In the Air Tonight

by Lori Handeland

  As soon as I woke I dressed in the clothes I’d discarded on the floor, splashed water on my face, attempted to wake Jenn—twice—then hurried to my apartment, hoping I wouldn’t run into too many people who wanted to know why I looked like I was taking the run-walk of shame down First Street.

  Another reason not to sleep with anyone from here. That run-walk could become legendary. Ask Jenn.

  I was in the shower before I remembered the maniac; by then it was too late. If he threw back the curtain and started to hack away with his ghostly meat cleaver I could ignore him just as well naked as not. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

  The memory of Bobby’s blue eyes had me choosing a slightly newer, tighter pair of jeans and a sweater instead of a sweatshirt.

  Which meant someone would throw up on me. It was a given.

  I reached my classroom with very little time to spare, but it was still better than yesterday. The children filed in, and Susan ran toward me with such fervor I figured the winner in the barfing competition would be her.

  “Stafford has a new friend,” she said.

  “New friends are always nice.”

  There’d been times in the past when the children had invented invisible friends for their friend who wasn’t exactly invisible.

  “Her name is Genevieve.”

  Interesting. Most invisible Stafford friends were named less exotically. Poopy Head came to mind.

  I forgot about Stafford in the upheaval that began each new day. Getting fifteen five-year-olds into their seats long enough to count how many I had missing often took so long that I was missing one by the time I finished. But I managed. I always did. This wasn’t my first rodeo.

  We studied shapes, grouping quadrilaterals and circles and triangles. You could never get kids prepared for geometry too soon, or at least that’s what the curriculum said. I handed out a worksheet; the children pulled out their crayons so they could color all the squares blue and so on. It wasn’t until morning recess that I spared a thought for Stafford, and then only because I saw him.

  And his new friend.

  At first I wasn’t sure if she was dead. Just because the child was hanging out with Stafford didn’t mean she was a ghost. Didn’t mean she wasn’t either. More often than not, the specters I saw seemed very real. At least until they disappeared, walked through a wall, or walked through me. Talk about an ice bath.

  I joined the two of them on the edge of the playground where they sat side by side on a bench.

  “This is Genevieve.” Stafford seemed so happy I almost liked him.

  Genevieve had big blue eyes, short, curly chestnut hair, and skin just a shade darker than my own. The freckles on her nose were nearly as adorable as her frilly white skirt, black tights, ballet flats, and a pink T-shirt that spelled PRINCESS in bright, white sequins. No matter how far the women’s movement came, really, who didn’t want to be a princess?

  “I’m Miss Larsen.” I held out my hand, thankful I was on duty for recess, so the only people who might see me shaking hands with air would be children who’d seen me do such things before.

  Genevieve’s hand passed right through mine. She was dead all right.

  Her lip trembled. She flexed her fingers. “Ouch,” she whispered. “Hot.”

  “Sorry.” I rubbed my own hand on my jeans. It burned too—like frostbite.

  I’d met other ghost children. A curve of the interstate bumped against the school property line. For some reason that meant elementary-school-age spirits killed on that highway often wound up here. They hung about to resolve fairly simple issues.

  Kiss Mommy good-bye.

  I want my dolly to go along.

  Half the time I had them out of the building and into the light before the other children even knew they’d arrived. Which was why Susan had been so excited about Genevieve. I couldn’t remember the last time there’d been more than Stafford on the ghost-o-meter.

  I also couldn’t remember anyone named Genevieve in New Bergin, and I hadn’t heard about an accident on the interstate lately. So why was she here?

  Genevieve probably wouldn’t know. It often took ghosts a few days—months, years—to catch up. Nevertheless …

  “Where are you from, honey?”

  “Don’t,” Stafford ordered, though I wasn’t sure if he was telling me not to ask or telling her not to answer.

  I never got a chance to find out. He took her hand, and they went poof. My gaze drifted over the playground. If Stafford thought he could get a rousing game of run around in circles until you puke—one of his favorites—started, I’d put a stop to it and quiz Genevieve again. However, my kids, and everyone else’s, were behaving the way kids do. Some playing nice, some not playing at all, and some not playing nicely.

  “Drop it!” I pointed at the third-grade boy who had just picked up a worm and hauled back to toss it at a second-grade girl. I was in no mood for the high-pitched screaming that would ensue whether the thing landed in her hair or not.

  He dropped it—whew!—and I headed for the door just as the bell rang. I took one final gander at the playground but caught no sign of Stafford or his friend.

  He would be back. My luck was not that good. If Genevieve was with him, I’d try again. Maybe, by then, I’d know why she was here, and I could help her not to be.

  Over my lunch period, I went to my computer. Google was no damn help at all. According to the search engine, the only death in New Bergin all week was that of a sister of a U.S. Marshal. The woman’s photo revealed her to be the poor one-armed lady on First Street, Anne McKenna.

  Anne’s being the sister of a U.S. Marshal was interesting on several levels. Her brother had been assigned to the western district and stationed in Madison. She’d lived there too. Why was she in New Bergin in the first place?

