Page 6 of The Sin Eater (Carnival of Mysteries #27)

Damon

T he hospital is short-staffed – the hospital is always short-staffed – so I cover a shift on Saturday, even though it’s leg day and I’d planned to go to the gym. Jump squats and hamstring curls are harder after I’ve been on my feet all day, but I’ll make the effort after work.

Sure you will, asshole.

The gym closes at midnight, so I’ll be cutting it close if I can even motivate myself to get there. D-Clem never missed a workout, and some days I miss that younger version of myself.

Other days—when it’s cold and damp and what’s left of my throwing shoulder aches like a mother—I’m more likely to talk myself out of it.

The elevator arrives and I punch the button. I’ll start my rounds at the top and work my way down. I might even swing through the basement level, though I’m pretty sure Ezra Morgue’s not there today.

He’s gotten under my skin. Seeing him last night, all huddled up, made me want to get between him and whatever upset him so badly. It’s like, I barely know the guy, and while I admit to having a protective streak, I usually look out for strays of the four-legged kind.

Dogs. I mean dogs.

Which is a total lie. My track record with both men and women pretty much sucks.

Shaking off memories of my bad choices, I head for the elevator.

My route through the hospital is interrupted by a Code Grey on the fifth floor.

Somebody’s baby daddy didn’t appreciate being stopped at the desk.

This guy was still rolling from Friday night, too; eyes bloodshot, wreaking of some chemical smell that I don’t want to parse too closely.

A Code Grey means a show of force. Those of us in uniform – in this case it’s me and Zach and some agency dude I barely know—along with a couple of big guys from the psych unit and three or four charges nurses form a loose semi-circle around the guy who’s losing his shit.

Our goal is to let him know the ward secretary he’s harassing has friends, not to antagonize him any further.

We try not to intervene; generally, our presence sends enough of a message.

If necessary, though, me and Zach will tag-team him, escorting him off the unit and out of the hospital.

So far I’ve never had to call the cops.

Baby Daddy keeps talking tough though his sidelong glances let me know he’s aware he has company.

Sure enough, after another couple minutes of obnoxious posturing, he pivots and heads toward the elevator, hollering the whole way, “Y’all are assholes.

I’m the one who should be calling the cops cuz you’re keeping me from my baby. ”

Zach and I follow him, waving off the nurses. We don’t say anything. Our hospital-issue grey shirts and black leather utility belts do the talking for us. Once the elevator door closes behind him, we look at each other and laugh.

“When he sobers up, do you think he’ll even remember being here?” Zach’s smile nearly splits his round face in two. His hairline is higher than when we met, enough that he’s starting to look like one of those moon cartoons.

Is that what’s going to happen to me?

I stuff that thought away hard. “I’m guessing there’s a reason Baby Mama doesn’t want him around.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Zach shakes his head. “How far had you made it?”

“I’d just hit the sixth floor when I heard the overhead page.”

“You want to keep going, or do you want the ER desk?’

I shrug. As much as I like working the desk, I’m missing leg day. “You take the desk. I need to bump my step count.”

We bump knuckles. “I’ll ask the new guy to hang out here for a while to make sure my dude doesn’t come back.”

Our phones buzz simultaneously. It’s Candy from Admissions, letting me know there’s a guy in the lobby causing a ruckus. “Fuck. Dude’s not done.” I head for the stairs with Zach on my heels.

As we jog downstairs, he’s on the phone with SPD while I’m fighting a battle with annoyance. I worked late last night, I’m picking up overtime today, and all I wanted was to take a lap around the hospital and head for the Brew.

Well, a lap that includes a trip through the lower levels. Ezra Morgue’s not gonna be there unless he’s working overtime too. I just have this awkward need to make sure he’s okay.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to convince Baby Daddy to take his shenanigans elsewhere.

Once he’s gone, I leave Zach to deal with the cops when they arrive and go back to my rounds.

We can rock-paper-scissors over who files the report later.

Walking from one unit to the next, it’s not like I have to do very much.

I’m just a presence, a reassurance. I let the staff know they’ve got backup if they need it and let patients and visitors know basically the same thing.

Dudes in uniform: We’re not real cops, but that doesn’t mean you should mess with us .

