Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  ***

  Most of the residents at Pine Glen Rest Home came out for Aunt Gladys’s funeral. There was a whole line of wheelchairs at the back of the chapel. Some of those had been Aunt Gladys’s friends while the rest wanted to get out of the home for a few hours.

  An old, bald man leaned on a cane as he hobbled down the aisle to the front row. Emma got to her feet to give him a hug. “I’m so sorry, lass,” Percival Graves said.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you could make it.”

  “Gladys was a friend of mine. Almost as much as her niece,” he said with a wink. She took his free hand and led him to sit on the opposite side of her.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “It’s been hard. I know I should have seen it coming—”

  “Nothing makes death any easier to live with,” Mr. Graves said. As a veteran of World War II and the previous Scarlet Knight for a quarter-century, Mr. Graves understood that all too well.

  One of the toughest decisions Emma had to make for the funeral was what kind of ceremony they would have. Aunt Gladys, like Emma’s mother, had been a lapsed Catholic. She had never taken Emma to any services, nor applied any pressure for Emma to decide her own spirituality. In the end Emma decided it would be best to forego a religious service and let the funeral director say a few words of welcome to begin.

  After the funeral director was done, it was Emma’s turn to go up to the podium. She kept her eyes down on the floor so she couldn’t see the coffin, which would only set her off again. She adjusted the microphone up to her lips and then mumbled, “Thank you all for coming.”

  It had taken her all night to compose a eulogy. While she had written numerous articles for scientific journals, creative writing had always eluded her. Any attempts to write a poem fell apart quickly. In the end she could only write what was in her heart.

  “Aunt Gladys was such a kind woman. When I didn’t have anyone, she took me in. When I was scared or sad, she comforted me. She told me everything would be all right, that she loved me more than anything in the world. And I loved her as much as my own parents.

  “I remember when she first got sick, I wanted to stay home so I could be with her. She told me to go to college, get a good education. Because that was the kind of woman she was, a woman who cared more about the well-being of others than about her own. If we could bring in every person whose life she had touched, we could fill all of Robinson Tower.

  “It doesn’t seem fair that a woman who gave so much would be taken so soon, but I know what she would want is for us not to grieve. She would want us to be happy, to celebrate her life and life in general.” Despite her words, Emma began to sob. She turned to face the coffin, where Aunt Gladys lay, her face waxy and unnatural, like a mannequin. “I love you Aunt Gladys and I miss you so, so much.”

  With that Emma staggered back to her chair. She put her head on Becky’s shoulder to cry while Mr. Graves patted her back gently. She remained like that for the rest of the funeral.

  ***

  They held the reception in the community room of the nursing home. With so many of the home’s residents at the funeral and on pill schedules that made going out for long periods of time difficult, that had only seemed natural. Since Aunt Gladys had been a vegetarian most of her life, the reception had only salad, bread, and meatless lasagna. Emma sat at a distant table, Becky and Mr. Graves still on either side.

  While she nibbled on a salad, Emma mumbled thanks to some of the mourners who stopped at the table. This was the worst part of the reception, as she didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. She wanted only to go back to her apartment, curl up on the bed, and sob herself out.

  One of those who stopped by was a young woman in a white nurse’s uniform and oversized pink cardigan sweater. Wild black hair covered the woman’s left eye, which left only her right one to focus on the floor as she mumbled, “I’m sorry, Emma.”

  “It’s all right, Marie. It’s not your fault.”

  Marie Marsh still stood by the table; after a minute she gathered the courage to say, “I was there the night she died. I…we did everything we could for her.”

  Emma reached across the table to take Marie’s hand. “I’m sure you did. It’s not your fault.”

  “I stayed in the room, after the others had left. I looked at her. She loved you very much. I thought you should know.”