  Who would want to kill her? Obviously her brother had enemies, but she’d been a hospice worker. Because of my mother’s illness, I’d dealt with them plenty. No one was calmer or friendlier; those people were saints. And there were far too few of them to throw away.

  Last, but certainly far from least, what did a detective from New Orleans have to do with any of it?

  All good questions, none of which I would find the answers to on the Internet, nor the reason I’d come to it in the first place.

  Genevieve.

  I’d need to discover her last name before I could do a more advanced search.

  *

  Bobby walked into the police station at 7:01. He was pretty proud of himself.

  Chief Johnson wasn’t. He scowled at the clock, but at least he didn’t comment.

  “Follow me.”

  Bobby cast a longing glance at the coffeepot. He doubted what was in there would do much beyond eat his stomach lining, but there were days he thought such eating was what kept him awake and functional. Right now he was barely either one. However, he’d been raised in the South where manners reigned and one did not take anything that wasn’t offered. Even bad coffee.

  He followed the chief down a corridor and through a door at the back of the station. It appeared he and Johnson were the only people in the place beyond the ancient dispatcher. Bobby couldn’t tell if the officer was male or female—short gray hair, glasses, dumpy—the nameplate read Jan Knutson. Not helpful.

  The door opened into a long, white corridor exactly the same as the first. But this one spilled into a funeral home, with an equally androgynous secretary. At least the nameplate read Marion. Then the person spoke—in a baritone—and Bobby remembered that John Wayne’s real name had been the same.

  “Morning.” Marion pointed to yet another door, nodded to Bobby, then went back to his computer.

  The smells beyond door number two identified the place even before they’d descended the stairs into the basement embalming area where a man—this time Bobby was certain—was hard at work on the single body in the room.

  “Dr. Christiansen,” Johnson said.

  The fellow was tall and lean, he had to bend
over fairly far to remove something pink from the corpse and set it on a scale. He was of an age with the police chief, but he still had all his fluffy blond hair.

  “You must be the detective from New Orleans.” Christiansen peered at the weight with eyes as blue as everyone else’s in town but Raye’s, then turned back to the body.

  “Bobby Doucet.”

  Even though Bobby hadn’t asked, Johnson explained the way things worked. “Dr. Christiansen is our funeral director and medical examiner.”

  “Thrifty.”

  “We don’t have need for any more. There hasn’t been a murder here in decades.”

  While that might be fabulous on the brochure, it did not give Bobby a good feeling about the state of the crime scene or the evidence.

  “Forgive me, Doctor, but maybe the body should have been sent to…” Bobby paused, uncertain which city was the appropriate one.

  He’d flown into Madison, the home of a well-respected university, a medical school, a teaching and research hospital—that had been on their brochure. Then again, maybe there was a closer place with adequate resources.

  What did it matter? The doctor had already opened up the woman and started to dig around.

  “If I’d felt I wasn’t competent, I would have said so.” Christiansen didn’t seem offended. Like most funeral directors Bobby had encountered—and he’d encountered a lot of them—the man possessed a personality so laid-back as to be nearly asleep. Considering what he had to deal with, that was probably for the best.

  “In this case, it wasn’t difficult to determine a cause of death.” Christiansen lifted his gaze. “She’s missing an arm.”

  “She died from that injury?”

  “I’ve found nothing else that would have killed her.”

  Bobby moved forward. “I’m most interested in the brand.”

  “More than a missing arm?” Christiansen shrugged. “To each his own.”

  “We’ve discovered several bodies in New Orleans with a similar mark. May I see?”

  Christiansen gently drew the woman’s hair away from her neck. Branded into her flesh was the head of a snarling wolf.

  “It’s the same,” Bobby said.

  “Do you have any leads?” Chief Johnson asked.

  “Haven’t had a body in nearly a year.”

  “So, no,” Christiansen murmured.

  “No.”

  Johnson frowned. “How many bodies?”

  “Five.”

  “And not a single damn clue?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Didn’t mean they had a clue—literal or figurative—but he certainly hadn’t said so.

  “Different methods of death,” he continued. “Young, old, male, female, white, not. The only thing they had in common was that brand.”

  “What did you find out about it?” Johnson asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “It would seem,” the doctor began, “that such a mark would be easily traceable. Especially in this day and age.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” Bobby shoved his fingers through his hair. “We’ve been over hundreds of old books, examined ancient jewelry—amulets, rings—even family crests. Haven’t found one that looks like that. You told her brother about the brand?”

  “Did better than that.” The doctor withdrew another organ, weighed that one too. “I showed him.”

  “He was here? When?” Bobby had gotten here pretty damn fast himself. How had he missed the man?

  “Madison is only an hour away. He came immediately. Identified the body. Left.”

  “Did he have any idea why someone would off his sister?”

  “None. She was a saint.”

  “I doubt she was killed because of who she was. Has he pissed off any Mexican drug lords? Mafia?” Bobby frowned. “Do you have mafia?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Christiansen asked.

