Page 67 of Unnatural Death

“Absolutely. I don’t want him out here in the parking lot alone at this hour,” I reply. “Considering all the attention we’ve been getting? And everything else we know? I’m impressed he’s still here. Maybe our little talk this morning did some good.”

“What little talk?”

“He said that he was hired to investigate and we’re not letting him. I agreed that we’d do better.”

“Elvin Reddy hired him,” Marino says nastily. “That alone is enough to make me not trust Fabian.”

“Try not to be so cynical,” I reply. “Maybe if you give him a chance, he’ll do the same with you.”

“I don’t need him giving me a fucking chance.”

“We’re going to have to trust him enough to let him do his job. If he screws up, then that’s another matter,” I tell Marino as we collect our bags of clothing.

He picks up the cricket container, and there’s not a soul in sight when we step outside the trailer. As the police predicted, the news trucks left when the bodies did. There’s no sign of the drone that accosted us earlier, and Marino shuts the cargo door behind us, making sure it’s locked.

At a few minutes past seven hardly anyone is here. Shannon’s Pepto-Bismol–pink VW Beetle is in its assigned spot, as is Faye Hanaday’s silver Tacoma pickup truck with its mud flaps and gun rack. Maggie Cutbush’s Volvo is gone. If only for good, I can’t help but wish. I don’t see Fabian’s El Camino and I suspect I know where it is.

I’m chilled to my core in my thin cotton scrubs, the specter of Carrie Grethen all around us, the parking lot unevenly lit by tall light standards spaced far apart. The air pressure is heavy, seeming to press down on me with the weight of water. I feel the way I did at Buckingham Run. Unnerved. Jumpy. I don’t know what to expect while sensing an invisible threat.

Dead leaves skitter across the pavement. The wind gusts and moans, the moon covered by thick clouds settling lower. I halfway except someone monstrous to emerge from the shadows, shooting us with yellow-tipped bullets and crushing our necks.

“Here.” Marino’s breath smokes out as he hands me the plastic container, and the cricket chirps. “You carry Jiminy.” He chirps some more. “He likes you better than me.”

“You’re just saying that to manipulate me into taking care of him,” I reply to more chirping as I keep glancing around.

“Right this minute I need my hands free since I’m armed and you’re not,” Marino says. “How many times do I need to tell you to start carrying your gun? You shouldn’t leave the house without it. Especially now, knowing what we do.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to shoot anybody between here and our building,” I reply, holding the container close, trying to shield it from the cold.

“All these times we’ve walked through this parking lot like we’re doing right now,” Marino says. “And she could have been waiting.”

“Unfortunately, she’s not the only one to worry about.”

“She’s the worst one.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Lucy and Benton could have found a way to tell us the truth about her. They could have given us a hint without actually saying it. You know, acting it out, showing us something so we connect the dots.”

“We don’t get to play charades or Pictionary with classified information,” I remind him. “No idle talking. You don’t need that kind of trouble, Marino.”

“Carrie Grethen’s flown away in a fucking private jet, not even a slap on the wrist,” he retorts angrily. “And we’re the ones who will get in trouble?”

“Nobody said there’s anything fair about this.”

“What if she’d come looking for us when we didn’t know she was still alive? We had our guard down just like we did seven damn years ago when she showed up at your house. We would have been easy pickings.”

“I trust that Lucy and Benton would have done something to intervene.” I can see the silhouette of the cricket moving inside the container. “And we don’t know that they haven’t in the past.”

We’ve reached the back of our building, the massive door rolled down. Parked next to my take-home Subaru is the black Suburban belonging to security officer Norm Duffy. A rideshare placard is in the back windshield, and that’s the job he cares about. Not this one. Marino unlocks the pedestrian door, flipping on the overhead lights, and we begin walking through the vehicle bay.

As I suspected, Fabian has parked his El Camino inside, black with red undercarriage lights and fat brake calipers. I’ve heard the story many times about his parents surprising him with the vintage pickup truck after he graduated from Louisiana State University cum laude with honors in chemistry. The El Camino was a special gift from his proud parents.

It was parked behind the coroner’s office, a big black ribbon around it and black balloons tied to the bumpers. An anatomical skeleton was in the driver’s seat, and Fabian comes by his interests, his flair for drama honestly. His father, Arthur Etienne, would be a hard act to follow. A family doctor in East Baton Rouge, he’s been the coroner there for decades, running uncontested at each election.

Fabian must be watching our arrival on the cameras. The door at the top of the ramp opens, and he emerges dressed in his usual black scrubs, his long straight hair loose and as shiny black as patent leather.

“Welcome!” he calls out to us cheerfully while holding the door.

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