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But I’d been craving brains. The smell was like chocolate and cookies and biscuits and gravy and everything else that was delicious. It damn near drove me crazy every time I had to touch one. I’d been fighting the cravings the way I’d never fought the urge to take drugs or get drunk.
As if to taunt me, my stomach chose that moment to snarl again. Stop it! I silently wailed. I ripped the packet of Pop-Tarts open with my teeth and ate them as quickly as I could, even though they were so stale and tasteless it was like eating cardboard. Maybe the uppers I’d taken would help. They’d always done a good job of killing my appetite in the past, so hopefully they’d help kill this screwed up hunger.
Or maybe I just needed crazy-meds instead.
If you crave it, eat it. I shook my head. I’d gotten comfy with the thought that this job was a substitute for rehab, but this letter threw that completely out of whack. Why on earth would it ever be all right to give in to that?
No. It didn’t make sense. It had to be referring to something else. A dull anger began to form in my gut. Why the hell couldn’t Anonymous Letter Guy simply tell me what the hell was going on?
I struggled to put the whole craziness out of my head as I focused on getting to the scene in a timely manner. Fortunately the van had a GPS which efficiently guided me to the address Derrel had texted—a one-story brick house in the sort of upper middle-class neighborhood I’d once hoped to live in. An ambulance and a police car occupied the driveway, and a black Dodge Durango with the Coroner’s Office logo on the side was parked at the curb behind a maroon Ford Taurus with so many lights in the windows and antennas on the back that it was screamingly obvious it belonged to a detective. Why the hell did they call them “unmarked” cars when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it was a police car?
I pulled in behind the Durango, but paused before getting out and surreptitiously slathered more deodorant into my pits. I could still smell myself. It wasn’t overpowering or anything, but I couldn’t seem to shake the faint whiff of yuck—the same kinda sickly, almost sweet, rotting flesh smell of a decomposing body. I was also so hungry I was ready to eat the damn steering wheel, and the Pop-Tarts hadn’t made the slightest difference. It didn’t feel as if the pills had kicked in at all, which was really strange since I could usually count on feeling the effect within about ten minutes, and it had easily been half an hour.
I hurried up to the house, kicking myself for not bringing more pills with me. Though, with my luck, I’d take more and then overdose again, I thought with a sigh.
The stupid clawing hunger had me so distracted I didn’t even see the low step in front of the house. I tripped and only a sudden strong grip on my arm saved me from a humiliating sprawl.
“Careful there,” a deep voice murmured
I clutched at the hand on my arm as I struggled for enough balance to stand on my own. “Thanks, man,” I said with an embarrassed grimace. I got my feet under me, looked up. And froze. A cop. Shit, it’s a cop.
He released me and stepped back while I fought down the stupid instinctive flare of alarm that shot through me. After two weeks on the job and a few dozen death scenes I should’ve been used to running into cops all the time, but this was the first time I’d been up close and personal with one. Besides, this cop was kinda hot. I didn’t usually go for the men-in-uniform type, but he rocked it. There was no spare fat on this guy. His hair and eyes were both dark, but he didn’t look Italian or Arabic or anything like that. I took a quick glance at his nametag. M. Ivanov. Was that Russian? That would explain—
My thoughts came to a screeching halt. Ivanov. Shit. Marcus Ivanov. This was the cop who’d arrested me for that stolen Prius.
I could feel my face heating. “I, um, need to get inside,” I quickly muttered, avoiding eye contact.
“Of course,” Deputy Ivanov replied. He gave me a neutral smile, then continued on past me and headed toward his car. He hadn’t recognized me. I gave a small sigh of relief, even as a wistful little twinge shot through me. What the hell had I been so worried about? I wasn’t the sort of chick guys like that remembered, and certainly never in a good way.
I pushed aside my stupid disappointment and continued on in, stepping out of the way of the paramedics as they carried gear back to the ambulance. Their presence was routine. Unless a body had very obviously been dead for a while, it was standard to have them run an EKG strip to make absolutely certain the person was solidly dead. I was starting to get the hang of all the various procedures involved when someone died. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before. I mean, who really wants to, other than maybe deciding whether you wanted to be buried or cremated?
I waited patiently inside near the front door and tried to ignore my churning gut while I did my best to stay out of the way. Detective Roth stood near the entrance to the kitchen while he talked on his phone. A curvy blonde woman wearing fatigue pants and a shirt with SEPSO Crime Scene printed across the back was crouched by the wall as she carefully packed a camera into a bag. More procedure. Unless someone was under hospice care or in a hospital or nursing home, a detective and a crime scene tech were dispatched to investigate and process the scene. Though I’d already learned that, unless it was clearly foul play, “investigate” meant that the detective took down the decedent’s information and then referred to the coroner’s report; and “process” meant that the crime scene tech took pictures of the scene and the body.
But I guess that makes sense, I thought. Going all out on every dead body would get to be a pain in the butt and a waste of time pretty fast.
I snorted. Look at me, being all understanding about cops. Who’d have thought that would ever happen?
I leaned against the wall, watched as Derrel spoke in soft and comforting tones to the dead man’s wife. For all his imposing size and looks, Derrel had a way of dealing with family and loved ones that was nothing short of a gift. I could hear him gently inquiring about her husband’s medical history and what medications he was on. From what I could overhear it sounded as if the guy had a history of heart disease and had died in his sleep.
I slid further in and peeked down the hall. The bedroom door was open, and I could see the dead man lying on his back in the bed, the sticky pads from the paramedics’ equipment still stuck to him in various spots on his body. He didn’t look very old, maybe in his fifties or so, which meant that he’d be brought in for autopsy—which was why I was here. A geezer in his eighties with a bad heart probably wouldn’t be autopsied unless he had a few bullet holes in him or a knife sticking out of his chest.
I stepped back as one of the paramedics returned. “Forgot my stethoscope,” he explained with a smile as he continued on in to the bedroom. He came back out with it in his hand, then paused in front of me, a slight frown creasing his brow. He looked faintly familiar but the “Quinn” on his nametag didn’t help me out. He was tall and slender, with reddish brown hair and a faint scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Not bad-looking at all. I’d probably met him on a different scene sometime in the past two weeks.
He continued to frown down at me. “Something wrong?” I asked, oddly nervous that I’d screwed up somehow.
His expression abruptly cleared, and he gave me a broad smile. “I knew I’d seen you before. You’re looking a lot better now.”
My expression must have echoed the What the hell? going through my head because he chuckled and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m Ed Quinn. I . . . uh,” he lowered his voice. “I worked on you a couple of weeks ago when you were found out on Sweet Bayou Road.”
I could feel my face heating in embarrassment. Found dying of an overdose. “Oh. Great.” Then I grimaced. “I mean, thanks, y’know.”
His smile abruptly shifted to a look of chagrin. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
I shrugged, trying to appear casual. “It’s cool. That’s behind me now.”
“Good to hear.” His gaze swept over me, pausing briefly on the Coroner’s Office logo on my shirt. I could see the question forming in his eyes: How the hell had I managed to land this job? I struggled to think of something plausible but to my relief he seemed to sense my discomfort and left the question unasked. “Well, I gotta run,” he said, glancing toward the door. “Take care of yourself.”
I gave him a nod and a forced smile as he headed out. As soon as he was gone I blew my breath out and leaned back against the wall. Awkward. First the cop who’d arrested me, then the paramedic who’d kept me from accidentally killing myself. I didn’t even want to think what a third thing might be.
