Eyes sparkling, Mom sat down to watch the one-sided show and Dad took the chair next to hers. He sipped the coffee and handed the cup to her. She sipped and handed it back.
“You picked Dingo up for robbery.” I was talking to Jack now, obviously. “But you never filed an arrest report. Come on, Jack,” I added when he looked away. “If you wanted to spend eternity with that damned duct tape over your mouth, you could have. But you came to me for help, and we found your body, and now, we’re going to find your killer. The least you owe us…” I looked at Quinn, and my mom and my dad. “All of us…the least you owe all of us is some answers. Why did you take Dingo in and never officially arrest him?”
A muscle bunched at the base of Jack’s jaw. “What difference does it make?”
“Because it might help us figure out what happened to you.” I shouldn’t have had to explain but if there was one thing I’d learned in my time dealing with the dead, it was that ghosts can be a stubborn bunch. “Dingo took a valuable comic book from that shop. And Vincent, the security guard at the hotel, was talking crazy about a heist at the comic book convention that starts tomorrow. And we didn’t believe him because he wasn’t only talking crazy, but he was crazy, only now he’s dead, too, and it’s all connected with comic books, so come on, Jack, talk. What’s going on? And what do you know about it? You said somebody else was going to die if I didn’t help. Who? And are we on the right track? And how can we prevent that from happening?”
Jack flopped into one of the plastic waiting room chairs. “Dingo…Kid was a nobody, know what I mean? Small-time punk. I ran into him a time or two, you know, when I was breaking up fights in the park or chasing loser kids who were getting their thrills turning over their neighbors’ garbage cans. Never thought he’d amount to anything, and I was pretty much right.”
“Except that you arrested him but didn’t.”
“Yeah, well…” Jack settled back in the plastic chair. Not the height of comfort, but then, when you’re dead, you don’t exactly have to worry about how a machine-molded seat feels on your keister. “I met these guys, see, and…” He eyed me carefully, and I don’t think it was because he was trying to figure out how I’d react to whatever it was he was going to tell me. Somehow, I knew Jack Haggarty didn’t care what the world thought of him. “They were looking for a little protection, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded. “Protection. Like they were paying you—”
When Quinn’s eyes narrowed and his hands bunched into fists, I ignored him. If Jack could act like he didn’t care, so could I. At least until I had all the facts.
“Yeah, that’s right.” As if Quinn could actually see him, Jack aimed a look in his direction, daring him to criticize. “They were small-time hoods. Breaking and entering, stolen cars. I helped them out with useful information. You know, like when there was a patrol car due in the area. That sort of thing.”
“What’s he saying, Pepper?” Quinn’s voice was razor sharp. “Was Jack taking bribes?”
I owed him this much of the story. I turned to Quinn and nodded.
He grumbled a curse. “That explains the money stashed in his closet.”
“Oh, come on!” Jack rolled his eyes. “Tell Harrison he knows what it’s like.”
I did.
“That’s bull,” Quinn spit out.
“Yeah, I guess it is if you’re Quinn Harrison.” Jack’s mouth twisted. “That’s because he’s just a pretty boy who always had more money than he knew what do to with. He never had four alimony payments to make every month.” He slid a look over me that made goose bumps pop up on my arms. “Not yet, anyway.”
“He needed the money,” I told Quinn, who in response, simply shook his head in disgust.
Jack was not fazed. He waved a dismissive hand in Quinn’s direction. “I’m not going to start feeling guilty just because Mr. Life of Riley here thinks I should,” he said. “You asked for the truth and I’m just telling you. Yeah, I made a little money on the side. It’s not like I didn’t need it. And it’s not like I didn’t deserve it for all I put up with on the streets.”
This, too, I told Quinn, who did not look convinced. That was right about when I decided that it was tedious reporting every little thing Jack said to Quinn and my parents, like listening to one of those goofy translators when they show UN meetings on the news. I promised myself I’d remember the highlights and fill them in on all the details later. For now, getting the facts straight was what mattered.
