“Shoo.” I shove him with my hands, but the inevitable claws come out and I know better than to fight. “Maybe we could drive up to Spokane tomorrow and give it a try,” I say. “She might be persuaded to talk to you, a sheriff. Outside of that, I don’t know what to do.”
“Please tell me you haven’t forgotten about dinner with the middle schoolers tomorrow,” Matt says.
I stare at him in dismay. “Oh, hell. Is that tomorrow?”
“I’ve been trying to talk to you about it all week.”
“Can’t we cancel?”
“It’s a little late now.”
“But we have a lead!” I look from Matt, to Sophie, to Jake, and can see they are all arrayed against me. Apparently the descent of the middle school kids upon the Manor at Thanksgiving is a community tradition I’m not supposed to breach.
“If you want to cancel, Maureen, you need to make the call,” Jake says. “It’s your Manor. I’m not going to be the one to tell Joanna Schrader that we’re killing her holiday tradition.”
“Not killing it. Just giving it a moratorium. Maybe we could do Christmas.” I can’t quite repress a shudder. Kids that age are unruly savages. The thought of them mixing in with the old people and running wild through the Manor is a terrifying thing. I’d much rather single handedly pursue the Medusa.
Matt doodles a skull and crossbones around and through the words “Middle School Menu” at the top of his notepad, which makes it look like he’s planning to cook and serve children. “Yes or no?” he asks.
“We can’t just sit around eating pie and waiting for somebody else to get murdered.”
“We don’t know that Dason was murdered,” Jake objects.
“He didn’t kill himself. And the Medusa killed the World Tree Girl.”
“The girl died over a month ago.” Matt adds flames to the design he’s been drawing. “I really hate to say this, but are we sure the Medusa killed her?”
“Do we know of anything else that sucks all the blood out of somebody and leaves slime behind?” Sophie sounds more curious than disgusted by the idea.
“Or maybe the Medusa has siblings,” Matt replies. “How do we know Alice didn’t create a batch of the creatures?”
“How about we stick with the evidence?” Jake suggests. “We have photos of a dead girl. We don’t know who posted them on Underground Weird. Neither do we know if her physical condition was accurately described by the blogger. We don’t know if Dason killed himself, or if somebody killed him. And”—he holds up a hand to stop me from interrupting—“if it was the Medusa who killed the girl, it’s been over a month since it happened and there have been no other such deaths.”
“That we know of.”
Jake’s going to rupture something if he keeps rolling his eyes like that. I smile at him. “Look, what would it hurt for you and me to drive up to Spokane in the morning? We could be back in time for dinner. I want to have a look at Dason’s apartment, talk to his friends.”
“It’s outside our jurisdiction,” Jake says.
“He was killed in your jurisdiction.”
“Probably a suicide. We’re still waiting for the coroner to rule.”
Matt slams his pencil down onto the table. “Look. I’m as keen on catching the Medusa as anybody. But since I work here at the Manor, and part of my job seems to be this infernal dinner, I need to know if we’re having it or not. There are groceries to be bought. I need help in the kitchen. Help serving. We’ve done nothing to prepare.”
“I don’t understand why you all are so wound up about this dinner thing. So we cancel at the last minute. How is this a national crisis?”
“Have you met Mrs. Schrader?” Sophie asks.
“Community relations,” Matt says.
“Since when do we care what anybody thinks?”
“Old people die, Maureen. Who do you think is going to replace this crew when they drop off?”
“We haven’t had a problem so far.”
“And you’ve never called off the Thanksgiving dinner. You don’t want to read the Yelp reviews if you cancel this event.”
“Plus, we don’t want to call any attention to either the Manor or its new ownership,” Jake adds. “We managed to skate after that fiasco with the Medusa, despite a few dead bodies. But we’re on the radar now. Next time it won’t be so easy.”
“Fine. All right. We’ll have the dinner. But I can’t imagine why the residents want all those kids up here. You’d think they’d be extra thankful if we called the whole thing off.”
