Read Online Necropolis by Michael Dempsey - Free Book Online Page B

Kinderman. “One of the best we had.”
    The clerk, Hector Alvarez, 21, of Red Hook, was unharmed. Alvarez provided police with a description of the assailant, but as of yet, no arrests have been made. The assailant fled with an unspecified amount of cash.

    The article went on to give a brief history of our respective careers and Elise’s work with the United Way.
    Arlene whistled. “You just walked in on the guy?”
    I shook my head mutely.
    She nodded in understanding. “Wife’s not back?”
    Jesus. A robbery. A fucking two-bit heist. And I’d walked right into it, like a goddamn rookie. Of all the senseless ways to go—
    A chill numbness settled over me. Elise never went into those bodegas. She thought they were overpriced. So why…  
    Oh no.
    I’d made her stop. On the way to the opera, I’d made her stop. And the only reason would be—
    Oh no oh no…  
    So I could get a pack of smokes.
    I’d gotten my wife killed for a pack of cigarettes.
    The room’s angles changed. They seemed to be turning the room into a funhouse, how could that be, it was all weird shapes and colors, skewed, uneven…  
    “Honey?” Her voice came from miles away.
    I lunged for the restroom. The retching came from my toes, wave after wracking wave of it. When it finally subsided, I splashed water on my face at the sink, rinsed the bile from my mouth. Little black pinpricks still flickered in the corners of my vision as I walked back to Arlene. She had a breath mint all ready for me. What a doll.  
    “Sorry,” I said thickly, sitting.
    “Not every day you read your own obituary,” she replied. No trace of irony or pity in her voice.
    “How do I get whatever records that exist? About… this?”
    Arlene bit her lip. “You’re not supposed to focus too much on your old life,” she said. “It can be upsetting.” She looked at her hands. “That’s what they say, anyway.”
    “I bet a smarty counselor told you that.” She didn’t reply. “Can you do it?”
    She sat debating. Then she leaned forward, and her synapses flew.

    ***

    A half hour later, we’d unearthed hospital records, pension files, insurance forms—the digital detritus of two people’s lives. Since Elise and I had died intestate and without heirs, our property had been auctioned off.
    “Do reborns ever get their property back?”
    “If it still exists, and if the heirs agree. Which isn’t very often.” She grinned. “Hearst was pissed . His own foundation wouldn’t give him back San Simeon.”
    Bart had been right about my case. No follow-up articles. Nothing in the Criminal City Database. The file must’ve been tucked away with ten thousand other cold cases.
    The screen returned to the Times article. “That’s it,” said Arlene.
    That’s it. Dead end, for a dead guy.
    Someone had gunned us down without batting an eyelash. Snuffed out two human lives, taken the handful of cash from the till and probably partied all night without a moment’s remorse. I’d seen it hundreds of times. I’d been sickened at first, this casual indifference to human life, but as the years wore on I’d grown calloused like my partners without ever really understanding. Now, my nerve endings like a nettle of black thorns, I knew what the loved ones of those victims had really felt. The bottomless depth of their anger, their loss. I’d counseled them with clichéd platitudes, so safe and naïve behind my badge. Let it go , I’d said. Move on, live your life. Give yourself time to heal. What pathetic bullshit.  
    Arlene was frowning at the holo image. She squinted at it.
    “Weird,” she said.
    “What?”
    The image sprang forward, enlarged. She manifested a cursor and ran it down to the edge of the newsprint. “See?”
    “See what?” I looked harder. “What am I looking for?”
    She enlarged the representation some more. “Let me run an algorithm.” The image shifted into a blocky blur of pixels. Now parts of the image looked fuzzier than the