My Life as a White Trash Zombie (20 page)

“ ’Cause I’m the victim,” I managed to force out. Wow, my voice almost sounded normal.

“That’s right.” He scrubbed a hand over the short brush of hair on his head. “Give yourself a few days peace.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but I didn’t need to hear it. I knew what he wanted to say. He didn’t want me to be
that victim
. He gave a shit. Maybe he was like this for everyone, but it didn’t matter. I still couldn’t help but relish the tiny spark of warm glow that it gave me.

“Okay,” I said quietly.

The smile he gave me in return was tinged with relief and worry.

“Hey,” I said before he could say anything else that would make the mood even weirder or break it entirely. “You wanna grab some coffee or something someday? I mean, some time when I’m not crawling with maggots,” I added with a laugh that sounded nervous to my own ears and probably sounded desperate and pathetic to his. I totally braced myself for him to hem and haw and say that he couldn’t or had a girlfriend or something. I was shocked instead when he gave me a nod.

“That sounds nice. And I’m cool with the no maggots thing too.”

We were saved from any more possible awkwardness by Derrel’s piercing whistle to get my attention. I looked over to see that the homicide detective was exiting the house.

“I’m up,” I said, as I pushed off the front of the Durango. “It was nice talking to you.”

“I’m going to hold you to that coffee,” he said, surprising me by giving me a wink.

I turned away with a silly grin on my face to collect a maggot-covered body.

Dad called the next morning. I was expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Angel, it’s your dad,” he said after I answered. Not “Dad” but “your dad.” In case I wasn’t sure, y’know? “Baby, I’m real sorry about what happened.”

I sat on the couch and pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “I know. You were drunk.”

“I was wrong, honey. I . . . I dunno why I get so worked up.”

Because you feel like a failure,
I thought.
I’m a fuckup, which means you failed as a dad
. But I wasn’t a fuckup anymore. Or at least not as much of one. He couldn’t see that. Or maybe he didn’t want to see it. Then he’d be the only loser in the house.

“Can you come bail me out, please? I been here a day and a half now. They keep it so goddamned cold in here, and I’m hurting bad.”

Shit shit shit
. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Dad. Maybe if you tell them you’re in pain they can take you to the clinic?”

“Why can’t you come bail me out?” He sounded tired. Old. I felt older. Yeah, he’d been a complete piece of shit, but he wasn’t always like that. Not always. Sometimes he came through for me—like the day he took me to the ER with broken ribs and arm when I was twelve. I could still remember the dull pain in his voice as he told the police to go and arrest his wife, because he knew that if they didn’t she’d end up killing me. She’d been mentally ill—I could see that now. But all I’d known then was that Dad was saving me and at the same time betraying my mother. I’d loved him and hated him.

Still did.

The knot in my throat made it tough to talk. “I can’t,” I said, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “Dad. I . . . don’t think they’ll let me bail you out,” I lied. “And I don’t have any money left, remember?”

He was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d hung up. It was only the noise of people talking in the background that told me he was still on the line. “Okay, baby,” he finally said. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I choked out.

Then the background noise cut off, and I knew he’d hung up.

I sat there with my head in my hands for several minutes, then called the jail up and asked to have my number blocked from the inmate phone system. He’d get out eventually, but I wasn’t going to help. And I couldn’t take any more calls like this.

Go me
, I thought dully.
I’m not that victim
.

I was starting to figure out that Derrel had a sixth sense-thing going on, where he knew exactly what to say to make people feel better. Even if sometimes that something was absolutely nothing. Not even an “I’m here if you need someone to talk to”—which is usually even more unhelpful than staying out of it completely. And that old “If you need anything, let me know,” is also a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but then you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, “Hey, remember when you said to let you know if I needed anything? Well, I’m feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, because if I could have a clean kitchen, I’d feel like I had a bit of a head start.” You’ll never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick.

What would be so much better would be for the person who spouted the useless “if you need anything just ask” platitude to fucking go over to the person’s house and clean their goddamn kitchen without being asked. Go over and say, “Hey, you go take care of your kid or your work, or go take a fucking nap. And when you get done, you’ll have a clean kitchen. And, no, you don’t owe me a goddamn thing. Someday the shoe will be on the other foot, okay?”

