Drop Dead Beauty

by Wendy Roberts

  “Have you experienced any nausea? Sore breasts? Fatigue?”

  “Um. Yes, yes, and yes.”

  “It’s a good thing that you asked for me personally. I’m the only masseuse at Jonelle’s who is also certified in prenatal massage.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Yes. Many massage places won’t even offer services to a woman in their first trimester, but you and your unborn baby are perfectly safe in my hands.”

  And with those words he took the sheet and bared one leg, tucking the edges of the fold under her panties in a way that was both professional and intimate. She stiffened.

  “So, um, I’m still curious about that woman who died. . . . Jane? Was that her name?”

  Emilio didn’t answer. His only response was to place his hands on her legs and rub warm oil into her skin.

  “This Jane woman . . . she was a regular of yours, wasn’t she? That must make you feel horrible that she died here and—”

  “Shh,” Emilio said in a very soft voice. “You are so tense. It is not good for you or your baby to be so stressed. Just relax. Take deep, calming breaths.”

  “Zenia must have freaked out at you since the murder happened to one of your clients.”

  Emilio’s hands tightened painfully on her calf for a moment and Sadie let out a squeak of surprise.

  “She wasn’t pleased,” Emilio admitted. His hands relaxed their grip. “If you have any more questions, we can talk about them later,” he assured her. “Right now, you need to allow all anxiety and worries to leave your mind and your body.”

  Sadie was determined to hang on to all those worries in order to make a list of questions to ask Emilio at the end of the massage. Then somewhere between the lavender scents, the warm oils, and the musical notes of waves lapping on a distant shore, she fell into deep slumber. She was jolted awake by a persistent knocking at the door.

  “Go away,” Sadie murmured sleepily.

  Zenia popped her head inside, smiled, and turned up the lights.

  “Wakey-wakey.”

  “Huh? What?” Sadie sat up, tugging the sheet with her. “I, um, guess I fell asleep.”

  “No worries. Happens all the time, but we do need this room in a few minutes for our next guest. I’ll meet you at the front desk.”

  “Oh. Where’s Emilio?”

  Zenia stiffened. “He’s with another client down the hall. He was done with your massage half an hour ago.”

  She snagged Sadie’s housecoat off the hook on the door, then tossed it on her sheet-covered legs and closed the door behind her.

  “Damn!”

  Sadie hustled into her robe and then hurried to the changing room. She didn’t get any answers out of Emilio and now she was running late for her meeting with Bill in Capitol Hill. She quickly dialed the client from the changing room, explaining she was a few minutes behind schedule but would be there shortly. He sounded less than impressed.

  When Sadie arrived out front, she overheard Zenia murmuring angrily to an esthetician about cutting back on the amount of free samples she gave out.

  “Every little bottle costs me money,” Zenia stated.

  When they spotted Sadie, the other employee took off to the back and Sadie walked up to the counter to pay. She offered up her coupon and then used her debit card to pay the balance, adding a twenty percent tip to Emilio.

  “Can I schedule you and your sister and the other bridesmaids in for a session?” Zenia asked.

  “I’ll definitely talk to my sister about it,” Sadie assured her, glancing at her watch. “Right now I’m late for work.”

  “Perhaps you could book a tour or massage for your sister to try. I’m sure she’d be convinced after only a few minutes.”

  Sadie smiled back and promised to talk her sister into it.

  Detective Petrovich wasn’t going to be thrilled that Sadie used her massage time to actually get a massage and had the nerve to get so relaxed she fell completely asleep without getting any questions answered.

  Sadie jogged through the rain to her van. She quickly stuffed the conjure bag in her purse and spritzed a light cologne she’d brought from home. Deftly driving in and out of traffic over to her client’s house, she made good time. In the end she was a mere ten minutes late from the time promised. Bill had a sterile home with modern metal and glass décor. The balding middle-aged man with a sizable paunch had invited her in, and they sat together at a glass kitchen table going over paperwork.

