Father of the Deceased Read online

  Another flash.

  That was enough. She jumped out of her sleeping bag and tested the cellar door that led to the outside, locked. She crept up the stairs and listened for voices; silence. No light streamed around cracks. The knob turned, but the door budged only a little, a hook and eye latch held the door from the other side. Rhoda screamed then, but her mother didn’t come and her father was on a hunting trip with her uncle Brian.

  She banged and banged, after a while she gave up and sat pressed against the door. There was no way she could sleep in that room with those mechanical maniacs, her mind moved them across the floor. Creeping their way to a meal of flesh.

  She shuddered and sobbed. “Help me! They’re all alive!”

  The hours drudged on and her throat grew hoarse.

  Morning. Her mother opened the door. Rhoda spilled out on the floor as she was leaning against the barrier. She looked up at Edi. Edi had a scowl and tugged the girl to her feet.

  Rhoda swung hard, connecting squarely on her mother’s cunt. Edi woofed backward and the girl tore out of the house, running. She spent the entire day wandering the property, in her mind thinking her mother would have learned her lesson if she thought her daughter ran away. Rhoda returned home to find the place dark.

  Inside. She switched the lights, fixed herself a sandwich and called out for her mother. There was no answer and thinking she was in the clear, she ate a stack of Mr. Christie’s chocolate chip cookies.

  “Well, look who it is?” Edi said, mocking the girl with slurred sarcasm. “Here I thought you moved out.”

  Rhoda sneered at her mother; she hadn’t missed her at all.

  “Bedtime,” Edi said, it was well after nine.

  Rhoda got up from the couch and headed toward the staircase and Edi grabbed her by the arm, nails digging in with such force as to break surface. The smell of wine was heavy on the woman’s breath.

  “No, Mommy, please,” Rhoda cried as her mother dragged her toward the basement door.

  “You will never get over your stupidity unless you face your fear. I won’t have a stupid daughter. You can sleep in your bed once you get over it.”

  Rhoda wailed on her mother, aiming once again for the soft spot. Edi edged her along, taking all the shots in the hip, no harm at all. Green indoor/outdoor carpet covered the stairs. Rhoda found the hard floor after a painful tumble. Up close, the furnace cover looked like a smiling face. A smiling, hungry face. Rhoda skidded her ass along the rug, the sound of the slamming door back-dropped her as her ass finally found bottom. She pitched up the steps on her hands and knees. She slammed her body against the door violently and did so as long as her muscles allowed it.

  Dizzy, muscles burning, she misjudged a step and crashed to the floor from the top of the staircase. The lights in her mind went black for six hours.

  Awake. Her arm was all pins and needles and her knees and back ached terribly. The refrigerator’s electricity kicked and flashed. Rhoda screamed.

  Within a second, she was at the top of the stairs, slamming her body against the door. The sleepy arm hung lazily and with one hit against the shoulder. The screams increased pitch and the sound hurt her ears, almost as if she couldn’t control them, as if someone or something else made the noise.

  Edi flung open the door after some time. “You little bugger,” she fumed, her eyes bloodshot and her skin pale.

  “Mommy!” Rhoda screamed holding her arm forward.

  A big gash on her forehead that had crusted over split and blood trickled.

  Edi’s eyes-widened and she ran upstairs. “You need to go to the hospital. Sit down.”

  At the hospital Edi sensed trouble and leaned toward her daughter to whisper, “If you tell them I locked you in the basement you’ll never see your father again.”

  That night, Edi back into the wine, Rhoda under a fuzzy drug cloud, the pair sat at the table. Rhoda held three pills, the ones she was to take after supper.

  “Are you over your fear?”

  “Yes, Mommy, I’m not scared anymore.”

  “Liar.” Edi grabbed onto the injured arm.

