Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

  “They say a sea star eats its victims from the inside out.” I turned at the odd deep voice, the elegant British accent, which I swore sounded like a female’s, but the young man with a mustache and his blond hair parted and oiled was who spoke to me. He came up to the window as well and tapped the sea star, as he called it, with a clean and well-polished fingernail. “These nubs are like small mouths. They start sucking on the outside of the victim’s shell until slowly, with increasing and steady pressure they pull the poor sot apart, then exude their stomach into the opening and literally eat them alive.”

  I stepped back from the young man, whose bright blue eyes, delicate nose and hairless chin, unnerved me. He looked back at me with wide dark pupils. The room suddenly felt stifling.

  “I’m your cryptography teacher, Miles Lane.” He held out a soft hand which I took, trying not to feel like I did not want to take it. “I’m Dorcas’ brother.”

  “I can figure out the cypher on my own,” I added quickly, wanting to leave the room. This man smelled wrong. Perfumed. My stomach turned a bit. I heard about such things, when one hadn’t known the pleasures of the marriage bed, or any female bed for that matter, one saw these traits in whoever was near...

  “Well, there is more than one.” Miles turned away with a slight smile reminiscent of his sister and placed his books on a waiting desk. He gestured for me to sit in a chair in front of him.

  “Just give me the key.” Standing, I turned back to the water. Anger seemed to well up inside me. Why can’t I just get back to the house? Why the class? My mind was trying to focus on the details of my trip, Hiru, anything but how smooth this young man’s skin seemed to be. His face was pale but pink-cheeked, unblemished for a man so young. A great silk cravat the same blue as Dorcas’ skirts was tied about his neck in an overtly feminine way. He stood there in front of the desk fingering something in his vest pocket, eyes studying me. I felt exposed.

  Miles was foppish, especially with that tie of his. My head started to ache. I worried about Hiru.

  “Really?” Miles’ voice was very peculiar. I turned around to find him suddenly right next to me at eye level. A scent, familiar, yet inappropriate, welled up from him. He was tall and he licked his lips. They seemed to be in a perpetual pout. My nausea increased. His skin reminded me of how creamy Dorcas’ was and…“Something wrong, Mr. Sloan?”

  Lane stood inches away from me, brushing his chest against my elbow. It gave a bit. Move away, you bastard, I wanted to shout.

  “Step back. Now!” I said evenly, through my teeth, but tried to sound polite. It must have worked because Miles gave me a half smile then spun around dramatically and went to his leather case on the desk and pulled a paper from it. He placed the paper on a small pupil’s desk and tapped it with his long finger: “Prove it.”

  Not minding a challenge, I sat down and looked at the numbers in front of me. They were all 0’s and 1’s. They were grouped, so I circled the groups feeling like it was a child’s game until Miles said: “Turn the paper upside down, please.”

  The patterns changed. “Dash Dot is the key,” Miles continued. I could almost hear Dorcas in his voice, which comforted me a little. Why did they seem to wear the same fragrance, the degenerate! Did he steal his sister’s perfume? Is that the same silk as her dress? The outrage in me did not settle down and no teaching I could try to recall seemed to aid me. It was as if this…boyish...effeminate brought out something darker, more primitive, more dangerous. “And it is not 0=dot either, and when you do turn it upside down, things and the message change.” Miles’ eyes were so wide and large, obscenely adorned with long lashes, that he looked indeed like a woman, except for that well-trimmed mustache.

  Try as I might to remember the words of my teacher Aimen, I instead suddenly recalled the dramatic stage plays in Japan where only men could play the parts of women. It was remarkable that one could not tell, hence the joke, and the acknowledgement of this part of human nature, that some prefer the titillations of their own sex. They enjoyed it, and enjoyed other men knowing it. I rubbed my collar. It itched.

  “A little hot under the collar I see,” Miles said, with a note in his voice that made me want to hit him in that pretty little face… A book, my psalm key book, slammed onto the paper with such force as belied the delicate man in front of me. A knife, thin with perfect steel was inches from my eye. I could see the tip vibrate enough to tell me that its holder would kill me before I could get out of the way. Then the knife was away into the sleeve of its owner.

