by M. Z. Kelly
“When did you last talk to her?”
Walsh, who looked to be in her late twenties, with deeply set brown eyes, took a moment to gather her thoughts. “I think it was three or four days ago. We talked about getting together for lunch, but didn’t make any definite plans.”
“Did she seem okay when you talked?”
Walsh focused on Amy. “She seemed fine. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
“Christina hasn’t been seen for the past forty-eight hours. Her mother went by to check on her and found her apartment was empty, but it looked like there had been some kind of struggle. A few days earlier, Christina had hired me because she thought she was being stalked.”
“You’re kidding.”
Amy shook her head. “Her mother thinks what’s happening has something to do with a boy Christina knew from college, but didn’t have any details. What can you tell us about that?”
Walsh exhaled and ran a hand through her luxurious dark hair. “Geeze, I can’t believe this.”
“Do you know this boy her mother was talking about?” I asked.
She nodded, not looking at us. “I think she said his name was Billy...” She took a moment, then said, “Yeah, Billy Mercer.”
“Tell us what happened,” Amy said.
Walsh took a moment, her eyes remaining unfocused. “All I know is that Christina said it was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She said he’d died when something happened at school, and if anybody ever found out the truth, it wouldn’t be good for her.”
“What exactly happened to him?” I asked.
Walsh finally focused on us. “Christina just said it was a bad situation, but didn’t go into the details.”
“What else?” Amy asked.
“That’s all I know. How does all this have anything to do with Christina going missing?”
“She was being blackmailed by someone who knew about the boy from college. She was told she needed to come up with a half-million dollars, or the truth would be exposed.”
“Jesus. This is crazy.”
“We think this person who was stalking Christina might have been sending her emails. Do you have any idea how we can get access to her office at work so we can look at her computer?”
“Why aren’t the police involved in this?”
Amy glanced at me, then said, “They might be, eventually, but Christina’s mom wanted me to look into things first. She’s worried about what it would mean for her daughter’s career if word of this got out.”
“What about her office?” I asked, trying to refocus her. “Is there any way you can get us inside?”
Walsh rubbed the bridge of her nose as she considered my question. “I suppose I could stop by Monday and say I was supposed to meet Christina, then ask if I could wait for her in her office.”
“Perfect,” Amy said. “When you get inside, you can call me, and I’ll come up and take a look.”
“What if someone sees us?”
“I got a way of being discrete.” Amy stood and gave Walsh her card. “Why don’t you plan on going by her office around noon on Monday. I’ll meet you in front of the studio, and you can call me when you’re on the inside.”
***
“Do you think this is slutty enough?” Amy asked, holding up a black dress that left little to the imagination. We’d stopped at a mall after leaving Walsh’s apartment.
“I think if you wear that, you’ll have every man registered on GuySwatter stalking you,” I said, referring to the ridiculous dating website she planned to post her profile to.
“Sold.” She looked at the dark pants and silk blouse I’d bought for my date with Sam. “You really gonna wear that?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s fine if you’re a nun planning to do some gardening.” She went over and plucked a dress off a rack. “Why don’t you go with something like this?”
I laughed at the lacy black affair that looked more like lingerie than something you’d wear to dinner. “I don’t think either Sam or I’m ready for that.”
Amy sighed and put the dress back. “Get thee to a nunnery.”
After leaving the mall, we stopped for an early dinner at Robinson’s Diner, a couple blocks from Funk’s Fields. While we ate, Amy told me what she’d learned on the Internet after googling Billy Mercer’s name.
“He was a student at Harrisburg Community College in Pennsylvania, the same place Christina went to school before transferring to Columbia. There’s just a short article that says he died in an accident.”
“An accident, as in traffic accident?”
“It doesn’t say. I’m thinking I’m going to have to get ahold of his family.”
“It all seems strange.”
Amy stuffed an errant piece of cheese from her pizza in her mouth. “How so?”
“Billy Mercer died in an accident over five years ago. Your client calls and says she’s being stalked, but doesn’t give you any details. When she goes missing, her mother says it might have something to do with Mercer’s death and tells us her daughter was also being blackmailed. It just seems like there’s a lot that we’re missing.”
Amy had ordered a beer with her tomato pie, as she called her pizza, and drained half the glass. “Welcome to my fuwking job. It’s always like this, people giving me half the story, and me trying to put the puzzle together.” She burped. “Speaking of puzzles, you given any more thought to that girl you and Max found in the dump?”
I shook my head. “Max said she’s going to contact her friend Rosie, who works in police records, and see if she knows anything about the case, but I think she’s probably been busy.”
“Yeah, cuz she’s gettin’ her groove on while we’re...” She sighed. “...not gettin’ any younger.”
My eyes fixed on my long-time friend. “Maybe Max is right.”
“About what?”
“You giving Jake a call.”
Her blue eyes did a full orbit. “You’re both crazx.”
“What’s that?”
“It means you got an extra crayon in your crazy box. Tell me something. Do you think I’m blessed from behind? Maybe that’s why I can’t get a guy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My ass. I got an uncle who once told me my ass was as wide as two axe handles across the meat box, whatever the hell that means.”
