by Ann Charles
I turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, as the caller had said it would be. The door opened with a raspy sounding creak, like someone had used sand instead of oil on the hinges. As soon as I stepped into the room, I picked up the faint odor of formaldehyde. Then again my brain may have been conjuring up the smell for effect. It was often an asshole like that.
“Are you inside yet?” my pocket asked.
I growled at Natalie’s lack of shushing.
Swinging the flashlight and the chef’s knife around like a ninja princess, I made sure there wasn’t a party of zombies waiting for me. The place was empty except for two gurneys against the side wall and several stacks of various-sized boxes. The door that I knew led to the crematorium was shut, as was the one leading to the deep freeze.
“What’re you doing now?” My pocket refused to shush.
I moved over to the boxes, shining my flashlight on them. They were all sealed, no words written on the outside.
“Vi? Are you there?”
That was it. Where was that mute button?
I pulled my phone out again, giving her a 360 degree view lit by the flashlight. “I’m waiting for my caller. If you don’t be quiet, I’m going to mute you.”
“If you mute me, I’m tucking Elvis into your bed and sprinkling chicken feed under your sheets.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“You should go check out the other rooms. The freezer has multiple shelves.”
I knew exactly what those shelves were for. “No, I’m not going near those doors. You and I are waiting right here for a few more minutes, and then we’re leaving.”
“Where’s the knife?”
“I stuffed it in the back of my pants.” Not really, but it made me sound tough.
“You’re going to cut yourself a new butt crack.”
In spite of the fear making me tremble, I giggled. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I’m glad I brought you with me, Max Headroom.”
Natalie made a static sound and then said in a robotic sounding voice, “M-m-me, t-t-t-too, Violet P-P-Parker.”
“That’s a rotten imitation of Max.”
“Well, it’s been like umpteen million years since—”
The door made that raspy creaking sound again.
I killed my light. Muffling the phone’s glow against my boob, I held my breath. Natalie must have figured out what was up, because she held her tongue.
The door clicked shut.
I shoved the phone down my shirt into my bra.
Footfalls crossed the concrete floor toward the freezer room. I could see a dark hulk-like form move through the shadows. It had to be a man … if it was human.
I lifted my flashlight along with the chef’s knife, back in my ninja princess stance. God, I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart, which was trying to head-butt its way through my ribcage.
“Hold it right there!” I flicked on the light
Nobody was there. Shit!
I moved the flashlight beam from the freezer door to the crematorium door to the exit, landing on nobody. I took several steps toward where I’d seen his shadow, knife at the ready.
Where did he go?
Then I heard it.
Breathing.
Right behind me.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday, October 28th (just after midnight)
Meanwhile, back at the morgue …
I screamed. Not the long-winded, window rattling kind, more like a short screech.
Eddie Mudder shouted back in surprise, his tall, Lurch-like form reeling backward. He stumbled into the wall behind him and something hit the wall with a thud.
“Ouch.” He rubbed his head.
“Eddie!” I gasped. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He shielded his eyes. “What’s with the big knife?”
In lieu of answering, I stared at him, still huffing. I’d forgotten how rich and full bodied his voice sounded. Natalie had once told me Eddie should have been hosting his own late night radio show rather than prepping dead bodies for a long dirt nap.
He protected his torso from a strike. “You’re not going to turn into Norman Bates on me are you?”
“What?” Oh, the knife. I lowered it. “Of course not.”
I pointed the light upward, casting the two of us in an ambient glow. With Eddie’s mesmerizing voice, all we needed was a Barry White love song in the background and a crackling fire in the cremator furnace, and we’d be all set for a romantic evening in the morgue. Maybe Eddie still had some of that mead stashed away in a crate somewhere. What had Doc called it? The elixir of love?
“What did you bring the knife for?” he asked, still rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t tell you to bring a knife. That’s dangerous.”
I snorted. “What part of having a secret meeting in a morgue at midnight doesn’t reek of danger? You’re lucky I only brought a knife.” An Uzi would have been my weapon of choice given the option. I did a skirrrrch in my head. “Wait! You’re my secret caller?”
“Yes.”
“You disguised your voice.”
“I had to in case anyone else was listening in.” He stepped closer, towering over me. “I have to be careful. They’re watching me now, and after what happened to George,” he shook his head, his face contorting in pain for a moment. “I don’t want to end up where he is.”
Neither did I. “Who called me tonight on your behalf?”
“Grace.”
“Who’s Grace?”
“My second cousin.” He cocked his head to the side. “Or maybe she’s my first cousin once removed. I can never remember how that works.”
“Plain ol’ cousin works for me.”
“She’s here to help me out until I either sell the business or find someone to share the load with me. This,” he waved his arm around the garage, “is too much for one person, especially with all of the bodies you keep finding.”
“Those aren’t my fault.”
“Detective Hawke isn’t so sure. He mentions your name every time he talks to me about the deceased I store in here these days.”
That big mouthed detective needed to have my boot stuffed down his gullet for talking about me behind my back. On second thought, maybe I’d sic Prudence on him, tell her he wouldn’t give me back her precious box of trophy teeth.
