“I can pay you.”
I frowned at the phone. Last I’d heard, Casey had bought into the antiwitch position of the Humans First Party. If she was willing to actually hire me, she must be truly worried.
“Please, Alexis. Please. I need your help.”
“Okay.” Damn. I was working for my little sister, but I’d look into the case. See what I could find. With a sigh, I rattled off my standard legal spiel, quoted my rates, and told Casey to expect an e-mailed copy of my contract later that afternoon. As I spoke, the sirens hurtled closer, and I shouldered my purse with its thirteen cents, gum wrapper, and paper clip.
“When will you talk to the ghost?”
Ghost? I suppressed a groan but didn’t bother correcting her. After all these years, if she hadn’t grasped the fact that ghosts were cognizant, wandering souls, but shades were just memories, she clearly hadn’t been paying me any attention. Instead I said, “If you want to be present to question Coleman’s shade, we’ll have to wait until the police release the body and it’s in the ground. If you want faster answers, I might be able to question him at the morgue, but you can’t attend the ritual.”
The line was silent except for soft, ragged breaths on the other side. I gave her a moment to think as the sound of sirens drew closer.
“The morgue.” Casey’s voice dropped in pitch. “How soon will you get back to me?”
Getting access to a high-profile body in an open case would be difficult, but I’d built connections during my three years of running Tongues for the Dead. “I have a friend at the station. I’ll give him a call, but I can’t make any promises. I’ll contact you tonight if I get access to the morgue today. Otherwise, expect me to check in tomorrow afternoon.”
Wrapping up the call, I saved Casey’s number and moved to get the door for the paramedics.The ambulance pulled to a stop, and a black and white cop car jetted to the curb behind it. Good—maybe the cops could give me a ride. The chill of Mrs. Baker’s glare crawled across my shoulders. I wanted to catch a ride in the front seat of the cop car—not in the back of the wagon, under arrest.
As the paramedics rushed up the stairs I scrolled through the contacts on my phone until I reached the number for my friendly neighborhood homicide detective.
A gruff voice answered on the third ring.
“Hey, John,” I said as I stepped clear of the emergency workers. “I need a favor.”
———
The doors to the Nekros City Central Precinct slid open, allowing the sixty-degree air inside to escape. The sweat clinging to my skin from the short walk across the blacktop chilled instantly. Six p.m. and the temperature hadn’t dropped under a hundred yet. The South in the summer—you had to love it.
I swiped the escaped blond curls plastered to my face back into a messy ponytail and turned to wave to the two officers who’d given me a ride. I hadn’t been arrested in connection to Baker’s death, but there had been some tense moments back at the funeral parlor. Luckily, when Tamara, the medical examiner, arrived, she’d been able to confirm the absence of magical influence on the body during her initial examination, which freed me to follow up with John at the morgue. My favorite homicide detective had agreed to get me in to see Coleman’s body, but only if I did a favor for him in return. In this case, “a favor” translated into raising an extra shade.
The cops turned out of the parking lot, and I stepped between the automatic doors and headed for the security check. I dug my wallet and ceremonial knife from my purse before dropping the bag on the conveyer belt.
As my purse disappeared under the X-ray machine I put the knife in the basket the guard gave me. Then I handed the basket and my wallet—open to display my PI license and my magical certification issued by the Organization for Magically Inclined Humans, OMIH for short—to the guard. He glanced over my credentials before confiscating the knife, which I’d pretty much expected.
Turning, I walked through the metal detector.
No issue there, but the spell detector beeped loudly as I stepped through.
The security guard motioned me to stop and grabbed a spellchecker wand. “Hands out, palms up.”
I did as he instructed, tapping my toe inside my boot as he waved the wand with its rudimentary detection spell over me. The glass bead on the tip glowed green as it moved over my right hand and the obsidian ring I stored raw magic in. Green meant magic, but not an active spell. On my other wrist, the bead glowed yellow as it traced over my shield bracelet—active magic, but not a malicious charm. Malicious spells, even inactive ones, made the bead glow red. The bead didn’t turn red.
With a nod, the guard motioned for me to drop my hands as he placed the wand back in its stand. I grabbed my purse, my wallet, and the ticket I’d need to reclaim my knife when I left. Then I made my way to the elevators.
