by Wilson, Maer
As simple as that, his appearance melted into one that probably mirrored the image he wanted. Devon now stood before us, neat and clean, in khakis and a Polo shirt. His hair was short, and the beard was gone. The scent of freshly cut grass replaced his earlier foul smell.
There were gasps all around. Devon looked down as he realized what happened.
“Very cool, man. Hey, guys, you can look however you want!”
There were shifts as the others made adjustments, exclaiming over each other's choices. The air quality had definitely improved. I glanced around the group. The Hispanic girl had changed into a print dress, with a fringed shawl tied around her waist. Robin decided on a gray suit, blue shirt and shiny black shoes. He turned around in front of Jane, and she nodded approvingly at him.
“Okay, everyone, if the fashion show is over, let's get back to this.” I turned back to the war vet. “Devon? What's your story about this guy?”
Devon gave me a sheepish look. “Well, I only saw him a few times in the park, and I never really even came close to him. Even desperate, crazy people can sometimes tell when to steer clear.” He looked to see if I understood. Of course I did. I glanced at Thulu, who gave Devon a nod, and he continued.
“He always came by in his limo and never stayed long. The only reason I even mention him is because he pointed this one dude in my direction once. It was shortly before I died. I'm not sure if they are connected, but it feels like it.”
“Did you have any other contact with him?”
“No, ma'am. That was the closest I came.”
I opened another document and typed in Devon's name, right below Parker's.
“Let's meet another time, Devon. I'd very much like to hear your story.” We made an appointment for the following week. Devon faded away, rather than popping out.
“Anyone else not know why they are here?” I was down to about half a dozen people besides Jane and her grandson.
A tiny little voice came from the back, “Me.”
The mood in the room shifted suddenly from self-absorption and curiosity to one of anger, dismay and, forgive me, but dead silence. The kids always seem to have that effect on the living and dead both. The group shifted to show a tiny, almost solid form. She had light blonde curls and bright blue eyes and was maybe four or five years old. She wore shorts, sandals and a T-shirt with some Disney princess on it and carried a small blue stuffed toy. I took a deep, stabilizing breath, willing myself to not let tears form. I hate having to deal with the kids who've been murdered. I met Jane's eyes. She seemed to know what I was thinking and gave me a supportive nod. Thulu gave a gentle pat to my arm, leaving his hand there.
“Hi there, sweetie. What's your name?”
“Jenna,” she said in that same tiny voice.
“You can come closer.”
She moved to my desk, gave a glance up at Parker and copied his cross-legged style, floating up to sit in mid-air next to my desk. She smelled of cinnamon. She gave me the most heartbreaking, beautiful smile.
I felt my breath hitch in my chest. Why was she here? She had to be a tiny angel that should have gone on immediately after. I shook my head and made myself continue. “How old are you, Jenna?”
She held up four fingers. God, this really sucked.
“What's your last name? Do you know?”
She nodded, “Mathon.” Aw hell, she even had a lisp.
“Mason?” I repeated. She nodded again. I typed her name on the tablet.
“What do you remember, Jenna? Anything?”
Her little face scrunched up in concentration as she thought for several moments. Her expression cleared, and she nodded again. “Menember the bad man.” Her head tilted to one side. “He took me and Mommy and made Daddy sleep on the floor.”
Sleep? Did she mean dead? But if so, where was he? Had he gone on immediately after? I added those questions next to her name. Thulu immediately pulled his monitor back and started searching.
“Do you know where he took you?”
“No, it was dark and cold and hard. Then other man took me away from Mommy. I can't find her. I don't know how to get home.” This last statement was a fearful whisper. I reached for inner strength, but wanted to smash something, preferably Jones.
“Okay, sweetie. Can you remember anything else?”
She shook her head. “Can you find my Mommy and Daddy?”
“I'm sure going to try.” That earned me her sunny smile again. Jane held out her arms to her as Jenna looked around. She drifted over and onto Jane's lap, curling up as if she were going to take a nap, but watching everything.
I turned to Jane's grandson.
“Robin, what's your last name?”
“Andrews. And I'm not good-for –”
“Thank you,” I gently cut him off. “Do you know why this guy went after you and your grandmother?”
“Because of the treasure.”
Another major mood shift. Nothing gets the attention of the living or the dead quite like that word.
“Okay, so she's right,” he said with a nod to his grandmother. “I was a good-for-nothing. But I was trying to make it right. I knew if I could find the treasure, I could get myself clean. I needed help to find it, though, since she didn't want me in her house.” He shot a resentful look at Jane. “So, I had no choice. Besides I owed – him – money.” Robin at least had sense enough to not say the name again. He looked at me morosely.
“But it's okay because I'm clean now.” He brightened up, his face shining with relief.
“That's because you're dead now.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” He deflated once more, and I almost felt sorry for him – almost. He glanced at his grandmother, then down at the floor. “They weren't supposed to hurt you, Gran. I'm really sorry.” Okay, so maybe I felt a tiny bit sorry for him.
“So you convinced this guy your grandmother had treasure?”
“Nah, not her. The house used to belong to some old sea captain dude. Story is, he hid treasure in the house somewhere.”