  Emma knew what Marie meant by looking at Aunt Gladys. While Marie’s right eye was an ordinary brown eye, the one she kept covered with her hair was the palest blue. Through some process Emma still didn’t understand, Marie could use that eye to see into people’s pasts. She had used that power eighteen months ago to steady Aunt Gladys’s mind enough for Emma to say goodbye before she went off to confront the evil Black Dragoon. Since then Emma had tried to talk to Marie about it, but the young woman didn’t have much idea herself about how she could do what she did.

  Emma reached over to take Marie’s hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you, Marie. That’s good to know.”

  Marie nodded and then left a paper cup of pills in front of Mr. Graves. She shuffled off to give medication to the rest of the patients. Under her breath, Becky said, “She gives me the willies.”

  “She’s a good person,” Emma said.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Marie didn’t linger after she made her rounds of the patients. She didn’t say goodbye to Emma either. Emma considered going after her to find out exactly what Marie had seen, but decided to respect the girl’s privacy.

  During the reception, two old women slipped into the room who didn’t live in the nursing home. One was shorter and looked grandmotherly in a dated pantsuit and matronly bun while the other was taller and wore a dark green dress, her hair cropped as short as many of the men in the room. Emma hadn’t seen Mrs. Chiostro and her sister Sylvia at the funeral, but she hadn’t paid a lot of attention to those around her.

  Mrs. Chiostro leaned down to squeeze Emma in a hug. “I’m so sorry, dear. I’m sure your aunt was a great woman.”

  “She was. Thank you.”

  Sylvia’s hug was much shorter and rougher. “How you holding up, kid?”

  “I’m fine,” Emma mumbled.

  “It’s never easy to lose someone,” Mrs. Chiostro said. Emma knew the old woman had already lost her beloved husband, as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren over the last five hundred years. Mrs. Chiostro and her sister were both witches, gifted with the kind of magic that could have saved Aunt Gladys, but they knew even better than Emma did the dire consequences if they used that magic recklessly.

  The witches sat down at the table. Mrs. Chiostro took Emma’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Any time you need some tea and sympathy, you’re welcome to come over.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “You probably should stop over soon, that hair is a bit long,” Sylvia said.

  Emma fingered the red hair that had been the same shade as Aunt Gladys’s, which had often prompted people to think they were mother-daughter instead of aunt-niece. “I’ll try,” she said.

  The witches stayed at the table for the rest of the reception. Like Becky and Mr. Graves, they didn’t say much. There wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t already been said. Emma was glad to have them around her, so at least she wouldn’t feel so alone.

  Once everything had been cleaned up, Becky drove Emma back into the city, to their apartment. Becky had borrowed her boyfriend’s car for the day, a rusty Dodge Stratus. As Parkdale faded in the rearview mirror, Emma lamented that within the next day or two Aunt Gladys would be fed into an oven, her body burned to ashes. Those ashes Emma planned to take to the pond in Robinson Park, so Aunt Gladys could take one last swim.

  On the elevator ride up, Emma sagged against the wall. Now that the funeral and reception were over, gloom pressed down on her. By the time they reached the apartment door, Emma had begun to shuffle along like one of the ancient residents of the nursing home.

  She collap
sed onto her bed, still in her dress. She hoped not to need this dress again, not after she had worn it to three funerals in less than two years. The first had been for Sarah MacGregor and her unborn son Thomas eighteen months ago. Then a few weeks later was the funeral for Sarah’s husband Ian, Emma’s supervisor at the Plaine Museum who had also been the Black Dragoon. He had killed himself right in front of Emma, a death she still sometimes saw in her nightmares, along with those of her parents and now Aunt Gladys.

  Despite this abundance of nightmares, she closed her eyes and soon fell asleep.

  Chapter 2

  When she woke up it was eleven at night. Emma went over to her computer and then logged into the anonymous email account she’d set up for the Scarlet Knight. Lieutenant Donovan of the Rampart City police was the only one who knew the address to the account so she could communicate where and when she needed to meet with the city’s most wanted vigilante.

