The Dead Detective

by J. R. Rain

  Which is weird, because I never go out of my way to inspire the feeling. I mean, I’m not a jealous person myself―I can’t even bring myself to be pissed off at Devon. I’m not sure I’ve ever really felt jealous of anyone; not even Layla Levinsohn. “That’s because you’ve never really been in love with anyone,” Malena once told me when I confessed this to her during the course of one of our long-ago drunken bar-crawling conversations.

  “Well, what about you?” I snapped back at her. “You must be in love with everybody then!”

  She just shook her head and laughed hard. “Nah. I’m just jealous of anybody else getting attention instead of me.” You can see how hard it is to have a really big argument with somebody like that. Somebody who never takes you or herself or life seriously.

  Anyway, this is the sort of shit I’m thinking about in the car following Tamara back home. When I should actually be thinking about, you know, my open cases or something.

  Or about being one of the undead.

  I have to stop off at the house on my way to Sgt. Burchhalter’s address, which is in the Brookfield subdivision east of town. I need plenty of extra salt packets to take with me in sandwich bags. I also checked a Mossberg 590 pump-action shotgun, the kind with a twenty inch black barrel, out of the stationhouse lockup, along with one of the new type IIIA bulletproof vests, both of which I’ve locked in the trunk. As a precaution.

  Naturally, the moment I get home, the rabbi is on my case. “Is this about the Little Malta murders?” Have I mentioned she’s an avid fan of TV news?

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do―it’s my business to know everything,” she says. “Clergy are even bigger busybodies than police officers. You’ve already told me you suspect that another mulo did it; I take it you have a name. And now you’re off to play hero. Are you planning to confront him alone? Or is your partner going with you?” This is like having a wife.

  “Um, no. This isn’t really something I want anybody else knowing about. I’m hoping to talk the guy down from whatever ledge he’s on.”

  “With salt? You’re planning to disable him, you mean. And then what?”

  “Um…” Actually, I was planning to take a shovel from the carport, but I can hardly tell Tamara that.

  “I’m coming with you, Rishya.”

  “No fuckin’ way! Sorry.”

  The argument lasts about one and a half minutes. My advice to you is this: do not, under any circumstances, ever, ever get into an argument with a rabbi. Not unless you’re a rebbetzin, which means a rabbi’s wife. Or, I guess, husband nowadays. Then maybe they’ll respect you enough to listen. Though most likely not. In any case, the way it works out is that we end up taking two shovels, along with a few of the hawthorn branches from where Devon dumped them next to the plastic trashcans near the front sidewalk. And a bunch of rock salt in sandwich bags (the last of it; Tamara makes me stop at a Safeway on the way there to buy some more). Oh, and she’s wearing my spare Kevlar vest, which makes her look, as she puts it, like “the Great Pumpkin.” That’s the only concession I get out of her. In other words, I’ve lost the argument. Totally, short of cuffing her to the handicap rail in the shower.

  And it’s true, I can use an extra pair of hands along. The Mossberg is almost as big as a bazooka. The drizzle of that morning has turned into a relentless drenching monsoon under darkened skies, compounding the difficulty of the task ahead. And the search for Sergeant Burchhalter could go on until well after dark, in which case I might need Tamara around to disable me and drive me home if anything goes wrong.

  The problem is that Tamara isn’t so much a backseat driver as a front-seat driver. The moment we get onto the main crosstown freeway, my cell goes off with Val’s particular ringtone. So I take it. And the moment I do, Tamara scowls and starts reaching over to “steady the wheel.” Not that it needs steadying. But the net effect is that the whole time I’m talking to the Gypsy King, I’m also not only trying to drive one-handed, but I’m also having to wrestle the steering wheel from Tamara. Which means we’re veering wildly from side to side in our lane.

  “Hey,” he says. “Can you make tonight? I was thinking maybe we could eat in at my place. Chinese okay?”

  “Sorry,” I tell him. “No more nights out for me. Not after what happened to the Trapanis.”

  “You think that was another mulo?”

  “Hell, yeah.” I yank the Toyota back from the verge of smacking up against a huge tractor-trailer in the next lane, which is shedding a blinding slipstream of rain spume. “Why? Don’t you?”

