That was tru…ish about our families being old friends. But the permission thing, that was a big fat lie.
“Do tell,” Franks said. “That’s amazing, considering Templeman’s at the desk right now filling out a complaint.” Franks pulled a chair from the table, spun it around backwards and straddled it. “Lying isn’t the way to win friends and influence people, Ms. Nighthawk. How ’bout the truth this time?”
The silence that followed was broken only by the tick-tick-tick of the clock that hung beside the door. I swiped my hand across my forehead. It came away wet. I was hot, irritated and utterly exhausted.
“How about some water,” I said, closing my eyes and laying my head on the table.
“The truth, first.”
“I told you the truth. Mrs. Falconi wanted to talk to her son. Where’s De Palma? He should be here by now.”
“How the hell should I know?”
Our circle-jerk was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Somebody special order a cop in here?”
I peeled one eye open to find Rico standing in the doorway, all six-foot, one-hundred-eighty pounds of him. With his curly black hair and huge brown eyes, the guy was hot enough to melt asphalt.
Franks stood up. “You must be De Palma.”
“Yeah. Thanks for calling,” Rico said, shaking Frank’s outstretched hand.
“This whack-job claims she’s your partner. Is that right?”
Rico shot me the side-eye. “Depends. What’d she do?”
“Broke into Templeman’s Funeral Home with a couple of golden girls. Said she had old man Templeman’s permission to be there. She didn’t.”
Rico shifted his gaze to me, and I shrugged.
Franks was on a roll. “Crazy broads. Breaking into a freaking funeral home, in the dead of night, to talk to one of the stiffs. Christ almighty, but the full moon brings ‘em out. Am I right?”
Rico grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “You new here, Franks?”
Franks frowned and cleared his throat. “Been on the job twenty years. Moved from Baltimore to Cincy a couple of months ago. Why?”
“Franks meet Allie Nighthawk, Cincinnati’s resident zombie hunter. She’s also got this freaky-voodoo thing she does. Raising the dead. First time you see it, you swear you’ll never drink again. She contracts with CPD on special cases. The paranormal kind. And, yeah. We’re partners.”
“I don’t care if she’s Buffy the fucking Vampire Slayer. She wasn’t on police business tonight. She picked the lock at Templeman’s and broke in. That’s B&E.”
“Actually,” I interrupted, “The lock-picking thing was Nonnie.”
Rico glared and shushed me with a finger to his lips. “I get it, Franks. You were right to bring her in. But since I made the trip in and everything, if it’s okay with you, I’ll take it from here.”
Franks’s face puffed up, looking like he was about to explode, but Rico cut him off.
“I’ll square it with your sergeant and even talk to Templeman. Really, I got this. Thanks for the call, guy.” Rico pumped Frank’s hand like a jack handle. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you send the other ladies in here? Might as well wrap everything up together.”
Franks may have bristled at Rico’s intervention, but he looked relieved at the possibility of being rid of us. He shot me a long, hard stare and then walked to the door, throwing a nod toward Rico. “Fine. You want professional courtesy, you got it. But in the future, stay in your own precinct.”
Rico gave him a thumb’s up. “I owe you one, brother.”
“No. No you don’t. I don’t want nothing to do with you or that spook-squad crap.”
Franks slammed the door on his way out, leaving me in the hands of a pissed-off, sleep deprived Rico.
I steeled myself for the endless stream of ugly that I assumed would spew from his mouth. But I wasn’t prepared for the ominous death stare I received. We stood toe to toe, staring at each other in silence, and I caught myself uttering a sigh of relief at the sound of a timid knock on the door.
“Nonnie!” I said, as Rico opened the door. I’d never been so glad to see Nonnie in my entire life.
Rico pulled two chairs out from the table. “Ladies,” he said, motioning for them to sit. Lucia, he had never met. Nonnie, Rico, and I were a team of sorts, having bonded over our last case involving Leo Abruzzi.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we’d all sat around holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Leo could be a first-class dickweed, but he had his moments. Turns out, he and I shared a love of ballroom dancing. In a matter of weeks, things, friendships, and feelings had complicated my life in a strange, sad way I wouldn’t have traded for anything.