  As she feared, there was a message from Lieutenant Donovan. The time stamp indicated the message had come in three hours ago. Emma hoped it wasn’t too urgent.

  With her usual terseness, Lieutenant Donovan had written, “Need to see you. Midnight. Robinson Park Band Shelter.”

  The band shelter was where they usually met. At night there weren’t any other police officers foolish enough to go there and since the Black Dragoon had massacred the city’s gangs who had resided in the park, most criminals stayed out of there too. That would prevent anyone from seeing Lieutenant Donovan meet with the Scarlet Knight.

  Emma had already put the leg armor on when the bedroom door opened. The bedroom light flicked on. Becky’s face turned red and Emma was sure it would get to magenta soon enough. “You can’t go out tonight,” Becky said. “You’re in no condition—”

  “Lieutenant Donovan wants to meet me. It’s important.”

  “So tell her to handle it herself just this once.”

  “If she could handle it, she would,” Emma said. Lieutenant Donovan had stressed on several occasions that she only asked for the Scarlet Knight’s help when absolutely necessary; she didn’t like to rely on a “goddamned nutcase” to get things done.

  Becky put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, kid, you’ve spent almost the whole day crying. I don’t think you’re in fighting shape.”

  “It’s just a meeting.”

  “What if she wants you to go break some heads for her? You really think you can handle it right now?”

  “I have to.”

  “Don’t start that martyr stuff again, Emma. I know how bad you feel about your aunt, but don’t make the same mistake you did after your parents died. Don’t try to bury this.”

  “I do miss Aunt Gladys, but there’s a whole city depending on me. She would want me to put helping them before grieving for her.”

  “Emma—”

  “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  “All right. Just don’t come back acting crazy.”

  Emma put on the rest of the armor and then slipped out the bedroom window, onto the fire escape. The location of the fire escape had been a selling point when she and Becky had looked for a new apartment, this one in the safer Old Downtown neighborhood than the rundown Trenches. With the fire escape, no one would see Emma as she came and went in the armor.

  Her red Ninja motorcycle was down in the alley, where she usually kept it at night. In case anyone tried to tamper with the bike, she’d wired it with a 5,000-volt security system. She had also upgraded the engine a bit, to give it about twice as much horsepower. That allowed her to weave through traffic at well over a hundred miles an hour. If she ran into anything, the armor would protect her from harm. It also enhanced her reflexes to make sure she didn’t run down any pedestrians.

  With the bike at almost full speed, Emma made it through the gates of Robinson Park in ten minutes. It was a lot quicker than the old method of jumping from rooftop-to-rooftop. She imagined Mr. Graves would have liked to have had a ride like that in his day. Thoughts of him led her back to Aunt Gladys; she forced down the tears that threatened to come out; the Scarlet Knight didn’t cry.

  Though she was a half-hour early, she found Lieutenant Donovan already on the stage of the band shelter. “You’re late,” Donovan said. She tossed her cigarette to the floor. “You’re usually here waiting for me.”

  Emma deepened her voice a little as she said, “I got a little tied up.”

  “We might as well get started,” Lieutenant Donovan said. “A few nights from now we’re going to move in on Don Vendetta. Word is there’s a shipment coming in and she’s overseeing it.”

  “You want me there to help?”

  “No, I want you to stay as far away as possible. The last thing I need is the don’s lawyers telling the judge how some nut in armor swooped in there to assault her. You know, Miranda rights, habeas corpus, and all that bullshit.”

  “Habeas corpus means—”

  “I don’t care what it means. I failed Latin in Catholic school.” The detective snuffed out another cigarette. Then she reached into her jacket for a sheaf of papers. “I have something else you can do. It’s about a cold case. A suburban couple murdered about fourteen years ago. There was one witness, but she was just a little girl and they wore masks, so it wound up being a dead end.”