“Is Grace the blonde who was working the room at the Haskell funeral?”
He nodded. “She’s always been good with people. Just like George was.” He sighed, all sad and lonely.
My heart sniffled for him, but I wasn’t here to comfort him. “Why do you want to talk to me, Eddie? Is this something to do with what happened that night in the autopsy room? Something about George?”
“Not George. It’s something to do with you.”
“Me? What about me?”
“Someone stopped by last week. He showed me a picture of a boy with blond hair and hazel eyes holding what looked like a dinosaur egg made of glass. He wanted to know if I had any idea who the kid was.”
My vision tunneled. That was Layne’s picture, the one that had been tucked into the mirror in Ms. Wolff’s dresser until it had disappeared recently. “A man came by asking you about my son?” Why would he come to Eddie? Maybe he figured with Eddie’s role in the community, he knew most of the locals.
He nodded. “But it wasn’t a man. It was one of them.”
“Them?” I had a lot of “thems” in my world, so I wanted to be certain to which them he was referring. “What do you mean by ‘them’?”
“One of those white-haired ghouls that hung around here when George was still alive.”
I knew exactly who he meant. I’d had many nightmares starring that very “ghoul” along with his decapitation-happy twin.
“Let me talk to Eddie.” Natalie said from where I’d stuffed her in my bra.
Eddie stared down at my chest. “That’s odd. I could swear a voice inside your shirt said it wants to talk to me
.”
“It does.” I dug down inside the neckline of my shirt, pulling out my cellphone. “Actually, it’s a she—it’s Natalie.” When Eddie continued to stare at me without acknowledgement, I added, “Natalie Beals. She’s on the phone with me right now.”
“You brought her along on your phone? Very clever.”
I had my moments, even though they were few and far between. I held up my phone, hitting the button that flipped the focus to the camera on the backside. “Nat, say hi to Eddie.”
“Hi, Eddie,” she said, all sunshine and blue skies.
Eddie held up the two-finger peace sign back.
“Eddie, did the ghoul say why he wanted to know who Layne was?”
“No. He had other questions, too.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“What I knew about his brother’s killer.”
“What do you know?” I wasn’t sure what Cooper had told Eddie after his brother, George, had died.
“Not much, except that you and Natalie were involved somehow. The police have been very closed-lipped about most everything. They ask me questions but never answer any that I ask in return.”
“You and me both,” I told him.
“Did you give him Violet’s name?” Natalie asked.
“Of course not. You and I both know why he’s asking questions.” He frowned down at me. “You’re in danger, Violet. This ghoul, he’s stronger than his twin was.”
I’d witnessed his brother pick up and throw Doc like he was a rag doll. How much stronger could he be? Like Incredible Hulk strong? “They both looked the same size to me.”
“I don’t mean physically. This one is smarter. He was always watching and planning. George once told me he was the brains of the two.”
So I’d killed the dumb thug and left the mastermind brother behind? Not one of my brighter moves by far.
“When he finished asking me questions,” Eddie continued, “he warned me about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me to beware, that death would follow you.”
That warning seemed oddly familiar, something someone had told me once a while ago. Maybe it was just something from a nightmare. I pointed at my chest. “Death follows me?” The ax swinging juggernaut had been his twin, not mine.
“Then he called you some weird name and left.”
“What was the name, Eddie?” Natalie asked.
He scratched his jaw. “It sounded gurgly, ending with a rickter sound.”
I knew the exact name I’d been called. Someone else had recently called me it, too, and then ended up with a shrunken and shriveled head. “Was it Scharfrichter, Eddie?”
“That was it. What does it mean?”
It meant executioner in German, but I didn’t feel like spreading the English version around town. “It means that I have a new nickname in Deadwood.”
And a killer reputation that went with it.
* * *
I waited until the sun had come up before heading over to Doc’s place. I drove Natalie’s pickup so I wouldn’t wake up the whole neighborhood with the Picklemobile’s noisy exhaust. Natalie planned to hang out with the kids until Harvey or Aunt Zoe could spell her, since I had to go into the office to spend time catching up on what Jerry and the film crew had planned for me tomorrow.
Last night, I’d tried calling Doc once more after returning from my top-secret Mudder Brothers meeting, but I’d still gotten the message saying his voicemail was full. Natalie had practically shoved me back out the door, insisting that if Doc wasn’t answering the phone, I go over and pound on his door. I’d dug in my heels, reminding her that we had a perfectly good shotgun and a few boxes of shells ready and waiting. In the end, my bullheadedness had won the battle. Judging from her red-lined eyes and crazy hair at breakfast, she hadn’t slept much better than I had.
I pulled up in front of Doc’s house and cut the engine, staring at his door through the shroud of fog that blanketed the hills this morning. Should I tell him about the albino ghoul using my new nickname? About why he was using it? Maybe it was time to get this damned deadly family history of mine out in the open so it could fester in broad daylight.
