Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t sure about Asher. But I was definitely the slob of the group.
    I opened the file and started to read. There wasn’t much there. The deceased’s name had been Emmett Leroy Rose. He’d had a double degree from the University of Pennsylvania in accounting and prelaw. He’d gotten his law degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He’d died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-three, while in federal custody waiting to testify at an important trial. He’d been dead less than three months. It listed his race as African American, which wasn’t important to me. His religion was listed as Protestant, and that information I did need. There were a few religious persuasions that could interfere with zombie raising. Vaudan—voodoo—was the big one. It could be tricky to raise someone who messed with some of the same magic that I would be using. Wiccan could also make things difficult, and so could some of the more mystically oriented faiths. Straight Christian of whatever flavor wasn’t a problem. And psychic abilities could messwith a zombie and make it either hard to raise or hard to control once you raised it. If there was anything less than normal human about Emmett Leroy Rose, it wasn’t in the file.
    In fact, there were some important things missing from the file. Like what had he been arrested for—what illegal activity did they catch him at that was bad enough to get him in federal custody awaiting his testimony? And exactly what did an important trial mean? Was it mob business? Was it government business? Was it something else I couldn’t even think of? Who did Mr. Rose have dirt on, and what had the Feds had on him that made him willing to shovel it? Did I need to know any of the above to raise him from the grave? No. But I wasn’t used to going into this blind. If they’d sent me this file, I’d have told them no dice without more info. Yeah, they’d have replied it was a need-to-know basis, and I’d have said if they wanted me to raise the zombie, I needed to know. Larry had just taken the crumbs they gave him and not complained.
    I wondered how Tammy was doing. Did I call andask? Later, I decided. I’d try to get some more info out of Fox first. Truthfully, I’d had about as much emotional angst as I could deal with for a little bit. If the news was bad it would wait, and I wouldn’t know what to say anyway. I said a quick prayer that Tammy and the baby would be all right. That was the most concrete thing I could do.
    I called the number I had for Fox. No emotional problems, just business. What a relief.
    â€œYou have everything in the file that you need to raise Rose from the dead, Marshal Blake,” Fox said.
    I’d figured he’d say that, but . . . “Just tell me this. Fox, how hot was Emmett Leroy Rose?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘hot’?” he asked, but his tone said he knew.
    â€œHow important a witness was he?”
    â€œHe died of natural causes, Blake. He wasn’t murdered. There wasn’t a contract out on him. We just caught him doing something bad. So bad, he didn’t want to go to jail over it. So he gave us more important people. Or was going to.”
    â€œDid he have a bad heart?”
    â€œNo, if he had, we’d have had a court reporter in to take down his testimony, just in case. We found out later that his father had died of an unexpected heart attack at almost the same age.”
    â€œYou see, Fox, if you’d known that, you might have gotten his testimony down sooner, right?”
    He was quiet a second, then said, “Maybe.”
    â€œIs anything you haven’t included in this file going to bite me on the ass later? Like a father who died of a sudden heart attack.”
    He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “It’s a good point, Marshal Blake, but no, there’s nothing we left out that will impact you or