“Not fond of kids?” Matt grins.
“There is no paranormal more frightening than a twelve-year-old kid. Except maybe the Medusa. Speaking of which, can we get on with trying to find her, or do we have to spend the rest of our time talking about turkey and pumpkin pie?”
“Give me a budget, get me some help, and I’ll take care of it.”
“Done. Now, can we get back to the Medusa? Until we have evidence to support another theory, let’s assume she’s responsible for the World Tree Girl and that she will kill again. As for Dason, if he’s not our Underground Weird blogger, he has a connection to whoever is. And this whole situation stinks of activity from the Unit. There should be a description of the World Tree Girl on the missing child database. There ought to be a coroner’s report, an autopsy report, a police report. Jake has searched the official channels from the sheriff’s office. I’ve hacked into everything short of the FBI database, done extensive searches. Nothing. It’s been hushed up, and maybe Dason has also been hushed up.”
Jake rubs his forehead. “If—and this is pure speculation, but I’ll go along for the ride—if the Unit silenced Dason, what about everybody else at the morgue? The ME? Other staff? Are they at risk?”
“None of them are selling photos or blabbing about autopsy findings. My guess is Dason signed his death warrant when he tried to sell that picture.”
Jake is looking at me in a way I don’t entirely like, as though I’m some sort of bug under a magnifying lens. “Did you do that sort of thing when you were with the Unit? Wipe out targets to keep them quiet?”
“No. I engaged in a little gentle persuasion, usually more bribery than fear based. Set up witness protection programs, that sort of thing. Killing seems to be something that happened around the time Matt signed on.”
“I have a new person to report to,” Matt says. “Goes by Charlie. He apologized, more or less, for what happened to Phil and Abel. Said there was objection in the ranks to the actions that led to the regrettable deaths of valuable agents. Leadership has changed and I’m to stay where I am and keep my eyes open.”
By keeping his eyes open, he means keeping me in his sight. The Unit planted him here at the Manor, with a license to kill and a head full of lies. He’s on our team now, walking the fine line of a double agent, and the stress is beginning to show.
There are dark shadows under his eyes, new lines in his face. My heart softens, treacherously, but I harden it. I can’t afford to get too attached; one of these days I might need to kill him.
“Does this Charlie person drop any hints about this girl, or thoughts that Medusa killed her?” I ask him.
“Not a word. But then they don’t exactly trust me.”
“I really thought we’d killed that thing,” Jake says.
“I really hoped we had,” I answer.
The four of us watched the Medusa melt, poisoned by silver dust and burned by lasers. She’d certainly seemed dead. But when you’re dealing with a paranormal that can go invisible, you can’t trust the evidence of your eyes.
We threw every weapon we had at her, and if she’s still alive, as I firmly believe, I have no idea what we’re going to do when we do find her. The best we might hope for is to make ourselves decoys.
This is a reality I’m not willing to accept. There has got to be a way to find the creature and to kill her. I fully intend to do both.
Chapter Six
By the time dinner rolls around, I
’m knee deep in unpacking. I’m hungry, and I should go down to keep an eye on Jill if nothing else, but I have just discovered a box with a label marked CHINA & SUNDRIES. Ed, my ex-in-progress, knows full well I have no use for either china or sundries. It’s not his handwriting on the label.
I open the box with caution. Inside, a handwritten note rests on top of an expensive bone china tea set. It’s written in a flowing script with lavender ink.
Maureen, it must be so difficult to leave your home and resettle at this time of life. Please allow me to send a little housewarming gift. I do hope someday we might be friends.
Glenda
Clearly, Ed’s new woman is either brain damaged or evil in the cold-blooded way of snakes. I’m contemplating the satisfying way the teapot would explode if I used it for target practice when Jake knocks on my door.
He doesn’t flinch at the gun in my hand, just looks from it, to me, to the box, and says, “Let me take you away from all this.”
