Death Retires

by Cate Lawley

  I briefly considered asking, but Avery had been so helpful that I didn’t want to risk a bad impression. Requesting literature on possessions, hauntings, exorcisms, and hoodoo in general probably wouldn’t be viewed in the most positive of lights.

  I turned away from the rows of books and all their potential to look for the helpful librarian. There might be something else she could help me with. I found her behind the help desk on the phone.

  When she hung up, I said, “Perhaps you can recommend some computer classes? For someone who’s not quite up-to-date on the technology of today?”

  “As long as you don’t stop dropping by the library, absolutely.” She grinned.

  Was she flirting with me? No, every friendly woman wasn’t hitting on me, and it was indelicate to even suspect it.

  “I don’t anticipate that will be a problem.” Especially since I’d experienced no ghostly disturbances. Not that they couldn’t be lurking—but I was clinging to this space as my haven, and I refused to let reality intrude.

  She pulled a sheet out from a drawer and pointed to a list of classes. Most had something like “beginning” or “101” in the title. “Do you think any of these might be helpful?”

  With a sigh, I said, “Yes, probably all of them.”

  “Ah, I see.” After sorting through the options with me, she hesitantly recommended a class on how to use computers. “If you’re sure this won’t be too basic for you?” In a much lower voice, she said, “Our typical customer for this class is quite a bit older than you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Looks can be deceiving.” The inquisitive tilt of her head had me quickly adding, “But no, I don’t think it’s too basic. This class is perfect for me. How do I sign up?”

  12

  Tuesday mid-afternoon

  “I can’t believe that you gave me homework. What am I, twelve?” Clarence huffed as he flounced his way to the printer, but it was all bluster backed by no real emotion.

  “Give me a break. It’s not like you had anything else to do.” Unless he’d broken his promise to only use my backup credit card for background checks. Now that I’d canceled my other credit card, the card I’d given him was the only one I had.

  And Clarence probably knew that. My trouble alarm was ringing, loud and clear.

  Wide, innocent feline eyes stared back at me.

  “I’m checking my charges tonight. Actually, I’m checking my charges every night until I get a new credit card.”

  He plopped down in front of my fancy wireless printer. “You’re so cheap. Why can’t I have a little fun?” He extended and retracted his claws a few times. “My kitty fingers are exhausted and my claws ache. You owe me some porn for my pain and suffering. Just a little. An hour. Watching an hour of porn is almost like not watching porn at all.”

  “Stop. Every time you start bargaining with me, I feel like I need to scrub the resulting images from my brain. The least you could do is come up with something I might actually agree to.”

  “An egg for dinner.”

  That had been too easy. Worried there was a trap I’d missed, I agreed.

  “Benedict, with hollandaise sauce.”

  “I have no idea how to make that.”

  “Hm.” He flexed his claws, kneading the air repeatedly. “My poor claws. I think I’m developing early onset kitty arthritis.”

  I crossed my arms. “Spit it out. What do you want?”

  “I bet Sylvie makes a mean hollandaise sauce.” His beard quivered.

  “Fine, one eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce cooked by Sylvie, assuming she cooks eggs Benedict.”

  His beard quivered a little more. “Two eggs.”

  “Fine. Two eggs and you leave my credit card alone long enough to let me cancel the thing.”

  His quivering beard gave way to a full-body chuckle. Which was all kinds of wrong. As Clarence’s ghostly human self gave voice to his amusement, his physical bobcat self rolled over on his back and wallowed with his feet waving in the air.

  “All right. Enough.”

  A few more wriggles and Clarence rolled to his feet. “I knew you had a thing for her. It was the cookies, wasn’t it?”

  “No clue what you mean.” The cookies definitely helped.

  “You know. The woman smells like vanilla and sugar, like fresh-baked pastries. Like the best cookies ever. That has to appeal to your wholesome soul on some deeper level. And she brought over those sugar cookies, the ones you claimed made your stomach smile.” He plopped down on his haunches and started to groom his right front paw. He paused. “They were delicious.” Then resumed bathing his foot.

  The “mystery” of the vanishing cookies was solved. As was the question of whether bobcats could eat pastries with no deleterious effects.

  “Yeah, so what did you dig up on the neighbors?” I rested my hip against the desk. It might take a while to pry all the information out of him.

  Clarence’s supposed “homework” had been to pull backgrounds on all the neighbors who appeared on Ginny’s list.

  Clarence gave his paw a last lick then settled back squarely on his haunches. “I’ll tell you if you guarantee me immunity for past bad acts, including all credit card transactions, but also any other related illegal activities.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Are you familiar with the term ‘hacking’?”

  With a sigh, I settled into my desk chair. This just kept getting worse. What did I do to deserve a burden like Clarence? Here was yet another reason to catch myself up on technology. Clarence wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be dependent upon.

  “I am familiar with the term, but I didn’t know you possessed that particular skill set.”

  He lifted a paw and flexed his claws. “With these digits? No. Hunting and pecking the few keys here and there is hard enough, and it’s not within my current skill set. Not that I couldn’t learn if I wanted to. Unlike you, I try to keep current. But it hasn’t been a priority, given the thriving supply chain.”