  “Very nice, don’t you think?” Miles said, holding out his sleeve and admiring it. “Remember, if you do not do anything I say, I can kill you.”

  Well, so that’s how it’s going to be. I watched him as I got out of my chair, confident I could beat him up, until I backed into the wall. He followed me and had me right where he wanted me. Dammit!

  The thin knife rested against my hip. “Pay attention.” Miles voice became soft and sultry, like a woman’s. His face came very close to mine. I tried to keep my breathing level when I suddenly saw that his mustache was not real. As if reading my mind, Miles guided my other hand up to his face.

  “Peel it off,” Miles said very softly. I could see how plump and shapely his, no, HER lips were. Miles must have felt my body relax at this sudden new awareness, and looked into my eyes with her oceanic, deeply hypnotic dark ones. Obediently, I peeled off the face hair. The room was too hot, so Miles undid my collar. It sprang away from my neck as if it needed to flee. “Now, undo my tie,” she commanded.

  They say certain predators hypnotize their victims before eating them. That was this moment, at first. “So am I the helpless creature and you the starfish?” I asked as I undid the tie. The silk fell away. Miles smiled and moved so close her lips were grazing mine. I jumped a bit when she touched me in the groin, gently, with expertise, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. “Touch my neck.” She smiled. Her hands caressed me down there. I didn’t mind.

  The command was followed. Miles’ neck was small and delicate. But I didn’t care as she grazed her lips against mine. “Is there an Adam’s apple?”

  No, but nothing came out of my mouth. Miles pushed my hand down to the vest buttons. “Slowly,” she commanded. “And not a word.” I felt each button as I was too interested in her mouth, which was warm and soft. Then I grabbed the wrist with the knife. There was a steel shank in the sleeve, which made it impossible to control the wrist. But I held it fast anyway. Miles did what I was hoping would happen next, she pulled away.

  That was my opening. Using her momentum I let her stretch away, then, like a rope in flight I looped her arm around her back and held her by the throat with my other hand, controlling her neck. “Well you are skilled. I’ll grant you that,” Miles said and relaxed her whole body. “You can let me go so we can have a better chat.”

  “How do I know you won’t do something else, like say, gut me?” I did like her perfume. It felt good to know that I wasn’t…well…wrong…or had other…interests.

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve been with a woman, hasn’t it?” Miles said, almost with a purr, even though I still could have broken her neck. My arms went slack.

  She turned on me in an instant, making me horrified that I fell for her trick. In two moves, I was pushed down onto a cloth-cushioned side bench and Miles was astride me, one hand pressing on my old wound. The sound I made resembled a sheep blatt. Her other arm had removed her coat. Now I could see the curves of her body and wondered how I had missed these clues before.

  “Lesson 1: Things are NEVER what they appear to be.”

  I gently touched the hand, which contained my agony. She released me from it.

  “So what can we chat about?” My voice broke, mainly from the unnerving way she was rubbing against me as she sat astride my hips.

  “First of all, I am not interested in YOU, except as a successful tool of my sister and my brother-in-law.”

  “Okay.” What she was doing to me as
she rubbed, the breathlessness in her voice, made me want to remove parts of her clothing. My mind stopped thinking…

  “Second, lack of sex can make a man putty in the hands of the wrong person. My job is to make sure you are not that vulnerable. I will instruct you in the subtle art of being able to find yourself someone who can, regularly, keep your mind clear.” Miles began to undo my shirt, much to my relief. I also undid her buttons, but after she pulled open my shirt and grateful cool air came in, Miles placed my hands on her chest, where I could feel large, breast-like mounds beneath the vest and shirt. “And that is exactly what you will do when you get where you are going, is that clear?” She bent close to me, lifting off of me, then gratefully kissed me full on the mouth. All I could do was sigh with relief and went for the buttons on her trousers. She stopped me and instead sent my hands down the back of them.

