The Corpse Whisperer

by H. R. Boldwood

  “What about other corpse whisperers?” Rico asked. “You told me once that they’re not all as…moral as you. Who’s on that list?”

  I felt my face flush. “It’s not like we have a Facebook group, De Palma. The good ones don’t wear white hats and the bad ones don’t wear black. Some of them might even switch hit on occasion, depending on the circumstances. Now that we know the virus is being manipulated, I’ll start reaching out. Maybe I can narrow down the list.”

  Rico’s phone rang, providing a welcome interruption. By asking me specifics about which corpse whisperer could be involved, he was pulling me down a path I wasn’t prepared to travel. In more ways than one.

  “De Palma,” Rico said and eased out of his chair to leave the room. But he didn’t get far. “He did? When?” Seconds passed while he listened. “How bad is it?” Finally, he shook his head. “Damn it. We’ll be right there.”

  He hung up and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. “That was Ortega from the safe house. Leo had another seizure.” He slid his phone into his pocket. “We need to get over there, Cap.”

  Cap turned his eyes to me. “If this is the end, you let me know, pronto.”

  “Got it,” I said, scrambling out the door.

  I rode with Rico, lights, sirens, the whole production. Once we turned onto Jora Lane, I called Ilse. Even knowing how hard she took Sandy’s death, I was hoping to find her at the lab. She answered on the second ring.

  I exhaled long and hard, unaware that I’d been holding my breath. “Hi Ilse, how’re you doing?”

  I prayed she wouldn’t tell me the truth. Not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t have time to chat. I held my tongue, and let her go on a bit, before breaking in.

  “Ilse, I’m so sorry, but there’s another reason why I called. Leo’s had another attack. Can Dr. Christian offer any suggestions? Tell me what I need to look for?”

  She placed me on hold and put Dr. Christian on the line. “Hello, Ms. Nighthawk, is Leo still seizing now, or has the attack passed?”

  “Let me check, Doc.”

  Rico pulled up in front of the safe house, and I bounded up the front steps, two at a time.

  After bursting through the door, I took one look at Leo and skidded to a halt. “Oh, Jesus, Doc. He’s lying on the living room floor, twitching, with his eyes rolled back in his head. This is way worse than his last one.”

  Dr. Christian sounded detached, even clinical, like a seasoned ER physician. “Give him an extra two mils. Put it directly into his heart, not his leg. We want it to pump through his system as quickly as possible.”

  Rico grabbed one of Leo’s syringes and tossed it to me. I primed the needle to work out any air bubbles, and then jabbed it into Leo’s heart. He bucked once—hard, like a rodeo bull—then fell completely still.

  “Leo,” I said, tapping his face. “Leo? Wake up.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Leo! Come on, Leo.” I gave him an all-out slap up the side of his head.

  “What the… What the fuck?” he moaned. “Stop beating the shit out of me, will ya?”

  He rolled onto his side, coughing up a lung.

  “Damn, that shit hurts when you stab it into my chest. Somebody get me a glass of water, huh?”

  “Dr. Christian, thank you so much,” I said, breathing like I’d run a marathon. “Any other instructions?”

  “Happy to help, Nighthawk. Keep him calm today. Sadly, this being his second episode, the meds may be losing their efficacy. Watch for increased tremors, sporadic slurring of his speech, and God forbid, another seizure. I’m here if you need me.”

  I hung up the phone and swallowed hard, dreading the day there would be no stopping the inevitable.

  Since our shift at the house was due to begin anyway, we sent Powell and Ortega home, and settled in for a quiet afternoon with Leo. He dozed on and off, beneath a blanket on the couch, snoring loud enough to drive Rico and me into the kitchen.

  It was quiet without Leo’s non-stop verbal diarrhea. Rico checked his phone for messages, and I pulled up the Internet to catch some news. Later that afternoon, we ordered a pizza with everything but anchovies from Ricardo’s.

  Out of the blue, Rico said to me, “So, now that it’s just us, maybe you can tell me what you held back in Cap’s office. You know these renegade corpse whisperers. You have to, at least some of them. There has to be a name that shoots to the top of the Most Likely to Fuck Up the World list. Who is it?”

