Feast of Shadows, #1

by Rick Wayne

  “Detective Chase,” she muttered. “The fly in my ointment. Or is it on my windshield? I can never remember.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Gran. How long’s it been? Couple months?”

  “Has it?” She picked up her needles again and resumed knitting. “Doesn’t seem that long. Well, not long enough, anyhow.”

  She was in worse shape than at our last encounter. She looked frail. Her white hair seemed a little thinner. She didn’t even bother to pin it back anymore, and tangled tufts of it moved with the breeze. She wore a flower-print smock over a farm dress with a modern winter coat pulled over both, the kind with a line of fake fur around the hood. She had dirty work boots on her feet. The laces weren’t tied. Except for the lack of a shopping cart, she looked like a bag lady.

  “Yeah, I missed you, too,” I said, turning from the waves to smile at her. “What’cha makin’?”

  I couldn’t make it out, but knowing the old witch, it wasn’t a wee doily.

  She kept her eyes on her handiwork. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t. A little birdie told me I should come at the turn of the tide, when Fate hangs in the balance.”

  “Is that so?” She snorted in disgust. “Word on the street is you had a run-in with a particularly nasty ghoul recently and that it got its pound of flesh.”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t a pound. Just an ounce or two. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, now would you?”

  She kept knitting.

  “I thought so. Fucker was too old and powerful to be free range. Where’d you find him? Stuck inside some old artifact?”

  My friend the witch doctor had recently come to America. He didn’t know that Gran took a cut. She informed him, politely, that he owed her 20% of his wages. For protection. He agreed—and started helping folks for free. Some woman baked him a pie once. To thank him. He sent Granny 20%.

  She didn’t find that funny.

  “I offered that poor fella my protection. He thought it better to make jokes. So I withdrew my protection and just look. He darn near lost his life. Just think what woulda happened if you hadn’t showed up outta the blue like that. So, where’s he hiding?”

  I shrugged. “Why’d you hit the banker? He refuse your protection, too?”

  She kept knitting.

  “Word on the street is, there’s some new player downtown. He muscling in on your rackets?”

  Nothing.

  “Come on, Granny. You know I’m gonna find out sooner or later.”

  She studied me with an odd look—a mix of curiosity, amusement, and disgust. “Seems to me there’s been a few incidents of late where you inserted yourself unwanted. You sure you’re alright, Detective?”

  “Worried about my health?”

  “It’s a dangerous line of work, what you do—the kinda life that takes a toll.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just getting warmed up. There was a helluva learning curve there for a bit, but now I’m hitting my stride.”

  “Could be so. Could be so,” she repeated. “Learned how to ask the animals and spirits, I see. But I have to tell ya. There are some real terrors out there. There are things buried under this city that you don’t know—can’t contemplate, even—and will never see coming.”

  “That a threat?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Just a fact, Detective. Just a fact.”

  We sat for a minute, neither of us caring to speak. I tried to make sense of the crescent shape she worked back and forth with her needles, but it meant nothing to me. I couldn’t even tell if it was the same thing she’d been working on before I sat down or if my presence had prompted her to make a change. Either way, I figured the longer I sat there, the more I put myself at risk of winding up in the blood garden.

  She sighed in frustration and dropped her needles in her lap again and clutched her shaking hands. She stared at the water. Then she lifted an arthritic finger to her face and pulled down the lower lid of her left eye. She kept the other eye closed as she scanned the people around us, up and down the boardwalk. When she was done, she let go and blinked several times.

  “The old Evil Eye,” she explained. “One of the first tricks you learn.”

  “That so?”

  “Everyone thinks its power is sending evil—curses and that—but for me the real value was always seein’ it.” She pointed. “The bearded fella leaning against the railing down the way, the one in the striped jacket with the plump face and the big smile.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a doting husband and father of three. He tests software and likes to set fires. He’s razed several old buildings and fantasizes about burnin’ folks alive. He’s already torched the family pet—told the kids it ran away—and he has detailed but unfulfilled plans for a few folks at his office. He dreams about watching their skin bubble and flake and fly into the air with the heat.”