I also make sure doors that should be locked are locked and note any other potential trouble spots.

My only other interruption is a quick trip to the NICU to reset the infant abduction monitor.

The system is so sensitive that it’s easy to trigger false alarms. I just need to check in with the charge nurse and, assuming it’s not a real alarm, hit the reset button.

I take the stairs to the lowest level, and the whole way down I’m making a list of all the reasons I don’t need to visit the morgue. Doesn’t stop me. I’ll stick my head in the door and, when my favorite morgue tech isn’t there, I’ll go on about my day.

And after all that buildup, he’s not, in fact, there. The place is quiet and cool and it smells of cleaning solution. One of the techs is sitting at a desk, typing something on her computer. She glances over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Uh, hey. Just me, checking in.”

“Sure,” she says. She’s blond, with a strong chin and a no-bullshit attitude. “What’s up?”

It’s clear she’s alone, which makes me feel even more awkward. “I was just wondering if, uh, Ezra was working.”

“Nope. He’s got the weekend off.” Her tone is calm, her eyes full of curiosity.

She’s shifted in her seat so I can see her badge.

First name Geneva, last name covered by a strip of black electrical tape, same as Ezra’s.

I have to wonder why. It’s not like their patients would be able to track them down after discharge.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Even as I’m speaking the words, I realize how dumb they sound.

If I thought he wasn’t going to be at work, what the hell am I even doing here?

“I just... “ I pause, wondering how to explain myself. I didn’t come down here intending to talk about what happened last night. Not really. Sort of. And I do recognize Geneva. She’s worked here at least as long as I have, and she probably knows Ezra pretty well.

“I brought a nurse down here last night at like ten or ten thirty and found him next to one of your—” I gesture at the row of cadaver cabinets.

“Wait. What?” I’ve got her full attention.

“He should have left well before that.” She catches her lower lip between her teeth, her gaze on the floor.

After a minute, she shakes her head. “That’s weird.

We’d finished our last case and had everything organized before nineteen hundred.

He had, like, one more thing to do, then he was going to lock up. ”

I shrug. Her confusion is almost reassuring—the scene didn’t make sense to her, either.

“I could see through the window that he was sitting next to one of your, uh, patients. He jumped up as soon as we opened the door, shoved the body back into the cabinet, and then he was kinda, I don’t know, upset or something. He worried me.”

I probably let too much truth slip out with that last line.

“What the hell?” She shakes her head again, giving me a confused smile. “I don’t know, man. Ezra’s a quirky dude, but that sounds like a lot even by his standards.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how it is.” She waves a hand, as if she wants to dismiss this whole conversation.

I’m not quite ready to give it up. “Does he have some kind of medical problem?”

That makes her laugh. “Only the lung cancer he’ll eventually develop.

As far as I know, anyway. It’s just...

“ Her expression grows serious, as if she’s trying to figure out if she can trust me.

She must decide in my favor, because she keeps talking.

“More than once, I’ve come in to find him standing by a corpse, talking to himself. ”

I blink. “Talking to himself?”

“He’s not talking to the dead guy, so it must be to himself.”

“That’s weird.”

She shifts in her seat again, turning toward the computer, making it clear she’s done with our little heart-to-heart. “I told you.”

“I tried to get him to go to the ER.”

Another wave, although now her attention is on the computer monitor. “Good luck with that. He’s stubborn, as well as being a little off. I’ll let him know you stopped by.”

“Maybe?” I’m not sure I want her to do that.

She flashes a grin at me over her shoulder. “Aw, come on. You’re the first person to come looking for Ezra in all the years I’ve known him. That makes you one of his best friends.”

She’s laughing, so I laugh too, although the whole conversation has left me uneasy. Geneva’s casual “he’s a quirky dude” doesn’t go far enough. I hop back on the elevator, headed for the ER. I’ve got a report to file and a hospital to reassure.

I don’t have time for chasing after weirdos.

By the time my Saturday shift is over, I’m tired of playing rent-a-cop and happy I’m going to have a couple days off.

I absolutely won’t spend my time off dreaming of a romance between me and the weirdo from the morgue, even though I can remember his scent—a mix of floral hair product and cigarettes—without trying very hard.