2 2. The Jack

2. The Jack

It was high noon.

Detective Diego Cavalera slowed the unmarked Criminal Investigation Department altered Ford sedan to a stop. He pushed his aviator sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose and exited the vehicle.

It was hot—a Scorcher.

Diego wished he were back in the car with the A/c on high.

Diego wished he wore his cardinal red short-sleeved dressed shirt as opposed to his long-sleeve one. At least it was bamboo fiber. Diego liked bamboo fiber. It breathed.

Diego wished that he had remembered to vacuum.

Diego wished for a lot of things.

He sighed and went to work.

A rookie officer was waiting for him, leaning on the side of a patrol car. The overhead lights were on. A stone's throw away was a canary yellow Toyota Rav 4 with darkly tinted windows, very dark, not legally dark.

They were out in the desert and in the middle of nowhere, miles off the highway.

"Hey there, Detective." The Rook said.

"Why are your lights on?" Diego asked.

"Thought it might help you find me."

"You're on GPS."

"Oh, I guess you're right."

Diego wiped the back of his hand across his brow. He was already sweating, and he didn't like it. His mood soured.

"It's a real scorcher, huh?" The Rook said.

"That it is. That it is."

Diego spat dust from his mouth.

"I like it."

"I hate it."

"If you hate the heat, why do you live in Nevada?"

"Necessity."

Diego moved toward the Toyota.

"Let's get this over with."

And the Rook followed.

Diego cupped a hand and peered into the driver's side window. There was a body in the driver's seat that he could barely make out. Then he noticed the mass, a black pulsating mass.

"Ah, Jesus," Diego said.

Blowflies. Metric fuck ton.

"I was waiting for you to get here before I opened it up."

"Why?"

"I didn't want to contaminate anything."

Diego looked at the Rook. The Rook was fit, decent enough looking and full of bright-eyed dreams and Criminal Justice passion. The eyes Diego used to wear. Ignorant though he may be, the Rook would make a stellar officer one day.

Diego knew these things.

"Much obliged." Diego sighed. "It would be a shame had it been free of ripeness."

The first responders to any crime scene involving recent human expiration are the flies. Oh Lord, the flies. They catch the scent from miles away, upwind, downwind, side-wind. It didn't matter. And from seemingly out of nowhere. They nestle up. Bugs in a rug. Chewing on this and that.

And then there were the maggots.

The plump little grubs.

From there it's an all-out, all you can eat buffet. A two-day feast. When they're good and bloated on the rapidly decaying tasty bits, they morph into flies, and the process begins anew.

The circle of life.

"Nine days, at least." Diego said.

"Excuse me?"

"The Medical Examiner will have to verify, but with the level of fly infestation, I'd wager that our little bun here has been baking in a canary yellow oven for nine days."

"Yum."

"Yum is correct."

Diego removed a small blue canister from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and smeared a hearty glob of something pellucid over his upper lip.

"What's that?" Said the Rook.

"This?" Diego holds up the canister. "Vicks Vaporub."

"Got a cold or something?"

Diego chuckles to himself and says, "Here."

And tosses the canister to the Rook. The Rook is off guard, fumbles, but catches it.

"Keep it." Diego finished." I have plenty more in the car. Never leave home without it."

Diego motions to his upper lip with a finger. The Rook raises a questioning eyebrow and then understands. He rubs an overzealous glob on his upper lip.

"What's it for?"

"Vix is great for congestion and masking the feculence of corpse rot."

"Oh." The Rook examines the canister as if it were an alien artifact. "I bet they don't advertise that on the label."

"You're a gambling man?"

"No. The wife doesn't like it."

"And you do?"

"Love it. It's why I moved to Nevada."

"And you stopped for your wife."

The Rook nods. "I suppose I did."

Diego smiles.

"You're an exemplary husband, Rook. Never change."

"Don't plan on it, Detective."

"Goodman."

They stood in silence.

Gracefully, Diego broke that silence.

"Pop your corpse cherry yet?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your corpse hymen."

"Oh." The Rook scratches his head." My Granny had an open casket funeral."

Diego smirked. "Well, something tells me that whoever and whatever awaits us inside will not be getting an open casket funeral."

