The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [40]
“You seem to be getting along well with all our suspects,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll find out what I can from homicide. Do you know what jurisdiction he was found in?”
I shook my head. “I could find out. It would give me an excuse to talk to Burke again.”
“You say he’s suspected of murder in New Orleans.”
“Mm-huh,” I said.
“And he may have done this.” He motioned at the sheet.
“Yep.”
“You watch your back, Anita.”
“I always do,” I said.
“You call me as early tonight as you can. I don’t want all my people sitting around twiddling their thumbs on overtime.”
“As soon as I can. I’ve got to cancel three clients just to make it.” Bert was not going to be pleased. The day was looking up.
“Why didn’t it eat more of the boy?” Dolph asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll see you tonight then.”
“Say hello to Lucille for me. How’s she coming with her master’s degree?”
“Almost done. She’ll have it before our youngest gets his engineering degree.”
“Great.”
The sheet flapped in the hot wind. A trickle of sweat trailed down my forehead. I was out of small talk. “See you later,” I said, and started down the hill. I stopped and turned back. “Dolph?”
“Yes?” he said.
“I’ve never heard of a zombie exactly like this one. Maybe it does rise from its grave more like a vampire. If you kept that exterminator team and backup hanging around until after dark, you might catch it rising from the grave and be able to bag it.”
“Is that likely?”
“No, but it’s possible,” I said.
“I don’t know how I’ll explain the overtime, but I’ll do it.”
“I’ll be here as soon as I can.”
“What else could be more important than this?” he asked.
I smiled. “Nothing you’d like to hear about.”
“Try me,” he said.
I shook my head.
He nodded. “Tonight, early as you can.”
“Early as I can,” I said.
Detective Perry escorted me back. Maybe politeness, maybe he just wanted to get away from the corpus delicti. I didn’t blame him. “How’s your wife, Detective?”
“We’re expecting our first baby in a month.”
I smiled up at him. “I didn’t know. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” His face clouded over, a frown puckering between his dark eyes. “Do you think we can find this creature before it kills again?”
“I hope so,” I said.
“What are our chances?”
Did he want reassurance or the truth. Truth. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” he said.
“So was I, Detective. So was I.”
11
WHAT WAS MORE important than bagging the critter that had eviscerated an entire family? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But it was a while until full dark, and I had other problems. Would Tommy go back to Gaynor and tell him what I said? Yes. Would Gaynor let it go? Probably not. I needed information. I needed to know how far he would go. A reporter, I needed a reporter. Irving Griswold to the rescue.
Irving had one of those pastel cubicles that passes for an office. No roof, no door, but you got walls. Irving is five-three. I’d like him for that reason if nothing else. You don’t meet many men exactly my height. Frizzy brown hair framed his bald spot like petals on a flower. He wore a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, tie at half-mast. His face was round, pink-cheeked. He looked like a bald cherub. He did not look like a werewolf, but he was one. Even lycanthropy can’t cure baldness.
No one on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch knew Irving was a shapeshifter. It is a disease, and it’s illegal to discriminate against lycanthropes, just like people with AIDS, but people do it anyway. Maybe the paper’s management would have been broad-minded, liberal, but I was with Irving. Caution was better.
Irving sat in his desk chair. I leaned in the doorway of his cubicle. “How’s tricks?” Irving said.
“Do you really think you’re funny, or is this just an annoying habit?” I asked.
He grinned. “I’m hilarious. Ask my girlfriend.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“What’s up, Blake? And please tell me whatever it is is on the record, not off.”
“How would you like to do an article on the new zombie legislation that’s being cooked