Secondhand Stiff (3 page)

three

One of my least
favorable attributes is that dead bodies crop up like persistent acne whenever I'm around. Upon seeing the latest corpse, my first thoughts were purely selfish:
Why me?
How come I've become a middle-aged, two-hundred-plus-pound divining rod who ferrets out stiffs instead of water—a human edition of one of those cadaver-sniffing dogs?

My pity party was short-lived as I quickly remembered the people standing with me and stood ready to catch anyone about to faint. My mother-in-law had a hand clasped over her mouth, her blue eyes as large and bright with shock as a full moon, but she seemed steady enough. My own mother appeared less shocked and more curious. Mom leaned forward, squinted through her glasses, and muttered, “Is that thing real?”

Ina was the most shaken by the sight of the body. As soon as the door to the storage locker had been unlocked and rolled upward, she had let out a blood-curdling scream that had vibrated the pavement under us like a mild quake.

The others let out varying degrees of gasps and cries. A short, wet scream of anguish had come out of tough-girl Linda.

Before us was another storage locker of household goods. In the center, just behind the door, was a beat-up lounger covered in ugly plaid fabric. It looked like the chair my father had had for years and adored. The lounge chair had been tilted back, its footrest up. In the chair was a man, his head back, his arms slack and draped over the sides of the chair. He looked like he'd dozed off during halftime while watching football. All he needed was a half-empty beer bottle dangling from one hand and a bag of chips in his lap.

The worst part was I knew the corpse. And so did three out of four in my party, as well as many in the crowd. Sitting in the lounge chair with a bloody hole in the left side of his head, taking a final forever nap, was Tom Bruce, Ina's philandering husband.

Red quickly shook off his own shocked stupor. Seeing half the crowd snapping off photos with their phones, he waved his arms at them like an unbalanced windmill, but it only resulted in more phones being produced. Ina lunged forward but was restrained by Red before she could enter the locker.

“That's my husband!” Ina cried, beating her fists against the sturdy auctioneer.

“Get that damn door down,” Red yelled at the fellow with the saw. Overcoming his own surprise, the guy grabbed the door and rolled it down. People were still snapping off photos, bending to get the last shot as the door came crashing down. Dollars to donuts, photos and videos of Tom's final pose would be posted to the Internet in the next sixty seconds and would go viral within five to ten minutes.

Kim Pawlak had whipped out her own cell phone, but instead of taking macabre photos, she was talking into it, giving hurried orders and details to someone on the other end. Finished, she turned to Red. “I called the front office. They're calling the police.”

“Let me go,” Ina pleaded. “He might still be alive!”

Pretty much everyone standing there believed that ship had sailed, but stranger things have happened. And I think that idea crossed Red's mind the same time it did mine. He turned to the crowd. “Everyone back up, way up, and put away those damn phones. Don't you have a shred of decency?”

The gawkers backed up until they were against the row of units facing the locker. One of the Latino guys who'd won the earlier auction still had his phone aimed at the chaos.

“Put that damn thing away,” Red roared at him.

The guy's friend said something to him in Spanish, causing him to pocket his phone quick as a bunny.

Glancing at the guy by the door, Red signaled for it to be raised. He let loose of Ina. “You stay put,” he ordered and moved her back several feet.

Renee, Mom, and I gathered around Ina. Renee put an arm around her. Ina clung to her but never took her frightened eyes from the door of the storage locker. If Ina decided to make a break for Tom's body, there was no chance my mother-in-law would ever be able to stop her, so I stayed close. I understood Ina's desire and need to be with her husband. If that had been Greg in there, I would have crashed through the closed metal door like a charging bull. If by some miracle Tom Bruce was still alive, someone with a clear head would have to do the checking. If he wasn't, a grieving widow wouldn't do the crime scene any good.