  Granny pointed past me. “That there nigger woman, the one reading poetry, she’s a liar and a thief. Shoplifting mostly, but she’s taken from her employer and gotten someone else fired for it. Justified, in her mind, ’cuz she thinks life’s been unfair.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  “And then there’s her,” Granny said, watching a young woman with cut bangs walk toward us along the railing. “She had sex with her sister’s husband two nights before the wedding. That was several years ago now, but she likes to think about it still while pleasuring herself. Ain’t that somethin’? The best sex a’ her life was that which secretly humiliated her big sister.”

  “And what about me?” I asked.

  Granny smiled at me. “You got more black in your heart than anyone here.”

  “Except you.”

  She cackled just as the young woman started to pass, looking upset. Her eyes were down. She had a powder blue coat pulled over some kind of green-and-black server’s uniform.

  “You always wear a little blue, don’t you?” Granny said to her out of nowhere.

  The woman stopped in surprise, but her face melted when she saw who spoke. Granny Tuesday dressed like the old grandmother from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” but without the glasses. She looked harmless, especially with those gnarled hands, like the roots of the crooked tree that grows at the crossroads.

  “How did you know?” the young woman asked with a smile.

  Granny lifted an arthritic thumb and finger to frame the girl’s chin. “Because it makes your skin glow, dearie.”

  The woman flushed red before resuming her walk. I watched her leave. Her eyes were on the ocean now and not the boardwalk.

  “You see what I did there?” Granny asked.

  “I don’t need a lesson in magic.”

  “I just made her feel good. With nothing but words.” The old woman’s fingers followed the breath from her mouth. “So tell me, what’s the spell that will make you go away?”

  She went back to her knitting.

  “Information,” I said.

  “Information is expensive.”

  I took the plastic evidence bag from inside my coat and set it on the bench next to me. Inside was the chain-wrapped wooden figurine, the spirit totem that I’d taken off the old witch doctor.

  She scowled in suspicion.

  I had the two pictures, the black and white stills I’d printed with Hammond a few days before, folded in my jacket pocket. I took them out and handed them across the space between us. She took them. I watched her face as she pulled open the folds. She didn’t react.

  “What’s it to you?” She folded the papers again and handed them back.

  I didn’t take them. I knew better than to take anything Granny handed me, even if it had only left my hand moments before.

  “I’m told you’re familiar with that particular gentleman.”

  “Who said such a thing? Anson? That old fool needs to mind his business and leave me to mine less’n he wakes up one day—”

  “Fuck with him and you
fuck with me,” I said. “Anson was his usual helpful self. I twisted his arm—so to speak. You wanna take revenge on someone, you take it on me. Got it?”

  She kept knitting. “You should go home, Detective. This isn’t some wayward ghoul. You’re in so over your head that it would take me a lifetime to explain.”

  “That’s what Anson said.”

  She smiled. Genuinely. Broadly. And with more delight than I’d ever seen on that grisly old face. It stretched the deep wrinkles of her cheeks, and I could see where she was missing a tooth. I had never noticed that. In fact, she was missing the same tooth I was. I tongued the gap instinctively.

  “I just might be rid a’ you sooner than I expected,” she said. She folded up the tangled skein of her knitting in her apron as if she was done with it. “And here I thought the Three Sisters were gonna reject my offering. But just lookee here. A turn of Fate. As promised. My day’s looking up already.”

  “That why a couple of your zombies were at The Barrows the other day? To pick up those antique needles?”

  “The Sisters have always smiled on my kind. We pay them the right honors.”

