Chapter Text
The car ride to the city morgue was much the same as it always had been, save of course the new awkwardness that had replaced the old awkwardness. This one was heavier, in a way, where before it was Emerson thinking only of the pay day and the Piemaker thinking of how he might keep the lights on for another month, this one was a bit thicker. It was permeated with the acknowledgement that this ordinary ride that had happened so many times before was happening again for the first time after so long. Ned toied with the cuff of his sleeve, looked pointedly out the window at the city scape rolling by as they drove and did his best to do what he always did: avoid confrontation by any means necessary.
“I see you found someone to replace Olive. Have to say: I didn’t expect you to replace our Itty-Bitty with that baguette but I can see how he’s good for customers.” And just like that, Emerson had quite uncharacteristically ventured something that might not immediately line his pockets. It was a bridge, the Piemaker realized and one he was happy to cross now that it had been shored between them.
“He’s more of a croissant I think,” Ned cut in, “baguette’s are hard and rigid, they can hurt the roof of your mouth if you bite down too hard. Croissants are soft and light and buttery and they melt in your mouth”
“Croissants also have layers and folds, bits of cheese and fruit baked in depending on what kind you get-my personal favorite is from that bakery off the corner of 9th and Liberty-”
“You went to another bakery since-”
“You only serve pie, you’re technically not a bakery-”
“Neither is the “bakery” on 9th and Liberty, they only serve bread. Name one real bakery that serves everything good and delicious and baked all at once. Just one.”
“Alright, alright.” Emerson finally acquiesced with one hand held up in mock surrender. “Either way, I’m glad you’re still doing well. You seemed like you were pretty upset at the farewell party.”
Oh, the farewell party. Exactly five months, thirteen days, sixteen hours, twenty two-now three minutes and two seconds ago, the Pie Hole crew had gathered together to wish the Darling Mermaid Darlings the best of luck as their maiden voyage across the Aquatic Acrobat took off for foreign shores. That was the last time they had all been in attendance. That was the last time the Piemaker had seen his beloved Alive Again Avenger. Suddenly the air seemed a bit too thin in the car. Suddenly, Ned wanted nothing more than to be back in the Pie Hole kitchens even if only to find more inventive ways of disposing of those murder weapons Kaunt called pies.
“-watch that one. Sweet as honey, like some sort of honey coated croissant. Sure the taste might be great but you’ll end up paying for it later. You know, when I was younger my mother actually got me a honey dipped apple for Christmas? The lady she was seeing at the time was jewish and they had-Are you listening? I’m baring my bleeding heart over here!”
“Sorry I was thinking about pies.” Ned offered lamely and Emerson gave him a measured look before erupting in a fit of throaty laughter. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Ned was not the only thing to go unchanged by Emerson’s estimation. The city morgue was still its typical brutalist structure of red and white in tribute to the efforts of the red cross of healing that had failed its denezines but was still worth honoring. The staff inside didn’t so much as look at the two looming figures although one janitor did wave politely at the duo to which Emerson nodded and Ned sheepishly returned the gesture. The floors still had the old stains and the walls were still the same bleached white, bereft of mold and pollen or the countless little marks that might blemish an otherwise upstanding component of the city. In fact, the only thing that changed was sitting behind the mortuary desk with hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and a chart absorbing all of her attention.
“I forgot Benny retired.” Emerson muttered under his breath. “Follow my lead.” Ned, who hadn’t even known the name of the old coroner followed Emerson’s lead as the latter broke in with a great wide smile.
“Well, I can’t say we’ve had the pleasure just yet but you might know me as Emerson Cod; I’m that dashing gentleman on the billboards promising you and yours the swiftest justice possible at only the most justifiable rates and this here is my associate. Say hi, Ned.”
“Hi.” Ned said.
“We’re here because a cadaver under your care met a grizzly end and we are here to help the dearly departed meet with dire due justice. Now, how might you like to be one of the upstanding souls that helps us on the path of righteousness?” The new coroner waited for a beat and then another. Ned cast a glance from her to Emerson who had not dropped his smile in the slightest and back down to the woman who was tasked with protecting the dead. Suddenly, this didn’t seem as great an idea as it did previous.
“Mr Dunfield mentioned you in his parting notes.” she began. Her voice was empty of emotion, flat like a crust that had too much flour and draped over the room with equal smothering force. “Of course, he didn’t commit anything to paper in the event that I might turn you in, what with hearsay and not wanting to put someone through so much when they were finally in their golden years. Imagine my surprise when you helped solve that problem by coming right in and admitting it.” Oh no.
