Here’s the thing about murder: it’s easier to do than it is to cover up, regardless of whether or not you were involved. Case in point: I’m totally innocent (for a change) but I suddenly have to figure out how to cover up somebody’s else’s crime. It’s like being in middle school and having the rest of the morons on your team forget to do any of the project work until the night before, so it falls on you to pull and all-nighter, only to scrape by with a C. And then Cindy Verona will say “god that sucked” and roll her eyes at you and go off and cuddle with whatever passes as a jock in grade seven.
Bad memories stain like blood on suede.
“Is that…” says Anzia, “is that the city inspector?”
I nod, kicking at her boot. Blood is all over the place. Shot in the head. I’m callous enough not to care, but I imagine for some people, corpses are off-putting.
“Definitely Ryoma,” I say. “Same ugly highlights. I mean really, who puts bright streaks of blond in black hair like that? It’s like she’s got Tron lice.”
“I think it looks nice.”
“You still believe in the Easter Bunny.”
She sets her jaw and crosses her arms, and I can already tell I’ve struck a nerve. I’ve got to go through my memory for all the other mythical creatures I can beat in the face with rocks, just to ruin her day. Obviously starting with The Chivalrous Male. Oh yeah, baby!
She flips out her tablet, starts tapping away.
“We should call the police,” she says. “Shouldn’t we?”
“Hell no,” I say. “Are you stupid? They’ll arrest us!”
“But there’s been a murder, so—”
“Kid, these are cops we’re talking about. When cops see a dead body, they arrest the very next person they see. That’s why medical examiners don’t arrive until after the detectives. They know better.”
“But if we don’t, no one will find her until—”
“Oh ha,” I laugh. “That’s a good one. No, no one is going to find her anyway. Your fingerprints are all over the place, the cops will connect you to me, and I’ll end up in the electric chair. No way, no how. We have to get rid of the body.”
Anzia drops her tablet.
“Get… rid?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We might not be able to save my ass entirely, but we can slow the cops down. And nothing slows cops down like a missing body.”
“But… how…?”
I look around. The Docks are great for killing people, and probably great for burying them, but not so much if you don’t have shovels or saws. I scratch my chin.
“Any ideas?” I ask.
“A wood chipper?”
I exhale slowly, look over at her.
“A wood chipper,” I say.
“Yeah. I saw it in a —”
“Do you have a wood chipper somewhere?”
“A…”
“Does that tablet of yours double as a wood chipper?”
“Nnn—”
“Do you have a pocket model? One toe at a time?”
“I just—”
“Shut up,” I snap. “Just shut up. I revoke your speaking privileges. You are on verbal probation.”
She nods, picks up her tablet, and starts to sulk. Meanwhile, I get down to business: grave robbing.
I hunt through her pockets one by one, but don’t find much of anything fun. Phone, makeup kit, bundle of keys… in her inner breast pocket is an absurdly big bundle of bottle caps. They don’t even seem to be the kind you collect for prizes. One of them is a bit slimy, and I cannot bring myself to figure out why. After the gnome thing earlier, I just can’t bring myself to speculate about the depravity of my fellow humans.
“We can drag her body to the river, throw her in,” I say, picking up one foot and shoving the high heel shoe in my pocket to keep it from getting lost. “Grab the other foot.”
Anzia stares down at the foot, back up at me, her mouth sealed shut. She’s pleading with her eyes.
“What?” I ask. “Okay, what? What do you want?”
She points down between Ryoma’s legs, covering her mouth with her hand like she’s about to throw up.
“She… she has maggots on her…”
I squint, lean down and nudge the skirt up a bit with the back of my finger. Sure enough, there’s something disgusting in there.
“Mac and cheese,” I say.
“What?”
“She’s in the trash. It’s mac and cheese.”
Anzia breathes a sigh of relief, wipes her brow.
“Oh wow,” she says, “that was close.”
“Yeah,” I grumble. “Now unless you want to get a fork and tale a dinner break, how about grabbing her other leg?”
