by R. L. King
Stone listened to announcements exhorting him to consider applying for a job as a San Jose policemen for nearly five minutes before someone came back on. “This is Lieutenant Delgado,” said a gruff voice that reminded Stone a little of Stan Lopez. “Is this Dr. Stone?”
“Yes. I need to—”
“You’re not working with Cheng anymore, as of a few days ago. It’s right here in the records. Why are you calling at two in the morning? Sergeant Plumm said something about you getting a phone call—?”
“I did, yes.” Once again, he described the call. “You can’t blame me for being concerned about Detective Cheng’s welfare.”
There was a long pause. “Sounds like a crackpot to me. We get ’em all the time. I saw the article about you in the paper. I’m sure a lot people did. It’s probably some nutcase who figured out your phone number and decided to mess with your head.”
Stone drew breath to reply, but then stopped. Reluctantly, he had to admit that perhaps the lieutenant was right. He replayed the conversation again: the caller hadn’t said anything that he couldn’t have found out by reading the article and doing a minimal amount of research. Was it possible he was just so wound up about the killings that he was looking for trouble where there wasn’t any? Gods knew enough of it found him (or he found it) without trying to hunt down more. He sighed. “You might be right, Lieutenant. You might well be right. But even so: wouldn’t it be advisable to at least check on Detective Cheng? These are some seriously violent crimes we’re dealing with, after all.”
“Crimes we’re dealing with,” Delgado corrected. “Not you, Dr. Stone. This is a police matter. We appreciate your assistance, but this is the end of the line for you. I’ll take your concerns under advisement and make sure we take care of whatever’s necessary. If you’re smart, you’ll go back to bed and forget you were ever involved in this. Okay?”
What could he say? “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant.”
He hung up and sat back, thinking. He wondered if the lieutenant had noticed he deliberately hadn’t agreed to stay away from the case.
He couldn’t do anything about Cheng right now—not without a lot more research that would likely go straight back to the police department. But—
He picked up the papers Cheng had sent him and riffled through them. As far as he knew, nobody else had made any connection between Dennis Avila’s suicide and the murders. Maybe there wasn’t a connection, but the Enochian script on the cross and the fact that it was a warning suggested something was going on. It wouldn’t hurt to do a little poking around.
Chapter Eleven
Stone couldn’t get away until after noon the next day. By the time he cancelled his office hour and headed for south San Jose, he still hadn’t gotten a response to any of his messages to Cheng. He tried calling again on the way down, but hung up when the voicemail picked up. The weekend was one thing: he’d almost managed to convince himself that the detective had taken off for a brief vacation and turned his phone off. But to get no reply on a Monday convinced Stone that not only was something wrong, but whoever had called him was not a crackpot.
Dennis Avila’s address was on the second floor of one of the faded-beige, two-story cookie-cutter apartment buildings that dominated California lower-middle-class neighborhoods. Stone parked across the street and gave it a quick once-over. Nothing looked sinister or out of place at first glance: a courtyard with a scrubby, yellowing lawn separated its two halves, with staircases on either side. The apartments were all accessible from the outside, each one with a door and window facing outward into the courtyard. A sign reading Manager pointed the way toward the back of the property. An elderly couple walked past with a tiny dog on a leash, but no children played in the courtyard and nobody else appeared to be around. Probably either working or sleeping, Stone figured.
He consulted his notes: Avila’s apartment was number 202, which meant it was on the second floor. He couldn’t read the numbers from where he was, but he had a hunch he wouldn’t have to. He switched to magical sight.
Instantly, the second door from the end on the right side of the courtyard began to glow with faint reddish light. “There we go,” he murmured in satisfaction. He wasn’t sure he’d see anything—a simple suicide wouldn’t have produced enough magical energy to still be hanging around after a month. But clearly this wasn’t a simple suicide after all.
Stone pulled a small pendant from his pocket, gazed at it a moment to calibrate it, and then slipped the chain around his neck. He was glad he’d thought to create a couple of these, though he hadn’t had cause to use them recently. The pendant was the same type he’d used at Burning Man a while back, employing a powerful illusion to change his appearance. At this point, after he’d been told in no uncertain terms by Cheng’s bosses that his presence wasn’t wanted anywhere near their investigations, it was better if it didn’t get back to them that he was snooping around. Even though he doubted anybody but Cheng had made the connection, it was still safer this way.
He got out of the car and put a disregarding spell on it, then headed across the street. He couldn’t see himself, but he didn’t have to: his disguise as a chubby, nerdy-looking guy in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows around here. Now all he had to do was remember to use his American accent, which he’d been practicing.
He crossed the street, paused to look over the apartment building as if considering something, then mounted the stairs on the right side of the courtyard and wandered down the walkway past several closed doors. He didn’t pause in front of number 202, not yet, but he did notice the blinds were tightly closed. No surreptitious peeks inside.
“You lookin’ for somebody?”
Stone turned and found himself facing a middle-aged woman in a faded housedress. She stood half-in, half-out of her apartment, holding a magazine in one hand “No, not really. My friend told me there might be some places for rent here, so I was checking it out.”
