“Dunno, Dad,” I replied, keeping my attention on the laces of my sneakers. “It’s a special program . . . part of my probation.” More lies. Yesterday I’d been handed a check for my first week’s pay, and I’d about died when I saw the amount. More than double anything I’d ever made anywhere else. I had no intention of ever letting him know what I was making.
“Sounds fucked up to me,” he said. He took a long pull on the beer and chased it with a drag on his cigarette. Ash dribbled onto his hollowed chest, but he made no move to brush it away. “Why the fuck didja sign on for this? Why can’t you keep a real fuckin’ job? Or is that the only place that’d take a pillhead?” He scowled. “Only a freak would wanna touch dead bodies.”
“Well I guess your daughter’s a freak,” I shot back as I stood up. “What does that make you, huh?” It wasn’t the first time he’d called me names. “Freak” was pretty tame by his standards.
I stalked away from him and yanked open the pantry in the kitchen, muttering a curse as a couple of empty pickle jars tumbled out and rolled across the kitchen floor. One of Mom’s “things” had been saving and washing out jars in case she ever wanted to make jelly or pickled who-the-hell-knew-what. I’d never seen her do anything of the sort, which meant we had a couple hundred empty jars stuffed under every cabinet in the damn house. One of these days I was going to actually get around to throwing them all out. Probably about the same time that I cleaned the rest of the kitchen. Yeah, any day now.
I’d eaten pizza last night, but my stomach was acting as if I hadn’t eaten in days. There wasn’t much food in the house, but I managed to find a packet of Pop-Tarts that didn’t look too old. That would have to hold me until I finished at the scene. I was already running late.
My dad muttered something obnoxious under his breath as I headed to the door but I managed to make it out of the house without getting sucked into any more father-daughter bonding. I started to climb into the van, then paused at the sight of an envelope stuck under the windshield wiper. Frowning, I snagged it from beneath the wiper. It was a simple plain white envelope, sealed shut, with nothing written on the outside. I hesitated a few seconds as an unpleasant sense of foreboding shimmered through me, then I ripped it open and unfolded the piece of paper within.
Angel,
If you crave it, eat it. Trust your instincts. It’s cool.
Good luck.
What the fuck? My entire body went cold and my hand shook as I stared down at the note. I had absolutely no doubt that it was from the same person who’d sent me the letter in the hospital. This person obviously knew me and knew where I lived, but it wasn’t the stalker aspect of it that had me freaked out right now.
It was that they had to know what I’d been craving.
“Freak” is right.
I crumpled the note into a tight ball and shoved it deep into a pocket. My heart pounded in a combination of terror and anxiety as I started the van and headed out. No, that was insane. How the hell could anyone know that I’d been fighting the urge to chow down on . . . brains?
Yet what else could the letter possibly be referring to? Usually if I craved something, I ate it. Simple. I didn’t need anyone else to tell me it was okay and that I should go for it.
But I’d been craving brains. The smell was like chocolate and cookies and biscuits and gravy and everything else that was delicious. It damn near drove me crazy every time I had to touch one. I’d been fighting the cravings the way I’d never fought the urge to take drugs or get drunk.
As if to taunt me, my stomach chose that moment to snarl again. Stop it! I silently wailed. I ripped the packet of Pop-Tarts open with my teeth and ate them as quickly as I could, even though they were so stale and tasteless it was like eating cardboard. Maybe the uppers I’d taken would help. They’d always done a good job of killing my appetite in the past, so hopefully they’d help kill this screwed up hunger.
Or maybe I just needed crazy-meds instead.
If you crave it, eat it. I shook my head. I’d gotten comfy with the thought that this job was a substitute for rehab, but this letter threw that completely out of whack. Why on earth would it ever be all right to give in to that?
No. It didn’t make sense. It had to be referring to something else. A dull anger began to form in my gut. Why the hell couldn’t Anonymous Letter Guy simply tell me what the hell was going on?
