But this little tiger pulled at my emotions and there was nothing I could do about it.
Daffodil was still in my bed. I roused her, walked her home, and then stepped into the clubhouse control room. Mad Dog was manning it, leaned back in his chair, scanning four rows of five monitors. Watching.
“Kitty says she has a situation. I don’t know the details. She seems to think it’ll require a truck that can be cleaned, and extra-large garbage bags. I’m gonna take the van. She seems calm, so I’ll go alone.”
We have a black van with no textiles in the back. Looks normal from the outside, but the back of it has seen more bleach than a blonde’s head.
He nodded and flipped a switch so whoever was on patrol wouldn’t hear him talking to me. “How’d she sound?”
If she was panicking, I’d need someone else to help with body disposal. It usually takes two people to get rid of the bodies and their vehicle. Also, if she was going to fall apart because she’d killed someone, then she couldn’t know where the bodies were taken.
“Sounded solid. I’ll make a determination on site.”
Another nod. “Let me know if you need help.”
“My phone’s home. I have a burner with the app running.”
I wore a ballcap on the way to her apartment, and took a route without traffic cams. I didn’t for sure know why I was going, but it’s always good to cover your tracks if you’re headed to do something illegal.
There were no parking spaces open near her apartment, but her car backed out as I neared, and I backed into the slot. She parked nearly a football field away in the next closest empty spot. She wore jeans, sneakers, and an oversized black hoodie, pulled up to hide her long dark-blonde hair. I smelled a gun on her, but I didn’t see it.
If she had the presence of mind to park me close to her apartment, she was probably in good enough shape I didn’t need to call another brother for help.
Neither of us spoke until we were in her living room. Two dead bodies. I was impressed that she’d started with the garbage bags. She’d not only killed them, she’d tried to handle disposal on her own as well.
“They broke in and were stealing my shit.”
I shook my head and pulled a signal blocking sleeve from the pocket of my hoodie. “Phone?”
She went to her bedroom, returned with it, and I put it into the sleeve. “Anything else voice activated? Television, remote, Alexa, Google?”
She looked at the TV leaned against the wall near the door. “It’s unplugged.”
I looked at the body near me, sniffed towards the other one, and walked into the kitchen to take a closer look.
“Castle doctrine says you can use deadly force for people inside your home. We can call the cops and you might get hassled a little, but you won’t be arrested.”
“No cops. They were in my business for weeks when I had nothing to do with a death.” She sighed. “Plus, I didn’t kill the guy in the kitchen with the first strike, so I hit him some more, after the fact. I don’t know if they’ll be able to figure that out or not.”
I felt my eyebrows go up, and I met her gaze.
She crossed her arms and didn’t look away or down. “I’d killed one of them already, so the second one had to die, too. I’m not dealing with the cops when dead bodies are involved. I’m just not.”
“Okay. No cops. What did you use?”
“My cast iron skillet, and I know you’re supposed to get rid of the weapon, but I won’t. It was my great grandmother’s skillet. No soap and water. No bleach. I’m not messing with the seasoning. I was able to take what would fit into my backpack with me when I left home. Not much made the grade, but that pan did. I’m keeping it.”
“I’m assuming the bottom of the skillet made contact, not the inside?”
She put her hands on her hips and it made me want to kiss her until she melted.
“Yeah. Okay,” she said. “Maybe a good salt scrub, some time in the oven, and then a good re-seasoning?”
“We’ll talk about that later. Maybe oil on the bottom and burn it off with a flame before the salt scrub and re-seasoning. Velvet might have some ideas, too. Do you know who these guys are?”
“They have ID. Address is a few streets over. Same address. Same last name. Forty-eight and twenty-three. I’m guessing father and son.” She nodded to two wallets on the coffee table, and I looked at her hands. She was wearing clear gloves.
“When did you put the gloves on?”
“Before I handled either body or the garbage bags.”
Is there anything sexier than a kick-ass kitty-cat who handles her problems and keeps her head? She only needed me to help with taking out the garbage after the fact.
I had her sit on her sofa before I opened my backpack and lined the items we’d need on her coffee table beside the wallets. Heavy-duty extra-large garbage bags. Thick rubber gloves. Bleach. I’d brought actual body-removal bags, but left them in the backpack since we weren’t going to use them. If she’d shot them and we needed to keep the mess from spreading, we’d have needed them.
“Those thin gloves can sometimes leave enough of a print LEO can grab it, if the crime techs are good. Leave them on and put these thicker ones over the top.” I put a pair on as well, and then pulled a garbage bag from the box. “Assuming rigor hasn’t set, we’ll fold them in half. Ass goes in first, and then we can pull your garbage bags out.”
I reached for the IDs and called the control room with the app. “I need to know what kind of car these guys drive. Kitty and I can handle it without help. Just need to know which car to use to take out the trash.” I read off the names, date of births, and address.
“She okay?”
“Yes.” He’d been asking about her physical and mental condition, and we both knew it. The answer to both was that she was more than okay.
Three minutes later, he told me, “Black Tacoma, 2001. Grey Pathfinder, 2016.”
“Thanks.”
I disconnected, walked to the front window, and looked out. “Does the dad have keys on him?”
“Yeah.”
“Nissan?”
She dug them out of his pocket. “Yeah.”
“Unlock it.”
The lights blinked. Bingo.
“Put the IDs back in their wallets, and the wallets back where you found them. Keep any cash, leave the credit cards alone. We want to make this look amateur and not professional.”
I picked up a garbage bag and stood. “We’ll put the bodies in the van. You’ll drive the van, we’ll dispose of the bodies near their house, and then I’ll drive the Pathfinder...” I ran through the possibilities in my head. There was a chop shop east of town I could take it to, but could I stay away from traffic cams to get it there? I didn’t think so.
“Fuck. I don’t know. I guess we drop it in the hood with the keys on the dash and hope someone steals it. I’ll consider our options while we dump the bodies.” I ran my hand over my beard. “Please tell me you have an electric trimmer. I need to get rid of this before we get started.”
Kitty
The van wasn’t far from my front door, so it wasn’t far to take the bodies. Squatch carried the taller man, I carried the shorter. Both men were balled up into quadruple-bagged garbage bags, so they didn’t look like dead bodies. And Squatch and I are both stronger-than-human, so no human would’ve guessed we were carrying people in those bags, since we didn’t look as if they were terribly heavy. I’m sure an analyst would’ve known it by the way the bags hung, but I don’t think a regular person would notice.