Speak the Dead (5 page)

9

A
shriek of hastily applied brakes made everyone turn to see a dented brown Ford slide into the barricade and narrowly miss the scrambling officer on guard duty.

Lieutenant Morrell climbed out of the Ford to survey the damage caused by hitting the barrier. He turned an evil eye on the pale-faced officer who had just narrowly missed becoming a hood ornament.

“You! Tell the garage I want them to do another check on this beast as soon as I return to the station.”

The officer remained tongue-tied, but managed to nod.

“And,” Morrell continued, “straighten this damn barricade.”

The lieutenant flicked a finger across his moustache to flatten any stray hairs and marched down the alley to the crime scene.

The crowd of officers parted like the Red Sea and some of them suddenly discovered they were no longer needed on the scene. They departed as inconspicuously as possible.

Morrell stopped at the car and bent to peer through the driver's window.

“Damn mess,” he said. “We have a weapon?”

“In his hand,” said Jersey.

Morrell straightened up and glared across the roof at the detective.

“Still in costume, I see, Detective Castle.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jersey.

“And what is your sidekick dressed as? Zorro.”

Amarela opened her mouth to protest, but Jersey grabbed her arm and squeezed.

“We were just wrapping up here,” said Jersey. “It appears that Mr. Higgins, he's the gentleman with the ventilated skull, was married to the woman he drove over in the alley.”

“Hmmm, interesting,” said Morrell in a tone that suggested he wasn't interested at all. He bent down to peer through the window again. “Is that leather interior?”

“Corinthian,” said Jersey with a straight face.

“Blood makes a real mess of leather.”

“It does,” Jersey agreed.

Morrell straightened and finger-brushed his moustache.

“Forensics on its way?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“We'll need the bullet.”

Jersey nodded.

“Good, good, fast work, detective. Keep me informed.”

Morrell turned on his heel and marched back to his car.

Once he was out of earshot, Amarela snarled, “Zorro?”

Jersey grinned. “I would have put you in the Catwoman camp, myself. You know, sleek, sexy—”

“Dangerous,” snapped Amarela.

“Definitely,” said Jersey, his grin widening.

There was another crunch of metal and plastic from the mouth of the alley as Morrell's car jerked forward into the resurrected barricade before quickly switching into reverse and backing away. The officer on guard duty flashed Jersey an exasperated look as he bent to fix the barricade once more.

All Jersey could do was shrug his shoulders in sympathy.

JERSEY and Amarela
were walking to the barricade when Jersey came to a sudden stop and spun around.

“What?” Amarela asked.

“Can you read the plate?”

Amarela peered down the alley and shook her head. “There's something covering it.”

Returning to the vehicle, Jersey lifted a ragged strip of waterproof black cloth that half covered the license plate.

“This is from the victim's coat,” he said. “It must've snagged when she came sliding off the back.”

“So?”

“So how could anyone have seen the plate with this flapping in the way?”

Amarela rolled her eyes and turned back toward the barricade. “There's another plate on the front, Doofus. Did your witness say which one she saw?”

“No, but…” Jersey allowed his words to drift, but he was troubled.

The only way for Sally to have seen the front license plate would be if she were standing in the alley
before
the victim was struck.
But how was that possible?
He had seen her enter the alley at virtually the same time he did.

With a heavy sigh, Jersey snapped open his cellphone and dialed the club. After six rings an answering machine picked up with a rather punk “leave a message or fuck off” greeting.

“Hey, Les, Jersey here. I need to know if you guys have CCTV on the door facing the alley. If so, I need to see it, so don't erase this morning's footage. Call me back as soon as you get this.”

Jersey left his cell number and hung up.

Amarela flashed him a sideways glance.

“I know, I know,” Jersey said defensively. “I should have secured the tape when I was at the scene. But I was…” He hesitated.

“Distracted,” Amarela finished for him.

10

S
ally opened her apartment door to the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

A longhaired Calico, its fur a chaotic blend of orange, black, and white, instantly wrapped itself around her ankles and began to purr.

Locking the door behind her, Sally dropped her coat and a small leather travel pouch on the floor and bent to pick up the cat. The purring grew louder as the cat climbed onto her shoulder to begin nuzzling her cheek and bumping the side of her head with its own.

Sally laughed delightedly.

“You want breakfast, Jiggy?”

Jiggy—short for jigsaw, as in puzzle; not the Will Smith
“Getting' Jiggy wit It”
song—licked her cheek. The cat's tongue was so rough it could have removed five layers of makeup in one swipe if Sally ever bothered to wear any.

