Maybe he’d keep his bigoted opinions to himself once Karl and I got to apartment nine , either because 1) I outranked him, 2) racist remarks to another cop could get him brought up on charges, or 3) Karl might be tempted to tear his throat out.
Once we got to the second floor, it wasn’t hard to figure out which apartment had belonged to Roger Gillespe, since only one had a uniformed cop standing in front of it. As we walked down the hall, I said softly to Karl, “Don’t let Eisinger get under your skin. It’ll only make him happy.”
“I’ll try to make sure he stays miserable, then.”
Whether he recognized us or just saw the badges hanging over our jacket pockets I don’t know, but the uniform at the open apartment door just nodded at us and stepped aside. Past the door was what I assumed to be the living room of the late Roger Gillespe, former busboy and drug dealer.
The big-screen TV mounted on one wall, along with the DVR and fancy-looking DVD player hooked up to it, were the only signs that Gillespe had been earning more than a busboy’s salary. Otherwise, the place was a dump, with peeling wallpaper, a puke-green carpet that was worn through in several places, and furniture that Goodwill probably would have turned down. It wasn’t a big room, and it felt crowded. In addition to Karl and me, the small space now contained another bored-looking uniformed cop, a couple of forensics techs crawling around on their hands and knees, and Detective Second Grade Nathan Eisinger, the pride of the Homicide Squad, who was writing something down in a small notebook. Roger Gillespe was there, too, but I didn’t think the extra company bothered him.
He lay on his back, arms spread wide, as if he’d been held down while he died. His eyes were bulging and red – it looked like every blood vessel in them had burst, which is probably just what happened. A thin stream of blood had trickled down from his nose to stain Gillespe’s lower face as well as the torn blue “AC/DC” T-shirt that he wore.
You can’t judge a book by its cover, or a werewolf by his fur. And just because Nathan Eisinger looks like he could’ve been a poster boy for the Waffen-SS, with his crew-cut blond hair, square jaw, and blue eyes the color of Delft china, doesn’t automatically make him a racist, fascist, low-rent asshole. In Eisinger’s case, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
He finished what he’d been writing, looked up, and saw Karl and me for the first time. His pale eyebrows went up theatrically. “Well, if it isn’t the Supe Squad! Welcome to our little crime scene,” he said with the exaggerated courtesy that’s always intended as an insult.
I said, “Eisinger,” and Karl just nodded.
“So what brings you two… detectives over here this evening? One of the neighbors thinks she saw a ghost?”
I just shook my head, and Eisinger went on. “Because I sure didn’t call for you – no reason to. The corpus delicti here” – he nodded toward the body on the floor – “ain’t one of your supes, far as I can tell.”
Corpus delicti has nothing to do with a corpse, even though it sounds like it should. The term refers to the legal doctrine that you have to be able to prove a crime’s been committed before you can charge somebody with it. Eisinger knew that as well as I did. He was misusing the term deliberately, for the same reason he threw in “ain’t” despite being a college grad. He thinks it makes him sound like a real street cop, somebody not to be messed with.
I’ve never heard Scanlon say stuff like that, but then he doesn’t have to. He already knows he’s tough.
“No, we already made sure,” Eisinger said, and took a couple of steps toward the corpse. “Ain’t no skinner – we checked that with a moonlight test.” “Skinner” is a term some people use for “werewolf” – although if you say it in front of one, you’re going to have a fight on your hands, whether the moon’s out or not.
Looking down at the body, Eisinger said, “You can sniff his breath without needing to puke, so I’d say that rules out him bein’ a baby-muncher.”
There some urban legend that says ghouls like to hang around outside abortion clinics so that they can feast on the undeveloped tissue that’s discarded every day. Except that clinics don’t throw that material out with the trash – and even if they did, most ghouls wouldn’t have any interest. They’ve got too much class – which is more than I could say for Eisinger.
Then he slipped on a thin white evidence glove and dropped to one knee next to Roger Gillespe’s still form. Peeling back the upper lip, Eisinger said, “And this shows he wasn’t no leech, either.”
He looked up at Karl as he finished saying that, and his face had the kind of smirk you want to wipe off with a blunt instrument. “That’s enough,” I said, and my voice might’ve had a bit more snap to it than I’d intended.
“Oh, gosh, that’s right,” Eisinger said, playing all naive. I thought he sounded about as innocent as Adolf Eichmann. “I completely forgot that one of the bloodsucking undead was among us.” He looked at Karl. “No offense intended, Renfer.”
I felt Karl tense up next to me, but his voice was calm and businesslike as he said, “None taken – and it’s Detective Renfer.”
“Then I sure am sorry,” Eisinger said, “Detective.”
Before this got out of hand, I asked the question that had prompted me to come in here in the first place. “Gillespe here – how did he die?”
“Coroner’s report isn’t out yet,” Eisinger said. “Hell, they ain’t even done the autopsy, which you should know, since the dude is still lying here on the floor.”
I looked at him. “What, in your professional opinion, was the deceased’s cause of death?”
He gave me an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I’m no pathologist, but I’d say those plastic baggies that are jammed down his throat had something to do with it. Looks like there’s at least a dozen of ’em stuck down there. You want, I’ll send you one as a souvenir, once the post is done.”
“Don’t bother,” I said.
“What’s your interest in this dude, anyway?” Eisinger asked. “Him being human and all.”
“He was one of our CIs,” I said, which I guess was technically true. Roger Gillespe had given us information, and we had kept his name to ourselves, even if it wasn’t for the usual reasons of confidentiality. “Well, thanks for the info,” I continued, keeping most of what I felt out of my voice. I turned to go, but then noticed that Karl hadn’t moved. He was looking intently at Eisinger.
“Detective,” Karl said softly.
“What?” Eisinger looked at Karl, and I saw their eyes lock. The two of them stood, in what someone else would have taken to be a stare-down, for at least half a minute.
Then Karl said, in that same quiet voice, “We’ve all done things that we’re ashamed of, things we hope nobody ever finds out.”
“Yeah,” Eisinger said dully.
“Why don’t you tell us,” Karl said, “about the one thing you’ve done in your life that you’re most ashamed of. Say it nice and loud.”
Another few seconds went by before Eisinger said, in a monotone that was still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “When I was fourteen, I started fucking my sister, Kathy. She was twelve. I said I’d kill her if she ever told anybody. It went on for over a year, two, three times a week – whenever our parents left us alone together. I made her do everything – oral, anal, the whole nine yards. And then one day she got one of my Dad’s guns and shot herself. Right in the heart. But she never told on me. Not even in the note she left.”
“Thanks, Detective,” Karl said, and broke off eye contact. “Thank you for sharing.” Then we got the hell out of there.
As we went down the stairs, I said quietly to Karl, “What the fuck was that?”
“Two things,” Karl said. He kept his voice down, too. “One of them was payback – and don’t tell me the bastard didn’t have it coming.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “But what was the other thing?”
“Practice.”
We didn’t say anything as we walked back to where we’d parked the car. Once he was behind the wheel, Karl clicked the button that would unlock the door on my side. I got in as he was buckling his safety belt. I got my own seatbelt on and waited, but Karl didn’t start the engine. Instead, he sat there, staring straight ahead.