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“Never even crossed my mind,” Preacher said as he made the sign of the cross with his right hand.
“I need pictures,” Ice said in a hushed whisper as Preacher walked past him.
Once the two disappeared into the morgue, Ice went behind the desk, hoping old Gus had forgotten to lock the computer. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. A whoosh from the main door opening had him broadening his shoulders. Because he couldn’t get from behind the desk in time anyway, might as well eat the cookie since his hand was caught in the jar.
“I know I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,” Detective Nunez said, her eyes looking toward the ceiling as she shook her head.
“Yeah, who thought you could get mold in the desert,” Ice said, coming around the edge of the desk with his eyes skyward too. Only his were there to mock and not in utter frustration.
“Max,” she snarled a bit.
“You’re lucky my boys aren’t here, calling me my government name like we’re fuc—intimate lovers.” He caught himself because there was a bit of respect between the two of them. “Not that I’m opposed to that type of thing. I’m legal for you now and have been wondering why you like to play hard to get.”
“Maxwell,” she sniped, “why are you in the morgue and, more importantly, behind the desk?”
“Shadowing. I’m thinking about law enforcement, but there aren’t really mail rooms anymore, so what’s more ground floor than the morgue?”
“Where’s Gus?”
“Preacher wanted to give last rites to Misty,” Ice said. “Least he could do for the woman who gave him his first blow job. You know he’s the sentimental one of us. If you put on that Care Bears movie from the eighties, he cries like a—”
Another whoosh came from the other side as Preacher crashed into the back of Gus, who’d frozen the moment he saw Detective Nunez.
“Um, um, ma’am—”
“No.” Her finger cut through the air like a katana nearly cutting Gus in half. “No, there is no reason why a suspect is looking at the victim.”
“What the hell am I?” Preacher balked. “Nah, you ain’t putting that body on me, Detective.”
“Because of your connection.” Detective Nunez’s lips pursed and eyes narrowed.
Ice tilted his head to the side, praying his brother in arms would get the message.
“Deep, meaningful connection,” Preacher said as he stuck his hands in his pockets. “We good?”
“No, we’re not good, Ice,” Detective Nunez said, the shift in name noted. “You, me, in the interrogation room now. And your little—well, not so little, but your buddy can come enjoy Clark County’s finest coffee.”
“Wait, were you his second?” Ice teased. “Please say it was so. That means I have a chance.”
Any other person Nunez would have grasped by the back of the neck and angled out the door, size not a factor. The woman had no fear and should have been on the back of one of his brothers’ bikes. Instead, she tried her best to sort out the dead left around the city. What a waste.
“Now.” She pointed, and Ice, with Preacher in tow, made their way up to the squad room. It wasn’t as if they needed an escort or directions.
For Ice, courts, police stations, heck, even the Southern Desert Correctional Center, could be navigated blindly by him. Juvenile, adult, family, or civil court, he’d traversed the system as well as he had the highways. At first he thought everyone memorized and could map out the world the way he did. Reading wasn’t his skill, but a map and finding his way was a useful glitch in his wiring.
Ice gave a single-finger salute to the mirror on the far wall of the concrete room as he pulled a chair out and sat across from Detective Nunez. While he was separated from Preacher, she hadn’t patted him down for weapons or even given him an obligatory reading of rights, and there was no confiscation of his phone. As she sat across from him with a red file stamped with the seal of the county, a shift in her demeanor sent a ripple through his body.
“We found John,” she said, “and placed him in protective custody.”
“Where? Caesars? The Venetian?”
“UMC,” she replied. “If he comes out of the coma, we might be able to ask him questions.”
“Nunez, why am I here?”
“Because there was a reason you were bribing Gus, I assume, to see Misty,” she said. “I need to know why that is.”
“Last rites. You saw I stayed with my happy ass in the lobby,” Ice replied, not about to give an inch to the woman without her sprinkling her thoughts on him. Her mannerisms and comment let him know he had to see the pictures on Preacher’s phone ASAP. The body was giving more than time of death. A story was played out in flesh and would have been on John if not for the cops looking for his pup tent at the edges of Lake Mead.