She eyed him, her tiny, dark eyes making the circuit up and down his body. “Might be,” she said. “Gotta talk to the manager.” She nodded toward 202. “I know they’re tryin’ to rent that place, but they ain’t gonna. Not without lowerin’ the price a lot, anyways.”
“Why not?”
She dropped her gaze. “Not sure I should say anything.”
Stone put on a conspiratorial expression. “Come on, you can tell me. I won’t tell anybody.”
She glanced up and down the walkway to verify nobody else was nearby, but it was obvious to the blind that she was dying to spill the story. “The guy that lived there killed himself,” she said in a loud stage whisper.
Stone widened his eyes in a look of appropriate surprise. “No kidding?”
The woman nodded several times, looking satisfied. “Yeah. About a month ago. The cops were here for a long time, and the ambulance guys, the coroner…it was crazy around here for a day or so.”
“Did you know him?”
She shook her head. “I know his name was Dennis something. Saw him around sometimes, but mostly he worked during the day and didn’t get in ’til late. I think he was some kinda construction worker.” She lowered her voice again. “I heard he cut his own throat.” She sliced her hand across her own neck. “I dunno if I believe it, though. That’s a pretty crappy way to off yerself. Might just be the kids tellin’ stories.”
Stone nodded, focusing on her as if this were the most interesting information in the world. “Wow,” he said. “I can see why they might have trouble renting it, if that gets around.” He shrugged. “I don’t care, though. It’s not like he’s gonna haunt the place or anything, right?”
“I wouldn’t mess with that if I was you.” She frowned and crossed herself. “Ghosts are nothin’ to fuck with, pardon my French. Anyways, I gotta go. It’s about time for my shows. I’m tellin’ you, though—if you’re smart, you’ll pick a different unit.”
She waved her magazine and disappeared back inside the apartment, closing the door behind her.
Stone’s next stop was the manager’s office. On the first floor near the back of the complex, it turned out to be not an actual office, but just another apartment. He knocked on the door, hoping the manager was home. Most people looking for a place probably called and set up an appointment.
But no, the door opened on Stone’s second knock, to reveal a thirtyish man in a Warriors T-shirt and baggy athletic shorts who looked like he’d just woke up. The unmistakable aroma of pot smoke wafted out from inside and hung around the man like an invisible cloud. He scratched his head and regarded Stone with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “Help you?”
“I’m looking for a place, and I heard you had some vacancies.”
“Oh. Uh, yeah, we got a couple. You wanna fill out an application?”
“Actually, if you don’t mind I’d like to take a look inside first. No point filling one out if the place isn’t what I’m looking for.”
The man shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Hang on a sec.” He disappeared back inside the apartment and returned a moment later holding a clipboard with three keys attached to it. “I got three. 104, 110, and 202.”
“202 is on the second floor?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me look at that one. I don’t like being on the ground floor.”
The man eyed him oddly. “You sure? 110 is really nice. Super clean, corner unit—it’s the biggest one we got in the complex.”
“I’m sure,” he said.
There was a pause. “I’m gonna need you to fill out an app before I show you that one,” he said.
Hmm. “Why that one in particular?”
“Look,” he said. “I really should have you fill one out before I show you anything. That’s the rules.”
“You don’t want to show me 202 for some reason. Why not?”
The man’s gaze sharpened. “You a reporter, man?”
This was getting more interesting. Despite what the neighbor woman had said, he obviously wasn’t the first person interested in Dennis Avila’s apartment. Okay, time for the direct approach. He pulled out his wallet. “Okay, you’ve figured me out. Yes. I’m a reporter, and I want to get a look inside that apartment. I’ll make it worth your while.” He removed a pair of twenty-dollar bills and offered them. “Just let me in and let me look around for five or ten minutes. That’s all.”
The manager’s gaze flicked from the bills to Stone’s face. He sighed. “This is gettin’ annoying,” he said, taking the twenties. “Okay, fine. Ten minutes, that’s it. But no pictures. Got it? I’ll be right there with you. If you take any pictures I’ll call the cops.”
“No pictures,” Stone assured him, though he privately doubted the guy wanted anything to do with the police, at least until he’d had a chance to shower and change into something that didn’t smell like ground zero at a Dead concert. “I just want to look around and maybe ask you a few questions.”
“Questions are extra,” he said. “Sorry, but I’m an apartment manager, not a freakin’ tour guide. Gotta make it worth my time, y’know?”
Stone gave him another twenty. “Deal. Let’s go, then.”
Dennis Avila’s apartment looked like your typical generic vacant space: neutral beige carpeting, white walls, popcorn ceiling. The manager pushed the door open and waved Stone into a medium-sized living room, then moved in behind him and closed the door, flipping on a light switch. “Nothin’ much to see,” he said. “I know you probably expected bloodstains or somethin’, but we had a professional cleaner in. Replaced the carpets, repainted, the works.”
