I Know Where the Dead Ones Go

2

            

"She's back, that pro with the kooky stories. Maybe try giving her a cup, a Sharpie and a piece of cardboard this time. She can make a sign and take donations," Marty says the morning I'm back to work. He grins through the steam of a hot cup of coffee as he lingers in my office near the crutches on the wall. How he can slurp down coffee in this heat is beyond me. Even my eyelids are sweating.

"What?" I say, trying to ignore him. He gives me rides to and from work, and pissing him off this early won't help pay the rent. How many police officers do you see taking the bus to work? I'd ask someone else, but he's the only one who lives near me.

"Don't look at it as welfare. It's giving her the bootstraps to lift herself up with. Now she can finally break free of that human trafficking bullshit you bleeding hearts like to talk about," Marty says. He pulls a permanent marker out of pocket and twirls it between his fingers. "Face it, that's the best she's going to do. Some people can't be helped."

I fire up the computer and get ready to take in the day's reports, wondering if Marty's trolling me or Penny or both. He knows my background, what it took to wrench myself out of that cycle. Figured the farthest away from that life I could get was police work. It took a stint in the military to pay for the college, but I did it.

It means a lifetime of loneliness, though. I'm a cop. No one in my family calls. No one visits. When the accident happened, I thought someone would swing by to check in. I thought wrong. Then I thought about how much easier it is to visit someone in jail. Brief. No commitments. Lots of rules to keep emotions at a distance. No wonder my brothers stayed in that life, 'til death do them part. Literally. One of them broke my leg. I shot the other one. Drug bust. Dumb bastards.

The police union, my first point of contact after the shooting, called it justifiable and gave me time to rest my body and mind. I called it an accident, and got myself a temporary desk job. No big deal. I pulled a gun on my own family. It can't be anything other than an accident. Yep. Just one, big misunderstanding.

Marty never told me his story. He just grins and shaves his head closer and closer to the scalp. His translucent skin, with dry seams tearing along red lines, barely keeps his skull inside.

"You're not serious, are you?" I say and eye the permanent marker.

Marty scoffs, nearly spilling the coffee. "It's a joke. We all know Sharpies don't write well in the rain."

"It's supposed to rain today?" I say, although I already know the forecast.

"Yeah, which is why she's probably here, to wait it out. You ask me, a little rain could help someone in her profession. It'll keep certain parts from drying up, not that I'm an expert or anything," Marty says and slaps me on the back. It's hard. It's supposed to hurt.

"Alright, send her in," I say.

Marty disappears down the hallway. Penny replaces him in my office a few minutes later, holding a hot cup of coffee. Marty's way of playing a cruel joke? I can't tell. She doesn't drink it. Just sets it on the desk.

She looks the same as the last time I saw her. The only thing fresh on her is the layer of sweat distorting her thick makeup into a warped pantomime of her face. There's a cut on her knee patched with a crust of dry blood.

"What can I do for you today, Penny?" I say.

"I got a look at him. At it. Wantin' to get it on record," Penny says. She leans back to brush her matted hair out of her face, and I catch a glimpse at her neck. There's no mistaking the two sets of red dots on either side of her throat. Someone strangled her since we last spoke.