Chapter 1: On the Slab
Saturday, 8:30 PM
The body on the slab was cold.
Ed White rubbed his eyes, yawned, and wondered why he had to be on the weekend shift.
Because I’m the low man on the totem pole, that’s why, he answered himself. He glanced at the victim, a young Latino man of around twenty years of age. There was no identification sent along with the body; at least, none that Ed knew of.
Why would the cops want to make my life easier? Of course, they wouldn’t.
He shook his head. “What’s your name, my friend?”
The corpse, not surprisingly, didn’t answer.
Ed walked over to the body and glanced down at it. There were three bullet holes in the chest, all in the area of the heart. “Looks like you died quick. Good for you. Not many people are that lucky. Tell me, were you robbed? Is that why your ID isn’t here? Hm?”
Ed shook his head, turned, and went back to the items that had been sent along by the police.
Some spare change, a comb, a prophylactic, a love note in Spanish, and a small lunch bag.
“What, were you on your way to work?” Ed asked over his shoulder. “What’d you pack tonight, huh?”
Unzipping the bag, Ed smelled fried rice and saw a package of chocolate Hostess cupcakes, a bottle of water, and a pair of sunglasses.
Ed frowned. The sunglasses were a pale green, and they looked vintage, the kind that his girlfriend liked to wear when she dragged him out of the house on his one day off. “Buddy, I’m not judging or anything, but these are women’s sunglasses. Did you know that?”
Ed shrugged, reached in, picked the glasses up, and was surprised at how cold they were. He set them down on the counter then took out the other items, none of which were as cold as the glasses.
His attention kept returning to the sunglasses, and after a few minutes of trying to catalog the various items, Ed gave up the effort.
Instead, he focused his attention solely upon the glasses. He reached out and touched them. A shiver raced through him, and he smiled. There was an almost sensuous nature to the sunglasses. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the cold radiating from them.
“You should take them home.”
Ed’s eyes snapped open, and he looked around.
It had been a woman’s voice he had heard, but despite that obvious fact, he still looked down at the corpse on the slab, his heart pounding with abject fear.
Ed licked his lips nervously and glanced around. The sunglasses almost throbbed in his hands. He went to set them back down, but as his hand drew near to the surface of the counter, he stopped.
Why? he asked himself, staring at the sunglasses. I don’t need to put them down. What’s going to happen to them, huh? They’ll be put in storage with the rest of his effects until a relative or friend comes to pick them up. And what then? Off they go with no one to care for them.
Ed blinked and looked down at the sunglasses in his hands.
“With no one to care for them,” he murmured aloud. “What if no one claims them?” He already knew the answer. “Then they get auctioned off. Or destroyed. But that takes years. Too long. I can’t wait.”
“No,” the female voice whispered. “No, you can’t wait.”
He shook his head and carried the sunglasses away from the corpse. Ed went into the small office that he shared with everyone else who worked at the coroner’s office and dug his lunchbox out of a cubbyhole. Despite no one being with him, Ed still gave a furtive glance around the morgue, just to be absolutely positive.
He hadn’t stolen anything before because getting caught meant automatic termination. No questions asked.
And there wasn’t anything to steal before, he thought, placing the sunglasses gently into the lunchbox. No, not a damned thing to steal at all.
Ed smiled, zipped the lunchbox closed, and returned to the body on the slab.
Chapter 2: On Again
Sunday, 4:00 PM
Shane stood in the driveway, cigarette in his mouth, as he waved goodbye to Jacinta. The detective blew him a kiss, shifted her rental into drive, and drove off down Berkley Street. Shane finished his cigarette as he walked back into the house and chuckled as the door closed of its own accord behind him. A glance over his shoulder showed Carl grinning at him.
“Why,” Shane asked in German, “are you looking at me like that?”
“Because,” Carl stated, falling into step beside him as Shane walked to the kitchen, “you have only had a fifth of whiskey over this entire week. The detective is quite proud of you.”
Shane shook his head. “You two were talking about me?”
“What else is there to talk about?” Carl asked with a wink. “The others, they are still nervous of her. Even Eloise is shy. I suspect the child will make her appearance known soon enough, however.”
“I haven’t seen Eloise in a while,” Shane frowned. “Where’s she been hiding?”
“In the servants’ passages,” Carl replied. The dead man lingered by the kitchen table as Shane made himself a pot of coffee. “She has been playing with the three Davis sisters at night when there is less for them to see.”
Shane sat down at the table while he waited, took out a fresh cigarette, and lit it. He exhaled through his nose and gestured with the cigarette between his fingers. “Just tell her not to get too caught up. Last thing I want is for her to lead them on an adventure outside the house. If she starts making noise about doing something like that again, send her my way so I can have a chat with her, okay?”
Carl gave a short bow. “Of course.”
The rumble of a heavy truck on a parallel street cut Shane off for a moment, and when it had passed, he continued. “Anyway, I’m going to get some research done before I speak with James Moran, and, more than likely, I’ll have to have a chat with the Captain after that.”
“From your State Police?” Carl inquired.
“Yeah. That’s the one,” Shane answered.
Shane sat in silence for a short time. “I wish she could stay longer.”
“You and the detective do seem to enjoy one another’s company,” Carl agreed. He smiled. “It does my heart good, my young friend, to see you happy when she is here.”
“You know,” Shane reminded the dead man, “I am technically older than you. I mean, come on, I’m forty-seven now.”
Carl raised an eyebrow.
“Dead years don’t count. They’re like backward dog years or something.” Shane grinned, getting to his feet. He went and poured himself some coffee and brought it back to the table.
Bringing the subject back around, Carl asked, “What reason do you have for speaking with Mr. Moran and the Captain, my friend?”
“Hm? I’m going to dig a little more into the robberies,” Shane mused. “There have been a couple more since I came back from Connecticut. Which reminds me, I have to go back down there to have a chat with Warren Thorne.”
“The ghost kept imprisoned by Victor and Tom?” Carl inquired.
“The one and only,” Shane nodded.
“And if he does not talk?”
Shane smiled, stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray, and stated, “He will.”