Deader Still

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “Why did she tackle you?” Charlie frowned and sipped his tea.

  “Because I threw a chair at her.”

  Charlie’s frown deepened. “Why did you throw a chair at her?”

  “She threatened me.”

  “Why would she threaten you?” Charlie put his tea down, his frown so deeply etched it made me smooth out my own forehead with my fingers in case I somehow caught his wrinkles.

  I shook my head. “No idea.”

  “You see?” Pete gestured to Sabrina and me with an open palm. “You see what happens when you engage?”

  “So.” I turned to Sabrina and asked again, “How did the rest of my funeral go?”

  “I’m not listening. I’m just not listening.” Pete picked up his bacon sandwich and took a bite, humming to himself.

  “It was brilliant.” Sabrina wiggled in her chair a little in her excitement. “Your mum’s got a pretty decent right hook and that trollop was a right brawler once she got into it. When everyone had tired themselves out, they picked your corpse up, put it back in the coffin and carried on like nothing had happened. They kept the coffin closed after that though. Oz missed most of it because he was freaking out about where you’d gone but when the messenger delivered the letter for you he made us all leave.”

  Pete had the sandwich halfway to his open mouth and he stared at us. He didn’t speak, he just stared.

  “So you didn’t hear people say nice stuff about me?” I asked, disappointed. I know Charon had said they hadn’t but I was hoping maybe he’d just missed it.

  “The priest kinda rushed through it. No one got to speak. And most people had injured faces anyway so …” She let the sentence trail off.

  “Oz knew about this?” Charlie’s frown wasn’t leaving his face anytime soon.

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “You see?” Pete turned to Charlie with a shake of his head. “Oz engaged.”

  “Talk to me about the body. It was a blow to the head, right?” Sabrina asked and I nodded. “It’s always a blow to the head. What’s wrong with a little strangulation? Or some suffocation? Or a drop or two of poison?”

  “Did you say she was a therapist? I heard it was a GA leader,” Charlie said, his eyes wrinkling at the corners in something close to a wince.

  Pete stared at Charlie. “Et tu, Brute?”

  I shook my head, still ignoring Pete. “She was a psychiatrist but she was overseeing my assessment. Lucy said she taught at the academy though.”

  “How would—” Sabrina whistled low. “Lucy’s training to be a GA leader? I do not envy her group.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she’d be that bad.” Lucy was my housemate; I had to show her some support despite her betting I’d only last two weeks.

  “Still … Okay, so what do we know? Any suspects?” Sabrina asked.

  I shook my head in despair. “So, so many suspects.”

  “No.” Pete dropped the half-eaten sandwich back onto his plate and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “We’re not going through this again. You both have a decade of community service to get through. Any infractions of your parole and we’re talking jail time. No investigating this,” he said, pointing to Sabrina.

  Sabrina grabbed hold of Pete’s finger and shook his hand from side to side. “I’m sorry. When was it you became the boss of me?”

  Pete pulled his finger from Sabrina’s clenched fist. “Since you hit me over the head with a cudgel, proving you couldn’t tell good guys from bad guys.”

  “She found another dead ghost in her locker, which suggests either a threat or a frame,” Sabrina said. “We’re supposed to just let that go?”

  “Yes.” Pete spoke through gritted teeth. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Let the police do their jobs.”

  Sabrina stared at Pete for a long moment then stirred a drop of milk into her coffee and sipped it, the picture of compliance. “Okay. Fine.”

  “Okay, fine, what?” Pete kept his narrowed eyes on her. I guess he didn’t believe it either.

  Sabrina shrugged. “Okay, fine, we won’t investigate.”

  “Good.” Pete picked his bacon sandwich back up, rested his elbows on the table but didn’t start eating. Charlie frowned into his bowl of cereal and Sabrina smiled smugly into her coffee cup.

  “So …” I drew the word out to fill the silence. “What do people do around here for fun?”

  Pete dropped his sandwich back to the plate, glanced at the array of food in front of him and shook his head. “I have never met anyone who could make me lose my appetite. Until I met you.”

