Death by Séance

by Jo-Ann Carson

  Chapter 7

  The Suspects

  “The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

  Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

  From Zane’s office I headed straight to my detective office in the attic of the teahouse. Azalea allowed me to use the space for free, a fringe benefit of being a janitor who lasted longer than a week in her haunted establishment.

  Jane played on the floor with her tractor as I set to work. The week before I had set up an enormous white board on my side wall to use for suspect charts. I shouldn’t be happy that I now had a reason to use it, because that required a dead victim, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit to feeling a lightness of being as I made my first marks on the perfectly white surface.

  With a black marker I noted the names of the people who attended the séance in a vertical list. Beside their names I created three columns. The first I titled in red, “Opportunity,” the second, “Why,” and the third, “How.” I stole the idea from the Death in Paradise show. Every murderer needed a motive, an opportunity and a way of completing the dastardly deed.

  I ordered the names according to where they sat around the table, going clockwise starting with the medium at twelve o’clock: Joy, Elif, Ophelia, me, Ming and Margaret. Of course, there could be other suspects, ones not seated at the table, but it made sense to start with the people in the room. I thought about that for a moment and added a seventh name in purple: “Other.”

  Beside my chart I drew a quick sketch of the seating around the table. With so many of us in the room, someone had to have seen, or heard, or felt something.

  Below the seating plan I made a rectangular box and labelled it “Clues.” Inside it I started to write “locket” but my hand hesitated. No one usually came into my office, but, if they did, I didn’t want them to see something they shouldn’t. Tension grew in my shoulders. I wiped off the box.

  I stood back and admired my first suspect chart. A closed-door mystery? Possibly.

  I considered Joy first, even though I didn’t think she could kill anyone. I put a check mark under the Opportunity column, because she was in the room. I didn’t know everything about her relationship with Kumar, but since he worked for her boyfriend they had to be acquaintances. I had never heard her speak poorly of him. I put a question mark under the “Why” column for her. I needed to question her about him. “How?” I put a question mark under that column. I couldn’t imagine how she could slide a knife into Kumar’s neck as she spoke to us all. A shudder ran up my spine as I remembered the blood flowing from his wound.

  So much blood.

  Next on my suspect list came Elif, Joy’s lover and local vampire. “Opportunity”: check. “Why?” He was both Kumar’s boss and his friend, but I had no reason to think their relationship was anything but amiable, so I put a question mark. They seemed to get along okay. Kumar, like lots of others, willingly worked for vampires because they paid well and offered unusual benefits. Elif didn’t have to keep Kumar around if he didn’t like him. Under “How,” I put two question marks. If Elif wanted Kumar dead, he could have done it easily, any night, anywhere, and no one would have to know. Elif was a killer. No question about that. It came with his vampire package. But while I didn’t doubt his physical and moral ability to murder, it made no sense for him to kill a man publicly.

  Next. Ophelia? Heck, I knew even less about her. I bit my lower lip and wrote question marks across the board beside her name.

  “I see you’re busy.” Eric’s familiar voice caught me off guard, and for a millisecond—a wonderful, carefree millisecond—my heart stopped.

  “Eric!” Oh, how I wanted to throw my arms around him.

  The warmth of his smile said he felt the same. He moved closer, and a rush of heat flowed through my veins from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, a tsunami of love for the man, mixed with relief for his safe return, and a touch of anger for his absence. Life with a Viking was never easy, but then life with any man had complications.

  “Äskling, I have missed you.”

  Built like a Norse God, Eric leaned in and whispered, “I love you.” The sound tickled my ear and ignited a current of desire through my system. I swallowed. Eric was the perfect boyfriend in every way possible, except that he was a ghost, and a rather naughty one.

  I took a step back. “Where the hell have you been?”

  He gave me a side-long glance. “I couldn’t phone.”

  “What the hell, Eric?”

  “Do you doubt my love?” His arctic-blue eyes turned stormy.