I struggled to put the whole craziness out of my head as I focused on getting to the scene in a timely manner. Fortunately the van had a GPS which efficiently guided me to the address Derrel had texted—a one-story brick house in the sort of upper middle-class neighborhood I’d once hoped to live in. An ambulance and a police car occupied the driveway, and a black Dodge Durango with the Coroner’s Office logo on the side was parked at the curb behind a maroon Ford Taurus with so many lights in the windows and antennas on the back that it was screamingly obvious it belonged to a detective. Why the hell did they call them “unmarked” cars when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it was a police car?
I pulled in behind the Durango, but paused before getting out and surreptitiously slathered more deodorant into my pits. I could still smell myself. It wasn’t overpowering or anything, but I couldn’t seem to shake the faint whiff of yuck—the same kinda sickly, almost sweet, rotting flesh smell of a decomposing body. I was also so hungry I was ready to eat the damn steering wheel, and the Pop-Tarts hadn’t made the slightest difference. It didn’t feel as if the pills had kicked in at all, which was really strange since I could usually count on feeling the effect within about ten minutes, and it had easily been half an hour.
I hurried up to the house, kicking myself for not bringing more pills with me. Though, with my luck, I’d take more and then overdose again, I thought with a sigh.
The stupid clawing hunger had me so distracted I didn’t even see the low step in front of the house. I tripped and only a sudden strong grip on my arm saved me from a humiliating sprawl.
“Careful there,” a deep voice murmured
I clutched at the hand on my arm as I struggled for enough balance to stand on my own. “Thanks, man,” I said with an embarrassed grimace. I got my feet under me, looked up. And froze. A cop. Shit, it’s a cop.
He released me and stepped back while I fought down the stupid instinctive flare of alarm that shot through me. After two weeks on the job and a few dozen death scenes I should’ve been used to running into cops all the time, but this was the first time I’d been up close and personal with one. Besides, this cop was kinda hot. I didn’t usually go for the men-in-uniform type, but he rocked it. There was no spare fat on this guy. His hair and eyes were both dark, but he didn’t look Italian or Arabic or anything like that. I took a quick glance at his nametag. M. Ivanov. Was that Russian? That would explain—
My thoughts came to a screeching halt. Ivanov. Shit. Marcus Ivanov. This was the cop who’d arrested me for that stolen Prius.
I could feel my face heating. “I, um, need to get inside,” I quickly muttered, avoiding eye contact.
“Of course,” Deputy Ivanov replied. He gave me a neutral smile, then continued on past me and headed toward his car. He hadn’t recognized me. I gave a small sigh of relief, even as a wistful little twinge shot through me. What the hell had I been so worried about? I wasn’t the sort of chick guys like that remembered, and certainly never in a good way.
I pushed aside my stupid disappointment and continued on in, stepping out of the way of the paramedics as they carried gear back to the ambulance. Their presence was routine. Unless a body had very obviously been dead for a while, it was standard to have them run an EKG strip to make absolutely certain the person was solidly dead. I was starting to get the hang of all the various procedures involved when someone died. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before. I mean, who really wants to, other than maybe deciding whether you wanted to be buried or cremated?
I waited patiently inside near the front door and tried to ignore my churning gut wh
ile I did my best to stay out of the way. Detective Roth stood near the entrance to the kitchen while he talked on his phone. A curvy blonde woman wearing fatigue pants and a shirt with SEPSO Crime Scene printed across the back was crouched by the wall as she carefully packed a camera into a bag. More procedure. Unless someone was under hospice care or in a hospital or nursing home, a detective and a crime scene tech were dispatched to investigate and process the scene. Though I’d already learned that, unless it was clearly foul play, “investigate” meant that the detective took down the decedent’s information and then referred to the coroner’s report; and “process” meant that the crime scene tech took pictures of the scene and the body.
But I guess that makes sense, I thought. Going all out on every dead body would get to be a pain in the butt and a waste of time pretty fast.
I snorted. Look at me, being all understanding about cops. Who’d have thought that would ever happen?