“Your ass is fine.”
She smiled. “You been checking out my ass, Mads?”
I laughed. “Only as it pertains to it being a wide load—which it isn’t.”
She sighed. “Awright. Let’s go.” She stood.
“Where are we going?”
“Jake’s place. And if I find him with his sister again, I’m gonna put them both in the fuwking hospital.”
SIX
The next day, Max got home just before the funeral we were scheduled to work at Balfour Chapel. The massive cathedral, built of stone and wood, was a gothic structure, complete with spires and gargoyles adorning the exterior of the building. Amy called the place the Zombie Nation White House.
As we left our quarters and walked to the services, Amy said to Max, “If your smile gets any wider, I’m gonna declare it a national park, like the Grand Canyon.”
Max chuckled. “Is it that obvious?”
“On a shit-eater scale of one to ten, I’d give it a twelve.”
“You do seem awfully happy,” I agreed.
I decided the grin was permanent, as Max said, “Let’s just say Sonny and me had us a real good night.” She yawned. “Even though I didn’t get much sleep.”
“Damn,” Amy said, biting a knuckle.
“Amy went by Jake’s place last night,” I told Max. “But he wasn’t home.”
“He was probably out with his sister,” Amy grumbled.
“Don’t give up,” Max said. “I can guarantee you the benefits of getting together with him are probably worth the trouble.”
That got a second “damn” from
Amy and more knuckle work before we ran into Darryl and Merrill in the passageway. Amy and I had met the duo on a dating website called Hunks in a Tux, before she’d dragged me to a bar to meet them one night. Darryl was older than his counterpart, in his late twenties, with green eyes and gelled brown hair. His bro, as he called Merrill, was handsome, but looked young enough to still be in high school. While the duo never worked out as potential dates, they did subsequently land jobs as hairstylists and makeup artists for Thorndike, since the little mortician’s skills were deficient in both areas.
“You two look like you should be in a box,” Amy said, displaying her usual lack of tact and referring to the coffins they regularly loaded bodies into.
“We spent all night working on BigZ,” Darryl explained. “It was one of our most challenging jobs, so far.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
Merrill answered. “He weighed about three hundred pounds and was shot in the head. It took almost a quart of putty and a glass eye to make him presentable.”
“It was like somebody plugged Humpty Dumpty and he fell off a wall,” Darryl agreed.
“Is this going to be an open casket?” Max asked the two men.
We got nods, Darryl telling us, “And, just so you know, part of the family doesn’t like rap.”
“You mean the guy was a rapper?”
“You need to get out more,” Darryl said. “No Money, No Love.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Amy asked me.
I shrugged, as Merrill said, “It was BigZ’s biggest hit, number one on all the charts. He’s got a brother named Hoss who’s into country music, so it split the family in half.”
“I heard there’s going to be...”
Darryl’s words were cut off by Thorndike, who came through a door leading into the chapel. “You need to be getting in here. This does not look good to me.”
“What’s going on?” Amy asked, going over to him.
The mortician opened the door wider, so that we could see the mourners shuffling into the chapel. “See for yourself.”
As we entered the cathedral, we quickly understood what Darryl and Merrill had been talking about. The audience appeared to be evenly divided. One side consisted of subjects in rap attire, wearing baggie shirts and hoodies, with ball caps and do-rags, and lots of bling. The other side wore cowboy hats, jeans, and boots.
The scene would have been laughable in any other circumstance, but a few minutes later, when Thorndike lifted the lid on the coffin, all hell broke loose. The mourners rushed up to the casket and began milling about. Angry words were exchanged. A couple of the mourners had guns stuffed in their waistbands. As the crowd grew more vociferous, an angry rapper and an equally pissed-off cowboy squared off.
“He don’t even look like BigZ,” a man who, someone said, was Lil Pee growled. “He looks like a big pile of dead meat.”
“Lil Pee?” I said, looking at my friends, Darryl and Merrill.
“It was a childhood nickname,” Merrill explained. “It started out as Peewee, but was shortened.”
“Don’t be talking trash ‘bout my brother,” the other man said, in a southern accent. He was wearing a black cowboy hat and had a big belly.
Darryl was standing next to me and said, “That’s the decedent’s brother, Hoss. And, personally, I take exception to what Lil Pee said about our work.”
Amy overheard what he’d said and told him, “I suggest you keep your opinion to yourself, unless you want to end up in a box too.”
The crowd behind the two men grew more agitated. A couple of the mourners had their hands on their weapons as voices were raised.
Thorndike came over, in a panic. “You need to do something. This could turn violent.”
I looked at Amy and Max. “Any ideas?”
“You got any whiskey?” Amy asked Thorndike.
“I don’t partake of spirits.”
“’Course you don’t, cuz you’re already dead, you little ghoul.”
“I have some,” Merrill said. “There’s several bottles in the embalming room.”
Amy looked at Thorndike, who said, “It was left there by a former assistant. He was being a drunk, so I fire him.”
“Go get it. Now,” Amy told Merrill. “All of it.”
