Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

The window hadn’t been shattered to make the kill shot. This hadn’t been a robbery attempt because the keys still dangled from the ignition. So Victor had opened the door to whoever had killed him. But the killer hadn’t been satisfied with almost taking Victor’s head off; he or she had also sliced Victor’s abdomen from side to side, practically cutting him in half.

Another whiff of rotting meat set off my gag reflex. I barely made it to the fence before the contents of my breakfast spewed out my mouth and hung on the dried stems of the bromegrass. Even Poopy would’ve been impressed with my projectile vomiting. Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I tried to maintain my composure as everything inside me urged me to flee. I couldn’t just “discover” another body. I might as well change my name to Jessica Fletcher in this county.

Yet, as much of a piece of shit as Victor Bad Wound was, I couldn’t leave him moldering in his vehicle. I held my ground against the wind, the spitting rain, and my own nausea as I dug for my cell phone and dialed.

“This is Deputy Moore.”

“Kiki? It’s Mercy.”

“Hey, Mercy. If this is about the campaign, it’ll have to wait until I’m off duty.”

“It’s not. Can you talk without anyone overhearing you?”

“I’m alone in my patrol car. Why?”

“How far are you from Mulligan’s?”

“Twenty minutes. Why, what’s going on?”

I looked over at the pickup, my mind flashing to the grisly sight of what remained of Victor Bad Wound’s face. And the deep gash across his lower belly where his blood had dried his jeans and shirt to his bloated form. “I found a dead body.”

Silence. Then a terse, “At Mulligan’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Victor Bad Wound.”

“Jesus, Mercy. How the hell did you-”

“Look, he’s been missing. Cherelle Dupris asked me to keep an eye out for his truck. While I was out campaigning, I found it, and him in it-dead.”

Deputy Moore swore again. “How long ago did you find him?”

“Just now. You’re the first person I’ve called. Before you ask, I don’t know if Cherelle is involved. I just know I can’t be involved. Understand?”

I almost heard the gears turning in her head.

“Kiki, you have to find the body. You’re on patrol, right? Just swing by Mulligan’s like you were doing a routine check. Victor’s white pickup is parked in the back by itself.”

“What about you? Who’s next on your call list?”

“No one. I won’t contact Cherelle because I found nothing- you did. By the time you get here, I’ll be long gone.”

“But Dawson-”

“Will think you’ve done a bang-up job as an investigator. That’s what really matters, right? That justice is served no matter who does it?”

She sighed. “I ain’t comfortable taking credit when everyone in the county should know you’re the one who did the ‘bang-up’ investigative work. It’d help your campaign.”

“The election is the last thing on my mind, Kiki. Maybe I’m not as qualified for the sheriff’s job as you all seem to think I am.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because things will be a whole lot better for everyone now that Victor Bad Wound is dead. That’s not exactly an unbiased opinion.”

“But it’s not any different than mine or anyone else’s in the county.” She sighed. “Fine. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you.” I hung up and sprinted back to my truck.

I needed adrink. I deserved one.

Hello, Clementine’s.

The parking lot held more cars than the usual weekday-afternoon crowd.

John-John sat on a bar stool behind the bar. He poured a shot of Wild Turkey in a lowball glass and slid it in front of me.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Only to me, doll.”

I could’ve sipped the whiskey, but I guzzled it.

“Another?” John-John asked.

“No. I’ll take a Coke.” I looked around. Place was damn near empty. “Where is everyone? There had to be ten cars out there.”

“In the back. Tootsie is teaching her fellow retirees how to shoot darts.”

Tootsie, a sassy, spry “woman of age” was one of my favorite customers, not only because she’d palled around with my mother. “Why?”

“Guess at a bridge game the gals’ husbands commented about them being too old to learn new tricks. Tootsie took offense and plans to teach ‘them duffers’ a thing or two.”

I rolled the cold soda glass between my sticky palms. Had Kiki reached Mulligan’s yet? With her iron stomach I doubted she’d be puking her guts out over the fence line.

“Mercy?”

“Hmm?”

“You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on that you didn’t even chuckle at Tootsie’s antics?”

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

“Wanna share with the class?”

“It’s about some of that woo-woo stuff.”

John-John dropped two maraschino cherries in my Coke. “Is the woo-woo stuff happening to you?”

“Yeah. Something that another Indian guy said to me.”

He gasped like an offended spinster. “You been seeing another winkte behind my back?”

That brought a half smile. “No worries, kola. You’re the only two-spirited person in my life.”

“I worry you’re carrying too many burdens, doll.”

“I am.”

“So tell me.”

I studied him. Warned him. “Okay. Just don’t get pissy that I haven’t told you before. A few years ago, I died. I was literally dead to the world for… several minutes, at least. It’s stayed classified in my medical and military records. The day after I found Jason’s body, I ran into this Indian guy. He told me because I’d been brought back to life, dead spirits are drawn to me. That I have some sort of dead man’s ESP, which is just fucking awesome.”

John-John studied me. “Are you asking me if this is true in the Sioux spiritual world?”

“I guess. I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything except I’m sick and tired of being a divining rod for the newly departed.”

John-John leaned across the bar until I looked up at him. “Have you found another dead body recently? Since Jason Hawley?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When?”

“About thirty minutes ago.”

He poured another shot and nudged it at me.

I knocked it back. “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, John-John. Why me? Don’t you think I’ve dealt with enough death? Don’t you think it’s cosmically unfair that now I have to spend the rest of my life worried I don’t stumble over rotting corpses?”

“Where did you run into this Indian guy?”

“The first time? He came in here. Remember that good-looking Indian dude you were flirting with?”

“Ah.” John-John smiled. “He is a hard one to forget. What’s his name?”

“Shay Turnbull.”

“That name don’t sound Sioux, not that it matters. I talked to him but didn’t get a sense of… well, anything.”

My eyes widened. “You can sense others with enhanced senses?”

“Yep. And I’ve got great gaydar, too. Pity this Shay guy ain’t batting for our team. But back to your question. He’s right. It’s kind of a cosmic lottery how often this sensibility will appear or how it’ll affect you for the long term.”

“And to think I wanted to win the lottery.” Sweet juice burst in my mouth as I bit down on a fat cherry. “So if I know the person, even in passing, my odds are…?”

“Even higher.”

Mercy Gunderson, bloodhound of the dead. I wondered if it was too late to get that as my campaign slogan.

“Who’d you find?”

I looked over my shoulder, then at him. “Victor Bad Wound.”

John-John blanched.

“Cherelle called me because he’s been missing and Saro’s on her ass. I went looking. And lucky me, I found him on my first try.”