by Nene Adams
“Maybe it’s some sick tribute to the original arsonist.” Larkin picked up a beer and drained the bottle in a few gulps. This time, he stifled the belch behind his hand.
“I’d like to see your research,” she said, thinking about the blazing spirit she’d seen. Could there really be a connection between the fires in 1945 and the fires happening now? If so, was the spirit to blame? Or a living agent?
She’d always loved burning leaves, building a campfire at the lake and cooking on the barbeque. Fire fascinated her. Fire ate. Fire breathed. Fire danced and leaped, and begat little flames that grew, and flourished and created their own fiery offspring, just like a living thing. The cycle of fire’s existence ended in ashes when the fuel ran out, the oxygen ran out, or someone interfered—in her opinion, a metaphor for human life and human death.
“I’ll send you an email,” Larkin promised.
From the kitchen came the sound of raised voices and crashing pots. Sounded like Delmar and his uncle had resumed their argument.
Mackenzie raised a hand for the waiter. “Check, please.”
Chapter Seven
After leaving the Golden Buddha, Mackenzie returned to the office with her appetite satisfied, her curiosity less so.
What did the burning spirit want?
Annabel Coffin’s ghost had tried to communicate with her, badgered her, frightened her, even hurt her sometimes, but with the intent of always working toward a goal: identifying and punishing a killer. This other spirit’s motives were unknown. The burning silhouette hadn’t tried to tell her anything, hadn’t reached out in any way she understood. She found it disturbing, to say the least.
Seated at her desk, Mackenzie sighed and began doodling on the notepad in front of her. Until Annabel Coffin, she’d never seen a ghost in her life. Heard of them, yes, and not just the “haints” and spooks allegedly in Antioch. Like most old Southern families, hers had its share of hauntings. She’d just never experienced the supernatural on a personal level before. Why now? Why her? And would it ever end, or was she doomed to spend the rest of her life with ghosts flickering in and out of the corner of her eye?
She did an Internet search for Delmar Li’s “hungry ghost” and learned the phrase had a specific meaning in Chinese culture. A person’s misdeeds might condemn them to remain in spirit form after death. The punishment included having an appetite that could never be satisfied and a mouth the size of a rice grain, which didn’t sound like the spirit she’d seen.
Nothing she read really seemed to fit. She went further, branching out her search, but whatever was setting fires in Antioch had no parallels she could find. Perhaps another approach was needed.
She’d always seen Annabel Coffin in black, gray and white like a classic movie, while Veronica saw the spirit in color. Could her perception be at fault? Only one way to know for sure—somehow get Veronica to see the ghost and make a comparison.
“You look so busy, I’m surprised smoke’s not coming out of your ears,” joked Veronica Birdwell as she came into the office.
Smiling, Mackenzie glanced up from her work. Veronica had changed her deputy’s uniform for a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show her toned forearms. Her brunette hair hung loose on her shoulders, signaling she was off duty.
“And you look like a billion dollars.” Mackenzie went around her desk to give Veronica a hug. Their lips met and lingered. She felt a lightness all over her body and tingled in the best places.
Veronica murmured, “Ready to quit for the day?”
“Just give me a couple of minutes to finish things here.” Mackenzie stole another kiss before returning to her desk.
As promised, Larkin’s email contained an attached file and a message: Breathe a word about this to anybody, Kenzie, or tell Female I let you see his story, and I’ll knock you on the head and donate your measly carcass to science.
She snorted and resisted opening the file, transferring it to a flash drive instead. She’d look at Larkin’s research at home. “My place? Your place?” she asked Veronica. “I ate a late lunch with Little Jack—kind of a business thing, I’ll tell you about it later—but we can drive by Pontefract’s boarding house and pick up dinner to go for you.”
Veronica flushed. “I rented one of those vacation cabins on the lake today. We could drive up there tonight, if you want.”
Although surprised, Mackenzie was also pleased. A weekend getaway on Lake Minnesauga seemed like the perfect way to beat the long summer’s heat. “I thought you were working Saturday and Sunday.”