Rico leaned down and kissed the top of Nonnie’s head. “How you doing, lady? What’s this I hear about you picking locks?”
Nonnie bit her lip and turned away, mortified. Probably not because she picked the lock, but because she’d gotten caught.
Rico turned to Lucia and flashed his perfect smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rico De Palma, Miss Nighthawk’s partner. Nice to meet you…”
“Lucia. Lucia Falconi,” she purred and extended her hand.
He brought it to his lips, and brushed it with a kiss. The freaking brown-eyed douche-waffle. Lucia did everything but swoon.
Rico coaxed her with a smile. “Why don’t we start from the beginning, Lucia?”
That would take forever. “Let me give you the short and sweet,” I said. “I—”
Once again, Rico silenced me with a finger to his lips. “Lucia’s version, please.”
“Seriously?” My face began to burn. “Then Nonnie’s going to have to translate, because Lucia doesn’t speak much English.”
“No need.” Lucia beamed at Rico, as if he were Apollo come down from Olympus. “My English fine when I need it.”
The old broad had been sandbagging me.
Rico sat across from Lucia and listened intently to her detailed and surprisingly accurate version of the night’s events. A bit too detailed, if you ask me, when she included the part about us haggling over the cost of my services. Rico rolled his eyes.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “This was all Nonnie’s idea, Little Miss Lock-Picker.”
Yeah. I threw her under the bus. Hard. But she’d have done the same to me, if it had been her ass in the hot seat. She and I, we’re cut from the same cloth.
Once Lucia finished confessing to everything but original sin, and Nonnie and I had nothing (that wasn’t incriminating) to add, Rico got to his feet and moved to the door.
“I’m going to try to square things with the desk sergeant and Mr. Templeman. They’re waiting for me at the front desk. Stay put.”
Stay put? Stay put? Nonnie and Lucia didn’t know the meaning of those words. But, hand to God, when Rico closed the door behind him, they never so much as twitched—the old hose-bags. I stored that away for future reference. Three can play at that game.
I snarled at Lucia. “Rico shows up and suddenly you speak English? What’s that about?”
“Che cosa? Non parlo Inglese,” she said, with a shrug.
The three of us passed the minutes silently staring at each other in our own pathetic retake of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Thankfully, Rico returned moments later with good news.
“Okay, ladies. Consider yourselves sprung. Mr. Templeman has agreed not to press charges. I promised him some of your rugelach, Nonnie. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. And extra for you, buon amica.”
“What about me?” I said. “I raised Rocco, and I did it for you. Where’s my rugelach?”
Nonnie dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Oy. Yes, yes of course for you. The world no spin for you alone. How they say? Get over yourself.”
Well, that was uncalled for. And hadn’t this night scored a ten on the shit meter?
As we walked out the precinct door, I soon discovered that the night had yet to hit rock-bottom. Jade Chen
, the Channel 10 news reporter and her cameraman, Rip Sacca, were waiting like vultures at the bottom of the steps to devour me.
Jade smirked and brought the mic to her mouth. “Good evening, Cincinnati. We’re here at CPD’s Third Precinct where The Queen City’s resident cadaver diver, Allie Nighthawk, has just been released from custody.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to Rico. “Why didn’t you tell me that bitch was here? What were you thinking?”
Rico glared at his lover, Jade, but she ignored him and took the steps like a storm trooper.
“Sorry,” he murmured in my ear. “We were…together…when the call came in. She must’ve followed me.”
Of course, they’d been together. That hoochie-mama-dill-weed reporter hates me with the heat of a white-hot yeast infection. Who knows why? Maybe it’s because I keep telling her boyfriend that she’s a bubble-headed twat-waffle.
I can’t help it if the truth hurts.
“Miss Nighthawk, were you present at the midnight break-in at Templeman’s Funeral Home?”
“No comment.”
“Is it true you raised a corpse?”
“No comment.”
“I’d like to get your perspective, Ms. Nighthawk. The ACLU condemns the practice of raising corpses as a human rights violation. What do you say to that?”
“No comment.”