“Now look here,” Emerson began, “we have only the best interest of the deceased at heart, something your predecessor well knew-he certainly liked his presidents and more than a few of them can attest to the spirit of the good work we do. Now, we’re more than willing to extend you the same offer. Seems a fine deal if you ask me: you get to help avenge your charges and you make some money on the side. So what do you say?”
“I say that if you don’t leave, I’ll call security and have the both of you thrown out.” she answered simply and when Ned looked up to Emerson for whatever next trick he had up his sleeve he found the detective just as stumped as the Piemaker was. “Now, please” the coroner cut in with more force than was exactly necessary, sending Piemaker and detective scrambling away.
“Well, there goes that lead.” Ned grumbled outside the morgue. Some small part of him was glad that they needn’t use his magical finger again, even if it meant his relationship with Emerson would die just as quickly as it had been brought back to life. There was a certain poetic justice to that and Ned found he didn’t quite want something else to die if it meant keeping something proven so tenuous alive.
“Have you ever heard the saying that difficulty is the mother of innovation?”
“No. I think you made that up.” Ned had to admit.
“Well, I didn’t but I’d be a rather clever man if I did. Take a look down there over where the morgue reaches city hall and tell me what you see.”
“An alley?”
“An alley and what else?”
“A loading bay?”
“Precisely, now what do you think they’re loading in that bay?” Ned looked at the bay, back to the detective and back down to the bay. He was going to regret this but this was the only way into the morgue and Ned was loathe to admit it but he was afraid Kaunt’s warning from the previous incident of the Pie Hole would prove a bit too true and in a city like this which averaged enough murders to make a two bedroom apartment affordable to a waitress, well it was only a matter of time before it happened again.
Disguised as an orderly and pushing a suspiciously long cart with a sheet preserving the identity of the occupant, Emerson wheeled Ned into the morgue. No one so much as looked up at the two as they went which solidified that Ned paid far too much in taxes and that the new coroner hadn’t quite fixed everything in her crusade to protect her charges. There was something disheartening about that but it was all but forgotten when they entered the chilly confines of the holding room.
“We’re here.” Emerson informed Ned and the latter tore off the sheet and rose to his feet. It was strange being on the other side of these things for once.
“Cebe, Cerene, Celest-didn’t know that was a last name,” Emerson mumbled aloud as he looked over the chart detailing the freezer cabinet’s occupants. “Ah-Celium.” Emerson tossed the chart aside and popped the door to the cadaver tray. “Oh”
Oh was right, for as they rolled out the former head researcher they noted her head had been taken over by a colony of fungus. The detective duo, detecting the sweet odorific stench of decomposition at work, protected their olfactory bulbs from further incursions only for Emerson to nod with his head and a gruff, “well, let’s get to work.”
Unsure as to keep his nose covered or if that might be inferred as rude, Ned simply lifted the collar of his shirt to cover it and readied his watch. With a flash, magic finger met decomposing cadaver and a strange golden light flowed into it. Myra Celium opened her eyes and gave a great gasp of air, disturbing the stocks of fungus encrusted across her face before she cast a cursory glance at the pair.
“Well, I can’t say I haven’t woken up to worse. One of you be a dear and get me some breakfast and wake me back up when it's here.`` With that, the head researcher of the FARM closed her eyes and awaited sleep to overtake her.
“Well, see, the problem is that you’re dead-passed away.” Ned began. He was a bit out of practice after half a year’s hiatus, “or rather, you were but-Well that’s not important. We’re here to avenge you.” He finished with a smile. From the corner of his eye he noted Emerson pinching the bridge of his nose only to realize that left its opening uncovered and coughed as another round of spores made their way up the reopened orifice.
“Dead?” Myra opened just one eye but it carried a baleful weight that showed she clearly didn’t believe them. “Funny joke, did Finis put you up to this? You two can march yourselves back out-” she was cut off with a start as she went to scratch at her face and noted the rough uneven texture where once there was perfectly preserved and religiously treated skin. “Aspergillus. One of four types of fungus that helps break down the dead. I-I’m really dead?” The unlikely pair nodded.
