Broken Monsters (8 page)

There are
trajectories that cut through our lives, Gabi has found, that link things together. Sometimes those are literal, like the scar under Bambi's arm.

A few years ago there were so many unclaimed bodies at the Wayne County morgue that the city had to rent a truck to store them all in, piled three-deep like a short stack. Only pancakes don't get toe tags. It wasn't that nobody loved them enough to come get them; the families had to save up to be able to pay for their funerals.

Now they've opened an additional pathology lab up at the university, and Bambi is enough of a novelty to get special priority. The new facilities still smell like dead people and preservatives and cleaning products and that peculiar metal tang you can taste in the back of your mouth. Hearts still make the same wet slop sound when they land in a bucket full of organs. The corpses on the metal tables are still uninhabited shells.

“Foreclosed people,” she observes to Marcus. The rookie nods sagely, missing the joke. He's got a long way to go.

Boyd digs in his ear with one finger. “I think they're more human like this. When you shoot an animal, you can only really appreciate what made it an animal when it's gone.”

“That's beautiful, Bob, especially considering you still shoot them anyway. Can you quit picking at yourself?”

“It's itchy.” He wipes the wax off on his pants. “I saw an ad for ear candles in a magazine. Do you think that works?”

“Why don't you try it and report back?”

There is a small crowd of people in scrubs gathered around her stiff. She can tell it's Bambi by the six-inch dip in the sheet between the constituent parts of boy and deer.

Dr. Mackay is poking around under the sheet, talking in a low voice. He looks like he's from another century, with deep grooves in his forehead you could play like an LP record if you had a turntable. He keeps trying to retire, and they keep asking him to come back. There are two cops at the back, craning their necks to see.

“Move it along, boys. This isn't your case.”

“We just wanted a look. That's some crazy shit, detective.”

“Yeah, yeah, this takes the crazy-shit cake. Now hop.” Boyd makes as if to move toward them, and his bulk is enough to get them going.

“You letting every sightseer in, Dr. Mackay?” Gabi snaps. “Should we be charging?”

“They got a body in here, same as you, detective. Little more clear-cut than yours.” He sounds as if he blames her personally. “And the others are students. There's a lot of interest in this, as you might imagine.” He nods at the serious young people in scrubs. “You're excused.”

Boyd pinches his nose. “Didn't you wash him?”

“We've flushed the body several times with the high-pressure hose. What you're smelling is the contents of the bucket. Stomach acid, gall and feces. Stuffing. Your killer didn't do a particularly good job.”

“You need some lipgloss, Sparkles?” Boyd teases Marcus, who is breathing hard through his nose.

“No thank you, sir. I'm mostly interested in the autopsy.”

“Aren't we all,” Gabi says.

Mackay flips the sheet, revealing the corpse, already laid open. Human excavations—the casual violation of the body's integrity. They all peer into the abdominal cavity. “Very inefficient. See here, where he cut through the stomach. He made a hell of a mess.”

“It's not a hunter,” Boyd says. “Hunter wouldn't do such a half-assed job of gutting something.”

“Unless he was in a hurry. Besides, I'd venture that there are a lot of amateurs running around the woods with semiautomatics who wouldn't know the front end of a deer from its ass.” Gabi nudges the bucket beside the table with her shoe. It's full of wadded-up paper and a flaky fabric, sodden and reeking. “What did you mean by stuffing?”

“Newspaper at a guess, although we'll need to send it for testing. It was used to fill the cavity, probably to keep the shape after he removed the organs before he stuck it back together.”

“Had to look right,” Gabi ventures.

“Why newspaper?” Sparkles says.

“What he had lying around. I'm pretty sure it's not what professional taxidermists use. What
do
they use? Sawdust? Emulsifying foam?”

“Don't ask me,” Boyd shrugs. “You put Stricker on that.”

“I believe they make casts,” Dr. Mackay says. “Now, here's your fatal wound.” He points out the blood-crusted hole halfway up the boy's neck. “Blunt trauma severed the vertebrae. Could have been a hammer and chisel, but there was a massive application of force, and the bruising around the area suggests it was mechanical, probably pneumatic. I'd guess it was some kind of nail gun, which is something I'm telling you, not putting in the report because it's speculation. If you could bring me the nail, that would be wonderful. But as you can see by this tissue damage, he dug it out. Possibly with pliers.”