  I tilted my head as I looked at Pete. “I don’t really feel like that’s a compliment.”

  “It’s not.” Pete gestured to Sabrina with his mug. “Initially, I thought this one was the instigator but now I realise you’re as bad as each other.”

  “And on that note, I think I’ll get to work early,” I said.

  Sabrina loaded my dishes onto her tray and picked it up.

  Pete’s eyes tracked my movements. “They don’t pay us by the hour, Bridge.”

  “Or at all,” Sabrina chimed in. We walked to the kitchen hatch. Sabrina pushed her tray through and we headed out of the canteen, Pete’s suspicious eyes burning holes in our backs. “I’ve not said it because I’m assuming it’s a given.”

  I sighed and gave her an indulgent nod. “Yes, we’ll investigate under the guise of clearing my name.”

  “Excellent.” She clapped once then frowned at me as I pulled her to a stop in the middle of the corridor. She frowned at me. “What?”

  “Do you need to get to work early?”

  Her face wrinkled up like a prune. “They don’t pay me. They’re lucky I go at all. Why?”

  “You remember The Trollop from my funeral?” I asked.

  “Not likely to forget that anytime soon.” Sabrina snorted then lowered her voice and checked over her shoulder. “You want to go haunt her before work? It’s not really her fault your idiot fiancé cheated on you, but I suppose we could haunt him at the same time.”

  “What? No. I don’t care about that,” I said heading along the corridor to the tunnelling room.

  Sabrina frowned and followed me. “You don’t care about him cheating on you?”

  “Not as much as I care about her rooting through my wardrobe and wearing the style out of my clothes.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re far too attached to material things?” she asked as we headed into the room and toward one of the departure circles painted on the floor.

  I took her hand and focused on my kitchen. “Has anyone ever told you to shut up?”

  “Oh, that was a great come back.”

  “Shut up.”

  I tunnelled us into the kitchen of the house I’d shared with Michael-the-cheating-scumbag. It’d taken me a long time to get it exactly how I wanted it. I’d searched everywhere for the perfect red cupboards to compliment the internal dark-oak doors, skirting boards and the four-seater kitchen table. A red that wasn’t too garish, but bright enough to make a statement. And when the workmen had come to fit the black and white tiled floor? Well, hadn’t that been a nightmare? But it had been worth it.

  I looked at my kitchen counter and smiled with pride. Until I saw Michael-the-cheating-scumbag’s stained, overused coffee maker sitting in the centre of the unit. A blight on my perfectly designed kitchen. Then I saw my beautiful stainless steel bread maker covered with flour. My once shiny and unused cake maker had been treated to the same shoddy standards of cleanliness. As had my ice cream maker. And my slow cooker was actually cooking something. I’d not bought these appliances to be used but to complete my perfect kitchen design. What the hell was going on here?

  “This is just unacceptable.” I walked over to the white marble counter and swiped my finger across it. It wasn’t dusty exactly but that didn’t mean it was clean.

  “I know,” Sabrina said. “I mean, it’s the kitchen table. I’m all for spontaneity but she’s
just put her hand in her cornflakes. That’s just not sexy.”

  “What?” I turned around to see Michael-the-cheating-scumbag and The Trollop in a repeat of the exact same activity I’d seen them engaging the day I’d died. I’d been so engrossed in the state of my beautiful kitchen I’d somehow blocked the noises out. I felt my lip curl. I supposed I should have been grateful they weren’t at it during my funeral.

  Sabrina scowled at them. “Does he always grunt like that? He sounds like an unfit tennis player.”

  Before I could answer the table cracked and toppled them both to the floor. Milk, cereal, toast, butter and jam covered them. Sabrina and I jumped back just in time to avoid getting splashed. Michael-the-cheating-scumbag and The Trollop paused in shock, laughed and then carried on.

  “Well, they seem well suited,” Sabrina mused.

  “That’s outrageous!” I gasped in shock.

  “Nah, they’re just in the throes of what I assume passes for passion with this poor excuse for a man.”

