"No," said Alvarez. “Same as with the gas pipe, we thought to check this out, too. It's weird, isn’t it?”
“Well . . . technically, it's weird," said Elena. "But it’s really common in poltergeist cases. Sometimes things get thrown that are hot enough to burn. It's definitely drawing energy from somewhere, and where there's heat, there's energy."
We all pondered on this for a second, all looking down at the chunk of metal poking out from the old rock floor.
"You ever heard of stone tape theory?" she asked Alvarez.
He shook his head. I was intrigued, and even our two extra agents seemed curious to learn more.
“Stone tape theory is where the rocks in walls can record history like a tape player, absorbing memories like a sponge. Then, over time, they get replayed over and over again as though they're stuck on a time loop. Maybe this last chunk of the original jail cells has some old recorded memories that were dormant until the wall was damaged."
We all looked over at the wall. From where we knelt it was less than six feet away.
"That’s an intriguing theory," said Alvarez. He wasn’t completely sold on the idea, but he wasn’t dismissing it, either.
Around us, the temperature dropped even further, but the chunk of metal in the floor was still so warm it was almost glowing. I had the urge to look over my shoulder as though I could sense someone was there, but as I turned I saw nothing but darkness.
"You feel it too," said Alvarez. "It's like there's always someone down here."
"It feels creepy, alright,” I said. "Almost sinister."
I looked towards Johnson and Kozlov and saw that no matter how much they tried to keep their composure, they also felt the ominous atmosphere. Goosebumps had risen up Johnson's arm and Kozlov was constantly looking behind her as though she could hear something.
"Come on," said Alvarez rising from the floor with a shiver. "Let's get upstairs."
Three hours had passed and we'd been in almost every room in the police station where disturbances had been reported. Even the ladies' room had been prone to rolls of toilet paper flying off the shelves and taps turning on by themselves.
"In this office, the IT guys keep hearing someone breathing behind them," said Alvarez.
We all nodded politely, but it was hard to pay attention any more. We'd been subjected to a long list of unexplained events, and the fear factor had worn off after hearing the twentieth story. Even Johnson had stopped scribbling in his notepad and was now leaning against the wall with his arms folded. Kozlov, who had been strangely quiet for most of the time was now staring absent-mindedly out the window as though she yearned to be outside.
"Okay," I said, trying to remember it all off the top of my head. "We've had screaming from the oldest part of the building, a hot chunk of steel bars coming out of the basement floor, mysterious lights resembling torches, general banging, yelling, hair being pulled, objects teleporting through walls, scratches and knocking on the walls, doors banging, the sense of being watched, cold spots, anything and everything from staplers to chairs being hurled across rooms, faucets shooting out scalding hot water, and last but not least, heavy breathing. Is that everything?”
"You've got a good memory there," said Alvarez. "I think that about sums it up."
"I don't think there's any other conclusion to draw other than it being a poltergeist," said Elena, sounding a bit bored. "Everything points to that being the case."
"There's just one thing that doesn’t make sense to me,” chimed in Kozlov, her dark eyes still fixed out the window.
We all turned towards her at the novelty of hearing her voice.
"Why bring in the FBI?" she mused. "And more to the point, why would the FBI be interested in the first place? According to Agent Rivera, poltergeist cases are a dime a dozen, so why is this one so special?"
She laid her chubby fingers to her chin as though she was stroking an imaginary beard, then slowly, she turned her head towards Alvarez.
"Why are we here?" she asked him. "What makes this poltergeist a matter of national security?"
A sheepish look came over Alvarez's face as he looked down at his shoes.
"I suppose I’ll have to tell you," he said with a great elongated sigh. “The reason you're here is . . . Fuck it—I'll just have to show you."
Once again we were following him down a long, grey corridor. We all walked in silence, partly exhausted, partly fascinated to find out what he was about to show us. Judging by the solemn look on Alvarez's face, he was carrying a heavy burden he wasn't too keen on revealing.
As we reached a narrower, older wing of the station, he unlocked a heavy steel door before punching in a security code as long as my phone number. Then, with his cheeks turning red, he waved us in.
"This is the evidence locker," he said, looking embarrassed. "We've had some real problems in here. Some serious problems."
“Okay. What kind of serious problems?" I asked.
He jingled his keys again and wrestled with the door of the evidence locker.
"See for yourself," he said, pushing the door open.
To our surprise, the entire evidence locker was empty. All we were looking at were bare shelves.
“Is it always this empty?”
“Nope,” Alvarez said sharply. “Damn poltergeist took damn near everything.”
“All of your evidence has been stolen?” gasped Johnson.
“Everything we had a record of,” said Alvarez. “Wait ’til you see what it was swapped out for.”
Taking his flashlight, he shined it on the bottom shelf. All I could see was a pile of rusty metal and chains clumped onto the dusty metal surface.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Handcuffs," he said, picking them up and showing us. "The kind they used here back in the eighteen hundreds."
