Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues Read online

  “What are you gonna do?” Debbie asked as she stumbled into the backseat. Her door was pinned closed against the building. She couldn’t get out that way. “You can’t kill her.”

  Debbie and I got out the back door. Jane was making good on her promise to stop her husband. She stood between the van and his car, silhouetted in the bright headlights. Even though she was keeping the car from hitting the van again, that didn’t mean her protection would last.

  “The plan hasn’t changed,” I told Debbie. “We’re still a few blocks away from the mortuary. We’ll get her and walk.”

  But it appeared Jane had changed her mind. Once she convinced her husband not to slam his older Mercedes into the van again, she climbed into the car beside him, and they took off.

  “She’s gone,” Debbie sighed. “How are we going to find her again in this traffic?”

  “Call Abe and let him know there’s been a snag.” I spied a motorcycle parked on the side of the street close next to us. It took me a few minutes, but I hot-wired it and got behind Jane and her husband in the heavy mass of cars.

  Despite their lead time, it was easy to catch them and keep up. Cars and trucks were bumper to bumper as police tried to clear an accident. I stayed with them, waiting for traffic to slow and stop as it reached the blue and red flashing lights ahead of us.

  I impatiently wiped the blood still running down my face. This might be a messy pickup, but Abe better have a bonus waiting when I got Jane back to the mortuary.

  Horns blew, impatience bringing out the worst in everyone. One good thing about a motorcycle was being able to weave in and out of traffic. I got up beside the Mercedes on the sidewalk. As soon as it stopped for the accident, I abandoned the motorcycle for a more direct approach.

  Walking up to the side of the car, I shot out both tires on the passenger’s side. They weren’t going anywhere now.

  Jane yelped when I opened the car door and pulled her out. “I understand why it’s important for me to go back to Abe. I just can’t convince my husband.”

  It was a weak excuse, but I could see the terror in her eyes. It ended up being a diversion as her husband got out of the Mercedes and stalked around to us with a pistol in his hand.

  “Leave her alone. Let her go—or I swear I’ll kill you.”

  I stared into his terrified eyes. “You can’t kill me. I’m already dead, just like your wife. You have to let this happen. You don’t have any choice.”

  He was desperate enough to shoot me. I didn’t want him to do that even though I’d heal. It still hurt. I didn’t want to shoot him either. And it wasn’t only because I’d lose my bonus.

  People were starting to notice what was happening even with the heavy traffic. It wasn’t long before we heard sirens approaching.

  “Good,” he mocked me. “The police will sort this out. I don’t think they’ll believe that my wife is dead. But they’ll believe that you attacked us without provocation.”

  I felt sorry for the Darcys. They had no idea what was going on and probably believed the police would get them out of this. But Abe had people everywhere. There was no going back to the life they’d known.

  I holstered my weapon and raised my hands as the police officers swarmed over us. They took all of us to the nearest police station. We were separated, and I was detained in a small room by myself.

  There were voices in the hall, and phones were ringing. They’d taken my cell phone so I amused myself by reading the scribbling on the walls for about thirty minutes. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the right police officer—one of Abe’s people—finally figured out what was going on.

  The door opened, and a handsome young cop nodded to me. “You’re free to go. Abe wants to see you right away.”

  “What about Jane Darcy?”

  “That’s already been taken care of.”

  Which meant no bonus for me and Debbie.

  I walked into the hall, ready for this day to be over. Mr. Darcy was seated inside another small room with the door partially open. Jane wasn’t with him. He was sobbing, his head bent forward.

  What could I say that hadn’t been said? I hated it, but he saw me.

  “All we wanted was a few more months,” he said. “Our youngest granddaughter is about to graduate from college. Jane just wanted to see her finish. Was that so much to ask?”

  I had no answer to his sorrow or mine for that matter. I needed a drink, and I needed to see my daughter. I left him there without a word.

