by Ann Charles
Cooper followed. “Upstairs or down?”
“Downstairs first,” Doc answered. “That will give Violet the opportunity to listen for any sounds from upstairs.”
“Right, sounds from … what did you call it?” Cooper asked.
Earlier in his cruiser on the way up to Lead, I’d explained about our visit to the Sugarloaf Building last night with Aunt Zoe and Reid. Cooper had listened to our recount about the lidérc without a word. When it was over, he’d looked across the front seat at Doc and said, “This supernatural shit would go down better with whiskey.”
“I’ll buy you a bottle when it’s over.”
Unfortunately for Cooper, I had a feeling that bottle of whiskey would be a long time coming.
“If I need to head upstairs tonight,” I said as we climbed the steps to the building, “I’m going alone.” I shivered from the cold air along with the realization of what we might find inside.
“There’s no way in hell that’s going to happen, Killer,” Doc tightened his hold on my hand. “Where you go, I go.”
“This is my crime scene,” Cooper joined us at the doors. “Nobody goes up there without me.” His obstinacy reminded me of Reid.
I sighed. Didn’t they realize how dangerous that thing upstairs was? I wasn’t even sure I understood what we were dealing with, but Aunt Zoe had certainly made it clear that it was one hundred percent trouble.
I looked down at the door handles. Hold up. The chains holding the doors shut were gone. “Who took the chains off?”
“What chains?”
“The ones holding these doors closed.”
“There was a padlock, too,” Doc said.
“There were no chains or padlock when we arrived.”
Had Katrina removed the padlock and chains? If so, they must be lying around somewhere in the weeds, unless someone else took them. “How did you find out about her? Did someone call it in?”
Cooper nodded. “A guy down the street was coming home from work and saw what looked like a roll of plastic lying here. Turned out to be Katrina.” He pushed open the door. “Shall we?”
We crossed the threshold. Doc let go of my hand, walking deeper into the front room. There were no cops inside, but their bright flashy lights lit the place up with a flickering effect through the murky plastic covering all the windows but one. There were shreds of the plastic, which was now wrapped around Katrina King’s body, still stuck to the nails.
Why the plastic mummy wrap job? What in the hell had happened here?
Doc inhaled a couple of times. “Someone is in here.”
“We’ve been through this first floor a few times tonight, combing for clues, and found nobody.”
“I’m talking about someone dead. I can smell something …” he trailed off, moving over toward the hallway.
“Is it her?” I tiptoed after him.
“I’m not sure. Cooper, I need your flashlight.” After Cooper handed his extra one off, Doc said to me, “Come on.”
I followed very carefully, listening for the sound of our pal from upstairs but not hearing anything.
Doc stopped in the back bathroom where I’d made faces in the mirror such a short time ago.
“Is she in here?” I whispered.
“No.”
“Then what are we doing back here?” Cooper asked from behind me. I hadn’t heard him following.
“Violet needs to focus,” Doc told him. “Those flashing lights might screw her up.”
He was right. I hadn’t realized it, but my concentration had been superficial out front. In here, though, I was somewhat sure I could close my eyes and sense what was going on upstairs.
“Okay,” Cooper had a growl in his tone. “Get to it then.”
I tried to, thinking of the candle, the dancing flame, the trail of smoke rising into the darkness. While focusing, I listened.
“Well?” Cooper asked a short time later.
“Could you breathe any louder, Detective?”
“Sure. I could huff and puff and blow your house down.”
“You already did, and then you tossed me in the hoosegow.”
“You need to get over that.”
“I will if you let me break your nose again.”
“In your dreams, Parker. I’ll wait out front,” he told Doc and walked away.
After he left, Doc stepped back to give me more space, his shoulders filling the doorway. “Okay, Killer, get to work.”
I went back to it, this time reaching out into the darkness even though Cornelius usually warned against it. After several minutes of reaching, I opened my eyes. “Nothing.”
“You want to try another room?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean I heard absolutely nothing. I can’t feel any trace of it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I will be after I go upstairs.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“Damn it, Doc. That thing up there is not a ghost.”
“I know that, but the ghost that was down here has disappeared. Unlike the lidérc, the wards your aunt talked about probably wouldn’t stop a ghost from moving back and forth between floor levels, so I need to go up there, too.”
“Fine, but I’m not Aunt Zoe.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I can’t shield you up there like she could.”
“You don’t know what you’re capable of, sweetheart.” He stepped out into the hallway. “Let’s go see if it’s playing hide and seek again.”
I led the way up the stairs to the second floor this time. Cooper insisted on coming along, unlatching the leather strip holding his gun in its holster as I paused at the top landing. The lock was gone from this door, too.
I had a bad feeling in my gut about this whole setup, so I took it out on Cooper. “You’d better not shoot me, Detective, or I’ll sic that damned Hungarian devil on you.”
“Just get your meddling ass inside.”
The place was just as we’d left it last night except for one thing. There was no lidérc there waiting for us.
I walked the floor from front to back, using the few tricks I knew to call it out. All I found were shadows and empty rooms.
Doc followed me, sniffing and waiting for the ghost he was hunting to come his way.
