Detective Petrovich didn’t sound at all surprised to hear from Sadie on Saturday morning.
“Figured you’d end up getting the job,” he said.
Seattle detectives would send clients her way, but even if they didn’t, sometimes people would find her company listed in the Yellow Pages under Trauma Clean. Scene-2-Clean was listed with only one other company, Scour Power. Scour took care of drug lab cleans and squalor, while Sadie’s company handled the blood and guts. Advertising in her line of work was a little difficult. She couldn’t exactly send out coupons in the mail.
“So SPD’s all done? The house is cleared for entry?” Sadie asked.
“For all those willing.” He paused. “And the only ones willing would be you and your partner.”
Technically, Zack wasn’t Sadie’s partner. She was the boss and he the employee, but frequently people thought it was the other way around. Apparently, the public felt that if trauma cleanup had a gender, it was male.
Having picked up the keys earlier, Sadie headed her Scene-2-Clean van toward Queen Anne, veering away from the Space Needle, which at the moment was cut in half by low clouds. It was just after nine, and she hadn’t had coffee yet, so she stopped by Coffee Ladro in Lower Queen Anne, where the barista happily made her a latte to go. Sadie warmed her hands on the cup as she stepped outside. Even though the pregnant clouds overhead promised another damp day, all the chairs outside the café were occupied by customers.
Sadie hopped back into her van and drove deeper into the affluent neighborhood. As she sipped her coffee, she slowed, alternately checking her map and admiring the stylish architecture of the older, well-maintained homes in the area. She picked up speed down the tree-lined streets and turned onto Taylor. Sculpted hedges were pruned carefully so as not to block the views. Sadie looked closely at the house numbers as she drove and finally found the right place. She parked in front of a turn-of-the-century home, taking a moment to whistle appreciatively at the view of Mount Rainier, majestic in the distance.
It wasn’t often that she got to work in a home with such a nice view. Of course, the inside wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant.
Sadie grabbed her gear—disposable Tyvek hazmat suit, respirator, gloves, booties, and camera—from the back of the vehicle, then walked around the house to the back door. She geared up on the back deck before entering the house for the first time.
A huge part of the job involved protection from blood-borne pathogens, and it wasn’t something she took lightly. She now completely understood why some men were reluctant to wear condoms. It was difficult for her to feel her way around a crime scene when she was so thoroughly protected. However, she was in no hurry to pick up HIV, hepatitis C, or any of the other dozen possible diseases that could be floating about at a scene, so she wouldn’t cut corners on protection.
From what she knew, the kitchen hadn’t been touched by the crime, so it would be an area they could designate as a safe zone for donning and doffing gear. If possible, she and Zack always liked to have a room at a scene where they could change and have space to store the supplies they needed.
Fully dressed, she felt like an astronaut ready to step onto a new planet (one small step for Sadie Novak, a giant, nasty stride for womankind). She headed for the back door.
The faint coppery scent of blood reached her a few steps away. When she slid the key into the dead bolt, she donned her inner protective gear and slammed shut the gates of her emotions.
The back entrance of the turn-of-the-century renovated Craftsman home swung open into a newly updated eat-in kitchen. Black-and-white checkerboard tiles glistened beneath her feet. Yes, the room would be a perfect safe zone, particularly since a heavy wooden door separated it from the rest of the house. That door was closed, so with camera in hand, Sadie walked through the kitchen and pushed it open, stepping into a formal living room. She spent a moment admiring the sleek hardwood and tasteful antiques. The large granite coffee table in the center of the room probably weighed a ton.
What had once been a stunning ivory brocade sofa trimmed in maple was now part of a macabre death scene. It was a real shame that she would have to cut up that blood-soaked couch and stuff it piece by piece into the large rubber tubs used to dispose of contaminated waste.
The house had two scenes to be dealt with. This one, where the husband had taken his own life, and one upstairs, where he’d slaughtered his wife. Those were all the details Sadie needed—or wanted—to get the job done.
She focused her camera, angled her head, and snapped one picture, then turned and snapped another. She needed the photos both for insurance purposes and for her own personal files. Slowly she walked around the circumference of the living room, taking in the entire main-floor scene and snapping photos from different angles, zooming close on spatter that covered a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf against the wall.
Flies buzzed around her head and she nonchalantly swatted them away. She didn’t need to be told that the husband had sat on the sofa and used a high-powered rifle to end his life. The room told the complete story through its horrific display of blood spatter, dried tissue, and bone fragments.