6
Elena
"Wait, wait, wait," said Johnson, slamming his glass of beer down on the table. Unable to shake the agents auditing our every move, Logan and I had no choice but to break bread with these assholes. We were all sitting at a table in the hotel restaurant, where I was busy sucking down a mint-chocolate chip milkshake. My strategy to avoid calling them fuckwads to their face was to avoid alcohol and keep shoving food into my mouth.
So far it was working.
“You mean to tell me that you actually believe all the stuff in the evidence locker was stolen by a ghost? And for what, a prank?"
"Yeah," I said with a shrug as I gulped down the mouthful of creamy, delicious ice cream. “That’s like, page one of the ‘How to be a Poltergeist’ handbook.”
Unconvinced, he shot me a deadpan look across the table and took a sip of his beer.
“Fine. It’s more like page seven or eight of the ‘How to be a Poltergeist’ handbook,” I admitted. “But their whole reason for existing is to fuck with people and get noticed. Poltergeists do all sorts of weird shit. I've seen them empty out people's fridges and leave nothing but a pile of rusty nails in the vegetable drawer."
“How did you ever join the bureau?” Johnson sneered. “You’re honest-to-goodness batshit crazy.”
He had less than half a glass of beer in him, but the liquid courage was starting to kick in.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, leaning towards him. “I guess if I’m batshit crazy, then you won’t take it personally when I say that you’re a gross little toad-man who wouldn’t know a good time if it—”
“Elena, I’m going to stop you right there,” Logan interrupted, and grabbed the milkshake out of my hands. “Johnson, do yourself a favor and don’t poke the bear. I’m only going to warn you once.”
Johnson glanced nervously into Logan’s face, then back to mine.
“I’d like my milkshake back. Now.”
“Go easy on Johnson, will you?” Logan said, his blue eyes twinkling as he held back a grin. “It’s not his fault he’s the FNG”
I snorted a laugh as I remembered the first day I met my partner. I called him the Fucking New Guy
right to his face and treated him accordingly. Yeah . . . I was pretty outraged that Chief Harris had the nerve to give me extra help. Turns out I needed it, although I didn’t know it at the time.
That seemed so long ago.
Now Logan was grinning at me from across the table, and here we were, breaking in a couple of FNGs all over again. Together.
He pushed my milkshake back in my direction. When I went to grab it, my fingers brushed against his, and shivers went down my body, simultaneously both hot and cold. I knew Logan had once said he never wanted to mix business with pleasure, but that sure as hell didn’t explain why he was blushing.
It was late, and the restaurant lighting was dim, but I distinctly saw my partner blush. My big, tall, beefcake partner with the rippling muscles who ran every morning and always smelled delicious . . . especially for a human. I didn’t usually find humans attractive at all, but Logan was different.
He knew the truth about who I really was, and what I really was. He knew that I hated tank tops because they always showed off my wing spurs, a remnant of my winged faerie ancestors. He’d watched me use my faerie magic to bring a crushed dandelion back to life . . . and then a crushed black cat, who was probably shedding long black hair all over his hotel pillow.
Along with knowing how much value I put on a mint-chocolate chip milkshake, Logan knew how to push all my buttons and then turn on the release valve.
I swiped my finger into the whipped cream on my milkshake and stole another look at Logan. He was still smiling. Still blushing. Still hoping no one else noticed. What was he blushing for, if he wasn’t thinking some of the same things I was? If only I could crawl inside his brain and find out what he thought about me. Did it involve whipped cream? A cherry? Nuts?
So help me . . . I needed to break this dry spell come hell or high water. How long had it been since I’d had sex? Like, really good sex? A year? A year and a half?
“Rivera, I—I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” stammered Johnson, jerking me out of my private thoughts. "I'm just saying that it's pretty hard to believe a ghost is responsible for the evidence locker. That doesn’t make me a bad agent, does it?"
“No,” I admitted. “That’s the hardest part about working in the OCD, because you can’t believe everything that you’re told, but you have to believe everything you see and feel. You have to be open to things that don’t make rational sense.” I stuck another spoonful of minty ice cream into my mouth before continuing. "I know it sounds crazy, but I’d bet money that poltergeist put those handcuffs in the evidence locker.”
“But why?”
“Easy. To show us that they have a connection with the old jail cells. That’s the only time when prisoners would’ve worn handcuffs like those."
"I dunno," said Johnson, shaking his head and looking at his partner. “What do you think, Katrina?”
Agent Kozlov shrugged and set down her roast beef sandwich. “I’m going to have to disagree with you, Rivera. I don't see how a ghost from the eighteen hundreds could clear out an entire evidence locker and replace everything with some rusty old handcuffs. Even if I believed in ghosts—which I don’t—it doesn’t make sense how a spirit without a physical body could move other physical objects.”
"So what do you think happened?"
He thought for a second and swirled the beer around his glass.
"I think they made it all up."
"What? Really?"
"Yep."
Logan’s dark eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.
“That’s a pretty substantial blow to their professional reputations,” Logan said. “Not to mention how hard it would be to get every single employee to agree on the same story. Why would they do that?"
Johnson leaned back in his seat and looked up at the ceiling. Aside from a group of retirees drinking port at the bar, the place was empty. I looked across the table to Kozlov who was quietly sipping on her glass of tap water, her eyes barely moving from Logan's face. Meanwhile, Logan was trying his best to pretend she wasn't burning a hole in him with her eyes and kept his gaze firmly between me and Johnson.
