2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  “Was that a veiled threat, Agent Golden, or a strange proffer of lesbian bum sex? Cuz I'm not even sure how that works.” I scratched my chin. “Do you wear the strap-on, or do I?”

  She snorted with derision.

  As Declan climbed out of the back of the van, he sized up the encounter in a glance. Agent Golden moved apart, drawn to the circle of activity where de Cabrera was organizing the crime scene unit for their forensic sweep of the beach area. Nearby, Chapel was speaking to Batten — actually, for a change, Chapel looked like he was speaking at Batten, and not without some frustration — just beyond the circle of junior agents. I swallowed hard, wondering if Chapel was giving Batten the same third degree about last night that I just got in bitch-form from Golden.

  Declan watched Golden until she was out of earshot. I paid careful attention to the side of his face. His eyes never strayed to her backside, a conscious decision I was sure. One which, oddly enough, I appreciated.

  He said, “That looked… frosty. Unless you were seriously hitting on her. In which case, it was totally hot.”

  I sucked my teeth and thought it best to keep my thoughts about her (cocksmoking fuckmaggot!) to myself. He smiled at me as though he'd heard every word in my head.

  “Your eyes are sparkling like a Twilight vampire,” he told me. “Looks like true love.”

  An unexpected laugh blasted from deep in my belly. “Yeah, you got me. I love that woman as much as I admire her.”

  “I knew it,” he said enthusiastically, pumping one fist at his side. “Not surprising: not only is she professional and bright, but she's also very charming and warm on a personal level.”

  “Oh, yes,” I mock-agreed, liking Declan more by every passing second. I let him take my collection of pen, breath mints, and notebook from my hands and dump it in his doctor's bag. “So what if she's a functioning psychotic? I like her so much I wish I could put her in a jar and keep her on a shelf. Forever.” Wondering if I could actually do that gave me something to mentally chew on for a moment while Declan's sturdy presence at my side provided empathic calmness; his quiet kindness was unexpectedly soothing. “I'm trying to figure out how to have her babies as we speak. In vitro fertilization, or braised with garlic butter, do you think?”

  The breeze shifted, a spare wind that barely stirred my ponytail but brought a different, distinct scent on it. Not death. No, that was there, but above it, riding the currents, was something herbal and green, and at the same time alcoholic. I sniffed subtly sideways toward Declan's shoulder, but the smell was coming from ahead of us, from the lake. It didn't make a lot of sense; it was at least eighty-five degrees out, even at this hour, and at this temperature, alcohol would evaporate quickly.

  I watched Batten search the crowd until his eyes fell on me. He raised one arm at me in a curt summons then went to chew out Agent Golden and Agent de Cabrera for something.

  Ignoring him, I said to Declan, “Do you smell that?” I lifted my face and he did the same. Together we spent a good minute just smelling the air. My cell phone vibrated at my hip, indicating a text. I glanced down at it.

  Batten. Get your tight little ass over here.

  I showed Jerkface the back of my head, knowing my nonchalance would irritate him. What can I say, I stir shit when I haven't had my coffee. Just my way of spreading the joy. Not incidentally, it also meant he could see the object of his texted demand. Let him argue the quality of my derriere with Agent Golden.

  Declan was nodding, still trying to narrow down the source of the aroma. The air was dry and scorched, and the inside of my nostrils hurt like there were tiny men in there manufacturing barbed wire.

  My phone vibrated again. Do not ignore me, woman.

  I glanced over my shoulder, waited for him to be the only one glaring at me over the distance, then smiled sweetly and flipped him the bird.

  “Licorice? Grand wormwood?” Declan suggested, his eyelids firmly closed.

  “Anise?” I said, remembering the distinct smell of licorice not only in the parking lot of Rocky Mountain Luxury Automotive but in my own kitchen. “Used for …”

  “Heightening psychic transmission,” Declan affirmed immediately, frowning. “Where's the smell coming from?”

  “If it's wormwood, maybe an absinthe still in the shed?”

  “These are beer and whiskey guys,” Declan decided. “They're fishermen, not bohemian poets.”

  I checked out the fish camp's plaid-shirt-and-jeans-wearing owner, now giving a report to de Cabrera. “Don't be so sure. Wild hair, beady eyes? Sure looks like Baudelaire to me.”

