Gabrielle Taylor's "Cockluck"
April 01, 2002
"Hey! What if I need that?"
"Call me. Come on, we'll get you some clothes. If you're good I'll even let you have a camera."
He unlocked the door, and opened it. They both fell back six paces as a malignant cloud of humid rot rolled out over them.
"How could you put up with this?" Bertram wheezed.
Kelly wiped her nose. "It wasn't like this this morning. You were here. No way. Did you say there was a dead rat?"
"This smells like a dead rat factory." He pointed to the wall door. "What's that? Is it full of trash too?"
"It's like a big closet. I would've put the garbage in there so it was out of the way, if you had to show the place you know, but I couldn't get the door open so I put it wherever. There's food in there, but it's all dry stuff and in cans. Can rats eat through cans?"
"Why bother, when there's food growing in the sink? If there was dry food in there there could be more rats. It could be full of rats. Be quiet."
He took off one of his shoes and bounced it off the door. They stood still.
"I don't hear any rats," Kelly said.
Bertram picked up his shoe and put it on. He pushed at the closet door. It stuck. He shoved. It gave a little and the stench thickened. They ran back outside.
"Wait here," he said. "Don't go in without me."
"Man, no problem!"
Bertram soaked a towel and wrapped it around his face.
"Can I get one of those, man?"
"I guess." He unwound his own towel, gave it to her, soaked another, and came back out.
"We look like we're at Oka, man," she said. "Let's get that rat!"
They went back into the house. Bertram gave her the flashlight. "I'll push, you look. If there are live rats they'll avoid the light, and I'll close the door again."
"Roger."
He leaned his full weight on the door and it gave a little, then made a cracking noise.
"There's something holding it shut." He squatted and drove against the lower half of the door. It pushed in wobbly, grudging, and stopped at about six inches. "See anything?"
"Nothing. If there were rats we'd hear them, right?"
"Right. Must be something else. Maybe the wall collapsed. Give me the flashlight."
He shone it down on the floor. It was sticky and dark. Even with the towel the rot licked at his throat. He saw a can of soup on the floor.
Next to it he saw a hand. Kelly screamed and ran through the jingling beads. He heard her thumping upstairs.
Bertram leaned around the door and shone the flashlight down.
She had been blonde with black roots perhaps as recently as yesterday. She wore a blue and gray striped bathrobe. One outstretched foot bore a blue maribou slipper. Her nails were badly painted a dark red. Her eyes were swelled shut.
With the heat and humidity she had swelled, distorted, blackened. When she fell she crushed the door shut and her weight was pressing it closed again.
Bertram lurched back and threw up on the soap and dishrags. Kelly ran past him with an armload of pictures, three cameras around her neck, and a backpack spilling t-shirts and CD-Rs. "Stop!" he rasped and staggered after her, clutching his towel. "Stop!"
He heard her running over the uneven brick and down the driveway and then he couldn't hear her anymore.
He used her phone to call the police and lay outside in the grass waiting for them to come.
"She's got track marks all over her," Debra said. "There's a stash in her clothes. Looks like the same shit her neighbors were dealing. Probably botulism poisoning."
"How convenient for her," Bertram grunted.
"She's got a little kit, bunsen burner and a pan, to cook botulism out of the dope... You can't cook that shit clean but some junkies are just fucking stupid. She probably thought she had a flu or a cold."
"That's what her roommate said."
"Where's the roommate now?"
"I don't know. She took off."
"Call me if you see her."
"I don't have a phone. So finish. Tell me what happened."
"She had a can of soup in her hand. So she went into the pantry to get soup, she had a paralytic attack, she fell against the door. Her throat swelled up so she couldn't yell. She was too weak to get up. The botulism finished her. Hard to be sure how long she's been dead because it's so hot but it was probably a few days. Maybe even before you were moving in."
"Nice try, but I doubt it. It stank in there but not like that. She must have been alive. When I was here talking to Kelly. Maybe even today."
"I'll get you a copy of the autopsy report. Don't try to take the blame for this one, though. Her roommate was here and didn't notice anything, then tombed her in trash. I was here checking the main house and I didn't go over the whole property. I'm the cop. Maybe if I was doing it all she'd still be alive."
Bertram grunted.
"Thanks for calling me. My bosses like to think I've got contacts in the community."
"You're welcome."
"Any idea where we can reach the other roommate? He could be part of this too."
"He's in Montreal. Here, copy this down. I need to find him too. He owes Judith a lot of money and she hired me to get it. How about making me a special deputy in case he is in on it?"
"I'll think about it. How about coming over to the station and filing a statement?"
"Judith's going to have trouble renting this place," Bertram said absently, and got into Debra's police cruiser.
Posted by gtaylor at April 01, 2002 10:20 PM