With detached reason, Sadie examined the blood-soaked sofa. She bent close to the congealed puddle on the hardwood beneath it, where a few maggots still attempted to survive even though their main food source, the body, had been removed.
Sadie snapped close-ups as well as wide shots to take in the entire scene. After a few minutes more, she moved upstairs, pausing briefly to note the scenic view from a window on the top landing. Once cleaned, this house would sell. Maybe not quickly, due to the circumstances, but it would eventually fetch a hefty price tag in today’s hot real estate market.
Sadie made her way to the master bedroom, the next trauma scene. Later, she would check all the other rooms to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. The bedroom walls had high arcs of blood spatter, small flecks of tissue, and a final wide expanse of sticky red in the corner between the bed and the dresser. There would be no saving the wall-to-wall Berber carpeting.
After snapping half a dozen photos of the room, she folded her arms across her chest thoughtfully, calculating how many forty-gallon bins she would need for hauling out all the contaminated waste, as well as the cleaning supplies and man-hours. She preferred to estimate high to be sure she allowed enough time to get the job done. When she was confident she had a handle on what would be required, she turned to leave.
A scream burned her throat but was muffled by her respirator and mask. There was a man casually leaning against the door frame.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said through a hesitant smile of perfect teeth.
“You didn’t scare me. Just gave me a start.” Sadie shouted to be heard through her disposable respirator and placed a hand over her heart in startled annoyance.
Sheesh, why couldn’t the dead ever knock?
“You get the job of cleaning up, huh?” he asked. “I wondered who’d be doing that.” He shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
He was a gorgeous man—blond, blue-eyed, and buff. Dawn would’ve called him eye candy. He also appeared to be intact. Usually spirits appeared to her in the same bodily condition and clothing they had died in, but occasionally they appeared as they remembered themselves. Maybe it was a last-ditch attempt at denial or vanity.
“The place is a real mess,” Sadie said flatly. She couldn’t pick and choose who visited her, but she was in no mood to make polite conversation with a murderer.
“A dirty job, but someone has to do it, I guess,” he said dryly. “I don’t envy you.”
He’s certainly casual enough about it, Sadie thought with distaste. Annoyance pricked at her. The souls that visited her were usually contrite and frequently remorseful, particularly in a murder-suicide. This guy looked neither. Then again, he could’ve been crazy, probably was to do this to his wife and himself. Sadie believed that crazy didn’t fade much, even in death.
“You’re probably wondering who I am and why I’m here,” he said.
“Not particularly,” Sadie replied, fiddling with her camera.
She suddenly realized she’d yet to check the bedroom’s powder room to see if her services were also required there.
“I’ve got work to do.”
Turning her back on the specter, she opened a nearby pocket door and walked into the bathroom. It appeared clean, but to be sure, she pulled up the window blinds and allowed in some natural sunlight before examining the area more closely.
A couple of minutes later Sadie stiffened with a potent realization. If the guy she had just seen was the one who blew his brains out downstairs after killing his wife, she shouldn’t have been able to see him. Suicides didn’t appear to her. She stepped back into the bedroom to confront her visitor, but he was gone.
Something about the situation made her uncomfortable. Still, she pushed her uneasy thoughts aside and began her thorough search of the rest of the house. All the other rooms seemed fine. No more visitors appeared, and the scenes to be dealt with were confined to the master bedroom and living room. An upstairs spare room had been converted to an office, and after looking through an already opened file cabinet, she located the insurance paperwork for the house.
Usually Sadie would file the claim herself. If the insurance company balked, she occasionally had to get the next of kin to do it. The more responsibility she took on, the less traumatized the families would feel. She got satisfaction in making sure the families didn’t have to suffer through the cleaning. Easing spirits over to the next dimension also gave her a surreal boost, something she hadn’t experienced while teaching math to second graders.
With the necessary documents in hand, she headed back downstairs and into the kitchen. She made a mental note to ask Mrs. Toth if she wanted all food items in the fridge and pantry disposed of. That wasn’t something the families often thought about and it wasn’t a service the insurance company would pay Sadie’s company for, but she usually offered to take care of it regardless.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed that the dead bolt on the back door was unlocked. She cursed under her breath. It was unlike her not to secure the place when she was inside, particularly if she was alone.
After doffing her gear and stuffing it into a medical waste bin, Sadie locked up the house and returned to her van.