“I was scheduled to work, but Deputy Buzzard needs the extra hours more, so we switched a shift.” Veronica leaned on the Rock-Ola jukebox, her keys dangling from her hand. “I thought we could head over to the lake, unless you’d rather not.” Her flush deepened to livid stripes on both cheeks. “God, I’m sorry, Mac. I didn’t ask,” she went on miserably. “Maybe you’re busy. I mean, I should’ve called you first, but I couldn’t get a call through, and I figured you’d be okay with giving yourself some time off, but—”
“Untwist your knickers, Ronnie,” Mackenzie cut in, laughing. A realization struck her: she wasn’t the only one nervous about their new relationship. “I’d love to spend a couple of days at the lake with you. Let me pack a bag and I’m ready to go.”
The corner of Veronica’s mouth quirked. “Your bag’s in my truck. I stopped by your place earlier.” At Mackenzie’s raised eyebrows, she added, “I know you, Mac. If we don’t go now, you’ll get caught up in something that can’t wait. I also called Mrs. Cross and told her where we’re going. Everything’s been arranged.”
“Well, since my mother knows we’re spending the weekend together in sin and sloth, we might as well take off.” Mackenzie smiled to hide her slight annoyance.
She’d planned to tell Sarah Grace herself when the romance with Veronica settled a little more. Now the cat was probably out of the bag. True, she and Veronica had gone to the lake together in the past, but things were different now. They were lovers, not just friends.
Through some psychic power granted only to the mothers of daughters, Sarah Grace might glean the change in their status from Veronica’s innocent phone call. If so, hurt feelings and guilt trips loomed in her future. Things could be worse, she told herself. God forbid, if one of her mother’s friends or a local gossip saw her and Veronica together at the lake and blabbed, Sarah Grace would never let her hear the end of it. Not because she was a lesbian—that particular issue had been sorted out long ago—but because she hadn’t told her first.
A few minutes later, in the cab of Veronica’s Ford truck, speeding along I-85 on the way to Lake Minnesauga, she debated calling Sarah Grace and making a full confession. You’re an adult, damn it, she chided herself. You don’t need Mama’s permission to have a girlfriend. Or to go out of town for a good time with said girlfriend.
A different inner voice, the one belonging to the piece of her psyche shaped by Sarah Grace, Meemaw Cross and an azalea bush with the whippiest branches in town, whispered to her, Mama mad, Mama spank. Her heart fetched an almighty thump. She might be long past the age when anyone could send her high stepping in the switch dance, but memories of her mother and grandmother’s “attitude adjustment therapy” still held the power to sting.
“You’re worried about Mrs. Cross, I can tell.” Veronica deftly drove the truck around a slow-poking station wagon with a half dozen mattresses tied to its roof. “She’ll be fine, Mac. Detective Maynard said he’d look in on her while we were away.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Mackenzie muttered. To avoid having to answer the question in Veronica’s eyes, she turned up the volume on the radio, letting country music fill the cab and leave no room for conversation while she tried to relax and focus her thoughts away from Sarah Grace’s theoretical wrath.
Lake Minnesauga formed a rough, nine mile oval scooped out of the edge of Aimwell Forest. Even on the hottest days, she recalled, the placid
artesian spring-fed water was cool and a clear, deep blue-green reminding her of New Mexican turquoise. Developers hadn’t ruined the area yet, thank God.
Veronica changed lanes, turned the truck off the highway at the Lake Minnesauga exit and followed the road to a signpost. Turning left, she drove to the area where small log cabins were available as vacation rentals. She parked outside a cabin and turned to Mackenzie.
“If you’re having second thoughts, tell me. I sprang this weekend on you without warning. You don’t have to go along with it if you don’t want to.” Veronica seemed anxious. A breeze drifted through the open window, fluttering a lock of her hair.
Mackenzie inhaled deeply. Pines and fresh earth baking in the sunshine—the scents of nature never failed to touch her. But quick as lightning, her mind supplied other, equally familiar scents: warm skin, sweat, musk and salt, leather, a trace of gunpowder.
She touched Veronica’s cheek. In this beautiful place with her beautiful lover, anxiety held no sway. She’d enjoy herself and to hell with everything else. “I’m happy, Ronnie,” she said, her contentment growing with Veronica’s relieved grin.