“Please, describe for our viewers the damages you inflicted on the funeral home tonight. Is it true your liability carrier has dropped you as uninsurable?”
That little bitch.
I took a deep, cleansing breath and centered myself. “I’m sorry, Ms. Chen. I’m sure you view my ‘no comment’ responses as unhelpful and aloof. They’re not meant to be. They’re meant to be dismissive and rude. Now, get that freaking mic out of my face before I tear off your head and shove it down your throat. How’s that for a quote?”
Nonnie gasped. Lucia pretended that she hadn’t understood me. Rico grabbed me by the arm and hustled us all down the steps past Jade.
“Detective De Palma,” Jade shouted, as we made our escape. “Do you have any comments you’d like to make?”
He glared over his shoulder at the camera and mumbled, “Maybe later.”
Hurrying on, he stopped after several steps and whirled back toward Jade. “Definitely later.”
I crawled across the backseat of Rico’s Mustang, leaving the two fossils to duke it out for the front. Lucia, twenty years younger than Nonnie, flatly refused to concede. She crossed her arms and stood back, tapping her toe, waiting for Nonnie to vacuum-pack herself into the car.
Nonnie moaned as she wrestled into the backseat. “Verkakte contraption. Is sardine can. How I get out? Such a night.”
Rico yawned. “Perhaps you’d rather walk to your car, Nonnie.”
“Is only at Templeman’s,” she said, collapsing into the back seat beside me. “Three blocks away.”
“No, dear,” Rico said, with a glance into the rearview mirror. “It’s at the impound lot. That’s where we tow cars when their drivers get arrested.”
Lucia, wearing a victorious smirk, slammed the passenger seat back and plopped in beside Rico.
Nonnie smacked the back of Rico’s seat. “Feh! How much that cost? I have no monies.”
“A hundred and sixty bucks.”
Nonnie’s eyes glistened with tears. “Miss Allie, what I do? I need car.”
“Miss Money Bags up front is loaded,” I said, nodding toward Lucia. “She’s got at least two loaded socks in that purse of hers.” My hand shot forward between the seats. “Cough it up, Buttercup.”
Lucia’s eyes widened. “No. No, I give you all my Bingo monies. Is gone…empty…no more.”
“Then you’d better break into The Widows and Orphan’s sock, honey. We wouldn’t be here if not for you.” I said, making a grab for her purse.
Lucia snatched it away and opened her mouth to argue, but Rico touched her hand and gave her a conspiratorial wink. She melted like permafrost in global warming. Damn his brown eyes. The guy was a freaking fossil whisperer.
“Maybe I look again,” Lucia purred.
She made a show of fishing through her purse and raising her eyes, batting her gray lashes at Rico.
“Silly me. Of course,” she said. “My Keno money sock. See?”
She flashed a wad of bills, then licked her thumb, peeled off the $160, and gave it to Rico. He flashed his pearly smile at her as he pulled into the impound lot. Once he parked, the oldsters pried themselves out of the car and I slid across the seat to exit after Nonnie. Rico reached around and tapped my shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home with Nonnie. Why?”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re staying here. We need to talk.”
“It’s five o’clock in the morning. We can talk tomorrow.”
“Now.”
Well, shit. I’d just made mincemeat out of his girlfriend on the air. I guess I had it coming.
Nonnie and Lucia made a hasty exit, never bothering to turn back to see if I needed or wanted any help. Like rats deserting a sinking ship—cunning, fossilized, blue-haired rat finks.
Rico fixed me in a steely-eyed stare. “This thing with you and Jade has to stop. She’s my girlfriend. You’re my partner. You don’t have to like each other, but you have to find a way to co-exist.”
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “She’s the one who uses you to hunt me down like a Bluetick hound, jumping my ass every chance she gets, doing her best to make me look bad in front of the entire city.”
“You do a good enough job of that on your own. Cap’s already warned you about spouting off in front of the cameras. He’s going to be pissed when he sees your interview.”
Cap, aka Captain Philip Dorsey of the CPD, heads up the Paranormal Crimes Unit. He’s bald with an ever-expanding middle-aged spread and a by-the-book mentality. And he’s got issues with me—my mouth, my attitude, basically everything about me. But he knows I’m the best whisperer around, so he gives me a lot of leeway. Enough to let me hang myself from time to time.