And that was the sort of shit that Derrel did all the time. He never breathed a word or a hint, but he was too tapped in to the gossip to not know what was going on with my dad. He didn’t ask me why I was so quiet, which was more of a relief that I could have possibly expressed. And no, he didn’t come over and clean my kitchen, but when I met him at a death scene later in the morning, he stopped me before we went inside the condo and handed me an insulated cup full of hot chocolate and a paper bag with an egg and bacon biscuit in it.

“You’re too skinny,” he told me. “And if you don’t eat it willingly, I’ll hold you down and make you eat it.”

I took the bag from him. I had absolutely no doubt that he would do exactly that.

“Besides,” he added with a wicked smile, “you should always be well fed going into a death scene. There’s nothing worse then puking on an empty stomach.”

“I have never and will never puke on a death scene,” I informed him around mouthfuls of bacon and egg biscuit.

He grinned. “I’m beginning to think this is true. You’re getting to be pretty damn hardcore. Amazing the stuff we can survive, isn’t it?”

It was the closest he ever came to saying something meant to be comforting. Yet I was more comforted and reassured and all that than I would have been if he’d given me a big ol’ hug or anything weird and touchy-feely like that. Actually, if he’d given me a hug I’d have probably freaked the hell out, because, well, that would have been seriously weird. But then again, I was about as far from touchy-feely as you could get.
Unless you’re fucking me, don’t put your hands on me.

I finished up the biscuit and hot chocolate, and followed Derrel into the condo with the stretcher and body bag.

There was no crime scene tape or sign-in log—only a deputy at the door who directed us toward a bedroom in the back. I left the stretcher in the foyer and followed Derrel with the bag.

We were in a condo on the south end of Tucker Point in a complex that advertised itself with terms like “luxury” and “high end.” Through the bedroom window I could see the Kreeger River, and I’d seen on our way up that the bottom floor of this condo had a walkway that led to a private dock where a modest-sized boat was parked. The condo had all of the modern touches—stainless steel appliances, wood floors, marble counters. The furniture in the bedroom was solid and elegant, all in a matching dark oak—unlike the thrift-store variety selection in my own house. The bedding was a rich red and gold brocade and looked expensive as hell, though right now it was stained with vomit and saliva.

But not egg-and-bacon-biscuit vomit at least.

The source of the vomit lay sprawled on her side, eyes half-lidded and dulled by death. She looked fairly young—maybe mid to late twenties or so. Pretty and slender, she had shoulder-length brown hair subtly highlighted with red and blonde, tendrils of which snaked through the congealing mess of puke beneath her head. Bubbles of spit lingered on her mouth, and I could see the remains of a dark red lipstick. She was wearing a pink tank top and panties that looked like they came from Victoria’s Secret instead of Walmart, and her nails were nicely done with a French manicure. I could see flecks of pills in the puke, and about half a dozen baggies containing more pills on the nightstand.

It wasn’t too hard to figure out how she’d died.

“Theresa Anderson. Twenty-nine years old,” Derrel muttered with a shake of his head.

My mouth formed a grimace as I scanned the room. “Living the dream, and it’s still not enough.”

“Depends on how you define ‘the dream,’ ” he replied absently.

Snorting, I casually poked through a pile of papers and file folders on the nightstand. “What, you mean ‘money isn’t everything,’ blah blah blah?” I shrugged. “I mean, yeah, money sure as shit helps, but—” I swept my gaze around the room again. “I mean, look at this place. It fucking rocks.”

I expected Derrel to argue the point with me, make the case that even rich and successful people could get overwhelmed or whatever, but he simply gave a slight nod while he scrawled notes. “It’s a waste,” he said mildly.

“It’s fucked up,” I stated. “She has money, a great place to live.” I scowled down at the papers. Legal briefs, letters. Nothing terribly ominous. Looked pretty boring to me. “Looks like she was some sort of hotshot lawyer. I bet there was never any question about her going to college.”