The Rook grimaced.

"You ready?" Said Diego.

The Rook removed a notebook from a pocket and clicked a pen." Can one ever be?"

"Point taken." Diego slips on a pair of latex gloves. You can never have enough gloves. "Hold on to your butt."

And Diego wrenched the driver's side door open. A massive black cloud of flies swarmed out from the Toyota and out into the open desert air. Diego and the Rook shielded their faces with their arms. The Vix did the trick to mask the odorous rank but did nothing for the taste.

The Rook saw the corpse and drew a sharp breath through his mouth. He went green. Retched. Covered his mouth. He was stable for a moment, and then he was not. The Rook turned his head and spewed forth a marinara red arc of vomit, which appeared to have once maybe been a family-sized can of Spaghetti O's. The Rook doubled over and hacked up the last of his weak intestinal fortitude.

"You good?" Diego said.

The Rook held up a "one moment, please" finger and nodded. He hurled again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yeah. I'm good."

"Breathe through your nose. Not your mouth."

"Load and clear, Detective."

By then, the business of flies had mostly abated. In the driver's seat of the Toyota was a cadaver. It appeared to have once been female. The dearly departed wore Pink booty shorts and a once-white halter top, speckled now with bloody red polka-dots. Rot juice seeped through the fibers.

The jaw of the carcass hung slack with the tongue snaking out from the back of the visible throat cavity. Everything from the roof of the mouth upward was everywhere; everywhere it shouldn't be and nowhere it should. A child's windup chatter teeth toy with the top removed. Between the stiffs legs was a shotgun poised on the butt end and balanced between the steering column and floorboard.

Shotgun suicide.

"Female. Early twenties, if I had to guess. Assuming she, was a she by her choice of attire, you never know these days, might have been older if she had a burning desire to stay Forever 21." Said Diego.

The Rook scrambled to take notes and catch up.

"Mossberg twelve-gauge between her legs. Shorty. Black. Polymer frame. Clothing. Pink, Pink-brand shorts. White tank." Diego covered his tie with his left hand and leaned in for closer observation and inspection. "No wedding band. No identifying marks. No, wait. Mustache tattoo on the right index finger. Figures. There's a scrap of tinfoil here with burn marks. Heroin. Burn marks in the shape of a flower. She was an artist by the looks of it. Pink, Pink-brand flip flops. A foot tattoo of a… turtle? Frog? Hard to tell. Skin tissue is a waterlogged mush."

Diego looked at the Rook. "Getting all of this?"

The Rook looks up from his notepad. "I Sure am, Detective."

"Looks like there's a purse on the passenger seat. I'm moving to the other side."

Diego reached down and pressed the automatic lock switch, and the doors unlock with a click. He made his way around the vehicle. "Who's the vehicle registered to?"

The Rook flips through his notes. "A one, Frank McHattie. Born in sixty-three."

"Daddy. I will see if there's some identification in her purse. See if it matches. We can notify the next of kin."

Diego opens the passenger side door and waits for the flies to scatter. He waved a hand through the air, brushing them away.

"Think she ran out of gas?" Said the Rook.

"Huh?"

"Think she ran out of gas? This far out into the desert, why stop here? If I were driving out into the middle of the desert to snack on a buckshot parfait, I suppose I would drive until the gas ran out or I had enough left for the return trip."

"Reasonable deduction. There may be a detective's shield in your future yet."

"Really?"

"Who knows, Rook? Maybe. Probably. Don't listen to me. I'm getting older, and I bore easily. Most of what I say and do is purely for my entertainment. But yeah, sure, Rook."

"Well, I guess thanks, Detective."

Diego smiled.

"Would your wife care if you made a small wager?"

"Depends on the terms, but no. Probably not."

"The keys are in the ignition. I'll turn the car on, and we'll check the gas gauge. Half a tank or less, and you get the honor of cracking open the trunk. It might be a black chest of wonders. You never know what they have stashed away in the trunk."

"Okay. Go on."

"If the tanks empty. Then I do. Deal?"

"Fair enough."

"What is life without a bit of fun?"

Diego removed the purse from the passenger seat and placed it on the hood of the Toyota.