“So…Dingo?” I waited for him to explain.
Jack shrugged, and then, because I guess it felt so good after not being able to move for so long, he rotated each shoulder. “Turns out Dingo got connected with the same guys. He started pulling some small jobs for them and they’d give him a cut of the profits.”
“Which is why when he took that comic book from Dick’s, you never turned him in.”
“Or the comic book!” Jack chuckled. “That’s what those guys were after. Go figure! But I guess if you know where to sell ’em, that sort of thing brings in a pretty penny.”
“And the two guys?” I am not brainless, I already had a suspicion that they were the goons who’d come after me at the cemetery, the ones who’d taken the potshots at us on Whiskey Island.
“Rossetti, husky guy with an earring, and his nephew, Howie. I doubt you know ’em.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.” I could put the name Rossetti to the husky guy who’d shown up at Milo Blackburne’s front door. It fit. But nearly being buried alive by a guy named Howie seemed like adding insult to injury.
“And Rossetti and his nephew, Howie…” I said this nice and slow so Quinn could get the message and jot down the names. “They were the ones stealing memorabilia from conventions in other cities, too?”
“Got me!” Jack stood up, and left a puddle on the seat of the plastic chair. “All I know is what happened here in town, and what happened here in town was—”
“They murdered you.” I felt obligated to point this out since he was acting like it was no big deal. “Why? You did what you were told to do, right? You got Dingo out of that comic book shop and you turned over the comic book to Rossetti and Howie. Who did they sell it to?”
Another shrug.
He was either dodging or he was the most clueless aider and abettor out there. Either way, I was frustrated at not getting any straight answers. Feeling antsy, I paced back and forth in front of Jack, trying to find the words to tell him he was a scumbag. That is, until another thought hit, and I froze. “You killed Dingo.”
At this point, I had to excuse Quinn for kicking the wall and swearing a blue streak.
“Jack didn’t say he did it,” I pointed out, eager to calm him down. “I’m just throwing out the theory.”
“And did he?” Quinn turned and aimed a look at the empty space in front of me that would have killed Jack if he wasn’t dead already. “Did you, Jack? Because I’ll tell you what, plenty of people think you did and I’m the idiot who always stood up for you and told them they were wrong.”
“Really?” Jack was honestly surprised. “Tell him thanks for nothin’. And tell him he was right. I didn’t have anything to do with Dingo’s murder.”
“Then why the Topic candy bar wrapper at the scene?” I asked him.
Another shrug. “Just to get my goat. They figured if the cops were busy looking at me as a suspect, they wouldn’t look anywhere else.”
“Which is the same reason they sent postcards to the cops at the Second District from the cities where they were staking out comic book conventions.”
Jack pursed his doughy lips. “Did they? Obviously, Rossetti and Howie didn’t think of that. Between them, they don’t have the brains. Make the cops think I was still alive and on the run.” Jack’s smile told me he admired the ingenuity of the scheme. “That, coupled with the candy wrapper at the scene of Dingo’s murder would make them concentrate on finding me. And ignore everybody else.”
“Only there was
no way they were ever going to find you. Because that’s when you disappeared.”
Jack glanced away. “They killed Dingo. It wasn’t like the kid didn’t have it coming. He pulled a job for them, some jewelry store robbery. But he kept some of the stuff for himself. Howie didn’t much care. But then, Howie couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the c and the a. Rossetti, though, Rossetti isn’t the type to forgive and forget. When I heard what happened to Dingo…well, you can believe me or not believe me, but I’m telling you, that’s where I drew the line. Yeah, I might be okay with taking a little bit of an extra payday now and again from guys who were ripping off comic book stores and rich peoples’ houses, but murder…I couldn’t go along with that.”
“And they killed you because they thought you’d turn them in.”
Jack scratched a hand over his chin. “It was the same night they killed Dingo, and after they got rid of me, they actually went back to the scene of Dingo’s murder and dropped one of my candy bar wrappers there. Rossetti always thought he was pretty funny.”