“How hard is it to get a nail gun?” Gabi asks.

“Hardware store sells them over the counter,” Boyd says. “I'll run a check.”

“Now, this is the really neat part,” Mackay says. “You see the seam where he was joined to the deer? I had to cut through it, but you can see in the cross section, here, how the tissue has fused.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like the kind of gluing a plastic surgeon might do, but not quite. It's extraordinary really; a chemical reaction has caused the proteins to break down and mesh with each other. Think of it as a flesh weld. I've mailed some colleagues about it.”

“Welding. Nail guns. We got fuckin' Handy Manny on the loose,” Boyd says.

“I like how he tried to hide it by brushing up the fur. It's a nice touch. Oh, I do have something else interesting for you. You'll like this.”

“Oh boy,” Gabi says.

 Mackay raises the boy's skinny limb to reveal the soft private folds of the armpit, with its first tufting of pubescent hair. It feels somehow more invasive than seeing him laid open and Gabi's first instinct is to look away.

“Look,” Mackay says, so she has to. Bambi has an old scar on his tricep. A pucker of scar tissue just above his armpit, like a tiny daisy. “Here's where the slug went straight through. He was lucky. Inch to the right and it would have reentered the body, gone into the chest cavity.”

Not so lucky this time, Gabi thinks.

“Stop messing
around, he's no good.” Cas leans over Layla, her chest brushing against the back of her head, and takes over control of the mouse.

Her best friend is wearing a plastic cat mask, because that's what the toy shop had in stock. They needed some kind of disguise, and they were the cheapest ones, which are all manufactured in a sweatshop in China anyway. The mask makes Cas look like she's a crazy-hot superhero: the Kitty Avenger, whereas Layla just looks like a dumb-ass. As per usual.

“Hey. Maybe I
wanted
to talk to him,” Layla says as Cas clicks away from the cute boy with scruffy hair and glasses. Little on the plus side, but hey, it's not like Lay's any kind of supercatch either. Ask Dorian. Just thinking his name tugs at her insides.

“That's not what we're here for,” Cas says. “And, please. Those glasses were so faux.” She clicks next, next, next, through the live camera feeds. A girl playing guitar, mumbling a song off-key through the fall of hair over her face. A little kid sprawled in rumpled Batman sheets playing video games, who doesn't even look up. Probably forgot he left the program running. A guy with acne speckled like constellations across his face, who grins into the camera when he sees them and raises one hand, but Cas has already clicked away.

“It's gross how they don't even tidy up,” Layla complains. Even though it's reassuring to know that everyone's a slob. Everyone's messy life hanging right out there in the open, like their own private reality TV show. You can't look away. The roulette of human connection.

“Did
you
tidy up, Miss Priss?” Cas snaps.

“I'm naturally cleanliness-inclined. And get your boobs off my head. Can't you put those things away?” She shoulders her, half-heartedly.

“Can't help it. They got a mind of their own.” Click. Click. Click. Next. Next. Next.

“They should have a national flag and a constitution,” Layla grumbles. “I really have to do my homework.”

“What homework?”

“History assignment. Belgian colonialism in the Congo.”

“You
picked
that,” Cas accuses. “No way Mr. Jeffries assigned that.”

“I want to know about my history.”

“I'm more worried about my present. And you're only half African American. Congo, my ass.”

“Da-mn,” Cas pauses. A man with architectural cheekbones is putting on makeup, thick glitter eye-shadow and fake lashes that curl up almost to his eyebrows.

“Hey sweeties,” he says, a little wistful. “I like the getup. Want to keep me company a little bit while I get ready?”

“Sorry, RuPaul. We're on the prowl,” Cas says. Next.

“She seemed cool.”

“Yeah, okay. We'll see if we can come back later. God knows you need makeover tips.”

And then Cas hits what she's been looking for. Not so hard to find. Layla's surprised it's taken them this long. He's been clicking through too, lying in bed with his shirt off. His face is wide open. Naked. Like the pale sausage hanging out of his jeans, only semierect. But he perks right up when he sees them.

“Well hello there, soldier,” Cas says in her best Lana del Rey purr.

“Hi,” he manages. They've watched quite a bit of porn. Layla has seen a lot of penises. But they're still endlessly fascinating in their variety. Like messy rooms.

“What's with the masks?” he says.

“All the better to show you our tits,” Cas says in that sultry put-on voice, and Layla has to stop herself from laughing out loud. “What's your name, baby?”