“It’s gone,” I told him when we returned to the front room. “Any luck with your wispy pal?”
“No. There’s something here, but it’s hanging back.”
“You think it might be shy? There’s a lot of commotion outside?”
“No. I think it was here last night, too, and there were only four of us then. Shyness isn’t holding it back.”
If it was here last night, it wasn’t Katrina King. Unless there were two ghosts he was picking up tonight on his radar. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He had mentioned the smell of Brylcreem, come to think of it.
“Because nothing came of it, and I wasn’t sure if I was picking up the lidérc or something else. With your prey gone, I know now that it was someone else.”
“Shit.” Cooper scrubbed his hand down his face. “Now what?”
“You bring me back tomorrow night,” Doc told him, “without all of these other officers around. That will let things settle down a bit before I try again.”
The detective frowned out through the windows, the flashing lights flickering over his skin giving his face a craggy appearance. “Fine. You want Parker along, too?”
Doc looked at me with raised brows. “That’s up to her.”
“Of course. I’m still not sure if that lidérc is really gone or just hiding somewhere out of reach.”
“I have a feeling it’s gone,” Doc said.
“What makes you say that?”
“When you disappeared last night, Zoe showed me the six wards that she believed were holding it captive—one carved on each of the four walls, one on the ceiling, and one on the floor. It was essentially boxed in, like a prison cell.” He pointed at the wall next to the door.
“This ward has something smeared over it.”
“It looks like it’s supposed to be some kind of symbol,” I said, walking over to it. “But it’s hard to tell for sure with the paint drips distorting it.”
Cooper came up next to us, shining his light on the symbol. “That’s not paint, Parker. It’s blood.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I slept like crap. No surprise there after viewing Katrina’s pale face surrounded by plastic.
I dreamed that I was the one who planted the war hammer in her chest. The lidérc had used her as a host, and the only way to kill it was to kill her. So I’d swung and swung and swung, only there was no plastic mummy wrapping in my nightmare. When I’d woken, my hands were still clenched around the invisible war hammer’s handle and my body was bathed in sweat.
Why couldn’t I dream about petting puppies or swimming with dolphins? Something besides bludgeoning someone to death with a medieval weapon?
Breakfast was late after a longer than usual hot shower to steam away the kinks of a fitful night. Natalie had spent the night on the couch and was pouring a cup of coffee when I joined her in the kitchen. Aunt Zoe had taken the kids to school for me. Real life guardian angels like Aunt Zoe were few and far between.
I took the coffee Natalie offered me. “I meant to ask you last night how well your charms worked on distracting Detective Hawke.” After we’d joined back up with her, the discussion had been about the missing lidérc and the bloody symbol, not her adventures with the big buffoon.
“He tried to get a little too handsy when we were behind the Sugarloaf Building.”
My mouth fell open. “At a crime scene?”
She frowned. “Yeah.”
“What’d you do?”
“Suggested that he remove his hand from my ass before I broke his nose.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep, but he thought I was joking around until I twisted his arm and dropped him to his knees.”
“Damn. Your days as a distractor might be over.”
“Nah. He thinks I’m playing hard to get now. Said he likes women who are into rough foreplay.”
I fake puked. “Wait until you show him one of your patented elbow jabs. That should really pop his willy.”
She chuckled. “Ronnie showed me a new takedown move while I was in Arizona last month. Maybe I’ll try that on Mr. Let’s-Get-Physical.”
“Don’t you mean Claire?” Natalie’s cousin had possessed a bruiser reputation since elementary school, but her older sister, Ronnie, was usually more refined.
“No, it was Ronnie. Turns out she’s taken several self-defense classes over the last few years.” She took a drink of coffee, looking over my thick black sweater, gray corduroy skirt, and black boots. “You look like you’re going to a funeral this morning. Got a cold date waiting for you on the slab down at the morgue? Or is this a mood-enhancing outfit for another day in front of the camera?”
“No to both. We’re done filming for now.” Unless Dickie decided he didn’t like the retake Rosy had filmed of Cornelius and me that was meant to replace the “missing” bit co-starring Wilda and her clown doll. “And Cooper’s text this morning didn’t mention the morgue.”
“He texted you already?”
“I’m not sure he even went to bed. He was heading back to the station last night after dropping us off to work on that paperwork he kept bitching about.”
“Was he sending you love and kisses in his text, telling you how he can’t live without you?”
I chuckled and grabbed my phone, pulling up the detective’s message, and read: Parker, get your ass to the station at 9. Don’t make me come find you and your crazy hair.
“Ah, he was being funny, isn’t that cute.” Natalie’s eyes sparkled. “You two are becoming real pals.”
“I know, right? I wonder how he’d feel about exchanging friendship bracelets with me.”
“I can see the inscription now—Cooper and Violet, Best Friends Forever.”
We got a good laugh out of that one, then I checked the clock and decided I needed to take off so I could swing by work before heading down to see James Bond and Jim Rockford at the Deadwood cop shop.
Cooper was standing at the front desk waiting for me when I walked inside the glass front doors. I was right—he hadn’t gone to sleep. I could see it on his face, which was covered in deep lines and blond stubble this morning.
