Dead Suite (3 page)

“Don’t say anything that’s going to jinx my case.”

“I was only going to point out the obvious,” Sadie said. “The perpetrator pilfered
the prostitute’s pointer.”

Chapter 2

It turned out that Detective Petrovich was not a big fan of alliteration. Also, he
was grumpier than usual and cursed at Sadie’s attempt at a joke. She usually didn’t
play around when talking to Petrovich, but lack of sleep had made her punchy. Sadie
figured Petrovich was tense because they both knew that if the killer took a trophy
there was a chance this wasn’t a onetime thing. Even though one dead hooker does not
a killing spree make, Sadie had an uneasy feeling in her gut.

Petrovich was on edge and not wanting to jinx the case by hinting, or even implying,
the
S
word. And in this case,
S
stood for
serial killer
and not for
spirits
, as it usually did for Sadie. Although, truthfully, Petrovich didn’t appreciate the
discussion of spirits either. They ended the call as Sadie steered the van onto her
street.

When she walked into her house Sadie was greeted by the
clickety-clack
of bunny toenails on her laminate floor. Her pet rabbit, Hairy, greeted her enthusiastically.
Well, maybe
enthusiastically
was too strong a word. He twitched his nose and hopped toward the kitchen to his
food bowl to hope for his favorite yogurt yummy treats. Hairy twitched his nose expectantly
and Sadie fed her pet while she called the man who’d e-mailed her earlier.

Hugh Pacheo sounded like a man in his early sixties, and he had a forlorn undertone
in his voice that caused Sadie to immediately empathize. Suicide was murder on all
those left behind. His story was very brief: His son had hanged himself in his garage
and now that the police were done, he needed someone to clean the place so that he
could list the property for sale. Sadie agreed to meet Mr. Pacheo at his son’s house.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “we can discuss things in the driveway and I’ll give
you the key for the garage. I’d rather not go inside.”

“That’s fine,” Sadie said gently. She was all about trying to lessen the trauma for
her clientele, and she understood too well how it could be difficult for loved ones
to visit the scene.

“I should tell you up front that my son had no insurance, so I’ll be paying this out
of pocket.” He cleared his throat. “I . . . I may not be able to pay you immediately
but my pension check arrives in a couple weeks. I hope you don’t mind waiting. . . .”
He sounded proud and slightly embarrassed.

“No problem,” Sadie said quickly. “If it ran through an insurance company there’d
also be a few weeks’ delay. I’ll invoice you.”

Sadie agreed to meet him in an hour. Although her body craved sleep, she figured she’d
nap after she met up with Mr. Pacheo. Then she’d still have time later that afternoon
to visit May Lathrop’s basement suite. Before changing her clothes and heading out
to meet up with Mr. Pacheo, Sadie went to her home office and glanced through her
e-mails on her computer and then checked the company answering machine. There were
no frantic messages requesting immediate trauma-clean services. Seattle’s mayor was
over the moon about the drop in violent crime in the city. Sadie not so much.

After loading some basic supplies into the trunk, Sadie got behind the wheel of her
older Toyota Corolla, which was parked in her garage next to the Scene-2-Clean van.
When meeting with a grieving family, she usually left the van at home. It was a half-hour
drive to the quiet tree-lined residential street, and at first she drove right past
the house where she was meeting Hugh Pacheo. The cedar hedge was so high on either
side of the driveway it blocked the view of the house numbers. Sadie reversed her
car and then spotted an older pickup truck in the driveway of the small ranch house
with a single attached garage.

She parked alongside Mr. Pacheo and they both climbed out of their vehicles and met
in the driveway in front of their cars. He reached out and shook her hand and thanked
her for coming. Sadie noticed his hands were soft, and his nails buffed and nicely
manicured. Hugh Pacheo had a round, soft face with doughy features and gentle eyes.
He looked vaguely familiar, possibly because he had the kind of face that could pass
for just about anyone’s grandfather. He wore brown dress pants that shone with wear
and a thin white dress shirt with one button missing. He explained once again in a
quietly emotional voice that his son had hanged himself in the garage of his home.