The door raised, displaying Tom in the same place where we'd last seen him. I had half hoped it had been some sick prank staged by Tom to scare the crap out of his wife and auction-seeking colleagues. You know, a little stage blood and the right timing. That when the door was raised again, the lounger would be empty and Tom would be standing off to the side, tall and lanky, healthy and whole, ready to jump out at everyone. But it wasn't a joke. The body was there just as we'd last seen it, and so was the large hole in his head and the massive bloodstain on the back of the headrest. Everyone stared in silence; the only sound this time was the faint buzzing of flies.

Ina stared through her tears as Red checked the body for life. Finding none, he slowly shook his head in our direction. Ina struggled against her aunt. I grabbed her by both arms. “You can't help Tom, Ina,” I told her, infusing as much comfort as I could into my voice.

Ina reared back from me, nearly toppling Renee. When I reached out to stop Renee's fall, hoping to avoid a broken hip, Ina broke free and ran into the storage locker. I didn't have the heart to stop her, nor did Red. No matter how much of a jerk Tom Bruce had been, he was Ina's husband. She reached to touch the gaping wound but stopped herself at the last minute. From where we stood, we could hear stifled whimpers. Assured Renee was stable on her feet, I moved forward to stand with Ina, who had fallen to her knees by the lounger in a sobbing mess. I placing a hand gently on her shoulder.

Red started to object to my presence in the locker. “We're her family,” I told him, indicating myself, Mom, and Renee. He nodded and backed off.

Through her weeping I thought Ina was saying something to me. I bent closer, but it wasn't me she was speaking to, it was Tom. She raised her head, stared at the corpse of her husband, and whispered, “You stupid, stupid bastard.”

Before I could delicately ask Ina what she meant, we heard sirens. They were still off in the distance but approaching quickly, like a sandstorm. Kim took off at a trot in the direction of the front gate, probably with the intent of guiding them to the crime scene.

I looked back at the crowd, scanning it for Linda McIntyre, to see how she was taking Tom's death. After her initial screech of horror, I half expected her to fight Ina for grieving rights, but she was otherwise occupied. Off by the end of the building, out of earshot, she was having words with the short African American woman with the visor. Their words were animated, but the volume was contained. The woman with the visor was pointing at the storage unit, her face scrunched into red-hot anger. Linda looked pasty and distraught. When she started to leave, the woman grabbed her arm, but Linda easily shook it off and made a beeline for the exit. A few others had quietly drifted away, too, making me wonder if they were avoiding the snarl of time it would take to go through questioning or if they were simply avoiding the police altogether. My experience told me that as soon as the police arrived, the storage facility would be under lockdown, with no one going in or out without clearance from the authorities.

And I was right. Just after Linda disappeared, I spotted the two Latinos slinking off, only to be stopped by a pair of uniformed police heading our way. They said something to the men. The English-speaking one put up a small argument. I couldn't hear the words, but the pleading tone and gestures spoke volumes about the need to be somewhere—anywhere—but here. In the end, the men were forced to turn around and rejoin the group. I wondered if Linda had made it out. When I didn't see her being herded back to the crowd, I was pretty sure she'd managed to slip out in the nick of time.

Renee came up to me. In her hands was her phone. “It's Greg. I hope you don't mind, but I called him.”

I smiled at my mother-in-law. Greg needed to know about Tom, and hearing it first from his mother was certainly better than hearing it from me. I'm sure his first reaction was about why we had to be the ones to find him, even if we were in a crowd when it happened.

I took the phone and turned Ina over to Renee. Leaving the locker, I moved off to the side to take the call, but first I checked on Mom, making sure she was okay. Next to my mother stood the man in the wife-beater shirt holding his phone low, pointing it at the locker. I was about to say something when my mother noticed it. Using her bulky handbag, she knocked the phone out of his hands. “Didn't your mother teach you any manners?” she snapped at him. Had Mom not been old enough to be his grandma, I'm sure the guy would have thrown a punch or at least given her a powerful shove. Instead, he growled in her direction, then stooped to retrieve his phone from the pavement and promptly pocketed it. He also moved away from Mom and her deadly purse.

I put Renee's phone to my left ear and stuck an index finger into my right ear to block out noise. “Hi, honey. How's your day going?”

