Kirsten Weiss
The Shamanic Detective
Book Three in the Riga Hayworth Series
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2012 Kirsten Weiss. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites and their content.
misterio press / eBook edition October 2012
Cover image: Night of the Crows © Zacarias da Mata – Fotolia.com
Skull with Rusty Gears Illustration © jpldesigns - Fotolia.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9855103-3-6
ISBN-10: 0985510331
Visit the author website: www.kirstenweiss.com
Chapter 1
Riga turned her back on the sheriff’s station, a gingerbread house at night. Snow, glittering beneath the parking lot lamps, frosted its eaves. Dark pines formed an uneven backdrop. But the cheerful lights from its windows were mocking, and the starless sky a smothering darkness.
She’d failed.
Donovan Mosse, her lover, was inside, under arrest.
She remembered the shock and defiance on his face when the first cuff was snapped in place. She remembered how they’d led him down the steps of the wooden deck, hands pinioned behind his broad back. She remembered the sunlight, glinting mercilessly off the snow, off the crystalline lake, off the black window of the agents’ departing SUV.
She remembered, and the memories, only hours old, seemed unreal.
Riga stopped beside her Lincoln, fumbling in the pocket of her ski vest. After Donovan’s arrest, she’d come straight to the station, still in her sports gear from their cross-country jaunt, her skin musty with sweat.
The keys slipped from her fingers, dropping to the wet snow. She bent to retrieve them, and paused, crouching, one hand resting lightly against the fender. Riga clenched her jaw. She would not cry, dammit.
The turning of a knob. The scrape and bang of a door flung open. Riga stood and looked behind her. Light spilled from the station’s open door, silhouetting a slim, feminine figure in a long coat.
The woman strode down the wooden steps and stopped at the bottom, head turning. “Miss Hayworth? Riga?” The door slowly swung shut, the beam of golden light narrowing, vanishing.
“Here.” She raised a hand in acknowledgement, recognizing Donovan’s attorney, Sharon Williamson. One of his attorneys, Riga mentally corrected.
The lawyer moved smoothly across the parking lot, her red woolen coat flaring about the knees of her pencil skirt, her coffee-colored skin sallow beneath the yellowish lights. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“Has something changed? Can I see him?”
“Not tonight.” The attorney bowed her head. Her hair was close cropped, and Riga thought she could see gray amidst the tight curls. Riga was getting older too, but she wore forty-something like it was thirty-something – her personal brand of magic.
“I’m sorry about Jack,” Sharon said. “He’s a good attorney, but he can be a little rough.”
“He was honest. I wasn’t helping, just getting in the way.” But her eviction from the station had stung.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you look like hell, even for a Rita Hayworth clone.”
Riga winced. Her parents had thought their play on names clever, and been horrified when she’d grown up to be a dead ringer for the silver screen goddess, with her wavy, auburn hair, and heart shaped face. The only difference was the eyes. Riga’s were violet, and tonight, shadowed by worry.
“Get some sleep,” Sharon said. “We’ll reconnect in the morning, have a better sense of things.”
“What’s going on, Sharon? Why the FBI?”
Sharon thrust her hands into her pockets. “Mr. Mosse has been accused of money laundering.”
“I know.” It was the only thing about his arrest she knew, and it made no sense to her. The casino was Donovan’s heritage, his life, and he’d moved from Vegas to Lake Tahoe to save it. Business had fallen since California had legalized Indian casinos, and Donovan had thrown everything into revitalizing his place in Stateline, Nevada. He would never jeopardize his business so stupidly.
So why the sick feeling in her gut?
“What do you know about money laundering?” Sharon asked.
“Just the basics.” She was a metaphysical detective, and money laundering wasn’t the sort of case she usually caught. “The goal is to make it look like the dirty money came from somewhere legitimate. In the case of a casino, criminals invest in them to clean their cash. Since casinos are still cash businesses, it’s easy to blend the dirty money in. But Donovan’s casinos are privately owned by him and his family – there are no outside investors.” Riga paused, looking to the lawyer for confirmation. When Sharon didn’t comment, she continued. “Another method is for criminals to buy chips, keeping the amounts under the reporting requirements. They place a few bets, cash out the chips as winnings, get a receipt, pay the taxes: voila, clean money.” The facts were steadying, dry, objective, something for her to cling to, a noose.
The lawyer nodded. “In both cases, there’s someone on the other end, someone who needs the money cleaned. Organized crime, drug dealers, terrorists—”
“No.” Riga blanched. “Not Donovan. He’s a good man. And even if he wasn’t, he would never jeopardize his business so stupidly, never put himself in the power of criminals.” He was too independent, too strong-willed for that. It went against everything she knew about him. “I need to see him.”
“You will,” Sharon said, “as soon as we can arrange it. He wants to see you too. But the FBI is viewing him as a suspect and as a witness. He’s in protective custody. Right now, the feds and his legal team are the only ones who can get close to him. But we’ll get you in.”
Riga’s throat tightened. “Thanks.”