  Rhoda didn’t fight. It hurt too much. She trailed tiptoeing to ease the pressure. The three pills were still in her good hand and stepped into the basement and the door slammed behind her. The furnace and refrigerator smiled again and crept forward, they always seemed to be inching forward, remaining that way unless she looked at them, but she couldn’t watch both of them all the time. She looked to the grimy white inverted U and then at the boxy green monster with the grated rectangular smile and then to the top of the stairs.

  There were devils on both floors.

  Rhoda had only one hope. She clamped her fingers over that hope, three little hopes really. Treading carefully, she walked to within a couple feet of the refrigerator. She’d never been able to dry swallow pills, they always got stuck and they always came back.

  A big chrome arm jutted out of the body of the whitish surface of the refrigerator. Rhoda couldn’t bring herself to touch it with her hand and tried to wedge a broom behind the handle. It took a few attempts as she had only one hand and the chrome arm was stiff and old. With a guttural groan, pulling with all her might the door swung open. The broom handle still trapped behind the handle as if the chrome arm was actually meaning to latch onto something. A cool breeze flowed into the warm atmosphere and she gazed through the glow.

  Beer and wine. She reached in as quickly as she could. The door swung back closed and hit her back, reeling her into the gaping mouth of the beast. She screamed and beer cans rolled onto the floor. Leaping backwards and landing hard on her tailbone, she watched the door close. She dropped her pills and they sat on the floor only inches from the refrigerator.

  With her feet stretched and bare, she gathered the pills in her toes. A can of beer rested next to her side. She popped the pills and cracked the can open. Foam shot out in a sticky white fountain, she slammed her mouth over it, sucking back as quickly as she could. She choked. Bubbles stung her throat and shot from her nose, two pills wedging themselves in her sinus.

  Fighting off a scream, she drank greedily willing the pills to fall back down. After only a couple minutes, she felt better and picked up another can. Beer wasn’t so bad. Neither the refrigerator nor the furnace bothered her anymore and she lay down on her sleeping bag. It was softer than anything she could remember, softer than kittens, softer than bunnies.

  The next morning her mother woke her, didn’t mention the beer cans and didn’t speak again of locking the girl in the basement for many years. She eventually apologized, following the AA rules. Rhoda never forgave her mother, but pushed it out of her mind, as it was the one and only case of trauma from her childhood.

  Rhoda continued down her noiseless steps and found the kitchen light on. Maurice sat drinking coffee and puffing away on a cigarette, using an empty Mountain Dew can as an ash tray.

  “What in hell are you doing smoking? And in the house, what about Ru—?”

  “Tammy Watson is dead and someone might have dug up Rosalind,” Maurice said blank-faced, cutting off Rhoda’s barrage. “Someone could have done something to the body.” He shifted his dead eyes toward his wife. “She came to me, she’s in trouble and her tongue was gone. Then the building collapsed. Someone took pictures. Other people were there, Rosalind, Tammy. Oh God, Rosalind.”

  Rhoda couldn’t speak, didn’t understand. She sat.

  14

  A little piece of paper held the number of a man in need of the tongue. Ivan fidgeted with his wallet, his foot staying firmly to the floor of his car. After locating the number, he tapped it into his pay-as-you-go burner phone. It rang once and went to a nameless voicemail.

  “I have the required item. Provide location and date. I need to unload quickly. There was a complication,” Ivan said and closed the flip-phone.

  No more than ten seconds later, his phone beeped at him.

  “Hello.”

  “You have what I’ve asked?” The voice
gentle, but mannish, not at all what Ivan expected.

  “Yes, but there was an issue. Ah, dammit. Call me back, I have a problem.” Ivan hung up.

  A fake beard rested on his face, convincing to a point. His complexion appeared brown thanks to foundation makeup, also vaguely believable. The lights behind him demanded that he pull over. He replaced the I.D. in his wallet with one of him donning something close to his masquerade. A dead local man of Mexican lineage.