Jane got that very stern look on her face again, “Boy, are you telling me you got us killed for some old sea yarn?” There was thunder in her eyes and voice.
Jenna moved quickly away from Jane and over to Parker. She reached out her arms to him. He looked at her with a bemused expression, shrugged and pulled her onto his lap. He gave Thulu a look as if to say, “What else can I do?”
Jane looked at me. “We found an old journal in the attic when my folks bought the place. This captain claimed he brought back treasure from the Orient back in the 1860s and hid it in the house.”
Robin nodded, “I looked a lot of times when I was younger, but I never did find anything.”
Thulu and I exchanged a look. The excitement that had disappeared when little Jenna appeared now started to creep back in. We weren't a charity organization, after all. The dead usually paid us in whatever they could, but most often it was information that led to monetary gain of some kind. Treasure information was one kind we usually liked – a lot. I was just wishing it wasn't over so many dead bodies, especially the tiny one. I had a feeling Jenna was going to haunt me long after she was gone. I didn't realize that Thulu and I would soon be opening doors that would change our lives forever.
“What about me?” came from the girl who had come in right after Robin.
Chapter 5
I spent the next hour taking names and getting as many facts from the victims as they could remember. One went as far back as Jones's teenage years. I also noted what they wanted or why they thought they were still here. The picture that emerged was far from pretty. Jones's reign of terror had been going on awhile. In fact, I was a bit surprised that none of these folks had stumbled on me and Thulu in the past.
I left Jane until last. The rest of Jones's victims were gone, except for Jenna, who was still with Parker. I went over what I learned with Thulu. Jane listened while I reviewed the information.
Jones was in his early thirties and had dominated a
large area's local crime for the last twelve years. He was a handsome man and could turn on the charm when he felt like it. He had alternately charmed and terrorized his way up through the different groups that held sway in what he considered his area until he had his own gang.
I refused to call it an organization. That would have been too elegant a term for what he had. A crime gang is a crime gang, no matter what fancy name they put on it.
Jones's rise through the ranks had been fast and ruthless. No one who crossed him was around long enough to tell about it.
He ran a bunch of dealers, thieves and an occasional killer. His thugs thought they were princes of their streets, but they were really just more trash that had blown in from here or there to make the average guy's life hell.
The picture we got was that Jones usually preferred to do his killing personally. He supposedly considered it entertainment and got a thrill from watching the light die in a victim's eyes. Anyone could fall to his sudden temper.
Most of our information came from Blake Dodd. He'd been one of Jones's guys before making a joke at Jones's expense. It was the last joke he ever made. While Blake was a wealth of information, even he had no answer for my big question. How had Jones gotten away with all the murders? Someone had to at least suspect something. My internal alarms were screaming that something wasn't right about this guy. I mean other than the obvious fact that he was a stone cold killer.
“Okay, Jane, what can you add? And how does the locket tie in?”
“The locket was, as I said, a present for my granddaughter. It seems such a small thing now compared to all these people.”
I nodded my understanding.
“Still, if it could be found, after you do whatever it is you intend to do –” She paused, then asked, “What do you intend to do, by the way?”
“We'll find some way all of you can be at peace and move on. There must be some kind of justice we can find for you.”
“Well, after you do justice, I'd appreciate if you could help with the locket.”
I'd seen this kind of obsession by the dead in the past. The locket gave her a focal point. The message of love to her granddaughter outweighed justice for her killer. Jane was one very interesting lady.
“Okay Jane, you said the locket was in the nightstand, right?” asked Thulu.
Jane nodded, probably relieved that I we would continue to examine this aspect of the case. Naturally we would though. She was here first.
“Yes. And afterwards, one of them ransacked the drawers and took the box. I don't know what happened to it after that.”
“All right, Jane. We'll get some pics for you to look at. See if you can identify the thief,” Thulu continued. One of the local detectives went to the same dojo as Thulu and they’d become friends. And mutual sources.
“Thank you, both of you.” She smiled at Thulu. He smiled back and something seemed to relax inside her. She glanced at Jenna.
“What about the little one?”
Parker looked at her. “I'll watch after her.” And that settled that.
We agreed to meet with Jane later that evening. She thanked us once again and disappeared.
Thulu had momentarily gone into his “zone,” but was getting nothing on the locket, judging by his frown. It wasn't often, but once in a while an item would give him problems. A new object had less chance to become imprinted with anything from the owner. Ancient objects could also be obscured by too many previous owners. Those times were rare for him, though. Usually he was able to lock on fairly quickly.
We decided to move on to the Masons, and he got onto his computer again. His research turned up nothing locally on the Masons. That was another surprise. It was very rare for an entire family to come up missing and not a single word in the papers mention the disappearance. Another mystery to add to our growing pile.
Chapter 6
We spent a couple of hours researching Jones, the Masons and the others on our list. Thulu had a connection in the police department, but Jones was unbelievably clean. No arrests, no investigations, nothing, nada, zip, zilch.