  Declan humored me, tucking his chin closer to my shoulder. “Hmm. Intense, soul-sucking, deconstructing stare. You're right. This dude's definitely a poet.”

  My phone vibrated again. I peeked at Batten's text. Suck my balls.

  My lips peeled into a full grin. So much for people skills. I put the phone away. “I think we need to go see Batten before he busts a nut.” I was also going to enjoy reminding him that he was using a department phone, and that Chapel could read his messages. He wouldn't even need fraternization rules to hand Batten his ass on a platter if he wanted to.

  Declan nodded. “I was wondering how long you'd make him wait.”

  Agent Golden didn't know who she was messing with. If there's one thing I knew about Batten, it was this. If I pissed him off enough, the urge for him to dominate me was going to drive him bonkers until he fell on me like a wildcat in heat, complete with rawr.

  Neither Declan or I made a move to go to Batten's summons. A second later, my cell phone started playing the Ghostbusters theme again, and Declan turned to face away from Batten, away from me; his shoulders shook silently.

  “Hello?” I answered pleasantly. “Who is it?”

  Batten was silent for a moment and then said, “Golden and de Cabrera are going to unlock the shed, so I suggest you get your fucking ass in gear.”

  I turned to give him a mock salute from a safe distance, and even from where I stood I could see his jaw muscles ripple with displeasure.

  Chapel sidled up to me. Last time I'd seen him up close, I'd been naked and punching him; he didn't seem to be holding a grudge. Maybe because he'd threatened to stake my companion, we'd just call it even and not discuss it. Chapel's attention wasn't on me, anyways. He appeared to be monitoring Batten cautiously from a distance.

  “You stalking me, boss?” I asked him.

  “Good luck with the restraining order,” he parried with a rare show of humor, though he didn't crack a smile. “How is Wesley?”

  I see-sawed my hand. “Time will tell.”

  “Are you ready, Marnie?”

  I noted that Declan had given us an alarming amount of space all of the sudden; he practically ran in the direction of the shed. I felt a prick of unease along the nape of my neck.

  “The dhaugir bond, are you sure it's gone?” Chapel asked. “I don't know what you did to it, but gone is not the word I'd use for the connection.” His thin lips set in an all-business line.

  “Are you feeling my pain?”

  “No, but …” He seemed unable or unwilling to put his feelings into words, but a wash of discomfort was offered up to me with a rush of psi. “On a separate but equally disturbing topic, it's possible Harry put something in my coffee last night.”

  “You came to my place for coffee?” I hissed. “What for? How'd you get in? I locked all the doors.” And there hadn't been any coffee for me when I woke up, dammit.

  “About one o'clock. Harry let me in,” he said, hedging, “I wanted to check on Wesley and discuss what happened on the dock. There were salty crystals in the bottom of my mug. He wouldn't be trying to kill me because I threatened him?”

  Saltpeter. One of the ingredients of the earliest gunpowder. It was an urban myth that armies used to slip it to soldiers; it was believed to curb their libido. It didn't actually act on the libido, but I wasn't surprised Harry had some in his wide collection of outdated medicines. After all, Harry would occ
asionally dip his cigarettes in tincture of opium when he really wanted to chill out. The question was, why would he be trying to cool Chapel off, when Batten was the concern? Surely, Harry didn't think I was even remotely attracted to Gary…

  “You're fine, boss,” I said. “I'll talk to him.”

  “I'll tell you what I told Mark this morning: you and he need to cool it, Marnie. I trust you know what I mean by that,” Chapel said carefully.

  I studied my Keds. “Batten agreed with you?”

  “He did,” Chapel confirmed. He looked like he wanted to say more, but kept his lip buttoned.

  I should have been relieved, but it felt like I was being dumped, and by the wrong man; my gut rolled over in a sick lump. “Won't be a problem at all, Agent Chapel.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Chapel said as Batten stormed over from the shoreline. “All set?”

  “Ready as I'll ever be,” I said, dodging Batten's heavy stare.

  I should have known. Luck and my love life collide about as often as two galaxies do to form a giant black hole. They both sucked an awful lot, too.