  “Never.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  I hated arguing with him. He was so Viking. How did you argue with someone who does nothing but state the facts? “The problem is that I didn’t know where you were and I’ve been worried.”

  “I can take care of myself. You know that.”

  No doubt. He was a seasoned warrior and well-aged. He navigated between dimensions with ease, or so I’d been told, and generally no one crossed him. But still. I worried. I threw a notebook at him and it passed right through his spectral body.

  “That bad?”

  “That bad.” I folded my arms across my chest.

  “Are you having a hormonal surge?”

  I groaned. I should never have explained pregnancy hormones to him.

  “Is it another new-woman thing I should know about?”

  He was referring to my trying to teach him that modern women act differently and expect to be treated differently, which he had great difficulty understanding. Did I mention how stubborn Vikings could be?

  “Don’t get me off topic,” I said.

  He put his arms up. “Okay. Guiden offered me a deal.”

  “Guiden again.” My worst fear had come to life. I didn’t want Guiden, an evil sorcerer who wanted to control Eric, in our lives. At least I thought him evil. The old warlock claimed to operate beyond the realm of good and bad. Yeah, like I said, EVIL.

  “Yes.” Eric pointed to the wall I had been working on. “What’s that?”

  “Another deal?” Who makes deals with evil?

  “Yes. I want to be in the flesh when my child is born.” He, Joy and I were the only ones who knew about my pregnancy. It was the secret I was keeping from my family and the town. He pointed to the wall. “Is that a whiteboard?”

  I swallowed. It would be nice to have him beside me when I gave birth, but I didn’t want him becoming an assassin for hire, which was precisely what Guiden wanted. We had had that argument too many times to count. I focused on his question. “It’s my big evidence board.”

  “Like in those detective shows you watch.”

  “Yes. What’s the deal with Guiden?”

  “I did some clean-up work for him, in exchange for one week with a beating heart.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he was telling me about the weather forecast and not his ability to become a living, breathing man.

  “Why is Joy’s name up there?” he asked.

  “Did you kill people?” I stared him down and muttered, “Joy is a suspect, which you would know if you had been around.”

  “No, I did not kill anyone. I delivered messages. Joy? Our Joy, the Goth Goddess of Sunset Cove? A suspect in what?”

  “What kind of messages?” I breathed out noisily. “Joy’s a suspect in a murder.”

  “A pay-or-else kind of notice, but strictly verbal. Who got murdered?”

  “Or else what?” I grimaced. “Kumar, Elif’s day man.”

  “Or else Guiden would use his magic on them. Tell me about the murder.”

  “And you trust Guiden?”

  “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? I trust him as far as one can trust an old sorcerer. I believe he will let my heart beat, if it suits his purpose. And that, at the moment, suits me.”

  “He wants you to be his assassin.”

  “He still hop
es I will take care of his to-kill list, but I swear on our love, that will never happen.”

  “How long will you be alive?”

  “A week. A week together as live beings.” His bad-boy smile took my breath away. “A week, my äskling.”

  Images of the last time we spent together, in the flesh, flowed through my mind like fine liqueur on the tongue, deceptively sweet, powerful and addictive. “Will you go away again?”

  “No. I will be by your side until the time comes.”

  Eric had his own way of being infuriating, but the truth was that I had never felt more loved, cherished and safe in my life than I did by his side. If only I could hold him in my arms. “Let me tell you about the murder. It was a case of death by séance.” I turned back to the board and wrote that line above my chart in fancy letters.

  I gave him a detailed account of Kumar’s murder.

  Eric paced the office in his ghostly way as I spoke. “You don’t really think Joy is a suspect?”

  “I consider everyone in the room to be a suspect. That’s the professional thing to do. Of course, there may be others as well.”

  “Okay, carry on with your chart-thing. I’ll watch. Syng rumpa.” Yeah, that means nice ass. I smiled.