Derrel made a noncommittal noise in his throat while he peered at the body.

I moved over to the bookcase, trailing my fingers through the thin layer of dust. A reed diffuser gave off a pleasant flowery scent that mixed oddly with the smell of puke. There were more law books here. A few books with lofty titles that sounded like they’d been featured on Oprah or some such thing. Nothing that looked fun or light-hearted. “Maybe she couldn’t handle the pressure,” I said with a shrug, then sighed. “I dunno. I’m talking out my ass. Was it a suicide?”

“Hard to say,” he said, lifting his eyes from his clipboard. “Cops didn’t find a note, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Most suicides don’t leave notes. And Dr. Leblanc is usually reluctant to rule it a suicide unless there’s a fair amount of certainty. I expect this will get ruled an accidental overdose.” He shook his head. “Likely started out small—the occasional anxiety med, or maybe Adderall or something to help her get through her classes. Then it grew from there until she was dependent on it.”

I fell silent at that, and my emotions tumbled strangely as the two of us wrestled her into the body bag. That theory hit a little too close to home. I’d narrowly escaped being found in a similar situation—though most likely in far less lovely surroundings. But it felt strange seeing that regular, upscale people went through shit like this as well. I mean, I’d known it on a logical level, but somehow I’d still always believed that drug abuse and overdose was limited to the loser segment of the population.

I smiled without humor. No. Where I went wrong was believing that being in the loser segment had anything to do with income or social class.

Derrel bagged up the various pills, then helped me maneuver the stretcher out of the condo and into the van.
I wonder if she bought her pills from Clive.
Certainly a possibility, though I knew there was a hefty market for pain meds, and plenty of people looking to make a buck that way.

Derrel’s phone rang as I was closing the back doors of the van. He made some notes on his pad and then looked up at me, expression sour. “Busy day today. Good thing there’s room in there for more than one body.”

The second body of the day was at the other end of the parish, in an apartment at the opposite end of the economic spectrum from Ms. Anderson’s luxury condo.

An ambulance was parked outside next to a Sheriff’s Office car and an unmarked one that clearly belonged to a detective. A quick glance at the unit number on the marked car told me that it wasn’t Marcus’s, and I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed.

Inside the apartment the carpet was old and threadbare in spots, and none of the furniture matched, but it was absolutely neat as a pin and as spotless as it was possible to make such a place. A faint scent of biscuits hung in the air, mingled with a faint flowery scent. I looked around to see if there was a reed diffuser in this place as well, but then realized that the source of the flowery smell came from actual flowers in a ceramic pitcher on the dining room table.

Detective Roth stood by the doorway to the kitchen. “Your victim’s in here,” he said in a low voice to Derrel, stepping aside so that we could see the woman on the floor. “Sarah Jackson.” Then he nodded his head toward the living room. A twenty-something black man wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and workboots sat on the couch with his head in his hands. “That’s Drew Russell, her boyfriend. They live together, but he got in from working offshore about an hour ago and found her.” He grimaced.

Derrel gave him a grave nod and then moved to the living room. I stayed back while he spoke in soft tones to the boyfriend, but the grief on the man’s face was so stark I had to turn away.

Stepping into the kitchen, I thought for a brief, jarring instant, that the woman was simply asleep—even though I knew that couldn’t possibly be the case. Not if we were there. She was lying on her right side, left arm out in front of her, legs slightly bent as if she’d curled up to take a nap. But her eyes were open and lifeless, and when I stepped closer I could see that her right arm was twisted awkwardly beneath her.

Crouching, I tugged on gloves. The portion of the body nearest the floor was red and mottled, and I’d been on the job long enough to know that was called “lividity”—the settling of the blood in the body after the heart stopped beating. I gently poked at a spot of red on her lower arm. It didn’t change color, which meant the lividity was fixed and that she’d probably been dead for several hours, at least.
At least this isn’t something where the boyfriend is responsible
, I thought with a vague relief. He seemed so devastated by loss, I’d have felt cheated if it was all some sort of act.