  Little Allie cajoled me. Tell him. Just tell him. The problem was, that although I had my suspicions, there was no way for me to know for sure. And I didn’t want to stir up that nightmare of a hornet’s nest, unless it became absolutely necessary.

  While I silently debated coming clean, Toby sprinted up the front steps with our pie. Rico jumped for the door, so Toby wouldn’t wake Leo ringing the bell. But the smell of incoming pizza roused Leo from his nap anyway.

  He sat up, stretched, and lay his head on the back of the couch with a groan.

  Toby handed the pizza to Rico. “Not feeling good today, Uncle David?”

  Leo didn’t answer.

  “Uncle David,” I said, patting him on the head. “Toby asked if you weren’t feeling well today.”

  Leo’s eyes flew open. “Oh, hiya, kid. Yeah, I’m feeling pretty rough today. Must’ve been that Kimchi I had last night. Thanks for asking.”

  Toby smiled. “I know it’s none of my business, but have you guys noticed the black Lexus parked up the street today? I’ve made a couple of deliveries this way already, and it’s been sitting about fifty feet up the block all afternoon. But the minute I pulled into this driveway, it took off. It could be nothing, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  Rico glanced at me, I looked him, and Leo stared at us both.

  “Maybe you’ll stop delivering pizzas and make detective someday,” I said with a grin. “You didn’t happen to catch the plate number, did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “What’s it worth to you?”

  Rico yanked a twenty out of his wallet and gave it to Toby, along with a high-five. “Way to go, kid. Keep your eyes open. There’s more where that came from.”

  “Really?” Toby deadpanned. “Couldn’t prove it from your tips. But, I digress. Here you go, dude.”

  He flipped Rico the plate number, then turned to Leo with a wink.

  “You feel better soon, Uncle David. Ciao.”

  Toby got back into his beater with the Ricardo’s pizza banner strapped on top, and rumbled down Jora Lane.

  Rico went into the kitchen, got some plates and napkins, and tossed them to us on the couch.

  “Go ahead, eat while it’s hot,” he said. “I’ll be right in. I want to run this plate number first.”

  I turned on the TV since Leo was awake, and sat next to him on the couch. We each grabbed a slice and turned our eyes to the screen, just in time to catch a tantalizing promo for the Channel 10 evening news with Jade Chen.

  “Meatbag melee at the M.E.’s office. Find out what our local cadaver diver, Allie Nighthawk, has been up to today and hear the latest damage estimate caused by Hurricane Allie. Details at six.”

  “God, I hate that bitch.”

  Leo flinched as I threw my water bottle at the TV. Magically, it hit the power knob and Jade’s botoxed mug disappeared as the screen went black.

  “That chick needs a riding crop,” Leo said. “She rides your ass like Eddie Arcaro.”

  “Shut up, Leo.”

  Hand to God, people. It sucks being me sometimes.

  13

  For the Love of Lasagna

  Leo bit into his pizza and wrinkled his nose. “Does this pie taste funny to you? It tastes funny to me—like tinny. Ricardo’s must be slipping. How ‘bout asking Nonnie to send me another lasagna?”

  “I’ll get right on that,” I said, taking his plate with his half-eaten slice of everything but pineapple and anchovies
out to the kitchen and dumping it into the trash can.

  The pizza tasted fine to me. Maybe his senses were changing due to the virus. I’d been watching him like a hawk, every sneeze, every cough and every twitch, waiting for the sign—the one that would tell me it was time.

  I hated myself for that.

  Before Leo, my cases had always been a combination of raise this corpse and waste that rotter. Quick in, quick out; no muss, no fuss. I’d never gotten close to a rotter-in-the-making, to anyone who was holding off the disease with drugs.

  I tried to tell myself that the tinny taste could be from upping his dosage, or maybe the pizza did taste tinny, and my taste buds were off. Then again, maybe it was like he said. He was just freaking tired of pizza.

  This assignment was wearing on me. Leo was wearing on me. But the day would come, not too far off, when I’d move on to a new case and Leo would be gone. He’d be a ghost, a strange collection of memories and Leo-isms.

