Donn's Hill

by Caryn Larrinaga

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  My cheeks burned. I’d never intended to tell Gabrielle that I’d accidentally spied on her, but she’d been honest with me tonight. I owed her for assuming she had deliberately withheld information from me.

  The story of my adventure in her bushes with Striker spilled out of my mouth in a rush. I told her everything I’d overheard between her and Brian.

  “I’m so sorry,” I finished. “I didn’t mean to spy on you, I swear! I just… I didn’t know how to bring it up with you. If you were having an affair with Tom or Brian or”—I swallowed hard— “both… that’s your business.”

  She was quiet for a long time, and the heat in my face grew hotter and hotter until I thought my skin might burst into flames.

  “You’re right,” she said at last. “I was involved with Tom Bishop.”

  My stomach twisted. “Gabrielle, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  She held up a hand to silence me. “Mackenzie, you don’t need to apologize to me. But please do me a favor. Penelope and I have always had a difficult relationship, and if you put that together with Tom’s death, it looks very suspicious for both of us. She’s going through enough. I don’t want to cast her in an unfavorable light.”

  I nodded. “I’ll keep it to myself. I promise.”

  She hugged me again. “Thank you, Mackenzie.”

  I left her house feeling dazed. It was well past midnight by the time I finally got back to my apartment. I headed straight for the bed, but Striker yowled at me. Her piercing cry said very clearly, “How dare you go to sleep without feeding me?”

  After refilling her bowl, I peeled off my shoes and socks and barely managed to strip down before crawling beneath the covers. My body sank into the soft pillow-top mattress, eager to shut down for the night, but my mind spun in circles. Again and again, I saw Tom Bishop in the mirror in Gabrielle’s séance room. Again and again, he mouthed my mother’s name. Evelyn. Evelyn. Evelyn. Beside him, I saw my own reflection, zeroing in on the features I’d inherited from my mother: my blue eyes, my dark hair, my narrow face.

  I sat up in bed, clicked on the lamp, and stared at the photo of my mother and I at the petting zoo. We really did look like clones.

  And then it hit me. Tom Bishop wasn’t haunting me because I was a psychic or because I’d happened to pick his awful, run-down motel for my first night in town. He was following me because I looked like her—like the woman who’d gotten away, whom he’d secretly been in love with all this time. In his confused state, he might even think I was her.

  More puzzle pieces snapped into place as I stared at the old photograph of my mother. He thought I was Evelyn Clair, and that’s why he’d been haunting me. Not to scare or hurt me, but because he knew about my—or her—gift… and he was trying to ask for help.

  I whispered the words as they formed in my mind. “You can’t rest until your killer is brought to justice.”

  The pipes in my bathroom groaned and gave off a resounding CLANG, as if in agreement.

  Chapter Thirty

  I was sitting in my mother’s backyard. The sprinklers were on, and the birds were having a party. Tiny finches and fat quail were darting around, getting their wings wet before clustering onto the large bird feeder, chittering amicably.

  Three Steller’s jays swooped down. They towered over the other birds, looking like executioners in their black hoods. For a moment, all was still.

  Then the jays attacked.

  They rushed at the finches and quail, bowling them over until all the smaller birds scattered. The jays ate greedily, snapping at one another over the largest sunflower seeds. Suddenly two of them turned on each other, pecking and shrieking, sharp beaks stabbing between feathers.

  One of them was squawking, making a terrible Gleep! Gleep! sound that resembled an alarm. I wanted to jump out of my chair and shoo them apart, but I was rooted to the spot. I could only watch as the silent jay killed the screaming bird then turned on the other one. Within a few moments, the silent jay was the only one left standing. It turned to me and opened its beak.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  That was odd. Its call sounded exactly like my cell phone.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  The jay kept shouting at me. It moved toward me, jabbing its beak into the air between squawks.

  A thump beside my head woke me. My phone was vibrating and ringing on the mattress, where it had landed after buzzing itself right off my nightstand. My vision was fuzzy, but I managed to grab the phone and stab at the green circle to answer the call.

  “Hello?” I croaked.

  “Ms. Clair? This is Deputy Wallace from the Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Her voice woke me up faster than a gallon of Graham’s coffee. I sat bolt upright in bed, my vision and throat suddenly clear. “Yes. Hi.”

  “Do you have time to come down to the sheriff’s office this morning?”

  I pulled the phone away from my face and checked the time. It was only 8:00 a.m. and I didn’t have volunteer duty until the evening. “Sure, I have time. I can be there in an hour, if that works.”

  “That would be fine.”

  The call ended, and I stared at my phone. What on earth could she want with me at the sheriff’s office? Was I a suspect? Wouldn’t they just show up at my apartment and put me in handcuffs if I was in trouble?

  Cops on the TV dramas I watched were always tricking their main suspect into coming down to the station. Then surprise! They’re under arrest.

  Those characters are always guilty. You haven’t done anything wrong.

  All the same, I suddenly felt sick.

  Striker stood up on my pillow and stretched. She looked up at me expectantly, and I could practically see the word breakfast written on her large, round pupils.

