'Til Death (Part two of fifteen)

‘Til Death

A Trick Molloy Mystery

©2009 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Two

First order of business was checking out Lou’s story. Emails gave me an Internet domain. Lots of pictures—fantasy fodder. I figured half the “women” behind the pics were men doing a lonely-hearts scam. Translation services through the site weren’t cheap, either. Little more research turned up fairy-tale love stories and gruesome horror stories in equal proportion. Lou would have ignored the latter and dreamed dreams.

Irina’s English wasn’t bad. The correspondence had gaps in it. Lou had kept the mushy notes. Still, the woman seemed sincere. She’d found something about Lou to like. I’d never seen it, but then she’d never had to spend three days in a surveillance van with him and Mexican fast food. Kharma, kismet, whatever; they seemed like a match. Couldn’t begrudge the man a little happiness.

I also didn’t trust he was giving me the whole story. Lou sometimes left out details that I found important.

I headed down to the Morgue. The Medical Examiner, Cate Chase, is a friend of mine. She is everything the Jane Dostoyevsky wasn’t: alive, built like a linebacker, still sporting her natural hair color and talented.

She shook her head when I asked about Svetlana. “There’s a spy on that one.”

“Really?” My eyes tightened. “Who wants to know when the body’s looked at?”

“Came through as Lieutenant Hale.”

“Looks like Lou left out a big detail.” I scratched my head. “You call it in?”

“My secretary. I’m supposed to stall the interested party.”

“Okay, start stalling.”

She waved me down the hall to the cold room. “What’s the Rat Squad want with Lou Sandberg, or should I ask?”

“Nothing more than usual, near as I know.” When investigating an anonymous body, sometimes the cops will put a “notify us” tag on it. If someone comes into claim it, they want to be there. Lieutenant Hale was a pseudonym the Internal Affairs Division used when they thought the stiff had something to do with police corruption. In a perfect world, Cate wouldn’t have said anything to me, but the world’s not perfect, and she didn’t love IAD any more than I did.

She opened the drawer and slid the woman out. She unzipped the body bag and peeled it open to her navel. “She’s 25, give or take, gave birth at least once. Nose, chin, breasts are after-market. Eyes, too, to get rid of her glasses. Wisdom teeth and molars were pulled to narrow her face. Nails—finger and toe—were freshly done and at a nice place. Hair got a dye job in the same parlor. Upscale. The cause of death, well…”

“Yeah”. Her throat had been cut, nailing the carotid on both sides. It would have been really messy, and really fast. Whoever did it was strong, ruthless and dispassionate. What made it worse is that her death had been a signal.

Cate looked up. “All that work—she was incredibly vain, but…”

“Vanity isn’t a capital crime?”

“Nope. What some pay for it is.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “She one of yours?”

“That’s as good a cover story as any.”

Cate shook her head. “Play that way? Okay. I figure she’s from Russia. The eye surgery—old school. Wasn’t bad, but you can tell. She’s been Stateside for a month. Last meal was a Happy Meal, vanilla milkshake.”

“Anything beside murder?”

“No struggle, no signs of abuse.”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks?” She crossed her arms. “You know anything you tell me isn’t going to the Rat Squad.”

“I know. And I don’t know much.” I sighed. “Her name was Svetlana. I’ll get you a family name.”

“What’s the angle, if she wasn’t a dancer?”

“A friend called a marker.” I smiled. “Cate, I’ll let you know what I learn, as I learn it. I think I know who. Just have to prove it.”

“Call ‘Silent Witness’ like everyone else, Trick.”

“Don’t have a dime.” I zipped the bag back up. “You stall long enough?”

“Do I care?” She pointed at the door. “Get out of here. I’ll buy you whatever time I can.”

Normally a visit to the morgue doesn’t leave me depressed, but I felt as if my flesh was lead. I got to my car and headed home to clean up. I hoped a hot shower would help me shake the mood, but that just wasn’t happening.

My grandmother had a saying, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” I felt that way about Lou Sandberg. Worse part was that I could have easily been in his shoes. And there are a lot of other guys who are.

No one would have ever considered Lou the pick of the litter. Like most guys, everything he was ever going to learn about meeting women he got in high school. His skills never progressed. He graduated into the military and got shipped off to foreign lands where the women were young, hot and whose eyes grew wide at the sight of a Yankee-dollar. No skills required. Then coming back here, he joined the force. That gave him some power. Women who wanted a man uniform—or wanted the man in uniform to forget how bad they’d been—made it real easy. Even though he had a face that could turn Medusa to stone, he still managed to get laid.

With Lou looking at retirement, all that would go away. Meeting the sort of women who wanted a guy to share their golden years with just wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t know where to go, how to approach them, and couldn’t have closed the deal if his life depended on it.

And, I guess, in his mind, it did. So he looked for a mail-order bride. It was a different power structure for a relationship. He had money and a country she wanted. Lou might have been less than perfect, but he wasn’t going to be smacking anyone around, so she was probably trading up. Couldn’t fault either one of them for going for that deal.

I don’t know that Lou ever earned undying happiness in his golden years, but at least he was going for it. As much as I didn’t want to be part of his life, I guess I was. And as much as I wanted finding his wife to clear the books between us, I also knew it wouldn’t.

And, at least for now, I was okay with that. His association with me had broken his heart once. It was up to me to see that didn’t happen again.

You know, whenever you tell yourself something like that, God laughs.

And not in a nice way.

If you are enjoying this story and were wondering how we got here, please visit the Stormwolf Store. The short story “The Witch in Scarlet” is the Trick Molloy tale that immediately precedes this one.