My mind made up, I palmed his house key and headed up the walkway. The thud of my boot heels on the concrete sounded muffled thanks to the cool mist swirling around me. I pulled my leather coat closed, but it didn’t stop my nerves from quaking. Not much would after finding out the juggernaut’s twin was sniffing around, searching for me.
I debated on ringing the doorbell or knocking, but then I pictured Doc all wrapped up in his sheets and decided it might be more fun to surprise him awake. The lock clicked with a quiet thunk. I closed the door behind me, turning the deadbolt.
The house had a silence that comes only with early mornings and a lack of fighting children. For a moment, I thought I smelled coffee, but it was probably just my cravings for caffeine messing with my head. Tiptoeing up the stairs, I winced when one let out a small creak. Then I heard the sound of a door closing followed by the water kicking on in the shower.
Perfect. Even better. Maybe I’d join him.
I’d reached the top of the stairs when something clinked in the kitchen and then the microwave kicked on.
That gave me pause.
Was somebody else here with Doc?
I peeked along the upstairs hallway; all of the doors were closed except for the room at the end that Doc used as an office. Meanwhile down in the kitchen, the faucet turned on and off.
Somebody else was here. Someone who had spent the night and was now in need of a shower. Someone who had made Doc not want to answer his phone when his girlfriend had kept hounding him late last night.
The jealousy ogre woke up with a start. Who was here? Was it a certain red-headed ex? Had she showed up on his doorstep last night wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels? Was this some sort of revenge she was dishing my way for the other night at the Purple Door?
No, no, no. Doc wouldn’t do that to me.
Are you sure?
Not entirely, no. A decade ago, I’d walked in on the father of my children and my sister having sex. Besides lighting a fire of anger that still smoldered inside me, seeing Rex and Susan in the thick of passion in my own bed had left thin scar tissue overlying deeply engrained trust issues.
I sat down on the top step, or more like my knees gave out and I fell on my butt. What should I do? Was I up to confronting a cheating boyfriend after a night of hyperventilating off and on about a tall, snake-eyed ghoul chasing me through Deadwood’s infamous haunts? Should I slink right back out the way I came in and go home to lick my wounds before painting on a brave face and heading in to practice my lines? Or should I pack up some clothes, grab the kids, head to the airport, buy tickets to somewhere in the southern hemisphere, and run far, far away from this super-cell of a shitstorm?
Before I could make a decision, I heard footfalls coming from the kitchen. Doc came into view at the base of the stairs. His eyes widened at the sight of me sitting there.
“Violet, when did you come in?”
“A few minutes ago.” I held my poker cards close to my chest, waiting to see how he was going to play his hand.
He rested his forearm on the square newel at the bottom of the stair rail, his bare foot planted on the first step. Something on my face must have kept him from coming up to join me.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his expression cautious. Wise man.
“You tell me, Doc.”
“I’m making breakfast.”
“Oh yeah? For who?”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, Violet?”
“Just so you know from the start, flattery isn’t going to cut it this morning. I tried calling you several times last night around midnight, but got your voicemail every single time.”
The sound of the shower kicked off. That was fast. Just a quick rinse maybe to wash the sex off from last night?
“Why were you trying to call me?”
“I would have been happy to fill you in last night, had you not been too busy to take my call.”
“I’m never too busy for you.”
“Then why didn’t you answer? Were you afraid I might hear that you had company?”
He pointed up toward the bathroom. “You mean that company?”
“Of course I mean that company.”
“Actually that company crashed well before midnight.”
“So you’re admitting that you spent the night with someone?”
He pinched his lips as if choosing his words carefully or trying not to laugh. “Well, sort of.”
In the pregnant pause that followed his confession, I heard the shower curtain open. I looked down at where my hands dangled between my knees, wishing he’d played the denial card. My heart felt bruised every time it thumped in my chest.
“Why were you calling me at midnight, Violet?”
“I needed you.” That came out sounding more raw than I’d intended. I lifted my chin, determined not to let him see any more signs of weakness. I came from a family of killers, for crissake. It was time to suck it up. “I had a bit of a situation, but you were obviously too preoccupied to be bothered.”
On second thought, that option to go home and lick my wounds suddenly seemed like the best choice for me, ASAP. I stood. “I should go. Now is not a good time for this.”
Never would be too soon.
“Quit dancing around what’s bothering you, Violet. We’re beyond that now.”
Were we? “Your voicemail is full.”
He grimaced. “I wondered if that would happen.”
I took a couple of steps toward him. “But you should have been able to see my number on your Recent Calls list.” I stopped two steps above him, almost eyelevel. “I’m not buying that you had no idea I called, so don’t even try that bullshit on me.”
“I’m not.” His dark eyes held mine. He seemed so damned calm and rational. Was that a hint of a smile on the corner of his lips?
“Okay,” I said, unfamiliar with this style of arguing. Most of my fights involved at least a little bit of yelling or throwing something in frustration. Could it be I’d woken up in another dimension? A world full of unemotional Vulcans? “Listen, I need to go home and start over again. Do you mind stepping aside so I can leave you to enjoy breakfast with your companion?”