  “Eat up while you can,” I told her as I got up to put dry food into her bowl. “If I’m about to get arrested, who knows who I’ll get to feed you.”

  The sheriff’s department was busier inside than I’d imagined for such a small county, probably thanks to the recent influx of tourists, coupled with the murders of Tom Bishop and Brian Andersen.

  Deputy Wallace led me through an office filled with desks, all arranged in pairs that were facing each other. Only about a quarter of the desks were occupied; the rest sat empty. I was fascinated. I’d seen enough cop shows to know what the inside of a station looked like, and seeing one in real life was almost exciting enough to make me forget how anxious I was about being there. Almost.

  We reached a small conference room at the back of the station, and the deputy gestured for me to have a seat. I settled into a low-backed chair on wheels and resisted a nervous urge to see if it spun around.

  “Can I get you something?” Deputy Wallace asked. “Coffee? Water?”

  “I’d love some coffee, thanks.”

  She leaned out the door and called for someone to bring her a coffee. A few moments later, someone handed her a mug through the door. She passed it to me and then took a seat across from mine. Even while sitting, she still towered over me. She folded her hands and rested them on the smooth wooden surface of the conference table and stared at me, her dark eyes calculating. She looked severe with her long black hair pulled up into a French braid.

  Several long seconds ticked by. I shifted in my seat, then picked up my coffee to blow on it. I took a cautious sip and grimaced. It tasted as if someone showed a pot of water what coffee looked like, and the water was doing a lame imitation. I put the mug down and pushed it away.

  “I’d like to talk to you about Brian Andersen and Tom Bishop,” she said at last.

  I swallowed. I couldn’t think of a single question she could ask that wouldn’t require me to lie or, at the very least, to stretch the truth. Can she see my pulse throbbing in the side of my neck?

  Deputy Wallace brought her folded hands upward and rested them under her narrow face. “Would you care to explain how you knew about the offic
e at the cabin? Because I’m not buying what you said on the phone.”

  My eyes widened. “Does that mean you found something?”

  “We did. There were some records located beneath the floorboards in one of the bedroom closets. We also found evidence of a second stash behind a cupboard in the kitchen, but the files were empty. Someone else got there first.” She leaned forward. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the contents of the files in the bedroom are conveniently nonspecific. They’ve got just enough information for us to piece together the scam but not enough for us to know exactly who was involved. I think the real goods were in the kitchen, and somebody took them to protect themselves.” She eyed me. “Which brings me to you. Your fingerprints are all over that cabin, and you seem to know an awful lot for someone who just got into town. Someone who arrived here just when these murders started happening.”

  My heart was pounding. This was it, what I’d feared when she called this morning. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Let’s just say I’m very interested in what you know and how you know it.”

  Stay calm. You didn’t do anything wrong, so they can’t possibly have any evidence that says otherwise. If you panic or start to sweat, she’s going to think you’re hiding something.

  I stared at Deputy Wallace, and she stared right back. My mind was working at triple speed, but I tried to keep my breathing slow and steady. I focused on the fact that I wasn’t guilty of a damn thing.

  The trouble was, I couldn’t tell Wallace exactly how I’d gotten my information. Gabrielle was right; if I outed her and Tom by telling anyone about their affair, Gabrielle and Penelope would both be suspects. And I couldn’t shake the certainty that the two murders were related. The jealous wife-mistress angle just didn’t feel right to me, and the records from the cabin linked the deaths to some kind of “scam,” as Wallace had put it.

  I decided to take a chance. “Okay,” I said. “You’re right. I did lie to you earlier, but only because I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you the truth.”

  “Try me.”

  This was it. Either she believed me, or I was done for. “I’m psychic. The ghost of Tom Bishop started haunting me the second I got into town, and he’s been helping me put the pieces together.” I figured a lie laced with a little truth was the best way to go.

  Wallace slammed her hand on the table, and I jumped.

  “I knew it!” Triumph was written all over her face. “I knew Brian Andersen wouldn’t have confided in you. And after Yuri showed me the footage of you at the cabin the other night, I knew you were psychic. I suspected you’d been in contact with one or more of the victims.”

  “You did?” I struggled to keep from collapsing against the back of the chair in relief. I wanted to appear composed.

  Wallace laughed. “Girl, you really are new in town. Don’t you know where you are? This isn’t the first time a psychic has helped me solve a case. Almost everybody in the department is a believer. Some of the things we’ve seen… Well, you’ve seen them too.”

  I laughed weakly. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Okay. Well, now that we’ve gotten to the truth, we can move forward. I’m making you an official consultant on this case. Tell me everything you’ve seen and everything you know.”

  I was struck by the sudden change in Wallace’s demeanor. She was no longer a hard-ass cop interrogating a suspect, but someone having a friendly conversation. Strangely, this new version of Wallace felt more genuine, as though the earlier toughness was an act.

  I racked my brain, trying to remember what I’d seen. I told her about the wet footprints in my motel room, Tom’s image in my bathroom mirror, and the books flying around my apartment. I recounted how I performed the smudging ritual with Graham and Gabrielle. For the second time, I went through the details of finding Tom’s body in the lake and Brian’s body in the closet. I even told her about seeing Tom in the cemetery after the funeral. The only thing I had to make up was a story where Tom came to me in a dream to tell me about the diner and motel being fronts for illegal activity, and his secret office at the lake. Wallace nodded along as I spoke, asking clarifying questions and jotting down details in her little notebook.

