The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery)

by Kirsten Weiss

  So he’d been watching Helen. The insurance settlement hadn’t been the end of it for Aaron.

  “How much?” she said.

  “One hundred K. There’s still a reward out for it. The insurance company would like to get their money back.”

  “I’m sure they would.” She scribbled a note. “Why wasn’t Herman prosecuted?”

  “He was too smart. We couldn’t figure out how he’d done it, or where he’d put the money. There was no proof.”

  She looked up at him. “Then why are you so sure Herman took it?”

  “Aside from me, he was the only person with access and I know I didn’t do it. He was the CFO, he knew all the ins and outs. Even with the insurance it was a damned disaster – several of our investors threatened to pull out. I’d like to get that money back.” His voice hardened. “If you know anything about it, you’re making a mistake not to come forward.”

  Riga’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t.” She didn’t like his tone, but wasn’t willing to blow the interview yet.

  “Sorry,” he said, and gave her a quick smile, repentant. “I guess I’m still a little hot about it. No one likes to be made a fool of. I nearly lost a deal because of the embezzlement. Nearly,” he emphasized.

  “Which deal?” Riga asked, curious.

  “The racetrack in South City. The demolition is coming up soon; you should come.”

  The racetrack was along the rail line. Riga had read about the demolition; the area was to be converted into mixed use commercial and residential real estate.

  “It’s an amazing project,” Aaron enthused. He drew a slim computer from his briefcase and pulled up artists renderings of the project – watercolor pastels of people walking along shady paths, and curving three-story buildings with tinted windows.

  A shadow fell across the table. “Show and tell?” a caramel voice drawled.

  Riga looked up, startled. It was Donovan.

  He pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat between the two. “Am I interrupting?”

  “I’m interviewing Mr. Cunningham for an article,” Riga warned. “Donovan—“

  “Don’t worry, Riga,” Aaron interrupted. “Donovan and I know each other well. Though you must be a recent acquaintance of his.”

  “Why do you say that?” Riga asked.

  “Donovan never stays too long in one place. His friendships tend to be short lived.”

  Donovan’s eyes were hard as jade. “At least they live.”

  A muscle clenched in Aaron’s jaw, his chest expanded. The air crackled between the two men.

  She decided to try and prolong the coming explosion. “Aaron was just about to tell me about his new development. And I’d like to hear about it.”

  The cords in Aaron’s neck relaxed. He cleared his throat. “It’s a green development.”

  Donovan snorted.

  Aaron ignored him. “As you know the high speed rail is being laid along the existing train tracks. There’s a station at the racetrack – or what was the track. People will be able to use it to commute from their homes, and people in the businesses there will be able to use it to get to and from work. We have to be more like Europe,” he said, becoming animated, “with urban areas clustered around public transport.”

  “I understand there have been some protests by local neighborhood groups,” Riga said.

  “They’re not real neighborhood groups. Just some cranks with a petition – they don’t have an officially recognized organization.”

  How official or organized did a neighborhood group have to be, Riga wondered? It was their neighborhood, after all. “What’s their gripe?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “The usual. They want everything to stay as is. They have no vision for the future.” He leaned across the table, stabbing his finger into the cloth. “This development has been carefully planned. It’s sustainable – we earned one of the highest LEED rankings possible.”

  Riga had no idea what LEED was but she’d look it up later. She didn’t want to interrupt the flow.

  “It adds five hundred new housing units,” he said, “which are desperately needed. It’s walkable, has bike paths, and includes two acres of open space. We have to follow Europe, where public transport-based and high density housing are the norm. We can’t go on the way we have been.”

  “Who’s we?” Donovan said. “You don’t live within miles of a railroad, and your estate in the hills hardly qualifies as high density.”

  “You think you’re better than me, living in Vegas? That place shouldn’t even exist.” Aaron flared. “All your water has to be piped in from elsewhere.”

  “I think you’re a pompous hypocrite. And that I’m better than you,” Donovan added as an afterthought.

