The Corpse Whisperer

by H. R. Boldwood

  After a few nods, a couple of chuckles, and a mock groan he said, “Wow, that sounds like a lot more fun than I’m in for tonight, but unfortunately, I can’t. I’m working.”

  He went quiet for a bit, like he was listening, and then said, “Sorry. I really can’t say. Police business. You know.”

  He’d moved deeper into the kitchen, damn it. It was getting harder to hear him.

  Leo sighed. “You realize that’s rude, right? It’s obviously a chick. Let the man work.”

  “Shut up, Leo. Can’t you see I’m listening?”

  “Oh, I get it,” he said. “You got the hots for him! Ha! That’s funny.”

  “Bite your tongue, you greasy little weasel.”

  Rico let loose a few more laughs and a husky, “Yes ma’am,” followed by a flirty, “Looking forward to it.”

  Rico’s feet echoed across the linoleum, his steps growing louder as he neared the living room. He stood in the archway and glanced in at us. I jerked my head around, like I was looking out the window, and almost gave myself whiplash.

  He turned back to his phone and lowered his voice, but he didn’t turn away. “I know,” he said. “I’d tell you if I could.”

  Whatever she said next caused his face to flame.

  “No,” he snickered. “I won’t tell you, even if you do that. But do it anyway.” He laughed again. “Okay. See you about one. Bye.”

  There was way too much laughing going on for my taste. And see you at one? Our shift was over at midnight. She sure wasn’t wasting time, the little barracuda.

  “My man,” Leo said, raising his hand for a high-five. “The honeys are calling you. You got some game.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “What he has is you, Leo. The biggest news story to hit Cincinnati in a long time. Don’t let her play you, De Palma. She wants a story. Nothing else.”

  “So what, if she’s got an angle?” Rico asked. “She’s hot…and I’m a big boy. If she wants to play, I can play. Like Leo said, I got game.”

  She was going to chew him up and spit him out alive, the dumbass.

  Anytime that ditzy, conniving, pea-brained bitch got involved, she had a way of turning everything upside down. And I always came out on the bottom—usually in front of God and everybody, on the eleven o’clock news. Thank heaven, the night was almost over.

  Powell and Ortega showed up about fifteen minutes early for the midnight shift. Halle-freaking-lujah. I shot out of there like a .50 caliber cannon, climbed onto my Harley and headed home. Color me done. Rico could have that bubble-headed twat-waffle.

  I’d never been so glad to leave the 60s in my entire life.

  7

  Life Without Rules is Zushi

  Nothing good ever comes from a phone call at four in the morning. I scrambled out of bed, tripping over Headbutt in the process, and opened my phone in the dark.

  It was Rico.

  I did my best to keep a civil tongue. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Sorry to wake you,” he said. “Cap called. There’s been a murder. He wants us at the scene.”

  “What the hell? Why now, instead of say, three or four hours from now? Is the damn body going to get up and walk away?”

  “I’m just the messenger, Nighthawk. When the boss says come, you come. I don’t make the rules.”

  I pulled on my black khakis, the same ones I wore the day before, slipped into a clean T-shirt with Zombies Hate Fast Food plastered across the chest, and threw on my duster.

  There was no telling how long I might be gone. Later in the morning, I’d have to call Mrs. Nussbaum and dig my pet-sitting grave a little deeper.

  When I took off on my Low Rider, the cool night air slapped me awake. A very simple question occurred to me. Why the hell was I being called to a murder scene? That was Rico’s deal. Just because we were partners on paranormal crimes didn’t mean I signed on for getting up at the crack of four, to ogle random stiffs. Somebody was going to answer for this.

  The crime scene, the parking lot behind an apartment building on Cleves-Warsaw Road in Walnut Hills, had already been roped off with yellow crime scene tape.

  Rico knelt beside the body, doing his thing, and didn’t hear me walk up.

  “I don’t see any biters,” I said. “There’d better be biters involved or you’re in deep shit, De Palma.”