  He grumbled as he read over the contract, underlining points and firing questions off to Sadie about everything from the legalese to punctuation. Sadie answered all his questions quickly and assuredly, but she didn’t like Bill—not one bit. Luckily she didn’t need to like a client to clean for him.

  He signed the paperwork with a flourish then pushed the documents across the table to Sadie, who placed them inside a personalized file folder.

  “So how do you go in and clean up such a huge mess?” Bill asked. “From what the officers told me, there’s blood everywhere.”

  “Well, it’s a systematic process,” Sadie explained. “It takes a lot of cleaning products, and anything that can’t be cleaned properly has to be disposed of. There’s a very good chance your insurance company may end up having to pay to replace sections of drywall and carpeting and—”

  “No. I mean how do you possibly do it all? You personally. How do you go into such a gruesome situation and just clean as if it was spilled orange juice?”

  Sadie took a deep breath.

  “Well, Bill, I used to be a grade school teacher. Then my brother took his own life and I found out from the police that families are responsible for cleaning up that kind of thing. It didn’t feel right to me. So I took all the blood-borne pathogens training and became a trauma-clean specialist. I like to think I’m saving people from being traumatized twice.”

  “Really. Huh. How about that.”

  His tone was derisive, and she could tell he didn’t exactly see her line of work as the noble calling that it was. Although, it wasn’t even Sadie’s true calling. Her real reason for doing what she did, as she found out after she started, was so that she could help answer last requests and help spirits move on. But now she couldn’t even perform that service because she didn’t want to feel the pain of their deaths. Now she was like a grotesque version of Molly Maid.

  Bill gave her the keys to the house and asked when he could expect completion.

  “Later today, after I’ve been through the house, I will be able to provide you with an approximate time frame. I wish I could get to it sooner, but I have another job this evening.” The job of telling Zack about the baby and watching him burn rubber out of my driveway and out of my life. “But I’ll get a few hours accomplished this afternoon, and I’ll call you with a time for completion. You’ll probably need to arrange for drywallers, painters, and flooring people to come in after I’m done.”

  “The faster the better,” Bill grumped. “I don’t want the house standing empty longer than necessary. The longer it goes without tenants, the more money I lose.”

  Sadie bit her tongue from reminding him that the tenants hadn’t exactly willingly moved out.

  “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

  “Good. Even faster would be nice,” he said. “I’m hoping to have the place available to show by the end of the month.”

  Sadie wondered if he planned on offering people a cheaper rent for living in a house that was recently the location of a home invasion and the massacre of its four previous tenants. A bloodbath discount or something.

  Sadie left Bill’s and headed straight to a fast-food outlet for a burger and shake. Back in the Scene-2-Clean van, she checked her phone when it chirped a message from Zack.

  Looking forward to our dinner tonight.

  Sadie just sighed. Then she texted a reply, letting him know
she had something important to talk to him about.

  She wondered if she should go all out and make Zack his favorite home-cooked meal, or if she should order pizza. Her mouth watered at the thought of pizza and then just as quickly she felt a wave of nausea and had to roll down her windows for fresh air.

  As she headed to West Seattle, she plugged in her Bluetooth and made phone calls. First she called Maeva.

  “How are you doing?” her friend asked.

  “Keeping busy,” Sadie said. “Could you get me Rudie’s phone number? I’m going to call him and thank him for the great job on the conjure bag. Went to Jonelle’s Day Spa and didn’t have to deal with Jane’s head pain. Also, I’m going to push him to see if he’s been able to come up with a spell that will only block the pain of spirits passing and not the actual spirits themselves.”

  “I’m glad to hear you still want to help spirits move on,” Maeva said seriously. “I was worried you’d be too relieved about working in peace and quiet to remember your actual purpose.”

  “I’m thinking my actual purpose might help to distract me from the hell that is otherwise known as my love life. Speaking of that, Zack’s coming over to my house tonight for what he thinks is a date where I’m making him dinner.”