  Nonnie’s lasagna sounded pretty good, and the comfort of homecooked food was the least I could do for him. I’d ask her to fix him one tonight when I got home.

  I glanced back into the living room and found him nodding off again, so I sat at the kitchen table across from Rico, and checked the web for news flashes about increased zombie activity. A few posts popped up about sighted zombies and the virus changing across the globe, but like my prior search, nothing turned up about actual manipulation.

  So, I messaged Philipe, a mercenary corpse whisperer who always had an ear to the ground. He was a reliable source for intel—at a price.

  True to form, when he answered my message, he cut to the chase.

  Nighthawk! Can’t say I’m surprised. I know what you want. The question is, what are you willing to pay for it?

  At least he was consistent. I hovered my fingers over the keyboard and thought before typing my response.

  The pay is good karma. Tell me who’s behind the virus manipulation, and you could save a lot of lives.

  His answer flashed.

  You know me better than that.

  He was right. I did know him. And while I didn’t have any money, I had something he might find even more valuable.

  I’ll owe you one.

  Specifics, please. That could mean a great many things.

  I winced. No kidding.

  A favor. Someday, somewhere to be repaid. Best I can do.

  Seconds passed before he answered.

  I’ll take it. I don’t know who he is, but you’ll find his rhetoric here: www.duat.onion. Enter the password: Ammit.

  Finally. A baby step at best, but still progress. He was taking me to the dark web. The site name Duat came from the realm of the Egyptian Gods of the Underworld. Ammit was a soul-eating monster, a dispenser of divine retribution.

  A few seconds later, another message appeared:

  If this ever comes back to me, we’re both dead.

  No shit.

  Understood. Thanks, Philipe.

  Do not thank me. This is not a gift. You owe me.

  Without a doubt, one day that would come back to haunt me.

  Rico glanced at me over his phone. “What’s up? You look like you swallowed yesterday’s sushi.”

  “Or worse,” I mumbled. “Did you run the tag on the Lexus?”

  “Yeah. It’s registered to Stanous Electric.”

  I shrugged. “They’re renovating that four-family brownstone near the corner of Jora and Paxton, right where Toby saw the car. I’m glad the kid had his eyes open, but sometimes a Lexus—”

  “Is just a Lexus. I know.”

  I wanted to dig into the onion site Philipe had given me but I would have to use Tor, a protected web browser, to access it. I’d have to bring my laptop back with me tomorrow, to see how good Philipe’s intel was.

  Leo walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He cranked the cap off with his teeth and chugged half the bottle there, beneath the fluorescent kitchen light. He looked a little yellow, but then, everybody looked yellow under those ugly-ass lights. On the upside, he seemed more relaxed, more like himself. If you could call that the upside.

  He tossed me the bottle cap. “I think Dancing with the Stars is on in a few minutes.”

  Rico looked over and groaned, then turned back to his phone.

  Finally, the night was looking up. If I’d been at home, I’d have fixed me a big ole Jack Daniel’s slushie and plopped on the sofa next to Headbutt.

  Instead, I poured myself a Coke Zero and settled in next to Leo, on the plasticized couch.

  It was just as well. I could sense I’d been crowding Rico in the kitchen. Still in the dog house with Jade over blocking her access at the Coroner’s Office, no doubt he had a mouthful of crow to swallow. He probably wanted some space to chat with the conniving little wench.

  Out of nowhere, Leo reached across the couch and took my hand. Not in a romantic way. It was more…needy. I’m not the touchy feely type. In fact, I had to fight the urge to pull away from him. But, knowing what he was going through, I didn’t have it in me to reject him.

  We sat for a while, neither of us saying a word, watching the dancers, when he finally spit out what he wanted to say.

  “Thanks for saving me today, Nighthawk. I know one day you won’t be able to. And I just wanted to tell you that’s okay. When the time comes, you do what you got to do. No hard feelings, huh?”

  It was hard to talk, what with the golf-ball sized lump in my throat, so I just squeezed his hand and mumbled, “No sweat, Leo.”