“But now they can be arrested!” Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy, not without evidence. I didn’t need either Jack or Quinn to point this out, so I was quick to change the subject. “So you think there really is going to be a heist at the comic book convention?” I asked Jack. “And that somebody’s life is in danger? Who? If you tell us, we can protect that person.”
Jack shook his head slowly. “Wish I knew. I don’t. All I can tell you is I’ve got a real bad feeling about that convention. Rossetti and Howie, they’ve got something big planned. And, Pepper…” He looked around at the little clutch of folks gathered there in the waiting room, at Mom and Dad. At Quinn. At me. “You’re going to have to be mighty sharp. Otherwise, somebody’s for sure going to die.”
Comic book geeks get up bright and early.
It was well before noon and already, the ballroom at the convention hotel was packed. Attendees dressed like Batman, and Mario, and Wolverine, and a whole bunch of comic world inhabitants I didn’t recognize and didn’t want to meet pressed in on booths where vendors hawked books and costumes, games and T-shirts. There was something going on near the Clark Kent Daily Planet office, and that end of the room was crowded both with people in costume and folks in regular street clothes.
I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the mob scene if I hadn’t see a cop over there, too. One in a killer suit he never should have been able to afford on his salary.
Quinn didn’t spare me a look, and it was just as well. Though he was busy scanning the crowd, it was impossible to miss the little vee creased between his eyes. He was pissed about something. Royally. “Don’t you ever work?” he asked.
“Took a vacation day. I didn’t want to miss any of the excitement. Has there been any excitement?”
His voice was acid. “Only if you count a promotional giveaway of some newly published Superman comic.”
That explained the people who hurried around us to get over to the Daily Planet set. “Anybody we know?” I asked.
“Not a one.”
He didn’t need to say more, because, see, I caught that little expelled breath at the end of his sentence, and I knew what it meant. Vincent’s crazy talk or not…Vincent’s murder notwithstanding…Quinn knew we were getting nowhere on our investigation.
“And obviously, no morgue.” I was sure of it, but I took another look around the ballroom just to confirm. Whatever Vincent knew, whatever he’d been talking about, somebody thought it was important enough to silence him permanently. But whatever he knew, we’d never know. Because there was no morgue in town except the real one we’d been at the day before with Jack. Well, with what was left of Jack. No morgue, no clues to go on, and nothing of interest at the convention, either, unless I counted the host of wild-eyed people, giddy at the prospect of so much geekiness packed into one place.
Darth Vader strolled by, complete with heavy breathing, and I shivered inside the gold sweater I was wearing with pants the color of a Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bar. Outer space villains, superheroes, characters from video games, it was surreal and, “Too weird,” I mumbled.
“As weird as a woman who can talk to ghosts?”
I wondered when Quinn would finally say something. After our interview with Jack the day before in the waiting room of the real morgue, Quinn had been strangely silent about all that took place. Mom and Dad, not so much. Later in the evening, they showed up at my apartment with wonton soup, General Tso’s chicken, and a big ol’ container of shrimp fried rice. They were so thrilled to be part of the investigation and so anxious to show how much they supported me in what Mom somberly called my “Mission,” they never stopped asking questions—about Jack, about the other ghosts I’d dealt with over the years, about the cases I’d solved.
Quinn, though Mom assured me she’d invited him, did not join us.
He didn’t call, either.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why.
Quinn had been brought into my woo-woo world kicking and screaming, and believe me, this, I understood. It took me a long time to get used to the idea of ghosts being real, too. And I was the one who could see and hear them. For a man who thrived on being in on the action and suddenly had to stand on the sidelines and listen to my one-sided conversations, then buy into the whole notion that I was actually talking to someone most people didn’t even believe could exist, then to listen to whatever I thought we had to do because he couldn’t argue about it since he wasn’t in on the conversation in the first place…
Yeah. I got it.
Just like I suddenly got what he was so pissed about.