  Thank goodness for small favors. Wait—thriving supply chain? “What exactly did you do, Clarence?”

  “Ah, so, I might have used your credit card to purchase some credits that I bounced around a bit and then eventually used to purchase some highly illegal services, including, but perhaps not limited to, retrieval of credit card and phone records.” He gave me his mournful look, the one that made him look demented. “I still get my eggs Benedict, right?”

  “Are you planning to use my card again?”

  He shook his head with substantial vigor.

  “I suppose you’re still getting your eggs, then.”

  “About your credit card . . . It might be best if you don’t use it again either.”

  And there was my eye twitch, back with a vengeance. “I swear, Clarence, I’ve had a perpetual headache since you came to live with me.”

  “You sure it’s me, boss?” When I glared at him, he said, “Hey, I’m not the only change in your life. The big guys in charge made you human again around the time I was assigned to you. Just consider, maybe that stress you’re toting around isn’t about me. Maybe it’s being human again.” He sighed. “I mean, how long’s it been since you got laid? You’ve been a soul collector over half a century. That’s a long time to go with no body—and no tail.”

  My glare must have finally penetrated, because he stopped talking. “If you’re done talking about my sex life?”

  “Your lack of sex life, more like. Yeah, yeah. Falling on deaf ears and all, but it would do you a world of good to . . . Right, never mind. So, I have good news.”

  “I would hope so, since it’s possible your illegal shenanigans will get me put in jail and you in a zoo.”

  His jaw fell open. “A zoo?”

  “You’re a wild animal, Clarence. Did you not think that through?” I tapped the desk. “Come on, what have you got?”

  If a cat could frown, he was definitely doing it. “From our original list of ten names, I’ve crossed
off several who were traveling. A bit of luck for us that the explosion happened shortly before the school year started up again. It seems everyone with a kid and two pennies to rub together takes a vacation about that time.”

  “Oh. That is good news.” Before I could start to feel more charitably inclined, I reminded myself: hacking by proxy, credit card abuse. No need to hold a grudge, but I also couldn’t let him completely skate on his illegal activities. “That leaves how many people still on the list?”

  “Oh, I’m not done. I analyzed the background information in combination with the phone records and credit usage to pinpoint Sylvie’s whereabouts over the three days prior to the blast.”

  “Sylvie? Ah, I see. You’re thinking a bomber wouldn’t have placed the device while she was home. I wouldn’t exclude the possibility, but you’re likely right.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin that showcased one fang. “Thanks, boss. There’s more. I looked at the neighbor’s dog’s schedule, and—”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Sylvie’s neighbors, the ones to her left when you face the house, they have a dog who barks at everything. That’s the same side of the house—”

  “As the shed. Clever, Clarence.”

  Was that a purr?

  Clarence cleared his throat. “So the dog is inside all night long and during work hours, but outside when either one of them is home. The couple who live there have different schedules.”

  “And this dog’s schedule is that predictable? When they’re home, he’s definitely outside.”

  “I don’t think they like him. I mean, who does that? He’s allowed in the house, but only when they aren’t there. It’s really weird. But my newly acquired four-legged perspective might be clouding my judgment.”

  “Maybe.” I started to do the math on the intertwining work schedules, then factored in sleeping. Wait. “Clarence, how certain are you of this schedule? Because you can’t get all of this from credit card and phone records.”

  He started to whistle.

  Did I even want to know? For Sylvie’s sake, I guess I had to ask. “How do you know the dog’s schedule, Clarence?”

  I knew the answer was going to be cringe-worthy. I knew it, and yet when it came . . .

  “There’s this Persian next door.” He coughed. “You know, I’m kind of a cat, when you consider all the factors, and I only see people—”

  “Ugh. Clarence, there’s lecherous and there’s beyond the pale. I’m not sure I can evict those particular images from my memory. Thank you so very much.”

  “Geoff, look, it’s like this: a guy gets confused when part of his parts are cat and part of his parts are man, but I’m not talking about getting action. That would be weird. Even I know that.” He paused, then added in a serious voice, “Cats are fun to watch, and not for the reasons you’re thinking. Being in this body has an effect on me. I don’t always know whether I’m being entirely myself or being influenced by subtle feline tendencies. String has never been so fascinating.” He shook his head. “Look, watching helps me figure out what’s what—what’s me, what’s cat, what’s cat-influenced me.”

  He looked deadly serious. The speech he’d just given was probably the most serious I’d ever heard from him.

  “Oh.” Guilt tapped me on the shoulder. Maybe best not to leap to conclusions when dealing with this and last century’s most anomalous ghostly possession. “So, you’ve been conducting something like an anthropological study?”

  Clarence made an exasperated sound. “That makes me sound like you, but sure, like anthropology. If we’re talking hotties and sex, I’m all about humans—but I don’t have the requisite equipment. If we’re talking cats, I like to watch how they interact with people and each other, what their mannerisms are—but I have zero attraction for the four-legged furries.”

  “I understand, and I apologize.”

  “If you’re really sorry, you’ll give me some of the juicy details when you and Sylvie start getting busy.”

