Chapter Four
The morgue was quiet and cool, a quick shift from July to September, and I was glad I had jeans on. My sandals popped against the dirty cement steps as I descended sideways, and the fluorescent light in the stairway only added to the bleak feeling. Jenks was on my shoulder for the warmth, and Glenn made a quick turn to the right when he reached the landing, following the big blue arrows painted on the walls past wide elevators and to the double doors cheerfully proclaiming CINCINNATI MORGUE, AN EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY SERVICE SINCE 1966.
Between the underground dimness and Glenn's coffee still in my grip, I was feeling better, but most of my good mood was from the honest-to-God temp name tag Glenn had handed me when we started down the steps. It wasn't the bent, nasty, yellow laminated four-by-six card everyone else got but a real heavyweight plastic tag embossed with my name. Jenks had one, too, and he was obnoxiously proud of it even though I was the one wearing it, right under mine. It would get me into the morgue when nothing else would. Well, besides being dead.
I didn't do much for the FIB, but somehow I had become their darling, the poor little witch girl who fled the I.S. tyranny to make her own way. They were the ones who had given me my car in lieu of monetary compensation when the I.S. called foul after I helped the FIB solve a crime that I.S. hadn't been able to. It had since been ruled that because I wasn't on the FIB's payroll, the FIB could hire me much as any corporation or individual could. Na-na, na, na-a-a, na.
It was the small things that really made your day.
Glenn pushed open one of the double doors, standing aside so I could go in first. Flip-flops plopping, I scanned the large reception room, more rectangle than square, half of it empty floor, half upright file cabinets and an ugly steel desk that should have been thrown away in the seventies. A college-age kid wearing a lab coat was behind it, his feet on the paper-cluttered desk and a handheld game in his hands. A sheet-draped gurney holding a body waited for attention, but apparently some space aliens needed taking care of first.
The blond kid looked up at our entrance and, after giving me the once-over, set his game down and stood. It smelled in here: pine and dead tissue. Yuck.
"Yo, Iceman," Glenn said, and Jenks grunted in surprise when the straitlaced FIB detective exchanged a complicated arm-, fist-, elbow-slapping... thing with the guy at the desk.
"Glenn," the blond kid said, still giving me glances. "You've got about ten minutes."
Glenn slipped him a fifty, and Jenks choked. "Thanks. I owe you."
"You cool. Just make it fast." He handed Glenn a key chained to a naked Bite-Me-Betty doll. No way would anyone be walking out with the morgue key.
I gave him an ambiguous smile and headed for another set of double doors.
"Miss!" the kid called, his adopted colorful accent dissolving into farm-boy Americana.
Jenks snickered. "Someone wants a date."
Sandals scuffing, I turned to find Iceman following us. "Ms. Morgan," the guy said, his eyes dropping to my twin name tags. "If you don't mind. Could you leave your coffee out here?" At my blank look, he added, "It might wake someone up early, and with the vamp orderly out getting lunch, it would..." He winced. "It might be bad."
My lips parted in understanding. "Sure," I said, handing it to him. "No problem."
Immediately he relaxed. "Thanks." He turned back to his desk, then hesitated. "Ah, you aren't Rachel Morgan, the runner, are you?"
From my shoulder Jenks sniggered. "My, aren't we the famous one."
But I beamed, facing the kid fully as Glenn fidgeted. He could wait. I wasn't often recognized - and it was even more rarely that I didn't have to run away when I was. "Yes, I am," I said, enthusiastically shaking his hand. "Pleased to meet you."
Iceman's hands were warm, and his eyes gave away his delight. "Ace," he said, jiggling on his feet. "Wait here. I've got something for you."
Glenn's grip on the Bite-Me-Betty doll tightened until he realized where his fingers were, and he shifted his grip to the tiny key. Iceman had gone back to his desk and was rummaging in a drawer. "It's here," he said. "Give me a sec." Jenks started humming the tune to Jeopardy!, finishing when the kid slammed the drawer triumphantly. "Got it." He jogged back to us, and I felt my face lose its expression when I saw what he was extending proudly to me . A toe tag?
Jenks left my shoulder, shocking Iceman out of a year's growth when he landed on my wrist so he could see it. I don't think he'd even known that Jenks was here. "Holy crap, Rachel!" Jenks exclaimed. "It's got your name on it! In ink, even." He lifted into the air, laughing. "Isn't that sweet?" he mocked, but the guy was too flustered to notice.