“I need to sell the house but the real estate agent suggested I get a professional
like yourself in to have it cleaned first. I couldn’t . . . just couldn’t do it myself.”
He looked down at his feet.

“Of course, Mr. Pacheo,” Sadie said, placing a hand on his arm. “This is exactly what
I do. Don’t worry about it.”

He looked grateful as he handed over a key to the side entrance of the garage. Sadie
told him that she would look through the premises today and probably return tomorrow
to get the job done.

“I have something for you,” he said, and there was an odd mischievous look in his
eye.

He rushed off to his small truck and took out a small rectangular box.

“This has been in my family a long time.” He opened the box and took out a gold necklace.
Dangling from the chain was a two-inch flat disc pendant with a sun design that was
faded with wear. It was obviously antique, and when he handed it to Sadie she stepped
back.

“Oh, I can’t possibly take that, Mr. Pacheo.”

“It’s not a gift,” he insisted as he walked toward Sadie. “I want you to keep it in
good faith until I can pay you for your work.”

Sadie shook her head no but then Hugh Pacheo just said, “Please. I’m a proud man,
Ms. Novak, and I can’t in good conscience ask you to do a job for me without giving
you something in return until I can pay you. It would make me feel better to know
you had this small token of thanks until I can give you a check.”

It was an odd request but certainly not the strangest she’d ever had. Sadie agreed.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll hang on to it until you can pay me.” She was already thinking
she’d charge him just the barest, most minimal cost for the job.

“You must wear it,” he said.

He held up the pendant and turned it over to show her an engraving so worn the words
were difficult to read, even if Sadie had studied Latin. He read,
“Carnalem concupiscentiam est insatiabilis.”
With a chuckle and a shake of his head he continued. “I forget the exact translation
but basically it means good luck will come to those who wear it, so please promise
me you’ll wear it until you give it back. Somebody in your line of work could probably
use a little luck in their life.”

Ain’t that the truth.

His eyes twinkled and Sadie couldn’t help but smile back. He was an odd duck, but
the guy just lost his son. It wouldn’t hurt to give in to a grieving man’s quirky
request.

“Sure. Why not.”

She fingered the long chain that hung around her neck. The vintage necklace rested
warmly against her skin. She wasn’t much for jewelry but it certainly wouldn’t be
a hardship to wear a nice gold necklace.

“I’ll be off now,” he said, starting to smile and then quickly readjusting his features
as if remembering the real reason they were here. “And thanks again.”

Sadie waited until Mr. Pacheo was gone before she popped her trunk and dug out a hazmat
suit along with her camera. Even though the pictures wouldn’t be going to an insurance
company, she kept the before and after shots for file records on every job she took.
As she walked toward the garage, she rolled her head on her aching shoulders as fatigue
once again began to settle in. She planned to take photos now and come back tomorrow
to complete the work.

It took her only a few minutes to take pictures inside the garage. There really wasn’t
going to be a lot of significant cleanup involved; only a minimal amount of bodily
fluids needed her attention. Since it was a suicide, she’d also be free of bothersome
ghosts. The spirits of suicide victims never appeared to Sadie, and she’d always believed
that the reason was because they’d made their choice to go over willingly to the next
dimension and so they had no ties to the here and now.

Once Sadie had taken the pictures and looked around, she changed her mind. It seemed
silly to hold off until tomorrow to do a job she could accomplish quickly right now.
Rather than heading straight home to nap, Sadie went back to her car and unloaded
basic cleaning supplies and brought them into the garage. No time like the present.
Within a couple hours she was done, and since it was such a speedy job she felt better
about the fact that she’d made up her mind to charge the kindly father, Hugh Pacheo,
only a minimum labor charge after her expenses.

Sadie held up her camera to take a few after photos of the garage, and a sudden blur
of movement appeared in the corner of her eye, startling her. She fumbled and nearly
dropped the camera but when she looked up there was nothing there. Slowly she scanned
the tidy garage. There were a few boxed items and a workbench and tools that had been
there all along, but nothing was amiss. She spun on her heel for another quick look
but she was alone. Lack of sleep was causing her to see things. Definitely time to
go home and have some rest.

