Death Song (Episode Eight: The Nightshade Cases)

by Larsen, Patti

  “Oh, I’ve found the book—and the artifacts I’ve been studying thanks to the Collective of All Souls, rather enlightening.” Let Margot chew on that bit of knowledge.

  Why wasn’t Kinsey surprised when her attempt to silence her grandmother with shock for a second time failed to hit the mark?

  “I’m well aware of your activities,” Margot snapped. “But I’m not calling for you, child.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Kinsey’s laugh came out cold while Juliette watched with guarded eyes. “Heaven forbid you actually talk to me about me, Grandmother. That we have a conversation about what we are and what we can do.”

  “It can wait for later.” Margot sounded resigned, the distant toot of a car horn telling Kinsey she was moving. “I need you to tell me if you’ve seen Dr. Panther in the last few days.”

  Cici? That question floored Kinsey. “What does Cici have to do with this?” Was she a paranormal? Come to mention it, Ray never said anything about seeing Cici’s death and since that was Kinsey’s made-up criteria for whether a person was human or paranormal, it seemed likely.

  Imagine that.

  “Just answer the question, Kinsey, would you?” Margot sounded agitated now, almost angry, impatient. For some reason, her change in attitude shifted something inside Kinsey. From her nervous need to please to annoyance.

  “She’s with Ray.” And that was all Margot would get from Kinsey on the subject.

  Margot’s renewed silence made Kinsey uncomfortable, though she refused to break the quiet herself. She would not give in to the need to ask her grandmother for information. Not this time. Even though it killed her not to.

  “I’m returning to Silver City.” Her grandmother didn’t sound happy about the prospect. “Stay away from Ocean Panther until I get there. And if you see someone following you, please, whatever you do,” she sounded long suffering, “don’t sic Geraldine on him. He’s with me.”

  She had someone watching Kinsey? No freaking way.

  Her grandmother’s voice took on an absent tone, as if she’d already dismissed Kinsey. “We’ll talk when I arrive.”

  “If I’m available.” Kinsey cut her off, so done with Margot’s crap she could barely speak. “I’m working a case. And figuring things out on my own.” Juliette’s amber eyes widened, one hand covering her gaping mouth. “When I’m ready to ask you questions, I’ll find you.” She hung up, breathless, and tossed the handset to the sofa where they both stared at it as though it would spring to life and kill them both.

  Needless to say, it didn’t. Nor did it ring again. Kinsey spun before Juliette could comment on her cold conversation with Margot to lunge for her kitchen window.

  It took her a moment to spot him, tall, dark and quiet, hanging out on a park bench across the street. He spotted her, waved, phone lifting to his ear. So, Margot called him, too, did she? Kinsey’s heart thudded in anger as she stormed to the door and out into the California heat.

  By the time she reached the bench, he was long gone, nowhere to be seen. Frustrated, irritated, scared, Kinsey spun in a circle, stomping one foot though she knew it made her look childish.

  “Stay away from me,” she yelled into the humid air. “I don’t care what she says. I see you near me, I’m going to shoot your ass.” It took her a moment of stomping return to her door to realize she’d seen him before. That he looked familiar. She pictured a night, a club, Exotica. The tall man with the gold ring she’d run into in the crowd, the night Myra Banks collapsed on Ray and later died.

  Her grandmother was having her followed even then?

  Screw it, like she cared. She had more important things to worry about.

  She had to call Ray.

  ***

  INT. – ATHERTON’S OFFICE – AFTERNOON

  Gerri should have taken Thomas and Moore with her. She knew it, understood this whole cooperation thing was important. That she was gaining a certain wild card, lone gunman reputation in the department. But it was so much easier to work alone.

  Or with her friends. Neither of which she felt comfortable calling on just now. Ray’s attitude still troubled her and the captain’s questions about Kinsey left Gerri feeling adrift and oddly alone. Of course, she trusted both women completely. She hated the tiny sparks of fear and concern that jangled around inside her.

