Suckers - J.A. Konrath

made my way to the exit before the groaning began. I needed some fresh air. I also needed a
hatchet and some steel wool, so I could access and scour the last half an hour from my brain.
Conveniently, the exit was a large door marked EXIT, which opened up to some concrete
steps. I took them up, and they ended in a maintenance closet, which opened up into the
mausoleum. It was an easier—and faster—entrance than the nightmare slide, but lacked the
dramatic effect.
I pulled out my gun, did a quick search for old caretaker guy, scared the hell out of some
grieving old man, mourning his dead wife or some similar maudlin bullshit, and then made my
way through the cemetery, across the street, and into the first place that sold liquor.
Three shots and two beers later, I called the police.
Chapter 9
The cop I called was a somewhat tasty little morsel named Lieutenant Jackie “Jack” Daniels.
So-so face, great legs, nice rack, especially for an older broad. I knew her back in the day, when
we were partners in blue, and she continued to have a crush on me almost two decades later.
“I don’t owe you shit, McGlade. And if you bother me again I’m going to send some
uniforms over to trash your apartment and beat you with phone books for so long you’ll have
area codes embedded in your skin.”
“Pay attention, Jackie. I’m offering you a prime bust here. As we speak, there’s a group of
perverts running a train on a dead guy with gonads the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.”
“Let me guess. Is it a Butterball?”
“They have to be stopped. Would you want some loonies digging you up and poking your
cooter after you’ve been laid to eternal rest?”
“Sex with a corpse, disgusting as it is, isn’t a crime, Harry. Didn’t you read Bloody Mary by
JA Konrath? There was a character in there, did the same thing.”
“I listened to part of the audiobook. The author thinks he’s funny, but he’s not.”
“It’s a he? I thought a woman wrote those books.”
I tried to make my voice sound soothing, a tough trick because I had screamed myself raw.
“Jackie, partner, be a good cop and send a team over to the cemetery. You’ll get brownie
points from the Captain, a little TV spotlight, and the satisfaction knowing that you got a bunch
of lunatic perverts off the street.”
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