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By Root 6909 0

a heart attack at the age of fifty-three, while in federal custody waiting to testify at an important trial. He’d been dead less than three months. It listed his race as African American, which wasn’t important to me. His religion was listed as Protestant, and that information I did need. There were a few religious persuasions that could interfere with zombie raising. Vaudan—voodoo—was the big one. It could be tricky to raise someone who messed with some of the same magic that I would be using. Wiccan could also make things difficult, and so could some of the more mystically oriented faiths. Straight Christian of whatever flavor wasn’t a problem. And psychic abilities could mess with a zombie and make it either hard to raise or hard to control once you raised it. If there was anything less than normal human about Emmett Leroy Rose, it wasn’t in the file.

In fact, there were some important things missing from the file. Like what had he been arrested for—what illegal activity did they catch him at that was bad enough to get him in federal custody awaiting his testimony? And exactly what did an important trial mean? Was it mob business? Was it government business? Was it something else I couldn’t even think of? Who did Mr. Rose have dirt on, and what had the Feds had on him that made him willing to shovel it? Did I need to know any of the above to raise him from the grave? No. But I wasn’t used to going into this blind. If they’d sent me this file, I’d have told them no dice without more info. Yeah, they’d have replied it was a need-to-know basis, and I’d have said if they wanted me to raise the zombie, I needed to know. Larry had just taken the crumbs they gave him and not complained.

I wondered how Tammy was doing. Did I call and ask? Later, I decided. I’d try to get some more info out of Fox first. Truthfully, I’d had about as much emotional angst as I could deal with for a little bit. If the news was bad it would wait, and I wouldn’t know what to say anyway. I said a quick prayer that Tammy and the baby would be all right. That was the most concrete thing I could do.

I called the number I had for Fox. No emotional problems, just business. What a relief.

“You have everything in the file that you need to raise Rose from the dead, Marshal Blake,” Fox said.

I’d figured he’d say that, but . . . “Just tell me this. Fox, how hot was Emmett Leroy Rose?”

“What do you mean, ‘hot’?” he asked, but his tone said he knew.

“How important a witness was he?”

“He died of natural causes, Blake. He wasn’t murdered. There wasn’t a contract out on him. We just caught him doing something bad. So bad, he didn’t want to go to jail over it. So he gave us more important people. Or was going to.”

“Did he have a bad heart?”

“No, if he had, we’d have had a court reporter in to take down his testimony, just in case. We found out later that his father had died of an unexpected heart attack at almost the same age.”

“You see, Fox, if you’d known that, you might have gotten his testimony down sooner, right?”

He was quiet a second, then said, “Maybe.”

“Is anything you haven’t included in this file going to bite me on the ass later? Like a father who died of a sudden heart attack.”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “It’s a good point, Marshal Blake, but no, there’s nothing we left out that will impact you or your work.”

“Have you ever seen someone raise the dead, Special Agent Fox?”

He was quiet again. Then, “Yes.” Just that one word.

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “So you’re happy with the information I’ve got.”

“Yes,” he said again, and there was a tone that said this conversation was about over. “Why do I think that if I’d called you in first instead of Kirkland, you’d have been a much bigger pain in the ass?”

That made me laugh. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m a much bigger pain in the ass than Larry.”

“How’s his wife doing?”

“I’m going to call them when I get off the phone with you.”

“Give him my best.” He hung up.

I sighed and hung up my end. Then I went for my cell phone in the front of the briefcase. I turned