To one side of the corpse was the lake. Long grasses bordered the other three sides, which soon gave way to thick forest on the mountainside. The water flashed and sparkled in the sunlight, mirroring the clear, blue sky. I was drawn to the light show, and it struck me as odd that someone could’ve been murdered in such a picture-perfect setting.
This should’ve been a happy, peaceful place. But it felt curiously empty. Drained, even.
“Ms. Powell?”
I was startled by the sheriff’s voice. “Yes?”
“I’d like to get started.”
“Of course. What would you like me to do?”
“Cut right to the chase. Find the killer.” She held up a hand. “I know. You already told me your process isn’t linear. However it works, just get started.”
I cast a dubious glance at Gail, hovering nearby. “What about your coroner? Doesn’t he need to examine the body?”
“Tied up in court temporarily. In his absence, Dr. Bergeron has agreed to examine the body and share her findings.” The sheriff moved to touch my arm, and I shied away.
I didn’t miss the eyebrow she arched at me. “Your energy,” I explained as I slowly walked toward the dead guy, “will dilute my focus on the victim. No one must touch me while I’m doing a dreamwalk. And it would be better if you kept folks away from my general vicinity.”
“As you wish. Dr. Bergeron will give her analysis first. That way, if your vision quest takes some time, she won’t be held up out here. I’ve got my recorder on, Dr. B. Anytime you’re ready.”
I stopped a few feet away, giving Gail center stage.
“John Doe presents an atypical, healthy appearance with no obvious cause of death,” Gail said after she’d circled the corpse. “He’s a Caucasian male, about five-ten and one hundred eighty pounds. Tanned skin and closely cropped dark hair.” She knelt beside the man’s head and opened his eye with her gloved fingers. From there she opened his mouth, then examined his neck, trunk, and limbs.
She stood, snapping the gloves off her hands. “In addition, Mr. Doe has brown eyes with no sign of petechial hemorrhaging. His airways appear clear and open. His neck is unblemished and otherwise unremarkable. He’s displayed in an open-armed crucifixion-like pose. His hands and feet show signs of calluses, as if he were accustomed to manual labor and walked barefoot frequently.
“No jewelry, billfold, watch, or other identification is on the body or at the scene. With no obvious cause of death, I suggest you run an extended tox screen to check for poisons. There is no sign of a struggle, no obvious means of death. The body is in full rigor, and decomp is just beginning. I estimate time of death as being less than twenty-four hours. If I had my equipment, I could be more definitive.”
The sheriff took a long moment to consider Gail’s findings, then a fleeting smile crossed her lips. “You’re quite thorough, Dr. B. As usual.”
Usual? What the hay? Were these two best friends?
Gail stretched and preened in that arrogant, self-satisfied way she had. “I would like to assist with the autopsy. Two sets of eyes are better than one. If there’s an injection site, or a bug bite on his body, I’ll find it.”
“As long as the coroner is on board. Powell, you’re up next.”
I waved them aside. “If you ladies would step back, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.” I’d been analyzing the scene while Gail ran through her paces. Thanks to my studying up on crime scenes between cases, I’d learned a bit about professional observation.
“Do you want a pair of gloves?” the sheriff asked.
“No thanks. It’s hard for me to get a reading with gloves. Like Dr. Bergeron, I see no sign of a physical struggle, no obvious wounds. The body looks placed, as if he died elsewhere and was deposited here. His limb position reminds me of compass ordinals, but that may not be significant.”
I glanced around again. There were no objects nearby, no way to tell what the victim or his killer might have touched. The only thing left to do was to try my Spidey senses.
“That’s not much to go on, I know, so I’ll try a dreamwalk next. Please keep your distance from me during this time.”
I lay down beside the body, and my tattoos heated. My supernatural mentor must be in the vicinity. Cool. Rose, are you here? Rose didn’t answer, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t interested in what I was doing. “I’ve never solved a case on the first dreamwalk. Oftentimes, the people don’t realize they are dead. They don’t know how to be spirits.” I paused, catching the sheriff’s eye. “I need to touch him. That all right?”
