Page 84 of Unnatural Death

The way Norm says it makes me suspicious that he’s the one who left the door open, and there’s no legitimate reason for him to be inside the cooler. I have a bad feeling Norm might be our leak, assuming we have only one. Some tabloid news outlets will pay handsomely for postmortem photographs, depending on who died.

“I understand you were late for your shift, Norm.” My gut reaction is I caught him up to no good. And he knows it.

“What do you expect when I get dragged here at the last minute?” His flat cold stare is unwavering and mocking. “It was supposed to be my night off. Then your secretary calls and says I have to be here before Wyatt passes out from exhaustion.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You should be.”

“We appreciate you coming in, but it does little good if you’re not minding the door or watching the cameras.” I won’t let him intimidate me. As irate as I am, I don’t think he could.

“Just because I don’t sit in the office with my thumb up my ass doesn’t mean I don’t see what’s going on.” He says it like a subtle threat, hostility glinting.

“I’m sorry you seem so unhappy.” I don’t like the way Norm is looking me up and down. “But either do the job and abide by the rules or don’t work here anymore.”

“You got any idea how much money I’m losing while I’m here babysitting dead people?”

“The only thing you seem to be babysitting is the TV in the breakroom.” My voice is hard as I get angrier.

“I could be out driving fares.”

“It’s not often we ask you to help in a bind …”

“Meanwhile, Tina gets paid for staying home.”

“I’m not excusing her,” I reply in the same flinty tone. “But it’s important you make the rounds and keep an eye on the cameras.” I walk out of the locker room, and he doesn’t follow.

“What an asshole,” Marino says, waiting for me in the corridor. “I was a hair from coming in there.”

“He’ll probably walk off the job before the night is out,” I reply.

“Let him.”

“I might have caught him pinching PPE,” I add. “I’m also suspicious about what he was doing in the cooler. The dead bodies of the two ex-con Bozos are still in there. I hope Norm isn’t taking pictures, selling info. What I do know for a fact is he’s walking off with PPE.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s always trying to get something for nothing. Even if it’s not paying for coffee in the breakroom. Or swiping another person’s food.”

“I don’t think he was expecting anyone to walk in when I did. I have a feeling he’s been taking more than just the occasional box of shoe covers. I also don’t know where Fabian is,” I explain, and Marino points down at the floor, indicating the anatomical division below ground.

CHAPTER 32

WHILE YOU WERE CATCHING Norm swiping PPE, Fabian texted,” Marino tells me as we resume following the corridor. “He said he’s going to be here for a while and may as well take care of the bodies we didn’t cremate earlier.”

“This is an ideal time.” I glance through observation windows we pass, the evidence room overflowing like a gory flea market. “We have five bodies returned by medical schools, and that will keep the oven running for a while.”

It always feels antisocial when our smokestack is going. But after hours during a snowstorm, no one will be the wiser.

“Never fails that shit happens when you least need it,” Marino says. “When I headed out the door this morning, I had no idea we were in for weather like this. I wouldn’t have driven to the hangar in Maryland. But considering where I was going, I didn’t think I should Uber.”

Marino’s pickup truck is at the Secret Service training facility where he met Lucy and Tron after they’d located the campsite at Buckingham Run. The hangar is almost thirty miles from Alexandria, and it will be slow going in the conditions.

“They should be here soon.” He’s telling me that Lucy and Tron are picking him up. “I’m hoping I’ll get some updates. You know as well as I do that they have all kinds of information they’re not sharing.”

Most of all, Marino wants to confront them about Carrie. I don’t blame him, but it won’t do any good. No matter what I say, I know the truth. Nothing we might be told can undo the last seven years of lying. I don’t know what Benton could say that will change what I’m feeling. Had Carrie not posted the video on the Dark Web I doubt Marino and I would have been told now or ever.

“Tron’s involved, too,” he says. “I’m betting she and Lucy didn’t just meet after we moved here. Hell, they probably knew each other long before we had a clue. All these times we’ve hung around with Tron, and she was spying on Carrie. And we had no idea. Just when you think you can trust somebody.”

“I’m not happy either,” I reply. “But we understand it had to be that way. Tron, Lucy, Benton, they didn’t have a choice.”

---