Blood Pact

jabbing at her glasses. "Thank you," she said, forcing her mouth to form the conversational phrases. "And thank you for your time this morning.” Throwing the bag up onto her shoulder, she headed quickly toward the door. She neither knew nor cared if she'd covered all she'd intended to. She wanted out of that office. Of that building. She wanted to be somewhere where no one knew her mother. Where no one could see reflections of the dead in her face.

    "Ms. Nelson? We miss your mother around here." Intended to be a parting dig at damaged defenses, Dr. Burke found to her surprise that she meant what she was saying and instead of twisting the knife, finished simply with, "The office seems empty without her.”

    Halfway out the door, Vicki turned and acknowledged the observation with a single nod. She couldn't trust herself to speak and wished, just for that instant, that she'd listened to Celluci and not come here alone.

    Dr. Burke spread her hands and her voice picked up the cadence of a benediction. "I guarantee, she didn't suffer at the end.”

    * * *
    "No. I'm sorry, Detective, but none of these photographs are of the Tom Chen that we employed.”

    Celluci pulled the shot of Tom Chen, medical student, out of the pile. "You're sure about this one?”

    "Quite. Our Mr. Chen had slightly longer hair, more prominent cheekbones, and a completely different eyebrow line. We reshape a lot of faces in this business, Detective," the younger Mr. Hutchinson continued in response to Celluci's silent question. "We become used to observing dominant characteristics.”

    "Yeah, I suppose you do." Celluci slid the grainy black and white photographs back into the large manila envelope. Tom Chen, or whatever his name actually was, was not now attending medical school at Queen's, nor had he graduated from the program over the last three years.

    Detective Fergusson had been more than willing to call the registrar's office on campus and suggest they release the pictures.

    "No problem," the Kingston police officer had declared with complete insincerity. "I'm more than willing to humor ex-Detective Nelson and her wild corpse chase." The distinctive sound of hot coffee being slurped from a cardboard cup echoed over the line. "You catch the news this morning? Half the fucking force goes out with some kind of spring flu and some asshole starts strangling young lovers. We got a hysterical witness, who's seen Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video one too many times, if you ask me, and no suspects.
    And I don't need to tell you that the fresher the corpse, the higher the priority. If a phone call will keep your girlfriend happy and off my back while I deal with this new situation, it's worth the two minutes it'll take.”

    Celluci'd been tempted to tell him that the two were connected in one final attempt at enlisting law and order against whatever it was that Vicki and Fitzroy were dispensing but at the last minute decided he'd better not. Your murderer is a reanimated corpse, Detective. How do I know? A vampire told me. Kingston had a large psychiatric facility and he had no intention of ending up in it.

    Meanwhile, the search for Igor moved no further ahead.

    "All right, Mr. Hutchinson." Time to try another angle. "You said that all funeral directors have to serve a four-week observation period at a funeral home before they're accepted into a training program.”

    The younger Mr. Hutchinson leaned back in his chair. "That's correct.”

    "Well, where do these observers come from?”

    "From the applicants to the program at Humber College in Toronto.”

    "So this young man, whoever he was, had to have applied to that program?”

    "Oh, yes, and gone through an interview. The Health Sciences people try very hard to weed out unsuitable candidates before they're placed for observation.”

    Celluci frowned. "So, it was just chance that Ig . . . Tom Chen, for lack of a better name, ended up here?”

    "No, not at all. He asked to come here. Said he'd been impressed by the way we handled the funeral of his aunt some years before and wanted to work with us." Mr. Hutchinson sighed. "All fabricated, I presume, but at the time we were flattered and agreed to take him on. He was a very pleasant fellow and everyone liked him.”

    "Yeah, well everyone makes a bad call now and then." Celluci finished scrawling a note to call Humber College, shoved his notebook in his pocket and stood, glad to be leaving. Funeral homes, with their carpets and