“Why?” His hand is jerking up and down. His teeth are bared in a smile-grimace.

“So I can scream it later when I'm thinking about you.”

“Gavin,” he says. “Now.”

“Do it now?” Cas cocks her head at Layla, exaggerating the gesture so the meaning still comes through, even with the mask, as if she can't quite believe what she's hearing. “You mean
right
now?”

“Your tits,” he gasps, his hand a blur. His cheap camera doesn't have enough resolution to cope. “Show me…”

“You first.” Cas leans right into the camera, shrugging her shoulders together to amplify her cleavage.

“What?”

“Show me
your
tits.”

He slows down, uncertain. “You want me to…”

“Show me your tits, baby.” She leans in with a sexy little growl. “Show me that man nip. That makes me really hot. I bet you got tight little ones, like studs, am I right?”

“What?” he repeats. His hand slows.

“Studs. Little shiny metal things on shoes and jackets?” Layla adds helpfully. “Kind of military fashion thing?”

Cas bumps her with her shoulder, telling her to cut it out, stick to the script. But Layla's bored of the script. The petty humiliations Cas insists on.

“Uh. What?” Some of the blood flow seems to be rerouting back to his brain along with the realization that they're not going to deliver.

“You keep saying that,” Cas mocks. “What. What. What. Am I not enun-ci-a-ting clearly enough for you? Don't sweat it, big guy. Well, can't really call you that, can I? Smaller-than-average guy. But hey, it's not your fault you have a retarded-looking cock.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you bitches.” He tucks himself back into his pants, reaching for his mouse with the other hand to click away. But not before Cas manages to get in the last word.

“Not with
that
thing, thanks. But don't worry, Gavin, we've been recording this. You're going viral tomorrow.” It's a blatant lie, but he doesn't know that. He goggles like an asphyxiating fish. “No, wait—”

Cas shuts the window down and flops onto Layla's bed, barely missing NyanCat, who opens one eye warily and then wraps her tail over her nose. “Oh my God, that was classic. Clas-sic. Right?”

“Yeah, well,” Layla shrugs. Then perks up with indignation: “And you can't say ‘retarded,' Cas.”

“C'mon, he had it coming, and please, bitch, it's just a word.” She rubs the cat on the top of her head with her knuckle. “Don't you think so, Nyan, baby?” She lifts the cat up and nuzzles her face. NyanCat treads the air, panicky, and then goes limp and submits, purring. Typical. Not even felines are immune to Cas's sheer force of personality. “I know what will cheer you up,” she says.

“Watching a movie?”

“Doing another one!”

“Hello, homework?”

“Doesn't this count as sociology? Gender studies or something?”

“Yeah, sure, I'm going to include it in my college application essay.”

“You probably could, you know, if you put the right spin on it.”

“I'm not some bag of dicks on SpinChat, Cas. You can't play me.”

“Hey, girls.” Her mom creaks open the door.

“Mom!” Layla rips off the mask, which she knows only makes her look guilty. “You're supposed to knock!”

“So you can click away from the porn? LOL.”

Layla winces with genuine pain. “Oh God, Mom! No one actually
says
that. What do you want?”

“Hey, Ms. Versado.” Her friend gives a cheery wave, still wearing her mask. She perks up around Layla's mom like boys do around Cas's chest. “We were rehearsing our lines.”

“With masks?”

“It helps us get into character. It's a theater exercise,” Cas says glibly.

“I was going to offer you cocoa.”

“Yeah, right, Mom. What do you
really
want?”

“I need some help with my computer. And then I can bring you cocoa. If you're actually doing your homework and not messing around on the Internet.”

“What's wrong this time?”

“It's not connecting. And the machines at work don't.”

“Don't what? Finish the sentence, Mom.”

“Work. They don't work. You
are
in a mood tonight. Is it boy trouble? Because, you know, YOLO.”

“Mom! God. Okay, I'm coming. Just please don't speak anymore.” She shoves away from the desk. “No prank posting from my accounts, okay?”

“Would I do that?” Cas bats her eyelids. “Bye Ms. Versado!”

Layla flings herself down at her mom's laptop in the living room. “What's wrong with it?”

“I'm looking for pictures of dead bodies and all I'm getting is cartoons.”

“Okay, there's your problem. You had safe search on. Just type in your search again. What is it?”

