by Dakota Kahn
“Sweetie, that means you’re going to get self-inflicted rabies.”
“Huh?”
“Because nobody’s going to get in your way as much as you are.”
I don’t know if that was a dig, or just him being cute, but I kissed him again either way.
“Back off, lawman, I’m a defense attorney,” I said, and smiled.
He didn’t quite smile back, but the feeling was there. Right?
The hospital was just a couple of miles from my office, and a pretty quick shot from here to there, but it seemed to take forever. Part of it was I had to slow down - the day was running out, and mountains captured what should have been the last couple hours of direct sunlight. What light there was was diffused by a late summer gloom that made my mountain town look spooky and strange.
A mist had descended from above, and though it wasn’t quite raining, the condensation and damp from the mist made me keep my wipers on. At least there was traffic around - without it, Whispering Pines looks like the ghost town that had nearly turned me into a ghost, too.
What the heck was that? While in public I try to maintain a demeanor befitting my office, and I don’t think it’d be fair to call me “flighty”, I have, occasionally and with good reason in the past, allowed my imagination to get the better of me. Just last Christmas I was certain that a puppy that had been left on my doorstep was a ghost linked to a tragic past.
Ahem, it was not.
While it would hurt my pride too much to ever say it out loud, I could entertain, in the deepest recesses of my private mind, the slim possibility that I saw something in the ghost town that wasn’t there. I’d noted Wendover’s tie pin (sorry, Liz, tie bar) the day before, so that was fresh in my mind. I hadn’t known that Rip had it on his own tie when they found him.
I hadn’t known a lot of things that should have been in that report. A conspiratorial side of me wondered if the police were deliberately withholding information to make it impossible for me to see to my defense… but that was paranoia. Blake wouldn’t stand for that sort of thing in any investigation he had a hand in.
Not just because it was his girl who was the defense attorney, either. Blake was a lot of stuff, some of it deeply infuriating. But he was fair. He wouldn’t let the political games that took place in every police station and DAs office and in every town in America win out over justice or doing the right thing. Right?
I had to believe that, just as I had to believe Rip Chiaki was incapable of doing this terrible crime.
He was there. He had the tie pin on him. But that was purely circumstantial… and I also knew for a fact that Blake had driven him far out of town. Somebody had to have brought Rip back…
It could have been anybody, though… Somebody driving into town just seeing Rip wandering the streets. Craterton was 15 miles down the grade, too far and too uphill for the old man to have walked it in the time he had. But I couldn’t deny he’d ended up back in Crestgold.
What the heck it could all mean was beyond me. I pulled into my parking lot, keeping my noodler cooking as I parked my car right in front of my office, and sat there for a minute, staring. Figuring out my next move without knowing quite where I stood was a tough call.
One I wasn’t going to make until I found out just who the hell’s shadow I was looking at, moving around in my locked office.
Chapter 7
Being a normal person caught in a situation that would make sense in a thriller movie is severely discombobulating. I mean, I saw a shadow moving around in my office, behind the drawn blinds. Light coming out the door where there should be no light. I was stuck there, sitting behind the wheel of my car, glaring at the situation and trying to wish it away.
When that didn’t work, my first instinct was sane and normal: to call the cops.
But calling the cops meant, essentially, calling Blake to come and rescue me. Which made all the sense in the world. Except I’d just come from the hospital where I’d been told I need to call people to come rescue me and I was in over my head and I was really out of patience with being taken care of. A grown woman who started her own law firm in a small town, who braved mayors and police chiefs and ghost towns to try and do the best for her client doesn’t go running to her boyfriend when a problem arises.
She gets out of her car, and charges headlong into her office. She may or may not shout like a karate master breaking through a stack of wooden boards. I’ll leave that up to your imagination.
I realized my first mistake when I leapt into the room and didn’t have out anything to protect myself. No pepper spray (which I have on me at all times at Blake’s insistence) and no large piece of wood. Just my small, not weak but definitely not scuffle-ready body.
And I didn’t realize there were two people, one who I leaped right past to get in my door. The other screamed and fell back behind my desk.
The first grabbed me with small, powerful hands and twisted me around. A fist raised up, came at me… and stopped at the last second.
“Oh, for the sakes of Heaven, it is only Kate,” the perpetually sly, perpetually whispery voice of Linda Parr, my chiropractor neighbor, said, in a kind of soothing purr completely belied by the violent pose she held me in.
“What?” I said. I looked around, bewildered. Linda was there at the counter near the window where I have my business cards, waiting area, and coffee maker.
The smell of coffee brewing came to me, and part of the scenario filled itself in. Linda has a spare set of keys. Somebody had to, and nearby, because you never know when you’ll lose all your keys out of your pocket while charging through, say, muddy swamps or falling down ghost town stairs. It’s good to have somebody close by to call to let you in.
That somebody, by the way, shouldn’t be a cop who might never be available right when you need them.
And Linda worked on Saturdays. It was a little late for her last appointment, but that was just a surprise, not a shock.