  Rico sat back on his heels, giving me a clear view of the body.

  It was Cap’s admin, Miriam Miller.

  “She looks pastier than usual,” I said.

  “Wow. You really don’t have a filter, do you?” Rico said.

  He was right. That was cold, even for me. I didn’t know Miriam very well. But Rico had known her for years.

  “Sorry,” I said, fidgeting with the zipper on my coat.

  “I’ll finish up here. After that, Cap wants to see us in his office.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “That woman over there.” Rico pointed to an older woman standing beside a CPD cruiser, dabbing at her eyes. “Martha Carmichael. She found Miriam lying here dead when she was leaving for work, the early shift at Busken’s Bakery. She knew Miriam. She’s taking it kind of hard.”

  “Did she see anything? Any cars? Any people hanging around?”

  He fixed me in a tired stare. “No, Nighthawk, she didn’t. I’ve already taken her statement. Is there something specific you’d like me to ask her?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who called me, remember? Don’t get pissy with me, because your booty call got cut short.”

  I walked back to my bike and called over my shoulder, “There’s no need for me to be here. I’ll see you at the station.”

  Something told me this day was going to suck.

  The 51st is a quiet place at five in the morning. I walked back to Cap’s office and glanced at Miriam’s work station. Something stopped me cold. Her desktop wasn’t in order. In fact, it was decidedly out of order, like someone had been looking for something. Miriam would’ve never have left her desktop supplies scattered willy-nilly.

  I peeked into Cap’s office and found him staring at the photo on his desk.

  “Morning, Cap. Who’s the pretty lady?”

  He turned to me, face ashen and eyes dull. “That’s Ingrid, my wife. She died a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, rubbing his face with his hands and then settling back in his chair. “I take it you’ve been to the crime scene?”

  I nodded.

  “Come on in. Have a seat. We’ll wait for De Palma before we get started.”

  It didn’t take long for the sound of Rico’s size thirteens, clomping down the aisle, to fill the awkward silence.

  “Morning, Cap. My condolences,” Rico said with downcast eyes. “I know you and Miriam were friends. She was real good to you when Ingrid died. She’d been your secretary for what, twenty years?”

  Cap sighed. “Twenty-five years, to be exact. And yes. She was a godsend.”

  Rico cleared his throat. “The uniforms secured the scene before I got there. I did my prelim and interviewed the woman who found Miriam. The crime scene techs were just getting there as I was leaving. First light, we’ll check out her apartment. We’re going to find whoever did this.”

  Cap seemed to have aged since I sat in his office, just the day before. His shoulders were hunched. The gray in his whiskers glared white under the florescent lights.

  “She was one of ours,” he murmured.

  “I know, Cap. Believe me, nobody’s gonna drop the ball on this,” Rico said.

  “What’s your read on it?”

  “She was found outside her residence, stabbed once. No other signs of assault. Not much blood. It looks like the body might’ve been moved. Rigor was setting in. That puts her death somewhere around 2 a.m., give or take. The M.E. will be able to tell us more,” Rico said. “Her purse was stolen. If I had to guess, I’d say robbery.”

  I thought of the jumble on he
r desktop and had my doubts. But with nothing to go on, other than my intuition, it seemed smarter to talk to Rico about that in private.

  “What would Miriam be doing out at that hour?” I asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Rico said. “Single older lady, maybe she...” He glanced at Cap and decided to let that drop. “We’ll find out.”

  Cap turned to me and hesitated, before spitting out the reason I was there—what I’d known in my heart had been the reason, since the moment I’d laid eyes on the newly dead Miriam Miller.

  “I want you to raise Miriam, Nighthawk. I want her to tell us who did this. And when I find that piece of shit, I’m going to grind him into the ground with my boot heel, until there’s nothing left of him but pulp, blood and bone splinters.”

  Cap and I had never had occasion to discuss my “rules” before. Trying to talk about them now, when he was so emotionally charged, wouldn’t be the best time.