  “Really? Did you know people still burn witches?” I asked. “Someone mentioned it to me the other day and I thought it was just a story. But it’s true. So help me God, people still burn witches. There’s actually a government department in India responsible for convincing people not to burn witches. Of course, there’s only so much they can do, particularly out in the rural areas. The sad part is that the mobs don’t always get it right. Victims don’t always die either. Sometimes they just end up horribly disfigured.”

  She smiled again, ruefully. “Not all of us pay the proper respects.”

  “What do you know about him?” I nodded to papers on the bench jumping in the breeze.

  “Plenty more than you would believe, that’s for sure.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Proof?” she scoffed. “Where’s the fun in proof?” She was enjoying herself. She raised a hand and the two orderlies at the back started across the boardwalk. “There was a young man that came to see me a while back,” she said. “Doctor fella. Named Alexander. Lotsa letters after his name. You might wanna find out what happened to him.”

  The first orderly came up behind her with the wheelchair, and Granny pushed herself up from the bench.

  “He have a last name?”

  “That were his last name. Didn’t right catch what he was called, but I think he was working for the city.”

  She nodded to the orderly, who started pulling her backward and around the bench. She’d left the folded papers on the bench, and a gust came and blew them away. I watched them whip across the boardwalk and disappear. Granny looked at the first orderly and nodded at the plastic-wrapped figurine. He reached for it. I put my hand out to stop him.

  “This is worth more than half a bystander’s name,” I said.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’ll be in touch, rightwise. If you’re going after the Lord of Shadows hisself, there’s a few oracles I’ll need to consult first, just to make sure some of what you’re stirring doesn’t splash back on me, so to speak.”

  I didn’t move.

  She got very serious then. “My word,” she growled.

  I retracted my hand and the second orderly took the totem. His colleague started rolling Granny away. I stood and watched her retreat as the wind suddenly started blowing—not a gust but a long, sustained gale. A passing jogger lost her balance and almost fell. I had to brace myself momentarily on the bench.

  She called him the Lord of Shadows.

  I haven’t actually met Dr. More,” the young clerk behind the desk explained apologetically.

  “Isn’t this his office?”

  “One of them,” he nodded. “He sees patients here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “Looks like I’m in luck.”

  “But he hasn’t been here since I started a few weeks ago.”

  “That is his name on the door, right? Next to Doctors Caldwell and Burton?”

  “Yes,” he said, unsure if he was being trapped into admitting something.

  “Who’s your manager?”

  “I’m sorry, is this a police matter?”

  “Yes, actually.” It was partly true. “It’s important I speak with Dr. More as soon as possible. What’s his name?”

  “Well, Ms. Singleton runs the office. She just stepped out, but—”

  “I’ll wait,” I said with a polite smile.

  The two other patients in the narrow room glanced up at me as I sat and went back to their screens. I pulled Bea Goswick’s file from my shoulder bag and opened it to the sticky note I’d been using to hold my place. The file was a mess. It hadn’t simply been set on fire. It had been dumped into a pile and drizzled with lighter fluid. I could still smell it. By the looks of things, she’d changed her mind pretty quickly and stomped on the burning pile. When that didn’t work, she doused it with water. Anything that wasn’t charred was warped and faded. And it was all out of order. She hadn’t reorganized it. She’d simply stuffed everything back however it fell. What was left read like conspiracy fodder, a collection of unrelated deaths from around the world covering a span of 30 or more years: a Jewish mystic in Denmark, an aid worker in Ethiopia, a Shinto priestess, a 13-year-old Tibetan Lama. A lot of it was so damaged as to be illegible. Any normal person would’ve drawn one conclusion only: that its collector was emotionally unhinged. The problem was, I wasn’t getting anything from it either.

  I flipped through the next few warped photos and unfolded what was left of an article clipped from the Post. I couldn’t read most of the text, but the date and part of the title were clear. I took out my phone and searched the website. I sat up when I saw the name Alonso White, the man whose mural memorial the chef had visited a few days earlier. What did it mean?

