The Corpse Whisperer

by H. R. Boldwood

  If the assassins (and I say assassins because it would have taken more than one to get past both Powell and Ortega) were mob connected, we might get a hit in the database. But if the killers had something to do with the Z-virus manipulation, the prints would likely stay anonymous. Paranormal perps with these talents weren’t likely to show up in AFIS.

  The theory of a mob hit made sense. They had reason to want Leo dead. But the zombie killings seemed to follow in Leo’s footsteps and the timing of the two cases was bizarrely coincidental.

  Cap’s car careened into the driveway, spraying gravel into the yard.

  Rico and I exchanged frowns and waited for the endless shit stream that was sure to come.

  He got out of his car, walked past us without a word and headed into the house, motioning for us to follow. When he got to the living room, he squatted on his haunches next to Powell’s body and peeled back the sheet.

  Powell had been shot center mass, with what appeared to be a large caliber bullet, based on the hole in his chest. Cap took a knee beside him and closed his eyes, lingering a moment.

  Rico took my arm and whispered, “Powell was in Cap’s Firearms Instruction class at the Academy.”

  Cap got to his feet and silently made his way down the hallway, to Ortega’s body. The top of Ortega’s head was gone and the blowback on the wall behind him looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. Cap sank to his knees, teary-eyed, and rested his hand on top of Ortega’s.

  When he rose, his lips were thin set and his gaze stone cold. “De Palma, you find the SOB who did this. You find him and you bring him to me. Nobody gets away with killing my men. Nobody.”

  The hardened look in his eyes turned flat. “From the moment Leo came under our protection, things have spun out of control. I’ve got a lot to answer for. You’ve got a lot to answer for. We’ll get our chance soon enough. The FBI is on its way.”

  Rico looked pasty, like he was about to hurl.

  I wanted to toss my cookies too, but more than that, I was pissed. “We can play the blame game later. If whoever took Leo wanted him dead, they could have killed him right here. But they didn’t. That makes me believe he’s still alive, at least for the time being. We need to be out there looking for him, not here, kowtowing to a bunch of suits.”

  I strode over to Cap and stood him, toe-to-toe. “Remember, Leo needs his meds to stay alive, so he can testify before the grand jury. Rico and I need to move. Now.”

  Doc Blanchard, who was lingering nearby, jotting notes in his coroner’s report, said, “She’s got a point. Why didn’t they kill him here?”

  Cap shrugged. “Maybe they were worried that Nighthawk could just raise him, and get all the information the prosecutors needed anyway. They wouldn't want to take that chance. Who knows? Maybe they wanted to find out what info Leo had given up before they killed him. Other than the books he turned in, that is.”

  The books.

  I grabbed Cap’s arm. “What if Leo had an extra set of those books?”

  My question was met with a round of blank stares. While we considered that theory, a black sedan pulled into the driveway.

  Cap stood a little taller. “The Feds are here. Let me do the talking,”

  Two suits wearing Oakley’s marched up the gravel driveway, staring us down every step of the way.

  “I’m Assistant Director William Horton, FBI,” said suit number one. “And this is Agent Tucker. Which one of you clowns lost our snitch?”

  I started to speak, but Rico stepped forward, blocking me. He reached behind and grabbed my little finger, giving it a good twist to keep me quiet.

  Cap held his chin high. “Agents Powell and Ortega were watching Mr. Abruzzi at the time of the incident.”

  The Director gave Rico the once-over. “You must be Ortega.” Glancing down his nose at me, he added, “I guess that makes you Powell, doesn’t it, honey?”

  Why? Why do these assholes insist on testing me? Don’t they communicate with each other? Instant Message or something? Little Allie didn’t stand a chance of shutting my mouth.

  “Zero for two, ass-munch. Believe it or not, there’s more than one Latino officer on the CPD force. This man,” I said, motioning to Rico, “is not Ortega. He’s Detective Rico De Palma. Ortega is dead inside, in the hallway, missing half his head. And I am not Powell, or your honey. I’m Nighthawk. Powell’s in the kitchen with a big-ass hole in his chest. Care to use your finely honed FBI skills to make any other discriminatory assumptions—honey?”

