by A. J. Aalto
“See? I don’t know what the fuck is going on, and I love it. For realsies.” I looked to Ellie for help. She shrugged. “You’re who, now?”
“Byron Merritt, madam. Lord Dreppenstedt’s butler and valet for North House,” he said.
“North House,” I repeated.
“Lord Dreppenstedt’s residence in Niagara-On-The-Lake,” he said over the noise of idling cars and clattering luggage.
“You’re kidding,” I gaped. “Harry has a butler? Why don’t I have a goddamn butler?”
“You do, madam,” he said, smoothly. “I shall be pleased to serve you for the duration of your stay.”
That was the best news ever. I could already picture the old guy serving me espresso in the bath while Harry read to me from the newspaper. I felt my lips curl up in a smile. “Fuckin’ A. My name’s Marnie, but you can call me the Great White Shark. Or the Psychic Crusader. Or sweet-cheeks. I like sweet-cheeks the best.”
Ellie coughed into her hand.
“Begging your pardon, madam,” Mr. Merritt said, “but I am fairly certain I shall not be calling you that.”
“I don’t need you to; it’s on my organ donor card.” I eyed the hearse. “Nice wheels. They Harry’s?”
“The car belongs to Lord Dreppenstedt, yes.” He held the passenger door open for Ellie and me. “Please do get in, it’s terribly cold.”
We slid across the cushy leather bench seat and let the blasting heat thaw our faces. I put my coffee in the cup holder, removed my gloves, and rubbed my cheeks.
“Nice of Harry to warn me about this little surprise,” I said, watching Mr. Merritt circling behind the hearse to monitor the porters struggling to load Harry and his casket like pallbearers. The crowd craned and tried to be coy about staring, casting wide-eyed glances and then looking away like they didn’t care. Several camera phones blinked their flashes; luckily for their owners, Harry's being ensconced within prevented the digital imaging bits from shorting out. A businessman sipping a hot drink plowed into an older woman who had stopped in her tracks to witness the proceedings, and both of them began rapidly apologizing and wiping tea off her coat sleeve as a team: ah, Canadians. I felt the warm push of Harry’s awareness through the Bond and knew he was, for the moment, still wide awake and highly amused by the swirl of mortal attention. I sighed. “Guess we won’t be staying at the Lovesley Inn.”
“Are you surprised?” Ellie asked.
“A little,” I said, blowing into my fists. “Harry loves a good bed and breakfast.”
“I think he’ll be getting both, don’t you?” Ellie sipped her coffee. “Mr. Merritt surprised me, too, when I was getting into my car to come get you. Thought I was being kidnapped by a little old funeral director.”
“Or a ninja,” I said. “Doesn’t he sidle up like a ninja?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s a ninja,” Ellie said, happy to play along with a nod. The Blue Sense tingled a weird warning at me: Ellie was relieved that I was focusing on goofy stuff. I was right; she was definitely hiding something.
“Probably he’s a mixed martial arts master,” I suggested, rolling with it to put her at ease and stifling a sigh.
“How old do you figure he is?”
“Fifty-five? Seventy?”
“A hundred?” Ellie said.
“Hundred-year-old ninja,” I agreed. “Combat Butler for the win.”
Mr. Merritt opened the driver’s side door with an invasion of Arctic wind. He removed his coat, folded it tidily, got in, lay the coat beside me, shut the door, and put on his seatbelt.
“Pretty fuckin’ swanky getaway car, Jeeves,” I said.
“Do you swear in each and every sentence, madam?” he asked, adjusting the rearview mirror. “It seems a shame for a charming young lady to be afflicted with such an unfortunate compulsion.”
“I have way more unfortunate compulsions. And I don’t have to swear,” I assured him. “I could totally stop if I wanted to.”
I could see Mr. Merritt’s right cheek dimple as his lips clamped down around the beginnings of a doubtful smile. I wondered how many years it had been since he’d allowed himself a good, impudent smirk. “Could you indeed?”
Ellie made the slightest uncertain noise.
“Sure I could,” I told them both. I gave Ellie my hey-have-faith-in-me eyes. She rolled hers in a way only a best friend could get away with: loving disgust.
