Life Among the Tombstones Read online

  The door opened around eight and in walked Tiffany Swarovski. She took one look at me and stopped in her tracks. “Damn, baby. You working here now? I get a finder’s fee or something?”

  “You’ll get whatever you order,” I said. “But no finder’s fee. And no free drinks. What brings you by?” As if I didn’t know.

  She threw me a wink. “Just getting my drink on and looking for some company.”

  “Well, don’t look at me.”

  She threw back her head and laughed a little too loud. But it was a good laugh, genuine and warm. “Gotta find somebody,” she said. “Had to pay my fine this morning. I need some money, honey.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She sipped a seven-seven and talked my ear off, telling me she was half Polish, half Latina and half Niuean.

  I did the math and frowned. “Say what?”

  “Well. Numbers aren’t my thing.” She snagged a handful of bar nuts and flipped them into her mouth, one at a time.

  “Polish, Latina, Niuean,” I said. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

  “It’s a thing. Head to the South Pacific and turn right. Look for an itty-bitty island.”

  For all I knew, she was telling the truth. She looked Polynesian, with her caramel complexion and almond-shaped eyes. I liked this chick. She was smart and tough and knew how to take care of herself. We had more in common than either of us might have cared to admit.

  Customers began to filter out. Some lonely guy sidled up to Tiffany and made his move. She glanced my way, sat a fiver on the bar top, and left for the night. She didn’t have a fiver to spare.

  Jimmy and Hank were still throwing ’em back. When I walked behind them to push in a couple of stools, Jimmy reached around and pinched my ass. I turned to sock him into next Tuesday, but Little Allie intervened. Make nice. He’s in here all the time. You need his tips.

  I sucked in a breath and said, “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t do that, Jimmy.”

  He grabbed my arm in a vice grip as I turned to walk away. “C’mon, baby. Give us some sugar.”

  Dallas was already out of his seat and on his way over, but nobody fights my battles for me. I grabbed Jimmy’s free hand and bent his fingers back. Not hard enough to break them but enough to hurt.

  “Holy crap,” he screamed, letting go of my arm. “All right. All right. You win. You don’t have to be such a bitch.”

  Dallas moved alongside me and tried to intervene, but I waved him off and gave Jimmy the Allie eye. “I think you’ve had enough. Time to go home.”

  “You can’t cut me off, little missy. Only Dallas here can.” He looked over my shoulder, hoping for a reprieve. He wasn’t going to get it.

  I grabbed his hand again, like I was going for round two. “Dallas wasn’t serving you. I was. Now, leave. Before I show you what I can do to your balls.”

  Jimmy hopped down from his stool, scraped his money off the bar, and grumbled as he wobbled toward the door.

  “Yo, Jimmy,” I called, after he passed the jukebox. “We’re not going to do this dance again, are we?”

  “No, ma’am,” he mumbled, rubbing his fingers.

  I realized, as he walked out into the night, that he hadn’t left me a tip. That’s okay. I’d given him one that he would be smart to remember.

  Dallas smiled like a proud papa. “Nicely done, Allie Cat.”

  Hank Bowers’ eyes opened wide. “I know you. You’re Charlie Nighthawk’s kid. That…that…body snatcher.”

  And…busted. Thanks, butt munch. “It’s corpse whisperer.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you on the news. You’re a badass. Drilling zombies and raising the dead. Damn, Dallas. A real celebrity, working here in The Blue Note.”

  Dallas turned to me in silence.

  “That’s only for the police and only part-time,” I said, struggling for a conversational tone. “When I’m not working here. Which reminds me, I may have to leave early, from time to time, you know, if my…services are required. That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, this doesn’t change anything?”

  Dallas didn’t answer.

  I swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. “I still have a job, right?”

  He rubbed his chin and sighed. “Yeah. You still got a job. You’re a damn good barkeep, and you can handle yourself better than any man I ever saw. We’ll figure it out.”

