“What are you doing?” Panic set in as I chased her into the bathroom. She stepped over Louis and knelt beside the tub. “Vero, this is not a good idea.”
“No, it’s a brilliant idea.”
“Can’t you just hold the screen in front of his face?”
“It’s an old device,” she said, passing me the tablet and using both hands to lift one of Marco’s arms out of the water. “It has a fingerprint reader. Dry his hand for me.”
“What?! No!”
“Don’t be such a baby! You’ve touched a dead guy’s appendages before. At least this one’s still attached.”
“I’m not being a baby. You’re disturbing a body in a crime scene!”
“I promise, he won’t feel a thing. See?” she said, waving said appendage up and down.
“Now you’re just being crass.”
“Crassis a boomer word. You sound like your mother.”
“I do not!”
“Fine, I’ll do it.” She snapped open a hand towel and set it on the side of the tub. I cringed as she hefted Marco’s arm, grunting with exertion as she bobbed it up and down, smacking the blue tips of his fingers over and over against the fabric. His toupee flopped, peeling farther away from his forehead. Vero muttered to herself between labored breaths. “You’d think you’d never done something like this before. I mean, seriously, Finn. First Harris, then Andrei, and don’t even get me started about Carl. Give me his tablet,” she said, sweat blooming under her hairnet. I held the tablet out to her, resisting the urge to gag as she pressed Marco’s index finger against the scanner. When nothing happened, she tried his thumb.
“It’s not working. His fingers are too pruny! Plug in the hair dryer.”
“You can’t use a hair dryer! The man’s in a bathtub!”
“He’s already dead, Finn! It’s not like it’s gonna kill him!” Marco’s armpit squeaked against the porcelain as Vero straddled his arm and stretched it out toward me.
I plugged in the hair dryer. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Vero grunted and tugged. I reconsidered my mother’s suggestion about confession as I tried to pass Vero the hair dryer. “The cord isn’t long enough. It won’t reach.”
“Then you hold it. Point it this way.”
“Vero—”
“Just do it!”
I turned the dryer on high, extending the cord as far as it would go. She squinted against the blast of hot air.
“Is it working?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” she said over the whine of the motor. “Turn down the power. We don’t want to cook him.”
Warming Marco’s corpse was the last thing I wanted to do. There was a good reason killers kept bodies in chest freezers. I adjusted the dryer to its lowest setting. Something vibrated in my pocket.
“What’s wrong?” Vero asked as I switched hands to check my phone.
“It’s Nick,” I said, stuffing it back in my apron. I couldn’t thinkabout him now. Not while I was giving a naked dead man a blowout with a cheap Conair in a hotel bathroom above a casino.
“I think he’s done,” Vero called out. “Hand me his tablet.” I shut off the dryer and passed her the device. She pressed Marco’s index finger against the scanner, jabbing it a few times before giving up with a swear. “It’s not working.”
“Give me that.” I took the tablet and knelt beside Louis, pressing his index finger to the scanner instead. The home screen opened. Vero rolled her eyes as she dropped Marco’s arm.
“You’re buzzing again,” she said, taking the tablet from me.
“No, I’m not.”
