “Are you close to your parents, Detective?”

  “You have to admit that from our perspective, the timing of your desired visit is... interesting.”

  “It’s terribly kind for the department to be so concerned with how I’m spending my time these days.”

  She smiled.

  “In a way, all of my recent trouble has been a bit of a catalyst.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “It’s made me realize I’ve been avoiding. I had hoped everything with my father would go away on its own and I would magically get my life back. Mom’s rule number five—We have to embrace our right-now moments.”

  “I see. Do you know this man?” Lambert took out a photo from her file folder and laid it in front of me.

  I wondered what other goodies she had in there. “Of course. This is Sam,” I said. “He works at the morgue.”

  “Did you know that he has ties to Russian organized crime?”

  “I’m aware he had some youthful indiscretions. I’m sure a lot of us have things in our youth we’d rather forget as adults. Mine involve a Miss Southern Belle contest.”

  “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Mr. Winston’s affiliations were in the past, Ms. Waters.”

  Hmm. So they had something to show that Sam was working with the Russians again. I wondered whether Burns knew. “So you have proof that Sam is working with the Russians? I wouldn’t know anything about that, but that must mean you’ve decided to give some credence to my belief that the b
ody snatcher was Russian mob.”

  “I’m not at liberty to get into that,” she said.

  “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, Detective.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together. “You have?”

  “Do you do much party planning? We had our first party-planning meeting for the morgue community open house earlier this week. I’m a master party planner. I inherited the skill from my mom.”

  “I got my mom’s nose.”

  “It fits your face really well. Anyway, as I was giving my spiel on the key to creating a successful party being all about the why—why this party is needed and how to connect to your guests—I thought, this is what Detective Lambert needs.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What do party whys have to do with Winston, Russians, or the missing girl?”

  “Everyone involved in this has been entirely focused on the who. Who was the girl, who are the suspects at the morgue, who is the Russian... but no one is really asking why. Why steal the body of a dead woman? You’re all obsessed with the invitations and the guest list, but no one’s thinking about the purpose of the event.”

  “And you think you’ve come up with the answer?”

  “I can think of only a couple of reasons someone would steal a body from a morgue. One, maybe she had something on her person, or two, someone doesn’t want her identified.”

  “That seems reasonable. You said that when you first checked her, none of her effects were that remarkable.”

  “Nothing worth stealing. She could have had something on her insides. But I can’t stop thinking about her manicure.”

  “Her manicure?”

  “Not just her manicure. Her salon-perfect hair. Her gold cross. As you can imagine, Detective, I know people from money when I see them. If I was in charge of looking for this girl, I’d be checking in with other police departments around the nation for reports of missing persons who match her description.”

  “Other departments? You don’t think she’s from around here?”

  “Rich people get noticed when they go missing, don’t they? If there was a missing socialite around here, my grand wouldn’t have made the front page for throwing pies.”