Chapter 16

Dean Lifante

10:30 am

It took them an hour to get to Dr. Slazney's pharmacy in the strip mall outside the city. Dean had a good feeling about this place. Its vanilla white image had to be hiding a secret. Something was going to turn up here, he could sense it. It was a small tingling, centred in his stomach and radiating out. He hated this feeling most of all. He felt just like this when he first met his ex-wife. It's what led him to his marriage and why he didn't see the cracks in it for so long when the feeling turned.

Dean glanced at his watch and twisted his hands on the steering wheel. They had no time for this. They had wasted almost eleven hours and were still nowhere closer to finding the computer. Ming needed him to go faster. He couldn't lose her. He still hadn't figured out what she was to him.

"Before you get out, you might want to wipe your face," Dean said to Barbie, "It's still covered in blood."

"Thank you. I'd forgotten about that." Barbie said, working the tooth back into her jaw. She spent the whole drive cleaning it off.

Shaking his head and looking away from the absurdity, Dean got out of the car. "She's nothing, but not consistent," he sighed. Approaching the darkened office, he pounded on the glass. It said 'Stanley's' on the sign. Bobby said it was the doctor's little joke. Dean couldn't get it. He peered inside, but couldn't see anybody moving, although there was a light in the back.

"The doc ain't been back in three days," a voice said from behind him. Dean turned around and met an older woman with long pink hair, smoking a cigarette. The scent of the smoke sent waves of nausea mixed with desire throughout Dean. He needed a smoke and was out of candy. She was wearing old jeans and a faded pink T-shirt. Dean couldn't tell if the hair was real or not, but based on the lines around her eyes and neck, she was probably pushing fifty. She started hacking at her hand. "Sorry, got me a dust allergy."

"Do you know Dr. Slazney?" Dean asked, rubbing his nose to clear the smoke. Barbie stepped up beside him.

"Know him?" she scoffed. "He's been my doctor for the last three years." She took a drag on her cigarette. "' Course, he's been acting squirrely recently, driving away some of the regulars. Said his big retirement plans were about to pay off."

"I see. Thank you," Dean said, raising his hand.

"Jillian," the woman said, ignoring it. "I don't trust strange hands." Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"Detective Lifante, LVPD." Dean pulled out his badge. "I'm following up on a tip."

"Is he in some sorta trouble? I've been coming here for the last two days. I need him to fill in my prescription paperwork for my comp." She started hacking again.

"I don't know, ma'am. That's what we're here to find out." He turned back to the door and peered in.

"I checked around the back as well, to see if his door was locked, and it smelled really bad," Jillian said. "I think he's got a sewer leak. Musta took off." She waved and headed into the MacDonalds.

Dean nodded and went around to the side entrance. He put his hand on the wooden door, took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. It smelt of rotten meat and stale urine. "A dead body," he muttered. "Dammit!" He tried the door, but it was locked.

Pulling out his phone, he dialled the station. "This is Dean Lifante, badge number 745253. I'm in front of a pharmacy in the Moonbeam strip mall named Stanley's. There is some suspicious activity happening here and a possible four-one-nine. The building is locked, but I'm attempting to gain entry by force. Will update after checking out the situation." He hung up.

"Suspicious activity?" Barbie asked, coming up beside him. She sounded confused. "Why the fib?"

"I needed an excuse to get into the place, and the smell is indicative of a dead body," Dean said. "I have a few minutes before dispatch responds to check it out."

He stepped back and gestured to the doorknob.

"Yes. What?" Barbie asked, crossing her arms.

"I need you to open the door, please."

"That's called breaking and entering. I don't think I should do that. My Handler would get upset," Barbie said, putting her hands on her hips.

Dean rolled his eyes and put his hands together. "Please, for Bobby?"

Barbie scrunched up her face, looked left, then right and lowered her shoulders, with an exaggerated sigh. "Okay. For the Maker. Besides, you said please." She grabbed the door, took a deep breath, and yanked. The door resisted. Barbie frowned, braced her feet on either side of the door, grabbed the knob and twisted, forcing it open. "That was harder than I thought." She stared at her hands.

A stench of rotten meat and offal, with an undercurrent of peppermint in the back room, hit them like a tax man. You couldn't get away from it. He covered his nose with his sleeve. "Dammit. Wait out here. This is police business now," he said to Barbie.

He stuck his head in the open door and looked around. The back room was all clear. A few potpourri bags were hanging from the sides of the shelves, giving off a whiff of peppermint. They were doing nothing to hold back the foul order, though. Stepping through the door, he hugged the wall and moved to the office area, following the dead smell. In the first room in the back, he found the body on the floor, behind the desk. The deceased was a male, wearing a white jacket with an ID clip on the pocket. The eyes had already sunk into the head, and the skin had dried out. Flies were hovering around the body. He brushed them away and reached into the pocket. The clip said, Dr. Richard Stanley. Ming had better not look like that. Dean gritted his teeth.

Moving away from the body, Dean went to the filing cabinet with three drawers next to the desk. It was locked. Searching the desk, he found the keys. He flipped through the records until he found Bobby's under 'M'. Pulling it out, he checked the details. It had his address, the prescription and payment information, but not much else. Putting it back, he flipped through the other files in the cabinet and found a few more names. He found Chester Punk from the squeegee place and Yichen from the Shujing. There were some names he'd never seen before, as well. Several had lines through them, but many didn't. In the second drawer, one name stood out.

