A Snippet -

 

​Each time, after another failed date—set up by friends, of course—I evaluate the whitewashed walls which hem me in with the dead. The façade always reveals what’s lodged in the ceiling—a wayward chip of bone from a victim’s skull, flung there by the electric saw.

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See? I can be cheerful. But let’s get on with the story.

On the day the whole thing started, I readied the latest client in the Office of the Crypt Keeper for a visit. I hadn’t completed a postmortem yet, since the victim required viewing for identification. Homicide was escorting a family member my way.

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Too early to fill out the death certificate. I couldn’t place an X in either of the paperwork’s checkboxes—HOMICIDE or SUICIDE—because the victim’s bloody feet and missing shoes meant there was much more to this story.

I was sure.

Dead sure.

I’m Jack McCloud, the Lone Ranger of the dead across Southern Oregon. My very own Rest in Peace Department.

And this victim was nowhere near at rest.

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