The Remains Of The Dead Part 24

Once the perimeter was checked, Sadie handed over her keys. While her heart thumped like a hammer in her chest, the cops, joined by Zack, searched the inside of her house. They determined that there was no sign of forced entry and no bogeymen were hiding in closets or under beds.

Sadie punched in the code to stop the shriek of the alarm.

"Your system has a sensitive motion detector. If you set it to indicate you're going out, it'll go off if someone's moving around inside," an officer explained.

"Someone broke in?" Zack asked.

"We think it was most likely your little fuzzy friend." He nodded and Sadie followed his gaze to see Hairy hop by.

"Oh my G.o.d, my rabbit set off my alarm?" She laughed in relief.

"It happens all the time," the officer admitted. "Well, it's usually cats or dogs, not bunnies, but the end result is the same. There's a way to set your alarm to ignore smaller movements. You need to check your manual or call your alarm company."

"I will."

Zack walked the officers outside, and no doubt filled them in on what had happened at the spa. Sadie's ears were still ringing from the raucous sound of her alarm.

When Zack returned, he said, "Petrovich will be by in a few minutes. I'll stay until he gets here."

She shook her head. "You don't need to stay."

"I should," he insisted. "Jackie can wait."

"You set up a time to meet with her?"

"Yeah, but we can postpone. It's no big deal."

"You should go. I'll be fine. Like you said, Petrovich will be here in a few minutes. Don't forget, I've got my alarm system and my attack bunny to keep me safe."

He hesitated, but at her insistence he finally left. Sadie walked down the hall to her office. There was one phone message on her machine and she hit PLAY.

"Sadie, it's Egan. Call me."

David Egan owned and operated Scour Power, another Seattle niche cleaning company. They didn't compete for business, but instead shared Seattle's misfortune. Sadie chose to handle the clean of death while Egan's business took care of methamphetamine lab cleanup, marijuana grow-ops, and tidying up non-crime-related squalor.

Egan must've recognized Sadie's number on his phone's incoming display, because he answered instantly.

"Hey, Twisted Sister. Long time no chat."

"How's biz?" Sadie asked.

"Well, you know, the world's a dump. I'm handling a tunnel house right now and there are rats the size of my dog helping me out."

Sadie shuddered. Tunnel houses were what they called the type of human squalor where the person lived in a home shoulder high in clutter and trash that had pathways or tunnels leading from room to room. It still shocked Sadie to realize people actually lived that way.

"You can keep your tunnels," Sadie said with a chuckle.

"And you can keep your brain spatter," he countered. "Which is why I'm calling. I got a call a couple hours ago from some lady needing a suicide clean."

It happened occasionally that someone would look through the Yellow Pages and call Scour Power instead of Scene-2-Clean if they didn't read the fine print of what the company handled. When that happened, usually David and Sadie just redirected the client to the correct company.

"So you told her to call me?" Sadie asked, wondering what was so unusual about this job that required David to call instead of just giving the lady the correct number.

"Actually, I told her I'd call you myself and give you the message."

"Why? Is there something special about this clean?"

"Not really. Her son cut his wrists in the bathtub."

"So why do I have the pleasure of your personal call? This isn't a friend or family, is it?"

"No, nothing like that." He paused. "You know I don't wanna be cleaning your b.l.o.o.d.y jobs, Sadie."

"And I'm fine letting you handle your disasters." She could feel the big but coming.

"But here's the thing-" He sucked in a breath, then let it out. "The woman said she was referred to me by SPD."

"The cops told her to call you instead of me? Huh. Guess they made a mistake." Sadie tightened her grip on the phone.

"Yeah. Sure."

After a moment to collect her thoughts, Sadie confronted it head-on.

"Look, the two of us have been cleaning the Emerald City for years now, Egan. Anything you've heard that hints that I'm less than honest is flat-out wrong."

"Yeah, I know that," he said emphatically. "h.e.l.l, I'd let you mop up after my own next of kin even if their rotting corpses were covered in diamonds, 'cause I know you'd personally shine each and every rock with care before leaving them for me."

Not exactly a pretty visual, but Sadie appreciated the sentiment behind it.

"Thanks."

"The thing is, man, you've got to somehow convince SPD of that. If they're afraid to send the biz your way, well, what choice will I have but to step up to the plate? Neither of us wants that."

David Egan pa.s.sed along the name and number of the woman who needed the work.

"Thanks for the heads-up about the SPD," Sadie said sincerely. "I appreciate it."

"Forget appreciation. Just fix it."

"I will," she promised before disconnecting.

Sadie got up from her desk, downed the last drops from her coffee mug, then threw it against the wall with such force that it exploded in a thousand tiny shards.

15.

Sadie called Shawna Stuart about the call she'd made to Scour Power.