  “It’s a lot for me to process all at once. But…I do know I want to see you again. Are you pissed at me about something?”

  “No. I’ve just got Tamara here with me right now.” The truth is I was pissed at him plenty―because of his letting everyone know he’d bagged me and because of his having slept with the dead woman. I was pissed right up until the moment he phoned. But as soon as I hear his voice, such is the pathetic state of my emotions, that suddenly all I want is to get inside his pants again. Not that what I found in there before was all that amazing, though not bad, but it just feels so damn good to be wanted. And, you know, possibly it means something more than just sex with him. More than the cold play, I mean. Maybe he actually…likes me. That would be kind of a novelty lately.

  Of course, somebody warned the Gypsies I was coming back to their campsite―which was why they cleared out so conveniently. And the leading candidate under suspicion for that is Val. Or Malena, since she knew where I was.

  “Tamara? I thought your partner was Ayon.”

  “Right,” I say, realizing too late I’m playing hooky from my real assignment. “That’s who I meant. We’re doing deep background on the bodyguard, trying to figure any Mob ties.” That’s what she’s been doing all day anyway back at the stationhouse, hopefully.

  “Maybe we could trade off partners tomorrow.” He sounds hopeful. “I’ve been asking questions around Little Malta all day and getting nowhere. I can really use your help down here with that. I’ll put in a formal request, if it’s okay with you.” Which is total bullshit.

  “Okay,” I tell him. Maybe we can find a cheap motel room in that part of town for an hour, my inner voice whispers treacherously.

  urchhalter lives―if you can call it that―on South Fairlawn, in a big house that stands out incongruously from its far older and more modest-sized neighbors because of its barn-like bulk and newness. It also has at least three security cameras that I can easily spot from the street. Which makes it look to me like the guy was probably corrupt long before the Horvaths turned him into a mass murderer. A house like this isn’t in the cards for anybody under a captain’s pay grade. However, the place looks conspicuously empty. I never really thought I’d still find him here, but I need to make sure first.

  “So what do we do now?” Tamara asks after I park.

  “We don’t do anything,” I tell her. “I’m going in. You sit here on your cell and warn me if anyone follows me inside.” I’ve scoped the place out for a possible IAD or Fed stake-out, but I haven’t spotted anything. “I’ll use mine like a walkie-talkie with you, okay? That way you can rush in and help me out if I need you.”

  “Where angels fear to tread,” she mutters as I get out of the car and into the pouring rain. Whatever.

  The moment I do, she opens her door as if to get out and follow. “Hey!” she calls after me. “You’re not planning to use that, right?” She means the big shotgun, which I’ve had the good sense to wrap in a stadium blanket so as not to scare the neighbors. “That won’t kill a mulo.”

  I shrug. “No, but it might stop him long enough for us to get the salt onto him.” Just what the hell did she think my plan was, anyway?

  Her departing words echo in my ears as I walk up the short, waterlogged driveway: “But what if you’re wrong?” How would I feel about that, as Dr. Susan would say. Lousy, most likely―even if I’m right about it being Burchhalte
r―and about him needing to be terminated. Almost all police departments have a few ruthless executioners on the payroll, sometimes an entire hit squad. “Killer cops”, they’re called, and in spite of what you might think, surprisingly few are on TAC or SWAT teams. The real killers do the dirty work; stop the serial murderers and really vicious crazies that no amount of surveillance or peaceable arrest procedures or hostage negotiation can touch, and they have the tacit permission of the top brass to do it. As long as they don’t get outed by the media or tangled up in lawsuits.

  Back in the day, the Gimp got his start doing that―before he branched out to take on contracts from gangsters. Bull told me the department even used to hand out bounties in those days. But I don’t have it in me to be one of those cold-blooded killers―aside from that one time with my stepfather; few women do, I’m proud to say. I’ve never shot to kill anyone in the line of duty. The only other time I killed anyone, a suspect, it was accidental. I fired a warning shot to his leg while he was taking aim with a Saturday Night special at my then-partner. It nicked his femoral artery. Even then, though, he should have survived, but the ERV medic crew somehow botched the stent and he bled out while the driver idled outside the nearest ER waiting for a slot to open up.