Diego said, "Moment of truth."

The interior of the Toyota was a bonafide bloodbath. When the heroin addict in Pink booty shorts pulled the trigger of the short-barreled shotgun, the blast rived through her faceplate, splattering brain and bone up onto the roof of the Toyota, rebounding down in a Gallagher satisfying shower of gore. Now her head looked like a flesh wrapped egg chair from the seventies resting on a lower mandible, tongue letting it all hang out. The remaining hair still attached to the parietal skull plate rested in a neat bun.

Scunci, tough enough to withstand a shotgun blast.

And Diego gripped the passenger side oh shit bar and dangled into the vehicle, very careful not to sully his clothes. He reached for the keys dangling from the ignition. There was a Hello Kitty charm on the key ring. Diego cranked the keys, and the engine turned over.

Beep-beep-beep…

The Toyota whirred to life.

On the stereo: "My girl. My girl. Don't lie to me. Tell me where did you sleep last night?" Nirvana's cover of Lead Belly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night. Unplugged in New York.

Diego shut the stereo off and pulled himself out from inside the Toyota and stretched.

"It all makes sense now, Rook."

"Huh?"

"She took the Cobanian way out."

"Coba-who?"

"Hooba-what? Hoobastank."

"I'm sorry, Detective. I don't follow."

"I'm fucking with you, Rook."

"Oh. Okay."

"Nirvana? Nevermind."

"Okay. I'll drop it."

Diego laughed, "No. That was the name of their album. Kurt Cobain. Shotgun suicide. That was Nirvana on the stereo."

"Oh. Coban-ian. I get it."

"You've heard of the Beatles, right?"

"Yeah. Why?

"I'm fucking with you. Forget it."

"Oh, okay. Wait, is that the name of one of their albums?"

Diego laughed from his gut. "You're cute, Rook."

There was an annoying whirring from the Toyota.

"What's that?" The Rook asked, "Sounds like a bad A/c."

"Not sure." Diego said.

Diego leans back into the Toyota. The sound is coming from the air conditioner, so he kills it.

"You're right. That would be enough to make me kill myself." Diego said.

"People have killed themselves for less."

Diego sneaks a quick gander at the gas gauge. Empty.

"You win, Rook. Empty." Diego said. "She was a determined one."

Diego shut the Toyota off. His bicep burned from hanging from the oh-shit bar. He searched the vehicle for an unblemished patch of upholstery, and the task was daunting. There was a clearing on the passenger side airbag release hatch that was untarnished. He knuckled a fist onto the dash for leverage and pushed himself up. When he did, Diego turned his head and noticed the back seat. He didn't know why he had only realized it until now, probably on account of the heat, the flies and the stink.

Some detective you are.

Neck strained, appealing to the heavens with one final unanswered prayer for help, was the corpse of a child strapped into a rear-facing car seat. A baby girl. Only four years old or less in a flowered dress with glittering open-toed sandals.

And her teeny tiny little eye sockets were full of maggots.

And her mouth was full of flies.

And Diego was sick.

Diego's heart battened down the valve hatches. His stomach sank, and he wanted to yack. His breathing was rapid and sharp. Anxious beads of sweat seeped from his every pore.

And he trembled.

The hellions buried deep within the infernal regions of his subconscious clawed their way out, boring their barbed talons into the ethereal flesh of his psyche, rending him from his reality and releasing him back into torment and oblivion.

A single word.

Lizzy.

And the memory of his dead daughter tore his soul asunder.

All thought processes of the cadavers, festering in their own putrefaction before him, vanished.

Psycho break.

And he was gone.

Diego couldn't maintain an erection when he fucked his wife. And that was why Abigail left him. Or so he told himself. Abigail hadn't left him because of his two packs a day smoking habit or his nightly love affair with scotch. It had nothing to do with the late nights or the gambling. And it definitely wasn't because he spent more nights drunk in the living room recliner than sober and in bed with her.

It was his lifeless, wet noodle cock.

Diego wanted to sleep with Abigail in each sense of the word. He was up and down all night, and she needed her sleep. She had to take care of Lizzy. His insomnia need only be a burden to himself.