“Ghosts are real,” I said in an offhand sort of way intended to make him feel like he didn’t have to either defend himself or jump on the bandwagon. I was helped out in conveying my message when the Incredible Hulk strolled by. He was a scrawny guy in ripped pants and poorly applied green makeup. Not so incredible, but big points for trying. I rolled my eyes. “Superheroes, not so much.”
“But these people take the whole thing very seriously.”
None more so than Milo Blackburne, who at that moment appeared at the ballroom doors and strode over in our direction. He didn’t see me. Otherwise, I knew he would have stopped to chat. Instead, he marched into the midst of the crowd and as if by magic, it parted in front of him. The next time I got a glimpse of him, he was clutching one of those new Superman comics and beaming like a kid on Christmas morning.
I turned my back in hopes I wouldn’t catch his eye. “Blackburne’s got enough money to buy whatever Rossetti and Howie steal,” I pointed out, though I was sure Quinn had already thought of this theory.
“Exactly. But that means he’s got enough money to buy whatever he sets his sights on. So he wouldn’t need somebody to steal the stuff for him in the first place. And he wouldn’t need to buy stolen goods, either. Why complicate his life like that and risk getting arrested? Blackburne’s loaded. When he wants to buy something, I’m sure he just finds the collector who owns it and makes him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“Good point.” I hated to admit it. “Then who—”
“It could be any one of them.” That eagle-eyed gaze of his scanned the crowd as if just by looking, he might figure out what was going on and how it all tied in to Dingo and Vincent’s murders. “It could be a dozen of them working together. From what I’ve heard, there’s always a market for stolen collectibles. The more collectors think they can’t get their hands on something, the more they want it.”
Quinn was wearing an earbud and before he could continue, he put a hand to his ear and stooped his head, listening, then, with a mumbled curse, headed toward the lobby. “Altercation in the parking lot,” he grumbled. “Somebody just ran over somebody else’s Scooby-Doo stuffed animal.”
“Ah, the life of a detective!”
If I wasn’t so busy watching the way Quinn moved through the crowd like a panther on the prowl, I might have noticed Milo Blackburne slip up beside
me. “Off to take care of business, is he?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re here…?”
Don’t think I hadn’t already come up with a plan to cover this contingency. In fact, the idea had popped into my head the moment I saw Blackburne stroll into the ballroom. “To see the Daily Planet, of course,” I said, and threw in a smile for good measure. “I know you had more than a little something to do with getting it set up here at the convention.”
“Which means I also have special access.” He offered me his arm.
In the name of my investigation, I took it.
Milo escorted me over to the area that was roped off to keep ordinary mortals from contaminating it, but hey, he had clout, and money, and a reputation as a collector and a generous donor. One look at him and the burly bouncer type stationed near the front of the set nodded and let us pass.
It goes without saying that I am not easily impressed, especially by all things comic book–like. But I will admit, the moment I set foot in the phony office of the phony Daily Planet, I knew a whole lot of thought and care had gone into building it. Along with a whole bunch of money.
This was no chintzy stage set that looks passable from the seats and barely holds together up close. The hardwood floor was genuine. So were the wooden reporters’ desks lined up in rows, each with its own typewriter (not even electric) and black, chunky rotary phone.
“It looks like it came right out of that old black-and-white Superman TV show you told me about,” I said.
His smile told me that was exactly the point. “We took poetic license with the phone booth,” he said, glancing toward the vintage metal and glass booth on the far side of the set. “In actuality in the TV show, Clark usually changed in the storage room of the newspaper office. But the phone booth is such a big part of the mythos, I couldn’t resist! Imagine, entering the phone booth as mild-mannered Clark Kent and emerging as Superman.”
He sounded so impressed by the concept I didn’t have the heart to tell him I figured Superman as being too smart to bother with a phone booth. Glass walls for one thing. Not to mention there wasn’t much elbow room. As if confirming this to myself, I sashayed to the back of the office and peeked inside the phone booth, wondering what Clark did with his suit once he ripped it off his muscular body and slipped into tights and a cape.
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