  I could try to be gentle, hem and haw, or I could give him my answer straight. In the end, it wouldn’t matter whether I yanked the Band-Aid off or teased it off, a little at a time. Either way, this conversation was going to be a whole mess of ugly.

  I went with short and sweet. “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’?” His eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t a request. It was an order.”

  “I don’t take orders from you—not when it comes to raising.”

  Cap’s face blazed. “We’re a family, damn it. Miriam was part of that family. People need to understand, when you attack one of us, you attack us all. There’ll be no escaping justice.”

  “That’s exactly why she shouldn’t be raised. Miriam was too close to you. There are other ways to get justice, ones that don’t require raising her.”

  He pounded his fist on his desk. “Her body should be at the morgue by now, or it will be soon. Go there, raise her in private, and get me that information.” His eyes were dark as thunderheads. “Do it, or you’ll never work with us again. Is that clear enough?”

  That sounded like the pain talking, but even if it wasn’t, he’d never keep that threat. The city needed me. He needed me. Still, there were smarter ways to change his mind than by bulldozing him.

  “Cap, you don’t want to do this. She was your friend. She scheduled your life. Hell, she was part of your life. She cared for you through some tough times. You don’t want me to raise someone that close to you, only to turn around and put her back down. It’s ugly and it’s sad. She’ll be cold, confused, even fearful. After everything she’s been through, do you really want to do that to her? Why? Because you’re angry? Or hurt? You and Rico can obtain the information you need through standard investigative techniques.”

  I softened my voice and drove home the truth. “It’s a case that can be solved without my intervention.”

  Cap’s lips grew taut. “Raise her, Nighthawk.”

  “I have rules—a moral code. It’s what keeps me grounded. No. I won’t. I won’t do it.”

  “You feel that strongly? You’d openly defy me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m right. And if you weren’t so close to this, you’d see that, too.”

  Cap lapsed into silence.

  While I waited for him to reconsider, memories of my sister, Anna, began to surface. Sitting there, in the 51st, across from Cap, my time with Anna seemed so long ago. But some nights, when I’m having trouble sleeping, it seems like only yesterday.

  She died when I was eight and she was three. We were playing tag in our yard, and I chased her into the street. She got hit by a car and died in the hospital that night.

  I was inconsolable. My mother was heartbroken. But my father…my father was lost.

  He begged my mom to bring her back. Young as I was, I knew the power inside my mom, and I felt that same power stirring inside me. Mom sobbed, telling dad she wouldn’t bring Anna back. That it was wrong. She said that with every gift from God came rules, and that in spite of my father’s pain, he knew that, too. Grief over the loss of a loved one wasn’t a reason to raise the dead. That was rule number one, right before rule number two, always put down those you raise.

  Over the years, I’d made a few more rules, but sitting there in the 51st wasn’t the time to think about them. I pulled myself out of the past and focused on Cap.

  When he finally spoke, he sounded troubled. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s best to leave her in peace.” There was a tear in his eye. “I was out of the office yesterday afternoon. Miriam left me a voicemail saying she wanted to talk to me about something important, first thing this morning. I wonder what it was.”

  I thought of the shamble on her desktop and wondered if the two things were related.

  Cap pointed at Rico. “You find whoever did this, and find them fast. I know you’re on detail with Leo. Coordinate with the other detectives. This case gets top priority until it’s solved. Update me as soon as you have information to share. Anything else?” he asked.

  Rico and I shook our heads.

  “Then get to work.”

  Rico closed Cap’s door behind us.

  When he heard it latch, Rico said, “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me all your rules.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a long list.”

  As we walked past Miriam’s desk, I grabbed his arm and asked. “You see anything odd here?”

  Rico gave her desktop the once over. “It’s a little messier than usual.”