“We’re lucky he’s being held so close by. The FBI has a substation in Stateline so they’ll be holding him here, at the sheriff’s station, until they can bring him to the federal building, where he’ll appear before a magistrate.”
Riga nodded.
“That’s actually not why I came out here,” Sharon said. “It’s about your ring. I haven’t been able to get it back yet.”
She looked blankly at Sharon. “My ring?” Riga didn’t wear a ring.
“Mr. Mosse said he was holding it when he was arrested. The police are keeping it with all his other personal effects. He was adamant about getting it back to you, but I’m sorry, I haven’t made any progress. It’s evidence now.”
Riga leaned dizzily against the car. The ring.
“Don’t worry,” Sharon said. “If it’s yours, we’ll get it back. Is it a family heirloom?”
“No,” she croaked. Riga turned away, her vision wavering. Roughly, she thrust the key into the lock, yanked the door open. “It�
��s an engagement ring.”
Chapter 2
Riga closed the door of the cabin behind her and flipped on the light. Her breath steamed before her in the frigid air. She had rented the Lake Tahoe cabin because it was cheap – a living room, open kitchen, and single bedroom, which had been graffitied in a recent break-in through the shoddy back door. The place didn’t look inexpensive, it looked tawdry, with its peeling linoleum and worn southwestern carpets. The seventies were calling – they wanted their furniture back, burnt orange and stained couches, and overstuffed chairs.
Riga should do something about the chill, light a fire. But a weight pressed upon her. Too much effort. All she wanted was to curl into a ball beneath the covers of her bed.
On the mantel above the red brick fireplace, the stone gargoyle shifted, its talons clamping and unclamping. “Were you successful?” The gargoyle’s voice was a rasp – Lauren Bacall with a French accent.
“They wouldn’t let me see him.”
The gargoyle, Brigitte, made a disgusted noise. She sprang from the mantel, landing upon a square end table. It collapsed beneath her weight, and she fluttered upward on stony wings, before settling amidst the wreckage – books and pencils and splintered plywood. “Monsieur Mosse is wealthy. Powerful. This sort of man attracts enemies. They will gather like vultures, Riga. You must be prepared.”
Riga walked to the kitchen, uncorking a beer bottle she’d filled with red wine to keep from oxidizing. She glanced about. Both her glasses were in the sink, their edges rimmed by lipstick stains. She shuddered, swigged the Zinfandel from the bottle. All she tasted was vinegar. She put the bottle back on the counter, jammed the cork in with the flat of one hand.
“You must sleep, Riga.”
She nodded, staggered into her bedroom and fell onto the bed.
She didn’t sleep.
At six A.M. she gave up, got out of bed, showered, and changed into yoga pants and a knit jacket. Brigitte perched upon the wooden rail of the back porch, watching in silence as Riga worked through her tai chi form. The slow movements failed to loosen the knots in Riga’s stomach as she stepped, blocked, kicked, heedless of the winter wonderland scene. She sank into her knees, palms out, and pushed an imaginary opponent. Between her fingers, the sun, low in the pines, glinted, a cruel mimicry of the ring she hadn’t accepted. She’d never gotten the chance.
Her chest tightened, and she dropped her hands to her sides.
“What is wrong?” Brigitte asked. “You did not finish.”
Riga looked away from the gargoyle to the woods. In the watery morning light, the pines cast slanting shadows, groping toward the cabin, cobalt fingers against the snow. “Someone’s coming.”
Brigitte cocked her head, a grinding sound. “Your magic? You sense this? I hear no—”
A knock at the door silenced her.
Riga hurried back inside, leaving the glass door open so Brigitte could follow. She moved swiftly to the door, unbolting the column of new locks, unhooking the chain, flinging the door open.
“Hello, Riga.” Donovan’s assistant, Isabelle, stood, tall and blond and chic in a long white leather coat. She walked in like she owned the place, looked like she wasn’t happy about it. Isabelle unbuttoned her coat, exposing a pale green, Jackie Kennedy-style suit, and swiped her ankle boots on the throw rug.
“How’s he doing? Have you seen him?”
Isabelle’s lips pinched, as if she tasted something bitter. “No. But my cousin’s a local cop. I know they’re treating Donovan well.”
Riga shut the door behind her.
Rocks scraped against the mantel. Resolutely, Riga did not look in the direction of the gargoyle.
Isabelle peeled off her leather gloves, nodded toward the smashed end table. “What happened?”
“It broke.”
“Hm.” She cocked her head. “Riga, we should talk.”
“Go ahead.”
“I understand it’s awkward,” Isabelle said, “but we think you should return to Donovan’s penthouse. There’s going to be a lot of press on this one, and the PR team thinks it will look like you’ve abandoned him if you stay away.”
“What have you heard?” Riga said. “How bad is this?”
“Bad. One of the accountants has rolled on him, and is apparently singing like a bird.”
As if her strings had been sliced, Riga fumbled behind her, sinking down against the back of the couch. “No. No, this has got to be a set-up.”