“You changed your shirt,” I said to him in lieu of a greeting.
“I keep an extra here.” He eyed me warily. “You’re not going to throw up on this one, are you?”
“I save my vomiting for your ties.”
We exchanged a series of squints, then he led the way back to his office without another word. Before he opened the door, he said, “Detective Hawke is inside.”
“Lovely. I can hardly wait to pinch his pudgy cheeks.”
“Try to hold your tongue this morning, Parker.”
“I’ll hold mine if he holds his. Or maybe you should hold both of our tongues for us.”
He didn’t crack, not even a hairline fracture. “Detective Hawke hasn’t slept either, and he’s not as sweet as I am after an all-nighter.”
I sighed. “Two sour grapefruits for breakfast. Makes me pucker up just thinking about it.”
His forehead wrinkled more. “Don’t fuck this up.” Without further orders, he opened the door and ushered me into his office.
Detective Hawke looked not just worn, but wrinkled and stained, too.
“Sit, Ms. Parker.”
I jutted my chin. “Listen, Detective, I’m not your dog. You don’t get to order me around. If you want me to sit, you need to ask me nicely.”
“Here we go,” I heard Cooper mutter. He dropped into the chair meant for me.
“Fine, stand. I’m too tired to give a shit.” Hawke picked up a manila envelope sitting on top of a messy jumble of paperwork on Cooper’s desk and held it out to me. “Look at these and tell me what you see.”
“Don’t you mean tell you what I sense with my medium skills?”
He glared up at me through his bushy black eyebrows. “Just look at the damned pictures.”
I started to argue, but Cooper cleared his throat and nodded his head at the pictures. His gray eyes were sagging at the corners, his exhaustion cracking his tough cop façade.
I took pity on him and grabbed the envelope, pulling out several pictures.
The first one was straight from my nightmares—Katrina King’s face surrounded by the plastic from the window of the Sugarloaf Building. Her lifeless eyes looked doll-like, staring upward, fringed by eyelashes coated with mascara. Her lips were open, gasping her last breath maybe?
I glared over the top of the photo at Detective Hawke. “You could have warned me.”
He shrugged. “I figured a so-called medium would be used to seeing dead people.”
“I’m used to seeing living people, too, but your face still makes me angry.”
Cooper cleared his throat again. He must have an extra large frog in his throat, one with thick sideburns and a corduroy jacket.
I returned to the handful of pictures. In the next, someone had cut the plastic back further, showing an open white coat covering a pink blouse with pearl buttons. Of course the blood staining most of the shirt front made it look more ghoulish than stylish.
“Expensive shirt,” I said. Did Katrina King always dress to the nines when visiting haunted old buildings? “What kind of shoes did she have on? Were they name brand?”
“I didn’t bring you in here to shop, Ms. Parker.”
I scowled at Hawke. “Have you considered that her clothing might show if she came straight from the office? Most women don’t wear such finery when sitting around the house in the evening.”
“Leather high-heeled boots.” Cooper yawned before adding, “Fancy looking. Some Italian name brand.”
I nodded, thinking back to how nice she’d been dressed the day I’d visited her office. “I bet
she came from work. Have you checked the phone records from her Lead office?”
“We’re in the process,” Hawke answered for Cooper. “Go to the next one.”
I flipped to the next photo. Katrina’s shirt had been removed but not her white lace-edged bra, giving a clear picture of the wound at her sternum. I grimaced at the dried blood spread down over her stomach. I could see the stainless steel slab of the morgue’s work table under her bony shoulders. A ring of puncture marks marred the pale skin on her upper left arm. Was that a bite? Aunt Zoe hadn’t mentioned that the lidérc would bite.
“She’s over in Mudder Brother’s basement?” I asked.
Cooper blinked slowly, like his eyelids were getting hard to lift. “Eddie is working on her as we speak.”
I cringed, then did a double take. “Eddie’s back on the job?”
Eddie Mudder had disappeared for a short time last month, landing me temporarily in hot water since I was the last one to have seen him before he’d skedaddled. Turned out he’d been scared off by one of my non-human troublemakers, thinking he was its next victim. Our little phone conversation where I cleared up that the killer was after me, not him, must have calmed him down enough to get him to come home.
“His mini-vacation is over,” Cooper confirmed.
The next photo was a close up of her lower ribcage. There was some discoloration along the lower ribs, making it appear she’d taken a hit to the ribs prior to death. I could see the top of a tattoo barely sticking out above the lace waistline of her underwear. Once again, Jeff’s girlfriend’s tattoo-covered chest flashed through my memory. Damn it, was I going to need a lobotomy to get the image of those nipple rings out of my skull?
I flipped to the next photo and sucked in a breath. It was a close-up of the tattoo.
“What are you looking at?” Cooper asked.
I showed him the picture. “I’ve seen this tattoo before.”
“In one of your trances?” Hawke asked, his sarcasm thick.
Ignoring him, I focused on Cooper. “Lila Beaumont had one just like it, remember?” So had Prudence’s killers back in the late eighteen hundreds according to Doc, as well as whoever had sneaked into Wanda’s house lately while Prudence watched.