It was a mental thing, not a physical one. Diego could get an erection, he just couldn't keep it. He wanted to fuck. Loved to fuck. Craved the intimacy. The love and closeness when his workday was so full of hate and distance. But he was too far deep into his own head. Sure, the booze didn't help matters much either.

Diego loved his wife more than anything. Abigail and Lizzy were the two best things to have ever happened to him. Even after five years of marriage, Abigail was still the most beautiful woman to have ever graced his presence. Diego didn't care about the malingering baby weight. Or the pregnancy stretch marks (she had gotten big). Or the slouch of her once firm breast, deflated from years of milking. In fact, Diego found her more beautiful than ever. All the sacrifices her body endured were for the birth and betterment of Lizzy. To Diego, there was nothing more beautiful.

And he wouldn't have changed a thing.

Try telling that to his wife, though.

It didn't take much from Abigail to get Diego hard. And she wouldn't even know it because much of it was unintentional. Diego could pass through the hall and past their bedroom and get hard if the door was cracked as she undressed for bed. Bent over the washing machine. Bent over, picking up Lizzy's toys. Bent over. Abigail had a thick ass, and he loved it. The feel. The ripple as he took her from behind. It drove him wild. But the sexiest thing she could do was to herself, existing in her natural environment. A rare and majestic beauty to behold. Diego didn't need fancy lace, fishnets, or make-up. All he needed was a smile and a warm hand to hold.

Diego loved fucking his wife. He missed it a lot, and he knew that she missed it. They had always had a voracious appetite. But every time he was intimate with her, the corpse rot filled his nostrils. No matter how much he scrubbed or how long it had been since he was in proximity of a cadaver, sometimes weeks, it was there, always waiting, the creeping scent of death and decay. Diego would close his eyes, change his focus, and muscle his way through it, but the muscle would lose its flex, and the smell would still be there.

And Diego would no longer want to come.

He'd be thrusting away with nothing more than a pool noodle, and he'd have better luck getting a pool noodle to squirt. He would apologize. Say how sorry he was. That it wasn't Olivia's fault, but his. But she wouldn't believe it. She was too fat. Tits too saggy. Wore out. Pathetic. And that stabbed Diego, deeply. He wished he could just tell her the truth, but he could never muster the bravado to say the words, "Sorry babe, when we fuck, you smell like necrotic flesh and rot."

That would do wonders for her self-esteem.

She even asked him if there was someone else, but there wasn't. She trusted him. But doubt is a nagging hag.

So Abigail left him.

Not because of the lack of sex.

Not because of suspicions of infidelity.

Not because he couldn't maintain an erection.

It was the job and the toll it took.

Family dinners were a misery. Diego was present in body but absent in spirit and mind, and he would sit there pushing peas around his plate with a spoon. And then there were the phone calls. Inopportune and when he wanted them the least. Diego would finish his shift and barely be through the door ready to holler, "Honey, I'm home," and he would get a call.

Death never had favorable timing.

Some officers could shake it. The perils of the job. The occupational hazards. But never, Diego. He never learned to leave it all hanging up in the locker alongside his uniform. He wished he could have let it all wash away and down the drain of his after shift shower along with the disease and human bile accumulated from a hard day's work.

Diego had an enormous heart, and he took everything to heart.

So Abigail packed her things and their daughter and left. She loved him more than anything. Abigail had pushed for teaching, but he wasn't interested, "those who cannot do" and all of that. She made the suggesting for a desk job, but it wasn't for him. As a kid, when Diego fantasized about being a cop over a juice box, he didn't picture himself at a desk with a pen in hand. So it came down to an ultimatum: them or the job. A decision that Diego was incapable of making; sliced open and bleeding, but his blood ran blue.

On the night Abigail left, they had an argument, and it was heated. Now, Diego couldn't even tell you what the hell it was about. He reckoned that someone had forgotten to vacuum, and probably him. But enough was enough, and Abigail had had enough. When she took off, she spat gravel from beneath the squealing tires. Abigail was crying, distraught. Diego had urged her to calm down first, but at that moment, she couldn't bear to look at him.

And it was winter.