  Chapter Three

  I was surprised to see Debbie waiting outside the police station. The weather had turned, and heavy clouds hung over the mountains in the distance. No doubt people were praying for rain.

  Sometimes I felt so far from the normal, everyday aspects of life that nothing seemed to mean anything. I didn’t care if there was a drought or there was flooding. I didn’t follow the Tennessee State Volunteers anymore. I got through Christmas for my daughter. It was as though part of me never came back to life at all.

  I’d decided it was my heart, thinking about it through many long, sleepless nights. The organ was still beating in my chest, but it was empty of emotions. It was the twenty-first century. We all knew emotions came from some part of your brain. But it was my heart that felt dark and lifeless.

  “Abe sent me back for you.” She shrugged. “What are we gonna do about the van?”

  “He’ll have it fixed like he always does.”

  “Why doesn’t he buy you a new one? I’m sure he could afford it. You know he must be rich after all these years.”

  We started walking up the sidewalk together toward Simon’s Mortuary and Deadly Ink, Abe’s tattoo shop next door. Traffic was still heavy. People rushed by us on the sidewalk with their heads down, destinations and plans for the evening in mind. Women clutched their bags, and men held their briefcases close to them.

  “I don’t speculate on Abe’s finances,” I told her. “As long as he pays me, I don’t care. I suppose if the van is ever wrecked badly enough he’ll get a new one or at least another used one.”

  “Yeah, but how are we supposed to get home?”

  “He’ll think of something. He always does. You gotta figure he’s been at this for a long time. His first drivers must’ve had wagons and horses. Who knows what will come after us?”

  Having a free moment, Debbie started her daily diatribe on what was happening with her husband. “So things have gotten even weirder with Terry. I’m not sure what to do.”

  She’d agreed to take on the twenty-year service for Terry, a cop, after he’d been shot and killed at a convenience store robbery. Debbie was the only LEP that I knew of that had done such a thing.

  Abe had visions of them being together—we all knew it. Debbie was devoted to her husband and two children. I didn’t see them having a relationship any time soon. Still Abe courted her in his weird way. I was glad I didn’t have to face that problem.

  But again, like Abe’s magic affected his dead workers after twenty years, something unusual had begun happening with Debbie’s husband too.

  “He won’t eat anything but raw meat now,” she continued. “It has to be really bloody too. I had to start going to a friend of ours who hunts. The meat in the store was too clean and old for him. What do you think of that?”

  Considering the last time I’d seen Terry, his legs had become shorter and covered in thick hair, I didn’t know what to say. He was going through some sort of transformation—into what I wasn’t sure. I knew Debbie was frightened by it, but it was beyond my understanding. It wasn’t like I was knowledgeable about supernatural happenings before this. I’d been learning about things as I went along.

  “How is he doing with the kids?” I asked. Debbie had a daughter, Raina, who was eight like my daughter, Kate. She also had a teenage son, Bowman, who was fourteen.

  “They don’t seem to notice what’s going on with him,” she said. “Bowman doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore. I think it’s because he’s s
o disappointed about Terry quitting the highway patrol. Bowman still wants to be a cop, too, even though his father was shot and killed—not that I would ever tell him about that.”

  I knew Terry had decided to take disability. It didn’t look as though he would ever walk again, at least not in the normal sense. I’d seen him get up from the wheelchair. He could walk, but I didn’t think he’d be able to wear a uniform—not with legs like a goat.

  “And the bottom half of him, Skye.” She shook her head. “He looks like an animal from the waist down. I’m not kidding. Do you think it’s permanent?”

  “I don’t know. But we didn’t get Jane Darcy to the mortuary. I’m sure Abe has something to say about that—and we won’t get our bonuses.”

  “I know.” She frowned as she scuffed her sandal along the hot sidewalk. “I was planning on taking the kids to the waterpark next week with that money.”

  We’d reached Deadly Ink. A few of Abe’s rowdy crowd of zombies jostled us as they left. The building was one of those older ones that made you wonder what was holding it up. The old red bricks looked as though they’d been there hundreds of years trying to survive the wind, rain, and sun.