  “I’m on Ophelia. ‘Opportunity’: check. ‘Why’: question mark. ‘How’: question mark.” I put up the notes as I spoke. “I need to talk with her. It seems unlikely to me that she could manage to stick a knife into him. She doesn’t look fast or sly.”

  Eric nodded. “Looks can be deceiving. A person filled with rage and hate can do unspeakable things.”

  “Next is Ming. ‘Opportunity’: check. ‘Why’: question mark. ‘How’: question mark.”

  “I remember Ming.”

  “You would.” She’s way too pretty not to be noticed by any man, living or dead.

  Eric chuckled, but wisely said nothing.

  “And there’s Margaret. ‘Opportunity’: check. But why? How? I’ve got a lot of blanks on this board.”

  “What about the spirit you called?”

  “Nelson? I don’t know anything about him. You don’t think he could have used kinesthetic powers to push a knife ...”

  Eric shrugged. “It would be more likely he tormented someone into doing it, but either way, a ghost is capable of having a hand in murder. We both know that.”

  “Now that’s just darn creepy. I thought I was safe around here.”

  “With me at your side, you are safe. Let me look into Nelson. Do you have his last name?”

  “No. For that matter, Nelson could be his first or last name.”

  “So, I’ll wander around calling ‘Nelson.’” He gave me a sideways grin.

  I laughed. He’d done it again. Totally defused my anger and pushed my worry aside. “Eric.”

  His bad-boy grin reappeared. “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t found him.”

  “I have a funny feeling about this case.”

  “There’s nothing funny about murder.”

  “Something feels off,” I continued, “as if unseen forces are lurking around us, close enough to touch our skin, but far enough away to not be seen.” I shivered.

  “You sure you’re not on an estrogen high?”

  Chapter 8

  The Vampire

  “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

  Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

  I had just finished my shift as night janitor at the teahouse when the front door flew open and a large, black cloaked figure filled the entranceway, blocking out the light of the moon. Not even in my dreams did I want to see him like this. True, his face had the chiselled features of a movie star that made me stop breathing for half a heartbeat, but that didn’t matter when the rest of his package spelled danger in capital letters. I considered screaming, but I had run out of energy. I sagged against my broom with Sparky twisted at my feet.

  Elif, the vampire and lover of Joy my personal friend, gave me the nod. Flanked by two vampires he swaggered into my domain. Taking in my sag, a slow smile spread across his perfect face, which looked whiter than death against his black leather jacket.

  My blood froze. I swear it froze. I had never met a vampire alone. I had been near them with Joy or Eric at my side, but never alone. And now I had three. I managed to lob back a nod.

  “Hello, Abby.” His velvety-vampire voice hit below the belt. Masculine and oh so sexy, it melted traitorous parts of me I didn’t want melted.

  “I didn’t invite you in,” I said. Spark slid behind me.

  “Joy has invited me into this house and so has Azalea. I have free reign.”

  My stomach dropped a House of Usher or two. “Seriously?” That should have been put on a staff memo.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Is Joy with you?” I could hope. Maybe she was in his BMW, waiting for him on the street or somewhere nearby.

  “No, I need to talk to you, alone.”

  If I screamed, the ghosts in the back room would come to my aid, but they were no match for this creature of the night. I exhaled noisily. “All right. Talk. But your buddies should stay outside.” Now I’m not sure what I was thinking. One vampire could end me in seconds on his own, so two more weren’t really more of a threat. Dead is dead, after all. But I wanted to appear in control. It salved my mere mortal sensibilities.

  He said something I couldn’t hear to his associates and they closed the door on their way out. He strutted towards me with that distinct vampire gait that scared the bejezus out of me. “You look pale, my dear.” He touched a lock of my hair that had fallen out of my pony tail and moved it gently behind my ear. The gesture was tender, but he had the ice-cold touch of a stone-cold killer. He smelled of damp dirt and blood. I forced myself to listen to his words.