Central Precinct was an austere but multipurpose building situated in the middle of downtown Nekros in what people tended to refer to as the judicial block because of the proximity of the statehouse, the state supreme court, and Central Precinct. Though it was not overly apparent from the back of the building, where I’d entered, the main floor housed Nekros City’s central police station as well as the undersheriff’s offices.
Upper levels of the building boasted the central crime labs and the district attorney’s suite, but I wasn’t headed up. The basement level contained the medical examiner’s administrative offices and her place of power—the morgue.
John Matthews, the best homicide detective Nekros City could ever ask for—at least, in my opinion; but then, he was also a good friend—waited outside the main morgue door. His grizzly bear– sized form looked uncomfortable hunched over in the orange plastic chair, but his chin touched his chest, his eyes closed. Apparently not too uncomfortable for a nap. Wrinkles creased deeper wrinkles in his brown jacket, so he must have worked though the night—Maria would have never let him leave the house so disheveled.
“You all right there, John?” I asked as I clipped my visitor badge to the strap of my tank top. I didn’t yell—at least, not quite. Still, my voice reverberated off the walls, the echo making me wince.
John’s head jerked up, and the report in his lap hit the floor, pages scattering. “Alex? Geez, don’t do that.”
Okay, in hindsight, maybe I should have woken him more quietly.
I knelt, gathering pages. Several photos had also scattered, and I grabbed one that floated under the chair. A pale shoulder lay in sharp contrast to the black garbage bags dominating the picture. A limp hand had escaped the dark plastic; the long wrist was delicate, feminine.
I handed the photo and pages to John. “Body dump?”
He nodded, rubbing his palms against the dark shadows under his eyes.“Third girl this month with the same MO.”
Third? The cops must have been keeping this case very quiet for the press not to have picked up on three connected murders. I itched to get a better look at the case file—morbid curiosity might have been a personality flaw, but I talked to the dead for a living. I didn’t press John—at least not yet. He’d tell me as much as he was comfortable telling. I nodded at the file. “She the extra I’m raising?”
He nodded. “Yeah. My black-bag special.”
As in a Jane Doe. “I’ll take a guess that you have no leads from the first two bodies?”
“Wouldn’t be a fair trade if I did.” His tone was light, but his shoulders slumped forward. “You got a pen?”
I pulled out the pen I’d pilfered from the desk jockey who’d signed me in to the basement level. John thumbed through the pages on his lap, separating documents from the case file. I signed the normal assortment of nondisclosure agreements and official paperwork. My standard rate was crossed out; the words “pro bono” were scrawled in red pen. I bit my lip as I initialed the change. Free hurt, but John was doing me a huge favor by letting me see Coleman’s body. Having an official case I was working on legitimized my trip to the morgue. Didn’t make the big zero feel any better, though.
I handed the signed documents to John, and he tucked them away before pushing open the morgue door. The fluorescents buzzed over our heads, mixing with the scrape of our footsteps on the linoleum floor. Trays of sterile equipment surrounded the two unoccupied autopsy stations on either side of the room. In the back waited the cold room—or corpserator, as I called it. Beside the cold room, yellow light filtered from the window looking into the medical examiner’s office.
The office door opened, and a shaggy-haired intern in a white coat emerged. “Detective Matthews, Miss Craft. Can I help you with something?” His eyes flicked from John to me.
Miss Craft? I frowned at him. Tommy Stewart had spent the past year as the medical examiner’s intern, and he hadn’t called me by my last name since his second week. Granted, we’d gone out for drinks a month ago, and, well, one thing had led to another, but it hadn’t been anything serious. Or at least, I hadn’t thought so.
“Tommy,” John said, “how about you take a cigarette break.”
It wasn’t a question.
Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back. “There a body you need?”
“I got it covered.” John waited. “Now, how about that break … ?”
Tommy shook his head. “Detective Andrews said—”
John cut him off. “I’ll take care of Andrews.”
Tommy’s mouth twisted, his eyes pinching, but all he said was “Right—a cigarette break.”
He jerked into motion but paused at the door. His gaze landed on me, the look hard. Boy, do I know how to kill a friendship. I sighed as the door swished closed behind him.
“Who’s Detective Andrews?” I asked as John disappeared into the freezer.
He didn’t even glance back. “Don’t worry about it.”
I rocked on my heels as I waited. Several white sheet– topped gurneys were visible beyond the thick doorframe—busy week at the morgue. A translucent figure walked among the bodies, muttering to himself.