“Twice in one day?”
“What can I say? I’m a romantic.”
“My husband’s new love has sent me a tea set. She’d like to be friends.”
He makes a face. “Forget all that. I need you.”
“I can’t leave Jill here on her own.”
“You don’t want a look at the body?”
“Dason’s? Oh, hell, you’re a cruel man, Jake Callahan.”
“Think of me as your knight in shining armor. Come on. Mac is there waiting for us. Jill is a grown woman. I’m sure she can survive without you, even surrounded by a bunch of old people.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. She’s just here to settle her father’s estate. Not everybody has ulterior motives. Lock up tight. I have coffee waiting for you in the car. And a donut.”
I can’t argue with the logic of coffee and donuts. And he’s probably even right about Jill.
When we pull up to Frank’s Funeral Parlor and Crematorium, there’s a sheriff’s cruiser parked in the lot. There’s also a hard-ridden Harley, the black gas tank painted with a horde of ghosts and skeletons, apparently all trying to strangle or beat each other into a second and more permanent death.
The front doors are locked and Jake taps at them.
I hear footsteps. The door opens theatrically on a skeletal face calculated to send mourners fleeing. Half of the head is bald, with blotchy, discolored skin pulled tight over the skull. The other half sports thick, wavy brown hair. The face has no eyebrows, which emphasizes a bony ridge of high forehead. One eye is milky white and clearly blind, but the other is a brilliant blue that checks me over with keen intelligence. Two open nostrils mark the spot where a nose should be. The mouth has no lips, and the skin of the entire face is a collage of textures and colors, from blanched white to beefy red.
“Hey, Craig,” Jake says.
No pipe organ music and scuttling rats. This is just an unfortunate man who has had a close encounter with fire.
“Come on in. They’re waiting for you.” He has a lovely voice and his tone is polite, as if my rude staring hasn’t bothered him. The little bell at the door rings as we enter. Craig locks up behind us.
“We’re closed,” he says, in explanation. “Lysander is throwing fits. Come on, they’re in the prep room.”
Jake motions for me to follow, and he brings up the rear. In the viewing room where I once found Sophie holding a ceremony to help a dead woman cross, everything is brightly lit and clinical. No candlesticks, no piles of jewelry and food and wine. It’s also empty. We follow our guide through a maze of hallways, stopping when we reach a deputy standing outside a metal door. Female, medium height, solid muscle, dark hair cut short.
“Everything okay, Grace?” Jake asks.
She nods. “Yes, sir. Nobody in or out. Except him.” She casts a glance at Craig, but stops short of eye contact.
“Craig works here,” Jake says, and there’s an edge to his voice Grace would be smart to pay attention to.
Craig’s face reveals nothing. “Take care, Jake. Ma’am.” He nods at me.
I nod back, then follow Jake into a cool room brightly lit by fluorescents. A concrete floor slopes down to a drain at the center. The ripe smell of a well-fermented body permeates the air. Sinks, hoses, suction pumps, and all of the embalmers’ tools and equipment are on display.
Dason lies on a preparation table at the center of the room, naked. A camera and computer are set up on a table beside him. Lysander, Sophronia’s father and the owner of this establishment, stands guard, jaw jutting like a bulldog. His legs are spread wide apart, his hands curled almost into fists. Mac towers over him, his face and body language expressing boredom and complete indifference to the other man’s rage.
Lysander redirects his temper to me. “You. I should have known you were involved. Tell them this building is not a storage facility for disputed bodies.”
“I don’t give orders to cops and coroners, Lysander. What’s coaxed you out of hiding?”
“Don’t lie to me. You brought them here. I know what you are. This—thing”—he gestures at the body on the table—“does not belong here. Too late for embalming. Either it gets buried at once, or it goes to the ME where it belongs.”
He might as well be a puff of hot air for all the attention the other two men pay his words.