  But his face and the rest of him got in the way. Up close he looked more like Eric Northman than Bella Lugosi. Primal, sexy and terrifying. Did I mention terrifying. Blood-chillingly terrifying. He was the kind of night creature you might welcome into your fantasies for his dark-edged stamina, but never into your life. Would he charm me? I stood still, trying to take him in with all my senses, but soon discovered that was not the best idea. The man had serious, serious mojo and he knew it. It oozed out of his animated corpse and, like a gravitational pull, it altered everything around him, making him seem human and alive, making him seem warm-blooded. Making him seem like a friend. But he was not. He was a vampire. I put my hands on my hips.

  Joy had told me his name, Elif, in Scandinavian meant immortal. His Nordic features were unmistakably Viking in origin. His glacier-blue eyes held a dark, sensual glint as if he imagined me naked with him, alone in the shower. He looked like the dark side of Eric.

  I shivered as my heart made that comparison. “What do you want?”

  “I find myself in a delicate situation. One that you can help me with.”

  Interesting. He didn’t elaborate. Vampires don’t talk as slowly as ghosts, but they aren’t what you would call conversationalists. Amongst themselves their words are few, and I suspect much of their communication is telepathic. With live humans, or breathers as they call us, they prefer to do other things than chat. For the hundredth time I wondered why Joy would be involved with a corpse.

  “You’re Joy’s boyfriend.” I said it for his benefit as much as my own libido’s. His mojo was wearing me down.

  “Joy is my Black Swan.” That meant he liked her.

  I nodded.

  “Does that bother you?”

  I shouldn’t be prejudiced. I was in a relationship with a dead guy. But the thought of being held in the ice-cold arms of a vampire gave me the heebie-jeebies. Who would want a popsicle up there? “It doesn’t matter what I think. She … cares for you, and I consider her a good friend.”

  “Spoken like a saint, but you need not worry. I’m not interested in you in that way.” He tilted his head as he studied me, as if I were a painting. “Not that I don’t find
you appealing. Your blood smells of magic and your body makes me think of many night-time pleasures, but I am a mature vampire and I can control my blood lust.” He sniffed. “Maybe sometime in the future, you would consider joining Joy and me for a party.”

  Spark purred. Damn her.

  He laughed and shook his head. “Your familiar gives away your baser feelings, Abby.”

  I shrugged.

  “But do not worry. Sex is not why I have come.”

  “Blood-play? No thank you. Cut to the chase. Why are you here?”

  “Cut to the chase? An interesting choice of words for a witch. I need you to find Kumar’s murderer. I will pay for your services.”

  My mouth dropped. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more: that he knew I was a witch or that he wanted to pay me to find a bad guy. “I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps we should go to your office and you can take notes, or tape me, or do whatever you do with new clients.”

  Being a new PI, I had no standard operating procedure, only a knowledge of how Jessica Fletcher did it. So far, I’d only had a total of five clients and three of them wanted to find lost pets, so they hardly counted. But I wanted to seem professional. I relaxed my stance. “Follow me,” I said. The three of us, Elif, Sparky and myself, climbed the stairs to my attic office, which now had a sign on the door: “Dear Abby Investigations.”

  He folded his long, sumptuous body into the chair across from me at my desk.

  Sparky purred. Traitor.

  My cell phone buzzed, and I looked at the screen. A message from Jill. I put it down on my desk. “Let’s get on with this. The cops are looking for the murderer. Why hire me?”

  “I find myself in a delicate situation.”

  My cell buzzed again.

  He stopped and looked at my phone. “Do you need to get that?”

  “It can wait.” My house could be on fire. One of the kids could be in the hospital. The toilet could have overflowed on the new tile floor I had just put down. All these things had happened in the last month. But that was life in my house. I shrugged. Jill was resourceful. And I didn’t want another midnight meeting with death. “Get on with it.”