  He glanced at the Budweiser wall clock. It was almost ten-thirty, and the place was deserted. “I think we’ve had about as much fun for one night as we can stand. Go on home and get some sleep. See you back tomorrow night, eight to midnight.”

  He counted out seventy-five dollars from the till, for seven and a half hour’s work. Then he handed me an extra ten for “putting Jimmy in his place.”

  I shoved the money into my pocket, along with the thirty I’d collected in tips, and promised to return Friday. The January wind buffeted my face as I steered my Lowrider through the sleepy Cincinnati streets toward home. My phone went off in the pocket of my jeans, surprising the shit out of me. I pulled over to take the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Nighthawk? Harry Delk, here. I’m a shield with CPD. We’ve got a rotter sighting. Meet me at the Third Street viaduct, ASAP.”

  “We have a case, as in you and me? Or we have a case as in I’m helping you guys out?”

  “Oh.” The pregnant pause that followed didn’t bode well. “I’m your new partner. Didn’t Cap tell you?”

  Oh, hell no.

  “See you in twenty,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  Partner? What partner? Nobody said anything about a partner.

  4

  Headbutt

  This was the second Zombie sighting at the Third Street viaduct in two days. It was safe to say we’d uncovered a biter hole. I pulled up to the curb cursing under my breath, pissed because I’d been saddled with a partner. The cursing grew louder when I got a load of Harry Delk. No pun intended.

  The guy was more round than tall, mid-fifties maybe. His stomach dunlapped his checked, polyester pants and strained against the buttons of his shirt, threatening to launch them at any time. What little hair he had was gray and swept to the side in a comb-over. His eyes looked tiny and trapped behind a pair of thick, black-framed glasses, and his cheeks were covered with a salt and pepper (mostly salt) three-day stubble.

  Great. Ancient, nearly blind, and super-sized. Just the kind of partner everyone wants. But to be fair, I don’t do partners to begin with. All they do is cause me agita, slow me down and get in the way.

  Cap would hear about this.

  I climbed off my Harley, sucked in a breath, and counted to ten. It might as well have been four-hundred; I was still going to be pissed when I finished counting.

  “Harry Delk,” he said, sticking out his pudgy hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” I strode past him toward the darkened recesses beneath the viaduct. The smell of piss and sweat stung my nose.

  Harry called from behind. “A couple of badges called it in about a half-hour ago. Single biter. When they shined a light on the sucker, it shuffled back into the dark.”

  “Shuffled, you say.”

  “Shuffling isn’t good, is it?”

  “No, it’s not,” I said, wondering how he knew that. “If shuffle is an accurate description of its gait, we need to stay on our toes. Freshies don’t shuffle. Neither do flesh-eaters, biters that turned less than a couple of months ago. But corpsicles—”

  “Shuffle,” Harry said. “They’re the seniors of the zombie population. We’ll probably smell them before we see them.”

  What do you know? Harry had done his homework.

  “You coming?” I asked, fixing him in the beam of my flashlight. “We’re not going to find this thing under a streetlight.”

  I figured if Tubby couldn’t keep up, I’d leave his ass in the dust and handle this myself.

  Why is it, every time I make a judgment call, the brain bitch plays armchair quarterback? Don’
t you dare leave him behind! He has no clue what he’s up against.

  His footfalls faded behind me as I trudged on, silently scolding Little Allie and telling her to take a hike. I peered through the rubble beneath the bridge, shining my flashlight side to side, and up and down. Nothing unusual. Until a shot rang out. I sprinted back and found a corpsicle lying flat on its back, maybe ten yards from Delk, with a perfectly centered hole between its eyes.

  “Case closed,” Harry said, holstering his .38.

  “Did you get lucky or have you been holding out on me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How’d you know to shoot that rotter in the head? Nobody else around here has a clue about wrangling zombies.”

  “I’ve worked these streets at night for thirty years. I’ve seen some shit, let me tell you. Did a little research. Pulled a few strings. That’s why I’m working with you now.”

  “You sandbagged me, Harry.”

  “Only a little.”