  As Chapel moved apart, Batten made to touch my elbow. “We just need to—”

  “Don't, jackass.” I sniffed out a small laugh, digging out Harry's iPod and sticking one ear bud in my right ear. “We don't need to do anything. It's fine.”

  “Snickerdoodle.”

  “Nah,” I corrected, hammering down my lips into a line. “Doctor Baranuik, right, Agent Batten? We're professionals.”

  He exhaled hard, lowered his voice even more. “Don't do that.”

  “I believe I have a body to look at, in a sweatbox of a shed. It's gonna be a real party, so if you'll excuse me. Wouldn't wanna miss a single juicy minute of it.”

  “Marnie…”

  “Come on, Dr. Edgar,” I called out. “Let's get this done.”

  I gathered up a smile to hide my misery and forced myself to march strongly with a casual, business-as-usual look on my face past the van where my kit lay. Harry's playlist started with the Monks’ Drugs in my Pocket, and I strode to the beat, kicking a stray twig out of my way. It tumbled away from my bright red sneakers, and I thought, if I really did have drugs in my pocket, this would be a great time to use them. I could feel Agent Golden's gaze on me the whole way, and I made myself glance over to her and smile like everything was just fine. But her smirk said she saw through it. Hell, she'd probably put a bug in Chapel's ear to begin with.

  Declan peeled away from the group he was with, falling into step with me. “Your mood just took a dive, what's happened?”

  Had Golden threatened to go over Chapel's head, to Assistant Director Geoff Johnston? Oh Lord and Lady, I thought gloomily. Please don't make me watch Kill-Notch start flirting with Agent Long Legs. If he's going to do it, don't let it be where I can see. But then the thought of him secretly backing her up against a wall and me never knowing about it also sucked.

  “Nothing you need to worry about, Dr. Edgar,” I clipped.

  “Whoa,” he hurried ahead so he could walk backward and talk to me at the same time. “When did we go back to titles? Did I do something?”

  He knew differently, but if he wanted to pretend he couldn't read my face like it was a brightly-colored comic book with themes of sex and rage, so be it. “It's not you.”

  “Agent Chapel said something upsetting to you? Or Batten?”

  “Stupid jackass couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.”

  “Chapel?” he repeated for clarification. “Did Golden open her fat trap again?”

  I refused to smile.

  He dropped his voice. “Should I grab a specimen of that bitch culture and slap it in formaldehyde for further study?”

  I choked back the laugh that spilled up my throat. A great load of unhappiness lifted from my chest like a miracle, lightening my step.

  “I've been thinking, Dr. Edgar.”

  “Have you? And what have you been thinking, Dr. Baranuik?”

  “Having an assistant might not be so bad after all.”

  “Glad to be of aid,” he nodded. “Any other trouble I can manhandle for you?”

  “Can we talk later?” I motioned towards the vehicles, meaning when we get home.

  Declan's smile burst out like an inmate released early, looking for trouble. “We'll break out the whiskey.”

  I blinked at Agent Batten's broad back in the harsh sunlight while Richard Hudson wondered in my one ear whether or not he needed to be permanently high. “Oh, what the hell.”

  We crunched down the gravel-and-sand path together toward the manmade beach of white sand. The colorful plastic toys bothered me. Declan glanced toward me and gave me a shrugging smile of encouragement; I think they bothered him too.

  “Should I start that list you requested?” he asked.

  “I requested a list?” I had no recollection of this. “When, and what list did I request?”

  “This morning in the car. I assumed you were awake when you said it.”

  “Before sun-up, never assume,” I said.

  “You said you wanted me to use this.” He held up his precious iPad, which I never saw far from his hand. “To make a concise list of all the things that piss you off. I could start with Agent Golden?”

  “Don't be silly, we love Agent Golden, she's delightful.” I gave him a broad stage wink.

  “Oh yes, how forgetful of me.”

  I pointed at his iPad. “Lack of coffee. That's on the list right under cock-blocks and dead bodies.”

  As we strolled companionably toward the shed, taking one last moment to enjoy the reassurance of security offered by the floodlights, he said, “And things that go bump in the night?”