“Of course, it’s a set-up,” Isabelle snapped. “He wouldn’t do this without...” Her lips pressed together. Riga thought she could complete the sentence: without telling Isabelle about it.
“The accountant’s covering for someone,” Isabelle said.
“Who?”
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d be having this conversation with the feds.” Isabelle spat the last word. “Will you come back to the casino?”
“If you think it will help.” Living at the casino would make it easier for her to unearth the truth. And by God, she’d get it. But a part of her wondered if she’d like it.
“We’ve hired a private investigator,” Isabelle said, as if reading her thoughts. “I’m sure we’ll get this sorted out.”
Riga’s jaw clenched, and she nodded. She was too close to the situation, and money laundering wasn’t her field. But her pride had been stung. She was a private investigator, though licensed in California, not Nevada.
“Right,” Isabelle said. “Cesar and Ash are outside. They’ll take you back to the casino. There may be some press there. They’ll get you past the bastards.” She turned on her heel and left, the door bamming shut behind her.
Riga went to the door and opened it, looking across the driveway, covered in white.
Isabelle strode away, waving an acknowledgement to the two men, security from the casino. They trudged over the snowbank that had been thrust by a plow into her driveway yesterday.
Riga leaned against the door frame as the men approached, one black, one white, yin and yang.
The black man, Ash, stopped at the base of the porch steps, his lean musculature taut as a drawn bow. His toffee-colored eyes were cold, impersonal. “Yo.”
Cesar stepped up beside him. He was squatter, bulkier, marvelously ugly, his face covered by a spider-web of scars.
In their matching black parkas and jeans, they seemed in uniform, yin and yang.
Cesar drew the black ski cap from his head, and grinned at Riga, stretching the scar tissue into a new design. “Morning, Miss Hayworth. You ready to go?”
“No. Sorry. This was the first I heard of this scheme. I don’t have anything packed, haven’t even eaten breakfast.”
“Most important meal of the day,” Cesar said. “Go ahead and get packed, I’ll see what I can whip up.”
Ash followed her into the Spartan bedroom, watching while she yanked open the accordion closet doors. They shuddered, dragging and bumping across the shag carpet. Randomly, she pulled two silk blouses from their closet hangers, and tossed them on the bed.
“Don’t you eat?” Cesar called from the kitchen. “All you’ve got in here is booze and stale cheese.”
Riga didn’t reply. She’d been spending so much time at Donovan’s penthouse, she hadn’t bothered to keep her own cabin stocked. She wondered again what he was going through. Was Donovan alone, cooling his heels in a cell? Being interrogated? If she reached inside with her magical senses, she could feel his heartbeat, smell his musky scent. Riga blinked rapidly, her eyelids feeling gummy. She had to stop thinking like this; it was paralyzing.
With more attention than they warranted, she examined a pair of wide-legged khaki slacks, then threw them onto the bed as well. “Thanks for coming,” she said to Ash.
He shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice. Sharon told us to get out here, keep the press off your back.”
Riga grabbed her leather satchel, and jammed the clothing inside. “Sharon? Donovan’s lawyer? I thought Isabelle asked you to come.”
Ash strode to the high window, stared out. “Same difference, I guess. The orders were really Mosse’s. We’re all just working for him.”
Cesar appeared in the doorway. “I give up. Your kitchen beat me.”
She pulled more clothing off their hangers. “I wasn’t hungry anyway. I want to change before we go.” She tilted her head toward the door. “You mind?”
Silently, they filed out, and she closed the door behind them. She pulled her standard uniform from the closet – wide-legged khaki slacks, a crisp white blouse, and a colorful silk scarf Donovan had bought her as compensation for one he’d accidentally destroyed. Would she see him today? Standing before the full length mirror, she re-knotted the scarf three times before she was satisfied, then pulled on her suede safari jacket. It wasn’t cold enough for anything heavier.
They piled into Cesar’s SUV, Ash hefting Brigitte into the back seat, and drove down the winding hill to the highway.
Cesar braked, bringing his SUV to a halt, turn signal clicking. A long line of cars flashed past, sun glinting off their damp fenders. A local news van with a satellite dish on its roof lumbered by, headed in the opposite direction, toward Riga’s cabin.
She twisted in her seat, watching it crest the hill.
“Could the press have found my cabin?” It seemed incredible they would know about her existence. Or care.
Cesar pulled onto the narrow highway. “Yeah. They’re probably looking for you.”
Ash sniffed. “Why does this car smell like wet dog? You don’t still have that monster, do you?”
“Yeah.” Cesar leaned across Riga, and fumbled in the glove compartment, grabbing a plastic-wrapped cardboard Christmas tree. He tore it open with his teeth, and looped the air freshener beside the others hanging from the rear view mirror.
“I thought you were going to let someone else adopt it,” Ash said.
“One hundred and forty pound Caucasian sheepdogs aren’t easy to give away. Monster stays.”
The phone in the pocket of Riga’s safari jacket buzzed. She pulled it out, but didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
The Shamanic Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) Page 1