  A biter lurched from the darkness and grabbed Harry’s shoulder. He tried to shake it off, but lost his balance and fell, kicking at the meatbag’s face as it inched closer. It opened its jaws and dove for his calf. Lucky for Harry, the only thing that biter had a chance to taste was the lead I fired from Hawk — my custom 9mm, semi-auto Nighthawk.

  What else would I carry?

  Harry, flat on his back, looked up and nodded. “Nice shot,” like we were comparing targets at the range.

  I bent down to help him to his feet when a low growl hummed behind me. I spun around and sucked in a breath at the sight of a dog with its teeth clamped onto the leg of another zombie that had shambled onto the scene. If the dog hadn’t growled, I’d have never known the biter was coming. The dog held the rotter in place and I took the shot.

  That made three corpsicles in one night, plus the freshie from the night before.

  After clearing the rest of the viaduct, making sure there weren’t other rotters lurking, I returned to Harry, who had scrambled to his feet, rubbing his knee. The dog trotted over and sat beside him, and I got my first good look at the pup. A hefty male bulldog, unbitten, its coat matted with mud and muck. No collar. No tags. And the nails of a gargoyle. The mangy mutt smelled worse than the corpsicles we’d just put down. More than likely a stray.

  Take him home, Little Allie whispered. You owe that dog. He saved your life.

  For the first time in my life, the brain bitch and I agreed on something.

  “You okay to walk?” I asked Harry.

  “Yeah. Just sore is all. I got more grit than you’d think by looking at me.”

  “No shit.”

  “You…ah…you saved my life just now,” he said. “I owe you one.”

  “Forget about it. But…if you really want to thank me, put the dog in your back seat and take him to my house.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you owe me.”

  “It’s not your dog.”

  “It’s a stray.”

  “It’s dirty and it stinks. You take it home.”

  “I drive a Harley, Harry. Where am I going to put him? On my lap?”

  Harry sighed. “Fine. Whatever. But then we’re square. C’mon, boy. Let’s follow your new master home.”

  “No. You do the paperwork for this little soiree, and then we’re square.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’ll do. For now.”

  Harry followed me home, got out of his car, and strolled up my sidewalk with the bulldog trailing behind him. When I opened the door, the dog trotted inside like he owned the place.

  “Thanks for dropping him off,” I said. “Oh, and for doing the paperwork.”

  “No problem. I can do it in my sleep after all these years. See you next time.”

  The smartass in me would have told him fat chance, because I didn’t need or want a partner. But the hunter in me figured he’d earned a shot.

  “Yeah. See you next time.”

  The good news was that I had $115 dollars in my pocket which I didn’t have earlier. The bad news was that I still had the same two packs of noodles and ketchup soup to eat. I fixed it all, thinking I’d go to the store in the morning. Then I fed it to the dog. He needed it more than me.

  “Guess I know where my tip money’s going,” I said, scratching him beneath his chin.

  My hand came away filthy, so I filled up the tub and scrubbed him down several times. I wasn’t sure that he’d ever had a bath, and was even less sure he enjoyed it, but he endured it without complaint.

  I toweled him off, cleaned the tub, and then took my own shower. When I stepped back out of the bathroom, the dog was sound asleep on the kitchen furnace vent, letting the hot air blow against his skin. Smart dog. Strong, too. And loyal. A survivor — like me.

  I sat beside him on the floor, brushed my hand against his soft clean fur and whispered. “Thanks for saving me out there tonight. You’re a good dog and a kickass zombie hunter. How’d you like to stick around, huh?”

  With that, he lurched from the floor to lick my face and accidentally headbutted me.

  “That’s enough love for one night,” I said, rubbing my forehead.

  He settled back down on the register and fell asleep. I turned off the lights, lay down on my still bare mattress and pulled a top sheet over me. As I drifted off to sleep, I was struck with a flash of inspiration.

  I would name my zombie-hunting dog Headbutt.