  Aaron sneered. “You pathetic drunk.” He shoved his chair back, standing in an abrupt, jerky motion. He threw some bills on the table. “I’ll send you an invitation to the demolition, Riga. I think you’ll like the big bang. Bring a photographer – it will make a good finale for your story.”

  Riga watched Donovan watch Aaron leave. As insults had gone, Donovan’s had been mild, but it had been enough to drive Aaron off. Either the developer was thin-skinned or he’d been looking for an excuse to escape.

  Donovan signaled the waiter and ordered a brandy.

  He looked at Riga. “I am not a drunk. Though since every drunk says that, I don’t suppose the denial rings with verisimilitude.”

  “What are you doing here?” Riga hissed.

  “I was as surprised to see you as you were to see me. We appear to be drawn to each other.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” She gestured towards the door Aaron had just left through. “And what the hell was that about?”

  “He’s a prick.”

  “Yeah, I got that. Your behavior wasn’t sterling either. What’s he done to you?”

  The waiter placed a tumbler full of brandy on the table and quietly vanished.

  Donovan rattled the ice in the glass, gazing into it. “I knew his wife,” he said. “Lauren liked to play, was a regular at my casino.” He tilted his head back, smiling. “God, she was gorgeous, full of life. She knew how to live. I don’t know what attracted her to Aaron – they were fire and ice.”

  Riga started connecting the dots. “Did you have an affair with her?”

  “No. Believe it or not, I’m old fashioned about those things. Besides, putting one over on Aaron wouldn’t have been worth the collateral damage to her.”

  “She divorced him though.”

  “Not because of me,” he said firmly. “Aaron had her on a short leash, was controlling, wanted to know her every movement, vet her friends. Lauren couldn’t stand it for long. But Aaron…” He grimaced. “Aaron doesn’t take rejection well. The divorce was public and ugly. He dug up her past and made her look like trailer trash. She wasn’t. She had good lawyers though, and they found a little maid he’d seduced while the two were married.”

  “How trite.”

  “Aaron is nothing if not conventional. They had a pre-nup – at Aaron’s insistence I’m sure, he’s such a cautious–“

  Riga gave him a warning look.

  He bit back the epithet. “Anyway, he’d broken the pre-nup. Aaron lost the case.”

  “And then there was the accident.”

  Donovan took a swallow of his brandy, grimaced with pleasure. “Stay away from Aaron Cunningham. Too many accidents happen around him.”

  Chapter 16: Moirai

  Donovan refused to say more about Lauren, or the other accidents he’d hinted at, merely repeating his warning for her to stay away from Aaron. He walked her to her car then left her, saying he had an urgent appointment. She sat in the parking lot, thinking, then took out her phone and began searching the Internet for names and numbers. Aaron’s romantic conquests had been high profile, and it wasn’t difficult tracking them down. Riga’s calls to his former lovers, however, were all met by a chilly silence and polite refusal to meet. Finally, she cal
led Lauren. She’d been putting her off until last, reluctant to intrude in the woman’s life. But Lauren was her one success. After a long pause, she agreed to meet later that afternoon, and gave Riga directions to her home in Woodside, a wealthy rural community nestled in the hills between the ocean and the bay. Lauren had done well, indeed, from the divorce settlement.

  Riga stopped for the lunch she’d missed with Aaron at a local burger joint, killing time. An hour later, she pulled into Lauren’s wide, circular driveway. As she drove towards the storybook style mansion, she saw the flash of a silver sports car departing through the trees in the drive opposite. It looked like an Aston Martin, but she couldn’t be sure through the thick foliage and drooping oaks.

  She parked in a dirt turnout not far from the house, and walked to the door, wary. Riga paused on the brick step, wondering what it would be like to live here. There was a bell, but Riga used the weighty bronze doorknocker: a man’s leering face peering through ivy with a ring held in his teeth.