“At least I’m spared the paperwork. I was hoping it was a dream but I guess not. Listen up because I don’t like repeating myself:” and Myra Celium regaled the investigative duo with her last moments. One night at the FARM with tensions riding high and the first of many new research projects being ready to unveil in just a few days, Myra Celium had stayed behind to finish her latest innovation: a top secret bioactive home care superstructure that would revolutionize the homecare industry. While in the midst of her project she’d been surprised from behind by an assailant but when she turned back around she saw the most peculiar thing. A visage not unlike a bull standing atop its back legs but in her surprise at the interruption she didn’t see the axe that split her lifeline until the very last moment. “So, how’s about one of you get me something decent to wear and we grab this bull by the horns?”
“Yeah, not likely.” Emerson muttered.
“There’s a time limit and we’re at our end.” Ned furthered with a grimace.
“Oh.” Myra paused, laid back down on the slap and scratched at a patch of aspergillus. “Well, in that case just let Augie know I always thought he had a nice a-” whatever potential praise Myra might have had for “Augie’s” attitude was cut short when the Piemaker reached out and sent Myra Celium back to the other side for the last time.
“Well,” Emerson noted after returning the former head researcher to her temporary final resting place, “I guess we’re off on the hunt for a murderous bovine.”
“A bovine that walks on two legs. You said the FARM did research? What kind of research?”\
“The kind that puts five zeroes on the reward for catching Mrs Mushroom’s killer. Now what’s say you and me go put a question or two to those egg heads? My gut tells me Augie’s the place to start.” Yet before the two could chase after Augie and his remarkable attributes, the door to the morgue swung open to reveal none other than the new coroner. Her face was contorted with shock, quickly fading into rage until at last she was yelling for security that didn’t exist in a municipal building leaving Ned and Kaunt barreling past her. The other workers were too amused to lift a hand to stop them and, if in the way that a broom was casually dropped behind the fleeing pair and in front of their pursuer by the janitor they’d passed during their initial entry into the building, Ned had to guess the new coroner wasn’t as popular as her predecessor.
Ned and Emerson slammed into the car, breath catching as Emerson started the engine and spread away. The fear had left them both, replaced by that breathless thrill of spent adrenaline and the feeling that a great lethargy had been shaken from the both of them. “The more things change.” Emerson muttered but he didn’t have his typical scowley disposition.
Meanwhile at the Pie Hole, Kaunt Kunningham spun on one of the bar top stools. It was slower today, enough so that he hadn’t had a chance to make another creation to seduce the hearts of any more customers and so he had found other ways to amuse himself. It was after the ninth round of spins that Kaunt leaped from his seat to wander this way and that while the countless tiny crystals in his ears settled that down was, indeed, and up was, indeed, up while he raised a hand to start another espresso. The jingle of the front door stole the faux-frenchmen’s attention and he spun on his heel, nearly losing balance and smacking it along the countertop to offer a hearty “Bon apres-midi!”
“Howdy!” answered the newcomer and Kaunt’s swimming vision slowly surfaced to see the scintillating specimen before him. Standing before the door, a great smile of dazzling white teeth and wreathed in the sunlight flowing in from the door stood none other than one Olive Snook, a dutch oven in her arms as she tried not to make her searching gazes of the “bakery” known.
“Please, have a seat,” Kaunt motioned for the bar, careful to stamp down on the rising gorge and, upon the solid knowledge that he wouldn’t fall on his ass should he step forward, settled behind the counter, notepad raised. “How can I help you today?”
“Well, I’m actually looking for the owner-I used to work here before something happened and I started my own business. It's kind of a funny story.”
“Funny, ha-ha or funny complicated?” Kaunt queried. He offered that easy smile which ensured they were sharing the joke and Olive gave a brief little laugh as she set the dutch oven upon the counter. It emitted the wonderful aroma of something deliciously cheesy and cholesterol rich and Kaunt found himself interested in something more than a tip.
“My mom used to say complication is just the lord’s way of making your life interesting but I can look back and laugh at it now knowing it all worked out without any hesitation. Speaking of, is Ned in?”
“The Piemaker? No he left some time ago with a rather curt fellow wearing a knitted suit jacket. It was actually kind of nice in a garish way.”
“Oh” Olive’s shoulders slumped visibly “Oh I’m so sorry I’ve been yammering on but never introduced myself! I’m Olive, I own the Intrepid Cow just a few blocks down yonder.”