  5

  More of a Shudder, Really

  My phone rang at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. Cap asked me to be at the Medical Examiner’s office by 8:00 a.m. to raise someone named Veronica Henry, who’d been murdered overnight. Apparently, she had called in to CPD the day before, claiming to have dirt on someone she refused to identify. She had gotten cagey and refused to discuss the specifics over the phone, so CPD scheduled a meeting with her for three this afternoon.

  That was one appointment Veronica Henry wouldn’t be keeping.

  CPD hadn’t found any trace evidence at the murder scene, and by the time the body was discovered, any potential witnesses were long gone. Cap had enough stones to call the DA at a quarter ’til five and beg an unscheduled meeting for seven-thirty. Harry would handle the meeting. He’d be requesting a raising order, giving me the right to raise the corpse for investigative purposes. Once he got the order, he’d join me at the ME’s office.

  That gave me less than two hours to get my ass in gear, shower, dress and grocery shop for the cheapest food capable of sustaining life, both human and dog. I couldn’t carry much on my Harley, but it didn’t really matter. $115 wouldn’t buy a hell of a lot anyway.

  I bought my usual staples: peanut butter, bread, Doritos and a big-ass bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Headbutt ended up with a red rubber ball, dog treats, and a fifty-pound sack of corn, wheat gluten and meat by-products. In an emergency, we could share.

  I arrived at the ME’s office fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, ready, willing and able. Harry hadn’t arrived yet, so I took a seat in the lobby and waited for him, thinking, “This shouldn’t take long.”

  As is often the case, I was wrong.

  8:00 a.m. came and went. By 8:45 a.m. there was still no sign of Harry. I stood and stretched, then wandered over to the window and glanced down at the street hoping to spot Harry’s Crown Vic. No such luck. Damn it, Harry. Hurry up.

  An older, white-bearded guy wearing scrubs emerged from the morgue and stared at me, as if I were a new breed of insect. “Nighthawk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doctor, actually. Dr. Blanchard. I’m the ME. Where’s your raising order?”

  “I’m waiting for Harry Delk to bring it.”

  Blanchard breathed in deeply and exhaled through his nose. “We need to get this show on the road. My drawers are full, and I need the table space.”

  The ME wasn’t a happy man. My phone rang and I yanked it from my pocket, happy for the reprieve. It was Harry, thank God. I signaled Blanchard to
hold on and walked outside to take the call.

  “Harry, where’s our order?”

  “We didn’t get it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The DA refused to take our request to the judge. He said we don’t have cause to raise — that she was just another hooker, and hookers get murdered all the time. He mentioned the words ‘fishing expedition’ and said that, by law, the testimony of the undead is inadmissible as evidence anyway. And that if her family raised a stink, there’d be a ton of bad press. He didn’t want any of part of it.”

  Fucking turdball. Whose side was the DA on, anyway? He knew the law better than I did. If a coroner deemed a raising necessary to prove cause of death, or if law enforcement required a raising for a felony investigation, no permission was required from the next of kin.

  I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “What are our options?”

  “We could approach the judge ourselves, but without the DA’s support, we’d likely be spitting in the wind.”

  “What about the Feds?”

  “No way. You know what their mantra is? ‘It’s not under their jurisdiction.’” Harry’s tone turned dry. “We can always wait for a new DA.”

  “Bullshit. This is ridiculous.”

  The door opened behind me and Doc Blanchard emerged. Apparently, he had been watching through the window.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The DA won’t request our order. Says we’re fishing.”

  It was Doc’s turn to go ballistic. “This is a freaking waste of time. I’m the ME, damn it. My duty is to extract all obtainable evidence from a corpse to determine the cause of death. That shouldn’t take a fucking act of Congress.”

  “You know what? You’re right,” I said, opening the door to the morgue and ushering Doc inside. “Let’s do this. Better get here fast, Harry. Things are about to get interesting.”

  Harry arrived within minutes.

  Veronica Henry lay on the ME’s table covered by a sheet, her tawny skin and tan lines still visible, even in death. She’d been tall, with endless legs, willowy arms, and long auburn hair. Elegant looking. As a high-priced call girl, those attributes had no doubt served her well.