A toe tag? I held it loosely in my hand, bemused. "Uh, thanks," I managed.
Glenn made a derisive noise from deep in his chest. I was starting to feel like the butt of a joke when Iceman grinned and said, "I was working the night that boat exploded last Christmas? I made it up for you, but you never came in. I kept it as a souvenir." His clean-cut face suddenly went nervous. "I... uh, thought you might want it."
Relaxing in understanding, I tucked it in my bag. "Yes, thank you," I said, then touched his shoulder so he'd know it was okay. "Thank you very much."
"Can we go in now?" Glenn grumbled, and Iceman gave me an embarrassed smile before returning to his desk, steps fast to make his open lab coat furl. Sighing, the FIB detective pushed open one of the double doors for me.
Actually, I was really glad to have the toe tag. It had been made with the intent for use and therefore was imbued with a strong connection that a ley line charm could use to target me. Better I have it than someone else. I'd get rid of it safely when I had the time.
Past the door was another, to make an airlock of sorts. The smell of dead things grew, and Jenks landed on my shoulder, standing right by my ear and the dab of perfume I'd put on earlier. "Spend a lot of time down here?" I asked Glenn as we entered the morgue proper.
"Fair amount." He wasn't looking at me, more interested in the numbers and index cards slid into the holders fastened to the people-size drawer doors. I was getting the creeps. I'd never been to the city morgue before, and I dubiously eyed the arrangement of comfortable chairs around a coffee table at the far end that looked like a reception area at a doctor's office.
The room was long, having four rows of drawers on either side of the wide middle space. It was storage and self-repair only, no autopsies, necropsies, or assisted tissue repair. Humans on one side, Inderlanders on the other, though Ivy had told me they all had pull tabs inside in case of accidental misfiling.
I followed Glenn to midway down the Inderland side, watching him double-check the card against a slip of paper before unlocking the door and yanking it open. "Came in Monday," he said over the sound of sliding metal as the tray slid out. "Iceman didn't like the attention given to her, so he gave me a call."
Monday. As in yesterday? "The full moon isn't until next week," I said, avoiding the sheet-draped body. "Isn't that early for a Were suicide?"
I met his deep brown eyes, reading a sad understanding. "That's what I thought, too."
Not knowing what I would see, I looked down as Glenn folded the sheet back.
"Holy crap!" Jenks exclaimed. "Mr. Ray's secretary?"
A sour expression fixed on me. When had being a secretary become a high-risk position? No way had Vanessa committed suicide. She wasn't an alpha, but she was pretty damn close.
Glenn's surprise turned to understanding. "That's right," his low voice rumbled. "You stole that fish from Mr. Ray's office."
Irritation flickered through me. "I thought I was rescuing it. And it wasn't his fish. David said Mr. Ray stole it first."
Eyebrows bunched, Glenn seemed to think it made no difference. "She came in as a wolf," he was saying, his manner professional as his eyes lit on only the bruised and torn parts of her naked body. A small but gorgeous koi tattoo swam in orange and black across a high patch of her upper chest, a permanent sign of her inclusion into the Ray pack. "Standard procedure is to turn them back after the first look. It's easier to find the cause of death on a person than on a wolf."
The smell of dead things in a pine forest was getting to me. It didn't help that I was running on empty. The coffee wasn't sitting well anymore. And I'd known the SOP, having briefly dated a guy who made the charms to force a shift back to human. He was a geek, but he had lots of money - it wasn't an easy job, and no one wanted it.
Jenks was making a cold spot on my neck, and not seeing anything out of the ordinary - other than her being dead and her arm torn to the bone - I murmured, "What am I looking at?"
Nodding, Glenn went to a low drawer at the end of the room and, after checking the tag, pulled it open. "This is a Were suicide that came in last month," he said. "You can see the differences. She would have been cremated by now, but we don't know who she is. Two additional Jane Wolfs came in on the same night, and they're giving them a little extra time."
"They all came in together?" I asked, going over to look.
"No," he said softly, gazing down at her in pity. "There's no connection other than the timing and that none of them can be found in the computer. No one's claimed them, and they don't match any missing-persons report - U.S.-wide."