“I am most happy to take your word for it, madam,” Mr. Merritt said, pulling smoothly into the airport traffic and onto the highway. When we started toward Niagara my tummy gave a flutter. Going home, for better or worse. Easier to banter about swearing, or probe Ellie’s odd, secretive concern.
“I’ll prove it to you,” I told Mr. Merritt.
“Uh oh,” Ellie said, pressing back into the leather seat with a knowing grimace.
“I’ll make you a bet, Mr. Merritt,” I said, ignoring Ellie’s throat-clearing and ankle- kicking. “I bet I can resist the urge to swear the entire time I’m in Canada. If I can’t do it, I’ll give you a thousand bucks for every swear word that slips out. But if I can refrain, then on my last day, you’ll swear in every sentence you say to me.”
Ellie gave my ankle a final kick, but she had given up on the enthusiastic warning. I wondered if I had enough money in my account to cover the check I was going to have to write.
The butler managed to resist an eye roll of his own as he merged into heavier traffic. “How perfectly ambitious of you, madam. I’m certain that, were he listening, Lord Dreppenstedt would beam with pride.”
“Listen, you century-old bag of sass, do we have a deal or what?”
“If it amuses you, madam,” Mr. Merritt said, “we most certainly have a deal.”
“Okay, okay, but wait, hold on,” I said, panting, working myself up to it. “Cuntnugget! Douchetarp! Fucksack! Fanny-ramming, bitch-sucking, chunkass, jizz-flapping shitdong! There. No, wait!” I thought about it. “Twatwaffle! I love twatwaffle. And cocksplurt! Okay, I’ll be all right. Starting now!”
Mr. Merritt’s eyes went back to their normal size eventually. He was quiet for quite some time, and we listened to talk radio all the way to the rusty shipwreck at Jordon Harbor. “Am I bringing you to North House with Lord Dreppenstedt after I drop Miss Ellie at work?”
“Nope. Drop me at the north end of St. Catharines. Port Weller. Lock One.” I rubbed my hands together. “I’ve got an officer to stalk.”
Ellie recovered from her mortification to whisper, “What’s a jizz-flap?”
“I have no idea,” I whispered back. Just another mystery I'd need to solve. Politely.
CHAPTER 5
MOST PEOPLE WOULD be alarmed if a stranger pounced into the passenger seat of their car without invitation and made themselves comfortable. Constable Schenk didn’t even blink… or at least that’s who I assumed he was when I climbed in. I could get used to being back in Canada if people weren't constantly going to be raising their eyebrows and wanting to point guns at me.
The traffic on the Queen Elizabeth Way had been slow because of a heavy snow dump; at a little after eight A.M., we’d dropped Ellie at the hospice where she was a palliative care nurse. Then Mr. Merritt took me all the way to the Lake Ontario end of the Welland Canal. There was one car, a midnight blue Sonata, parked in the weak morning sun at a perfect right angle to the dirty, pothole-ridden road at the end of Lock One. When I hopped out of the hearse and waved an uncertain Mr. Merritt away to take Harry to the house, the man in the Sonata noted my arrival with that I-see-everything-but-am-feigning-disinterest look that cops develop. He went back to his notes, pretending to ignore my approach. The car wasn’t running when I heaved open the passenger door and popped in, but the windows were faintly fogged by the residual warmth inside. About half a foot of snow tumbled off his roof and some of it accompanied me into the car in a swirling white puff.
He slid me an expectant look with slate-hard eyes that reminded me a lot of Rob Hood’s, a blend of grey and green, cal
culating, not missing a thing. He said nothing. There was a trim goatee softening a chin that might have been sharper in his youth, and the hard angle of his jaw reminded me a bit of Batten, though Schenk had at least five years on Kill-Notch. I doubted that they had been five years of killing monsters, not here in Southern Ontario, but they had been no less difficult, and had left their mark. This man was accustomed to shouldering the kind of human-on-human horrors that would make normal people run screaming in the opposite direction. The Blue Sense stirred to life to report his reaction to my sudden appearance: a calm curiosity, but oddly, no surprise, and certainly no anxiety.