Sally prepared a bowl of food for the cat: a generous dollop of disgustingly pungent soft food surrounded by crunchy, tuna flavored morsels of hard.

With the cat occupied, Sally started a warm bath, changed into a fuzzy white robe and slippers, and poured herself a glass of red Chilean wine. The wine was as rich in color and full of body as fresh blood, but with a lighter, fruitier, and more palatable flavor.

Sally took two long swallows of wine before turning her attention to the fridge. The glass shelves were mostly bare, but a plastic container of leftover Pad Thai from the local Noodle Box looked appetizing. She gave it a sniff to make sure it was still edible before zapping it in the microwave.

After another large swallow of wine, Sally topped up her glass and carried it to the bath along with her lukewarm container of Thai noodles in spicy peanut sauce.

When the tub was nearly full, Sally added a splash of foaming bath salts. She let the water run for an extra minute before switching off the taps and stepping in.

The water soothed her muscles, the wine soothed her mind, and the exotic food made her feel wonderfully decadent. Sally closed her eyes, the rim of the glass resting upon her lower lip, the rich bouquet smelling of volcanic soil, exotic fruit, and a hint of dark chocolate.

Her thoughts drifted lazily until, behind her eyelids, her pupils widened in alarm as the car's ferocious grill was suddenly bearing down on her again.

No, not on
her
, she told herself to ease a rising panic, the dead woman in the periwinkle pantsuit and black raincoat.

Sally forced herself to stay calm, knowing the vehicle couldn't hurt her. This was the past, not the present.

She glanced at the license plate and then looked into and through the windshield.

Two faces. Both men.

The driver, an older gentleman with silver hair, looked terrified, his eyes wide and filled with tears. The passenger, face in profile, nose like a shark fin and skin a sickly white, was talking incessantly at the driver. His thin lips were flapping with such force that foam and spittle bubbled at the corners. There was also something wrong with his eye… like it was sliding down his cheek.

She didn't recognize either man.

The car rushed forward and she braced herself for impact—

Something warm splashed her cheek…

Sally's eyes snapped open. Jiggy was dipping her paw into the bath water and shaking it before licking and repeating.

“Thanks,” Sally said with a relieved sigh. She lifted her free hand out of the tub to stroke the cat under its chin. “Once is enough to be hit by a car, even in a dream.”

The cat purred and flicked its paw again, sending water spraying.

A little drunk
from the wine and exhausted by her night, Sally stumbled from the bathroom with her eyes half-closed and crawled into bed. The embrace of a goose down comforter wrapped around her like a lover, while the warmth brought blissful weight to her eyelids. Not one to be left out, Jiggy kneaded the blanket at her human's feet before curling up behind her knees and joining her in sleep.

As the steam
in the bathroom began to dissipate, three finger-painted words appeared on the bathroom mirror above the sink.

The message read:
Run, Sally! Run!

11

J
ersey made a quick stop at his condo on the northern edge of Old Town to drop off his car and grab a change of clothes.

Buying the condo was one of the smartest moves Jersey had made. Old Town had been in the early stages of transformation from forgotten to trendy when he raised enough for a down payment and locked himself into a long-term commitment he never thought he'd have the nerve for.

Located a short walk from popular Waterfront Park and nestled in an inner-city neighborhood that boasted some of the best restaurants Portland had to offer, Jersey's condo was now worth close to double what he paid for it. If he had actually known what he was doing, rather than being blessed by dumb luck, he could be the new poster boy for police smarts.

With hair still dripping from a quick shower, Jersey dashed out the front door and climbed into the passenger seat of Amarela's unmarked, department-issue, four-door cruiser parked illegally at the yellow curb.

Dressed in clean blue jeans, white sneakers, plain black T-shirt, and a midnight-blue blazer, Jersey looked like a huskier version of Billy Joel from his
Glass Houses
tour. Unlike the piano man, however, Jersey wore the jacket to cover a regulation Glock 17 automatic attached to his belt in a flat combat holster specially designed for concealed carry. The jacket also helped move eyes away from the unwelcome bulge of his belly.

Jersey liked to think of the Glock 17 as his deterrent gun since it had the size and heft to make the smarter criminals think twice. They didn't always have that reaction to his backup piece, the so-called Baby Glock, even though it was just as deadly. Perception can be everything.

Jersey finger-combed his wet hair. “Thanks for the pit stop. I feel human again.”

