Circus of the Damned Read Free

either.
    There was no blood on the skin around the wounds, not even the wrist wound. Had they cleaned the blood off? Wherever he was killed, there was a lot of blood. They’d never be able to clean it all up. If we could find where he died, we’d have all sorts of clues. But in the neatly clipped lawn in the middle of a very ordinary neighborhood, there were no clues. I was betting on that. They’d dumped the body in a place as sterile and unhelpful as the dark side of the moon.
    Mist floated over the small residential neighborhood like waiting ghosts. The mist was so low to the ground that it was like walking through sheets of drizzling rain. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the body where the mist had condensed. Beads collected in my hair like silver pearls.
    I stood in the front yard of a small, lime-green house with white trim. A chain-link fence peeked around one side encircling a roomy backyard. It was October, and the grass was still green. The top of a sugar maple loomed over the house. Its leaves were that brilliant orangey-yellow that is peculiar to sugar maples, as if their leaves were carved from flame. The mist helped the illusion, and the colors seemed to bleed on the wet air.
    All down the street were other small houses with autumn-bright trees and bright green lawns. It was still early enough that most people hadn’t gone to work yet, or school, or wherever. There was quite a crowd being held back by the uniformed officers. They had hammered stakes into the ground to hold the yellow Do-Not-Cross tape. The crowd pressed as close to the tape as they dared. A boy of about twelve had managed to push his way to the front. He stared at the dead man with huge brown eyes, his mouth open in a little “wow” of excitement. God, where were his parents? Probably gawking at the corpse, too.
    The corpse was paper-white. Blood always pools to the lowest point of the body. In this case dark, purplish bruising should have set in at buttocks, arms, legs, the entire back of his body. There were no marks. He hadn’t had enough blood in him to cause lividity marks. Whoever had murdered him had drained him completely. Good to the last drop? I fought the urge to smile and lost. If you spend a lot of time staringat corpses, you get a peculiar sense of humor. You have to, or you will go stark raving mad.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” a voice asked.
    I jumped and whirled. “God, Zerbrowski, don’t sneak up on me like that.”
    â€œIs the heap big vampire slayer jumping at shadows?” He grinned at me. His unruly black hair stuck up in three separate tufts like he’d forgotten to comb it. His tie was at half-mast over a pale blue shirt that looked suspiciously like a pajama top. The brown suit jacket and pants clashed with the top.
    â€œNice pajamas.”
    He shrugged. “I’ve got a pair with little choo-choos on them. Katie thinks they’re sexy.”
    â€œYour wife got a thing for trains?” I asked.
    His grin widened. “If I’m wearing ’em.”
    I shook my head. “I knew you were perverted, Zerbrowski, but little kids’ jammies, that’s truly sick.”
    â€œThank you.” He glanced down at the body, still smiling. The smile faded. “What do you think of this?” He nodded towards the dead man.
    â€œWhere’s Dolph?”
    â€œIn the house with the lady who found the body.” He plunged his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked on his heels. “She’s taking it pretty hard. Probably the first corpse she’s seen outside of a funeral.”
    â€œThat’s the way most normal folks see dead people, Zerbrowski.”
    He rocked forward hard on the balls of his feet, coming to a standstill. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be normal?”
    â€œSometimes,” I said.
    He grinned. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He got a notebook out of his jacket pocket that looked as if someone had