D.K. Mort--Zombie Detective [COMPLETED]

Part I

There I sat, red Converse high-tops wedged in the bottom desk drawer hunkered down with the phone in one hand. I was conning the phone company to stop the disconnection and sucking back an Americano when she walked in.

In my line of work the clients are never Normies. Think we’re gonna bite them for a cheap thrill or some other superstitious crap. Like we need more unemployed Zombies in the neighbourhood than we already got. Normies. Most of ‘em not much brighter than a third generation deader. Mainly I spend my days dodging bill collectors and chasing down some greenteen whose brain leaked out playing lip lock at his girlfriend’s house then didn’t bother phoning home. Mom panics and it’s a minimum fifty bucks a day and expenses for me. Hey, it’s a living. It’s not like we’re getting rich down in here in the wastelands of urban ghetto living.

There she was. Stared at me like she’d never seen a Zombie up close before. She was wearing some lily perfume that reminded me of bouquets in funeral parlours. Pretty good looking for a Normie--that is, if you like your piece of ass with all the parts still attached. My raging hormones aside I couldn’t figure out what this dame strung with high facet jewellery wanted with my slum services.

“So what is it you want, sister? Wouldn’t you be better off with one of them fancy uptown agencies? The kind with websites and computers and fancy logos? What brought you down to this drywall desert of the dead?”

“Well, I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know where else to go. Nobody else believes my story.”

“Sister, let me give you a piece of advice for free. When nobody believes a story it’s usually a pretty good sign there’s nothing to believe. Anybody ever taught you that?”

“Please. I don’t know where else to go. I can pay… a lot”

I must have been getting a contact high from her tomb perfume or convinced by tomorrow’s disconnection date on my phone bill. Something’s gotta account for the next moment of blinding stupidity.

“Okay. I’ll listen to your story, but no promises until I hear what I’m getting into. If I agree to the job then I get fifty dollars a day plus expenses. That includes taxis, buses and all the embalming fluid I can drink.” Poor dame almost fainted.

“The last part was a joke, lady.” Sheesh. Normies.

“Oh, oh yeah.” Uhm okay.”

“Okay sister. Start with your name. I like to know who’s writing the cheques.”

“Beth. Beth Calhoun.”

“I take it that’s not the, uh the Calhouns.”

“Uh, yes Mr. Mort. It is.”

“Stow the story sister. Anything to do with your family is bigger than me. And they got enough money to hire God. I’m just a two-bit private dick trying to hustle a buck on jobs the coppers won’t touch. ”

“Won’t you hear me out? Please, Mr. Mort, someone has to listen!” Then she turned on the waterworks. Both taps, major flood. Damn. Normies or not, I’m a sucker for broads that cry. Survivor guilt or something.

“Alright” I handed her a roll of toilet paper from out of my desk. “I’ll listen but you hear me, sister? All I’m gonna do is listen. Then put away your cheque book, go home and forget my address. Got it?”

She sniffled. “Okay.” She gave a dubious look at the roll of toilet paper, like I gave her a used one or something.

“Well hop on it doll. I’m a busy man.”

“It’s my sister. I’m sure her husband killed her!” More wailing. Damn. If she kept this up I’d have to install a drainage system in this dump. And add three days on the bill to get the story out.

“Okay Miss? Mrs. Calhoun?

“Miss”

“Okay Miss Calhoun. What makes you think he murdered her?”

“Because she was only twenty-eight. They had a farm and three young children. She was in top shape. She went to the hospital, supposedly with a brain aneurysm then a day later died in the hospital while on the IV line, but from a heart attack, not the aneurysm.”

“That’s not impossible Miss Calhoun.”

“That’s only when it started to get weird. Within two weeks her husband was living with his girlfriend. In less than six months they were married. She’s from a wealthy family. He’s a mechanic. His business was failing before my sister died and two days later he can afford all new tools and a new garage?”

“Well it might be suspicious. Anything else?”

“I ran into a good friend of hers a while back. Bev said that she found it funny that my sister died just after Scottie did. Apparently, about two years before, Scottie heard Dan beating Lisa. He went over with a shotgun and threatened Dan. The beatings stopped. A year later, Scottie fell down beside his bed during a brain aneurysm, cracked open his head and died. Within two weeks, Lisa was dead. Now don’t you find that odd Mr. Mort?”

“It’s odd. But it doesn’t add up to homicide. What did the coroner say?”

“What I told you. I told him and the doctor what I suspected but the husband has the right to refuse the autopsy and in this case, since she died in the hospital--it all looked reasonable. I begged and pleaded with my family but the husband has the right and he claimed religious reasons. That’s odd too because he didn’t have any religious beliefs as far as any of us knew. Neither did my sister.”

“Did you say anything to the cops?”

“Well I talked to one of Daddy’s police friends and he said it was 'hinky', whatever that means but there was nothing he could do without more information. After that, the whole uproar just seemed to die down.”

“Well if homicide and the coroner couldn’t help, just what is it you think I can do?”

“Uhm well…”

Oh shit I thought. Here it comes.

“I was hoping you’d have some contacts that could…”

"Just go to the cemetery. Dig her up, gnaw on her bones awhile and she could come back and tell a homicide cop that Dan did it. Right?”

“Well, er, something like that I suppose.”

“Right. And lose my license to work from the Bureau of Zombie

Affairs. Right? Do you have any idea what goes into making a Zombie intelligent enough to tell you who killed it?"

"Let me enlighten you, lady. It takes a master Necro-priest. A specialist. Not just any old let’s-pull-up-a-dead-one-two-dollars-for-a-love-spell-wizard. Before anything happens, they slip you the Zombie cocktail. The deader version of a Mickey Finn. Second, it's got to be a fresh kill. Fresh enough that the blood’s still gushing outta the bite when the resurrection spell’s complete. Otherwise the brain cells are already dying."

"After all that, the priest babbles another convoluted ritual to free the Zombie so they can live a life somewhere else. Otherwise, intelligent or not, that Zombie is under the control of the priest. How do you think these priests make a living? They sell Zombies to people like your dear old dad as slave labour—that’s how. Any Necro-priest who lets a Zombie go free has a reason. Always."

"The only thing your sister’s corpse is good for at this point is—pardon my honesty—lunch.”

I thought the dame would run out screaming. She had guts, I’ll give her that. She just dry-retched into a wad of toilet paper and went whiter.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Be a gumshoe.”

“What?”

“Gumshoe the job. Look lady, uh Miss Calhoun. If you want me to investigate I’ll see what I can do. As far as the rest of it, it can’t be helped. No guarantees. The retainer is two hundred bucks, less than a week’s work. By then I’ll know if I can help you or not. Fair enough?”

She dried her eyes off and signed the cheque. I wrote down all the names and dates. Bought myself another double Americano, paid the phone company by wire transfer and jumped on the bus.