  “What?” I frowned at Sabrina. “Do you know how much this table cost?” I stepped over the couple on the floor and peered under the table to inspect the cause of the break. “It should not have broken like that. This is solid oak and made by a company who supposedly have over a hundred years of carpentry expertise.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be worried that you’re not concerned with what’s happening on the floor right now or relieved.”

  “I’ve a good mind to leave them a poor review on their website. We’ve barely had this table six months.”

  “This isn’t your problem,” Sabrina said.

  “Of course it’s my problem. It’s my goddamn table.”

  “No, it’s not. Not anymore.”

  “Well, that is just not the point.” I adjusted my fringe with a forced casual air. “Shoddy workmanship is shoddy workmanship. Just ask Barry. They could have died and then they’d be here with me. That is simply unacceptable.”

  Sabrina grinned at me. “Is that what you’re going to put in your review?”

  “There are times when I don’t think I would have liked you very much in life,” I said with a toss of my head as I walked out the kitchen.

  “You were going to marry that guy. I think you not liking me would’ve been a resounding compliment,” she said as she followed me up the stairs and into my bedroom. “About these clothes …”

  “You don’t want to help?” I asked, pulling my suitcase out from under the bed before unzipping it.

  “No. I’ll help.” Sabrina grabbed a handful of my clothes and I watched in morbid fascination and she rolled them up and over the hangers then dumped them in the suitcase completely oblivious to my horror. “But I think we should burn them.”

  I stepped back and held my hand up in her direction to halt everything. Her mangling of my clothes. Her utter blasphemy. “What?”

  She grabbed another handful and did her ghastly wrap and drop thing again. “These clothes are from your old life. You have a new life now. Why would you wear the same clothes?”

  I gestured to my mauve jumpsuit. “Because this is such a great fashion statement?”

  “No, but it’s who you are now. And who you are now doesn’t stress over broken tables. She doesn’t even stress over dead bodies.” Sabrina held up a pastel blue silk, v-neck blouse against herself and looked in the mirror. “If you were so desperate for these clothes why didn't we come and get them sooner?”

  “Um, maybe because we were in the middle of that whole pesky murder situation!” I said and carefully arranged my eyeshadows in the makeup bag. “And I didn't really think much about it until I saw The Trollop in my dress at my funeral.”

  “That was out of line,” Sabrina agreed with a nod. “Okay, look, we’ll take it all for now and you can decide what to do with it later.”

  While Sabrina was cleaning out the rest of my closet, I packed up all of my makeup. Some of it The Trollop had utterly destroyed but the majority of it was salvageable.

  “You’ve got some really nice stuff here.” Sabrina held up my grey Tessuti skirt suit, which looked very similar to the one she’d been wearing the first time I’d met her. “Suddenly I’m thinking burning it all is a little rash.”

  “I don’t normally like to share clothes but I’m happy for you to borrow anything. See? I’m growing as a person.” I smiled widely at her, mainly because I knew I didn’t have anything that would be able to contain Sabrina’s ample bosom.

  “Are you done?” she asked as she placed the skirt suit on top of the full suitcase and zipped it up.

  “Shoes.” I pointed to the array of heels behind her. I could tell she was about to complain until she held a pair up and realised we were the same shoe size. I grabbed another suitcase from under the bed and we filled it with all my shoes. I stood back and admired my now empty closet.

  Sabrina zipped up the shoe bag and stood both suitcases upright. “Okay. Let’s go before we get caught.”

  I slung my makeup-filled overnight bag on my shoulder, grabbed hold of one of the suitcases and reached for Sabrina’s hand, suddenly seeing a problem. “Where are we going to hide all this?”

  “See, this is why I’m the criminal mastermind and you’re my apprentice. You don’t even approach a crime until you have an escape route.” Sabrina grabbed my hand and tunnelled us.

  We landed in Madame Zorina’s empty office and wheeled the two suitcases towards the sea facing wall. I took a piece of paper from her printer and scrawled a note on it before sticking it to one of the suitcases.

