The Dessert Corpse by Tracey Quinn

Author:Tracey Quinn [Quinn, Tracey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publisher
Published: 2018-07-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

A bronze plaque beside the door of Al's Emporium stated that it had been declared an Historic Site of Great National Importance, but in truth Al had made up the sign himself. Even the spray paint used to make it look like bronze had come from the shelves of the Emporium. The building was not so much historic as it was just plain old, and Al had done little to keep it from showing its age.

The back of the building where the dumpster sat was even more run down and creepy, and when Mark and I got out of his truck I was hit by a strong odor that smelled something like a cross between wet dog and rotting fish.

“Phew! The body's getting pretty ripe by now, huh?” Mark gasped, fanning the air in front of his face.

“We haven't even opened the dumpster yet!” I said.

“I'll give you a month's rent for free if you do it.”

“No deal.”

“I'll even pay for my milkshakes from here on; some of them, anyway.”

“Can we get this over with before we suffocate?”

“Fine, but this was your idea!”

Standing as far away from the dumpster as he could manage and still reach it, Mark flipped open the lid and jumped back. A small army of flies burst out and dispersed around the alleyway.

“Oh, terrific!” Mark groaned, swatting at them with both hands.

“Let's have a look before they decide to return home,” I said.

My stomach was tying itself in knots as I stepped toward the dumpster, and not just from the stench; I had seen dead bodies in the army, but I had thought that I had left that sort of thing behind when I came back to East Spoon Creek City. I craned my neck to peek over the rim and down into the bottom of the dumpster, and saw... nothing. Aside from the mildewed remnants of old food and junk that crusted the inside of the bin, there was nothing in the dumpster but a few flattened boxes stained with blue paint. No body.

“What the hell?” Mark cried. “For a dead guy, he sure doesn't hang around anywhere for long!”

“Someone must have moved him again.”

“Maybe the trash company just emptied the dumpster. There could be a trash truck driving around town with a corpse wrapped in bubble wrap rattling around in the back.”

“No, Al uses the same trash service that we use at The Breezy Spoon, and they won't come to empty the dumpsters until tonight.”

“What then? Do you think maybe Dora really did make it all up?”

“No.... but maybe Al found out that Bildad dumped the body in his dumpster. Maybe he had Joey do something about it.”

“In other words, we need to have a look behind Sammy's Lounge. Great, a fun day of dumpster diving!”

“Let's go. It can't be any worse than this one,” I said.

The alley behind Sammy's Lounge was not worse than the one behind Al's Emporium, but it wasn't better either. The smell was more gym socks and less wet dog, but just as strong.

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