She stows her tablet in her purse and grabs the leg, and we heave and ho and drag the body out of the trash, pulling her a short distance before stopping to appreciate the long streak of blood and grey matter we’re leaving everywhere.
“That’s horrible,” Anzia says.
“Needs a splash of blue,” I nod, and keep pulling.
We stay close to the edge of the buildings, in the shadows, Winston tagging along happily. We’re still a good ten minutes’ walk from the waterfront, but at this pace, it will only seem like a single eternity, not two.
“The Huns had a beautiful way to send off their dead,” says Anzia, almost to herself. I don’t want to reply, but I can tell she needs to work through some issues, and if I time it right, I can scar her for life.
“Cannibalism?” I ask.
“No!” she gasps, frowning at me as if I were actually considering making that mac and cheese a side dish instead of the main meal. “No, it’s a funeral ceremony. They call it a Processing rite.”
“Processing,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t just a typo?”
She looks into the space between us, frowning, and then her face lights up with dismay. I wonder how many other technical terms she’s been spouting out, not knowing her source material is flawed.
“Well,” she says carefully, “I think it’s still safe to say it involved beer bread.”
“Beer bread.”
“Surgically implanted in their skull after death.”
I say nothing, because words are sometimes a poor substitute for realizing you’re a dipshit all on your own. I yank on the leg, and we carry on.
“So what do you do, anyway?” I ask her. “No offence, but you seem pretty young to be advising on cases with Your Eye.”
She blushes, which is a funny thing, considering she’s hauling around a dead woman’s body.
“I’m a bit of a child prodigy,” she says.
“Well you suck at it.”
Shock! Yes! Score one for the home team!
“I’m…” she says, trying to work around my obviously-heartless misdemeanour, “I’ve got two PhDs in ancient and colonial anthropology.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding. “So this is as close as you’ll get to a real job. I get it.”
“Anthropology is a real job!”
“Okay, sure. Could be worse. Could be Gaelic.”
She stops briefly, pulls Ryoma’s skirt down so it’s not riding up around her waist anymore. Decency and respect. The true opiate of the masses. Along with American Idol. Which is kind of ironic, now that I think about it.
“I’m advising on this case to help pay for my third doctorate,” she says. “It was this, or… well, all my friends became escorts.”
“Ah,” I nod. “And you don’t have the rack for it.”
“What?”
“Oh sorry, it just doesn’t show. Have you heard of these things called ‘bras’? They’re really nifty.”
Anzia throws the leg on the ground and stands back, waving a warning finger at me in a wonderfully childish way. I don’t know how old she is, but she doesn’t act a year past twelve. It’s really quite sad.
“You have to stop being so mean to me,” she says, laying down the law in the flimsiest way possible.
“Kid, if you think I’m being mean to you, you’re going to be in for a real shock when the gloves come off.”
“I’m not a kid! I’m twenty-two!”
“In dog years?”
Speaking of dogs, I start to become aware of a licking and chewing noise, and we both look over to see Winston pulling Ryoma’s brains out through the wound in the back of her head. He’s eating them.
Well, at least it’ll make her lighter to carry.
“Oh my gosh!” yells Anzia. “Bad doggie! Bad!”
Winston looks up at her, bloody chin dotted with brains, and tilts his head like he was just asked to bring a slipper he embedded in the body of the mailman he has stashed under the shed. Demon dog. My best buddy.
I’m just about to step in and negotiate a break in hostilities when a flashlight hits us in the face. A second later, Bandyloo appears before us, eyes shooting lasers (not literally) with shock, confusion and a tiny bit of envy.
“What the hell is goin’ on here?”he bellows.
“Bachelorette party,” I say. “No boys allowed.” I look down at myself, snap my fingers dramatically. “Aw shucks. Well, see ya, kid!”
I’m about to leave when Bandyloo pulls out a gun and points it at us.
“Freeze!” he yells. “You’re under arrest for murder!”
I shoot Anzia a nasty glare.
“See? I told you so.”