"Mr. Egan said he'd get you to call me," she said. "He said that you specialize in this..." She swallowed. "What we need done. So you do this kind of cleaning regularly?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Sadie said. She knew the woman would find little comfort in hearing that her son's method of ending his life was one of the most common. "I can come over now, if that's convenient," Sadie offered gently.

Shawna gave her the address, and as Sadie prepared to leave, Detective Petrovich banged on her door.

"I'm on my way to a job."

"After you tell me about the sniper taking shots at you," he corrected.

She shrugged. "A small green car was on my b.u.mper shortly after I left Pill Hill this morning and I thought I lost him when I cornered onto First. When I came out of my destination on First, somebody took a shot at me as I walked to my car."

"And you took an unexpected ride in a linen delivery van," he said, a smile coaxing the corners of his mouth. "Smart move."

"Yeah, well, I live to scrub another day," she replied tiredly. "So there you have it. Now you tell me Kent Lasko is skiing, so I got n.o.body else to point the finger at, but I'm getting tired of dodging bullets. If this guy was a half-decent shot, Zack would be cleaning up his boss's blood."

"I've got the local boys taking a drive by your place on a regular basis."

"Great. I'll be safe as long as they don't get another call at the same time the shooter happens to be ringing my doorbell."

"It's the best I can do. I told Zack you'd be safer staying with him."

She glared at him. "You had no right."

He shrugged. "Then find someone else whose life you'd risk while bunking with them."

"I've got to go." She brushed him off and was soon parking the company truck at the curb in front of a six-story concrete housing project.

Zack called her just as she was preparing her equipment to take it into the building.

"I just wanted to let you know that the Yenkow place is done. I pulled the ionizer, and the restoration company finished the flooring today," Zack said.

"Thanks for taking care of that," she mumbled, checking for supplies like hazmat gear, cleaners, brushes, and bins.

"You sound like you're in a cave," Zack said. "Or in the back of the van. Are you on a job?"

"Yeah. It's a new call," Sadie said. "A slice and soak. No worries. I can handle it on my own."

"You should be at home. Scratch that. You should be at my place."

"Forget it. I've got work to do."

"Then I'll come and help."

"By the looks of this building I'm guessing no insurance and no money. There's no sense in both of us donating our time."

"So you're just going to eat the loss?"

"Probably." Sadie didn't like to work for free, but there was no way she would walk away from the job and leave a mom to clean up her own son's blood.

"Give me the address."

Zack showed up in time to get the specially fitted shop vac from the van. Sadie was grateful because she knew it would save her a backache later.

The cramped apartment wasn't going to be an easy job. Not because of the clean itself, but because the mom and sister remained in the apartment while the job was being done. This wasn't unusual, but it made things awkward.

They used the deceased's bedroom as their safe zone for supplies and changing. The bathroom itself was tight quarters, particularly with the two of them working the scene. After about five minutes Sadie found herself wishing Zack had stayed home. He was sullen and moody.

They worked side by side in silence, and after all visual blood was removed and the area sanitized, they removed their hazmat suits in the kid's room.

Once stripped back down to her regular clothes, Sadie stretched her limbs and shook off the tightening in her body that came from working in a claustrophobic bathroom for a couple hours.

"I'm going to take another look to make sure we didn't miss anything," Sadie whispered. When family was at a scene, they always kept their voices low.

"You didn't miss anything. You never do," Zack replied tightly. "But you'll check anyway."

And she did. She'd never yet had a customer come back to say, Hey, you missed a spot. The sheer horror of that possibility always forced her to be thorough.

"I'll start taking the gear down," Zack said.

Sadie nodded and went to talk with the family.

"We're all done," she told the mother.

"Thank you so much," Shawna replied. She looked too young to be the mother of a teenager and far too young to be burying one. From the looks of the bags under her eyes, though, tragedy was already aging her.

Shawna had another child, a daughter who looked about eight. The girl just sat on a sagging brown sofa and stared at the television, her face eerily bland. Shock. It probably hadn't even hit her that her brother wouldn't be around to tease her anymore.

"Can I get you some tea?" Shawna asked.

"No, thank you," Sadie replied, following the pet.i.te woman into her tiny kitchen.

"How much do I owe you?" she asked, grabbing her checkbook from her purse on the counter.

"As I told you earlier, we usually deal with insurance companies for our services."

"And I already told you that I don't have no insurance, so I'll just write you a check." She smiled and brushed her forehead with the back of her hand. "How much?"

Sadie looked down at the floor, which was clean but yellowed with age. As far as businesswomen went, Sadie knew she failed at the money side of things, especially when she was dealing with people who didn't have any.

She handed the woman the invoice. It was modest. She hadn't included her own wage and only a portion of Zack's, but the cost of dumping the waste alone was always staggering.

Shawna nodded at the amount, and her hands trembled a little when she reached for a pen and began carefully writing the amount on a check.