  “And you’re going to drop the bomb?”

  “Yeah.” Sadie chewed the inside of her cheek nervously and let out a slow breath. “Maeva, I screwed up big-time, didn’t I?”

  “No,” Maeva replied emphatically. “He screwed up. You were doing good and then when he got hurt on the job, he got hooked on pain pills and ended up shacking up with his ex. Even then you stood by him until he came to his senses, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then when he got out of rehab and he kept saying he needed time to get his life together, you gave him all the time he needed. But when you asked him to give you an idea about where you stood, he panicked and broke it off.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. It’s not your fault Owen happened to be there to catch you when you fell and to gather you up when you were feeling needy and weak from lack of sex. After all, how were you to know Zack was ever going to come back and want to be with you?”

  “All true,” Sadie said, pulling the van to a stop at a red light. “So why do I feel like an absolute asshole?”

  “Because you’re human and because you still love him.”

  Sadie’s eyes filled with tears. She ended the call with Maeva as she backed up into the driveway of a small split-level house on Southwest Brandon Street. It looked like any other house in any other middle-class neighborhood where people cut their lawns, cleaned their gutters, and worked nine-to-five jobs to pay the mortgage or rent. Except this particular house was where four people had been tied up and gunned down in what the newspapers said was an attempted robbery.

  Bill had given Sadie the garage door opener and she pressed it now as she unloaded her supplies. The garage would be the perfect safe zone in which to don and doff her hazmat gear and to store her supplies. As the garage door went up, a swarm of fat flies poured out. Sadie knew it was just a symptom of what was on the other side of the door leading into the house. Four bodies shot up would’ve sent out a notice of a smorgasbord to flies from miles around.

  As Sadie geared up in the hazmat suit, which made her look more spaceman than pregnant trauma cleaner, her phone chimed. It was a text from Maeva passing along Rudie’s cell phone number. She decided to call him before pulling on her respirator.

  “Rudie here.”

  “Hi, Rudie. This is Sadie Novak. I want to thank you for the baggie you sold me yesterday.”

  Just then Sadie noticed a neighbor walking his dog at the end of the driveway, and by the look on the old gal’s face, Sadie’s voice was probably amplified from inside the garage. She hastily added, “The wonderful bag of healing herbs you sold me.”

  The old woman sniffed and kept walking. That sounded no better.

  “You’re welcome. I presume the banishment spell worked and you’re not calling to ask for your money back.”

  Sadie picked up on his sarcastic tone and ate crow.

  “It’s great and I’m very sorry for ever doubting you. I am calling to see if there’s any chance you can work on the specific bag we talked about.” She lowered her voice. “One that would allow me to still see spirits and help them move on, just block out the pain they felt at their death?”

  “You’re asking for something very specific and unique, and the only way I could create such a thing would be through trial and error. If you’re willing to try new spell bags and report back to me on where there needs to be improvement, then I’m willing to dedicate myself to helping you.”

  “Okay. I’m willing.”

  “It could cost up to double the price of your last conjure bag.”

  Five hundred dollars?

  “Um . . .” She cringed. “Fine.”

  “The good news is that if we create this spell and herb mixture specific to your situation, it goes into the encyclopedia of spells,” he said.

  “There’s an encyclopedia?”

  “Oh sure. Of course it’s mostly online now,” he said. “Good news is that we could even use your name in this spell. We could call it the Sadie Pain Begone Potion.”

  “Huh.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and forced herself not to say anything offensive in return. “So you’ll call me when you have something I can try?”

  “Yup.”

  With Rudie’s odd yet comforting assurance of her future, Sadie finished suiting up in her hazmat gear and prepared to enter the house and begin cleaning. In addition to the physical preparation with her gear, Sadie took a moment to mentally prepare. She had to slam down the door to her feelings and enter a mental state that was strictly business without emotion. It was the only way anyone could do her job. Unless, of course, you were completely crazy or devoid of human emotion—and yes, she’d met some blood-’n’-guts people who were both.

