Chapter Ten
Stepping into the elevator, I hit the button for the sub-basement and I gave myself a mental head smack. What the hell had I been thinking? Daring the best homicide detective in the western United States to catch me was beyond stupid. My dad would have a cow. I had put our entire family at risk.
The problem was, I wanted to have hot monkey sex with Dutch. Which was bad on so many levels. Dutch had made it very clear he didn’t find me attractive. I wasn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen. With my dad’s history, I needed to stay far, far away from the very capable detective.
The minute the elevator doors opened, the stench hit me. Ugh. It was a combination of rotting meat and bleach. I hurried down the hallway, trying not to gag as the smell got into my throat. How did Jana deal with it every day?
The mortuary doors swooshed open and Jana stepped out. “There you are.”
I waved a hand in front of my face. “Is the smell always this bad?”
“Quit being a wuss. Teri, the Medical Examiner, is waiting,” Jana said, practically dragging me past shelves of bagged bodies.
“Shouldn’t they be in a refrigerator of some type? It would cut down on the smell.”
“The Sheriff’s burial detail will be here shortly to lay them to rest,” Jana replied.
“Oh. That’s right. The Medical Examiner’s office uses the Sheriff’s chain gang to plant them in our version of Potter’s field.”
Jana sighed. “They’re laid to rest not planted.”
“I didn’t mean to disrespect the dearly departed, but this place kinda freaks me out,” I said quickly. Jana took her mortician duties seriously.
“The dead cannot hurt you.”
A plastic shrouded body shot upright, banged its head on the shelf and moaned.
I jumped about a foot. “What the hell? It’s alive! It’s alive! Call the paramedics!”
“The paramedics can’t resuscitate a two-day old corpse. I’ve told you repeatedly that sometimes the dead move,” Jana responded patiently as I peeked around her shoulder.
The quivering corpse farted loudly and fell back.
Another body moved.
I pulled a cross out from under my Hawaiian print shirt and held it out to ward off the evil spirits and other creepy crawlies. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, grow a pair. It’s residual gases and left-over nerve impulses.”
“Uh huh.” I cast a nervous glance around the gloomy morgue, looking for more of the farting dead.
Jana inquired, “Why is it you can get shot at and have half of the Phoenix Police Department’s cops chasing you and not turn into a girly girl?”
“Maybe it was having a bunch of dead bodies fall on me when I was visiting your father’s mortuary.”
“That was over fifteen years ago,” Jana cried.
“They didn’t have heads!” A shudder of revulsion shook me. “And they leaked on me. Gross. I can still feel the slimy goop oozing down the front of my blouse.” I raised the cross. “Evil beware! This has been blessed by the Holy Father himself.”
Jana rolled her eyes in disgust. “You’re not even Catholic and you bought that cheap knock-off on eBay. If you’re going to be talking to the dead, you’d better learn to suck it up.”
“I hate it when you’re right.” My fist closed around the cross as the gruesome image of eight severed heads flashed across my mind. And Jana wondered why I didn’t want to work at her mortuary.
A voice called, “Jana?”
“Coming Teri,” Jana answered and pulled me down the aisle with more bodies stacked on each side.
I gagged at the stench. “Gak. I’m burning these clothes and taking an hour-long bubble bath when I get home.”
“Be nice and no smart-ass comments. Teri’s risking her job for us,” Jana whispered.
I whispered back, “I’m always nice.”
Jana gave me the stink eye.
Teri was a heavy set Hispanic lady in her forties. She wore red scrubs and a surgical mask hung from her neck. Behind her was a sheet draped gurney.
“Thanks again for agreeing to meet with us. This is the friend I told you about. We desperately need to find out if Maria was murdered,” Jana stated.
“Hi, I’m Kandi.” I held my hand out until I noticed her bloody latex gloves. I jerked my hand back. “I’m really grateful you could arrange this for us, and hopefully, we can discover how Maria died.”
Teri shrugged. “My abuela could talk to the dead and I owed Jana a favor.”
“Oh, how awesome.” I looked at the sheet draped body on the gurney. “Is that Maria?”
Jana shot me a worried frown. “You can’t sense her?”
“I locked down my psychic senses.”
“Why on Earth would you want to do that?” To say Jana was not happy would be an understatement.
“It’s a new talent. I have no control over it yet. Would you want to walk into a room filled with talking dead people unprepared?”
“Probably not. Do your thing,” Jana instructed.
“Yes, ma’am.” I dropped my mental shields and tried to tune into the spirit world. I couldn’t sense a damn thing. Not a single ghost appeared. No eerie wailing. No glowing portals. No voice of God. Even better, no demons or hellfire.
Jana kept asking, “Is she here yet? Is she here yet? Is she here yet?”
“No. She’s not here yet,” I snapped.
“Why not? Emma Dutton just popped right in.”
I rubbed my aching forehead. “I didn’t summon Emma. She came to me on her own.”
“It takes a lot of juice to summon the dead. Maybe you’re not strong enough,” Teri commented.