  I copped a month’s suspension for that. Sometimes I still feel pretty bad about it. And even worse about the two Romani I killed, even though that wasn’t my fault either. So I’m really not happy about what I may now have to do to Burchhalter.

  If he’s even here. I’m assuming so; I’m wearing my regulation black slicker and boots, hooded and head bowed so as to frustrate the security cams. But is anybody watching? If I do break in and find nobody home, it belatedly occurs to me I’ll have to erase any video from the surveillance cams. Wouldn’t it be smarter to just ring the front doorbell? I mean, I’ve just been assuming this guy is the usual sad-sack middle-aged loser whose wife has divorced him―but what if she’s inside the house? What if they have kids? What if he’s got a live-in girlfriend? Or boyfriend?

  But the place looks deserted, except for the maroon Crown Vic in the driveway. There’s a three-car garage at the end of it, but I can only spot one inside―a brand-new red Lexus―through the side window. Along with what looks like a Harley-Davidson under a form-fitting black tarp. So not a family man, I’m guessing.

  Which may account for how he can afford a Lexus and a spread like this on a police sergeant’s salary. Maybe.

  There’s a path, graveled with smooth white pebbles, running down one side of the house between the neighbors’ high wood privacy fence and the side of Burchhalter’s house. It crunches underfoot, but the rain is causing such a racket hitting the gravel that the sound of my footsteps is masked. I squeeze past a pair of mammoth air conditioning compressors, then a few bushes before exiting in the back yard. There’s an empty pool and a patio, half-covered, with the latest in outdoor furniture: a stone fireplace pit, sofa and chairs, a big flat-panel TV, all presumably waterproof but looking like sodden abandoned pets in the rain.

  More to the point, there are several double-paned glass doors in a row. Damn, if this guy isn’t dirty, then he must have family money. Like, lots of it. Because from what I can see as I try to jimmy the lock on the first door, the crap on the patio is just the throwaway stuff; inside, the house looks like a furniture store showroom. And unlike a bachelor’s place―even Val’s―it’s neat as a pin, which probably means daily maid service. Something else to watch out for, though there are no lights on.

  I get lucky with the third sliding door; it has its deadbolt left up, so I’m able to pick the lock and cautiously pull it open. I expect an alarm to go off, but nothing happens. Instead I’m socked with a really pungent smell of gasoline. Or maybe even kerosene. It’s so intense and sickly sweet it makes me instantly dizzy and nauseous. I pull my jersey up over my nose, so now I’m practically wearing a burqa. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, actually, if he’s got cameras set up inside the house, too.

  I walk, as quietly as I can in my squelching boots, through a large darkened carpeted family room. Nothing about it suggests a family, or even a man-cave, though, which tells me that not many visitors have ever come to this cop’s secret palace. So why did Burchhalter even buy the place? Maybe just out of envy, the desire to surround himself with the trappings of a rich man’s life just to prove he could. It seems pretty stupid to me, but hey, maybe the guy has connections in IAD. Or even in the commissioner’s office; if so, that makes what I’m doing now―illegally breaking and entering―even stupider.

  But something tells me that he won’t want them knowing he’s one of the undead. So, if he’s still here, that makes the reception he’ll give me a pretty dicey proposition. I slide the wet blanket off the Mossberg as soon as I’m out in the hall. But now I’m actually scared to fire the fucking thing. The smell of gasoline is so strong that I’m wondering if it isn’t something higher octane like airplane engine propellant; maybe he’s planning to burn the place down―it may even be that it’s trip-wired, so that the first intruder unwittingly does the job for him. There must be fumes everywhere. Which is why I can’t risk setting it off with the sparks from firing the shotgun.

  Hell, I don’t even dare turn on a light switch…

  The living room is huge, furnished like a hotel lounge or the set of a porn flick. This room, too, is plunged in the gloom of a rainy day, with all its curtains pulled closed. A dark hulking shape is seated in the middle of the long couch; after a few moments, my eyes adjust, and I see it’s a man. A big guy, almost certainly Burchhalter. He’s been hit by gunfire―he’s even got a big hole on one side of his face from a hollow point. The dude is crazy to still be here, after what went down the other night. Maybe there’s something to this “zombies returning to the grave at sunset” bullshit, after all. He’s clearly reluctant to leave his home, just as I seem to be to leave mine these days.