“My day's going just fine; busy but good. It's yours I'm worried about.”

“Yeah, I was going to call you in a bit to let you know what's going on.”

“My mother said Tom showed up. Did he cause trouble for Ina?”

I glanced over at the storage locker. More police had arrived and were taking charge. Kim was helping them corral the crowd to a new area away from the crime scene while still keeping them together. Soon the investigators would cut them off from the herd, one by one, for questioning. Now that the shock of seeing Tom's body was wearing off, they were getting restless and starting to voice complaints about delays. I'm sure most were wishing they had disappeared earlier like some of the others—as Linda McIntyre had.

“Yes,” I said into the phone, realizing Renee had not filled Greg in on Tom's death, leaving me with the unsavory task.

I glanced over at the locker. Renee was standing with Ina just outside of it, comforting her while a police officer talked to her. My own mother had been rounded up with the crowd and was watching nervously from the sidelines. I could see her fidgeting with the handles of her purse, fussing with the leather on the strap like a string of worry beads. Cut from the comfort of people she knew, she appeared frail and vulnerable—a bird fallen from the security of its nest, hoping a cat didn't wander by while it waited to be rescued. She spotted me and raised a thin arm to catch my attention. I signaled back, indicating for her to hold on, I'd be there to help shortly. At least if she was in the makeshift holding pen, I knew she wouldn't be getting into mischief while I brought Greg up to speed.

“Tom did show up, and his presence has caused trouble,” I said into the phone, keeping half an eye on Mom, “but not in the way you might think.” I paused. It didn't matter how many times I had to tell Greg about a dead body in my orbit, it didn't get any easier. “Did you know he was cheating on Ina?”

“No, but it doesn't surprise me.” My husband paused before voicing his next thought. “Please tell me Tom did not bring his mistress to the auction and flaunt her in front of Ina.”

“Um, no, not exactly, though said mistress was here and faced off with Ina with some pretty colorful language.”

“And Tom just stood by and watched?”

“Not exactly, Greg.” I drew out the words, giving them more weight, then just let them sit there like clues in a board game. I was unsure of where to go next and hoped Greg could somehow read my mind and save me the trouble of painting him a whole picture. It was a childish and cowardly way out, but now wasn't the time to get clever and creative.

“What are you
not
telling me, Odelia?” Through the phone, I heard Greg deliberately inhale, then exhale, giving his breath similar emphasis to my drawn-out wordplay. I could tell he was just as concerned about asking me as I was of telling him.

“We have a
big
problem here, honey.”

“Someone's dead, right?” He asked the question with a bluntness usually reserved for phone solicitors. This was followed by a few seconds of cursing that came through the phone line like stage whispers.

“Yes,” I answered without any further dancing. I glanced back at my mother. Somehow she'd caught Renee's attention, who'd convinced a uniformed cop to spring Mom from the corral. The two elderly women were walking back to rejoin Ina, their heads close together as they chatted.

After the swearing subsided, Greg said, “Don't tell me: Tom's accused of murder, and you want to help him. But why should you if he cheated on my cousin? Let him hang.”

“Um, that's not the problem. The dead body
is
Tom Bruce, and it could be Ina we'll be needing to help.”

“Tom's dead?” Greg's voice got high, as it always did when he was surprised.

“As a doornail. He was found in one of the storage lockers up for auction.” I stopped to rethink, then amended my comment. “Well, the locker was up for auction, not Tom. The door of the unit went up right in front of both his wife and his mistress, and at least twenty others.”

A long pause, then, “How did the moms take it?”

“Both were shocked, but they seem okay now. Your mother is giving Ina a lot of support. Mine seems along for the ride, like it's part of her vacation adventure. Ina is being questioned right now, but I'm sure she'll have to go to the station at some point.”

“You think she'll be considered a suspect?”

“Yes, I do. She and Linda—that's Tom's side squeeze—got into it pretty good, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind about Ina knowing about her husband's affair.”

“Motive.”

“Yep. Not to mention, Ina threatened Linda right in front of the crowd.”