Lies of the Prophet Page 2

  “Yeah?” a helium voice asked from doorknob height.

  “Lohndale residence?” asked Jenko.

  “Yeah?” asked the person. Lynne saw the face of a very small man peeking out.

  “You’ve got the Passage here?” asked Jenko.

  “What about it?” asked the man. “I’ve got a week to get a permit.”

  “Yes sir,” said Jenko. “That’s absolutely correct. We’re dispatched even before the permitting process to help the bereaved understand the status of their loved ones and the Passage.”

  “Oh,” said the little man. While he pondered, the door slipped open a little and Lynne noticed that he was wearing a child’s bathrobe and tiny boxer shorts decorated with red lobsters. “What are you going to do?” he asked, squeezing the door shut a little more.

  “We’d like to come in, talk with you a bit, examine the body and give you some information,” said Jenko.

  This was Lynne’s second chance to watch Jenko in action and she marveled at his spiel—how natural it sounded, how convincing. His face, body language, and words all combined to project confidence, hope, and helpfulness. She would have believed him if he came to her door, she decided.

  “Give me a minute,” said the little man. He shut the door all the way and she heard a deadbolt click into place.

  “Not a kid,” Jenko said to Lynne as they waited on the porch.

  “Is he going to let us in?”

  “Yeah, probably. He would have told us to get lost otherwise. He doesn’t look like the indirect type. Probably something funny going on in there,” said Jenko.

  “Funny how?” asked Lynne.

  Jenko didn’t get to answer that question. The door popped open and the little man stood there with his robe tied tight. He had donned a baseball cap as well. With a flourish, their little host showed them in to the living room. He jumped up in a normal-sized chair and offered them a seat on the couch. Lynne looked around at the cluttered interior and tried to not wrinkle her nose at the smell. It wasn’t overpowering, but she definitely would have guessed that there was a decomposing body in the house.

  “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind taking a break out here for a minute, it’s easier for us if we start with the Passage,” said Jenko. The man shifted and looked like he was about to get up. Jenko moved his hand to his waistband, in a generic, semi-threatening gesture—as if he might pull out a phone, or gun, or handcuffs. The man settled back in his seat and crossed his arms.

  “He’s in there,” he motioned with his head.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jenko. “And your name?”

  “Nick Solomon,” said the little man.

  “Thank you, Mr. Solomon,” Lynne said when it appeared that Jenko wasn’t going to say anything.

  “Agent?” Jenko said to Lynne and motioned her towards the back.

  Jenko entered the bedroom first. The unpleasant smell doubled in the small room. Lynne closed the door behind them and pressed back against it when she saw the sheet on the bed. It covered a male form. She could tell it was a male form by the embarrassing tent in the center of the sheet.

  “How do you cope with the smell?” asked Lynne.

  “You get used to it, I guess,” said Jenko. “Keeps you alert. I used to use that stuff, on my lip, but now with the mustache it’s too difficult to get it off. Food doesn’t taste right if all you can smell is that stuff. One of the few downsides to having this thing.”

  Lynne glanced again at his thick, nineteen-eighties-gay-bathhouse-style mustache and wondered what any of the upsides might be.

  “He’s um, he’s normal size,” said Lynne.

  “You mean not a midget? Or this?” asked Jenko. He had been peeking under the sheet, but when he completed his question he flipped it off the body. Lynne rubbed her temples with one hand, but didn’t look away. She didn’t want Jenko to think she was squeamish. On the center of the bed the corpse was stretched out nude, like he had fallen asleep during a very erotic dream. His erect penis, bigger than any she’d seen in person, had been propping up the sheet.

  “I think I can guess what Small Fry’s definition of love entails,” said Jenko. “I’m guessing that Pint Size was busy on top of Mr. Ed here.”

  “Oh god,” said Lynne. “You think he was having sex with the corpse?”

  “I was trying to be more delicate than that, but yes,” said Jenko. He sat his black bag down on the bed and pulled out his sampling instrument. “Do you see anything here?”

  “I don’t… Well I guess no,” said Lynne.