“No problem.” Amarela put the car in gear. “Dressed like you were, I would've had to make you ride in the back.”

“Now that's cold, I know what kind of people ride back there.” Jersey paused for effect. “Mostly your exes, right?”

Amarela's right hand was a blur as she released it from its two o'clock position on the steering wheel and punched Jersey hard on the upper arm. Her knuckles were like tiny pickaxes.

Jersey winced as his muscle spasmed from the attack, but he covered it with a laugh.

“Why so sensitive?” he asked. “You and Clarissa break up again?”

“Don't talk to me about Clarissa.” Amarela repositioned her hands in the ten o'clock and two o'clock positions. “That bitch is out of my life for good.”

“Isn't that what you said last month before you took her back?”

“That was different.”

“How?”

Amarela pouted. “It just was.”

Jersey saw he was treading in dangerous water and decided to back down.

“This why you couldn't sleep?” he asked in a gentler tone.

Amarela shrugged.

“After work,” Jersey continued, “we'll go to my place, order pizza, open a bottle of Scotch, and trash talk the fairer sex until you turn straight.”

Amarela laughed. “It'll take more than a bottle.”

“I'll open a cask,” said Jersey.

Amarela released one hand from the steering wheel and held it palm up to her partner. Jersey slapped it in a high five.

“SO TELL ME
about this girl you met.” Amarela steered out of the busy downtown core, heading for the crowded interstate. “She gorgeous?”

Jersey grinned. “More exotic, actually, with spiky blonde hair that I swear is as white as my kitchen cabinets, and she has the most amazing green eyes.”

“Ooh, la, la. She sounds out of your league, partner.”

Jersey shrugged. “Probably is, but…”

“But?” Amarela prodded.

“But there was something… a connection. It was weird, but we met over a dead body, and it just seemed right. She wasn't freaked out by it, you know?”

“Because she works with dead people in the funeral home?”

“Yeah,” Jersey agreed. “I guess that's it.”

“So your ‘special connection' is being cool around corpses?”

Jersey scowled. “It's more than that. She… I…”

“Spit it out.”

“I kissed her,” said Jersey. “It was a crazy impulse and a shock to both us.” He winced. “I just hope I haven't scared her away.”

“Well, well, aren't you the romantic? A first kiss over the body of a warm corpse, how can this be anything but destiny?”

Jersey slumped in his seat. “I'm not talking to you if you're going to mock.”

“Okay, I'm sorry. I'm happy for you. Really. What's the point in looking good in leather pants if you're not getting laid?”

Turning his head away, Jersey gazed out the window. “That's your apology?”

“Come on, Jers,” she coaxed, stifling a laugh. “I'm sorry. What can I do to prove it?”

Jersey shrugged.

“Breakfast,” she said. “I'll go through the drive-in and get you one of those greasy egg pancake things you like.”

“With a hashbrown and large coffee?”

“Yes!”

Jersey turned forward again. “That's a start.”

the late Mr.
and Mrs. Higgins owned a modest four-bedroom, two-story home in the tiny city of Maywood Park perched high on the east bank above Interstate 205.

Surrounded on all sides by the sprawling city of Portland, Maywood Park was a unique, all-residential community that boasted a population of fewer than eight hundred, yet was still tenacious enough to fight several attempts over the years to be annexed by its expansive neighbor.

With only three hundred homes spread across a total area of 0.17 square miles, it didn't take Jersey and Amarela long to arrive at the Higgins' residence. Amarela parked in the empty driveway of a double-car garage, the ubiquitous basketball hoop in the peak looking lonely and disused.

“You bring keys?” Jersey swallowed his last sip of coffee and dropped the empty container into the dashboard cup holder—one of only two in the whole vehicle. Felons were not invited to enjoy backseat beverages during transport.

Amarela lifted a clutch of keys from her pocket and made them jangle. “I left the ignition key in the car and took the rest.”

Jersey looked up at the gleaming, power-washed vinyl siding and sighed. “Let's go see what suburban bliss was trying to hide.”

The home's open front porch was wide enough to accommodate a couple of slope-backed Adirondack chairs and a round table perfectly sized for a pitcher of lemonade, a plate of tuna-fish sandwiches, and a bowl of potato chips on lazy Sunday afternoons.

Amarela tried the keys in the front lock, while Jersey surveyed the quiet street lined with mature trees and mowed lawns.

The neighborhood wasn't cookie-cutter fresh like the latest subdivisions that continued to spring up around Portland's borders. In fact, some of the homes were in sore need of TLC, but the mature shrubs, wide roads, and solid concrete sidewalks gave it a bygone character that Jersey found appealing.

