Who: Dan Smith and Liv Moore What: Dan and Liv both have work to do When: Late December Where: The Morgue Rating/Warnings: Low - It is a morgue, there are dead bodies around Status: Complete!
Dan’s work had sent him to many interesting places. This week’s job required that he gain access to the county morgue. Fun. Actually, Dan didn’t mind morgues too much. He’d seen enough dead bodies in his time as an officer – and later detective – for the Detroit Police Department. He’d also been to the city morgue on a number of occasions and was pretty comfortable moving around one.
Usually, clients sent him into a morgue in order to remove evidence. It was extremely rare that someone sent him to put something on a body. So rare in fact, that this was the first time Dan had been given that kind of assignment. Apparently, his current client didn’t want it to become common conception that her recently deceased husband routinely took his wedding band off. That he had been found dead of an apparent heart attack in the driveway of his mistress’s house by said mistress was apparently immaterial. Whatever. Dan was getting paid $1,500 to essentially keep his client’s reputation as a happily married woman intact.
It was late afternoon, early-ish evening, when Dan made his way to the morgue. He had on a dark blue suit and tie, similar to the suit he used to wear as a detective. He looked as though he belonged there, just another plain-clothed cop checking for the findings of the pathologist. Casually, Dan made his way to where the bodies were kept.
Liv was at the morgue later than usual today. Usually she would be off at the local cop bar by now with the detective she usually worked with. However, it was taking her longer than usual to get through her reports today. Probably because of the bowl she had smoked after lunch. Oh well, she’d get there eventually.
It was probably a good thing that she stayed late too, considering someone she didn’t recognize just strolled right into the morgue. Liv knew all the detectives and pathologists. Sometimes PIs or other consultants came in, but they never disguised themselves.
The alabaster woman sighed making her way out of the back office. “Can I help you?”
Dan hadn’t expected anyone to actually be in the morgue quite this late, so he was a little startled at first to hear the voice of a woman call out to him. Fuck! Dan took a breath, put on his most serious and professional of expressions and turned around to answer.
And stopped.
He had expected to find a no-nonsense pathologist clad in a white lab coat looking at him sternly and demanding answers as to why he was down there. Instead he found an attractive young platinum blonde woman looking at him more like he was more of an inconvenience than he was an intruder. If it wasn’t for her pale skin and the way-too-much eyeshadow around her eyes, he may not have noticed just how pink the area around her irises was. ooookaaayy…
Dan looked at her a little critically. Did she really work here? The goth eye shadow gave him a moment of pause. He’d met people so good at their jobs that they had garnered enough respect so that they could dress any way that they wanted, but that seemed a bit much, even for an eccentric doctor who spent more time with the dead than with the living.
“Uh, yes, actually,” Dan forged on. “My name is Shawn Spencer. I’m a private detective hired by a Mrs. Oglethorpe to look into the possible infidelity of her husband, who unfortunately died before I could really start my investigation. And now my client…” and here he flashed something of a charming sheepish smile, “well, she doesn’t believe that he’s actually dead. I know,” he held up his hands, “it sounds crazy, but she’s convinced that her husband has faked his own death to get out of a messy divorce. So I was hoping I could see the body and put her mind at ease so she’ll drop this whole conspiracy thing.” He raised a brow at her. “Do you work here? I’m sorry if I interrupted something important.”
“The detective on the case should be contacting his wife to ID the body,” Liv replied in a bored tone. Really she was not in the mood to be dealing with this nonsense. The guy was clearly up to something. And while usually Liv would be all over that, questioning this Shawn Spencer, right now she just wanted to get her work done and relax. Not stay even longer.
“Yeah,” she added in the same tone. “Why else would I be here?” Normally she would come up with some type of sarcastic remark or quip but right now her mind was just blank.
