In the Air Tonight

by Lori Handeland

  The food wasn’t half as good as what John Larsen had served Bobby the day before, but the coffee was hot and plentiful. A few hours later, they returned to the basement of the funeral home as Bobby’s cell phone rang.

  The FBI agent assigned to the case was different from the one who’d taken Chief Johnson’s call, then contacted Bobby. At least Nic Franklin appeared to know his job. He’d already interviewed the maniac’s widow and discovered no connection to the murders in New Orleans.

  “Guy has an alibi for all your dates,” Franklin said.

  “Have you checked similar murders elsewhere?” Bobby asked.

  “Similar how? Where else?”

  “Burned bodies? Anywhere?”

  “That’s a wide net, Detective.”

  “And the FBI’s just the one to cast it.”

  Agent Franklin sighed. “I’ll get back to you.”

  Bobby informed the chief and Christiansen of the maniac’s alibis for the New Orleans murders.

  “That means there’s more than one of them,” Johnson said.

  “More than one of what?”

  “Murderers with the same damn ring.”

  “A murder club?” Christiansen asked.

  “There’s gotta be a connection somewhere,” the chief continued. “If not with the murderers then with the murderees.” He glanced at Bobby. “You wanna go with me to talk to Mrs. Noita?”

  “Who?”

  Johnson’s cell began to ring. “Dead woman’s aunt.” He lifted a finger in a “hold that thought” gesture and answered his phone.

  Bobby needed a lead—something, anything. Although what connection there could be between Anne McKenna, a never-married hospice worker from Madison, and Raye Larsen he had no idea. Probably even less of one between Anne, Raye, and the dead people in New Orleans.

  “Godammit.” Larsen shoved his cell phone into his pocket.

  “What’s wrong?” Bobby feared another body.

  “Cows,” the chief snapped.

  Was that a local curse word, similar to bull hockey or H-E-double toothpicks? Although he hadn’t noticed the chief was too concerned about watching his language so far.

  “They’re all over the highway. I gotta get out there.”

  “You—uh—need help?”

  “You any good at it?”

  “I know how to use a shovel.”

  Johnson’s face creased. “We don’t hit ’em, son, we herd ’em.”

  “Hit?” Bobby echoed.

  “With the shovel.”

  They were speaking the same language, and then again they weren’t.

  “When you said ‘all over the highway’ I assumed…” He let his voice trail off.

  “Roadkill?” The chief shook his head. “Ever hit a cow with your car?”

  Now Bobby shook his head. What kind of question was that?

  “Like hittin’ a brick shithouse.”

  Bobby opened his mouth, shut it again. He was lost.

  Johnson saw it and chuckled. “A cow will total your car. My father-in-law hit one in the dark once. Thing was lyin’ right in the road. They do that sometimes when they get out of the pasture. Lie on the blacktop, try to soak in the heat. Angus cows, blend right in. Come over the hill and wham!” He smacked his palms together, the resulting crack so loud Bobby could have sworn even the maniac jumped. “But there ain’t gonna be a bunch dead on the road. Hittin’ one is a wake-up call.”

  “Unless you wake up dead,” Christiansen said, gaze on his paperwork. “It’s happened before.”

  Bobby eyed the maniac, then shook his head. He’d jumped, not the dead man. Dead men couldn’t jump any more than white men could. “So when you said they were all over the road, you meant—”

  “Wandered through a hole in the fence and are now meandering across the highway stoppin’ traffic.”

  “And you want me to help herd them back through the fence? Cows are huge.”

  “That’s why we need them off the road. A few cows in traffic and there’s no more traffic. You got a traffic jam.”

  The closest Bobby had ever been to a cow was on his plate. He wasn’t sure he wanted to change that.

  Johnson slapped him on the back. “Cows won’t hurt you.” His smile turned upside down. “A bull is another story.” He pulled out his cell. “I should probably make sure there isn’t a bull.”

  “What do bulls do?” Bobby asked the doctor, who was still fussing with his paperwork.