  A maid in a gray dress answered her knock, and led her through a foyer with a centerpiece of high cut flowers, and into an all-white sitting room with tall windows facing an English garden, still green in the California autumn. Lauren sat in a wheelchair near the window, facing out. At the sound of Riga’s entrance, she deftly turned her chair with one hand. In the other, she held a pair of glass knitting needles that reminded Riga of a set of marbles her father had saved from his childhood – colorful treasures he’d won off other kids. He had once taught her how to play them, but the concept was too old-fashioned for her to interest any of her friends in. Where had that box of marbles gone?

  From the needles hung an unfinished project, blazing with the colors of a sunset, the skein coiled in Lauren’s lap. A basket of yarns sat on the floor near her chair.

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up,” Lauren said. Her voice had a honey quality to it – not quite a drawl – and Riga sensed this was a line that Lauren used frequently.

  Lauren was a beauty, with artfully tousled shoulder-length blonde hair and a slim build. Riga understood now what Donovan had meant about Lauren being full of life. Its energy shone in her face, her Mediterranean-colored eyes blazed with it.

  “Thanks for seeing me. I’m Riga Hayworth.”

  “I know.” Lauren gestured to a nearby couch.

  Riga sat down, sinking into it, and had to prop her back with a throw pillow to keep herself upright.

  Lauren laughed at that – an angry sound. “Aaron would always play little games with chairs – his would be higher, yours lower, his would be comfortable, yours torture. I don’t think you would have fallen for it though.”

  “Not now I’ve been warned, though my only meeting with him so far has been in a restaurant. The chairs were all the same.”

  “He probably had you facing the window and squinting into the sun though, didn’t he?”

  Riga admitted it.

  “And did he give you the hand-on-top, I-am-superior, grip?”

  “That too.”

  Lauren put her knitting in the basket, looking pleased. “I’ve never met a metaphysical detective. Do you deal with many ghosts?”

  “They’re my bread and butter.”

  “Vampires?”

  Riga shook her head. “Pain in the neck.”

  Lauren laughed politely. “That’s a bad one.”

  “I’ve been told puns are the lowest form of humor, but Shakespeare liked them.”

  “I’ll accept Shakespeare as the higher authority. Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

  “Tea will do.”

  Lauren nodded to the maid, who hovered in the doorway. “Would you bring out a tray please?”

  The maid nodded and silently departed.

  “But why metaphysical? Why not supernatural or psychic?”

  “Because metaphysics deals with first causes, not necessarily the supernatural. I work in both worlds and I’m not a psychic.”

  “In other words, it works on a business card,” Lauren said shrewdly.

  “Guilty.”

  “So what sort of metaphysical investigation does Aaron figure into?” she asked.

  What sort indeed? “Mixed media,” Riga said. “It started out as a ghost story – my client thought she was being haunted by her husband. But it seems to be turning into something more. My client is dead now, an apparent accident. Her husband worked for your ex. He died in a car accident around the time of your divorce.”

  She tilted her head back. “Herman Baro. I was actually on the way to his funeral when this happened.” One of Lauren’s hands jerked, indicating the wheelchair. “I never really knew his wife. And I had my hands full dealing with my own injuries afterward. I don’t think I ever sent her a condolence letter.”

  “How well did you know Herman?”

  Lauren smiled reminiscently. “I only saw him around Aaron’s office and at work functions, so not well. I always thought he was misplaced as a CFO though, he was such a fast-talking charmer. And those ridiculous magic tricks of his! Part of me wanted to run whenever he showed up, and the other part wanted to stay just to see what he was going to do.”

  “Aaron told me that Herman had embezzled from him.”

  “Really?” Lauren roared with laughter. “Good for him! Not that Herman got much chance to enjoy it.”

  “No. But Aaron says the money was never recovered.”

  “That must be driving him wild.” Lauren smiled gleefully.

  “Tell me about Aaron.”

  Lauren wheeled her chair next to the couch. “Give me your hands.”

  Riga stretched her hands out and Lauren took them, turning the palms up. She gazed at Riga’s hands, saying nothing. Slowly, Lauren’s lighthearted expression changed to something more serious. She released Riga’s hands and backed her chair away, angling it towards the windows and the garden outside.

  Lauren nodded. “I think I can trust you.”