  This moment I had dreams about often, as Tomiko favored this position to start with. I soiled sheets each time this dream came to me. The flesh I held in my hands made me feel as if I were going to erupt everywhere. “But until then,” Miles brushed the tip of her nose on mine, “I am here to see to it that your male needs ARE met. When we are through, you will be utterly drained of all distraction. That, Marshal Sloan, is MY job.”

  “You mean, you’ve had other men do—”

  “Men, and their needs, their perceptions, their vulnerabilities, and their innate weaknesses are my specialty. Training YOU to understand them is my JOB. Nothing more. But, I can also see you are a man possessed of perceptive intuition.”

  “I like to think I know how things go.” The last part of that sentence died on my lips as she kissed me. I gripped her roundness wanting that soft cleft between them.

  Miles was what every man both wanted and feared: a beautiful woman who knew your mind better than you did and could take you for all you had. That half smile confirmed my thoughts.

  “Until then, be content that I am here for you as long as I am instructed to be. But you are the first one I’ve ever wanted to take pleasure from.” Her words mesmerized me, but then I tried not to think how many men might have heard this and I really didn’t give a damn. Not now.

  Miles undid my trousers and gratefully I was released into full view. I’d gotten over bodily shyness. Living in Japan taught me the beauty of the naked form. But with Miles, being that she wanted nothing from me but this, I just wanted relief. Miles pulled out a delicate leather purse from her vest. I continued to undo all the shirts’ buttons, releasing the globe shaped breasts that had large, dark, pink areoles. Miles pulled out a tube of sheep intestine. I stopped her.

  “I call this a sheath. My design. It protects both of us from disease and pregnancy.”

  She could have called it anything. I just wanted to keep going. The coolness of the sheath held me in its grip at first and I feared I’d release before I had time to experience her body’s sheathing of me.

  Miles undid a second set of buttons, which opened the bottom of her trousers so that the legs remained on. Then she hovered over me, her sex grazing the tip of mine. My mouth found her breasts. I did not latch on like a babe, but did what I know my wife had liked, flicking my tongue around her nipple. Her surprised sigh delighted me.

  “Are you ready?” The gasp in her voice made me both angry and excited. Angry because I had gone so long without this basic pleasure human life revolved around and excited because now I had finally been able to have it. She placed a finger on my lips, stopping me from kissing her other breast. “You must be able to repeat yourself until I’ve had MY pleasure. Or I will do worse than gut you.” Miles’ warm breath was on the side of my cheek.

  “As you wish,” I answered. Then she sheathed me, to the hilt. The explosion was immediate.

  To say I met her command was an understatement. Living in Japan had taught me many things, especially how to please your wife. Miles allowed me to be upon her but I was slow to penetrate her fully, waiting until that part of her, the shape of a pine nut, swelled up enough and her fluids were plenty. Again I played with her nipples, then gave it a stronger suction, making this powerful woman whimper and beg me to ride her. My fingers teased her, then I pressed myself forward, into her folds, into her depths and rode her as if I would be dead in the morning. Miles grabbed onto the shoulders of my sleeves so tightly I feared she would rip the seams, then she let out guttural cry and I felt a tremor and contraction shake her body as she arched her back and wrapped her legs around me.

  “I had no idea training to be a Marshal would be so…pleasurable.” I relaxed on the divan. It was as if I had come out of a dark room. Miles got up and lit a lamp. It was night outside. “May I ask why the disguise?”

  “Men have power. I explore those potentials and as a man I can go places a woman can’t.” Miles began to run her fingers over an old sword scar on my back.

  “But, doesn’t it feel…uncomfortable?” I didn’t understand what her purpose here was in all this espionage. Why she would lay with me, with any man without the comfort or security of marriage. What about children?

  “I spent many years working in places that gratify men’s needs. The helplessness can kill, and did kill many women who did not find independence from it. There was never any pleasure on the woman’s part. That was just a lie to alleviate the guilt a married man might feel when he was not being satisfied in his own marriage bed.”