  Did that mean they did or they didn’t?

  “Marshal McKenna transports federal prisoners,” Johnson said. “Might be drug dealers, or even mafia—ours are mostly boring old Italians from Milwaukee or Chicago.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Remember Capone? But by the time he deals with ’em, they’re convicted and sentenced. They’ve got no reason to retaliate at him or his family.”

  “Someone did.”

  “Mebe,” Johnson allowed.

  “If she wasn’t killed because of her brother, then why?”

  “I thought that’s what you were here to find out.”

  “I’m just here to see if her killing is connected to any of mine.”

  “You think there are two psychos running around branding folks?” the chief asked.

  Bobby rubbed his eyes. “I hope not.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Three,” Christiansen said.

  “What did the marshal say about the brand?”

  “Never seen it either.” Johnson shrugged. “But when he put it into the federal system—”

  “My name popped up.”

  “Your cases did. But nothing on the brand.”

  Bobby already knew that. He’d put the damn brand into every system he could find. And gotten bupkis.

  “What about the wound?” he asked.

  “More of an amputation,” Christiansen said. “Without anesthesia.”

  “She was alive?”

  “It would be pretty hard to kill her with that wound if she was already dead.”

  Good point. Or bad point, Bobby wasn’t sure.

  “No one heard her?” he asked. At the chief’s blank expression, Bobby continued. “She had to have screamed.”

  “She wasn’t killed where we found her. Not enough blood.”

  “Could it have been an accident? Maybe she got her arm stuck in…” He waved his hands helplessly. “One of those big-ass farm machines.”

  “And flew into town on the wings of angels?” Johnson asked. “There’d be a blood trail.”

  “Not an accident,” the doctor said.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Her arm was hacked off, not pulled off, or even sliced with a decent blade.”

  “Do you know what kind of blade it was?”

  Christiansen leaned down and peered at the wound. “From what I’m seeing here, my guess is…” He met Bobby’s gaze. “A meat cleaver.”

  Chapter 6

  Meat cleaver? That could not be a coincidence.

  Raye had seen the murderer, and she’d thought she’d imagined it. Either she’d been lying—and for what reason, Bobby couldn’t fathom—or she had issues with reality and fantasy. He wasn’t one to throw stones, though he’d like to know why.

  First he had to find her. Fast. Raye was walking around loose, and so was that maniac. If the man had come after her once, he’d do so again.

  “Gotta go.” Bobby started for the door.

  “Back to New Orleans?” The chief followed.

  “Not yet.”

  Bobby should tell the chief everything. But not until he knew just what everything might be.

  “I have to make some calls,” he said. Not a lie. He would—after he found Raye.

  “Let me know what you need from me.” Johnson held out a hand, and they shook. “And I’d be obliged if you kept me in the loop.”

  “Of course.” Bobby shook and fled. He was driving back in the direction he’d come before he realized that he had no idea where he was going.

  Raye was a kindergarten teacher. In a town this size, how hard could it be to find the grade school? He doubted there was more than one. He was a detective for crying out loud. He should act like one.

  Bobby pulled into the gas station and asked for directions.

  There was only one grade school, and it wasn’t far. New Bergin Elementary stood on the nearest field to the town in a three-field parcel, with the junior high in the middle section and the high school in the northernmost plot. The athletic fields lay to the east, a parking lot flanked the west. He pulled in the space marked VISITOR directly in fro
nt of the entrance.

  While the school itself had been built in the sixties, the security had been updated recently. Bobby stepped through the first set of doors and discovered he could not get beyond the next until he’d passed through a metal detector and then been buzzed in. At least no one with a meat cleaver could have gotten in ahead of him.

  On the one hand, the need for such methods made him sick. On the other hand, so did the children. He hadn’t been in a school since …

  Bobby turned and walked right back out.

  *

  After lunch everyone retrieved their nap mats, blankets, sleeping bags. I turned down the lights and we had a quiet hour. I read a story; everyone rested, or at least pretended to.

  The first weeks of a new school year I often had to sit next to one or two of the kids, keep my hand on their backs until they got the idea that they would stay on their mat until the hour was up. But by this time of year, over six weeks in, everyone knew the rules. I think most of them even enjoyed that bit of downtime. It recharged them enough to rev right through dinner. I’m sure their parents were thrilled.

  I opened Stafford’s favorite book, guaranteed to get him to come out, come out, wherever he was, and began to read. “‘I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair.’”

  You can see why Stafford might enjoy the tale of Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

  Because I’d read it so many times I could recite most of the story without even looking at the book, I spent half my time glancing around the room. Stafford didn’t materialize, but Genevieve did. As it was her I wanted to talk to, I didn’t mind. I did wonder where Stafford had gotten to. I should have wondered harder.

  I read the last lines just above a whisper. Then I got up and walked to the back of the room—with no fast, loud, or too interesting movements, otherwise everyone’s head would be up and my peace would be over.

  Genevieve sat in the alcove of cubbies where my kids kept their coats, boots, sleep mats. “My daddy used to read that to me,” she said.