  “What about the burglaries?” she asked.

  “Burglaries?”

  “He hasn’t mentioned those, huh? As far as we can tell, he was involved in three major operations, each using a different one of his business enterprises.” She counted them off on one hand, beginning with her thumb. “Running drugs out of his diner, the prostitution ring in his motel, and then trafficking stolen goods with his delivery business. We think we can tie him to at least six burglaries in the upper Midwest.”

  I shook my head, baffled. None of that was familiar at all.

  “Well, no matter. We’re going to attack this thing from every angle. If he comes to you again, let me know.” She stood up, shook my hand, and then ushered me out of the station. “I’m glad you finally realized that being honest with me was the best thing you could do. We’ll crack this. I’m sure of it.”

  I walked back to my apartment in a fog. I couldn’t believe my good luck. For a minute there, I’d thought I was about to end up behind bars, doing time for two murders I didn’t commit.

  The most surprising thing of all was Deputy Wallace’s nonchalant—even appreciative—attitude toward me being a psychic. Of all the strange things I’d seen in this town, that one was the weirdest. She seemed to have a lot of faith in my ability to see ghosts and in those ghosts’ abilities to communicate something of importance. She made it sound as though I could make a real difference and even help bring a killer to justice.

  As I walked beneath the sycamores that lined the residential street, an idea brewed in the recesses of my mind. At first it seemed ludicrous, but with each step toward home I persuaded myself a little bit more that it was worth considering. By the time I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I was convinced it was an excellent plan.

  Striker was waiting for me when I opened my door. I was surprised. I figured she’d be down at Graham’s booth, chasing people’s feet as they passed by his table.

  “I’m glad you’re here, little girl,” I told her. “I’m going to need your help. We’re going to summon Tom Bishop’s ghost.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It was perfectly obvious to me what I needed to do. If anybody knew who killed Tom, it was Tom. Asking him was just the simplest way to get the answer, and given that he thought I was my mother, I had a feeling he’d be willing to talk to me.

  My plan was simple: I’d conduct a séance in my apartment where Tom Bishop had repeatedly haunted me, and I’d reach out to him. When I’d been at the cabin, simply thinking about Richard Franklin had made his ghost show up, and a similar thing had happened last night at Gabrielle’s. I felt confident that if I just thought about Tom again, and really focused on pushing my brainwaves out into the ether, he’d appear to me.

  It was something I felt I had to do alone. My instincts told me that he’d only talk if he thought I was Evelyn, and it wasn’t a masquerade I’d be able to keep up with a room full of people. Striker would be my only backup.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to be prepared. If Tom was still in a violent mood, I’d need a sage stick to banish him. The tiny stub of what remained of my first stick was tucked into the back of my kitchen cabinet, and it didn’t seem like that’d be enough to chase off an angry poltergeist. I needed more.

  “Gabrielle won’t mind if I borrow some, right?” I asked Striker.

  She blinked at me in response.

  I didn’t dare ask for permission. Gabrielle might try to talk me out of it, or convince me to summon Tom with a large group of people in her attic. But my gut kept telling me that I only had one shot at this, and it had to be a solo operation.

  “You know what they say,” I told Striker as I pulled on my shoes. “Better to ask forgiveness
…”

  Striker trotted next to me as I left my apartment and struck out for Main Street. It was a beautiful morning, perfect weather for the biggest day of the Afterlife Festival. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and it was warm enough to wear a T-shirt and sandals.

  I emerged from my street onto the back corner of the town square and stopped to survey the festival in full swing. The square was as crowded as a college quad during freshman orientation. I scooped up Striker and picked my way across, keeping to the edges as best as I could. It was difficult. I had to keep navigating around families with strollers, groups of ladies who insisted on walking four abreast, and easily distracted shoppers who kept stopping to look at displays.

  At last I emerged from the throng of tourists onto the sidewalk at the far side of the square, where it abutted Main Street. I felt sweaty and irritable and reached up a hand to smooth my hair down.

  “Crowds,” I muttered to Striker. She blinked up at me in sympathy.

  “Ms. Clair?”

  Penelope was standing on the grass a few paces away from me. It took me a moment to recognize her. Her light-brown hair hung limply around her face, and she didn’t have any makeup on. She looked tired and uncomfortable; if she hadn’t called my mother a whore the day before, I would’ve felt sorry for her.

  “Mrs. Bishop.” I nodded toward her.

  “Do you have a few moments to talk? There’s a coffee cart by the fountain. I was hoping I could buy you a drink, and we could try to clear the air.”

  My mouth nearly fell open. It sounded like Penelope was gearing up to apologize. That was all I’d wanted since the very first time I encountered her in this square. I was on the verge of accepting her offer when Striker reached a paw up toward my face and trilled at me. I looked down at her and remembered there was a reason I had her with me. I was on a mission. Penelope would have to wait.