  The officer took his time checking the plates of Ivan’s car, no doubt finding the plates unregistered. Being as he hadn’t killed before, bigger issues stood before him than a simple theft. A man followed him and Ivan wondered how much the man saw.

  Bad luck, raw deal.

  Tap. Tap.

  Ivan rolled down his window. “Problem officer?” he asked, license and insurance card ready.

  The officer looked at the card and back toward Ivan. “Mr. Rollins, you were going thirty-two miles over the limit.”

  Ivan looked at the man, knowing that whatever came from his lips wasn’t going to do him any good.

  “No excuse?”

  “No, I am tired and want to get off the road.”

  “Your plates aren’t registered. I am going to need to check your car,” the officer said backing away from the door. “Please hand out your keys and get out, slowly, and stand on the line. Keep those hands in front of you, palms up.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ivan was suddenly feeling strange, separated from the situation, as if he wasn’t the only one in his body. He tried to stop his feet, to regain himself, but his body kept moving.

  The officer ducked into the empty backseat, finding nothing, moved to the front. He opened the glove box, maps, gloves, and napkins. Nothing special. Mentally, Ivan was breaking down, on the edge of grabbing the officer’s piece and keys and taking off down the highway, leaving behind him a corpse in blue.

  What was in his trunk was bad, but if he was lucky, the crime hadn’t yet brought around the attention, maybe knew he stole the tongue and the cop would find the thing in the truck to be nothing but a gag. A rubber tongue maybe, if he didn’t look too closely.

  The officer popped the trunk with the key. The little light revealed a score of digging equipment, replacement plates, and a small container holding a human tongue. He didn’t notice the tongue at first.

  “You a treasure hunter? What’s with the knives?”

  “Chef.”

  “And the extra plates? Planning on running somewhere?”

  “Not running, sir.”

  The officer continued his search and found the container. “What do we have in here?”

  The light was expanding his crime into full view and Ivan could see his freedom floating away. After a quick deduction, the officer stiffened and placed the baggy back into the container, and then back into the trunk. He nodded then and handed over the keys. He put everything back in Ivan’s trunk as it was and without saying a word, moving like a robot, he turned and returned to his car.

  Ivan stood dumbfounded and watched the officer drive away, watched the exhaust and the taillights float into nothingness. “What in hell?” he asked the empty road.

  The phone rang in the car and he raced to answer it.

  “Ivan.”

  “The officer is gone?” the man from before asked on the other end, his voice a little lower.

  “How did you know I was dealing with a cop?”

  “Mr. Radmanovic, that item you are carrying is very important, rare, and I need it here as soon as possible. You will bring it to me.”

  While working, Ivan never gave out his real name. The fact that somehow the man knew who he was and knew that an officer had been with him, made him cautious.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Quiet Mr. Radmanovic, the item belongs to me and now so do you until I have done what is needed done.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Go north. We need another piece.”

  “Into Michigan?”

  “And East.”

  “Into Canada?”

  “Very good, Mr. Radmanovic. Tomorrow evening the Bantam Family Circus is in the small city of Chatham. You will be there and we will find you. You will do so anyway, so do not force me to take over again.”

  Ivan felt something familiar invade his body and rest on his brain. He looked in the mirror, thinking he was losing it and then wondering if he had any choice in the matter. No, he didn’t wonder. There was no choice. He hopped out of his car, fetched a new plate, and threw the other into the ditch. The power in his veins throbbed and he worked without thought, as if controlled remotely like a child’s toy. The sensation was in his head, under his skin.

  He put the car into drive and headed toward Michigan.

  15

  A little after four in the morning, Lou drove into work after his ball called with a big bag of bad news. The air tightened in his collar and he picked up the phone, getting halfway through Maurice’s number and then slamming the phone back into its cradle, he wanted to call, but that would’ve been trouble.

  The sun shone through the window, hot and unforgiving, and he wished he could be somewhere else, Siberia, Antarctica, North Korea, anywhere but dealing with the situation. His handed rested on the phone, when the base began to ring.