  Jenko had been preparing his tool, but looked up at her answer—“You don’t sound sure,” he said.

  “No, I’m pretty certain,” said Lynne. She started to circle to the other side of the bed. “It’s just that,” she started.

  Jenko watched her intently; Lynne only had eyes for the body. She knelt next to the bed and moved closer to the corpse’s face. The dead man actually looked like he had been enjoying his post mortem activity: his back arched slightly and his head tilted back. Unlike the last corpse, this one didn’t seem decayed, despite the smell. Like all the bodies Lynne had seen, she felt jumpy being close, like it would jump up and try to grab her.

  “I really can’t…” she paused again. “Yeah, I think he’s pure-dead.”

  “Think, or know?” asked Jenko. “This is important, Lynne.”

  “Well seriously, Jenks, how am I supposed to be sure?” she stood up. “I mean, you guys hire me to find the Passage, but I’ve only ever seen one Passage before. That’s all anyone has seen, right? There’s only been one official Passage. So how am I supposed to know what another one would look like? This guy seems unusual, sure, but he doesn’t look a thing like Gregory. I mean, he doesn’t have any of the same, I don’t know,” she trailed off.

  “Yeah, okay, okay,” said Jenko. “Just one thing—there is no ‘you guys.’ I’m a contractor, just like you. Don’t lump me in with our employers. I don’t call the shots and I certainly didn’t hire you.”

  Lynne wondered if that was meant to be insulting. She decided it was.

  “Fine, then,” she said. “He’s pure-dead. Go ahead.”

  “Okay,” said Jenko. “That little lover boy is going to be all over this guy when we leave, so I’ve got to go in through his back. Can you hold him up when I roll him over?”

  “Sure,” said Lynne.

  Jenko pulled some rubber gloves from the side pocket of his bag and handed Lynne a pair. Jenko only covered his left hand and then used it to push the man’s shoulder until the stiff corpse was halfway over. Lynne grabbed the body’s arm to hold him up and looked at his slight, dead smile. On the other side of the bed, Jenko slapped the back of his core tool between the dead man’s ribs and extracted his second sample of the day. Lynne let the corpse flop back down.

  “I’ve got to snap him,” said Jenko. “This is awkward when they’re on a bed." Jenko tucked his foot under his knee and positioned himself on the pillows, sliding over until the lifeless head was nearly in his lap. He wrapped his thumbs around the dead man’s ears and extended his fingers down towards the neck. “This guy stinks. Weird, he still looks pretty good,” said Jenko.

  Lynne stared at the light reflecting off the corpse’s dark eyes. They seemed to expand, until his eyes were all she could see. The glint of light swirled, like glitter caught in a cyclone, and the sparkling glitter rose up towards the ceiling as Jenko started to torque the head to the left. Later, in her diary, Lynne would describe her paralysis—it felt like she was looking off to the horizon at the beach. It was the same lazy, unwilling to move, feeling. She found her voice too late. By the time the words came out, a large crack had filled the room—“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” she called.

  “What?” asked Jenko. He was already sliding off the bed. Jenko leaned over and tried to arrange the head into the position it had been when they’d entered. He bunched the bedspread up to prop up the head.

  “Shit,” Lynne hissed.

  “Wait, di
d you see something?” asked Jenko. He turned to face Lynne and pointed down at the body—“Did you see something there?”

  Lynne put her hands on her hips and looked down at her feet, debating what to say.

  “Tell me,” said Jenko. He pointed his finger at her and then back at the naked, dead man. He repeated, “Did you?”

  “I think I did,” said Lynne.

  “What was it? Was it like Gregory? Was he the Passage?” asked Jenko.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t. It wasn’t the same as Gregory, at least I think it wasn’t it. I’ve only seen him like three times. You know that. This was different, but it was kinda the same. It had the same mesmerizing whatever, and the same sparkle,” Lynne admitted.

  “Sparkle?” he asked. “You saw sparkle and you didn’t say anything?”