Hoarfrost glazed the pavement. Abigail had been driving ten over the speed limit, slicing through the early morning fog. The windows frosted up. Abigail reached down to adjust the defroster, and then the traffic light had changed. When she looked back up, it was too late. The traffic light radiated through the hazy fog, and it glowed red. Abigail hadn't yet crossed the intersection, but it was coming fast, and she knew she wouldn't be able to stop in time. It wasn't a conscious thought; it was a reaction. An instinct.

She floored it.

It was such a simple thing.

Those four words.

One of those things you do a thousand times. A habit. A ritual. And then you slip up once, and that's all it took. Life would never be the same. Leaving the burner on. Forgetting to engage the parking brake on a hill. Sidetracked by something wholly irrelevant while you sat on the toilet, squeezing out last night's dinner because the finally occupied kiddo is in the tub, and it was the first chance you had to defecate. There's the splashing, laughing and singing to let you know that they're all right. And then you're left with a sudden silence. A whisper in your ear that stops your heart and wrenches your gut and tells you that something is not right.

No splashing.

No giggles.

No song.

Silence.

One.

Single.

Moment.

And everything changes.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Abigail's moment was toes knuckled down on the gas pedal as she floored it through the intersection.

And then there was the collision.

The collision was nothing spectacular in the grand scheme of things. Another crash on another highway. Nothing special. Thousands of them occurred every day and all across the globe. Commonplace. Until they happen to you.

Diego knew as soon as the phone rang. He had made those calls on a multitude of occasions. A city number at four o'clock in the morning meant only one of two things. Death or DUI, and Olivia had been stone sober.

The bodies were still warm when Diego arrived on the scene. The collision had been with a massive food delivery truck. It smashed into the driver's side, killing Abigail instantly. Lungs pulverized.

And then there was Lizzy.

Abigail had forgotten one vital thing.

Those four brief words.

Are. You. Buckled. Up.

If she had, poor sweet little Lizzy wouldn't have flown from the backseat and through the front windshield as the vehicle spun out of control. If she had spoken those four words, the lifeless rag doll body of Diego's daughter wouldn't have been lying on the cold pavement, blood pooling from her shattered body. If Abigail had asked Lizzy those four words, Lizzy might have answered, "No, Mommy, sorry. I forgot. I was so upset because you and Daddy were fighting, and I'm so tired."

But Abigail hadn't.

And Lizzy would never utter another word.

Because she was dead.

And bleeding out on the cold, dirty pavement. And no matter how long Diego held her, she would never be warm again.

Psycho break.

And he was gone.

It had taken five officers to get him to the ground. He went mental. Absolute hysteria. Pure mania. He cried and swung his fists, so they cuffed his hands behind his back, and he kicked and threw a headbutt.

Diego didn't make the funeral.

Diego didn't make the burial.

They institutionalized Diego's and his first visit to the graves was two months after the burial. And, though it hurt and though he cried, the visit did not devastate him. He was ready to remember and move on. They would want him to, even though he didn't want to himself.

Abigail.

Lizzy.

Diego's phone rang and ripped him from the clutches of mind demons and shattered his fugue revelry. His arms were sore. He was still in that awkward position inside the Toyota. And Diego crawled out of the gore-filled vehicle, careful not to get a mess on his tie. He quickly dug his phone from his pocket before he got missed the call.

"Robbery Homicide, Detective Cavalera speaking. Pardon? Uh-huh… send me the address. I'm on the way."

"What was that, Detective?" The Rook said.

"That?" Diego put the phone away. "Was death waiting for no man."

"Another stiff?"

"Two, in fact."

"I can wrap up here. How do you want me to write it up?"

Diego took a deep breath.

"Mark it up like this. Junkie gets high and passes out. While in her self induce drug coma, the air conditioning went out. When she came to, the Toyota was an oven, and she discovered her child overheated and dead in the backseat. I don't even want to think about the poor thing crying for her mother strapped down in her car seat. And then guilt-ridden Mother of the Year here drove out into the desert until she ran out of gas. Kills herself and good fucking riddance. Daft cunt."

The Rook scratches his head, confused. "Wait? What, kid?"

"Congratulations, Rook. Consider your corpse cherry popped. This ain't all cops and robbers. I got to go."

And Diego was on the move.