"It can't be." He didn't want to look in the file. Zacoski wasn't a common name, but there were a few people who shared it. Dean's hand shook as it hovered over the file.

"Did you find anything?" Barbie asked, coming through the door and pulling Dean away from his dilemma. "Hey, who is the corpse?" She held her nose and peered at the man.

"I thought I told you to wait outside?"

"I couldn't just stand there. My nanites are breaking down. Opening that door took the last of my strength. Besides, I did break the door, so I thought I might as well go all Fujiko," Barbie said, rubbing her hands and scrunching her brows together. "You know from that cinematic masterpiece of Japanese art, Lupan the Third?"

"Yeah, of course." He grimaced. Where was she getting these things? "Fine," said Dean, slamming the door shut and handing her the ID badge. She squinted.

"Do you need glasses?" Dean asked.

"No. It's something strange. A smell..." She trailed off and started sniffing the corpse. Dean narrowed his eyes and continued searching the desk. Anything to avoid the cabinet. Other than the files, he couldn't find anything about the connections between Slazney and this guy besides the similar name.

"I'm going to have to call in the investigators. I can't hide this," he said, biting his lip. "Unless you've found something?"

"Maybe. Give me a few minutes." Barbie continued to inspect the corpse, pushing at it and sniffing.

Goosebumps travelled up his arms when she did that. She'd been right about everything up to now, so he let her poke and went over to the bookshelf. There were a few awards and several books on specialty medicines, which would explain how he could make Bobby's, but nothing to explain why somebody would kill him. He stepped out of the room and found a smaller staff room. Going inside, there was a small table in the middle with four chairs, a sink and a counter with a microwave on it. A mini-fridge and a bulletin board rounded out the room. Dean went up to it and pulled down an article.

"Local Doctor Survives Collision."

"By Ming Na Liu."

Dean looked up. "Shit, this was dated three years ago."

"Doctor Richard Stanley was driving to work today when a semi-trailer almost ended his life. He was thrown from his vehicle, through the front glass, but miraculously landed in a dune. Apart from a few cuts and scrapes, he survived virtually unhurt. Witnesses at the scene say they couldn't believe it and thought he was dead. As one witness said, 'God was with Dr. Stanley this day.'"

The article went on.

"I know what happened," Barbie said from the doorway. "But I don't know if you'll believe me."

"Just tell me." Dean put the article back on the bulletin board.

"When Slazney jumped into Stanley's body, it left a smell like hot metal burning in acid on a summer day. It is difficult to catch if you're not familiar with it and soon disappears in the living, but remains in the dead."

"Huh?" Dean's face fell. "Explain with more words, please. I don't understand what you mean."

Barbie grimaced. "Fine. With the code in play, it's possible he jumped bodies. However, it's difficult to go into living ones. The soul, in living bodies, forces the extra soul out. With dead ones, it's like putting on a meat suit. In that case, the new soul heals the body with the nanites that follow the soul through time from the future. In most cases, it can bring a body back to life. That activity causes the smell."

"Nanites?" He still had trouble wrapping his head around that and would think about tiny robots later. Pointing to the article, he asked, "Then Slazney jumped into Stanley three years ago and took over his life?"

"Looks that way, but it was incomplete. Something went wrong, and the smell should have disappeared by now. He must have been looking for a new body." Barbie stood back with a smug look on her face.

"So, if we look at recent accidents and deaths and compare them with the names in the filing cabinet, we might find a connection to Slazney," Dean said. He pulled out his phone and paused for a moment. "However, this article is over three years old. Slazney could have been planning this for a long time."

"That's true; however, it's possible he was split into multiple bodies at the same time, but it would put a great strain on the planet," Barbie said. "The smell from that one is wrong."

"What kind of strain?"

"The Maker could never figure out the reason for global warming."

"I can't believe I'm even considering this." Dean scrunched his face. "Dammit!" He went back to the first room and yanked open the filing cabinet. He took out his phone and snapped a picture of each of the names in it, including Jillian.

"What are you doing?" Barbie asked.

"I found his list of names. Some may be regular clients, but others could be the bodies he's using." He counted the names and closed the door. "There are over fifty names here." Dean hit the top of the filing cabinet with his fist. "There's no way we can get through all of them in twelve hours."

Dean hovered his hand over the cabinet and closed his eyes. His instincts, when he let them, never failed him. When he ignored them, everything went to shit. He pulled out three files and laid them on the desk. Opening his eyes, he sighed.

"I thought so the first time," Dean said. "I guess I just didn't want to believe it."

"Who are you talking to?" Barbie grabbed the files and read the names off of them. "Lee Chang, Chester Punk Sr., Bartholomew Zacoski." She opened them up and scrunched her nose. "The only thing in here is some biographical information. There's nothing of substance. Who are they?"

Dean was silent for a moment and let out a sigh. "The Shujing owner, Squeegees R' Us," he said, pointing to the first two files. He paused on the third one.

"Who is it?" Barbie asked, impressed.

"My Lieutenant," Dean said. He closed his eyes. It couldn't be him. Bart was his best friend and the only one who believed in him, besides Ming. He couldn't be working with Slazney.