He chuckled. “That’s exactly why I need an elf-sized partner.”
“Yeah, well you won’t catch me making toys or cookies.” I tried to dust myself off then gave up. This whole place was so filthy I was only rearranging the dirt and sending it up into choking clouds. I wanted badly to put on my jacket, but I didn’t want to get it messed up, either from dirt or bodily fluids. “How the hell did anyone know there was a dead guy in there?” I asked.
“This place just got bought, and workmen came in to do some cleanup and construction.” He gave a sweeping gesture at “this place.” We were in a factory on the banks of the Kreeger River just south of Tucker Point. In fact, the building was literally on the edge of the river, forming part of the seawall, and the straight drop had surprised me when I’d dared to peek out a window. Supposedly, it had been some sort of big-time car manufacturing plant in the 1920s or 30s and had then been any number of other things, including a warehouse, a movie studio, a factory again—this time for military vehicles—and then some sort of shipping facility. It had been rebuilt and renovated each time, which meant that it was now a bizarre mix of old and new, with nothing really fitting together properly and whole areas that didn’t seem to connect to anything else. I’d had to walk through a defunct office section to get to this portion of the warehouse, and while nothing about a dead body could freak me out anymore, the peeling paint, abandoned office furniture, and broken windows had given me the godawful willies. I figured if zombies could be real, then there was nothing to say that ghosts couldn’t be too.
“Anyway,” he said, “the workmen smelled something funny. One of the guys was convinced it was more than just a dead rat and called the cops.”
I nodded. There was something about “dead human” smell that was different than “dead rodent” smell.
“Cops could smell it too,” Derrel went on, “so they called out Marianne and her cadaver dog. The dog went right to that spot in the floor and stared down at it. Bingo.”
“Cool,” I said, keeping my voice neutral as I scanned the warehouse for the petite woman and her dog. I spied her sitting on the steps to what had probably once been the foreman’s office. I quickly looked away before she could see me looking at her and make eye contact. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to her yet. What the hell was I supposed to say?
Derrel frowned at the opening in the floor, seemingly oblivious to my angst about Marianne. “Just wish I could figure out why the hell this guy decided to climb through there.”
“Stealing copper, probably,” I said.
He turned to me, lifted an eyebrow.
I grinned. “Not that I would know anything about any sort of larceny—” I chose to ignore his amused snort. “—but copper is pretty damn valuable, and I bet this guy was trying to use the tunnels to get into one of the closed-off sections in case there was any scrap metal he could go through.”
Derrel pursed his lips and nodded. “It’s amazing the things I learn from you.”
“I’m full of useless knowledge.”
Now was the time for people with more brawn than I to take care of dismantling the floor. I stepped back and found a spot to wait that wasn’t in too many shadows, then had to bite back on a squeal as a hand came down on my shoulder. I spun to see Detective Ben Roth standing beside me.
He gave me a grin. “Damn, Angel, when are you going to put some meat on your bones?”
“When you make me a sandwich, bitch,” I retorted as I worked to get my pulse under control.
He snorted. “It wouldn’t help. I’ve seen you eat. You must have the metabolism of a goddamn hummingbird.” He grinned and patted the spare tire at his waist. “I’m more of a penguin myself. But, hey, this penguin can bench his bodyweight and pass the departmental PT test with flying colors.”
“And eat an entire muffaletta in one sitting,” I added.
“I excel at the important things!”
“Yeah, well, I’d kill to have something resembling curves,” I said, patting my nonexistent ass. The main reason I could stuff my face all I wanted was because, as far as I knew, I couldn’t get fat. And not because of an amazing metabolism, either. Okay, that was probably part of it, but some of it was due to the fact that I wasn’t—technically—alive.
He chuckled and dropped his hand, but then his expression grew more sober. “I guess you’ve heard about Ed?” he asked.
“Marcus told me earlier this week.” I did my best to keep my expression neutral with maybe a touch of “damn that’s fucked up” in it.
Ben blew out his breath. “I guess I should be glad that we have such a strong lead on who the murderer is, but it doesn’t do us much good with him still in the wind.”
I gave a cautious nod. “You think maybe he’s in the area?”
“Nah. I think he’s long gone.” He grimaced. “Marcus is taking it hard though.”
My gaze drifted to where the deputy stood on the other side of the long room. Marcus Ivanov looked like he’d stepped from the pages of an ad for “Hot Russian Men!” if such an ad existed. Dark hair and eyes, tall with just the right amount of muscle and barely an ounce of spare fat. But beyond the awesome good looks, right now he looked like one would expect a man to look who’d recently found out that his best friend was most likely one of the most notorious serial killers this area had ever experienced: shattered, maintaining a tough façade, determined to get through the whole ordeal with the help of his friends and coworkers.
I had to hide a smile. Deputy Marcus Ivanov deserved an Oscar for the performance he was giving.
Two weeks ago Marcus’s best friend, Ed Quinn, had disappeared during their annual hunting trip. At least that’s the story Marcus had given the authorities when the two of us returned to town. The reality was quite a bit harsher. Ed was a zombie hunter who’d been methodically hunting down zombies and chopping their heads off. After discovering that Marcus and I were also zombies, he’d tried to kill us as well. I’d saved Marcus’s life and defeated Ed…and then gave Ed a choice: he could run, or I could eat him. Well, eat his brain. And I probably wouldn’t have actually killed him and eaten any part of him, but Ed hadn’t known that.
Needless to say, he’d decided to run. Marcus and I did our best to make it look like the two men had become separated in the woods, and then we returned to civilization and dutifully reported Ed missing. It probably hadn’t been the best possible plan, but it was the best we’d been able to come up with considering the circumstances.
The one part of it that we’d both hated was the fact that a search party would have to be organized, and we’d have to play along with it while money and resources were spent on a pointless search. But at the last minute providence smiled upon us. Before the first man-hour could be wasted tromping through the woods, activity was discovered on Ed’s credit cards. Moreover, surveillance video clearly showed him at a local sporting goods store purchasing camping and hunting equipment as well as an eyebrow-lifting amount of ammunition.
At that point the entire thing had been viewed as out of character for Ed, but the authorities had no choice but to simply shrug and chalk it up to a possible early mid-life crisis. After all, there was nothing illegal about a grown man suddenly deciding to go on an extended camping or hunting trip. But a few days ago an anonymous caller tipped off the cops that Ed was responsible for the recent series of decapitation murders. Within no time at all search warrants were obtained, and incriminating evidence in the form of bloodied clothing was found in his apartment.