Chapter Eight
The following morning, Mackenzie rose early in search of coffee. She left Veronica asleep in bed, snuggled up to her chin in white cotton sheets and a thin quilt with a sailboat patterned top that looked like Mennonite work. She didn’t have the heart to wake Veronica yet, not when they’d been up late last night. Not watching television. Not futzing around on a computer. And definitely not playing Scrabble. She fingered a hickey on her hip and sighed.
The rental cabin wasn’t very large, just a small bedroom dominated by the bed, a combined living room/kitchen twenty-five feet square, and a separate bathroom with shower and toilet. Her feet made faint scuffling sounds on a wooden floor softened by occasional rag rugs. More Mennonite handiwork, she thought. The cabin’s owner must have gotten a discount from the community north of Big Brother Ridge.
In the kitchen, she started the coffeemaker. She found a melamine mug in an overhead cabinet. From the refrigerator she took a carton of half-and-half. Veronica had thought of everything, she’d discovered last night when unloading the truck, including buying groceries from the supermarket and goodies from Shapiro’s Deli before they left Antioch.
While waiting for the coffee to drip into the carafe, she decided to poke through the rest of the groceries and make a plan for breakfast. To her horror, Veronica had bought refrigerator biscuits, the kind in a can. Blasphemy! Further searching yielded bread, milk, butter, flour in a plastic bag, salt and pepper, and a jar of dried beef. Veronica liked dried beef sandwiches with mustard, a disgusting combination in Mackenzie’s opinion.
Mackenzie decided to make her father’s favorite dish, creamed chipped beef on toast.
But first, a cup of coffee enjoyed standing at the open kitchen window, listening to birdsong and the muted, far-off strains of rock music from another cabin.
Someone padded toward her from behind. An arm slipped around her waist. A possessive hand cupped her buttock. “Good morning,” Veronica breathed in her ear.
“Good morning.” Mackenzie turned around. Veronica looked sleep tousled and perfectly delectable. She held up her coffee cup in mute inquiry.
“Please.” Veronica kissed Mackenzie’s neck and sat down at the kitchen table. She’d put on a T-shirt and denim shorts, and pulled her brunette hair into a neat ponytail.
Mackenzie wore only a tank top and a pair of threadbare boxer shorts. Her hair was a mess, too, the black, kinky mass made frizzier by humidity. Next to Veronica, she felt unmade, messy, a slob in desperate need of a makeover, but that wasn’t a new sensation. She’d learned not to obsess over it because Veronica clearly didn’t see her that way.
“SOS for breakfast.” Mackenzie poured coffee into a second melamine cup and set it on the table along with the container of half-and-half and a few individual serving packets of sugar from a fast-food restaurant she’d unearthed in a drawer.
“What’s SOS?” Veronica added sugar to her coffee.
“Daddy called it ‘shit on a shingle,’ when Mama wasn’t around.” Mackenzie chuckled at Veronica’s raised eyebrow. “You’ll like it.”
Veronica took a sip of coffee and nodded slowly. “I trust you.” The intonation she gave the phrase made it clear she meant more than just breakfast.
Mackenzie’s inner glow warmed her to the toes.
After soaking the paper thin slices of beef in water to remove some of the salt, she busied herself at the stove making a roux with a few tablespoons of butter and flour in a pan. “Did you remember to pack my laptop?”
“Mac, this isn’t supposed to be a working weekend.”
“I know, but Larkin sent me a file yesterday and I didn’t have time to look at it. I put it on a flash drive. I just want to skim the information real quick.”
“I think your roux’s ready. Don’t want it to burn.”
Mackenzie added milk to the roux, stirring constantly to make a smooth white sauce. “That file may have information relating to the police station fire and all the other fires in Antioch you haven’t told me about.” She took the beef slices from the water and squeezed them out over the bowl before roughly chopping the pieces and putting them in the white sauce along with a good pinch of pepper.