Oh, wait, there was one mention in the paper of how he had covered the doctor bills for an elderly lady he accidentally knocked over in a restaurant. It was titled “The Good Samaritan.” I wanted to gag. How the hell was this guy under the radar for everything else?
I turned away from Jones research to try to find something about the Masons.
“Hey Jenna, do you know your address?”
She gave me a look of disbelief. “ 'Course. I'm not a baby. Mommy made me learn it when we moved here.” I stared at her in surprise. “But I don't know how to get to it.”
I laughed at this surprise break. I could have hugged her. “Oh honey, you give me the address and I can help you find it. That's not a problem.” I looked at Thulu. “We are in business, love.”
Fifteen minutes later we were on our way to Jenna's apartment, with Jenna and Parker floating in the back seat. The apartment was in a large complex with several stories. There were no parking spots in front, so we parked on a side street. It was early afternoon, but we saw no one on our way up.
Jenna led us to a door at the end of a carpeted corridor on the fourth floor and floated through it. There was no answer to our knock, not that we'd expected any. Jenna came back out, shoulders slumped, a slight frown on her face.
Thulu has a way with the inanimate, and we were in quickly and smoothly. Inside we found a bright airy apartment. The only odor was a slightly musty one. Definitely no dead bodies. The furnishings were neat, clean and gave away little of the people who lived there. Anonymous was the thought that crossed my mind, as I looked around. Furnished was my second thought. Thulu and I began our search for any information on Jenna's parents.
There was little enough of it. Someone had definitely done a cleanup job. We could find no bills, no personal letters, no identification. Pressing the “on” button on the computer resulted in nothing. The hard drive had been removed.
The bedrooms gave us the same amount of information – drawers and closets filled with clothes that had been neatly put away. I got down on the floor and looked under the bed in Jenna's parents’ room. I flashed a penlight I carried and was about to get back up when a small reflection caught my eye. I got up and moved around the king sized bed to the headboard on the other side. Under the bright print skirting, I found a prescription pill bottle for allergies. The name on it was ‘Carolyn Thomas.’ I handed the bottle to Thulu, who looked at it and tucked it into a pocket. A frown creased his brow, but he simply shook his head when I asked him why. He’d talk when he was ready, but I recognized that he was working through something.
“Jenna, what is your Mom's name?”
“Carolyn Math –” Jenna clapped a hand over her mouth, looking stricken. “I forgot! I didn't mean to.” She hung her head. “Carolyn Thomath.”
“It's okay, sweetie. You only told me and Thulu, so there is no problem. What is Daddy's name?”
“Matt.”
The Masons weren't using their real last name, that much was clear. Maybe they'd been put into Witness Protection and the protection part had failed somehow. Obviously, they were on the run from something.
Jenna's room held the usual assortment of kid's toys. She didn't seem interested in it once she realized her parents weren't there. Her blue toy still dangled from her fingers, a stuffed monkey, which she often carried by his tail.
“Where are they?” Jenna asked, tears in her voice.
“I don't know yet, Jenna, but Thulu is pretty good at finding people,” I said.
Parker took Jenna's hand. “They'll help you, Jenna. Thulu and La Fi are great at this sort of thing.”
She looked up at him, and he picked her up, gave her a hug and balanced her on one hip. I wondered if Parker had a younger brother or sister. He had an ease with Jenna that usually comes from experience.
“We're going to have to broaden the search, Fi,” Thulu said quietly.
“Do
es this whole thing feel as weird to you as it does to me?”
“Let's get out of here.”
Locking the door, we headed for the elevator. Parker and Jenna drifted behind us.
When it came, the elevator wasn't empty. A short, stocky man moved forward as Thulu and I stepped to one side. We all nodded to each other as we exchanged places. As the doors closed, I saw him stop and glance back at us. The way he did it made me a bit uneasy. I wished, not for the first time, that I could read minds. Thulu saw the look too, and we both became more alert.
Outside, we noticed a dark car parked across the street. Shade from a tree made it tough to tell if anyone was inside, but I could feel eyes watching us. We moved away and around the corner, where we'd parked the SUV.
“I got the license number. I'll run it when we get back home,” said Thulu.
The feeling of anxiety got stronger as we got closer to home. Parker knew that our home was not our office, and we didn't encourage the supernatural to come calling, although he was an exception and a frequent visitor. He could tell I was feeling uneasy, probably the constant looking over my shoulder clued him in. He volunteered to check out the area. He took off, with Jenna following along behind.
We loved our home and could even see a sliver of ocean in the distance from the windows. It had taken a lot of work, and we had finally finished the last of the restoration a few months before. Restoring a grand old home is a labor of love and can be financial ruin if not planned properly. The partner of a former client had left our house to us. They had restored the ground floor and had lived in the rooms there, leaving the upstairs in need of loving care.
While we kept an eye on our money, it wasn't a big issue for us. Our savings and my trust made it so we'd be fine, even if we never worked another day. But at twenty-six, we wanted to work and the agency did very well. Besides, everything was carefully invested.
Ally's brother, Evan, had become the family's finance wizard and owned a small accounting and investment firm that he ran with his wife, Mara. The two of them were very savvy and reminded me of my parents. They made sure we were secure.