  “Well?” Riga realized her hands were still outstretched, as if in supplication, and lowered them to her lap.

  “I see a sudden and dangerous journey,” Lauren said. “But that’s not why you’re here. You want to know if Aaron was involved in Herman’s death, or even your client’s. Isn’t that so?”

  “If you had any evidence of that, I’m sure you would have gone to the police.”

  “Or perhaps I had evidence,” Lauren said, “but none the police could use. Isn’t that the realm of the metaphysical detective?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Lauren gave her a long look. “Moral certainty can be a very dangerous thing, particularly when you believe you’re beyond morals.”

  “Is that Aaron? Dangerous? Morally certain?”

  “He worships at his own altar. When you’re trying to save the world – and make money doing it – anyone who gets in your way deserves to get squashed. I got squashed.” She made a face. “Literally.”

  “Are you saying Aaron caused your accident?”

  “The brakes went out. The mechanic who looked at it afterward said the lines had worn through, but there had been a leak in them five or six months earlier and I’d had them replaced.”

  “And the police?”

  “Unfortunately, my chat with the mechanic happened after I came out of the hospital. By that time, the car had been scrapped. He showed me his report – the police had looked at it as well. But without the car itself…” she trailed off. “Aaron doesn’t like to lose. And he definitely does not like to be cheated.”

  She turned her chair and began wheeling toward the door. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” She stopped by an intercom and pressed the talk button. “Rosa, we’ll take our tea in the cottage. For three, please.”

  Chapter 17: Klotho

  Riga followed Lauren down a long tiled hallway and through a series of doors, then out the house and into the rear garden. A flagstone path meandered through faded rose bushes, masses of rosemary, and lavender past its
bloom. Riga saw a shimmer of iridescence off to her left and looked quickly in that direction. A hummingbird darted in and out of a fuchsia in a fat ceramic pot. Tiny flying insects spiraled lazily, golden in a beam of sunlight. The hummingbird chirped and zipped away and the spell was broken.

  “Was that Donovan’s car I saw leaving?” Riga asked.

  “Mmm? Oh, yes. He’s an old friend.”

  “But not of your husband’s. What’s between those two?”

  “Not me, if that’s what you’re asking. They never liked each other much. The antipathy was instant and mutual.”

  They rounded a stand of redwoods and high bushes and a cottage came into view. Riga stopped, staring.

  Lauren laughed at her reaction. “Yes, it’s my own fairytale cottage. You have no idea what’s involved in maintaining the thatch. We have to bring over a specialist from England.”

  The bungalow had whitewashed walls and an arched wooden door. Pumpkins had been piled extravagantly around it. Sheep grazed in a nearby meadow.

  “We make specialty yarns here,” Lauren said, following Riga’s gaze. “Those are bluefaced sheep. We have a dickens of a time keeping them out of the gardens.” She chuckled.

  “I feel like Hansel and Gretel. Well, like Gretel,” Riga corrected.

  A copper bell covered in verdigris hung by the gate. Lauren rang it, then passed beneath the trellis. Riga followed.

  The door swung inward. Riga made out a dim figure in the shadowy interior.

  “Who’s your friend?” a hostile feminine voice rang out.

  Lauren didn’t pause as she wheeled up the walk. “Her name’s Riga. You’ll want to meet her.”

  The figure backed away, leaving the door open in an indifferent welcome.

  Lauren bumped through the doorway, putting a nick in the inside edge of the wooden door before Riga could leap forward to push it open further.

  Riga followed behind Lauren, her eyes struggling to adjust to the gloomy interior. The shutters, painted in an engaging old-country floral design, were closed. The only lighting came from lanterns of colored glass and white pillar candles upon the tables.

  Lauren led her into a small living area. A low carved table sat surrounded by poufs and cushions in the center of the room. Upon the table, smoke coiled from a stick of incense, smelling of sandalwood and ancient places. Striped fabrics with glints of gilt hung in swathes over the dark beams of the cottage, and diaphanous ivory-colored curtains covered the shuttered windows. The effect was that of a high-priced Turkish restaurant.