  Suit number two, Agent Tucker, piped up. “Nighthawk? As in the Nighthawk? No shit.”

  He took an involuntary step backward. That made me smile inside.

  The Director scratched his chin and then smirked. “I’ve heard about you. You’re the infamous, Voodoo-priestess, she-bitch…what’s your title…Paranormal Crimes Specialist? Well, now. What kind of bullshit is that?”

  He turned to walk away, then stopped and called over his shoulder. “De Palma, you and Nightingale go wait for me at my car.”

  The Director wandered into the house with a hulking, cock-sure gait that made me want to rip out his adenoids out through his eyelids.

  Once he was out of earshot, Cap gave us our instructions. “We don’t have a lot of time. You need to cooperate with this asshole. You give him all the information you have. All of it. A man’s life is at stake. But, in the meantime, while he’s busy retracing every step we’ve taken since we got here today, let’s revisit the topic of Leo’s books. It makes sense he would keep his own copy. For security. You know?”

  Rico nodded. “As long as he has a copy in his possession, they can’t afford to kill him. And for all we know, he might have given the Feds a fudged copy, just enough to get a deal, and he’s holding the real books as his ace-in-the-hole. Leo’s a lot of things, but he’s not stupid.”

  I leaned in, keeping my voice low. “You’re assuming it’s the mob who kidnapped Leo. Granted, they have a hell of a strong motive to go for him, but we can’t rule out a Z-virus connection. These two cases are chasing each other in one big circle-jerk.”

  “We’ll find Leo,” Rico said. “And after we do, we’ll ask about an extra set of books, and dig deeper in-house, figure out who our mole is and who he, or she, works for. That’ll lead us in the right direction.”

  “If we don’t find Leo soon, it won’t matter. Quiet,” I said under my breath. “Here comes Dickhead.”

  The Director charged us like a bull. “De Palma, Nightshade, let’s chat. Tell me what happened here at the house. Anything. Everything.”

  Well, damn, Sam. Weren’t we about to take a trip down the stinking rabbit hole?

  Rico squared his shoulders. “It’s all there in the daily reports, Director Horton. Every visitor, every call.”

  “C’mon, De Palma. The guy was mobbed up. He had a vice. What was it? Booze? Gambling? Women?”

  A thought bubble filled with lasagna floated over my head and burst, when I heard Rico’s next words.

  “Now that you mention it, he did have a weakness for Italian food.”

  What the hell! Not only did Rico throw us into the rabbit hole, he brought a damn Ditch Witch down with us and dug a Grand Canyon we would never get out of.

  He spilled the beans about Nonnie, her lasagna, and Leo’s late-night excursion, sneaking out his bedroom window for a plate of pasta.

  Holy crap. Hearing Rico tell the story out loud, we came off looking like a couple of dill weeds.

  When Rico finished confessing everything but original sin, the Director’s face turned a color I’d never seen before. Kind of purple, kind of gray, with sixteen shades of pissed-off, in between.

  The Director shook his head. “That took some guts, De Palma. Total incompetence is hard to come by in this business. Usually there’s at least a hint of brain activity.”

  He turned to Cap and said, “From here on, CPD and these two numbskulls are off this case. Completely. The FBI’s calling this ball. In particular, me.”

 
; “You’re dismissed,” he said, waving us away. “And take your medical examiner and the forensic analysts with you. I have my own team. They’ll be here in five.”

  “As for you, Nightstalker,” he said, looking directly at me. “Try not to bust their balls on the way out. This group is handicapped enough.”

  Cap exploded. “Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t order us off the scene. You have a kidnapping to investigate, but we’ve got a double murder to solve, the murder of our own officers. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “The hell you aren’t.”

  As if getting reamed by the FBI wasn’t bad enough, members of the press began to arrive, including Jade Chen, who hovered at the edge of the crime scene tape, watching the whole sordid debacle, while Rip recorded it for posterity.