“Olive?” For a moment, Kaunt’s accent fell apart and he covered it with a cough in his elbow and a wheezy apology. “Forgive me, but are you the Olive on the menu?”
At Olive’s bemused look, Kaunt conjured a menu from the stack along the bartop and slid it over to her with a finger on their “served warm '' section. “Would you look at that! Georgia peaches served warm with cinnamon ice cream. He remembered. I had told him some such a while ago. I’d just gotten back from a brief tenure at the nunnery and, well, I wanted something incase I fell out of a bell tower.”
“Is that particularly common around here?” Kaunt asked with a quirked brow.
“Oh, honey you haven’t been here long.” she shook her head, looking almost whimsical. “You were here when that incident occurred weren’t you?”
“The death of Scarlette? Oh yes, I had a front row seat but me and Ned managed to weather the storm.” a woof from from the edge of the bar where Digby was watching with something tantamount to indignation made Kaunt amend the statement with a rushed, “and Digby was there too, of course.”
“Digby!” Olive cried and left the bar to kneel and give the loyal dog a scratch behind the ears. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here in a while but I didn’t really expect opening a new restaurant to bleed my dry like the mother of all leeches.”
“Speaking of restaurants,” intoned Kaunt, trying to ignore the discussion of leeches, “I couldn’t help but admire your cooking ware.”
“Oh that’s for Ned, it's meatless; he’s a vegetarian you know. I had planned a while ago to bring my first pot of menu approved macaroni but time makes fools of us all and it has been…a while.” Olive seemed a bit demure at that, as if guilt were weighing her down like fresh cream before it lightened into the perfect sauce for heartwarming and clogging mac and cheese.
“Macaroni you say?” muttered Kaunt, hand slowly snaking its way to the lid. Between rounds of spinning, he hadn’t quite realized how hungry he was. But now, confronted with the possibility of a carbohydrate rich meal baked with love and promised for someone else, well how was he supposed to refus? Kaunt lifted the lid and the rays of golden cheese shone on his face promising him everything good in the world if he simply got a bite only to have those hopes dashed when Olive caught the attempted thievery and had his hand smacked for his trouble.
“Ow” he moaned, trying to shake the sting from his hand.
“Ow is right, Monsieur, that was promised to when Ned of the Pie Hole not,” she paused to squint at Kaunt’s name tag, “Kaunt Kunningham?”
“Understand, but here me out, madiouselle: we’re roommates, we breathe the same air and sleep in the same sheets, what’s a bite that ends up in my mouth knowing I’ll hand it off to him the moment he steps right through those doors?”
“Roommates?” for some reason the word awoke something old in Olive, something she had thought drowned around the same time a ship destined for the Old World made its maiden voyage and one Randy Mann drove her home to celebrate the opening of her restaurant.
“Oui, madiouselle Snook,” Kaunt said, sneaking a clean fork from the hidden alcove behind the bartop into the dutch oven while Olive struggled with the revelation. “The properier of the Pie Hole was kind enough to open his portal for me and I just slid right in.”
“Portal? Now, look here mister, I know you come from foreign courts but we don’t go spreading around-stop that!`` But she was too late, Kaunt had already captured the mouthful of macaroni and when Olive attempted to wrest his jaw open like a dog who’d gotten its maw around something it wasn’t supposed to, it was Digby that finally broke apart their squabbling with a single point bark.
“All I wanted was a taste.” Kaunt sniffed after they parted, “compliments to the chef though, truly.” he eyed the dutch oven again.
“A taste is all you’re getting, monsieur Kunningham,” she huffed and was about to take the cooking ware and flee but was stopped when Kaunt placed a hand upon her shoulder.
“Please wait, mon ami. I was hasty and should have asked. I do hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me my tresspasses.`` The fact that he was hoping to sneak another bite gave motivation to the performance. “I have already burned one bridge with a friend of Ned’s, perhaps we can amend the one between us? I’ll get you a slice of your namesake if you’ll keep me company and chat during the low hours.” Olive turned back around and considered. She scrutinized all forty two muscles that made up his facade of beseeching humility, noted the careful tracking of his eyes that were firmly on her face and not on the pot of macaroni and then finally looked down to Digby who was staring up at her with that puppy dog expression that always won her over in the end.
“Alright but I want a double scoop of ice cream.”
“Deal.” Kaunt affirmed and there was the faintest tickle of genuine joy he always felt upon meeting someone new.