“Sure, but grab the arm instead of the hand. I want to make sure the coroner swabs the hands for DNA.”
I reached for John Doe’s arm and plunged down a rabbit hole.
Chapter Eight
What is it with spirits and total darkness? Why can’t they transition to the netherworld with open eyes and rainbow brightness? Because they don’t want to be dead, I reasoned. With closed eyes, they can deny anything is happening to them.
At last, the darkness thinned to a familiar murk. I’d made it through the transition to the Other Side. Distorted sounds tumbled at me like a plastic bag in an errant wind. Standing still made me feel like a target. I trudged forward, waiting for the vision to unfold. A group of bad-boy spirits wandered by with jeers and catcalls. I growled at them, and they moved on.
I summoned the dead guy’s face to mind, and the oddest thing started happening. Black and white cartoon images flashed before my eyes, flipbook style. A stick man appeared, followed by a bouncing ball. More detail appeared on the page, and the stick figure was now sporting a skirt and corkscrew curls. A doorway appeared beside her. A much larger figure appeared behind her, mouth turned down in a frown. Tears flowed from the woman. The big figure shouted “Go.” The stick woman walked through the doorway and vanished.
The words “THE END” flipped by. Then I heard children’s voices, saw their faces. Young boys about Larissa’s age.
“It’s mine. I found it,” Blue Shirt insisted.
“Nuh-uh.” Red Shirt tried to wrest the flipbook from the other boy. “You got to keep the last one we found here.”
Blue Shirt stashed the book in his pants pocket. “Can’t help it if I’m a better finder than you.”
Red Shirt kicked the floor, rustling old newspapers that littered the wooden planks. “This place is creepy. What does he do out here?”
Blue Shirt’s eyes rounded. He pointed up, to the rafter. A fat spider clung to an old fraying rope. Red Shirt followed his gaze. Both boys yelled, “Ayyyyy!” and ran out of the shack.
But the vision didn’t follow them. Instead, the room fluttered and then came into crisp focus again. The perspective was different, higher. Another person had watched the boys from the rafters.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The scene shifted again. The boy from the rafters reappeared near me, but he looked older, teenaged possibly. He wore a grimy white T-shirt and torn jeans. He had close-cropped dark hair and dark eyes like our victim. “Haney,” he said in a cotton-soft drawl. “My friends call me Haney.”
Finally. I was on the right track. “You make the flipbook?”
“I did.”
“What does it mean?”
“What does anything mean? How’d I get here? I haven’t seen my dad’s fishing shack in years.”
A lie. He knew this place well. “Is the cabin on the reservoir?”
“Who are you? Did you drive me here?”
“I’m … a traveler. I stopped because of you. This place have a name?”
He shook his head, drifted toward the rafters again. His appearance altered until he once again looked younger, gangly like a boy. “Mama told me not to talk to strangers.”
“It’s okay,” I said. Was he regressing in age with each thought? Was this part of the process of accepting you were dead? “I’m trying to help. What’s your mom’s last name?”
He muttered something I couldn’t quite catch. “Haney, pleas
e, tell me your last name.”
“None of your beeswax.” He picked up an old broom, began working it across the unfinished floor. “I have chores to do, so go away. Daddy will beat me if I’m not done when he gets back.”
This was the part I hated, but why let him spend eternity pushing a broom? “Haney, you don’t have to do chores ever again. Your dad can’t hurt you now. Something made you want to share this life scene with me.”
Haney leaned on the scruffy broom, which was nearly as tall as he was. “You don’t make any sense.” Suddenly he whirled and threw the broom at me. Since neither I nor the broom had actual mass, the broom went right through me.
The boy gasped and recoiled. “Are you dead? Are you a ghost?”
“Not dead, but I’m temporarily a spirit like you.”
“I’m no spirit. I have a family, and they will be home for supper soon. Mama’s fetching vegetables from the garden. Daddy’s fishing. I’m cleaning the house.”
