halfway through an article on black superheroes in comics and wanted to finish it before Dez came out. Not that she would jab him for reading such an ethnic-specific magazine — after all, she had every one of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVDs, and there was nothing whiter than that stuff — it’s just that Dez tended to bust on JT for his love of comics. JT was pretty sure that Dez had never been a kid.
Donny Sampson, who owned a tractor parts store on Mason Street, came out of the store with a blueberry Slurpee in one hand and a Coke Slurpee in the other. He was laughing out loud, and JT guessed that it was one of Dez’s jokes. Donny always liked a filthy story, and Dez was a walking encyclopedia of them. Donny saw JT and saluted with a Slurpee cup; JT gave him a nod.
Dez was taking her damn time, so he settled back, but instead of reading the magazine he laid it in his lap and stared through the windshield at the closed door of Pinky’s, thinking about Dez. They were often paired for patrol and, since neither of them had family living close, they usually did Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Super Bowl together. Nothing romantic, of course; JT was old enough to be her father, and she was very much like a niece to him. Maybe a daughter if she would pull the goddamn Democratic voting-booth lever at least once before the world went all to hell. In his way, JT loved her. Felt protective of her. She was tough, though. She laid a pretty comprehensive minefield between her and the rest of the world. The rest of the guys in the department hated and feared her in equal measures.
Dez was a very good cop, better than a small-town police department deserved, but she wasn’t a very nice person. Well, maybe that was unfair. She was damaged goods, which isn’t the same thing as being bad natured. That, and she was way too deeply entrenched in the nihilistic and often self-defeating mentality of rural small town America. She cursed like a pirate, drank like a Viking, and screwed the kind of people the two of them usually arrested — providing they were well built, well hung, and in no way interested in any species of “committed relationship,” especially since the last time she broke up with Billy Trout.
That was a damn shame, too. Billy Trout and Dez had grown up together and had been a hot item more times than JT could count. They were never able to make it work, which frustrated JT because he knew — even if they were both too damaged to see — that the two of them had real magic together. JT never liked to use a phrase like “soul mates,” but he couldn’t find a better label. Shame they were like gasoline and matches whenever they were together. All of the guys Dez dragged to her lair were clones of Billy; but saying so to Dez would be exactly the same as saying “Shoot me.”
So, instead of a lover, Dez Fox had a partner. A middle-aged black man from Pittsburgh with a college degree in criminal justice and a set of well-used manners that had been hardwired into him by his librarian mother. Dez, on the other hand, was pure backcountry Pennsylvania; a blue-eyed blonde who could have been a model for fitness equipment if not for what JT personally viewed as an overactive redneck gene.
The radio buzzed. “Unit Four, what’s your status?”
JT lifted the handset and clicked the Send key. “Dispatch, I’m code six at Pinky’s. You got something for me, Flower?”
Flower Martini, twenty-eight-year-old daughter of love generation boomers, was the dispatcher, secretary, booking photographer, and court stenographer for the Stebbins County Department of Public Safety. She looked like Taylor Swift might look if her career took a sharp downward turn past a long line of seedy country and western bars. She was still cute as a button, and JT was pretty sure she had her eye on him, age and race differences notwithstanding.
“Yeah,” said Flower, “Looks like a possible break-in at Hartnup’s Transition Estate.”
She overpronounced the name, giving it a nice blend of wry appreciation and tacit disapproval. The Hartnup family had been morticians in town for generations, but in the mideighties, during the New Age inrush, the son, Lee, had given the place a makeover. Changed the name from Hartnup’s Funeral Home to the trendier “Transition Estate.” Nondenominational services and a lot of Enya music. It actually sparked a rise in business that drew families from as far as Pittsburgh. Now, with the New Age covered in dust, the name was a local punch line. People still died, though, and the Hartnups still prettied them up and put them in the ground.
“Cleaning lady called from the mortuary office,” said Flower. “Witness is a non-English speaker. All I could get was the location and that something was wrong with the back door. No other details, sorry. You want backup?”
“Dez is with me.”
“Copy that.”
There were only two units on the road at any one time despite the size of the county. Unit One was reserved for Chief Goss and Unit Three was in reserve.
“We’ll investigate and call in if we need backup.”
“Respond Code Two. Proceed with caution … JT.” There was the slightest pause between “caution” and his name, and JT thought he heard Flower start to say “Hon—.” She called him “honey” off the radio all the time and was constantly getting yelled at by the chief. She was the mayor’s sister, and it was more than the chief’s job was worth to fire her.
“Roger that.”
JT clicked off and then tapped the dashboard button to give the siren a single “
“What’s the call?” she asked, looking irritated that police work was interfering with the ritual of caffeine and carbs. JT knew that it was sacred to her.
“Possible break-in at Doc Hartnup’s place.”
“Who the fuck would want to break into a mortuary?”
“Probably a drunk. Even so, I could use some backup.”
“Yeah … let’s do ’er, Hoss … But lights, no sirens though, okay? My head’s held together with duct tape right now.”
“Won’t make a sound,” he promised.
Dez reached in and took the bag back and carried it with her to her cruiser.
“Hey!” JT yelled. She gave him the finger again. When she looked back, JT stuck his tongue out at her and Dez cracked up, then winced and pressed a hand to her head.
“Owwww.”
JT leaned out the window. “Ha!” he yelled.
A few seconds later Dez blew out of the parking lot in a spray of gravel. She hit the blacktop, punched the red and blue lights, and the big engine roared as she rocketed north on Doll Factory Road. JT sighed, snugged his coffee into the holder, and followed at a discreet seventy miles per hour.
CHAPTER SIX
The old doctor sat on a hard wooden chair in the kitchen and stared at the phone. The call from the warden at Rockview Prison — where the old man worked as the chief medical officer — had been brief. Simply the warden conveying an interesting bit of information. Six words stood out from that conversation.
“We transferred his body this morning.”
Those six words, so casually spoken, were like knives in the doctor’s chest.
Forcing his voice to sound calm, forcing himself not to scream, the doctor had asked for, and been given, the names and phone numbers of the mortician who had arrived to take the body and the relative of the deceased who had made the arrangements. A relative the doctor had not known existed. No one had known. There were not supposed to be any relatives. The corpse was supposed to go into the ground after the execution. It was supposed to be in the ground now.
“Oh my god,” the doctor whispered.