  No wonder she was so damned cranky all the time. Sure that was the reason.

  The receptionist behind the glass desk at Atherton, Inc. offered a fake smile before dialing, muttering into her headset even as she gestured for Gerri to take a seat in the waiting room. She wasn’t alone. A handful of suited young men and women doing their best to look confident and important shifted in their seats as she sank into her own, crossing one cowboy boot over her knee and slouching on purpose.

  Their straight backs made her teeth ache.

  To her surprise, it was Terrance Atherton who emerged from behind the towering smoked glass doors behind the receptionist, who nervously approached her, smiling faintly.

  “This way please, Detective,” he said.

  Gerri followed him with a wink for one of the young professionals who had the nerve to look her up and down. Her ferocious grin made him swallow and look away.

  Kids these days. No respect.

  Terrance led her, not through the main doors of the vanilla front entry with its mind-numbing Muzak playing in the background and hushed, air-conditioned sterility, but across the lobby on the left, through a smaller, white door. The narrow hall on the other side led to a series of cubicles, and a small office on the end. Gerri’s free spirit felt sorry for the horde of young men and women—cookie cutter versions of the ones waiting in the lobby—on headsets and computers, working their lives away for corporate America.

  The very idea of a desk job gave her hives.

  It wasn’t until she entered the tiny office, Terrance closing the door behind her with another soft, apologetic smile, that he spoke.

  “Forgive us, but we’re in the middle of hiring for a new expansion.” He gestured for Gerri to take a seat in the small, uncomfortable looking chair on front side of his desk while he sat in his own. Piles of paperwork towered on both sides of his monitor, forcing him to shove them precariously close to the edge of the desk so he could see her. “Vayle is busy with interviews, but hopefully I can answer your questions.”

  He sounded nervous, her gut picking up on his anxiety. “What exactly do you do here, Mr. Atherton?” His type was high strung, brow beaten. She needed to set him at ease, if she could.

  “We’re diverse,” he said, seeming to relax into the topic. “Vayle likes to ensure we don’t commit fully to one business, just in case.” It really was sound thinking, but it appeared he was replaying a rote message. She wanted to talk to him, not his wife’s mouthpiece.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” She said it softly, without stressing the fact she chided him. But, he took it that way, stiffening against her.

  Poor bastard.

  “Telecommunications, mostly,” he said. “My division is sales and marketing for a variety of companies we contract out to.” Telemarketing. Nice. Gerri thought all that stuff was sourced out to other countries where they could pay pennies on the dollar. “We have the highest conversion rate in the country.” Pride. So he had a little of that left, did he?

  Good for him.

  “But, you’re not here to ask me about our business, Detective.” Terrance’s face fell. “Is Juliette all right?”

  “She’s not under arrest, if that’s what you mean.” Gerri’s gut grumbled, but didn’t accuse him of anything. Yet.

  “I’m sure my wife can answer your questions far better than I can,” he said. “The club was my idea, but she manages it.”

  Gerri had little doubt his part running the company was kept small and under firm control. “Actually,” she said, “I’m not here to talk to your wife. I came to see you.”

  Real nervousness this time. Almost uncomfortable, the stress reaction from him
filling the room with pheromones Gerri could taste in the air. He fidgeted a moment, voice shaking when he spoke.

  “I don’t know why you’d have questions for me,” he said.

  Liar. Like Gerri needed her instincts to tell her that. “I understand you have a close relationship with Ms. St. Clare.”

  He started visibly, paling, sheen of sweat appearing. His eyes widened, so wild Gerri worried he might have a heart attack on her.

  “Who told you that?” He hissed the question, rising suddenly, going to his door to listen at the jam before turning to face Gerri. “Did Vayle put you up to this?”

  Gerri tilted her head, observing him with a measure of amusement but more curiosity. He seemed too afraid to be a murderer, to take any kind of action outside what he’d already done. But crazy had no rules, sometimes.

