The Remains Of The Dead Part 22

They filled close to a dozen large rubber bins with destroyed product and shelving. Zack's eyes were laughing behind his face mask whenever he noticed Sadie collecting a few more vibrators in animal shapes to clean or remove. He was enjoying this a little too much.

It was a relief to enter the second stage of cleaning once the blood, tissue, and sharps were removed. Now they could simply wear gloves to protect their hands from the cleaning products and not worry about cuts and diseases.

True to their word, they managed to finish the job at Hot Tamales Erotica that night, even though it was the middle of the night.

"I've got one more thing I have to do," Sadie remarked as she yawned and stretched in the storage room. "You wouldn't happen to have your handheld tape recorder on you?"

"I think it's in the truck. You want to borrow it?" Zack asked.

"Just for a minute."

She put the recorder in her purse and walked across the street to a twenty-four-hour food mart. A bored-looking Chinese teenager slouched behind the counter, flipping through a p.o.r.n magazine.

Sadie purchased a couple chocolate bars and went to the counter to pay for them.

"You wouldn't happen to speak Mandarin, would you?" she asked the clerk.

"Me and most of the neighborhood."

"Would you mind doing me a favor?" She dug a pen and paper from her purse and wrote out a couple lines, then took out the handheld tape recorder. "I'm taking a course at the university, and I need to be able to say this paragraph in Mandarin. Could you translate it into my tape recorder for me?"

He read the piece of paper, then looked up at her like she was insane.

"I'm not going to say that."

She pulled a five dollar bill from her wallet and slid it across the counter.

"For ten I'll teach you the top Mandarin curse words."

"What I wrote down on that paper will be fine."

A minute later she walked back across the street. She let herself into the storage area, tossed Zack a Hershey bar, and told him she'd be right back.

Inside the store she walked up to Mr. Woo Sr. and motioned for him to stop pacing the aisles. Once he realized she could see him, he approached her, frantically speaking Chinese.

Sadie rewound the tape recorder, turned up the volume, and pressed PLAY. The clerk's voice sounded, reading the Mandarin version of the lecture Sadie usually gave to the spirits to help them realize that they were dead and they no longer held claim to this life.

Sadie watched as the old man began to nod. With a saddened expression he put his hands together prayerfully and offered her a bow before his essence slowly s.h.i.+mmered and faded away.

"Everything okay?" Zack asked Sadie as she stepped back into the storage room.

"Great," she replied, a big smile on her face. Her head buzzed with the charge of energy she got after helping a spirit. "Let's go tell our client the job's done."

"It's two o'clock in the morning. We could just leave him a note."

"Nah, I want to deliver the good news in person."

Zack smiled. Sadie wasn't the only one who enjoyed banging on Bart Woo's door and waking him to give him the news.

"Even though the cleaning part is done, n.o.body is available to do the drywall repairs and painting for a week," Sadie said.

"No matter. When a man comes in looking for a blow-up girlfriend he doesn't notice if there are a few holes in the walls," he replied sleepily.

"Riiiight," Sadie said.

She whistled happily as they finished loading up the van. Zack offered to drive, and she tossed him the keys, then surprised herself by dozing off for a few minutes. When she awoke, she thought they were at her house, but instead they were pulling into Kent Lasko's driveway and Zack had turned the truck's lights off.

"What are you doing?" she asked, bolting upright.

"Thought we'd pay Kent's brother a little visit and find out what he knows."

"Christian works nights as a janitor," she said. "He won't be home."

The words were hardly out of her mouth when she noticed the flicker of the television behind the drapes covering the picture window.

"Good news," Zack replied. "He's off tonight." He opened his door, then focused a serious gaze on Sadie. "Don't suppose I could convince you to wait here."

"Fat chance," she replied and was out of the vehicle and bounding up the sidewalk ahead of him.

He caught up and grabbed her arm.

"Let me do the talking," he said in a whisper as they reached the front door.

Sadie nodded her agreement. She realized Zack was the only one present with previous experience in interrogation techniques.

Sadie rang the bell, and immediately the sounds from the television were silenced.

When the curtains parted slightly, Sadie knew they were out of luck.

"He knows who it is," she said. "He's not going to answer the door."

Zack listened with his ear pressed to the door.

"C'mon," he said.

He yanked her by the hand and they quick-stepped around to the back of the house. He stopped behind the back deck, where they were partially hidden from view by a tall cedar. He pressed his finger to Sadie's lips in a shus.h.i.+ng motion.

"Stay hidden," he whispered harshly in her ear. "Promise me."

Before Sadie could say anything, Christian Lasko appeared, slipping out of his back kitchen door and quietly locking up. He turned and tiptoed down the back porch.

"Going somewhere?" Zack asked, stepping out from the shadows.

Christian jumped.

"Who are you? Get-get out of my backyard before I call the cops," he stammered.