I hated the bar, hated the music, and I wasn't too keen on our company. At least I wasn’t hungry anymore. The food was really good. I just didn’t like feeling so awkward and out of place in such a fancy hotel. All I wanted to do was go to my room and crash. But with Johnson still cooking up ideas in his head, it didn't look like we’d get away any time soon. I slurped the last of my shake for a full five seconds, making sure there was no confusion that I was done eating.
"Well?" I asked, retrieving my reusable straw before pushing away the empty glass. "Why would an entire police station make up a story about a poltergeist. They’re not doing it for publicity.”
Johnson gulped down more beer leaving a frothy white mustache over his top lip.
"Look, there's no point beating around the bush," he said, wiping his mouth. "You wanna know what I think? I think the cops in that place picked that evidence locker clean, and then made up some B.S. about a poltergeist so that none of them take the blame.”
“Then how do you explain the rusty old handcuffs?” I asked. “Alvarez said they keep reappearing every time they return them to the historical museum.”
“It could be a red herring,” Johnson said with a shrug. “Maybe they’re not even the same pair. I’m sure an antique shop has stuff like that lying around . . . especially in an old western town like Mariposa.”
“Still . . . ” I wondered aloud. “It’d be nice to know if the handcuffs are the same ones that were used at the old police station.”
“I saw a sign earlier for the Mariposa History Museum,” said Logan. “We should stop by tomorrow. They’d know if the handcuffs were the real deal or not. If they turn out to be authentic, then at least we know whoever keeps putting them in the evidence room has an eye for detail.”
“And if they're not real,” Johnson added, “then bingo—we've debunked the whole thing. Isn't that right, Katrina?"
"Yes," replied Kozlov flatly before turning her attention back to her lukewarm water.
"I suppose that explanation is plausible,” I said. “Except I've seen too many similar occurrences. And think about Alvarez—he’s a credible guy and he’s obviously been affected by everything going on. I don’t think he’s making this stuff up.”
"Maybe he's not," said Johnson. "He might be the one person who’s out of the loop. It would be easy for a group of officers to fake the phenomena, throw stuff around, and make creepy noises whenever Alvarez's around. And keep in mind that people believe the weirdest shit these days, like the earth is flat, or the latest phone network is going to nuke its customers, or that there’s a group of celebrities who secretly get together and eat babies. If people actually believe that stuff, then it’s not a stretch that Alvarez believes there's a ghost in his building.”
"Hmmm . . . ”
I hated to admit it, but Johnson made some excellent points. He might’ve been onto something. In this line of work, sometimes I'd show up on a case only to discover it was a group of punkass kids, or a widower who’d taken too much heart medication and was hallucinating from sleep deprivation. One time I arrived at the scene of a supposed demonic possession of a fourteen-year-old boy only to discover he'd faked the whole thing to get out of going to school. He’d gotten a boner in choir practice and was being teased mercilessly for it.
Still, there were a few details about this poltergeist case that I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t explain it to my colleagues . . . not yet. It was a feeling, a vibe that we were dealing with something real. It was a skill that could only be honed by years of experience in the field. And when we were down in that room where the old jail cells used to be, I could genuinely feel the darkness and oppression in that space. I could sense the invisible eyes staring at me.
Could Johnson be right? Could it all be a setup to protect a few bad officers who stole from the evidence locker? And if so, what did they take and why?
"Fuck, my brain's fried from all of this," I said, and hoisted my tired body out of my chair. "I'm calling it a night."
7
Logan
I wished I’d left with Elena, but part of me felt sorry for Agent Kozlov and Carl, as he insisted I call him. I got the impression neither one of them socialized much outside of work, although I could easily imagine Carl arguing with his family at every holiday or get-together. His need to be right all the time was useful in accounting, but not so great when it came to human interaction. It was even worse with a faerie. I was surprised that Elena hadn’t punched him in the face or willed a raincloud to follow him around indefinitely. I suppose her magic didn’t quite work that way, even if her tiny fists were more than capable of breaking bones.
After shoehorning myself out of the conversation, I slipped up to my room. Lafayette was sleeping right in the middle of the bed.
“What did you bring me to eat?”
I scrubbed my hand down my face and groaned.
“Aw, man, I completely forgot. Can I make it up to you tomorrow?”
“You’re the worst.”
A fluffy black tail twitched as the owner of that tail judged me. Being used to it, I kicked off my shoes and took off my gun and got ready for bed.
“Other than me forgetting to bring you a snack, how was your day?” I asked, trying to make conversation . . . with my cat.
“I saw a phainopepla today, so you can check it off my birding life list.”
With my electric toothbrush occupying one hand, I got out my phone and opened the birdwatching app to find the phainopepla and mark it as seen. When it came to Lafayette’s life list, I didn’t mess around.
I pulled back the corner of the covers, although the feline in the center of the king-sized bed refused to move. It was remarkable how a nine-pound animal could take up a quarter of the bed.
Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2) Page 6