“You’re dead, Haney. I’m sorry to break the news to you.”
He scanned the room. “I can’t be dead.” Without warning, he vanished.
I hated it when that happened. At least I’d gotten a name. The cops would have something to start with. Might as well go home, because if past experience was any indication, Haney wouldn’t show himself again right away.
A flutter of wings sounded behind me. I whirled, ready to go on the offensive, but it was Rose, my Other World mentor and guide, decked out in her badass biker clothes. Tattoo ink blackened both her arms and neck. Her heavy, Goth-styled makeup and blackened fingernails added to her sinister appearance. Just what the day needed to be perfect. A visit from a powerful entity with a bad attitude.
Chapter Nine
Rose’s leather outfit creaked like an old saddle as she moved to my side. “Catch a new case?” she asked. She generally adopted one of two personas when we met up. Today she was in biker chick mode. A leather halter top and miniskirt, along with perilously high-heeled boots, barely covered enough of her tattooed body for decency.
I’d met Rose when my dad got lost on the Other Side. We’d done a deal to get him back. Ever since then, this undercover angel in the demon realm thought she owned me. I didn’t want to anger Rose, but I wouldn’t roll over and play dead either. I barred my arms across my chest. “I did. What’s it to ya?”
“Disrespect doesn’t cut it,” Rose said, morphing to her fearsome Medusa-headed, larger-than-life size before returning to her biker-babe human size. “You belong to me.”
I’d been pushed around enough today by rude people. Time to redraw equitable boundary lines for this opportunistic spirit. “I belong to no one. We’re associates. On an equal footing.”
Rose smiled. The sinister curve of her dark lips, the fiery glow in her eyes, the malice lancing out from her in jagged pulses was scarier than anything I’d ever seen. Worried, I glanced around for a boulder or a cave—any place to hide from Rose—but there was nothing solid in the land of the dead, only unrelenting gloom. Merciful heavens. Had I trusted the wrong entity?
My right arm flapped sideways like a chicken wing, then my left. Terrified, I tried to bring them under control, but my animated limbs kept moving of their own accord. What was this? How was this possible? My thoughts stuttered and spun. I couldn’t control my spirit-body. Was this the end? Would I ever see my family again?
“Still think we’re equal associates?” Rose leaned in close, her sulfur stench nearly knocking me down. “Every being in here is free game in the war of souls. I told you from the start there was a cost to our association. Sure, I charged you a toll for my help, but every time we work together, some of my essence lingers inside you. Remember that, the next time you think about getting uppity with me. I own you, apprentice. You are truly my minion.”
My arms fell limply to my side, and I wanted to crawl into a sinkhole and hide for the next millennium. Daddy warned me about the rules of traversing the veil. He’d made it through his entire dreamwalker career without ever making a bargain with anyone over here. I’d been doing this for less than a year, and from all appearances, I’d bartered my soul away without realizing it.
But I’d saved my father. And Gentle Dove. At the time, I thought the end justified the means: an hour of my life in return for each favor. That hadn’t changed. Rose may have influence over me, but my thoughts were still my own.
“I can hear you, worm,” Rose sneered. “Bow down to your maker.”
My knees gave way of their own accord. Rose again. She laughed, a maniacal blast of noise like supertankers scraping together. Instinctively, I covered my ears and closed my eyes, but nothing blocked that metal-on-metal screech. I couldn’t stop trembling.
“What do you want?” I managed to stammer out, afraid to look up. Afraid to do anything.
“Total obedience,” she said.
Rose smiled again, sinister and malevolent. Then she faded from sight.
I scrambled to my feet. Glancing around the gloom, I hugged myself. Shivers ran down my spine. I had to get out of here. Now.
I tried to get home but nothing happened. My spirit seemed stuck in this realm. The thought stirred my feet into action. I ran down a long corridor of fog until I had a stitch in my side. Everything looked the same, no matter where I went.