  Burchhalter’s spilled the contents of a couple of large jerry-cans all around, even splashed the wall and curtains behind him and soaked the couch and a section of the carpet. And himself. His strands of grey-brown hair are slicked-down and greasy with it. The cans lie nearby discarded, and he clutches a near-empty bottle of Johnny Walker in one heavily bandaged hand and a cigarette lighter in the other.

  “Don’t do it, Sergeant,” I say to him. “It won’t help―you can’t kill yourself this way.”

  He looks up slowly and focuses his gaze on me. But he makes no other movement. If he’s surprised to see me materialize in the dim light like this, he doesn’t show it. But like me, he must be getting used to seeing ghosts.

  “You’ll just damage yourself more, but you won’t be dead. I should know. I’m a cop just like you. And a mulo.”

  “A what?” he says finally. His voice is low and raspy, and he sounds very drunk. Which he is. But, hey, let’s be fair―is there any saner response than to get blasted after waking from a roofie-like trance to discover that you’ve just torn five people, including two women, apart with your bare hands? Not to mention your teeth? I think about this for a few seconds: Burchhalter is a big guy―late forties and run to fat, okay, but with a lot of meat and muscle on him―yet under ordinary circumstances, there’s no way he could have ripped these people apart like he did. No, he was truly possessed, driven into a frenzy of pumping adrenal glands, like an accountant I once saw at a traffic accident scene actually lift a Honda’s front end off his wife. Next day, the guy collapsed; turned out he’d fractured his spine in three places. But he’d briefly been lent supernatural powers by adrenaline. Just like Burchhalter; no wonder he’s so depleted and exhausted now.

  I’d felt the same way when I was summoned to kill: invincible. Invulnerable. Until I got the shakes afterwards.

  “A mulo,” I repeat patiently. “It’s what the Gypsies call the undead. You and I were both turned into zombies by a Gypsy woman named Gana Kali; she’s one of the Horvath crime family. They’re creating an army of us, using only police so far. Why us, I don’t know―may
be because we’re already legally armed and can go places civilians can’t.”

  “Three of us, the shrink said…” The raspy voice again.

  “So far.”

  “What the fuck you bring that gun in here for? Go ahead and shoot―maybe you’ll blow yourself up, too. Do the world a favor.”

  “Look, Sergeant, burning us both to a crisp won’t change a thing.” Is this even true? I only have Mama Lourdes’ word for it. “We’ll still be alive, just stuck looking like fried mummies. Listen, I know how you feel―a lot better than you can guess. You know the Rosedale homicides? That was me.” Maybe he had the house interior wired, maybe he didn’t. Confessing this was a dumb move, but I had to get through to him. In a big hurry. “I’m probably the only person in the world you can believe when I tell you what happened was not your fault! The Gypsy woman can summon us at will and make us do anything she wants. There’s only one way to defeat it.”

  He shakes his head slowly. The man’s a wreck, a big overweight middle-aged guy who looks like he’s just crawled out of a foxhole after being torn apart by bullets and barbed wire. He hasn’t even changed his clothes before soaking himself in gasoline; they’re still stiff with the blood of the victims. And his own.

  “You mean by taking out this old Gypsy witch? More craziness. No thanks, sweetheart, I think I’ve just lost it. You’re nothing but a hallucination―like all those other dead people I see all the time. Now, get the fuck out of here before I light up. Or not.”

  “Come on, Sergeant, be―”

  But it’s too late. He starts flicking at his Bic. I turn and make a run for it as I hear a single ominous click behind me. Almost simultaneously, the room flares to brilliance as I wrestle the door open. The shockwave and the blast of heat and noise arrive at the same time. If the door opened in the other direction, hinged on the right, I’d be instantly ignited like the Human Torch. As it is, the impact of the explosion, when the vapors catch fire from the burning gasoline, slams the full weight of the door into me, smashing the breath from my body and sending me hurtling outside into the rain. The living room windows explode. I hit the ground, losing the shotgun, as fragments of shattered glass blow out in every direction, followed by dazzling fingers of yellow flame and black billowing smoke.