Death Effect by Burdett John

Author:Burdett, John [Burdett, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Kokoro Press
Published: 2017-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

IV.

Her two lab assistants brought the heavy body bag from the car and laid it on one of the tables.

“Don’t open it,” she ordered after they laid it out and were about to do just that. The sergeant will help me with the handling,” she explained. “That’ll be all for now, thanks.”

After her staff left she locked the door again and nodded. He could do the heavy lifting while she watched; he said it was his wedding gift after all, so let him unwrap it. She figured it was deliberate the way he had the body emerge feet first, so there was no way she could know who it was - or had been - until the head appeared. Even in death you could tell what kind of life the dead man had led: late twenties with the wrecked health of a meth addict. Neglect had turned his teeth black - those that remained - his body was skinny in the way of his kind: she knew she would find wasted muscles, liver problems, probably some syringe spots: people like him normally experimented with whatever drug was cheap and on the streets when the craving hit.

But as soon as she saw the face of the stiff she burst into tears of joy. She grabbed Jack’s arm and stood on tip-toe to plaster his rough face with kisses. She felt a tremendous relief, as if a cadaver had been laid across her own shoulders this past few months - which was almost literally true - and now was lifted. No way Big Bad Jack Gatt could ever turn her in now and this, of course was the true meaning of his ‘gift.’

Her eyes darted from the table to the cop and back again. She could hardly believe it — could this be love, cop style? Just to make sure, she checked the single bullet wound to the back of the head. Sure looked like the kind of hole a slug from a Glock 45 would make. You couldn’t tell much from the exit wound that had caused the top of his forehead to explode.

“Oh my god, I adore you,” she told him, breathless.

“Accidental death?” he asked.

“Serious misadventure with no sign of foul play,” she agreed. “Hard to make it suicide, though.” She made a gesture of trying to point a gun at the back of her own head.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. I was aiming for the upper right temple, being as he was right handed, but he twisted just at the moment I squeezed the trigger.”

They stood together holding hands, staring at the body.

“He did those two teens in Baldwin last year didn’t he?”

“You know it, I know it, half Baldwin County knows it. Correction, half Alabama knows it. Tortured them for thirty-six hours, they say.”

“But no way they could prove it?”

“None.”

“You went all the way to Baldwin to do this?”

“Yeah. For you.”

She stood by the cadaver on the autopsy table, staring at her fiancé while the cop stared back.

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