“Dead bodies plus animals.”

“I am
not
typing that. What are you looking for specifically?”

Her mother sighs. “Unusual corpses that might have been reported in the last few years. Animal-human hybrids. Strange taxidermy projects in Michigan or surrounds.”

“Is this the kid?” Layla glances at the Nikon camera her mom uses to take her own crime-scene photos, the card reader plugged into the USB port.

“It's a case, Lay. Don't ask questions.”

“Don't you have a police database for this?”

“Sure,” she says, dripping sarcasm. “As useful as always. I've put in a request to the Michigan Intelligence Center.”

“And your fancy new computers?” The new Public Safety Headquarters looks like it belongs in TechTown, all gray and blue concrete and glass, with a parking lot big enough to accommodate news vans. Inside there's a proper reception area with comfy couches and glass cases of memorabilia and trophies, meeting rooms with AV facilities, a gym with TVs above the treadmills, a real coffee machine—and the detectives' desks in depressingly identical gray cubicles.

Layla feels almost nostalgic for the old precinct on Beaubien, where she'd hung out, sometimes doing her homework in the corner of her mom's office with its wood paneling and dappled glass and big black filing cases and a computer that was only good for holding down paperwork. And, yeah, okay, revolting stained floors and the awful interrogation room the size of a broom closet, where people wrote messages on the walls like “Emmie, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, God is love, please God help me.”

She remembers how shocked she was, at thirteen, seeing a photo tacked up of a dead naked woman laid out like a starfish, the camera aiming right between her legs. Someone had written “Killer: SpongeBob SquarePants?” in ballpoint across the top of it. Her mom had pulled the picture off the bulletin board, the red thumbtacks popping out and rolling across the floor. “Sorry, beanie. Ignore it. Dumb cop humor.”

She knows all about that. She comes from a long, proud line on her dad's side. Her great-grandpappy was a firefighter, his son was a sergeant, and then her dad turned traitor and went private security, even though it's safer, better paid, with benefits. She knows she's supposed to continue the family tradition because po-lice is in her blood, but as far as she's concerned, it's just testosterone. Like the mind-control parasites you get from cats. Toxoplasmosis. If life is all determined by chemical signals, hers are telling her to move on, little girl, right on out of Motor City. Anywhere but here. Anything but po-lice.

“Our fancy network got a fancy virus,” Gabi says. “Someone was downloading porn and it had a spartan or something.”

“Trojan,” Layla corrects automatically.

“All Greek to me.”

“Mom!” Layla cringes.

“The IT guys swear we'll be back up tomorrow, but in the meantime…”

“Can't you just fire all the useless cops?”

“There would be nobody left. Come on, beanie, you're always telling me you can find anything on the Internet.”

“It's like the universe that way. Constantly expanding,” Layla says. “But it's mainly creeps and freaks, Mom, I'm warning you.”

“I think my killer would exactly fit those criteria.”

She pulls up the search results. “Well, here we go. Animal-human hybrid corpses. It's all yours.”

“Great.” Her mother puts on her glasses and squints at the screen.
Island of Dr. Moreau,
the East River Monster, 25 Creepiest Real Science Experiments, that horrible mouse with the ear growing out of it, a two-headed squirrel in a dress and twirling a parasol, among 307,000 other results that get even weirder.

“What is—?” Gabi cocks her head. “Oh. Right. Is that supposed to be his tail or a tentacle?”

“I'll exclude furries and hentai in your search terms. Unless you think that's going to be helpful?”

“No. No I don't think so.”

“You're going down a nasty rabid hole, Mom. Good luck.”

Layla nudges open her bedroom door with her hip, carrying black coffee for both of them, because cocoa is for little kids, to find her friend looking suspiciously thoughtful, scrolling through a forum with some very dubious GIFs.

“Hey, you'll never believe what my mom just said—oh sweet baby Jesus, you had so better not be posting pictures of me to some bug-fuck-crazy porn site.”

“Depends,” Cas grins. “Got any of you when you were ten?”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Catfishing.”

“We're not doing that.”

“But little SusieLee's already got two messages.”

“You need another hobby. Ideally one that involves making very finicky, time-consuming things to sell on Etsy.”

“Like homemade tampons with girl power slogans?”

“You are disgusting.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah,” Layla admits. “Bitch.”

“Slut.”

“Love ya.”

“I know.”