  I heard a door shut in the back. When I looked up, the clerk was gone. A moment later, a stern-faced older woman in platform heels walked toward me from the hall. Her plastic name tag said SINGLETON.

  “Dr. More isn’t here,” she said. “You can leave a message with his service.”

  “I’ve been doing that.” I stood and closed the file. “I’ve left numerous messages over the last several weeks. He hasn’t gotten back to me.”

  “Then give your message to me,” she said. “I will make sure he gets it.”

  She was around 60 and wore no makeup. Her hair was parted in the middle and fell below her ears. There were three thin, parallel scars on the side of her face near her right eye.

  “I can’t wait any longer. I need to speak to him. Today.”

  “He’s not here,” she stressed.

  I motioned to the narrow waiting room, whose handful of occupants were watching me out of the corners of their eyes like school kids afraid to be called on in class. “So none of these patients are his?”

  “Dr. Caldwell has taken Dr. More’s patients while he’s on sabbatical.”

  “That’s funny. He never mentioned a sabbatical. Seems to me a professional health care provider might let his patients know if he were planning an extended absence.”

  “All his patients were made aware. Perhaps you weren’t listening.”

  The implication was clear.

  “I’m sure I would’ve remembered.”

  “Then you’ll have to take that up with Dr. More when he gets back.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “Your questions have been patiently answered, Detective. This is harassment.” She stepped to the desk and picked up the receiver to the phone like she was going to dial 911. “Please leave.”

  “If he’s not here, then you won’t mind me looking in his office.”

  She’d moved out of my way and left a clear path to the back, but she dropped the phone and stepped back in front of me as soon as I moved. “This is private property. You can’t just walk in.” She pointed to young clerk, who was staring at the confrontation in disbelief. “Christo
pher, please dial the police and tell them we’re being harassed.”

  The young man picked up the phone from where it rested but hesitated to dial.

  “You keep using that word,” I said to my adversary. “Is it supposed to scare me? What’s wrong with a quick peek? If you have nothing to hide.”

  She crossed her arms and planted herself.

  I turned to the younger colleague. “Well? What are you waiting for? Make the call.”

  The elder nurse sighed and turned for the door to Dr. More’s office. It was already shut. She pulled a mass of keys from her waist and locked it. I caught the sign on the next door down. It said DR. ALAN CALDWELL, same last name as the couple who moved into More’s house, according to the neighbor.

  I walked forward and opened it over the nurse’s objection. There was a nice glass-topped desk, some chairs, two framed degrees with giant matte borders, a sofa to one side, a credenza at the back. There were tribal masks on the wall by the door, facing the desk, and when I turned my head to look, I caught a glimpse of a wasp. It crawled through the eye of a faded Balinese mask and disappeared, like it was hiding. The nurse pushed me back and shut the door. My temple felt like it was going to explode. I didn’t even want to touch it. All I could do was wince.

  She shouted something. I couldn’t hear it, but I saw her lips move. I saw her brow crease in anger. And then I saw her breath, like a bright cloud.

  “Shit.”

  I looked around the waiting room at the shocked faces, staring at me in confusion and fear. I looked at the pair of uniformed security guards who walked, as if in slow motion, through the office door. I couldn’t hear any of them. The whole room was silent. But their breath puffed like steam, as if they were trudging through the snow in the dead of winter. It billowed from their nostrils with every breath.

  I started shivering. The pain at my temple was so intense, I thought my skull had cracked. Then I saw my own breath.

  “No . . .”

  I could feel it coming. I could feel it out there. Waiting.

  The dire hunter.

  I pulled free of the first security guard’s grasp and stormed through the door, room still shrouded in silence. I skipped the elevator and went right to the stairs. I made it two flights before I was shivering so bad that I couldn’t walk. It was like I’d been sleeping in snow. I was chilled to the core. I fell back against the block wall and slid down until I was sitting with my back to the corner of the landing. I was shaking. My teeth were chattering. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel them rattling against each other.