Rose. She was messing with me. I shook my head and tried to force my spirit back into my body. No matter what I tried, the passageway home refused to open.
“You win, Rose.” I sank to my knees and pleaded for her help. “I can’t do this without you.”
Chapter Ten
“Baxley? You in there? Can you let go of the dead guy? The coroner’s arrived, and they want to move him now.”
My good friend Charlotte’s voice penetrated my fugue, hovering around the edges of total exhaustion. My fingers were so cold I couldn’t work them. As sensation returned, I flexed the pins-and-needles feeling from my left hand, but the right remained locked on Haney’s body.
“She’s waking up,” Charlotte said. “Give her another minute.”
The daylight seemed thin, the rim of the sky burnished with rust. I’d made it back to the land of the living, but at what cost? Who was I? What was I?
Something warm brushed against my hand. Charlotte’s stable energy added another level of comfort. “Thank you,” I managed to say. People hovered nearby as if I were a three-headed monster. A snort blasted out my nose. Maybe I was.
“Mom, I have Elvis,” Larissa said. “Do you want to hold him?”
I didn’t want to frighten my daughter. I had to do better than this. “I’m okay. You keep him for now.” With that, I pushed up to a sit from my prone position. Cops scattered. Did they think I’d zap them with lightning bolts or nightmares? Could they smell Rose’s sulfur stench on me? It filled my head. “Thanks, Char. I’m good now.” Her hand uncovered mine, and I released the victim. “His name is Haney.”
The sheriff knelt down beside me, pen and notepad in her hand. “First or last name.”
“Nickname, I think. He said folks call him Haney.” I waved her forward and told her the rest in a soft voice. She may have trusted everyone here, but her crew were strangers to me. “Said his family had a place near here. It has open rafters like a barn. Outside it looks like a log cabin. I’m not sure if the shack is still around, but he mentioned a garden. I saw a noose hanging from the rafters. I think something bad happened there. Haney seemed to be a loner. He showed me a scene from his childhood where the other boys his age snuck in his home and were afraid of him.”
“You get an address? A landmark?”
“I told you. The first contact with a victim is usually unproductive. Haney didn’t even know he was dead. He freaked out once I told him.”
“Seems like you should have known better.”
I didn’t care for her tone. I was cold, hungry, and exhausted. “Look, lady, I did you a favor. This information is relevant to who your victim was, to the events that shaped his life. I can’t tell y
ou anything more just yet. Locate the cabin, and I’ll be able to contact him again.”
“Can’t you touch him again tomorrow for another reading?”
“Doesn’t work that way. I’ll get the same reading from him again. You find anything else while I was out?”
“No car, no boat, no footprints,” the sheriff said. “It’s as if he was dropped here by an alien spaceship. Deputy Mayes keeps insisting the Little People are responsible, but I don’t put any credence in superstition or folklore. I wouldn’t believe in you, if not for Sheriff Thompson.”
Good old Wayne. What had he been telling his sheriff buddies? We would definitely have a conversation about boundaries when I returned home. With each breath, I felt stronger, more able to get up and walk out of here. I scanned the sky again. Seemed like late afternoon, by the sun’s position.
If Charlotte and Larissa were here, I must’ve been dreamwalking for several hours. They’d gone to lunch and a movie in another town. Dreamwalks weren’t usually so long. Fifteen minutes or so, max.
Where had I been?
Why couldn’t I remember?
“What time is it?” I asked.
“A little after four.” Gail Bergeron knelt in front of me, stethoscope around her neck. “Let me check you again before you stand.”
“Good idea,” the sheriff said, edging out of the way.
“Where’s that stethoscope been?” I asked, remembering that our former coroner, Dr. Sugar, used his exclusively on dead people. I shielded my senses before she touched me. The lateness of the hour startled me. Dreamwalks didn’t last this long. Something had gone wrong.
Rose had been messing with me on the Other Side. She wanted total obedience. I couldn’t give it to her. I wouldn’t, no matter what she did to me.
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