"I am the cops," Zack said evenly, and everything in his posture and tone acknowledged it as fact. "Where are you sneaking off to, Christian?"

The young man straightened his spine defensively. "I was just putting out the trash."

"Except you forgot to bring it out."

"Okay." He threw up his hands. "You caught me. I'm going for a run first and then put out the trash. Big deal."

"It's only a big deal if you're a liar."

"Look, I've already told the other cops everything and there's nothing else to tell. My brother's skiing in Tahoe, so he couldn't've tried to kill that old lady."

"What about Trudy and Grant?"

"What about them? Grant and Kent go way back. They were pals. Grant would never do anything to hurt him or Trudy." He shook his head. "It's too bad Grant went all nutso, but it has nothing to do with us. This is hara.s.sment. You guys need to leave us alone."

"If your brother wouldn't do anything to hurt them, why did he steal a diamond brooch from their house and plant it on the cleanup girl?"

"Is that what she said? My brother would never steal a thing. He's Mr. Clean," Christian scoffed. "You've got the wrong guy. You should be looking at that crazy broad who did the cleaning, not at Kent."

"Watch who you're calling a crazy broad!" Sadie spat, stepping out from behind the tree.

"I'm so done with this, man," Christian said, balling his hands into fists and taking off as fast as his expensive Nikes would carry him.

Zack glared at Sadie and tossed her the keys to the company truck, then angrily stalked back to the front drive, where he climbed into the pa.s.senger side.

"I guess you're ticked that I didn't keep quiet," Sadie said after a few silent minutes of driving.

"You guess right."

"I'm sorry. I should've let you handle it."

"You promised."

"Well, technically I didn't promise. I didn't get a chance to promise."

He looked at her with an icy scowl.

"But it was like a promise," Sadie added quickly.

They drove on in silence. Before long they pulled up to her drive and she parked the van in the garage. Before she could close the garage door, Zack was headed for his car, parked on the street where he'd left it the night before. Obviously he wasn't interested in spending another night on her killer couch.

Sadie followed him to explain.

"Sorry, but I just don't like being called a broad or crazy," she called to his back.

He turned and planted his hands on his hips.

"Is it better to be called a thief?" he demanded. "Because you and I both know your reputation and your referrals from detectives and the ME's office are going down the toilet unless you can clean this up."

She jammed her hands into her pockets and nodded. "You're right, but what can I do?"

He blew out a long breath and shook his head slowly.

"I haven't a clue."

Sadie slept restlessly that night. Even after she'd checked and double-checked her doors and windows, she just didn't feel safe. She felt like she had two choices-an alarm system or an attack dog. Since there was little likelihood that Hairy and a dog would get along, she thumbed through the Yellow Pages first thing in the morning.

Pam showed up early, wanting to a.s.sist Sadie in her search for an alarm company.

"Don't use the one with the biggest ad and don't use the one with the smallest," Pam advised as Sadie scanned the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

"And make sure that you get one that does monitoring and not just one that has a loud, annoying siren," she added seriously.

"For a woman who's never had an alarm system, you sure have a lot of opinions on the matter," Sadie commented dryly.

"You sure are cranky."

"I'm not cranky. I'm just tired."

"And s.e.x-deprived."

Sadie glowered at her friend while she gulped her third mug of coffee.

"Don't get your back up, I'm only pointing out the obvious," Pam said. "And I've been thinking that you should consider sleeping with Zack."

Sadie put her mug down.

"I thought we agreed that would be the worst possible thing I could do and that getting involved with him would lead to certain disaster for me and my company."

"Yes, but now it doesn't matter because you've got multiple disasters happening all around you. Besides, if he quit you have another employee starting in a few days."

"You think I should have s.e.x with my employee only because I've got another employee all lined up?"

"And also because he's got one h.e.l.luva a.s.s."

Any other day, Sadie would've laughed, but she was quickly losing her sense of humor. She ignored Pam and dialed the third alarm company advertised on the page. She asked questions and took notes about prices and services, and then she called two more. She found one that was recommended by the Better Business Bureau and could even send a techie over that very day for the installation.

"He'll be here in a couple hours," Sadie told Pam. "You're welcome to stay and see if he also has a great a.s.s."

"No thanks," Pam said. "I think I'll go by Logan's office and check to see what he's up to."

"You should stay away from Logan. Let him move on."

"Move on? Why the h.e.l.l should I let him move on?" Pam bit back.

"You guys haven't been dating for a long time. Give it up," Sadie grumbled.

It was just as well that Pam didn't stick around to admire the technician's a.s.s, since it turned out he was a she. Within an hour every window and door in Sadie's home was fitted with little sensors that would announce a break-in. She was shown how to program in her own code, and then the service woman handed her a thick manual to study at her leisure.

Regardless of the fact that it cost more than she expected, Sadie felt a whole lot better just having the system in place.