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

Part III

Time to give the once over to dear old Dan.

I decided it would be better if I drove up to Dan’s garage. To do that, I needed someone with a set of wheels. I felt like such a loser without my own vehicle. Can’t get a driver’s license anymore. Deaders have lousy day vision and insurance won’t cover us. Figure we got nothing to lose by cracking up the car and they’re right. Normies die from all kinds of mickey mouse wounds but it takes a helluva car accident to decapitate a corpse.

I jumped into a phone booth and pulled a fast yap with my old friend Dave. Knew Dave Berbeki back in the days when I worked vice. Vice and homicide go together like a dog’s bad marriage--can’t escape the butt lock and neither has the sense to quit barking about it. Dave agreed to drive me there.

He picked me up on the corner of Dowling and Queen; right by that ugly hunk of brass they call a ‘sculpture’. Supposed to be the planet earth. Looked like it ought to be filled with those little coloured balls with the numbers on them. While I looked around for Dave's car, I kept expecting some old pigeon to squawk, “Bingo!”

On the drive across to the east end, Dave wanted to know why I was so worked up over this case. I told him I already got paid for four days and that buys a lot of raw hamburger in DaHood. I owed the lady that much. I asked him about the poison angle. He thought it was possible but not likely. He’d never seen a man-poison-woman case in his twenty years working the death detail. We drove up to the garage.

Whoa, I thought, that’s a lot of classic Beemers for a guy who couldn’t make farm payments less than a year ago. The parking lot was packed with them. He must’ve been a popular guy with daddy-in-law’s Bay Street crowd.

Out came a dumpy grease grenade with a beard that should have been trimmed two weeks before. He smelled like a chicken wiener you forgot to take out of the cooler until a month after the picnic. No way he was the guy that Ms. insta-hard-on married, was he?

So I asked, “Hey man, you Dan Dexter?”

When he said “yes” I nearly dropped my partial plate in my lap. “Uhm. You used to be married to a Lisa Dexter?”

“Yup.”

“And now you’re married to a woman named Deanna?”

“Yup.”

“How long ago did you and Deanna get together?”

“Ah, around a year ago. Coupla weeks after my wife died. Tragic it was.”

“I’m sure it was. Sorry to hear it, man. So how did that happen, if ya don't mind my asking?”

“Ah, after Lisa died, Deanna helped with the kids. Why? You some kinda cop or something?” Oh man, if Dan was any faster he’d be in reverse.

“Sort of. Just asking some questions for the family, is that okay?”

“Ah yeah. I guess so.”

Just then, some guy came flying out the door like a tomcat sprayed his Armani suit.

“Excuse me. What are you asking my son-in-law?”

Dave flashed his badge. “Just a few questions, sir. Could I have your name?” Dave whipped out his notebook.

“I’m Norris Breckenridge. If you have any further questions I’d suggest you contact this number” and the snotty suit hands me his lawyer’s card. Now that might not get my attention if it was a corporate lawyer but this card has Hazel R Natoff’s name embossed on it and she’s premier criminal talent to have on retainer. Interview closed.

Dave and I drove off to our favourite rib joint and ate the kind of barbecue dinner that hardens your arteries just by smelling the charcoal smoke.

****************************************************

After dinner Dave dropped me off a block away from Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

“I don’t want to know about this, do I?”

“Nope, you don’t, Dave.”

“Don’t get caught. If you do, I don’t know you.”

“Fair enough Dave. Thanks for the dinner.”

“Why thank me? You paid.”

“Yeah but you’re the only guy left on the force willing to eat with a dead guy. And dinner’s on the account. So thanks.”

“Hey, no problem. Any time. Hope you make out okay with your case.

"See ya.”

“See ya”.

I located Lisa’s grave. It was getting dark but they don’t lock the gates until 10pm. I looked for the grave keeper’s tool shack. I ducked behind some fancy tombstones waiting for him to leave, then sneaked back to the shack, popped the lock and grabbed a shovel.

“Sorry Lisa” and I dug her up.

One bonus is the religious bullshit about autopsy meant Danny boy couldn’t cop for cremation. No procedures by the funeral home. Everything au natural. Lucky for me, they didn’t bury her deep, either. Deaders might be slow but we’re strong. Takes a lot more digging than ya'd think.

By 4am I’d jimmied open the casket, unwound the shroud and started feeling around the skull. Shit. Nobody to tell. Nothing under the bandages. Not a single wound. How the hell did that get missed in the hospital?

Unless someone never rushed her into surgery. And there weren’t too many, or no, witnesses. Dirty doctor. Hospital scam. How the hell do I prove it? That would explain Scottie too. Who’s gonna check an old guy to see if someone whacked him with a bat when he was sleeping, changed his sheets then dumped him on the floor? It was a sure-fire bet Dan the doorknob wasn’t smart enough to pull this off. Or if he did, he had help. Big ticket help. I re-packaged Lisa, shoveled the dirt back over the coffin, grabbed some sod from a pile by the fence, stomped up and down awhile and hoped if anyone noticed, they’d chalk another one up for the Satanists.

I hopped a cab. No point in checking Scottie’s grave. I already knew he had head trauma. Then it hit me like a crack-induced heart attack. Here I was, one homely green Dwight McCarthy right in the middle of Sin City with the Femme Fatale of my dreams playing me like a marlin. The only question left was just how long before she asked me to pump off Dumpty Dan?

I got to my apartment and the door and found the door had been jacked by a credit card. I figured it was too early in the story, since I didn’t have enough information yet, to come home and find a gorilla squad waiting to beat the crap out of me. I checked the bedroom. Sure enough, I found Deanna curled up with my pile of Mickey Spillane's wearing nothing but a smile. For some reason, she hadn’t touched any other stuff of mine that might have tipped her off. If she did, she didn’t mention it.

Sometimes being a permanent stiff ain’t bad.

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Wednesday, January 8th 2014