  “I didn’t see anything until you started to crack his neck. Honestly,” she said, “there was nothing whatsoever until you grabbed his head and started to twist.”

  “Don’t lay this on me,” he said. “That’s your bit. I’m just batting cleanup. Shit. We’re going to have to report this. Good thing I got a clean sample. We’d really be done if we didn’t have that. Damn it, are you sure?”

  “No!” she said. “I’m not. I told you I’m not." Lynne covered her face with her hands and tried to get ahold of herself.

  “Okay,” said Jenko. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll figure it out in the car. No need to hold up the sausage festival here. I’m sure the little man wants to get back on his pony ride.”

  “Yeah. Yes,” agreed Lynne. “Okay.”

  “Just be careful with that timeline the next time we report,” said Jenko. “Make sure you’re clear that nothing happened at all until the neck started cracking.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Lynne. She shook her head and finger-combed her hair back, hoping she could hold it together until she was back at home. Her first day was not going as she’d hoped.

  Jenko moved down to the feet and picked up the legs one at a time. He pulled more implements from his mysterious bag and swabbed and prodded and poked. Lynne felt a little hot despite the air conditioning and sat down in a chair positioned next to a dresser. She turned away from the proceedings and found herself looking at a large rubber object on top of the nightstand. Her eyes traveled up and down the thing until she recognized its shape and turned away. In her normal life, Lynne did not consider herself at all prudish. But being in the bedroom of this naked dead guy, looking at his enormous black dildo made her suddenly squeamish.

  Lynne looked at the floor so she could focus on nothing more than Jenko’s feet as he maneuvered around the bed.

  “Why do you have to do so much extra stuff this time?” asked Lynne.

  “It’s not extra,” he said. “It’s normal. I just didn’t have to do it with Annie because she was already too far gone. This one’s fresher. I have more steps.”

  A knock on the door interrupted them.

  “Yeah?” asked Jenko.

  “You gonna be long?” asked the helium-voice from the other side.

  “Five minutes,” said Jenko. “Thank you for your patience.”

  Lynne pressed her ear against the wall and heard little footsteps trail away. She nodded to Jekno and he resumed his work. Lynne turned her focus back to the floor and saw a faint trail of the same glitter she had seen before. It was barely visible, each fleck seemed to negotiate between the fibers of the carpet.

  “Hey,” said Lynne. “Mr. Jenko? Jenks? There’s something,” she pointed.

  “What?” he asked, looking around, behind himself and finally down. “What do you see?”

  “Something there,” she said. Lynne left her chair and dropped to her knees, crawling towards the bed and lowering her head until she could see under the bedskirt. “There’s something under there.”

  “Something like what?” Jenko asked. He dropped to the floor on the other side of the bed and flipped up the skirt. With the influx of light she could see more clearly until his body blocked out the light again. Lynne flipped up her own side of the bedskirt and found herself face-to-face with a dead cat.

  “Oh, kitty,” she said, frowning. Lynne thrust out her hands and grabbed the cat without thinking. She pulled its stiff, smelly body out from under the bed and set it down in front of her knees. She moved her hands to the side and wiped the dust and hair from them. “Poor kitty,” said Lynne.

  “There’s your smell,” said Jenko. He nudged the cat’s head with the toe of his shoe. Its eyes shut and bulging and its tongue stuck out between its teeth. One ear stood straight but the other was folded down limp.

  “Don’t do that,” said Lynne. “Poor thing." She reached forward, nearly stopped her hand and then completed the motion, stroking the cat down its side. Some hair came away with her caress, but the remaining hair looked glossy and pretty clean.

  “I bet the little guy didn’t even know it was down there. Why would you leave a dead cat under the bed?” asked Jenko.

  “Maybe he’s been looking for him everywhere and just didn’t know where to look. It’s sad—all those loved ones dying at the same time. Have a heart, Bud,” Lynne said.

  Jenko ignored her comment—“Boy, you think being so low to the ground, the micro sex-machine would have noticed. How long you think it’s been dead?”