“Sending the body to Spokane seemed—unwise—given the circumstances. Mac thought it best to keep it here, until we talk to Kate,” Jake says.
I cross over to the camera setup. The computer is open to a telemed link, ready to dial. “What’s the plan?”
Mac’s face looks as innocent as a biker’s face can look, which makes him look guilty as hell. “We want Kate’s opinion on the body, while keeping it safe here from any—tampering.”
“I object,” Lysander shouts. “This is all against protocol. It’s probably illegal.”
“You can complain to the ME,” Mac says. He walks over to stand behind me. “Jake tells me you’re good with technology. Can you run this? I can do it, but technology goes wonky around me. This needs to go off smooth as silk.”
“I can.”
Mac grunts, approvingly. Up close, I can see the tattoo on his jaw is a raven. His eyes are so dark they seem to absorb the light.
“Shall we do this?” he asks.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Get the camera on me, first, and screen the body out. Right. Can you get a close-up when we need it?”
I look at the controls. “Affirmative.” To demonstrate, I zoom the camera in until only Mac’s nose shows on the screen. Under magnification it looks cratered, more like the moon’s surface than human skin. I dial the zoom back just until he fills the screen, all solid muscle and black leather.
He gives me a thumbs-up and I initiate the connection.
A woman comes on screen. If she tops five feet, I’ll be surprised, and she carries not an extra ounce of weight on her bones. Her long, dark hair is perfectly braided and coiled around her head. She wears a pristine lab coat, pencil skirt, and high heels. Her name tag is not only visible, but pinned to her coat so that it lies perfectly square.
“Make it quick, Mac. I’m very busy. Your e-mail was vague and incoherent. I’m attending this appointment only because I understand it must be difficult for an inexperienced coroner to manage a questionable death. Tell me now, again, what is the problem with this body?” Her voice is tinged faintly with an accent.
“It looks like suicide, but I have my doubts.”
“Send the body to me. This is customary. I do not understand what the problem is. If we follow protocol, then we do not have these interruptions and disturbances. I can give you two more minutes, and that is all.”
Timing is everything. I’m already working the zoom before Mac gestures to me. He steps aside and I focus the camera in on the side of Dason’s face that still looks like Dason. She responds with silence. No intake of breath. No sudden exclamation. She leans forward, p
eering into the screen for a better look at the victim.
“You see my problem,” Mac says, after a long moment.
“Quite right,” she answers, her voice still clinical and cool. “You’ve done precisely the correct thing. I’d ask what happened, but that would be inappropriate. Please be sure not to give any information away that I should not know.”
“I take it you knew the deceased?” Jake asks the question.
Kate’s gaze sharpens as she dissects him with her eyes, top to bottom.
“Sheriff,” she says, coolly. “You already know that I knew him, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Yes. His name is Dason Williams, and I fired him last week.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“Do I need an attorney?”
“It looks like suicide. But if you think you need to lawyer up, we can certainly make this official.”
She says nothing, and Jake goes on. “Did the two of you have conflict?”
“Absolutely not.”
“He was difficult? A bad employee?”
“He was a quiet, unassuming sort. Tended to be lost in his own thoughts.”
“Is that why you fired him?”
“No. I fired him because he broke protocol.”
“What were his duties, precisely?”
“He washed the bodies after autopsy. He was also good with a camera, and I had him take photos for me to illustrate certain points during a post mortem.”
“Sounds like a valuable employee.”
“He was.”
“But you fired him.”
She sighs, glances off camera to what I’m guessing is a clock, and adjusts her already perfectly aligned badge. “His job was to take photographs I requested using the designated equipment. All photos were to remain within the morgue, or be disseminated as I saw fit, according to legal requirements and privacy laws. I caught him taking pictures with his own camera.”
“It seems he had been taking pictures for some time,” Mac says. “Maureen?”
I’ve used the time to connect my own notebook to the system and pull up images of the photos on the walls in Dason’s room. “Do any of these look familiar?”
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