I leaned against the wall, watched as Derrel spoke in soft and comforting tones to the dead man’s wife. For all his imposing size and looks, Derrel had a way of dealing with family and loved ones that was nothing short of a gift. I could hear him gently inquiring about her husband’s medical history and what medications he was on. From what I could overhear it sounded as if the guy had a history of heart disease and had died in his sleep.
I slid further in and peeked down the hall. The bedroom door was open, and I could see the dead man lying on his back in the bed, the sticky pads from the paramedics’ equipment still stuck to him in various spots on his body. He didn’t look very old, maybe in his fifties or so, which meant that he’d be brought in for autopsy—which was why I was here. A geezer in his eighties with a bad heart probably wouldn’t be autopsied unless he had a few bullet holes in him or a knife sticking out of his chest.
I stepped back as one of the paramedics returned. “Forgot my stethoscope,” he explained with a smile as he continued on in to the bedroom. He came back out with it in his hand, then paused in front of me, a slight frown creasing his brow. He looked faintly familiar but the “Quinn” on his nametag didn’t help me out. He was tall and slender, with reddish brown hair and a faint scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Not bad-looking at all. I’d probably met him on a different scene sometime in the past two weeks.
He continued to frown down at me. “Something wrong?” I asked, oddly nervous that I’d screwed up somehow.
His expression abruptly cleared, and he gave me a broad smile. “I knew I’d seen you before. You’re looking a lot better now.”
My expression must have echoed the What the hell? going through my head because he chuckled and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m Ed Quinn. I . . . uh,” he lowered his voice. “I worked on you a couple of weeks ago when you were found out on Sweet Bayou Road.”
I could feel my face heating in embarrassment. Found dying of an overdose. “Oh. Great.” Then I grimaced. “I mean, thanks, y’know.”
His smile abruptly shifted to a look of chagrin. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “It’s cool. That’s behind me now.”
“Good to hear.” His gaze swept over me, pausing briefly on the Coroner’s Office logo on my shirt. I could see the question forming in his eyes: How the hell had I managed to land this job? I struggled to think of something plausible but to my relief he seemed to sense my discomfort and left the question unasked. “Well, I gotta run,” he said, glancing toward the door. “Take care of yourself.”
I gave him a nod and a forced smile as he headed out. As soon as he was gone I blew my breath out and leaned back against the wall. Awkward. First the cop who’d arrested me, then the paramedic who’d kept me from accidentally killing myself. I didn’t even want to think what a third thing might be.
I groaned under my breath as a wisp of a too familiar odor reached my nose. Oh yeah, how about stinking like a week-old corpse?
Derrel came over to me with a paper bag in one hand and his keys in the other. I could see his nose twitch but thankfully he didn’t seem to associate the stink with me. “Okay, we’ll be taking him in,” he said. “Would you mind sticking this in the lockbox in the back of the Durango on your way out to get the stretcher and body bag?”
“Sure thing,” I said, taking the bag and keys from him. “What is it?”
“All of his meds. The Coroner’s Office collects them and disposes of them.”
I blinked. It felt like about a dozen bottles in the bag. “They throw it all out?”
Derrel nodded. “I have to count all the pills and log everything first, but yeah, they get incinerated. It’s not like they can be given to anyone else.”
“Gotcha.” I flashed him what I hoped was a nonchalant smile. “Okay, be right back.” I hurried out to the Durango and popped the latch for the back. A metal lockbox was there and a quick search through the keys revealed one that opened it. I paused with the bag in my hand. They can’t be given to anyone else, huh? My pulse thudded as I quickly looked through the pill bottles in the bag. I didn’t recognize most of the drug names. Heart medicines of some sort, I assumed. But there were also some anxiety meds, and even a prescription for my little uppers. And Xanax. A whole damn bottle—and I knew this stuff would be the real thing.
Hunger clawed at me again. Maybe Xanax would make the crazy cravings go away, or at least dull them a bit? It wasn’t as if I was going to take the pills to sell them or anything. That would be stupid. I’d be looking at serious jail time for something like that.