  Once Sadie was inside she could’ve pointed exactly to where the bodies had been, even though the corpses had long since been bagged and tagged. The remaining sloughed skin and congealed blood pools lay testament to where the victims had dropped and remained until their bodies had been found. However, the fact that the walls were riddled with shotgun holes told her they’d tried to run. She registered none of this on an emotional level as she sprayed emulsifiers on dried tissue and brain matter that clung to walls and furniture like petrified oatmeal.

  The first stage of cleaning was always the most difficult, partly because of the amount of protective gear she had to wear. It was easier to work without gloves, booties, and respirators, but bone fragments could be razor-sharp and blood carried disease-causing microorganisms. For the first time ever that realization carried with it an even higher level of fear. If she picked up a disease from her job, so would her baby. She was never careless at work but now she was infallible, exquisitely faultless, and . . . slowwww.

  My God if I work any slower this job will take a week!

  Sadie had been working on one end of the living room for a couple hours, and she got to her feet and stretched. She wanted a nap and food and not necessarily in that order. Glancing at a wall clock dappled with blood spatter, she cringed. She didn’t have much time before she’d have to leave if she planned on being on time for her dinner with Zack.

  As she reached overhead to stretch her aching arms, she caught a glimpse to the street outside through the parted blinds. Frowning, she leaned forward and stared. A dark pickup sat across the street, the driver hidden in shadow. As she moved closer to the window and opened the blinds more fully, the truck roared to life and slowly passed by the house.

  Her nerves pinged at the thought it could be the same driver that followed her from Auburn yesterday. Then again, it could also just be a curious driver and the
dark pickup could’ve been one of the cajillion trucks on Seattle roads. She made a mental note that it was a newer, black Dodge Ram. That narrowed it down from a cajillion in Seattle to only a million. Hold the phone! A slight dent in the rear quarter panel with a white scrape of paint. So now she’d narrowed it down to a few thousand.

  She chided herself for being paranoid and went back to work. The area where she was working was littered with significant bone fragments and blood spatter in the drywall. There’d be no cleaning away all the blood soaked into the wall or the slivers of pulverized bone. She’d have to cut the drywall and have it disposed of later as hazmat waste to be removed from her storage unit. Deciding she’d do just this one section of wall and then head home, Sadie went to work, slicing through the drywall and thinking it was a shame—because the smell beneath the odor of decomp was of fresh paint. Someone had taken the time to choose a dove-gray color for the wall and white on the baseboards and moldings to brighten the small living room.

  Once Sadie’s knife had cut through a four-by-three-foot rectangle into the wall around the damage, she used the tip of the blade to pop the section of wall partway off. She tugged the piece the rest of the way and then momentarily stopped breathing at what she saw hidden away next to the insulation.

  Wads of cash.

  Dozens of bundles in tight bricks banded with thick elastic.

  This clean job had just gotten a whole lot messier.

  Chapter 8

  Sadie jumped to her feet and it was a good thing her respirator muffled her scream.

  Her mind raced. She knew what she had to do. Call the cops. It was a no-brainer. However, for a very brief second she considered stuffing her bra with a bundle or two to help with baby expenses. She’d never once before considered taking something valuable from a scene.

  “You’re leading me into a life of crime,” Sadie murmured as she petted her stomach.

  The worst part about the entire situation was that now Seattle PD would take over the house and her cleanup would grind to a halt. With resignation she left the room and peeled off her hazmat gear in the garage. Next, she plunked her tired body down onto a plastic lawn chair and called Seattle police to tell them of her discovery. Previously, the number she’d dial for police-related business was always Detective Petrovich’s. It saddened her that he wouldn’t be the one helping her out here. Her call was put through to the detective handling this particular homicide, and Sadie assured her that she’d be waiting on scene until she showed up. As she sat in the lawn chair getting fresh air from the rolled-up garage door, she saw the same Dodge Ram slowly drive by.