“You might be right. I’ve never done this before and I don’t have a friggin’ clue on how to summon spirits.”
Teri shot me a surprised look. “You didn’t bring a crystal to help you focus?”
“No. I didn’t know I needed one.”
“Good thing I brought one with me,” Teri said. She plucked a crystal ball off the gurney and held it out.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.” She handed me the ball. “Just try it.”
Doing my best to ignore the bloody fingerprints Teri had left on the crystal, I held it out and concentrated. To my amazement a light flickered to life in the center of the ball.
“Form an image of Maria in your mind and focus on summoning her,” Teri advised.
Following her instructions, I poured my psychic power into the crystal ball. The light grew brighter and brighter and brighter.
Teri added urgently, “Whatever happens do not touch the doorway when it forms.”
“And if I do?”
“You die.”
“Gotcha. No touching the pretty light.”
“Now, command Maria to appear,” Teri directed.
Using my best dictatorial voice, I called, “Come to me Maria.”
The air shimmered in front of me. Thirty seconds later Maria’s spirit appeared. She took one look around and cried, “Estoy muerto?”
“I’m so sorry, but you died yesterday. Do you remember what happened?”
Tears ran down her cheeks. “You sure? Maybe it mistake?”
“Look around you. What do you see?”
“Dead people.” A smile lit up her face when a golden doorway formed a short distance away. “And papa.” Maria started toward him.
“Wait! Did the pendejo shoot you?”
“No. It was the hairy trigger.”
I sighed. I knew I should have taken that gun away from her. “The Ruger went off in your purse again?”
“Si. Tomas came for my car and my sister. He could take my sister, but not my car. I need it.”
Okey-dokey and I thought my family was screwed up. “You attempted to stop him?”
“Si. I try to pull the pistola out of my purse and it went off. Something hit my chest. Hurt bad. Muy bad. I thought Tomas had punched me and I pulled the trigger again. My sister was screaming, and everything got dark. Very dark.”
Holy crap. Maria had shot herself in the chest. Twice. “Why was Tomas angry with your sister?”
“Tomas muy loco. He hit her many times.”
I took a deep breath and tried again. “What did crazy Tomas want?”
“His dinero.”
“Your sister took his money?”
Maria’s image wavered briefly. “No, Julio did.”
“Who the heck is Julio?”
“Her boyfriend. He owed mucho dinero to Vicente Guzman.”
Yikes. Vicente Guzman was the El Jefe of the local Mexican Mafia. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. Julio had your sister sleep with Tomas, so he could rob him?”
“Si.”
Geez. Maria’s life really had been a freakin’ telenovela soap opera. “Do you think Tomas would kill her?”
“If she no tell where Julio is, Tomas say he will put her in cage with Brutus.”
“The muy bad pit bull?”
“Si. Tomas no feed it. Mucho hungry.” Horror filled Maria’s voice.
Oh, my God. Had Brutus eaten Maria’s sister and all that was left was her finger?
A ghostly hand beckoned from the doorway to the other side.
Maria reached for it. “Papa is calling to me.”
“Before you go, do you know where Tomas would hide from the police?”
“Maybe his slaughterhouse. He sometimes holds cage matches there. My sister say it makes it easier to get rid of the dead.”
Ugh. Bile rose in my throat. Was Tomas sick enough to turn corpses into cheap hamburger? God, I hoped not. “You mean Lopez Meat on Broadway?”
“Si. You find Tinkerbell? He no kill her?”
“I did. She wasn’t hurt, and I have her at my house now.”
“Promise me you will take care of her. Por favor.”
“You have my word she will always have a home with me. No one will ever harm her.”
“Gracias.” Maria took her father’s hand. Poof! She vanished.
I did a little happy dance. I had summoned the dead and hadn’t gotten zapped in the process.
“Did she go into the light?” Jana practically vibrated with excitement.
“She did.”
Teri stared at me thoughtfully. “So, not a homicide. Maria accidently shot herself, and this Tomas kidnapped her sister?”
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
“You should have asked Maria if she saw her sister on the other side,” Jana exclaimed.
“Damn. I didn’t even think to ask that.”
Jana shrugged. “Hey, it’s your first summoning. You’ll do better next time.”
“You need to tell the detective what you’ve learned,” Teri stated.
“Right. That I summoned Dead Maria and she gave me the down low on how she died?” I snorted. “Like he would believe me.”
“I know you can talk to animals. Why not the dead too?” Dutch’s gruff voice announced from behind me.
“Holy hell!” I spun around, and Dutch gave me his gotcha smile. Crap. How had he managed to sneak up on us? “Me? Communicate with the dead?” I let out a hysterical laugh. “Don’t be silly. Do you see any spirits hanging around?”
“You either talk to me here or in interrogation room one.” Dutch held up his handcuffs.
Shit. He’d arrest me just for the hell of it. “Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I have an autopsy to do,” Teri interjected.
I quickly handed Teri the crystal ball and mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Don’t let this happen again,” Dutch told Teri sternly.