  “Love letters and flowers, Mr. Atherton?” He looked sick. “Late night proposals of indecency?” Gerri was fishing with no proof, but Terrance’s guilty reactions were an open book. So, he’d propositioned the singer. “Follow through?”

  “Never.” Her gut growled, but agreed with him as he returned to his seat, sank into it, now mournful, no longer afraid. Everything about him sagged, a sad, middle-aged man who’d learned to accept his lot in life, with the only spark he had left taken away from him. “I adore Juliette. But she’s a lady and I’m a married man.”

  Gerri shrugged, über casual to keep him talking. “Being married hasn’t stopped adultery, Mr. Atherton.”

  He looked up from studying the surface of his cluttered desk, met her eyes, his full of despair. “You’ve met my wife,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t dare. She’d destroy me.”

  Innocent, Gerri’s gut said with a hint of empathy.

  “Can you tell me where you were the nights of the deaths?” She believed him, but needed her files complete, questions all in a row.

  He handed her a sheet of paper, as though prepared ahead of time for her request. “My schedule—and Vayle’s—for the past two months. We were out of town for the first death, across the city for the second and at our beach house Saturday night when Mr. Climpton died.”

  Gerri didn’t bother looking at the sheet, folding it and tucking it into her pocket. “You have witnesses to corroborate your whereabouts?”

  He nodded. “Employees, coworkers, friends.” He bit his lower lip. “Vayle doesn’t know about the letters and flowers.”

  In a moment of pity, Gerri sighed to herself. “I don’t see any reason why she needs to find out now.” She stood while his look of relief made her stomach churn. She shook his hand, thinking about Nate Witten and the second name he mentioned. “Do you recall a customer at the club, Gary Bunch?”

  Terrance’s face tightened. “He never misses a show.”

  “Any threats or contact that you recall with Ms. St. Clare?” Gerri watched Terrance’s expression change from anxiety to focus.

  “Not that I remember. And Juliette would have mentioned it. But I know Mr. Bunch is always present.” Terrance shrugged. “I see him when I watch the vids of her shows.”

  Okay, that was creepy. But this man was innocent, as far as Gerri’s evidence—and her gut—could tell.

  Gerri left the office, waving to the waiting sheep in the lobby, reaching for her phone. Time to bring in her so-called partners on this case. Just to be cordial.

  But first, she had to see Ray.

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY MORGUE – AFTERNOON

  Ray alternated between wanting to climb under one of the exam tables and considering punching the old bastard in the face as Dr. Daniel Druit continued to harangue her.

  “I’m going to bring you up on discipline charges with the board of physicians.” He’d been ranting for over five minutes, spittle sitting like white wave crests in the corners of his mouth, just visible around his white mustache, the bloodshot rims of his pale eyes giving him a corpse-like appearance himself. Ray swallowed bile rising against the vision of his death overlaid as he spoke, the dull yellow of his skin as his liver finally gave out and killed him. “How dare you even open one of my files? Question my work?” He thudded one fist against his chest with a hand that shook so badly she had no idea how he even held a scalpel, though it explained the wobble to his Y incisions. She’d become a medical examiner because of her ability to see the deaths of others, to solve murders and give families closure. He must have done it to prevent malpractice suits if he botched up working with the living.

  The dead didn’t have the same advocacy.

  Still, despite her newfound ability to stand up for herself, she’d been under her mother’s thumb too long to simply speak out and tell the old wanker where to shove his self-entitlement. And, he was right, as far as that went. Grateful for the detachment the connection to her power gave her, she sank into the chill of it and seemed to float, watching herself, pale faced and silent, as the nasty man shook and yelled and pointed fingers.

  Poor Robert stood off to one side, unable to assist since Dr. Druit told him to back off, screamed at him he was fired. Ray could hardly blame her assistant—Dr. Druit’s too—for keeping his mouth shut from then on. He had a fiancé to worry about, a career. And Ray was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  Ray snapped back into her own body as she realized that truth. She opened her mouth to tell the drunken bastard where to go. Interrupted as the swinging doors to the morgue slammed open and a familiar, looming redhead stomped through, face a mask of fury.