I whipped off my froggy hat, ran a gloved hand over my blonde mop of static, and showed him a toothy grin. “Hey,” I exclaimed with a pleased sniff. “You smell just like I imagine Wayne Gretzky does. Expensive cologne and maple syrup and hockey pucks.”
He opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and then tried again. “It’s not that expensive.”
“Sure it is, you’re single,” I guessed, noting the chic hand-knitted scarf in various autumnal shades, the tasteful leather jacket, and the Italian leather shoes. In the decade I’d been with Harry I’d learned to recognize a man who chose to wear the armor of style. “Smart single guys splurge on cologne because women have a strong sense of smell. You’re built like a linebacker, and you’ve got a scary face — scary-intimidating, not scary-ugly — so you’d be wise to wear a scent that puts girls at ease, something familiar that gives them the impression that you’re trustworthy. An older classic, not some young and aggressive one. Maybe cologne their grandfather would have worn to church.”
“Scary-intimidating, eh?” He cleared his throat unhappily. The Blue Sense offered me a glimpse of self-critical uncertainty behind the mask of his confidence.
“The bottle caught your eye, right?” I nodded sympathetically. “Black glass. Ego-stroking name. Rookie mistake.”
“Your theories on male shopping behavior are fascinating.”
And often wrong, but not in this case. “Aren’t you gonna ask who I am and why I’m here?” I asked. “Are you at least dazzled by my powers of deduction and observation?”
“I know why you’re here, Miss Baranuik.”
Point: Schenk. “Because you’re a hot shot detective?”
“Because I got a call from your mother.”
I jolted upright in the seat and my cheeks heated. “She knows I’m in the country? Holy hell, does she have my passport flagged or something?” Oh Goddess, they know I’m here. And they called to warn the cops?
“Now that we got that settled,” he grumbled, “have a nice day, eh?”
I sighed. “Don’t be hasty, Schenk. I’m extending professional courtesy, here.”
“Advising me on my personal scent catalogue?”
“The fact that you used the phrase ‘personal scent catalogue’ tells me you need more help than I thought,” I confided. “Also, I’m offering to help find Britney Wyatt.”
“And I thought you were a civilian.”
“As far as you know, I am.”
“Sorry. I can’t discuss case matters with a civvie.”
“Oh. Right.” I picked up his Tim Horton’s cup and shook it to judge its fullness. “Well then, I’m not.”
That earned me half a smirk. “Can’t imagine what you think you’re doing here.”
“Drinking the last of your coffee and sticking my nose in your case.”
He took the cup out of my gloved hand gently, and I let him, noting mitts that fairly dwarfed my own, paws that looked capable of crushing my entire face in one pop. “In what capacity?”
“Uh…” I wrinkled my nose at him. “Visiting dignitary?”
“Try again.”
“Psychic informant?”
“If I had a nickel for every psychic…”
“Paranormal expert!” I exclaimed with a glove-muffled clap.
“Christ, I’ll be laughed out of the briefing tomorrow.”
“What if I had FBI credentials?”
“You don’t have FBI credentials.”
“You don’t know,” I squawked. “I could have Fed-cred up the ying-yang.”
Constable Schenk stretched his neck from one side to the other, rolling his broad shoulders to release the tension. “Do you have FBI credentials?”
“Kinda.” I said defensively. “Sorta.”
“I’m gonna have to see these kinda-sorta credentials.”
“Left ‘em with the butler.”
“Butler,” he said. “Jesus.”
“No, Jeeves. Actually, Mr. Merritt; his first name is Byron, which is awesome, but not as awesome as Jeeves. Who am I kidding, I’m going to call him Jeeves no matter what his real name is,” I said. “I do have FBI credentials, though.”
“Where are they?”
“At North House. Oh, shitfritters, I forgot to ask Mr. Merritt the address. I don’t even know where I’m staying.”
“A psychic who gets lost in the city where she grew up,” he observed. “Your so-called powers are not doing much for your chances of being useful.”
“I'm not lost. I just have no idea where I'm going. Important distinction, constable,” I pointed out with an imperious wag of my finger, which felt damn good. “North House is somewhere in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Guess I’ll just look for the hearse. Oh balls, I said shitfritters. I owe Combat Butler three thousand swear-dollars and it’s not even breakfast yet.” Something occurred to me. “Fuck, does 'balls' count, too?”