  “She’d never leave it this way.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I’ll check with the desk sergeant to see who might have been back here tonight. I’ll get one of the guys to dust for prints after Cap leaves.” Rico made a point of catching my eye. “We don’t want him worrying whether it’s an inside job until we can prove it.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I thought of the photo on Cap’s desk and asked a random question. “How’d Cap’s wife die, anyway?”

  Rico glanced at Cap’s closed door and pulled me further down the hallway.

  “She had a flat tire on I-71S. It was late. Cap was stuck at work. She wanted him to come change it, but he couldn’t get free. He had dispatch send one of the units out to help her. But, by the time they got there, she was gone. No sign of her anywhere. They called in extra cars and searched the surrounding area near the expressway. That’s where they found her—dead. A biter had gotten hold of her. They think it must have been holed up beneath the overpass, and took her before the units got there.”

  Suddenly, it hit me. Both Ingrid and Miriam, arguably the two women closest to Cap, had come to him for help, and he hadn’t been there for them. No wonder he looked haunted.

  Rico and I walked to the bullpen, so he could check on the progress of the biter investigation at the shooting range.

  While we had a minute alone, there was another topic I wanted to revisit. “So, I guess little Miss Double-D’s wasn’t too happy about you having to take off in the middle of the night.”

  He kept walking, acting like he didn’t hear me.

  “No response?” I asked

  “It wasn’t a question.”

  I grabbed his arm and stopped him midstride. “What do you see in her?”

  “She’s nice. She’s fun.” His tone sounded defensive. “And she didn’t slug me in the jaw the first time we met.”

  That was it? That was the draw? I can do nice. I’m fun...ish. And the bruise I left on his face was next to nothing, like one, maybe two knuckle’s worth. But the real question was why did I care?

  He must have read my mind. “What’s it matter to you anyway, Nighthawk?”

  “Fine. Be a chump,” I said, avoiding the question in both our minds. “But don’t come crying to me when she dumps you for an even bigger schmuck. If she can find one.”

  Schmuck? I must have been channeling Mrs. Nussbaum, which reminded me that I needed to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind about pet sitting.

  Rico went to his desk and turned on his laptop,
to check the status of the firing range investigation.

  I found a vacant desk and called Sweden to check in with Sandy. It was noon there. At least one of us would be awake. But I got his voicemail, so I left him a message to give me a yell.

  Then, I laid my head on the desk and closed my eyes, telling myself I just needed to rest for a minute.

  The next thing I knew, a voice called to me from beyond. “Wake up, slacker.”

  The heavenly aroma of coffee wafted up my nose. I opened my eyes to find a steaming cup of Maxwell House.

  “Thanks,” I said with a stretch and a yawn. “What’d you find out about Brasshole’s?”

  “There were dozens of fingerprints near and in the walk-up, but they all belonged to cops. That doesn’t rule them in or out, but it could mean the unsub was on the job.”

  “Or he wore gloves.”

  Rico bobbed his head. “On the other hand, the only door to the walk-up, the door you entered, was locked. Security footage, from shortly before you kicked the door in, showed no sign of forced entry. And there were no scratch marks to indicate the lock had been picked. In order for someone to deposit a biter before you got there, the door would had to have been unlocked, and then relocked after they left. That suggests the dirtbag had a key. Coincidentally, the security video went black for about twenty minutes around 4:00 a.m.”

  He scratched his chin. “Looks like it could be an inside job. The biggest question is, who would have access to both a key and a biter?”

  That was an interesting question.

  “Oh, by the way,” he added, “Sergeant Clawson said the only person he saw near Miriam’s desk overnight was that odd-ball janitor, Ottis. Clawson didn’t see him rifle through anything. He was just moseying along, cleaning, like he always does.”

  The squirrel. Now, he was a strange ranger. He seemed like a long shot, but you never know.

  After a big swig of coffee, Rico settled into a chair and put his feet up on the desk. “In just over two days,” he said, “someone planted a deadhead at the firing range, we were followed to the safe house, and Miriam Miller ended up dead in what looks like a random mugging.”