Excerpt: Charon

I've always loved taking long drives in the country, and I certainly got to do plenty of that. After I left a scene, I'd roll the window down, crank the radio up and sing my off-key heart out on the drive back. I may not have shown much respect for the dead, but by the time I got them they'd long stopped caring.

"Turn that shit down!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at hearing a voice from the back. I swerved wildly across the road, crossing over into the oncoming lane, overcorrecting back onto the shoulder of my side, brakes squealing all the way. We narrowly missed the ditch, thank God--the last thing I needed was to explain to the police that I crashed the meat wagon while hearing voices. Yeah, that's not something you get to live down.

As soon as the van stopped, I threw it into park and looked in the back. The body bag was strapped to the gurney, otherwise I’d have had a mess and some explaining to do with the coroner. I stepped into the back of the wagon to be sure there wasn’t anyone hiding in the back, some bored cop with nothing better to do playing a really bad practical joke. The only folks there were me and the body.

Curious, I picked up the fact sheet on the deceased. His name was Blake Cardonne, he was 42, single Caucasian male. I’d picked him up from a house. He was found sitting in front of his tv, looking beat to all hell, the beer on the table next to him still cold. The name was familiar. The Cardonnes were one of those families you find in small Georgia towns, always been there, cousins all over the place. I didn’t know Blake, but I’d gone to high school with three other members of the Cardonne clan. They were mostly good ol’ boys, rednecks given to drinking beer, watching UGA football and feeling superior o most of the rest of us. I’d briefly dated Michael Cardonne back in the day and we’d traded hasty kisses and gropes under the bleachers during a few football games. Hadn’t heard anything about him since he left for college.

I put the clipboard contain Blake’s paperwork back on the hook over the gurney tie-down. Satisfied that the voice was my imagination, I sat back down in the driver’s seat and eased back out onto the road. Thankfully there weren’t many cars out on a country road at two in the morning. I hadn’t heard anyone drive by, so hopefully I’d make it back to the office without anyone being the wiser on my little stop. My hands were still feeling a little shaky so I cranked the radio a few notches higher and started singing along with Carrie about her cheating man woes.

“I said turn that shit down!”

This time I managed to slam on the brakes and shift to park without fishtailing across the road.

Blake Cardonne sat in the passenger seat of the van.

“Holy shit!” I screamed, pressing my back against the driver’s side door and frantically feeling for the door release. He was a mess, one eye blackened, a small cut on his cheekbone, lip busted, the hair behind his left temple matted with blood.

My hand found the door release, pulled and I fell out of the van onto the asphalt. I scrambled back to my feet and hugged the white van side, praying that Blake wasn’t still sitting in the van. I gulped down air, trying to work up my nerve before I peeked around the edge of the open driver’s door.

The dome light clearly illuminated the empty van interior. Thee body was right where it should be, wrapped in a black bag strapped to the gurney in the back.

“I’m cracking up,” I moaned as I rested my head against the dark vinyl of the driver’s seat.

“No, you’re not.”

I spun around so fast it left me dizzy.

Blake Cardonne stood just out of the reach of the van’s dome light. Even though there wasn’t any moon, I could see his face clearly. I managed to stifle my scream down to a girlie squeak.

“I ain’t a gonna hurt you,” Blake said. “I ain’t got much time, so you need to stop screaming and listen to me.”

“You, you, you’re dead!” I stammered out. I always was cool under pressure. Really.

“No shit,” Blake sneered. He had the chiseled good looks common to all the Cardonnes, and I had a feeling the sneer was his most common expression. He ran a hand through his dark hair, then looked at his bloodied palm in disgust. “Now you’ve got that outta the way, you want to hear what happened or not?”

I stammered some more. I may have even gibbered a bit.

Blake shook his head. “Morons,” he said to himself. “Even gotta deal with them dead.” He motioned at the open door behind me. “Get in and start driving,” he ordered. “We got an appointment to keep.”

Feeling numb, I climbed back into the van, closed the door and started driving. It’s a good thing there wasn’t any traffic, because I was pretty much on autopilot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Blake sitting in the passenger seat again. I hadn’t seen him get in. He reached over and dialed down the sound on the radio.

“Never could stand that whiny bitch crap,” he said.

“Hey now,” I said, anger pushing past my fear.

“You’ll live,” Blake answered. He snorted when he laughed. “Look, I need you tell the police that it was my cousin Brian did this. There’s some cash hidden in the house, and Brian wanted drug money. He didn’t get it. Dumbass never thought to feel up inside the fireplace for loose bricks.”

“How the hell am I supposed to tell them anything? There’s no way I’d know that. I’m sure not telling anyone the dead guy in the back is talking to me. I’m not sure that you really are here, anyways. I still think you’re a mental aberration of some kind.”

“That’s your problem, toots,” he said. “This is my stop.”

I stopped at a four-way crossroad and looked over at the passenger seat. It was empty.

“Weird,” I said to myself, turning the radio back up. I promised myself not to say a word about the whole damn thing.