It was the kind of place where kids could still play street hockey without worrying about being run over by short-tempered drunks or drag-racing punks. Then again, judging by the age of the curious faces that peered out at him from behind twitching polyester curtains, Jersey didn't know if there were any actual kids left in Maywood Park.

“Got it.” Amarela pushed open the front door. “Don't see an alarm system, so we're good to go.”

Jersey turned to follow his partner inside the house. “The neighbors are nosey. We may get company from the county sheriff's office. This is their jurisdiction.”

“Oh, goody,” said Amarela with a lascivious smirk. “I love me a girl in uniform.”

“Oddly enough,” said Jersey. “So do I.”

Amarela rolled her eyes. “I'll take upstairs.”

Jersey proceeded through an open archway on his right that led into the living room. Even though Mr. and Mrs. Higgins hadn't been expecting unannounced company in the form of two homicide detectives, the place looked perfectly and unexcitingly normal.

The square room was carpeted in a stain-resistant shade of milk-coffee Berber with matching three-person couch and two reading chairs. The furniture was aimed at a wood-burning fireplace with a dark-stained oak mantle, but the twin chairs could also catch good reading light from a large bay window dressed in elegant, though out-of-date, floral curtains. There was no television.

Instead of the high-definition delights of real fake housewives, fly-by-night psychologists and naked, bug-eating survivalists, the Higgins' main form of entertainment was found through a second archway at the rear of the room. Where a formal dining room had once been set to accommodate a large family, the solid oak table and eight matching chairs had been sent packing to the garage and replaced by wall-to-wall IKEA bookshelves.

Each shelf was loaded with an eclectic assortment of non-fiction tombs, most of which focused either on obscure Biblical studies or historic sea voyages to the Arctic Circle. Jersey wondered why there didn't appear to be a definite His and Hers division in the reading material, but decided there was a possibility they actually shared the same interests.

There was also no obvious sign of discord in either room. No broken furniture, smashed plates, blood spatter, or torn-up credit card receipts for binge shopping or lunches with mistresses. Whatever had led Mr. Higgins to drive over his wife, it hadn't started here.

Jersey returned to the living room to study family photos spread out along the fireplace mantle. The photos told him the Higgins took great pride in their two grown children, one of each gender, both university graduates. The daughter's photos were all semi-professional, individual portraits with flattering light and airbrushed skin, while the son preferred random snapshots showing a split-level family with a beautiful wife, teenage daughter, and a baby boy.

The baby looked like his grandfather—especially around the eyes—except for a darker olive complexion and sharp Persian nose descended from his mother. The teen didn't resemble either side of the family as a single extra chromosome had given her a flat face, slanted eyes, and small ears that bespoke the telltale characteristics of Down Syndrome.

The smiling teen appeared in a majority of the other photos, and it was clear to see the love her grandparents lavished on her.

It's hard to imagine doting grandparents turning their hand to murder and/or suicide but, as Jersey well knew, it happened.

Jersey moved into the kitchen that, like the living room and library, was clean and normal and boring. There wasn't even a dirty cereal bowl in the sink to get somebody's morning off to a bad start.

The house's main phone rested in a wooden hutch beside double-paned glass patio doors that led to a beautifully landscaped, and surprisingly secluded, backyard. Jersey crossed to the phone and picked up a leather address book. He flipped it open to ‘H' and saw the names of the Higgins' children. The son lived in Portland, but the daughter had moved to New York.

Jersey wrote their phone numbers and addresses into his notebook as Amarela descended the stairs.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nada. Clean, tidy, nothing out of place. They shared the same bed, so they must've got along. You?”

“Same.” He held up the notebook. “ I got the NOKs, at least.”

Amarela scrunched her nose. Nobody liked to inform Next Of Kin that a loved one was gone.

“So what you thinking here?” she asked.

Jersey shrugged. “Based on what we've seen, I'd write it up as domestic murder-suicide.” He paused. “Except for location, timing, and choice of weapon.”

Amarela nodded. “Why get dressed up and go out on the town in the middle of the night to a secluded, yet still public, spot when you could kill your wife in the privacy of your own home?”

“And why use a car if you own a gun?” Jersey added. “The hit-and-run angle only makes sense if you wanted it to look like an accident.”

“And you would only do that if you hoped to get away with it,” Amarela interjected.

“And if you planned to get away with it,” Jersey released a heavy sigh, “why kill yourself after?”