  “Oh, no,” I admonished. “Some of my best friends are things that go bump in the night.” I wasn't certain, but I thought I heard Agent Chapel cough behind us.

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPEL MET US AGAIN at the shoreline, where a baffling mix of smells overwhelmed the faint whiff of licorice. Fried onions and fabric softener blended into a strange funk; I couldn't decide whether I wanted to spread it on a hot dog or my bed. Chapel blinked rapidly in the near-dawn light behind his tortoiseshell glasses and prodded his Blackberry. My camera was around his neck, a great burden weighing his shoulders into a slump. Of course, Gary Chapel tended to slouch a bit anyways, as did many men with his seemingly unwanted, gangly height. He pulled the camera strap over his head and handed it down to Declan.

  “We've got a second body in the shed, which may belong to our missing dentist, Roger Kelly,” Chapel said, “and I just got word that Cosmo Winkle's cadaver is missing from the morgue.”

  “Body thief. The killer took it,” Declan guessed.

  I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to jump to conclusions. I'd seen hospitals misplace bodies before. If Cosmo turned up in a laundry hamper, I wouldn't be the one to look silly.

  “Declan, why don't you go ahead and take some pictures from the doorway,” Chapel suggested, “so we can get Marnie in there to have a look.” He looked up the pathway to wave Batten over. “The owner of the camp, George Solmes, came to clean up last night. He found some strange insects crawling all over this shed and a bunch more washed up on the shoreline. He called up his brother Frank, an exterminator, but Frank had never seen them before. They Googled bug pictures until they found a match. George called Sheriff Hood, who called me.”

  I glanced down at the ground, where a small pile of burnt carapaces still sent up tendrils of smoke. “Looks like necrophila noveboracensis,” I noted, not that I had any doubt. I'd been feeding a colony of these insects in my lab for weeks; only brain-eating zombie beetles had an asparagus-green criss-cross pattern on the thorax that extended to the beefy wings they sported for short bursts of flight. “Were there leftover remains from Cosmo Winkle washed up, which attracted them?”

  “No. Hood had Solmes open up everything in the vicinity. They found a few in with the body, and a large colony behind the shed, there
, where we found an arm. Cosmo Winkle wasn't missing an arm. CSIU will bag and tag it, if you don't need to examine it.”

  Blerg. “Better leave it for me to look at. Gosh, my job is fun.”

  “I wanted you to be the first to take a look inside the shed,” he continued. “There's something not right about the scene.”

  “You want to be more specific about that, Gary?” I like things kinky, not hinky.

  “I don't want anyone near it except you and Declan until you give the okay.”

  That wasn't reassuring or informative. Chapel had never sent me in first; this was a new development that I wasn't too thrilled with.

  “Fine,” I said, not feeling fine in the least. Chapel got called away by someone on the forensics unit, and Batten followed me as I approached the shed. He was too close when I lurched to a stop, and nearly collided with me.

  “Problem?” he demanded.

  I blinked disbelievingly as Declan batted at the shed's doorway. He hadn't made it one step inside before meeting with a maze of foggy webbing. I turned my wide-eyed face over my shoulder at Batten.

  “Holy flaming fuckwaffles,” I breathed, “I'm not going in there!”

  “Oh, yes you are,” Batten said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “But there's webs,” I pointed, in case he was blind. “Webs mean spiders.”

  “Very good, Dr. Baranuik,” he said, “glad we have you along for this.”

  “Have you been in, Agent Batten?”

  He didn't answer, but his spider phobia caused his scowl to pull down a notch further. He admitted, “Messy in there.”

  “Fuck messy,” I told him. “That shed looks like the place sanity goes to die.”

  Batten didn't look like he cared much about my sanity. I tried to convince myself, I'm a scientist, I can do this, but my brain called me a big fat liar. My ancestors were Vikings, my inner pep talk insisted. They raided whole villages. I can totally raid a shed. Even if the shed in question was entirely full of spitting carrion spiders, which I already knew it would be. Buried somewhere in that trap of webs was a nest of scytodes rugulosum; they wouldn't harm the body, if there was one, and they probably wouldn't hurt me. Much. They only feed on the larval form of the crypt beetles the camp owner had found. It didn't make them any less disgusting or creepy, since they were known to bite if disturbed.