  Sabrina read the note aloud. “‘Please don’t touch these.’ That’s awfully polite of you.”

  I put the pen back in the holder on Madame Zorina’s desk. “Flip it over.”

  “‘If you do, I will delight in tormenting you in the most horrific of ways until you die. And then I shall continue until the end of your afterlife.’ I don’t know about your adjustment issues – I think Oz might want to address your anger issues.”

  “I don’t have any anger issues!” I yelled at the top of my voice while stamping my feet.

  Sabrina didn’t flinch; she just stared at me with a straight face. “Yes, you’re very funny.”

  I flashed her a grin. I was happy now I had all my stuff. “Are you going straight to work from here?” I asked, checking the clock. It was quarter to nine.

  “I was, unless you have any more law breaking you want to do?”

  I patted my suitcases. “I’m good for now, but thanks.”

  “Okay. And good luck for your assessment.” Sabrina gave me a brief hug. “I’ll send you assessment-passing vibes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to need more than vibes. Oh, before you go.” I handed her a page and a half of notes.

  “What is this?”

  “Suspect info from my housemates. Thought it couldn’t hurt for you to … do whatever it is you do with their files and snoop.”

  Sabrina flipped the pages over and read aloud. “The guy who said Watson had flunked him for drinking too much coffee. The girl who said Watson gave her low scores in assignments because Watson didn’t like her shoes. ” She looked up from the paper and arched an eyebrow at me. “There are no names on here. How can I snoop through their files if I don’t know who they are?”

  “You’re a detective,” I said with a shrug. “Detect.”

  She frowned at me. “I’m retracting my offer of assessment-passing vibes.”

  “Oh no!” I exclaimed and clutched both hands over my heart. “Without those I’ll totally fail.”

  “Shut up,” she said before she tunnelled to work and I tunnelled back to the bureau.

  Once there I headed straight for the front desk. At first glance I thought Alex was back on duty which, since he'd threatened Sabrina and me with a gun only days ago, would not have been a good start to my day. When the man at reception turned around it was glaringly obvious it wasn’t Alex. And I couldn’t help but stare. The new guy must have been standing in
line for handsome with Alex and somehow snagged his portion. He was tall, broad, muscular and had dark hair, just like Alex, only this guy was ridiculously handsome. Like, twice as handsome as the average handsome person and somehow that made him preposterously unattractive.

  His skin was perfectly smooth, his tan perfectly even. The dark hair was perfectly styled into a 1940s side parting. The lips, perfectly pale pink and perfectly pouty. The eyelashes, perfectly luscious and perfectly curled. His teeth, perfectly even and perfectly white.

  He reached out to touch my face. “What can we do to turn that frown upside down?”

  I knocked his hand away. “You can not touch me, for one. For two, you can give me my new locker number and combination.”

  His perfectly plucked eyebrows lowered into a scowl that did nothing to diminish his attractiveness. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

  “In future, do it without touching me.” I hated attractive-person-arrogance. It was so much worse than general-person-arrogance because it usually came with a huge dollop of self-righteousness. “My name is Bridget Sway. Detective Johnson should have requested a new locker for me. Please can you check?”

  He folded his perfectly muscled arms across his perfectly toned chest, both of which were thanks to his very fitted grey jumpsuit, and tilted his head back so he could stare down his perfectly aquiline nose at me. “Do you have a locker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it lock?”

  “Yes.” Although every murderer and his dog seemed more than capable of picking it.

  “Then that’s your locker.”

  “I need a new one.”

  “Why?” He pouted his perfectly pouty lips at me. It would be wrong to punch him. It would. I knew it would. But only because he’d file a report and then Oz would find out.

  “I keep finding dead ghosts in it.”

  “You’re that girl?” His mouth stretched into a perfect circle. He stepped back none too subtly as though death was catching. I was about to tell him he was already dead but I didn’t think he’d really understand what I meant. Stupid attractive people.

  “Yes. My locker information, please?” I said, holding out my hand.

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head at me, looking perfectly terrified. He held up his hands in surrender and stepped back. “Your locker is your locker.”