  “I have no idea,” said Lynne. She spun the collar around looking for a tag, but there was none. “Let’s get your tongue back in your mouth there baby." The cat’s tongue was dry and bloated; it wouldn’t cooperate. Lynne remembered what had originally drawn her to discover the cat and looked for the source of the sparkle. It took a careful examination, but she tracked it down—the trickle of sparkling light streamed from the cat’s nose, and worked its way into the carpet. Lynne didn’t understand her ability, and didn’t have good control, but she could see this sparkle when she tried. Her method amounted to looking through the sides of her eyes instead of just the fronts. When she did it right, Lynne could see the light of the Passage. That state beyond death. The state of resurrection.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Jenko

  “Nothing,” Lynne lied.

  “What did I tell you about trying to get one over on me?’ asked Jenko. “I’m smarter than that, and I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  “Bull,” said Lynne. “Gregory’s whole deal and the Passage only happened a year ago.”

  “I didn’t mean investigating the Passage,” said Jenko. “I meant investigating. I’ve worked with a shit-ton of partners, and I know when one is lying.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Lynne. “I see Sparkle from this cat.”

  “Actual Sparkle?” asked Jenko. “From a cat?”

  He reached a hand into his bag to get an instrument. “Hey, any chance the Sparkle you caught before was also from the cat?”

  “Um, yeah,” said Lynne. She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked up at Jenko. “I think so. I think it’s the same.”

  “Perfect,” said Jenko. He pumped a fist that happened to hold a big, nasty-looking syringe. “Wraps that little Sparkle issue up in a bow. Okay, step aside please, dear.”

  “No,” said Lynne. She put both hands down on the cat protectively.

  “Whaddya mean, no?” asked Jenko. “Man or animal, I’ve got to get the sample. And should we find an animal that shows signs? You know this.”

  Another knock at the door distracted Jenko. Lynne scooped up the cat, ignoring the smell and stiff death, and pressing the animal to her chest. The cat was cold—so cold that it made her hands feel numb.

  The little man’s voice called from the other side—“Hey, I’ve got to tend to my friend. I’m going to have to ask you guys to leave now.”

  “What’s with people today?” Jenko hissed at Lynne. “Oh great,” he said, spying her clutching the cat.

  Mr. Nick Solomon turned the handle and pushed open the door. Lynne, who had been crouching, rose quickly and stood next to her partner. Together they
formed a screen between Nick and the body. Nick leaned from side-to-side to see around them. Once he had spotted his dead lover, Nick turned his attention back to the pair of investigators—“What are you doing?”

  “We’re just wrapping up,” said Jenko. “We’re going to go put our equipment in the car,” he pointed at his bag, “and then we’ll be back to interview you. Again, we know your time is limited, so we’ll make our interview as brief as possible.”

  “Could you get your cat out of here too?” asked Nick. “I happen to be allergic. Wait, is that thing even alive?”

  Lynne narrowed her eyes and then looked down at the stiff animal in her arms. She wondered why Nick didn’t recognize the cat. As she reflexively stroke its head, she noticed that the Sparkle leaking from the cat’s nose had become a stream. Her protective feeling for the kitty deepened.

  “Yes, sorry,” she said to Nick. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

  She stepped past Nick and left Jenko standing next to the bed.

  “Well then,” said Jenko. “We’ll just… We’ll be right back." He followed Lynne.

  Nick brought up the rear—“Maybe you should come back another day,” said Nick. “I’ve really got a bunch of things to do today.”

  Jenko seized the opportunity for a clean getaway, but didn’t want to appear too eager—“As you wish, sir, but we’ll need to get over here at your earliest convenience, so we can finish the paperwork."

  “I understand,” said Nick. He was already starting to shut the bedroom door behind them. Lynne realized that they weren’t going to be escorted to the front door and tried to hide her disgust at thinking of what the little man intended to do to the body as soon as they left. Jenko let Lynne lead the way to the front door and then followed her out.

  He didn’t speak again until they were crossing the yard towards the car—“That was easy. Once we get down the street we’re going to have to do that cat. You realize that, right?”