Schenk looked at me like I'd just scraped dog shit off my shoe with the lid of his coffee cup. So much for that good feeling. “Yes. And don’t swear in my fucking car. So it's five thousand.”
“You just said ‘fucking.’”
“It’s my car. And that's six,” he said, pointing to the cup holder, where there were a pile of Loonies and Toonies (or, as I like to call them, Doubloonies) for the drive thru. “And six thousand dollars for my Swear Jar.”
“Nuh uh, I didn't bet you, I bet Jeeves. What’s with you guys, anyway? When did Canada become a no-swearing zone?”
He started the car without bothering to answer; the heater and radio both blasted on full. While he turned the volume down, I took the opportunity to slip my sock-feet out of my boots and tuck them near the vent to defrost my frigid toes.
“Feet off my dash,” he said.
“No way, man.”
Schenk’s eyes slunk sideways at me, and I complied immediately with a shuffle. He watched me do it, nodded once, and said, “Nice socks. Were those frogs on the ankles?”
“Yep.”
“Cute.” He put his notes away, leaned one long arm into the back seat to set his folder back there neatly. “I knew when I spoke to you that you were going to show up.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” I said. “Everyone knew before I did.”
“You strike me as nosy and stubborn.”
“Completely untrue,” I said. “For the most part I am disinterested and flaky.” He didn't appear to be buying it, despite the mounting evidence that I was flakier than a stale croissant. I wondered if he knew where North House might be, and whether I could sponge a ride. “I’m not stooging around here for kicks. I’m here to help if I can. And that’s not a promise, it’s a hope.” I looked past the dashboard at the Welland Canal. The water was so dark blue that it was nearly black, even with the morning sun on it. Usually, it was business water, a mode of transportation and nothing more. Today, it was hungry water, foreboding and sentient, though I couldn’t have said why. “No one should have to disappear here.”
Schenk made an incomprehensible noise. His pencil hand started moving, and the pencil went taptaptap on the steering wheel. I wondered if he even knew he was doing it.
“I take it she hasn’t been found,” I said.
Schenk stared over the dashboard, too, and said nothing.
“I take it you don’t think she will be found?” I asked.
“You ever seen a corpse after it’s been in the water
a while?”
I thought about altogether too many autopsy photos I’d seen; the surprise package in my mailbox that had turned out to be the head of twelve year old Kristin Davis; the drooling ghouls I’d battled; the rotting zombies I’d dodged, exploded, and melted; the possessed, exsanguinated body of a woman who'd tried to kill me; the scarred, slipper-humping vermin that used to be my brother; and the comprehensively flensed revenant in my house right this second. “I’m a forensic psychic and a preternatural biologist, officer. I’ve seen a lot of things I wish I’d never seen. Frankly, a waterlogged body doesn't even make my top ten list.”
That didn’t seem to impress him. It wasn’t what he was waiting to hear. I added, “I’ll be okay. By all rights, I shouldn’t still be sane, but here I am.”
“I don’t have the time or patience to hold your hand,” he warned, and the Blue Sense reported he was fibbing; Schenk had a natural protective streak a mile wide.
“And I don’t have the time or patience to let you,” I volleyed.
“Why should I humor you, Miss Baranuik?”
I let the Blue Sense rise until the psi in the car made the skin under my gloved palms twitchy. It reported his feelings of dedication, his unwillingness to let anyone distract him unless that distraction was going to pay off for his victim.
I said, “There are five pictures of Britney Wyatt in the car with us.”
He retrieved his folio again, flipped open the notes, took a paper clip off the inner pocket, and fanned two photographs for me. One was a picture of three young people, two male, one female. The girl in the middle had a brilliant smile and a heart-shaped face, long dark hair with a thick shock of turquoise painted across the brow, and a silver nose ring. The other picture was a college graduation picture, between her parents. Same dark hair, lacking mermaid colors.
“Two,” he said.
I flipped the sun shield down above his head and a picture was tucked there, stuck with a piece of medical tape. Britney Wyatt, solo, posed with one fist under her chin, a professional picture with fair lighting, taken by a chain department store photographer.
“Three,” he conceded. “Lucky guess.”