None of which explained why a rainbow colored frock of a human being had let out a scream and fallen to the ground behind my desk. I stepped over and saw her (it was a lady) holding her head in her hands, all kinds of jewelry and clanging beads and a voluminous flowered dress bunching around her. It was like an ostrich in a muumuu.
“Uh…”
“Oh, Adriana Feather was waiting outside for you. I let her in to wait with coffee.”
At hearing her name, Miss Feather took her hands off her head and regained her feet with, I suppose, as much dignity as possible given the position she’d put herself in. She smiled at me between two rather garishly rouged cheeks, blue eyeshadow fluttering with every blink.
“Ah, yes, Miss Becker,” she said with a voice that sounded like she was auditioning for something from the 1930s. “Oh, I had heard about your troubles and I am so sorry. That you had to have your first encounter in such a drastic, threatening, terrifying way. I weep for you.”
“Okay,” I said, and held out my hand. She took it, but didn’t give it a proper manly shake. She held it like it was a bird she was taking care of. She cupped it in her hands, and I was surprised she didn’t start cooing at it and touching it lightly.
I got my hand out of her grip as quickly as I could without rudeness, then realized who I was talking to here. I was talking to a woman who had gotten into my office through subterfuge, who was behind my desk, who knew who I was and I didn’t have a single idea who she was.
“What do you mean, my encounter?” I said, angling myself toward my desk. She didn’t move from where she stood, which meant I was just coming in closer to her.
“Why, with the spirits, of course. It is too bad that some people do not know how to approach the things beyond and rush headlong toward them. It’s like trying to coax a tiny fawn from a hiding place by shooting at it with a hunting rifle. Destructive and foolish. But I’m sure you meant well,” she said, smiling at me with a broad smile I wanted to wipe off that face immediately, along with the make-up.
“I still hav
e no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“You fell down,” Linda said. “In the ghost saloon, chasing some ghost.”
“And,” I said, making my voice icy and professional, “how did either of you hear about that?”
“I am very sensitive to—” Feather started, but Linda cut in.
“Small town, everybody hears everything. I was cracking the spine of a man from hospital who said lawyer lady came in, out like light.”
“But I didn’t… say anything to anybody about a ghost.”
That is, not until I’d been talking with Blake and Schwille, and that was just a few minutes before I skedaddled out of the hospital. Unless Deputy Woody was telling tales out of school. And the story spread, and I was not an intrepid lawyer chasing up a lead but some batty ghost chaser running after shadows. Barking at the moon.
The way Feather was looking at me, I could tell she would bark right along with me.
“You don’t need to tell me about it, my dear,” Feather said, leaning in confidently and nodding at me. “I can tell just by looking at your aura that you have had an… encounter!”
She said the last word so emphatically I expected horses to neigh in the distance.
“My aura. I should have known,” I said, dripping modern rational skepticism.
Feather did not miss it, and sniffed.
“There are none so blind,” she said, and then nodded to herself as the aphorism finished in her mind.
“Sorry to disappoint. Look, Feathery… I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your first name,” I said, then continued quickly before she could fill me back in. “But this is my office and I have a lot of work to do, so if you do not have something pressing and immediate for me, I’m going to need my space back.”
Feather opened her eyes a little wider at me. I thought I could see some calculations going on behind those eyes, whether it was worth giving up her fake poise and lofty/flighty demeanor in order to tell me where to stick it. I guess it wasn’t because she grew back her lippy smile and nodded like she had all the understanding in the world.
“Of course, my dear, of course. I just wanted you to know that, when you finally understand how much you have need of me, despite your callused soul and, hmph, ‘rational’ reactions, I will be there. My card,” she said, laying it down on my desk - which, I note, she was still on the wrong side of. I scooted toward her, and she finally scooted away, going to the other side of the desk. She touched her card again, and nodded sagely.
I looked at it without touching it. Adriana Feather, Palm Reading Magic Crystals Channeling Seance Psychic Needs fulfilled.
“Oh,” I said, “You’re her.”
Her being the woman who, a couple blocks off main street had opened a shop in a weirdly zoned little area that, in any other town, wouldn’t have been more than an island between a couple of streets. She was there in what was barely a teepee, with big neon lights advertising her “services”.
“Do not let your encounter shake you too hard,” she said, and then, in another impossibly fake voice she said, “And do not let your hopes for your client go too high. I have seen much that a normal person cannot see. He may have been driven, but I have been told he committed the crime.”
Then she was out in a puff of hippy perfume and whispery cloth.
“Linda, I think I will have to ask you for my keys back,” I said, sitting at my desk.
“Until I get a coffee maker that work right, you will have to fight me for them,” she said, sipping her freshly made brew. It was about the only thing that seemed to have a relaxing effect on the old girl, and I’d hate to take that away. “Besides, was fun. You talk to fruitcake, and suddenly Kate not so nice. Rude, even. I like rude Kate.”
“Huh,” I said. My computer monitor had gone black. I jiggled the mouse around, and it flashed to life. As far as I could tell, it was where I left it… which was with the file with my own report on Rip and the case the police had against him still open.
She could have seen the whole thing. She could have read it and now was filled with information about the case that the public at large didn’t know. What that information was I couldn’t guess straight out… but I had the feeling I’d have to watch my back lest a Feathery knife get stuck in it, somehow.