When Sadie arrived at Mrs. Toth’s small condo in Bellevue after lunch, the woman insisted on making a large pot of tea. Sadie hated tea, being more of a Starbucks coffee girl. Still, she realized that Mrs. Toth wanted to sit in her cozy kitchen in her pleasant apartment to discuss this unpleasant business, and she was willing to grant the woman that dignity. Having a sit-down with the client was the polite thing to do. Particularly since her clients tended to sob, wail, and occasionally be heavily medicated.
Mrs. Toth did not cry, but she wrung her hands incessantly when she didn’t have them wrapped tightly around her delicate china teacup.
“I just didn’t know what to do about the house. If my husband was alive, he would’ve handled it, but I didn’t know where to turn. It was a relief to find someone who actually does this kind of thing. Thank you,” Mrs. Toth repeated for the fourth time.
“You don’t need to thank me, Mrs. Toth. This is what I do. It’s my job,” Sadie said softly. “I’m glad to save families from the ordeal.”
Mrs. Toth nodded, picked up the pretty flowered teapot on the table, and topped off her tea. Sadie covered her own cup to indicate she didn’t want a refill.
“You can call me Sylvia,” Mrs. Toth said. “I guess you’re used to this kind of thing since it’s your job.” Her face slipped into a bewildered, mournful gaze. “I just don’t know what happened.” Her eyes met Sadie’s. “They were so happy. I even thought they’d start a family soon. Grant had been hinting about filling the house with the pitter-patter of little feet. They’d finally finished renovating that old place, and Grant’s business was doing so well that he’d expanded to a second store in Portland.”
Damn. Sadie hated knowing too many details about the victims. It made it difficult for her to remain detached about her work.
“Look how happy they were.” Sylvia pulled a photo out of her purse.
Sadie was about to stop her. She really didn’t like to look at photos of people when she was working a trauma clean. But now, when she caught a glimpse of the couple, she took the picture from Sylvia’s hand.
“How odd. I actually thought he was blond,” Sadie murmured.
“Grant? No, he’s always been a brunette, like me. At least, like I was before the gray.” Sylvia frowned. “Why would you think he was blond?”
Oh, just because some blond ghost visited me at Grant’s house. She frowned at the picture. Guess that explained why she was able to see her ghostly visitor. Wrong ghost. The house was old. She must’ve been visited by a spirit unrelated to the scene she was working.
Sadie handed the photo back and said, “The house was beautifully remodeled, but it has to be nearly a hundred years old, right? Possibly many owners have lived there?”
“Oh yes,” Sylvia replied. “Grant and Trudy were quite proud that they’d kept some of the original character of the home. They were constantly scanning antique dealers for unique odds and ends. Just last month Trudy found some perfect glass doorknobs.”
Sadie wasn’t listening to most of what Mrs. Toth said. She just kept thinking, Lord, I hope a half dozen people haven’t died in that house. If all the other spirits haven’t found their way to the other side by now, I’m never going to be able to get any work done there.
As Sylvia looked sadly at the photograph, the sorrow on her face appeared to age the sixty-something woman another ten years.
“I should’ve known something was wrong. I should have seen it.” Her shoulders fell.
“There’s no way you could have known.”
It was what families wanted to hear, and more often than not, Sadie believed, it was the truth.
“It really doesn’t make any sense. They were happy and finally settled. They moved down to Portland for a few months to get Grant’s new sportswear store up and running, but Grant couldn’t wait to get Trudy back to Seattle. She hated Portland and he loved her with all his heart. He wanted her to be happy.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “He loved her so much, he would never…”
She fumbled then, because of course there was no he would never—Grant had killed his wife, and that was the sickening truth. Poor Mrs. Toth would probably never be able to align the son she knew with the man who had committed such a horrific act.
Sylvia’s sobs grew louder, and Sadie decided it was time to call in the big artillery.
“Five years ago my brother killed himself,” she began.
It was something she seldom discussed with anyone except her clients. They knew her loss. Could feel her pain.
“Brian was twenty-nine, healthy, had just been promoted, and was engaged to be married. He loved to rock climb and hike. Mr. Outdoors.” She smiled at the memory. “Nobody in my family suspected anything was wrong. He shot himself. It’s still hard for us to accept.” Truth. “But time does lessen the pain.” Big fat lie.
Sylvia sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “And that is why you chose this line of work?”
Sadie nodded. “I like to think that this line of work chose me. My brother was an unattended death, meaning nobody discovered his body for weeks.” Uh-oh. Too much information. Sadie rushed on. “We actually thought he was away on vacation.” She bit down on the inside of her cheek. She wouldn’t drag out any of the details that still haunted her dreams at night. “I had to do the cleanup because I didn’t want the job to fall to my parents. At that time, one of the police officers told me that many big cities had independent bio-recovery technicians who were trained to perform this kind of cleaning service, but unfortunately Seattle wasn’t one of them at that time.”