  Abe lived on the top floor of the three-story building. I’d never gone up that far. He was very private about his personal life. I didn’t want to know that much about him anyway.

  He was a frightening man.

  They said he was born in 1863 when his mother named him for President Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation. He’d fallen in love with a witch who’d killed him and made him her slave. The story went on to say how he’d killed the witch and began his own zombie army.

  He’d never acknowledged that any of it was true—at least not to me. And he wasn’t a man I wanted to have that conversation with.

  His past was his, as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t interested in his mythology. I was only here for Kate.

  The tattoo shop was busy, as it always was. Abe had a keen interest in tattoos even though he didn’t have any ink that I’d ever seen.

  On the night I’d died, a pale blue tattoo that looked like an A inside a circle, was put on my heel. All of the LEPs had them. It seemed like a possessive thing to me, although people said it was just Abe’s magic that was part of keeping us alive.

  But come on—an A when his name was Abe? I thought it was more that he wanted us to know that he owned us.

  We had an instinct for finding each other too, Abe’s people. Maybe that was part of the magic too. I could look across the room and easily pick up on who was living and who was dead. To me the dead had a kind of blue glow about them.

  Abe kept a dozen or so young, tough guys around the tattoo shop. What were their jobs? I could only imagine where they went and what they did when they left Deadly Ink in groups with small handguns tucked into their waistbands.

  But I kept my imagination on a short leash. It was none of my business.

  “He’s waiting to see you.” The new head tough guy sat on a tall stool behind the counter, scrolling through his phone. He jerked his head toward the back office—like we didn’t know where to find Abe. I ignored him.

  Debbie gave him her new killer look and then turned to me nervously. “Should I go in with you? I already saw him. He just told me to get you.”

  “You’re involved too,” I reminded her, admiring a full-torso tattoo of a gold dragon on a man’s chest. The color was wonderful. Even though the image wasn’t finished, it was still incredible.

  “Okay. But I have to get home soon.”

  “Me too. Let’s hope what he has to say doesn’t take too long.”

  I understood Debbie’s reluctance to face Abe. Besides being a scary person, he’d made it clear that he wanted her in his bed. I tried to stay out of that issue and focus on our jobs. That other part was between him and her. They were both consenting adults.

  If we were going to be taken down a notch or two for the botched attempt to bring Jane Darcy in, I wanted Debbie there too. She’d been my partner long enough to claim bonuses when things worked out. She’d also been there long enough to listen to Abe tell us what a bad job we did on a day like today.

  His door was open. He was sitting behind his big desk, staring at his cell phone. Like many other people, he was obsessed with it. He changed brands frequently but always kept the old phones going too. Maybe he was afraid one of them would stop working.

  He looked up as we walked in, hastily donning his usual sunglasses. Unlike the rest of us who looked like normal, living people, Abe had no pupils or irises. His eyes were white and empty. I wasn’t sure if he wore the sunglasses to attempt to look normal or if he was embarrassed and didn’t want us to ask a lot of questions. He didn’t have to worry about me.

  “Ladies. Please take a seat.” He gestured toward the two, older leather chairs in front of his desk. Abe rarely raised his voice or seemed to get upset about anything. He sat back in his chair with his fingers in a pyramid in front of his face.

  Of course there had been the time Abe was so upset with me that he lifted me straight off the floor with one hand. And the time I’d seen him kill a man with the same calm demeanor. Abe’s still waters ran deeper than most, but that was to be expected after being alive for more than a hundred and fifty years.

  “Close the door, Skye. We don’t need an audience.”

  Debbie squirmed in her seat, pouting like a child who knew they’d done wrong. “It wasn’t our fault,” she blurted. “They had it all set up. We did the best we could.”

  “I’m sure you did.” Abe’s teeth were very white against his shiny black skin. “Nevertheless, the absence of your bonus will speak louder than my words.”

