Page 4 of Nowhere Good

Pereira huffed. She wasn’t much older than him—maybe thirty—and she had tawny skin and an ovular face, big hazel eyes. Pretty. “I dunno, it’s a steamer today. His work’s closed Sundays and his truck’s here, so he’s gotta be somewhere in there.”

“And you’re sure this guy knew Eliza? I’m looking for someone with the initials DB, not BB.”

“You’re also looking for Eliza’s dealer, right? Brad ain’t a seller, but he sure is an addict. He’s gotta know who Eliza was buying from.”

“True. Too bad he’s not answering.”

A bad feeling cooked inside him. Seth moved to the bay window and peeked inside the house. The lights were off and the curtains were drawn, but as he leaned closer, an off smell—something rotting—hit his nose.

He knew that smell.

To be sure, he took another angle until he could see clearly into the living room.

Somebody was slumped on the couch inside. He could make out their arm, limp beside them.

And their green flesh.

“We’ve got a body.”

“You kidding!?” Pereira exclaimed.

“No. Call it in.”

With his gun at the ready, Seth booted the bottom of the front door. It flew right open, spewing out the pungent stench of decomposing human flesh. There was nothing else like it. He held his weapon forward while trying to shield his nose, at the same time Pereira choked and coughed beside him.

“Dispatch, this is Officer Pereira—I’m at 258 Willowdale Ave. We’ve got a dead body, advanced state of decomposition, suspected overdose. Requesting backup immediately.”

A man’s voice crackled through the radio. “Copy that, Pereira. En route.”

Seth moved up the hall and cleared each room. There were only two, a bathroom and a bedroom, no basement. No one else was here. He put his gun away and covered his face with his elbow as he returned to the living room. The acrid stench burned his nostrils, no matter how hard he tried not to breathe it in.

“Oh, good lord,” Pereira was saying. “Good freakin’ lord, death has really got a thing for me lately. Damn it, damn it.”

He understood what she meant; she’d filled him in on the drive over. Pereira had been the one to find Haylock dead from a heart attack behind the wheel, crashed into a pole with a bag of White Castle in the passenger seat. A midnight trip for fast food had turned fatal, ending an esteemed homicide detective’s forty-year career. She’d also been the one to answer the call about Eliza’s murder just days before and was the first officer on the scene.

This was a different kind of death. Brad Bailey’s body had become bloated, oozing liquids and turning all different shades of yellow and green. On the coffee table, next to an ashtray, there was a needle, a spoon, and a lighter. Heroin.

Taking in the room, covered in beer cans and garbage, the story here became clearer.

Seth’s stomach turned over. His mother once told him, somewhere in the haze between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, that he’d end up like this. Alone, surrounded by needles, rotting.

“How long you think he’s been here?” Pereira asked. “Dang, no one even reported him missing.”

Seth squared his shoulders and let himself breathe, putrid as it was. “I’m no coroner, but based on the color and stage of decomposition, a week or so.”

“Eliza died six days ago. She could’ve been here before he croaked.”

“Yeah, and looks like he was having a party. This should be treated like a crime scene—try to get forensics in, find out who was in this house before he died. I’d love to know how none of his ‘friends’ came back to check on him.” He couldn’t hold back the edge of anger in his voice, but this one hit close to home. “He needed a fucking hospital. I’m gonna go look around.”

Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Seth moved through the house. It was borderline dilapidated with posters of naked women on the walls. It reminded him of the type of seedy apartments he used to buy dope from back when he was growing up in Brooklyn. He’d never liked the feeling of a place like this, even before he was a cop.

Inside Brad’s room, the bed was unmade and clothes littered the floor. Careful not to disturb anything, Seth stepped inside and took in the picture of this guy’s life. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for—something to show his murder victim had been here, but that could be anything. He stopped at the cluttered nightstand beside Brad’s bed.

A photograph rested on top of a pile of junk. It showed a teenage Brad Bailey in a suit and a pretty girl with a moonlike face, wearing a red prom dress. She smiled drunkenly at the camera and held up a lit joint. With her long, dark blonde hair parted in the center, she looked old school, the type of beauty you’d see in a 70s magazine; a girl out of time. For a split second, he almost thought she was Eliza, but Eliza’s features had been sharper, more catlike. Still, their palettes were nearly identical, down to the rosy white skin and light green eyes.

He was about to put it down when something on the bedside table made him pause.

Three dime bags.