The crowd was growing louder. One of the men had pulled his gun out of his waistband and was waving it in the air, saying something about cowboys being pussies.
Amy put two fingers to her lips and whistled. The room instantly went deathly quiet. Pun intended.
“Listen up,” Amy said, standing next to the casket and addressing the crowd. “We’re going to settle this and honor BigZ in the way we do things over in Brick City.”
“How’s that?” Lil Pee demanded. He was a big guy, with a hat on sideways and his pants nearly falling off.
“There’s gonna be a contest. You and Hoss are gonna trade shots, and I ain’t talking ‘bout bullets. The last man standing wins the title of Deadhead.”
“Deadhead?” Hoss said. “What good does that do us?” The cowboy was about six three. His distended stomach made his jeans ride almost as low as his rapper counterpart’s.
“It means...” Amy looked at Max and me, apparently trying to come up with something on the fly.
Max spoke up. “It means you bring honor to your family. And, if you win, you get to bury BigZ.”
Thorndike came over and whispered. “That’s not possible. The grounds are frozen.”
I glared at him. “We’ll think of something.”
Shouts of encouragement rose up as the two men agreed to the proposal. A couple minutes later, Merrill returned with an armful of Jack Daniels whiskey bottles and a couple shot glasses. Chairs were pulled up as Amy slammed down the lid on BigZ’s coffin and told everyone how the game would go.
“We’re playing Jersey rules. That means the participants will trade shots until someone pukes, quits, or passes out. The last man standing wins a golden shovel and gets to bury the dearly departed.”
As the crowd grew boisterous, agreeing to the game, Amy spoke to Darryl and Merrill. “You two go find a shovel and paint it. Hurry.”
Lil Pee and Hoss took their places on either side of the coffin. Amy lined up the whiskey bottles and shot glasses on top of BigZ’s final resting place and the contest began. As the contestants began slamming down their shooters, the crowd of mourners passed around the leftover bottles of whiskey. I had a feeling that, in no time, the crowd would be drunk, and I wasn’t sure how that would affect Amy’s game.
Max said to me, “I been to a lotta funerals, but this is the craziest shit I ever seen.”
“Let’s just hope it ends well.”
As the afternoon wore on, the contestants and crowd got so drunk that some of the mourners fell down. Only Lil Pee and Hoss managed to stay on their feet, downing drink after drink in a contest that maybe should have been called Drink or Die. Amy, Max, and I held our collective breath as something completely unexpected happened: Lil Pee and Hoss stood up, each downed a shot of whiskey, then fell against one another, butting heads and slumping to the floor.
Amy went over and examined the passed-out contestants, then announced, “They knocked each other out. I declare this funeral a draw.” She motioned to the passed-out contestants. “Since the participants have both brought great honor to these proceedings, all family members get to bury the dead.”
As BigZ was rolled out of the chapel onto the cemetery grounds, Thorndike came over to us. “This is outrageous, and they won’t be getting him into the ground. It is frozen solid as a rock.”
“We’ll see about that, you little creep,” Amy said. She went over and spoke to Darryl and Merrill before they scrambled off.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked.
Amy smiled. “We’re gonna pass some gas.”
As it turned out, the gas we passed was several cans of gasoline that thawed the ground, at the same time turning the festivities into a combination burial and
family barbeque. By the time BigZ was lowered into his grave, the gathering of drunken cowboys and rappers were slapping one another on the back, eating hamburgers from a local delivery service we’d called, and cheering wildly.
When the crowd finally began to disperse later that night, I said to Amy, “You sure know how to throw one helluva funeral.”
She smiled and said, “We Jersey girls know how to raise some hell, then bury the bodies.”
SEVEN
“You gotta find another outfit,” Amy said to me the next day as I got ready for my dinner date with Sam. “You look like something that washed up on the Jersey shore after Superstorm Sandy.”
I looked at Max and smoothed a hand over my dark pants, as Amy continued to work on my hair. “Is it that bad?”
“It’s fine,” Max said, regarding my outfit. “If you was going out with your brother.”
I sighed. “I don’t have a brother, at least one that I know about.” My eyes orbited up, trying to see Amy as she styled my hair. “I’ll see what I can find in my closet.”
She gave up on the hair and headed for her bedroom. “No worries. I got just the get-up.”
While she was gone, Max said, “Where are you and Sam going tonight?”
I lowered my voice. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Amy, but we’re going to the library.”
She chuckled. “You’re kidding.”
“Sam’s into jazz, and they’ve got a quartet playing there. That’s part of the reason I chose the pants and blouse, even though we’re going to dinner afterward.”
Amy burst back into the room, holding up a navy blue skirt.
“I got this for an undercover job I had, trying to catch a cheater at Morimoto’s. I didn’t catch the guy, but I did get hit on.”
“I’m afraid it will be too tight on me,” I said, after holding the skirt up to me.
“Try it on.” She looked at my pants. “Believe me, you got nuthin’ to lose.”
Five minutes later, I came out of my bedroom, feeling like a working girl who would go broke because her skirt was too tight to take off. “I can’t wear this. It will probably rip if I bend over.”