When she got back to her place Sadie desperately needed to unwind a bit before sleeping.
She’d just settled herself onto her sofa with a bowl of Cheetos, the remote control,
and a bottle of Red Hook Wit beer when the doorbell rang. Sadie reluctantly hoisted
her tired body off the couch.

When she opened the door, her friend Maeva stormed inside with a wailing baby strapped
to her chest in one of those infant wraparound thingamajigs.

“I need you to hug me!” Maeva exclaimed with a shrill scream that was a small decibel
higher than that of the writhing cherub strapped to her body.

“Oh no you don’t!” Sadie jumped back. “Are you having some kind of postnatal breakdown
or something?”

“I’m dead serious. I need to see if I’ve still got it!”

“Don’t you remember how touch-sensitive you are?” Sadie shouted over the baby’s cries.
“Since I can communicate with the dead on a different level than you, touching me
causes you vomiting and stomach pains. Like that time you ate the green yogurt at
the back of my fridge.”

“I thought it was supposed to be that color.”

“Nothing is
ever
supposed to be that shade of green.” Sadie shook her head. “I’m not going to hug
you, but I will take my godson.”

“I
used
to get sick when you touched me but that was when I had my powers. Now my abilities
are gone! I have no sensitivities whatsoever. Osbert is nearly four months and still
my clairvoyant talents haven’t returned.” Maeva’s chin flopped to her chest and she
sobbed as she lifted the bawling baby from the sling and handed him to Sadie.

Immediately the child stopped crying.

“And I think Osbert hates me,” Maeva sniffed.

“Probably because you named him Osbert.” Sadie lifted the baby to her face and planted
a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“Osbert means divinely brilliant.”

“It means he’ll be picked on in school,” Sadie countered. “Isn’t that right, Ozzie?”
Sadie managed to coax a toothless smile out of the child’s face. To Maeva she said,
“I’m sure your medium talents will return eventually. You said that it’s not unusual
for a psychic to lose their ability during and after pregnancy. Before long you’ll
be back to running Madam Maeva’s Psychic Café and telling people they’ll go on long
vacations or meet someone tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me.” Maeva reached into an impossibly huge diaper bag
and pulled out a brown leather purse. She tossed the purse to Sadie. “You can have
it.”

Sadie caught the purse and frowned. “But you love this purse.”

“You love it too. Remember when we argued over who’d get the last one at Nordstrom’s?
Well, since I’m relegated to carrying a diaper bag for a couple years, someone should
be using this purse. No sense in letting a good handbag go to waste.”

Sadie stroked the soft leather. “You’re right. It’s a great purse and it hardly looks
used.”

“I used it once when I attended that convention last month.”

“See, you are still working,” Sadie reminded her. “Didn’t you give a long speech to
a large crowd about helping spirits move on to the next dimension?”

“Thanks, but even that wasn’t my stuff. It was all your information I talked about.
I don’t help spirits move on. I try to contact those who’ve already moved on when
their families want to reach them. Even that, I couldn’t do without your help.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” She pointed to a chair. “Come in, grab yourself a cold
one from the fridge, and then sit down and relax.” Sadie returned to the sofa to collapse
with Osbert on her lap.

Maeva plunked herself heavily into a chair across from them.

“I’m not thirsty.” She eyed the beer and junk food on the coffee table. “It’s only
one o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. Why are you partying like a frat boy?”

“I pulled an all-nighter at work and then ran out to do another job already today.
This is my happy hour.” Sadie balanced the baby in her arms as she leaned in to retrieve
her beer and take a long drink. “Ahhh . . . nectar of the gods.”

“You’re just teasing me since I still can’t drink because I’m nursing,” Maeva grumped.

“One sip wouldn’t kill you, or him.” Sadie indicated Osbert with her chin and held
the bottle out to Maeva.

Her friend shook her head. “You’re wrong. One sip will lead to me gulping down every
bottle in your fridge and then I’ll go home and gobble everything in our liquor cabinet.
Next I’ll be seeking out heroin and crack on the streets and Terry will divorce me.
I’ll end up a toothless, homeless woman begging for change in front of Pike’s Market.”

Sadie stared openmouthed at her friend. “Wow. You’ve given this a helluva lot of thought.”