  “Besides the cows?” Christiansen looked up. “A lot of damage. Basically a bull is pissed off in a huge package. With horns.”

  Bobby started to get nervous. Maniacs with knives, druggies with guns, no problem—but a ton of pissed off, with horns—

  “No bull.” The chief snapped his phone shut. “I was thinking that since you’re not familiar with livestock you might spook ’em.”

  Bobby was spooked all right. However, he couldn’t let the chief go off on his own to herd a herd. “I’ll manage.”

  “Maybe you could interview Mrs. Noita instead.”

  “Sure!”

  Christiansen snorted. Bobby had sounded pathetically eager.

  Ten minutes later he was knocking on Mrs. Noita’s door. He’d already rung the bell twice. If she was still sleeping, she shouldn’t be anymore. He listened for signs of movement—heard none. He should have called first.

  The house was nondescript—wood plank painted white, gray shingles. The trees, on the other hand, were odd. Not only were they birch, willow, oak, walnut, and a couple others he couldn’t identify, instead of the usual maples and pine he’d seen everywhere else, but items had been tied in the branches. Mostly paper, some metal—he could swear one of them was a spoon—and on many of the leaves symbols had been drawn.

  The wind stirred, causing the papers to rustle and the spoon to clank and jangle. Bobby rubbed the back of his neck and knocked again.

  After a few more minutes on the front porch, he walked around to the rear—more trees, more stuff swaying in them. He tried knocking on that door with the same results. He bent to glance in the window stationed about gut high in the door, straightened, turned, froze as his brain caught up to his eyes.

  Then he yanked off his jacket, wrapped it around his hand, and punched his fist through the glass.

  *

  We were doing pretty well at the carnival until the fire alarm went off.

  Not our fire alarm. We were outside. Even if the school alarm had blown, it wouldn’t have mattered except to our eardrums.

  However, when the New Bergin fire alarm sounds, every last male on the staff responds. Not that there are very many in an elementary school. How many first-grade teachers do you know who are guys?

  But all emergency services in New Bergin, except for the police, were volunteer and belonging was a status thing. Personally I just think they liked to run away from whatever they were doing whenever they could—and wear the T-shirt.

  When the alarm blared we lost six people from carnival duty, and the crowd went wild.

  “I’m volunteering for the fire department tomorrow,” Jenn said.

  We were working the goldfish game. An ocean of tiny fishbowls filled with water, a bucket of Ping-Pong balls, toss one of the latter into one of the former and Nemo is yours. For the few days until he goes belly up and is consigned to burial at sea—i.e., the sewer system.

  “I think there’s a height requirement.” I transferred another Nemo from the huge cooler beneath the table where the extras swam, into an empty fishbowl. I’d just dumped the previous contents into a plastic bag for another lucky winner.

  “Bite me.” Jenn glared at the taillights of the volunteers’ cars as they raced toward town.

  “I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” I checked the bowls to make certain we had no floaters. I’d had kids point and shriek at the sight of one. It made for bad business. “You’re handing out Ping-Pong balls. I’m trolling for dead guppies.”

  It was that or do everything my
self. Jenn did not touch fish—even when sautéed with capers and butter. Anything slimy or scaly was my department. Always had been.

  With the loss of six workers, several game booths had closed, along with the popcorn machine. This meant that those who’d wanted popcorn bought cotton candy or snow cones or Raisinets, increasing the sugar quotient at the worst possible time.

  Because there were fewer game booths available, that meant longer lines at the ones still open. When combined with the excess sugar … disaster.

  Shoving and pushing, pinching and crying. Someone dropped their Nemo, someone else stepped on it, slid, banged into someone else. A punch was thrown, a shirt was torn, several bodies landed in the grass and began to roll around.

  And those were the adults.

  “Watch out for the—” Jenn shouted, then ran shrieking as the table holding our game toppled over, followed by the cooler, releasing Nemo upon Nemo to flop and flip and die in plain view of everyone.

  We’d thought there’d been crying before … that was nothing compared to now. The wailing competed in volume with the still shrill sirens. What was going on in town?