My mouth felt dry as I stood there with the bag in my hand. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the bottle of Xanax out, crumpled the bag shut and shoved it into the box. I started to put the bottle into the pocket of my cargo pants, then paused. What if Derrel had already written down the names of the drugs? Even if he hadn’t actually counted the pills yet, he’d be sure to notice a whole bottle missing.
I’m being a moron, I thought with a scowl. And now I’ve taken too long. He’s going to know something’s up. I’ll be busted for sure.
I quickly crammed the bottle of Xanax back into the bag and shut the lockbox. A strange relief settled over me and I let out a slow sigh. It had been stupid of me to even consider taking the drugs. So far I’d managed to go a whole two weeks without doing something boneheaded. I only had two more weeks to go and then I could be out of this job and away from brains and bodies and all that craziness.
I locked the box and closed the back of the Durango. I turned to get the body bag and stretcher from the van, but stopped dead at the sight of Ivanov leaning against his car and looking straight at me.
My heart gave a guilty leap until I realized that he was talking on his cell phone. And that he wasn’t looking directly at me at all, merely in my general direction. Cripes, Angel. Guilty conscience much?
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d taken those pills, he’d have been on me like white on rice.
Chapter 7
More than ready to get the hell out of there, I had the dead guy bagged, on the stretcher, and shoved into the back of the van in record time. Derrel gave me a funny look, but thankfully didn’t say anything about the fact that I was probably looking as guilty as I wasn’t. At least the cop and the paramedics were gone by the time I was ready to load up the body. If Ivanov had still been there, I’d have probably done something stupid like drop the body, finally proving to everyone that I couldn’t be trusted with anything.
As soon as I was on the road and headed to the morgue my tension eased slightly—only to be replaced by a knifing stab of hunger. My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and it didn’t help that I kept thinking I could smell the body in the back of the van. My stomach gave an encouraging growl, and I clenched my teeth as my mouth started to water. Within that skull was such a lovely brain. Maybe I could pull over and use the tire iron to break the skull open, kinda like a coconut. I could scoop out handfuls of that swe
et, luscious—
I sucked my breath in, absolutely horrified at the direction of my thoughts. I’d get fired for sure if I showed up at the morgue with a body with a caved-in head. And if I got fired, I’d go to jail for sure, and then—
“Oh, god,” I groaned. I wasn’t horrified at the thought of eating brains. I was worried about how to explain a hole in the corpse’s head.
If you crave it, eat it.
“This is so fucked up,” I muttered. Maybe I was suffering from some weird post-accident trauma. Some lingering hallucination from my overdose? That made as much sense as anything else.
The morgue was empty when I arrived. No surprise, since it was a Sunday. I yanked the stretcher out of the van, wheeled it into the cooler. No, I was not going to bash in this guy’s head. I wasn’t that crazy.
But my stomach screamed at me the second I entered the cooler. I didn’t even have to look at the other body bag already in there. That guy had been autopsied on Friday and was waiting to be picked up by the funeral home. His organs were in a bag between his legs, and there was brain in there. I could smell it—through the plastic bag, through the body bag, through all the other stenches and odors of the morgue. The scent of that brain cut through them all.
I looked down at the organs swimming in the clear plastic bag. I didn’t even fully remember walking to the other stretcher and unzipping the body bag. A weird calm descended on me. I was really going to do this. I was probably completely crazy and hallucinating, but I couldn’t fight it anymore. I wasn’t that tough. Hell, that was the reason I was in this situation—I had no damn willpower. Get clean? Yeah, right. Too much work and too much of a bummer. Your life sucks and the only thing you’re good at is fucking up? So much easier not to think about it—wipe the worry away with a Percocet or a Xanax. Go numb.
I carefully untied the plastic bag and pulled it open. I didn’t look at any of the other organs. I wasn’t grossed out by them; they simply held no interest for me. It was the segments of brain that held my attention. Most of the brain had been sliced into neat half-inch slices during the autopsy. It looked like pieces of bread pudding that had been soaked in raspberry syrup.