  I closed the door and took my seat. I’d worked for him long enough to know that there was more going on than a botched pickup. There had been many LEPs I couldn’t bring back. He was right. The worst that had ever happened was that I didn’t get a bonus.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, almost belligerently. “No one died. You don’t call me in for making a mess.”

  “The van was wrecked,” Debbie reminded him. “Is that why we’re here?”

  “That is being seen to. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” He sat forward, the scent of cloves and other spices wafting across from him. “Something else is amiss that I hope you ladies will be able to help me with, especially you, Skye, though I imagine it will be good for Debbie to learn something of what you know as well.”

  “Okay. So, what’s up?” I realized at that moment why it’s police procedure to have a suspect remove their sunglasses, hats, and other things that people hide behind. It was hard to know if I was getting a straight answer from him.

  Of course with no expression in his ghastly white eyes, would that even matter?

  Debbie glanced anxiously at her watch. “Look at the time. I have to go soon—the kids you know.”

  Abe surged to his feet. He was a big man, well over six feet. His arms and chest were formidable. He didn’t move lightly—more like a mountain—covered in skin like shiny black rubber.

  I admit I sat back in my chair. I try to keep my distance, maintain an air of cool nonchalance. But inside, he terrifies me.

  Whatever was wrong was a big deal for him. Debbie grabbed my arm, even more afraid than me.

  Before either of us could pee our pants, one of Abe’s tough guys knocked at the door and barged inside. “People are starting to ask questions about the dead magician in the alley, Abe. No one else has seen him, but they keep walking out there. What do you want us to do?”

  Chapter Four

  “Harold the Great is dead?” I was surprised to hear it, even though I’d seen Abe’s last magic user killed right in my own backyard. I’d thought Jasper’s death was a fluke and that magic users were tougher than that.

  Abe’s threatening posture relaxed. “That’s right. I was about to explain the situation to you when Debbie reminded me of her other obligations besides the one she owes me.”

&nbs
p; All eyes turned to Debbie whose face had gone white. “That’s okay. I can do whatever you need me to. Terry is home with the kids.”

  I thought Abe might spout some rhetoric about how Terry wouldn’t be home with the kids at all if it wasn’t for his intervention, but he only grunted and moved to the door.

  It may not sound like Abe was romantically interested in Debbie, but she’d snubbed him last year, and his new scheme to win her seemed to be ignoring and badgering her. Not much of a plan. But since she had nowhere to go, it could still work. Abe was a powerful figure who held her life and death in his huge hands. That could get to her eventually.

  Debbie and I followed him and his heavily tattooed assistant, Morris, out of the office. Morris was a tough-guy wannabe who didn’t quite measure up. He was kind of small and thin with a crippled leg, but he had awesome tattoos across every spare scrap of his skin.

  “I didn’t mean to get him all riled up,” Debbie whispered to me. “You never know with him. I don’t know how you can joke with him, Skye.”

  “What’s the worst he can do? I’m already dead.” I shrugged and put my hands in my pockets.

  “Yeah. I guess.” She bit her lip and was silent as we walked back through the tattoo shop.

  The crowd there parted for Abe like he was Moses. Eyes turned away. No one spoke. Even if you didn’t know the true purpose of the shop and Abe’s power, he was a figure to reckon with. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to take him on. Surely if someone had murdered Harold, that person had no idea who the magician actually worked for.

  Or he was crazy.

  We went into the dark alley together. Someone had put up a few lines of limp crime scene tape that fluttered in the breeze. I could see from the lights on the buildings beside us that the Harold’s body had been covered with a blue tarp. There was no sign that the police had been called—they would certainly not have left the body behind for Abe to show us.

  “I want to know who murdered Harold.”

  “Have you called the police?” I was still a little raw, even after almost three years, about him not wanting me to take back my old job when he resurrected me. I suppose I was holding a grudge. I had loved being a cop, and I’d been good at it.