  Ray had seen Gerri angry countless times, of course she had. The detective always seemed to be on a hair trigger due in part, she supposed, to the recent understanding she carried what amounted to a werewolf inside her. And yet, as much as Ray was accustomed to Gerri’s temper, she’d never seen her angry with her own power under control. The sight of the wolf lurking, growling, its furred body surrounding the redhead like a gargantuan throwback to prehistory, filled Ray with a mix of dread and utter excitement.

  She almost missed the fact Gerri wasn’t alone, two men trailing along behind her. Ray recognized Detectives Moore and Thomas, but returned her focus to Gerri as Druit spun to face her, his fury at the interruption snapping into sullen anger at the sight of her.

  “Problem, Doc?” Gerri looked like she’d heard enough already, but was asking to give him a chance to recant.

  “I’m adding your name to my complaint, Meyers.” He made the mistake of pointing at her. Ray sighed inwardly. No one pointed at Gerri.

  The detective leaned in, teeth bared, the wolf growling around her so surreal Ray had to look away as cold sweat broke out on her upper lip at the rush of energy. She was shocked Druit wasn’t on his ass just from the sheer pressure of it. “That’s a great idea,” Gerri said. “Right after I haul your ass in for malpractice, asshole.” She poked him in return. “Maybe if you cut back on the sauce while on duty, Ray wouldn’t have to do your job for you.”

  He spluttered, but she’d won. Ray knew it, Gerri knew it. The smirking detectives knew it. Even Robert seemed to relax, raising both eyebrows at her.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Druit finally managed.

  Gerri shrugged. “Neither do I,” she said. “But I can rediscover it. At any time.” They both knew Druit shouldn’t be responsible for cases. That his drinking had become enough of a problem he really needed to retire. And, when Ray was ready, she’d suggest exactly that to her bosses. Considering everything she’d learned, been through, maybe that would be immediately.

  Like they didn’t know already. Best kept secrets and all that.

  Druit turned on Ray, cheeks red. “Mind your own cases,” he snarled.

  “This is her case,” Gerri said, nice and casual. “If you want to take it up with Captain King and 100PP, knock yourself out. For now, we have work to do and you’re clearly not in any kind of mindset to be helpful.” She paused, for effect, Gerri style. “You can go now.”

  Ray had always admired Gerri’s ability to intimidate, to bull
y, in fact. But, as Druit’s shoulders bent and his red face paled, when the man left the morgue in a hunched and beaten state, Ray found herself thinking about Cici and what she’d said. About being under Gerri’s control. She never wanted to be in that position.

  And though Gerri had never treated her that way, who was to say she never would?

  Ray. That’s who.

  “I ain’t never seen anyone take Druit down like that,” Moore laughed, with a hint of donkey bray in it, muddy brown eyes sparkling a moment in his plain face. His reaction made Ray even more uncomfortable. “You’re a freak of nature, Meyers.”

  Gerri scowled, but the detective missed it, only Ray catching the flicker of discomfort on her face. How she hated the freak label. Ray was beginning to embrace it.

  “You know these two morons?” Gerri jerked a thumb at the partners while Ray nodded.

  “Detectives.” She’d had brief dealings with both Moore and Thomas on cases since taking this job, familiar enough with them to know they were good cops, if a bit pedestrian and old fashioned in their ways. Still, they seemed to get their job done.

  “I take it Druit’s hissy fit means you’ve been examining the other two bodies?” Gerri’s brashness typically made Ray smile, but not today.

  “Dr. Druit’s investigations missed vital information, as I suspected.” She’d had both bodies exhumed, had just completed her dissection of their brains when he’d interrupted her. She rubbed her gloved hands together as she stepped back and gestured to the first body on the slab. He was still well preserved, only a few weeks dead, the embalming process eliminating some of her evidence, but not enough to mask the clotting left behind in his capillaries. “Same destruction of the vein structure of the brain, same cause of death as both the earliest victim and our most recent.”