Rico was right. Cap had warned me about tangling with Jade Chen on the air. Once again, I’d get my ass handed to me. And once again, I wondered where Little Allie had been when I’d needed her. Why she hadn’t intervened—stuck one of Lucia’s socks in my mouth. Something. Anything. That buttinsky brain bitch and her ADD were killing me.
Rico’s phone rang and Cap’s number popped up.
“You don’t think he already knows, do you?” I whispered.
Rico shrugged. “Jade wouldn’t squeal on you. But she won’t pull that interview, either.” He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi, Cap. What’s up?” After a few nods and a couple of uh-huhs, Rico said, “Text it to me,” and disconnected the call. “Looks like neither one of us is going to get any sleep. There’s a 311 in progress in Over-the-Rhine.”
“A biter call? Can’t the cops on duty shoot the damn thing in the head and be done with it?” I asked. “Why do we have to take the call?”
“There are twenty of the bastards, and they’ve got a delivery truck surrounded at Findlay Market.”
“Twenty, you say?”
“Roger that.”
“Now, that’s something you don’t see every day.” I settled into the Mustang’s leather seat, called Nonnie, and left a message on her answering machine asking her to check in on Headbutt and Kulu. Wrangling twenty rotters could take a while.
“Cap’s concerned that this is related to the virus manipulation. He and Director Horton are on their way to the scene.”
Swell. Director Dickhead. The day was off to a fine start.
After an expectant pause, Rico finally asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“You think that Toussaint guy has something to do with this?”
The question was inevitable, but it still made me flinch. “It’s just a cluster of deadheads. Don’t jump to conclusions,” I said.
The brain bitch, who
’d been AWOL for far too long, finally decided to grace me with her presence. As usual, she was as helpful as tits on a bull.
What the hell’s wrong with you? Of course, it’s Toussaint. It’s time to come clean about your past.
Easy for Miss Goody Two-Shoes to say. But I’d buried the truth three years earlier, along with my father. And as far as I was concerned, it could stay right where I’d left it—out of sight, out of mind, and six-feet under.
4
Civics 101
Rico flipped on his lights and headed for Findlay Market. It was only a ten-minute drive from the impound lot, and for that, I was thankful. A little bit of the brain bitch goes a long, long way. I silently told her to stow it, but the loud-mouthed head hag refused to shut up.
Then Rico’s voice added to the mix. “What makes you so sure Toussaint isn’t involved?”
That was all I needed, those two ganging up on me. For a minute, I wondered if Rico could hear her, too. “I don’t know, either way,” I said. “Just don’t assume anything, okay?”
He shrugged and went quiet, but moments later he came back at me again. “So, tell me about him.”
“Him who?”
“Santa Claus,” Rico said, rolling his eyes. “Toussaint. Who do you think?”
I slumped deeper into the bucket seat and stared out the window. “I told you before. He’s a whisperer like me. And he went bad. End of story.”
Rico’s twenty questions game was getting on my last nerve. Not that he cared. He continued grilling me as he turned onto Race Street. “Why did he go bad? And what does that even mean?”
“Power…greed. Take your pick,” I snapped. “Lord, but you’re dense for a cop. The power over life and death can make a person very rich.”
Rico pulled curbside in front of Findlay Market and turned off his car. “How do you know him? What is he to you?”
“Jesus. Give it a rest, will you?” I opened the door and rolled out of the passenger seat, onto Race Street.
In a few short hours, the market would be teeming with merchants and shoppers alike—a veritable zombie smorgasbord. We’d need to handle the horde quickly and quietly, before sunrise, while the streets were still empty. People tend to find the sight of me butchering biters a little…off-putting. But for some reason, they just can’t look away. It’s like watching a train wreck. Whether I’m raising a corpse or putting one down, if people are around, they’ll cover their eyes and then peek through splayed fingers to watch. When it’s over, half of them will think I’m a demon, and the other half, a savior.
Corpse Whisperer Sworn Page 3