  The brain bitch tried to stop me. Like she even had a chance.

  “Now wait just a damn minute, Director. There’s a clock ticking here. Leo needs his meds. No medication means a dead state’s witness, and a dead witness means no case for the grand jury. I’m going back inside to get his meds.”

  I stomped toward the house, with Director Horton chasing after me.

  He snatched my arm and whirled me around. “Don’t you worry about that. You hear me? We’ll handle it.”

  I felt my fingers flexing into a fist. Little Allie tried her best to hold me back, but this time, she was out of her league.

  “Fine,” I said. “Have it your way. But, before I leave here, I need to raise Powell since Ortega doesn’t have a brain anymore. Powell’s a material witness whose testimony can’t be obtained any other way.”

  The Director skirted around me, blocking my path to the house. “Like hell you are, you Voodoo whack job. Get out of my crime scene. Now!”

  Hell hath no fury like an Allie scorned. I was ready to spit nails and shit shrapnel.

  With a glance at Jade, who was furiously scribbling notes from outside the yellow crime scene tape, I yelled, “Here’s another inside source for you to sleep with Jade. Did you get his name? It’s Director William Horton. That’s Horton, with an H. Or have you done him already?”

  Rico gawked at me wide-eyed, as if I’d lost my mind. Jade’s cameraman, Rip, who’d been filming the fray, had to stop when one of the FBI agents took his camera away and made him erase the footage.

  Thank God. That hadn’t been one of my finer moments.

  Doc had already exited the house and was walking toward us, as the Director passed him on his way back inside.

  I brushed past Doc and whispered, “Go back in there and grab Leo’s meds from the kitchen. Shove them into your pocket. He’s going to need them.”

  Doc, no doubt feeling pissy himself about being displaced in this shitstorm, wasted no time turning around and making a pretense of having to retrieve some forensic tools he’d left inside.

  The smile on his face as he ambled back out told me he’d been successful.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Rico turned to Cap. “You aren’t going to let that jackass Director get away with this, are you?”

  Cap bit his lip and shook his head. “There isn’t much I can do here onsite, once he claims jurisdiction and throws us off the case. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get a court order to raise Powell, much as I detest the thought, and compel them to share their forensics, so we can investigate our murders. You can run your own investigation on the side—just stay out of their way.”

  Cap turned to me and let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Do us all a favor, Nighthawk. Don’t go out of your way to tell Director Horton that you guys are conducting your own investigation. Suck it up for once. Make my life easier. Can you do that?”

  Seriously, folks. What were the odds of that happening?

  16

  Damn It, I’m Busy

  Having been evicted from the safe house by Director Douchebag, we regrouped at the precinct to form our action plan for finding and rescuing Leo.

  Once again, we found ourselves sitting in Cap’s office, awaiting a monumental tongue lashing. Cap had told us to meet him there. But he was late, damn him. We couldn’t afford to waste time.

  Rico, bursting at the seams with his own private agenda, didn’t bother to wait for Cap.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Nighthawk? How dare you attack Jade? And on air, yet! You’re like a fucking rabid dog when it comes to her. If you can’t contain yourself—”

  “Contain myself?”

  He shoved his finger in my face. “If you can’t contain yourself, I’m going to ask for a transfer. I’m not putting up with your psycho horseshit anymore. You’re out of control.”

  My jaw dropped. “Jesus! Are you blind? She goes out of her way to insult me, and make me look like a fool on the goddam news, every chance she gets.”

  “You do a good enough job of that on your own.”

  I jerked as if he’d slapped me.

  He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “For God’s sake. Like it or not, what you do—what we do—is news. She reports the news. Don’t forget, I’m not coming out of this situation smelling any better than you. Get over your sensitive self and grow a pair.”

  He clammed up tighter than a nun in church, leaving me to think about his words. Of course, that’s when the stupid brain bitch decided to grace me with her two cents worth. And once she got started there was no shutting her up. God help me, she was enough to make me want to dig into my head with a spoon and perform my own bitch-ectomy.