“It must’ve been horrible for you.”
“It was,” Sadie said. “But afterward, I left my job as a second-grade teacher and took the training I needed to start this business.” She paused and added with conviction, “Families of victims should never have to see what I’ve seen.”
Sylvia Toth nodded and reached out to gently squeeze Sadie’s fingers.
Misery loves company, Sadie thought. And people sure bond quick over tragedy.
Without further delay, Sadie brought out her contract and had Mrs. Toth sign for the work to be done.
After leaving the Toth residence, Sadie met Zack at the Carson place and was pleasantly surprised to find that the clean had been completed.
“You must’ve worked your ass off this morning,” she remarked.
Zack looked over his shoulder and said with mock alarm, “You’re right! It’s gone!”
“Oh, it’s still there.” Sadie was tempted to pinch his butt good-naturedly, but she didn’t.
There were always lighthearted moments when a job was finished. Sadie felt particularly good when she’d helped a spirit like Jacob’s to go over. It was an endorphin-fueled rush that pooled with relief that she was able to help another soul.
They busily loaded the balance of the supplies from this job into the Scene-2-Clean van. If they hadn’t had the Toth scene waiting, they would have headed to a pub to obliterate death with a few beers. Instead, they left Zack’s Mustang and drove together to the Blue Onion Bistro for sandwiches. The bright blue and yellow interior of the cozy café offered a cheery contrast to the dreary day outside. While they sat, they talked about the crappy weather, agreeing that rain was still better than snow, and they moved on to discuss the Seahawks’ chances for the Super Bowl. The conversation covered pretty much anything except work.
They each ordered the turkey club, which came with the best potato salad in the world, but neither of them ate much. Zack didn’t like having a full belly when they started a new job, and though Sadie possessed a cast-iron stomach that wasn’t affected by the gross-out factor, she hadn’t felt a burning appetite for food in months. Not since the fifth anniversary of Brian’s suicide, when her mother had deemed it appropriate to have a massive banquet to honor his life. Every bite of food had tasted like failure, a reminder that Sadie would never know why he did it.
Sadie ate a few bites of her sandwich and asked the waitress to wrap it up to go as she got up and slipped her arms into her Gore-Tex jacket.
“You feel like driving?” she asked.
“Sure.”
Sadie tossed him the keys and they walked out the door and quick-stepped through the drizzle toward the van. Once buckled up, Sadie started to give Zack directions to the Toth house, but he stopped her.
“Give me the address and I’ll find it on my own. I don’t trust you,” he said.
“Sheesh, I give bad directions one time—”
“Yeah, and that one time landed me asking for directions at a gay nightclub on a clothing-optional night,” he growled.
“And yet your masculinity remained intact,” Sadie said with a smirk.
“No thanks to you.”
They drove the few miles to the Toth house in easy silence. When they arrived, Zack hopped out and Sadie got behind the wheel and drove back home to stock up on a few extra things they might need for the large job. Her errand would give Zack the couple moments alone that he always preferred when adjusting to a new job.
While she was at home, her best friend dropped in for a visit.
“You have to see it to believe it!” Pam gushed. “I ran into Marge—remember her from school? She looks years younger. I bet she’s had work done. I’ve been thinking of going for Botox. What do you think?”
Sadie looked over at her friend. Her pale complexion needed something, but it wasn’t Botox.
“You look great, like always.” Sadie turned away and resumed loading supplies into the van. Pam quickly got the message.
“You’re busy. Let’s have a drink later.”
“I don’t think so. This is a new scene, and I’ll probably be working late because—”
“Ugh. No details, please.”
Sadie glanced sideway at Pam’s sour face. She hated Sadie’s job and anything related to blood or gore.
“I have no idea how late we’ll go today, but you can always try me later.”
“Sounds good,” Pam said. “Ciao for now.”
Sadie had finished packing up while they talked, and now she drove back to the Toth house and joined Zack inside.
She greeted him with a wave. There wouldn’t be a lot of chitchat between them at this point, not until they got into the next stage of cleaning, when most of the grisly remains were cleaned and respirators were no longer required.
Sadie moved closer so Zack could hear her through the respirator.
“Why don’t you work the upstairs scene and I’ll take the main floor?”
Zack gave her a thumbs-up, grabbed the supplies he needed, and disappeared up the stairs.