“Why would there be a detective assigned to the case?” Dan asked with a raised brow. “The guy died of a heart attack outside his mistress's house. Why would a detective be assigned to that? Does the ME’s office know something they aren’t sharing?” Not that he expected the woman in front of him to answer his question. The way she was looking at him and her tone of voice were both very dismissive. Dan wasn’t sure if she was buying his story. Though, if she were going to kick him out, she may have done so buy now. “Look, it’ll only take a minute. I just need to see the body. Mrs. Oglethorpe is more likely to cooperate once she understands and believes her husband is dead.”
Damn this dude had a lot of questions. Questions Liv wasn’t in the mood to answer. Besides she shouldn’t really be talking about these things with random guys who dressed up like they belonged in the morgue when she clearly knew he didn’t.
She just shrugged her shoulder in response to all his questions. “I’m sure your client will find out soon enough,” she mumbled. As for seeing the body. She didn’t really give a shit either way. There were worse things than taking a look at a dead body. “But if you want to stare at a corpse go for it,” she added with another shrug.
Dan blinked once. Damn, this place is weird. The M.E. wasn’t threatening to call anyone to have him escorted from the premises and she wasn’t giving him a hard time, per se. Actually, she didn’t seem as though she cared, which was the weird part to all of this. Dan was a little disappointed the lady - who had to be high, or something - hadn’t told him anything juicy regarding this dead body. Finding out it was in fact a murder would have made his current job of replacing a ring make a lot more sense. No less weird, but more sense. However, he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t. It wasn’t any of his business and it was becoming clear that the M.E. wasn’t buying his story about being a private dick. He was going to have to work on that, establish himself a little more with local law enforcement. Make a few contacts, establish a little trust, grease a few palms, yadda yadda.
“Yeah, thanks,” Dan nodded. He gestured towards the drawers the bodies normally would have been held in. “He in one of these?”
“Uh, yeah.” Had this guy never been in a morgue before? Her suspicions were clearly true. But she didn’t care enough to do anything about it. She could call Leon, maybe but he wasn’t working this case. And honestly the ones she didn’t work with Leon were low on her radar, probably because she didn’t get emotionally invested. Feel that connection like she did with the ones whose brains she ate.
“Names are on the front,” she added shrugging once again. “Do you PIs not spend much time in morgues?” Because Joan seemed fine, but then she was a consultant so who knew. Liv didn’t pay much attention beyond the autopsies.
Dan shrugged in return as he headed towards one of the drawers. “I’ve been in a morgue a few times in my life. For all I know, ya coulda have still had him half-open on one of your tables. He didn’t die all that long ago.” Dan didn’t spare a look over his shoulder at the M.E. behind him. He no longer cared if kept the charade up or not, so long as she wasn’t hovering over his shoulder. So her dismissal of him was probably for the better. He hummed a little bit to himself as he looked over the drawers until he found one marked “Oglethorpe”.
“Here we go,” he murmured as he opened the drawer and slid the body out. Dan had been around dead bodies before, and he regarded the poor S.O.B. in front of him thoughtfully. Dying after spending a night with one’s lover wasn’t a particularly bad way to go. A little lame, maybe. “Hope it was worth it,” he said as he dug the picture of the guy out of the breast pocket of his suit coat. A glance at the photo and a glance at the body confirmed that it was the same dude. He pretended to study the photo and the body as he reached into his pants pocket for the ring. He gave a sideways glance towards the M.E. to see if she was still watching him.
Liv was in fact watching. If she had been her usual self, before everything happened, she would have been all over whatever the hell he was doing. But right now it wasn’t a huge deal. This wasn’t that important of a case to her anyway.
“You done yet?” Liv asked when he was clearly up to no good. “I have some chinese food sprinkled with brains calling my name.”
Why was she still watching him? Dan frowned slightly, his eyes narrowing in her direction. “Yeah, yeah,” he called back over his shoulder. “Give me a sec, would you?” He moved the ring from his pocket deftly, palming it in his hand. He moved to the other side of the tray, putting the body between himself and the M.E. so she wouldn’t see what it was he was doing. Dan didn’t care if she discovered the ring after he’d left. What was she going to do? Report that some guy named Shawn Spencer had come down and put it on the dead dude? So what? Dan didn’t care what they did after the fact, so long as he got the job done. “You can always just go back to your dinner. I can see my own way out.”