  “But you took money—one could argue that a man had to pay for what he sought marriage for.” The words left my mouth and I regretted it. The sound of it was self-centered, one sided.

  “I will teach you about this darker side of… ‘commerce’.” Miles’ voice grew soft. I rolled over and looked at her deep blue eyes. They were large, seabound, and unreadable. She studied me, not coldly, but with scrutiny, watching my reactions to her words. “After I left the brothel, I vowed to never let a man see those places as sources of pleasure, but as places of criminality, pain, and abuse. We females are human beings, not things meant only for males to control. Mother Nature believes in balance. I am a great believer in Darwin.” She paused. I ran my fingers through her soft, though very short hair.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me.” How could she read me so well?

  “How could you be with anyone after such an experience?” I swallowed hard, feeling guilty at the pleasure I took, that we shared with each other, that I thought I gave her. Miles took my face in her hands.

  “Making my own choices, and accomplishing my work, as a man or a woman, is the pleasure I seek. Teaching a man to treat a woman as you have done with me today, is one less man that contributes to the misery of those that have no choices, those females who are orphaned, enslaved, stolen, or injured and cannot fight for themselves. Teaching you to help others be free of this tyranny is why I live a life of both a man and a woman, so that I may always understand the challenges of both.”

  Something in me cracked a bit. In the soft light of the lamp, Miles’ skin was glowing. Her eyes were luminous. The following three nights, I did exactly as Miles instructed, yet we did not speak of her oddity, her dressing as a man again. Instead we spoke in code, gestures, looks, caresses, and sounds. I understood her perfectly.

  5

  Dinner with my cousins was formal. My tails were tight and uncomfortable and smelled like camphor. The starch in the white collar bit at my neck where Miles had left a large bruise from our last entanglement. She informed me that we would have three such classes before I left, as I was an unusual student and she felt special instruction would be needed.

  “I see you had a class with Miles,” Andrew’s voice startled me as he came up alongside the entryway as we waited for a coach. Andrew gestured to my face, making an arc with his finger. “You have this stupid smile on your face.” I frowned, but maintained my “stupid smile” and adjusted my gloves.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t had any lessons.” I fixed one cufflink. “Unless that’s the real reason you want to go out into the field.”

  Andrew
frowned, looking a bit disgusted but then laughed, as men do with dirty jokes. “She’s my aunt, don’t forget.”

  Oh. That was right. The young man did look envious. “Not to say, I haven’t had my share…”

  I deliberately maintained my straight face. Virginity in men was not something to talk about. This motivated me to try and get the boy away from his home and out into the world.

  The carriage ride was brief and we disembarked at a three story mansion atop the highest hill above San Francisco. The footmen left us to navigate steps made of marble. Where my cousins got this money, I was curious to know.

  As we entered the warm foyer, William was the first to greet me.

  “Anndrah!” He gave me a huge hug, his frame still skinny, his flaming red hair wild and long. He looked a bit worse for wear, no doubt from long nights of drinking and whoring. But I wondered, he did not look well. He began to cough, bent over and in obvious pain. He took out a handkerchief and quickly spat into it. I stiffened. What had come from it was blood. “My sister-in-law has told us that you are the best student she has ever had the pleasure of training.”

  Wait, sister-in-law?

  “William, introduce me, darling.” I knew that voice and felt all reason leave me.

  Miles strode forward in a bright green gown. The pearl studded hair couldn’t be real and the short hair must have been a wig, but no, I had ran my fingers through that short hair…

  With much effort I forced myself to look at this elegantly designed woman. My cheeks got very itchy and felt as if I had been next to a flame for hours. Liam had no clue that we had committed adultery. “Oh my, I see I am again mistaken for my sister.” This new Mrs. William Sloan was not wearing a wig. In fact, I could see the roots of her hair extend into the lavish hairstyle of curls and jewels. But her likeness was exact, except now, after getting over my embarrassment and shock, I saw that she did not have her sister’s erotically charged presence.