Sadie liked to begin on the edges of a scene and move in an ever-tightening circle toward ground zero. With a red rubber bin in one hand and cleansers in the other, she headed for the farthest wall, toward the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Using a step stool she’d brought, she systematically took everything off the top shelf and scrubbed away spatter with powerful disinfectant. It wasn’t enough to simply swab off the blood; absolutely everything had to also be decontaminated. It was slow, exacting work.
As she neared the middle of the eight-shelf unit, she found that the concentration of debris was heavier and there were items, mostly books, that could not be salvaged. These things she tossed into the waste bins. Eventually, everything she and Zack used on a job, as well as all of their protective gear, would go into the bins and be taken to the medical waste facility.
Next of kin gave permission for Scene-2-Clean to dispose of any contaminated items, whether real or personal property. Anything that could not be perfectly cleaned had to go. That included furniture, floorboards, and drywall if necessary. Since starting her company, Sadie had developed a newfound respect for high-gloss paint, which didn’t soak up bodily fluids.
Where contamination was heaviest, Sadie used emulsifiers to soften dried tissue and fluids. She reached a shelf that held several five-by-seven photographs in matching black frames. As she systematically wiped and sprayed the frames, something caught her eye. She stared at the photo in her hand. A happy couple dressed in their wedding finery, along with their grinning wedding party, smiled back at her. One of the tuxedo-clad men was definitely the same blond guy who had paid her a visit upstairs that morning.
Sadie let out a startled gasp, then stumbled and nearly dropped the picture.
She got to her feet, took a deep breath, and with the picture in hand, went up the stairs two at a time to the bedroom where Zack was working. He was on his hands and knees in a corner of the room, using a sharp blade to cut out and remove the stained carpet and underlay. He was totally unaware of the pretty brunette sitting on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking slowly back and forth. The savage slash across the woman’s throat told Sadie immediately that this was Trudy Toth.
“Oh, I don’t need this,” Sadie muttered.
“What?” Zack asked over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” Sadie said, stealing a sidelong glance at the apparition.
“Do not tell me there’s a ghost in this room with me,” Zack said with a long-suffering expression.
“Forget that. I need to ask you about this picture.” She moved closer so she wouldn’t have to shout through her respirator, and thrust the frame in his face.
“What about it?” He stood and took the frame. “You missed a spot along the edge,” he pointed out.
“I’m not done cleaning it yet, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Who do you see in the picture?”
“A bride, a groom, and, I assume, their best man and maid of honor. Is this a trick question?”
Sadie took the picture back, frowned down at it, then looked up again. Trudy looked much happier in the photo than she did right now with the grotesque slice in her neck.
“Never mind.”
Sadie sighed and headed back downstairs. An unsettling thought occurred to her as she reentered the living room. She knew she wouldn’t be able to return to work until she figured this out. She stepped into the kitchen safe zone, doffed her gear, and used her cell phone to dial Sylvia Toth.
“Hello?” Sylvia said.
“Hi, Sylvia, it’s Sadie. Please excuse me for the strange question, but could you tell me who the best man was at your son’s wedding?”
“His best man? Why on earth would you need to know about him?”
“It’s kind of silly,” she said, but her thumping heart said otherwise. “It’s just that I saw their wedding picture, and the man standing beside Grant looks familiar to me. I think I’ve met him before.” Certainly not a total lie.
“Oh. Well, that would be Kent Lasko.”
“Kent Lasko,” Sadie repeated. “And is he, well, is he still alive?”
“My goodness, of course he is! Why would you think he wasn’t?”
“Just humor me for a minute, Sylvia. When was the last time you saw Kent?”
“Not for a while,” she replied. “His mother is a good friend of mine. Probably the last time I saw him was at Ramona’s sixtieth birthday party, three or four years ago. Ramona moved to Florida a few months after that.”
Sadie rolled her eyes and made a huge effort to keep her voice calm.
“Okay, but if you don’t mind me asking, how do you know Kent’s still alive if you haven’t heard from him or seen him in three or four years?” Sadie asked.
“For one thing, he sent a stunning arrangement of white orchids to the funeral,” Sylvia replied with a little heat. “Plus Ramona and I still chat on the phone occasionally, and I’m sure she would’ve mentioned it if her son just happened to die.”
“Of course. Thanks—and sorry for bothering you.”
Sadie disconnected the call and shuddered at the realization that her visitor had not been a ghost. Her fingers trembled as she pocketed her phone. She knew that the living could be far more lethal than the dead.