“Mac, I can’t tell you anything about an ongoing investigation.” Veronica pushed her empty cup aside and leaned both arms on the table. She wore a stern expression Mackenzie thought of as her “on duty” face. “Where did Mr. Larkin get his information?”
Before she could censor herself, Mackenzie replied tartly, “Since this isn’t a working weekend, maybe I should wait and tell you on Monday, Deputy Birdwell.”
Veronica’s silence shamed her.
She turned on the oven’s broiler and arranged some bread slices on the rack. When the slices were toasted on one side, she flipped them over. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said in a low voice, staring at the oven. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Veronica snagged her hand and gave her fingers a squeeze. “I shouldn’t have asked. Mr. Larkin tells you things in confidence and you’re a good friend who keeps her promises. If there’s anything I need to know, you’ll tell me. I trust you, remember?”
Mackenzie rescued the toast. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.” She retrieved two melamine plates from the cupboard. “You’re right about the file being confidential, but I hoped we could look at it together because I think…well, I don’t know what I think yet, but I’ve seen something and I want your opinion.”
“After breakfast.” Veronica’s stomach grumbled loudly. She tugged up the hem of Mackenzie’s shirt and pressed a kiss to the soft skin at her waist, making her shiver. “I never did get dinner last night,” she whispered, her green eyes wide and knowing.
“Give me a minute,” Mackenzie said with an effort.
She put toast on the plates and ladled a generous amount of creamed chipped beef over each slice. The sudden, toe curling desire that had flared at Veronica’s touch subsided to a warmth, like banked embers in her belly.
By the time they finished eating breakfast, she practically vibrated with impatience. When Veronica volunteered to do the dishes, she hastily agreed and went to the bedroom for her laptop and the flash drive she’d tucked in her pants pocket yesterday. She also took the opportunity to change into white cargo shorts and a cappuccino-colored T-shirt.
Glancing in the dresser mirror on her way out of the bedroom, she paused. With her amber eyes and black hair curling wildly around her face, she looked predatory, like a lioness, which reminded her of last night in bed with Veronica. The beautiful, delightful, inventive woman had crawled over to her on all fours and she could’ve sworn she’d heard a growl.
Whistling “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” she returned to the living room with her laptop bag and the flash drive.
“Wimoweh, wimoweh,” came from the kitchen in Veronica’s shaky soprano.
Mackenzie sat on the Mission-style sofa and set up her laptop on the coffee table. She opened the file Larkin had sent and spent several minutes in silent study.
After a while, Veronica emerged from the kitchen, a dish towel slung over her shoulder. “Anything interesting?” she asked, sitting on the sofa. She frowned at the dish towel, folded it and laid it on the coffee table next to the laptop.
“Little Jack has a theory.” Mackenzie went on to tell Veronica about the fires in 1945. Truman Female’s file wasn’t so much a cohesive story as a somewhat scattershot collection of research notes. “Now I’ve seen the same spirit twice,” she tacked on to the end of her explanation. “Once in Stubbs Park when the police station was on fire, like I told you, and the second time in the Golden Buddha. The spirit was surrounded by flames.”
“Why?”
“How the hell would I know? The ghost hasn’t said a word to me. I don’t even know if it’s a woman, a man, both, or neither.”
Veronica leaned over to read the file, switching between documents so quickly, Mackenzie couldn’t follow the woman’s train of thought. At last, she straightened, looking grave. “This information is very disturbing, Mac. To be honest, I’m scared.”
A backwash of acid surged up from Mackenzie’s stomach, scalding her throat. She swallowed. “Walk me through your take on the situation, please.”
“Well, making a simple comparison between 1945 and now, I’d say either an octogenarian serial arsonist is repeating his earlier crimes in the same places and same sequence, or a modern arsonist is copycatting the fires in 1945, or—” Veronica hesitated.
“Or what?” Mackenzie demanded.
“Or that wait-about you saw is responsible for everything, then and now. It’s a remote possibility, I guess.” Veronica didn’t sound convinced. “None of which matters right this minute because if Mr. Larkin’s right, everybody in Antioch is in serious danger.”
The Big Burn. Mackenzie didn’t say the words aloud, but she could tell from Veronica’s expression that they both thought the same thing.