Party Crashers

better not have anything to do with dead bodies."
    "Well, actually..."

Chapter Twenty-one

    "I DON’T BELIEVE I’M DOING THIS," Carlotta muttered as they walked through the doors of the morgue. She wore dark sunglasses and looked like a movie star.
    "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your coming," Jolie said. She wore a Band-Aid on her forehead and looked like a movie star's "person."
    "If I so much as see a dead fly, I'm out of here."
    "What can I do to make it up to you?"
    "Get my car out of the police impound lot on a frigging Sunday afternoon."
    Jolie winced. "They won't release your new car?"
    "Not until tomorrow, after the twenty-four-hour trial period has expired."
    "You're going to have to buy the car?"
    Carlotta sighed. "Technically, I've already bought it. If I had taken it back this morning as planned, they would've ripped up the contract. Now I'm stuck, big time."
    Jolie winced again. "If it's any consolation, the police have my car, too."
    "The one that Gary stole?"
    She nodded. "The police found it about a half mile from Sammy's house, but they're still 'processing' it." She tried to smile. "At least the car you got stuck with is a nice car."
    "Nice? I took it out as a joke—I wouldn't normally be caught dead in that muscle car." Then she looked around and swallowed. "Scratch that."
    "Maybe the dealership will let you trade?"
    Carlotta sighed. "I've been on the phone with the sales manager all morning, even offered to give him a handjob, but he wouldn't budge. Just my luck to buy a car from the only happily married man in this city."
    "I'm sorry," Jolie offered.
    "It's my fault," Carlotta said. "I've learned my lesson about borrowing things—I just wish I hadn't learned it all in one weekend."
    Jolie had money concerns, too, but she knew the ruined clothes and now the car only heaped fuel onto the fire of Carlotta's financial problems. She felt responsible...sort of, but her hands were tied. "Have you talked to Hannah?"
    "Briefly—she's prostrate with grief over her beloved Russell." Carlotta rolled her eyes.
    "Remember the photograph I showed you with Gary and LeMon and Kyle Coffee? Russell is in it."
    "He is?"
    "Beck said he'd changed his looks, but it was definitely him"
    " Beck said?"
    Jolie flushed. "He took me home last night—er, this morning and...stayed. On the couch."
    "Sure he did."
    Ignoring the sarcasm, Jolie said, "And he said the fifth guy in the picture was named Gordon something, maybe Gordon Bear, with a German spelling?"
    Carlotta shook her head. "Doesn't ring a bell. But I need to remember to ask Hannah if Russell has the same tattoo as LeMon and Coffee."
    "May I help you?" a security guard asked in a funereal tone as they approached his desk.
    Jolie swallowed twice before she found her voice. "I'm here...to identify a...person."
    "Are they expecting you?"
    "Yes."
    "Third floor."
    They moved toward the elevator in tandem and boarded the empty car. "Your boyfriend didn't have any family?" Carlotta asked.
    Jolie pushed the button for the third floor and the door slid closed. "None that I know of, and none the police could find."
    "Wow, that's kind of sad," Carlotta said as they were carried up.
    Nodding, Jolie seconded her friend's observation. There was being alone in the world, and then there was being alone in the world. The door slid open and they walked out onto yet more tiled floor. The temperature here, though, brought to mind the phrase "meat locker." Jolie shivered at the implication alone.
    "I mean, my family aren't the Cleavers," Carlotta whispered, "but at least someone in my tribe would claim my body if I got offed."
    Jolie's eyes burned and she sniffed.
    Carlotta looked over. "Ah, Jolie, I'm sorry. This has to be tough for you, seeing him again like this."
    She nodded, terrified. Plus the chemicals in the air were killing her eyes. They walked toward a rounded counter reminiscent of a nurses' station. Two women in green scrubs were filling out paperwork and eating stromboli sandwiches—the source of the "chemicals."
    "May I help you?" one of the women asked, then took a bite out of her sandwich.
    Jolie rubbed her nose. "My name is Jolie Goodman. I received a call about an hour ago regarding...Gary Hagan."
    The chewing woman frowned, then looked at the other woman, who was eating potato chips and licking her fingers. "Hagan?"
    "Last night's gunshot," the licker said.
    The chewer nodded. "Oh, yeah." She pointed down the hall with a tomato-sauce stained pinkie.