  Since Rico decided to be a passive-aggressive butthead and give me the silent treatment, I picked up Cap’s desk phone and called Nonnie. “Hey, yeah, listen. I may be late tonight.”

  She cut me off, telling me about her day.

  Knowing it wouldn’t get any easier, the longer she talked, I finally blurted out, “Nonnie, Leo’s been kidnapped.”

  She took it hard. I could hear her sniffling.

  Her voice sounded shaky. “Who do this?”

  “We don’t know yet. But we’re going to find him. Okay? We won’t give up until we do. He’ll be back at the kitchen table, eating lasagna, in no time.”

  Rico shot daggers at me and shook his head. I know. I shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up. But she sounded scared for the Leo—love him, hate him, screwball Leo.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  Nonnie’s gentle sobs drifted through the phone.

  I don’t handle tears well. It was time to bounce. “Got to run now, Nonnie. I’ll be home when I can. Kiss the twins for me, huh?”

  Cap appeared as I hung up the phone. We’d been waiting nearly a half-hour, and I was testier than a monkey on Red Bull.

  When I jumped out of my chair, I forgot all about using my indoor voice. “Where the hell have you been? We need to be out there—looking for Leo, not sitting here, twiddling our thumbs.”

  “Sit,” Cap said, sliding behind his desk. “I had something to do. Now—”

  I stopped, halfway down to my seat, and stood back up. “Something to do? What could possibly be more important than finding Leo?”

  “Sit!” Cap yelled, waiting for me to comply. After I plopped back into my chair, he said, “I was delivering the death notification to Powell’s wife of five years and their two babies. Any other questions?”

  I closed my eyes, and wished for once that the stupid little brain bitch had done a better job of saving me from myself. She gets all high and mighty over stupid stuff, and leaves me hanging when I need her. Hell, in her defense, there’s only a fifty-fifty chance I’d have listened anyway.

  Cap planted his elbows on the desk, and put his head in his hands. “Officer Weston was good enough to speak to Mrs. Ortega for me. How do you tell someone their spouse’s head’s been blown away?”

  Cap looked up, his face pale and haggard, and got to the ass-whooping part.

  “Now, I don’t know how the kidnapping happened, or how the responsible party got past Powell and Ortega, but you two...” His words hung in the air.


  After a long, deep breath, he continued. “How in the hell did that Italian meatball sneak out of the safe house on your watch? The key word being watch. God help us, if Leo dies or comes back too far gone to testify. We’ll get crucified.”

  I sat on the edge of my chair and leaned over the desk, into his face. “That’s why we need the court order to raise Powell, now.”

  “I already called the D.A. He’s backing our play. He agreed that the FBI has proper jurisdiction over the kidnapping case, but the murders of Powell and Ortega are ours. We can proceed as needed. He’s getting a court order from the judge, even as we speak, just to have it in our hip pocket, if Director Horton feels the urge to get pissy…again.”

  “And you,” he said, fixing me in a cold stare. “If you ever spout off to Jade Chen, or any other member of the press again, you’re gone. Finito. I won’t have it. Our jobs are hard enough without intentionally harassing the media. Look at me. Nod your head and tell me you understand.”

  I stared at my shoes, trying to will my face from turning purple. Judging by the searing heat in my cheeks, I hadn’t succeeded.

  “I’m talking to you, Nighthawk. Answer me. Tell me you heard me. Tell me it will never happen again.”

  After fidgeting in my chair for a moment, I cleared my throat. “Yes, Cap. I understand. I won’t embarrass you or the department like that again.”

  Why not? Throw him a bone. I hadn’t promised that I was finished jousting with Jade in private. That wasn’t splitting hairs. It was more of a white lie comb-over.

  Someone rapped on Cap’s door. Whoever it was, I could have kissed. Anything to bring that bout of humiliation to an end.

  Cap cast me one last withering glance, then turned and barked, “Yes?”