  In the midst of trying to salvage as many Nemos as I could—it wasn’t easy. I only had one net, and no water—I froze at the scent of smoke.

  My Puritan, or any other ghost for that matter, was nowhere around. No wolf—thank God with all these kids—at the edge of the trees either. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Stafford all day, and that was unusual. Not to mention troublesome. The only thing worse than a present Stafford was a missing one. Bad stuff happened when he was too long on his own.

  I frowned in the direction of town. The fire couldn’t be his fault; he was attached to the school. But what about Genevieve? She seemed to be able to travel farther afield than any ghosts I’d encountered before. She’d obviously come to New Bergin with Bobby, but didn’t seem confined to his immediate radius. I’d never seen that before.

  Then again, I rarely left town, and folks rarely stayed in town long enough for me to analyze any ghost they might have brought along. Despite having seen spirits all of my life, I’d spent most of my time avoiding them, or trying to ignore them, rather than understand them. Wouldn’t you?

  “So many ghosts, so little time,” I murmured.

  “Here, Miss Larsen, you can put them in my bag.” Troy held open his plastic Ziploc. I dumped the contents within. Too small for five fish, they all began bumping into one another, twirling, swishing. Troy giggled and zipped the lock.

  “Take them home and put them in a larger container,” I ordered.

  His mom arrived, and he held up the bag for her inspection. She cast me a glance.

  “Sorry,” I said. “They’re discounting fish food and bowls at Ben Franklin.” They always did on carnival weekend.

  We wound up losing money on the fish game, which was close to impossible considering the outlay on goldfish and the income on Ping-Pong balls. However, when three quarters of the inventory winds up part of an alfresco Picasso painting …

  Genevieve materialized, and I dropped the handful of quarters I’d been trying to roll. They bounced all over the fish-strewn ground.

  “I’m not picking those up,” Jenn said. “They’ve got fish cooties.”

  “Like you’d pick them up regardless,” I muttered. Even if she hadn’t been wearing a skirt too short for such acrobatics, Jenn did not squat.

  “Daddy!” Genevieve shouted.

  No sign of Bobby anywhere.

  Her lip trembled; her gaze turned toward town. “He’s going to get hurt.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Where is who?” Jenn worked the calculator. I wasn’t sure what she was adding, since I wasn’t done counting. She also didn’t touch money. It was “icky.”

  “There’s going to be a fire,” Genevieve said.

  Going to be? Wasn’t there one already?

  I bit my tongue to keep from quizzing the invisible child. “Did you ever hear what was on fire?” I asked Jenn.

  She pulled out her phone, scrolled through her texts. “Apparently nothing.”

  Genevieve spread her hands in a “told you so” gesture far too mature for her years. Most little girls were.

  “They needed EMTs,” Jenn continued.

  As one emergency service brought all emergency services this made sense. Though the damn siren was usually reserved for fire only.

  Genevieve wrung her hands then hopped back and forth as if she had to pee.

  “Where?” I asked, a question for both of them.

  “The witch’s house,” they said at the exact same time.

  *

  Bobby reached through the broken window and flipped the lock on the back door. He stepped inside, crunching glass beneath his shoes as he hurried through the kitchen to the hallway where he’d seen the feet.

  They were attached to a woman. She was very white. Hair, athletic shoes, skin. Everything else was very red—clothes, hands, walls.

  “Mrs. Noita?” He hunkered next to her, trying not to screw up the crime scene. He could swear she was still breathing, though with that much blood outside instead of in, he couldn’t see how. The woman’s eyes opened.

  “Mrs. Noita?” he repeated.

  She blinked then lifted a trembling hand toward the gaping wound in her neck, obviously the source of all the blood. A wolf snarled—fresh, red, and raw—from the back of that hand.

  Bobby cursed. Dead maniacs could not brand anyone, which meant …

  They had a live one.

  He dialed 911 without even glancing at the numbers. He had no idea what he said, but sirens wailed almost immediately. At least, in a place like this, help wasn’t very far away.