“Did you see what she was doing back here?” I asked Linda.
“Cannot make coffee and watch fake psychics at the same time. A woman must prioritize,” Linda said, smiling as she sipped some more. “You want some?”
“Some I want,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
I waited without thinking about the case while Linda brought me a cup of coffee. Instead, I thought about Linda. She was completely without self-consciousness. Maybe even without a conscience. Had Adriana Feather fake psychic ransacked my office, deleted all my files and ruined me forever with my creditors, my clients and my boyfriend, I doubt she would bat an eye.
But she had the benefit of being here, and being someone I could talk to who I believe didn’t genuinely care, one way or the other, about my problems. So she could be objective.
“You know all about the murder and everything, right?” I said as she set down the coffee and a handful of creamer containers in front of me.
“Yeah. Developer kaput. Hanged at his own gallows,” she said, and her eyes lit up. I tried not to think about what she was imagining. Instead, I got to looking at my creamer.
Hazelnut. The one thing Blake is slightly grown up about in his dietary habits is his coffee. Black or real cream. Not me, I like the sloppiest, sugariest least coffee-like tastes I can get. I opened up a container of hazelnut nondairy creamer, and dumped it in the dark drink.
“Well, I’m the accused guy’s attorney. Do you know who they’ve arrested?”
“Some homeless guy, I heard.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, deciding to remain coy. “Heard from who?”
“From other developer man. Greene one. He was why I was kept late and needed coffee before driving home,” Linda said, nonchalantly.
“What? Greene was in your office?” I said. I didn’t quite jump out of my seat, but I did make my eyes big and wide and glared at Linda.
“Oh, yeah. I help him… well, I cannot say. Doctor and client.”
But you’re not a doctor, you’re a chiropractor I almost said, but I could see that little Linda leaping across my desk and fixing my back up bad. So I just nodded and looked sagely toward her.
“But you did see him,” I said. “Hmm, maybe that’s just what I need to do. Go and talk to Greene, Mrs. Wendover, all of these people. Establish just what happened.”
“That is police job. You are not becoming woman of police?” Linda said, her eyes narrowing as if I’d just revealed a secret identity, one she very much did not approve of.
“No, but it’s part of being a defense attorney. I’ve got to find evidence my client didn’t do it. I think he couldn’t do it, in the first place, not the way the crime was actually performed. But… I have to prove it.”
“You need to catch killers?” Linda said, looking confused. “Not innocent until proven guilty?”
“Oh, no, I don’t catch killers. All I need to do is be able to convince 12 people my client couldn’t do it, not who did. That’s not my job.”
But some part of me just didn’t believe what I was saying. It wasn’t my job job to catch the killer. Were I still in San Francisco and doing this exact same work, it wouldn’t enter my head to have done even half of the stuff I’d already done. Ghost towns, investigations - no. I’d look for a plea bargain, most likely.
San Francisco, however, is not Kate Becker’s town. I just lived there for a while. Whispering Pines was mine. That Ghost Town was mine. Somebody’s going to commit a murder in my town, and then try to pin it on a resident that I had some minor personal affection for?
No chance, Cochise. This will not stand.
“Linda,” I said, “I need to talk to the Greenes and the Wendovers and all of them. I just need to und
erstand what happened from their perspective, so I can plan my own moves.”
“Why would they talk to you?” she said.
“Because I’m cute and friendly and am just trying to find out who really killed their Mr. Wendover. You can’t tell me anything about why Greene saw you, I appreciate that. But can you tell me where he’s staying.”
“Is very serious thing, secrets between patient and doctor. I tell you that he’s staying at the Whispering Pines Hotel, and not the Golden California, in room 303, one of the penthouses, how you think I look?”
I suppressed a giggle. “I’m sorry I even broached the subject. Enjoy your coffee, and don’t let anybody else in my damned office!”
I shut down my computer before I left, while Linda serenely set herself up another cup.
Chapter 8
The Whispering Pines Hotel is not a cleverly named building, but it is located right in the center of Main street. Not quite the hub of town (that’s closer to the main park with the city hall where yesterday’s rally took place) but it is walking distance to a bevy of restaurants, a small shopping center with gift stores, a movie theater, a used bookstore that has somehow survived into the modern age, connected to a record store that has also, through some miracle, lived even though we, too, have the Internet.
What didn’t survive was the mega video store that used to be directly across from the Whispering Pines hotel. That was demolished a year ago, and in its place, standing nearly twice the size of the Whispering Pines like an extended middle finger from across the street, was the California Gold resort hotel.
Far as I could tell, it was a Resort Hotel in name only, or maybe just because it had a pool and jacuzzi. So did the Whispering Pines Hotel, but it didn’t act all high and mighty about it. Yes, I am biased toward the older place. What’s your point?
And what was my point of standing on the street corner in the gathering darkness of night, staring at the front of the hotel, and not quite gathering up my own courage to get inside? I had the room of the suite Mr. Greene had taken, and I knew via Linda that the Wendovers and Greenes had taken rooms opposite each other.