Sure Liv was a bit high, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew better than to leave some random guy alone in the morgue to ‘see his own way out’. “Nah,” Liv said her eyes still on him. “My food can wait.” And it could. Liv was in no rush, for anything really. “So, Mr. Spencer. What do you do when you’re not ‘on a job’?” Might as well make some small talk while this guy was here. Although she doubted he would say anything even remotely truthful.
Interesting question. Dan allowed himself to chuckle in response. He doubted very much that she cared one way or another what it was that he did, but small talk was small talk. “I read,” he answered, and it actually wasn’t a lie. Dan did like to read. Dan liked to read all kinds of things - J.K. Rowling to Ezra Pound; Ann Rule to William Shakespeare, everything was fair game no matter how high brow or trashy. He didn’t exactly boast a library to prove it, but that was what things like Audible were for. “And I like old westerns,” he added. Again, it wasn’t a lie. He and his father used to watch westerns on TNT back in the day. They weren’t showed as much anymore, but Dan still watched on the rare occasion he could catch one.
The ring was in place, something of a tight fit and it looked a little awkward, shoved on the fat finger of the dead man, but Dan didn’t really much care. He looked up at the M.E. She’d be rid of him in just a few minutes now. “You? What do you do when you’re not down in the Crypt?” Crypt being the word those old Detroit Dicks used to call the morgue back when he’d been a legit cop.
This guy didn’t exactly seem the type to sit at home reading. Old westerns she could picture but not so much the reading. As for her, well he interests varied week to week. As for what she enjoyed back in the day, before she was a zombie. Well there wasn’t a ton there. She mostly just studied. “I’m sort of obsessed with The Walking Dead,” she admitted. And no, the irony was not lost on her. “And I recently picked up surfing.” Which had also been a pre-zombie thing. Although she had decided to learn because of the dreams, but that wasn’t the point.
Aside from catching the occasional western when one could be caught, Dan didn’t watch much TV. He didn’t have the patience, time or desire to follow any series. Most of what was considered popular were just names to Dan. Game of What? Once Upon a Where? However, he would have had to have been living under a rock to have never heard of them at least. “Zombies, huh?” He mused thoughtfully. “You’re inta that kind of thing, huh?” Just polite conversation. Zombies apparently were “in”. They were fucking everywhere these days.
If only Shawn knew just how everywhere they were. In fact he was in the presence of one right now. But Liv wasn’t about to let him in on that little tidbit. She hadn’t even told Lowell what she was until he turned. It wasn’t something she bragged about. “Yeah,” Liv confirmed with a small nod of her head. “They’re no westerns though,” she joked with a hint of a smile on her lips.
Another chuckle. “A zombie western,” he said. “Y’know, I’d probably watch that. Best of two worlds. The networks are missing the boat on that one.”
Ah, the M.E. wasn’t so bad, really, now that she was smiling a little and not looking at him with as much interest as she would look at a blade of grass. She was kind of pretty too. Maybe. If she cut back a bit on the eyeliner. Shame Dan had no intention of running into her again if he could help it. Whatever shot he had at fooling her had pretty much gone out the window. Funny. It was obvious she didn’t believe him. Why hadn’t she called security to have him thrown out? Dan wasn’t complaining, but he doubted access to the morgue would be easy in the future. Real shame.
“Well, I’m done here,” Dan announced, as if the M.E. cared. He slid the drawer containing the dead Mr. Oglethrope back into his little compartment and shut the door. “Mrs. Oglethorpe will be relieved to know her husband isn’t trying to scam her. Thank you for your help, Doctor.” Dan raised a brow, they’d been down there for a good ten minutes talking and he had never actually gotten her name.
“Moore,” she filled in the blank for him. “Liv Moore.” Again, she knew the irony of her name. But at least she gave a real one. “Later,” she added nodding towards the door. Now that this visit was over with she could get back to her food.