The Vengeful Dead by J. N. Duncan Page B

way. She needed to get the grime of death off her. It was not the usual sort of grime that came from poking and prodding around dead bodies. She could be hip-deep in blood and entrails and not lose her lunch, but this had been different. The death had been inside her somehow, like a poisonous gas that had invaded every cell of her body. Perhaps there could be no getting rid of it once it had entered, fused to one’s very DNA.
    With the shower spraying the tiled wall with pure hot water, Jackie gave it a few minutes to build up steam before stepping in. She stared at her face in the mirror, grown sharper the past couple of weeks from lack of eating. Her eyes, once proudly intense, looked weary and, dare she think, fearful? If you looked deep enough could you see the dead in her eyes, too?
    The steam began to obscure her image and Jackie gladly turned away. She stepped into the shower to breathe deeply of the warm mist, and hoped maybe some of that death that had somehow invaded her earlier might find its way out through her pores. She turned off the water thirty-odd minutes later when she had reached the limits of her water heater. Her muscles had finally begun to relax and the steam did appear to have cleansed some of the bitter aftertaste of death from her body. Now it was time for a glass of wine, maybe two, and her piano. She needed the piano tonight.
    Jackie needed some worry-free solace and something capable of driving away the events of the day. That meant either drink or play and Jackie didn’t feel so depressed at the moment to chose oblivion over Brahms. Shuffling out in pajama bottoms, socks, and a T-shirt, Jackie opened a bottle of pinot noir, poured a very full glass, and turned on the TV to a blue screen. After turning off the rest of the lights Jackie sat down at the bench. As though the blue lighting were a cue, Bickerstaff sprang up on top of the piano and peered down at her with his lazy gaze.
    One huge gulp to warm her belly, and Jackie set her fingers upon the keys to do as they wanted. More often than not, she would pick out snippets of songs and refrains, music with repeating melodies and rolling scales. When stressed, her mind craved hypnotic rhythms, never-ending roads that her mind could wander on and get lost, away from all things.
    Exactly nine whole minutes into her playing, just when her brain had taken its first steps out onto that blissful, solitary road, someone knocked at her door. Three soft raps. Jackie paused and held her breath. Either Mr. Chen in the apartment behind her was coming to complain, or Mrs. Galloway had let some fucking solicitor in through the bottom door again.
    “Go away,” she whispered. “I’m not here.”
    Three soft raps again upon her door. “Jackie? Are you there?”
    The voice was disturbingly familiar. She should know it, so familiar in fact, Jackie knew she was just spacing on who it was.
    “Jackie? Please, just a few moments of your time.”
    Her breath sucked in so quickly she coughed and nearly gagged on her lungs. Tillie! Oh-my-fucking-God Dr. Erikson. Jackie started to scramble off of the bench, and then abruptly realized that her apartment was in damn fine condition for visitors. There wasn’t a thing to pick up. One could even say a normal person lived in this apartment. One who didn’t hear screaming ghost babies or blackout and sucker-punch people. She reached over and turned on the floor lamp by the piano and walked to the door.
    “Dr. Erikson? It’s almost ten.” She opened the door, leaving the chain guard on. It was indeed Tillie, dressed down in jeans and a smartly fitted cashmere sweater. “Why are you here?”
    “Because John told me he had given permission for you to come back to a case on a limited basis. He would not give me a clear answer on your exact status and you didn’t return my calls, so I came to see for myself.”
    She sounded polite. To most, her voice might appear calm and unruffled, but Jackie knew without a doubt she