  And he was back to being the disgusting perv I knew and didn’t quite love. “That will never happen. Was any part of you ever a gentleman, Clarence? Never mind, just give me the short list.”

  Clarence grumbled, but he did. And it was short: three households were left. Granted, there was a backup list of people who were much less likely to have stashed the device for various reasons but couldn’t be completely ruled out. But three families—four people, assuming a toddler wasn’t capable—were a reasonable suspect list.

  I ran my finger down the list. “I’ve got Mrs. Gonzalez and her nephew Nicky. Then, in the Eckhardt household, I’ve got Mrs. Cynthia Eckhardt, but we’re excluding the husband and the toddler. And then there’s Tamara Gilroy, the sole occupant in her house.”

  “That one’s suspicious.”

  “Oh, you know her?” A quick glance at the address showed her living right down the road, maybe six to eight houses away, on the same side of the street as Sylvie. “I don’t recall ever seeing her.”

  “Exactly! And she lives alone. All by herself in that house.”

  Not really odd, so far as I could tell, so I just shook my head.

  Clarence leveled me with a green-eyed stare. “That’s weird, I’m telling you. Oh, and she has red hair.”

  “Because red hair is relevant. Clarence, do you have any actual evidence—other than an inability to rule her out and some bizarre and very outdated notions about women—that points to her guilt?”

  “Outdated? Everyone knows red-headed women are fiery!”

  His indignation was misplaced and outright bizarre. He had some old attitudes. He was, I suspected, older than me—though my bosses hadn’t told me anything about his human life when he’d been assigned to me.

  But regardless of his age, Clarence had managed to stay abreast of cultural changes much better than I had. His adeptness with a computer, for one. The “red-headed woman living alone” business was a throwback to an earlier era and unworthy of him—even being the lecherous geezer that he was.

  “We’re going to say that Tamara is equally as suspect as the other people on the list and leave it at that.” I ignored his sulky look.

  “Can we put her on the top of the list? Just interview her first?”

  And that was something to look forward to: interviews. It had to happen, but I didn’t have to like it. It sounded like me inserting myself even more into the neighborhood, the community, the world of people in general.

  My plans of slow integration burst into flames. Actually, they’d already burst. Now I was just poking at the embers and sulking, which was juvenile. Interviews, right. When viewed through another lens, this was an opportunity to meet my neighbors.

  “Yes, we can visit her first,” I said with a forced cheerfulness. I read somewhere that “faking it until you make it” was a strategy that might have merit.

  It looked like some of our neighbors were getting a visit from me and my friendly cat. A reverse welcome to the neighborhood, if there was such a thing.

  Fake cheeriness aside, it still sounded painful.

  13

  Tuesday mid-afternoon

  Tamara Gilroy was a witch.

  Not the “check out a book and learn spells” kind. And not the religious practitioner variety. Tamara was the hereditary type. And with witches, it was all about lineage, family, and connections—so what was Tamara doing here, on my gentrifying South Austin street?

  “Ha, I told you,” Clarence stage whispered. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Just because a person has a few herbs growing around the house doesn’t make them a witch.”

  In a very un-catlike act, Clarence stood on his back legs and pointed, claw extended, to a wind chime hung near the front door.

  Pretty glass charms tinkled merrily as they gently jostled each other. I identified a few protection charms, one for health and wellness, one for abundant growth—which might explain, in part, the flourishing herbs we’d seen in her front yard—but there were also
several that were foreign to me.

  And while they gently swayed and chimed in a harmless, even soothing way, it was impossible to ignore the fact that there was no breeze.

  The door swung open, revealing a pleasant, though perhaps not particularly remarkable, woman. Average height, plump in a pretty, motherly, soft-around-the-edges way, light brown hair that was tucked up in a loose knot, and grass-green eyes. I hastily revised my opinion. Those eyes. She had the most beautiful light green eyes. “Ow.”

  Clarence carefully extracted his claws from first my leg and then my jeans, where he’d left at least a few puncture marks.

  Tamara chuckled. “Smart cat.” She leaned down and looked closer. “Hm, not quite a cat.” Returning her attention to me, she said, “I hear that you’re supposed to be a retired teacher.”

  I hadn’t had dealings with witches, so I only knew what others said. They were apparently wily, always older than they looked, and not completely trustworthy. But I had to consider the source. Soul collectors were their own kind of odd, and tended to be cliquish and leery of outsiders.

  “And you’re supposed to be a redhead.” Clarence started to back slowly away without taking his eyes off her.

  “Ah.” She smiled broadly. “He speaks. What a clever kitty. And yes, I was a redhead . . . once. Have you been hacking into my past, kitty?”

  Her smile was inviting, but her words sounded vaguely threatening. And her casual use of the word “hacking” was likely anything but. Clarence’s computer shenanigans had been discovered. She extended her hand to me. “Tamara Gilroy.”

  Clarence hissed as I reached for her hand.

  “A completely harmless handshake, cat. Nothing more than a welcome to the neighborhood.” With a twinkle in her beautiful eyes, she said, “I promise.”

  And for a moment, I caught a glimpse of a very different woman. One who stole my breath. I blinked and the motherly witch stood before me again.