  Emma’s pulse quickened as she listened to this. A suburban couple, fourteen years ago, a little girl, masked killers—it was exactly like her parents’s murder. She had to stifle a gasp when she took the papers and saw it was in fact the murder of Carl and Louise Earl.

  She needed a moment to summon her voice. “Why do you need me for this?”

  “A prison snitch contacted me through back channels. He spent some time in the joint with a guy named Roy French. He says French talked about him and his partner, Victor Estima, killing a suburban couple as they were running from a botched robbery. Father dead on impact and mother gunned down in the street.”

  “And the daughter?” Emma asked, barely able to keep her voice level. If these men had killed her parents, would they come after her now?

  “Didn’t mention her. She’s some hotshot scientist now over at the Plaine Museum. Anyway, I don’t have the manpower to look into this right now.”

  “Why not pass it down to the cold case unit?”

  “I’d need something more solid first. Prison snitches aren’t that reliable.” Donovan snuffed out yet another cigarette. A few seconds later she took out a fresh one. “Plus I don’t want this getting in the press yet. This was a black eye for the department. I don’t want any media jackals dredging it back up. I trust you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. See if you can find anything and then let me know.”

  “Right.” Emma didn’t have any pockets in the armor, so she had to clutch the papers in one hand as she hurried back to her motorcycle. She stuffed the papers into the bike’s cargo compartment before she kicked the engine to life.

  For a while she simply drove around, to find somewhere quiet. The good thing about the Scarlet Knight’s armor was that she could find solace in places few others could reach. She used the gloves to climb up to the roof of a skyscraper near Executive Plaza. There, as she looked down on the city, she took off the helmet and let the tears flow again.

  ***

  Marie hated to sneak around. If Mrs. Carney caught her out past curfew, Marie could be sent back to the institution. This time they might decide to keep her there forever, in which case she would never get to see Veronica again.

  She reminded herself she had to do it in order to save Veronica’s life. To everyone else Veronica might have died a hundred twenty years ago, but to Marie she was as much a living, breathing person as anyone she passed on the sidewalk on the way to the meeting place. In many ways Veronica was more real because Marie knew far more about her than any of the strangers she passed.

  As the man had told her to do, she looked around before she opened the door to the old store. The sign above the windows had fade
d away, but with her special eye, Marie had seen it back in its heyday, when it had been for Schulman’s Jewelers. Back then signs on the windows had advertised the store also specialized in watch repair and battery replacement. She figured this must be why the man called himself the Watchmaker.

  With her special eye she could have found out more about the Watchmaker, to pry out all the secrets of his life. She didn’t because she didn’t want to offend him, as usually happened when she looked inside someone. If he got angry then he might not help her save Veronica.

  If he could help her. They had been at it for eighteen months now without success. Whenever Marie complained about the lack of progress, the Watchmaker would tut-tut and say, “We have all the time in the world, my dear.”

  This was nearly true. Since Veronica was already dead, it didn’t really matter how long it took them to go back and save her. The only problem was Marie couldn’t live forever and who knew when they might transfer her out of the halfway house? And if they put her back in the institution—

  She shivered at that thought. Then she slipped into the old jewelry store. The glass display cases were all broken, any jewelry long since gone. There were still some old, faded signs for watches, diamonds, and so forth. These were the only reminders of what the place had been like before it had become a ruin.

  The stairs down to the vault were metal, still in good shape after all these years. The vault door too was still unblemished. Though the door was partially open, she banged on it with a length of pipe the Watchmaker left, which he called his “doorbell.” His voice came from inside the vault, “Come in, my dear. Come in.”

  The vault door was too heavy for her to move it more than a couple of inches, just enough for her to squeeze through. The moment she did, she gagged on the scent of lavender. Inside the vault, she saw the old man light a thick candle on the floor. He’d already set up two-dozen of the candles in a circle on the metal floor. The Watchmaker motioned to a wooden chair in the center of the circle. “Have a seat.”

  “Do we really need these candles?” she asked.