  Considering the scope of this injury, he wasn’t sure their resources would be sufficient. He wasn’t sure anything short of a miracle would be.

  Her eyelashes fluttered.

  “Ma’am! Stay with me. Look at me.”

  She did.

  “Who did this?”

  Her mouth opened, her teeth pushed against her bottom lip. At first he thought it was the pain, then he heard a slight outrush of air and a word, “Vena.”

  “Vena did this?” Odd name, but this was an odd place.

  “N— Na.” She was getting agitated. Blood bubbled from her mouth.

  “Vena,” he said. “I got it.”

  “Venatores,” she blurted, and now blood sprayed.

  “Shh,” he soothed, sorry he’d even asked her the question, though he’d had to.

  “Mali!” More blood.

  A siren wailed to a stop outside. A door slammed, footsteps followed. Seconds later the pretty blond officer—Bobby thought his name was Brad—skidded through the glass. He took one glimpse of the blood and promptly lost his breakfast in the sink. Why was it this guy always seemed to be wherever there was trouble? Then again, there were only three officers in the entire town.

  “Stay,” Bobby told him. He heard more sirens on the way.

  The second arrival was Christiansen. Thanks be to God.

  The man hurried in, then froze when the woman opened her eyes again.

  “She isn’t dead.” He sounded as horrified as Bobby felt.

  “Yet. Do something.”

  “I don’t work on the living.”

  “I thought you were a doctor.”

  “Not that kind.”

  “Get your ass over here and pretend.”

  Christiansen glanced out the door. Sirens still wailed. “The EMTs should be right behind me.”

  “Then you won’t have to pretend for very long.”

  The man took a breath, squared his shoulders, and approached—slowly as if afraid the nearly dead woman might bite. He paused, still several feet away.

  “Now, Doc. She’s—”

  “Gone,” Christiansen interrupted.

  Bobby glanced down. He was right.

  The doctor moved forward, no longer hesitant. He snapped on gloves, handed Bobby a pair too.
<
br />   “What the hell?” the doctor muttered, gaze on her branded hand. It was kind of hard to miss, even with the mess, since she’d laid it right below her wound. “That’s fresh, and the ring is—”

  “Forget that for now,” Bobby ordered. He indicated Mrs. Noita’s neck. “How old?”

  “She’s lived here as long as I can remember, and I don’t recall her ever being anything but ancient.”

  “I didn’t mean how old is she, I meant how old is the wound?”

  “Oh. Right. Not very.” Christiansen plucked at her clothing. “Strange.”

  “What?”

  “Some of the blood is dried. That takes more than a few minutes. Wounds like this the victim bleeds out pretty fast. I’ll have to get her on my table to find out for sure but from the amount of blood I’d say the carotid artery was nicked. She should have been dead in minutes, certainly unconscious.”

  “Minutes?” Bobby repeated. “That’s not possible.”

  He’d been farting around outside her door longer than that. If anyone had been inside he’d have heard them. At the least he’d have heard her screaming. The back door had been locked, and no one had come out the front.

  “I’ve discovered that possible is a much wider area than we know.” Christiansen brushed one gloved finger over Mrs. Noita’s branded hand as another siren-blaring vehicle arrived outside.

  “She was still conscious when I got here,” Bobby said. “She was conscious when you got here. How?”

  “Either a miracle or magic.”

  Bobby didn’t believe in either one.

  “Where’s the fire?” Christiansen asked.

  They were both still hunkered on either side of the dead woman. Bobby wasn’t in a hurry, hadn’t even made a move to leave. “Huh?”

  “The last body was burned. You’re here because so were yours. The brand and that burning connected the deaths.”

  “But not the killers since the maniac is dead. He had nothing to do with this, and his alibis proved he had nothing to do with my victims either.”

  “Which means we’re back to the murder club,” Christiansen said. “Except this guy screwed up. No fire.”

  “Unless I interrupted him before he could finish. Although where he would have gone—” Bobby straightened. “Get out.”