Stone nodded. The place smelled almost institutionally clean, and no sign remained of anything unusual that might have occurred here. He switched to magical sight and glanced toward the breakfast bar where he knew Avila had cut his throat. The area lit up with magical energy, dark red and unsettled. It centered on the counter and had an odd tinge to it, as if something unwholesome had been here. “That’s where it happened?” he asked, pointing at the area.
“Yeah. They found him right there at the breakfast bar. He didn’t show up for work, so they sent somebody over to look for him. When he didn’t answer the door, they called me.”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you saw the body?”
For the first time, the manager looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. It was pretty awful. Blood everywhere. Weird too, though.”
“Weird? How so?”
“I didn’t look too close, y’know? As soon as we found the body, we called 911 and got outta there. Didn’t want to mess up the scene, or have the cops thinkin’ we did it or anything. But it looked like he’d sat down to have dinner and just suddenly decided to kill himself. The knife was in his hand, and he was face-down in his Burger King.”
Stone nodded. “I heard a rumor. Can you tell me if it’s true?”
“What? Like I said, I didn’t see much.”
“I heard they found some kind of box with him, and a cross.”
The manager shrugged. “I don’t remember seein’ anything like that.”
“Did you know Mr. Avila? Talk to him at all? Did he seem depressed?”
“Didn’t really talk to him too much. But I don’t think so. I seen him around with his buddies from work, drinkin’ beer and watchin’ football an’ stuff, and sometimes he’d fix stuff around here for a little off his rent. Just seemed like a normal kinda guy, y’know?”
“Strange.” Stone continued examining the area around the breakfast bar. There was definitely some odd energy hovering around—something more than he would have expected from the suicide. Had it come from whatever was inside the box, the thing the cross had been protecting and the Enochian script warning against? He closed his eyes and narrowed his focus to the surface of the counter where the manager had pointed.
He staggered back a couple steps.
“Hey, you okay, man?” The manager reached out as if to grab his arm.
Stone caught himself and shook his head. “I’m fine.”
He hadn’t dared to suspect it: the odds were too high against two apparently separate situations being connected, even with the addition of the Enochian-etched cross. But he couldn’t deny it now.
The unwholesome energy that still hovered around the apartment shared many similarities with the energy he’d detected in the victim’s house in Gilroy. Too many to be mere coincidence.
He had no idea how yet, but the two were definitely connected.
“Maybe we should go now,” the manager was saying, glancing nervously toward the door. “I got a lot of work to do this afternoon.”
I’m sure you do. Those joints aren’t going to smoke themselves, are they? “Yes, all right.” Stone didn’t want to leave yet, but he didn’t think he’d get anything else from the apartment even if he sat here all day. He started to follow the manager out, then stopped as a memory flashed to his mind from the files Cheng had sent him. It was a long shot, but when dealing with magic far stranger things had happened before. “Oh—just one more thing.”
The manager was looking impatient now—clearly he wanted to get out of here and had tired of his tour-guide role, bribe notwithstanding. “What?”
“I also heard that when Mr. Avila was found, he had a cat with him.”
The manager stopped. “Yeah. Raider, I think his name was.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Why? You wanna interview him?”
If you only knew. “Just human-interest stuff. Everybody loves a cat story.”
“Not me. I don’t wanna live with nothin’ that craps in a box. But anyways…yeah, I think the guy down in 103 took the cat. He ain’t home now, though. He works.”
Stone nodded. He briefly considered magically breaking into 103, but that wouldn’t go well for him if he got caught, e
specially after his conversation with the manager. He took out his wallet and handed over another twenty. “Do me one more favor, will you? Get me his phone number so I can call him tonight? I’d like to see if he’ll let me get a couple photos of the cat.”
“Yeah, sure. But you gotta promise not to tell him where you got the number.”
“You have my word.”
Chapter Twelve
Stone left a message for Avila’s neighbor, letting him know that he was interested in seeing the cat. The guy called back at a little after seven that night. “You the guy looking for Dennis’s cat?”
“That’s me,” he said, almost forgetting to use his American accent.
The guy sighed. “I’d like to help you. I wish you’d called a couple days ago.”
That didn’t sound good. “Why? Did something happen to him?”
A pause. “Look. I don’t feel good about this, okay? But I couldn’t keep him. There’s somethin’ wrong with that cat. Maybe it was because he saw what Dennis did, I dunno. But he peed all over everything and hid under the bed constantly. I tried, but my whole apartment smells like cat piss. Good thing I ain’t movin’ any time soon, or I’d lose my whole cleaning deposit.”
Damn. It made sense: animals were more sensitive to the supernatural than humans were. If something was going on the night Dennis Avila died, it was entirely possible that Raider the cat had been traumatized by it. “Where is he now?”
“I hadda take him to the pound. I didn’t want to hand him off to somebody else and pass along the same problem.”
“You did this two days ago?”
“Yeah.”
Definitely not good. A cat with behavioral problems probably wouldn’t last long at a space-strapped city pound. “All right, thanks. Can you tell me where you took him?”
“You gonna go find him?” The guy sounded hopeful. “Lemme look it up for you. It’d sure make me feel better to know I didn’t get Dennis’s cat killed, but you didn’t see him. That kitty’s messed up bad.”