“It won’t detective.” Teri rolled Maria’s gurney away.
I watched her disappear into an autopsy room.
Dutch pull out a pen and notepad. “Spill.”
“How long were you listening in?”
“Maria shot herself. Tomas kidnapped her sister, the skank, because her boyfriend, Julio, stole his money. What do you know about Julio?”
“He’s a conniving thief.”
Dutch narrowed his eyes. “Did you get his last name? Address? Phone number? A description?”
“Nope.”
“We have to work on your interview skills.”
I eyed Dutch suspiciously. “We?”
“We’re joined at the hip until I locate and arrest Tomas Lopez.”
Dread knotted my stomach. Was he serious? “I have a business to run and I don’t have time to play cops and robbers.”
“Make time,” Dutch retorted.
Jana scowled. “You can’t force Kandi to work with you.”
“Can’t I?” Grim amusement came and went in Dutch’s eyes. “Her Ninja Nun antics allowed Tomas to escape.”
“I. Am. Not. The Ninja Nun,” I protested.
Dutch raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Funny. Those steel-toed boots you’re wearing are an exact match to the ones the Ninja Nun had on.”
“What?” I stared down at my boots. There’s no way he could tell that.
“Anyone can buy a pair on Amazon,” Jana insisted.
The detective smirked. “True, but those chew marks on the heel are quite distinctive.”
“Nice try, princess, but today is the first time you saw the chew marks,” I responded.
“Did I?”
The sneaky detective was trying to trick me into saying it was too dark in the warehouse for him to see the chew mark. “Yes.”
A smile touched Dutch’s mouth. “You have two choices Kandi. Help me or sit in jail for the next week. You pick.”
“Gee. Tough decision.”
“I knew you were a smart girl.” Dutch said, a gloating note in his voice.
My hands curled into fists. Forget the hot monkey sex, I’d settle for punching him in the mouth.
“I’m calling my lawyer and don’t do anything stupid Kandi,” Jana proclaimed and stormed off.
Define stupid. I held up my phone. “I need to call my client.”
“There’s no cell service in the sub-basement,” Dutch advised.
I looked around for a land line but didn’t see one.
Dutch prompted, “What else did Dead Maria tell you?”
“Tomas threatened to feed her sister to his killer pit bull if she didn’t tell him where Julio was.”
“And,” Dutch prodded.
“Maria thought Tomas might be hiding out at his meat packing plant on Broadway,” I responded.
Dutch nodded. “I know the place. Lopez has a slew of vicious pit bulls guarding the slaughterhouse.
“I’m sure you and the SWAT team can handle them,” I inserted nastily.
“Why take the risk when I have my own Doctor Doolittle?”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Dutch grinned. “Hell, yeah. Most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
I gave him the one-fingered salute and headed for the elevator.
The asshole beat me there. “Where I go, you go, sweetheart.”
“You’re not dressed for where I’m going, princess, and don’t you have court?” I repeatedly hit the up button.
Dutch glanced at his watch. “Dammit. Ten o’clock in Judge Harris’s court.”
The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside and frowned when Dutch followed me. Getting rid of him wasn’t going to be easy. “You don’t want to be late. Judge Harris has no patience for tardy witnesses.” I pushed the lobby button.
“You had a run in with her?”
“My mother did. I had to bail her out of jail,” I replied.
“Where are you meeting your client?”
“Papago Park. Elvis escaped from the zoo again.”
“Elvis?”
“A fifteen-foot American Alligator. He likes to swim in the park’s lagoon. The last time he got out, he ate a lady’s poodle.”
Dutch grimaced. “I remember that. The owner sued the city.”
“She did and won half a million dollars. That’s when the zoo put me on retainer.”
“You’ve got a good racket going.”
Racket? If Dutch kept dissing me, he was going to find a shitload of fire ants in his bed. I took a deep breath and said calmly, “I provide a much-needed service.” The elevator doors opened. I practically ran for the exit.
Thirty seconds from freedom, Dutch grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. “I expect you to keep me updated on your location.”
“What! Why?”
“Once my lieutenant gets the search warrant for Lopez Meats, we’re going in.”
“Whoopee. Have fun.” I pulled my arm free, walked out the front doors and headed down the sidewalk. Where the heck was Jana?
The persistent detective strolled beside me.
“Go away.”
“Not a chance in hell, sweetheart. I need you to control all the animals at the slaughterhouse while the tactical team breaches the building.”
“There has to be another way.”
“The ruckus those pit bulls will make when the SWAT team arrives will alert Lopez to our presence. I’m not putting my men at risk.”
Crap. He knew I couldn’t let anything happen to the officers or the critters. “Your lieutenant will agree to have me, a psychic, on scene while you do a tactical SWAT entry?”
“Lieutenant Wilson’s wife’s sister is a medium. He’s seen what she can do. He’s a believer, sweetheart.”
God, did I want to knock that smirk off Dutch’s face. “My rate is fifty dollars per hour.”
Dutch threw his head back and laughed like that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.