  When he leaned over to grab his water bottle, I wiped my eyes with my shirt sleeve.

  Damn him, anyway.

  Leo cranked up the volume on the TV. Len Goodman was chastising some celebrity schmuck, telling him he moved like a wounded elk.

  Leo flipped Len the bird. “Goodman. What does that old fart know anyway? Thinks he’s the greatest dancer ever, slinging insults at these guys, like a monkey flinging turds. I could dance circles around that smug bastard any day—any dance.”

  I snorted. Leo, a dancer? No way. Our hand-holding Kodak moment officially came to an end. “Gimme a break.”

  Leo raised his brows. “You think I can’t dance? My mother taught me to dance when I was a kid. I even taught at Arthur Murray’s for a while before, well, you know, I went full-time with the Family. I got moves that hoity-toity klutz ain’t even thought of.”

  Some people grew up wanting to be astronauts, some firefighters and some ballerinas. Me? I wanted to be Ginger Rogers. My dad and I used to watch all the old Fred Astaire movies on TV. Who wouldn’t want to be Ginger, gorgeous and graceful, floating through life wearing chiffon, heels and opera-length gloves?

  On any given day, I’m lucky to be sporting clean underwear, a T-shirt without holes, and biter-proof boots. Everyone dreams. Even me.

  “Look,” Leo said. “Maks and his partner are doing the waltz. Now there’s a guy who’s graceful and manly. A real guy’s guy.”

  I couldn’t have said it better myself, except I would have added a few other yummy adjectives.

  Leo pointed at the screen. “You want to know how to waltz, Nighthawk? Watch her, head back, elbows high. Count the beat. One, two, three, one, two, three—”

  My phone rang. Normally, during DWTS, that’s an automatic send to voicemail. But I was on duty, so I looked at the display. “Hey Nonnie. Wassup?”

  Leo heard her name and mouthed the word lasagna, making like he was shoveling food in his face.

  I listened to Nonnie, while Maks and his perfectly-coiffed partner floated across the stage. I nodded here and there, throwing in a few well-placed uh-huhs, trying to move her along. But Nonnie wasn’t going anywhere. She must have been lonely.

  We were out of milk, she said. And the bird seed was running low, so Kulu kept dipping into Headbutt’s food bowl, which started animal Armageddon in my kitchen. Yack, yack, yack, duck’s ass, more yacking.

  “Nonnie,” I interrupted when she caught
a breath, “somebody here wants to say hi.”

  I flung the phone at Leo.

  “Mia bella, Nonnie! How are you?” he said. “I was just telling Nighthawk…Allie…earlier, how much I miss your lasagna.”

  Yack, yack, yack, duck’s ass, more yacking. Flirty laughter. Ewww. Enough of that. I tuned Leo out and focused on Maks. Screw his Barbie doll partner. She could have been wearing a bag over her flammable beehive, for all I cared.

  By the time Leo finished running his mouth and hung up, Dancing with the Stars was over.

  He let out a big yawn and stretched as he headed for the hallway. “I think I’m going to turn in now. Must be more tired than I thought. G’night.”

  He was usually more of a night owl, and more often than not, awake when Powell and Ortega arrived at midnight.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Really. Just ready to turn in. See you, tomorrow.”

  “Night, Leo,” Rico called from the kitchen

  “Goodnight,” I said, watching him pad down the hall.

  When Leo closed his door, Rico strolled into the room. “Is Dancing with the Dweebs over?”

  “Yes. The cooties are gone. You can return now.”

  His ever-present phone was noticeably missing.

  “You patch things up with Jade?”

  He took Leo’s seat on the couch and shrugged. “I guess. She’s got boundary issues. She can’t just show up in the middle of a crisis and expect special press access, just because we…date.”

  “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I tried hard to keep the smirk off my face. Allie: One. Jade: Zero. “I’m sure it’ll all work out for the best. Just give it time.”

  Time to crash and burn. Not one to gloat—well, that’s a big fat lie—I changed the subject and flipped between our three available channels, hoping something good might pop up. Bingo. An episode of CSI.