  Deep breath. “Detective Hill here,” he said.

  “Lou, someone—”

  “Moe, my god man. I was about to call you, this is so fucked up. I haven’t been briefed beyond the basics, but we’ve got pictures and we’ll catch that sicko.”

  “Lou, why?”

  “We’ll get him, but you have to let us work. This case is too close to you, hell, too close to all of us, but we’ll get him.”

  “I know the rules, but some things are more important than the rules, so if I can’t help, you need to keep me in the loop, and I mean the immediate loop,” Maurice said his desperation spiraling along his spine with anger before it came through his teeth.

  “Cool it, we’ll get the guy and the story, but only if you’re scare. I’ll keep the facts fresh. But this is between us.”

  “Fine. Have anything yet, anything at all?”

  “Just the pics of the guy, they’re all in night vision, but his face is pretty clear. We’ve sent it out across the board and to the border patrols. We’ll get him.”

  “Send me the shots.”

  “Don’t have to. The photographer took his sweet time bringing them to us. Raw Daily posted everything. We are working on getting them taken down, but enough people are sharing them on social media to create a shithouse frenzy,” Lou said, happy that he could hand over information that had long broken a chain of command before he ever touched them.

  “Raw Daily, okay, thanks.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Rosalind’s body is going to be exhumed later this morning. We need to know if the perp did anything, but I know we’ll—”

  “How could he? My baby.” His emotions rode a teeter-totter with a playful elephant.

  “I know, but we’ve got to check out everything. If he did anything to the corpse,” Shit, why did I say that? “I mean Rosalind. We may get something from within the casket.”

  “I’m coming. What time?”

  “The hell you are.”

  “Fuck you, Lou. If that was your kid would you just stay home and, what, do nothing? No, you wouldn’t. So don’t give me any bullshit. I need to know. What time is this happening?” Anger drawn back. “Why? I mean, how could…?” Up down.

  “Not set for sure, but it sounds like once the light hits, we’ll bring her up. They dug it out to find the body last night, that Tammy girl. I guess in order to follow protocol, they couldn’t bring up Rosalind because a judge hasn’t given his go ahead. Judges don’t answer the phone until they get into the office. I’ll text you, but it won’t be for hours, so go back to bed.”

  —

  “Yeah, right,” Maurice said, hit the end call b
utton on his portable and threw the phone across the kitchen.

  If he found the man, then he’d go away for murder. After pouring another cup of coffee, Maurice began to pace. He needed to investigate. Rhoda eyed his quick footwork about her linoleum floor. An entire world of information wouldn’t come into consideration by the other officers.

  A world opened to him through dream and vision and Miss Bănică. He stopped, an unnerving look rode over his face. This was the look of action. Maurice ran to the living room to fetch a secondary receiver and dialed Lou’s extension. It rang twice before Lou picked up. “I need you to look up the home address of someone for me.”

  “Who?” Lou asked.

  “I don’t know the woman’s first name, but she goes by Miss Bănică, she has, she had a business by the pet store and the 7-Eleven a ten minute drive from my place, over on the corner of Oliver and Morning.”

  “Home you say? Why not go to the business in the morning?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “She closed it up huh?”

  “No. Disappeared, the thing caved into a hole in the ground. Gone.”

  “No shit. Okay. No Bănică in the directory.”

  “I can check the phonebook myself, Lou,” Maurice huffed.

  “I know, I was just thinking aloud. Her business license, if it’s recent enough, could be a matter of digital record. Nope, either she doesn’t have one or she has been in business before everything went digital. Oh wait, here we go. Last year, some kids broke in and smashed the place all to hell. Not much of a psychic if she didn’t see that coming. Thirteen-twenty-two Fraser Street. That’s off the North end of the Martin.”

  “I know where it is, thanks.” Maurice clicked off.