Ask me
about life after death.
—T-shirt
often seen on Charley Davidson,
a grim reaper with questionable morals
The dead
guy at the end of the bar kept trying to buy me a drink.
Which figured.
No one else was even taking a second look and I’d
dressed to
the nines. Or, at the very least, the eight- and- a-halves.
But the truly
disturbing part of my evening was the fact that my
mark, one
Mr. Marvin Tidwell, blond real estate broker and suspected
adulterer,
actually turned down the drink I’d tried to buy
him.
Turned it
down!
I felt
violated.
I sat at
the bar, sipping a margarita, lamenting the sad turn my life
had taken.
Especially to night. This case was not going as planned.
Maybe I
wasn’t Marv’s type. It happened. But I was oozing interest.
And I wore
makeup. And I had cleavage. Even with all that going for
me, this
investigation was firmly wedged between the cracks of no and
where. At
least I could tell my client, aka Mrs. Marvin Tidwell, that it
would seem
her husband was not cheating on her. Not randomly,
anyway. The
fact that he could’ve been meeting someone in par tic ular
kept me
glued to my barstool.
“C-come
here often?”
I looked
over at the dead guy. He’d finally worked up the courage
to approach
and I got a better view of him. I figured him for the runt
of the
litter. He wore round- rimmed glasses and a tattered baseball
cap that
sat backwards on top of muddy brown hair. Add to that a
faded blue
T-shirt and loosely ripped jeans and he could’ve been a
skater, a
computer geek, or a backwoods moonshiner.
His cause
of death was not immediately apparent. No stab wounds
or gaping
holes. No missing limbs or tire tracks across his face. He
didn’t even
look like a drug addict, so I couldn’t tell why he’d died at
such a
young age. Taking into account the fact that his baby- faced
features
would make him look younger than he probably was, I estimated
him to be
somewhere around my age when he’d passed.
He stood
waiting for an answer. I thought “Come here often?”
was
rhetorical, but okay. Not wanting to be perceived as talking to
myself in a
room full of people, I responded by lifting one shoulder
in a halfhearted
shrug.
Sadly, I
did. Come here often. This was my dad’s bar, and while I
never set
up stings here for fear of someone I knew blowing my
cover, this
just happened to be the very same bar Mr. Tidwell frequented.
At least if
it came to a knockdown drag- out, I might have
some
backup. I knew most of the regulars and all of the employees.
Dead Guy
glanced toward the kitchen, seeming nervous before he
refocused
on me. I glanced that way as well. Saw a door.
“Y-you’re
very shiny,” he said, drawing my attention back to him.
He had a
stutter. Few things were more adorable than a grown
man with
boyish features and a stutter. I stirred my margarita and
pasted on a
fake smile. I couldn’t talk to him in a room full of living,
breathing
patrons. Especially when one was named Jessica Guinn, to
my utter
mortification. I hadn’t seen her fiery red hair since high
school but
there she sat, a few seats down from me, surrounded by a
group of
chattering socialites who looked almost as fake as her boobs.
But that
could be my bitterness rearing its ugly head.
Unfortunately,
my forced smile only encouraged Dead Guy.
“Y-you are.
You’re like the s-sun reflecting off the chrome bumper of
a f-fifty-
seven Chevy.”
He splayed
his fingers in the air to demonstrate, and my heart was
gone. Damn
it. He was like all those lost puppies I tried to save as a
child to no
avail because I had an evil stepmother who believed all
stray dogs
were rabid and would try to rip out her jugular. A fact that
had nothing
to do with my desire to bring them into the house.
“Yeah,” I
said under my breath, doing my best ventriloquist impersonation,
“thanks.”
“I’m D-Duff
,” he said.
“I’m
Charley.” I kept my hands wrapped around my drink lest he
decide we
needed to shake. Not many things looked stranger to the
living
world than a grown woman shaking air. You know those kids
with
invisible friends? Well, I was one of those. Only I wasn’t a kid,
and my
friends weren’t invisible. Not to me, anyway. And I could see
them
because I’d been born the grim reaper, which was not as bad as
it sounded.
I was basically a portal to heaven, and whenever someone
was stuck
on Earth, having chosen not to cross over immediately after
death, they
could cross to the other side through me. I was like a giant
bug light,
only what I lured was already dead.
I pulled at
my extra- tight sweater. “Is it just me, or is it really
warm in
here?”
His baby
blues shot toward the kitchen again. “Hot is m-more
like it.
S-so, I— I couldn’t help but notice you t-tried to buy that guy
over there
a drink.”
I let my
fake smile go. Freed it like a captured bird. If it came back
to me, it
would be mine. If not, it never was. “And?”
“You’re
b-barking up the wrong tree with that one.”
Surprised,
I put my drink down— the one I bought myself— and
leaned in a
little closer. “He’s gay?”
Duff
snorted. “N-no. But he’s been in here a lot lately. He l-likes
his women a
little . . . l-looser.”
“Dude, how
much sluttier can I get?” I indicated my attire with a
sweep of my
hand.
“N-no, I
mean, well, you’re a l-little—” He let his gaze travel the
length of
me. “—t-tight.”
I gasped.
“I look anal?”
He drew in
a deep breath and tried again. “H-he only hits on
women who
are more s-substantial than you.”
Oh, that
wasn’t offensive at all. “I have depth. I’ve read Proust.
No, wait,
that was Pooh. Winnie- the- Pooh. My bad.”
He shifted
his non ex is tent weight, cleared his throat, and tried
again. “More
v-voluptuous.”
“I have
curves,” I said through a clenched jaw. “Have you seen
my ass?”
“Heavier!”
he blurted out.
“I weigh—
Oh, you mean he likes bigger women.”
“E-exactly,
while I on the other hand—”
Duff ’s
words faded into the background like elevator music. So
Marv liked
big women. A new plan formed in the darkest, most corrupt
corners of
Barbara. My brain.
Cookie,
otherwise known as my receptionist during regular business
hours and
my best friend 24/7, was perfect. She was large and in
charge. Or
well, large and kind of bossy. I picked up my cell phone
and called
her.
“This
better be good,” she said.
“It is. I
need your assistance.”
“I’m
watching the first season of Prison Break.”
“Cookie,
you’re my assistant. I need assistance. With a case. You
know those
things we take on to make money?”
“Prison.
Break. It’s about these brothers who—”
“I know
what Prison Break is.”
“Then have
you ever actually seen these boys? If you had, you
would not
expect me to abandon them in their time of need. I think
there’s a
shower scene coming up.”
“Do these
brothers sign your paycheck?”
“No, but
technically neither do you.”
Damn. She
was right. It was much easier to just have her forge my
name.
“I need you
to come flirt with my mark.”
“Oh, okay.
I can do that.”
Nice. The
F-word always worked with her. I filled her in and told
her the
deal with Tidwell, then ordered her to hurry over.
“And dress
sexy,” I said right before hanging up. But I regretted
the sexy
part instantly. The last time I told Cookie to dress sexy for a
much-
needed girls’ night out on the town, she wore a lace- up corset,
fishnet
stockings, and a feather boa. She looked like a dominatrix. I’d
never been
the same.
