Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files)

by A. J. Aalto

  Rowena didn’t hug me, or smile, but she came close enough to hand me a grocery bag.

  I said, “Sorry to call around eleven. I know it’s time for Coronation Street.”

  “My TV hasn’t worked in months,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug. Her voice was so different than I remembered it, hard and edgy without the mitigating sweetness of adolescence. “Dad’s doing a bit better today. Mom’s happy… about Harry, I mean.”

  “Not about me,” I clarified, not that I needed to.

  “Fuck, no.”

  “Why the heck would she be happy about Harry?”

  “Heck, eh?” I thought she wanted to smile, and the frown that followed was caused by irritation that I was daring to amuse her. Humor as defense mechanism used as the best offense possible. She repeated as though she didn’t hear me right, “Heck?”

  “I can’t afford swears,” I said, cocking one gloved thumb at the hearse where Mr. Merritt was pointedly not watching us over his New York Times. “I bet him a thousand bucks a pop, because I'm an idiot.”

  She glanced over my shoulder towards the car. “Didn’t know people still read the paper.”

  “He’s really super old,” I explained. “So why is Mom happy with Harry?”

  “Because of Harry refusing to turn Dad.”

  Turn him? I didn’t know what to say, so I stuck with a safe, “Oh.”

  “Harry said he’s not old enough to turn people into vampires,” Rowena said, and I sensed she was testing me to see if this was fact, “so he had to say no to Dad.”

  I nodded and gave her another, “Oh.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. The Blue Sense started to wake up, but I did my best to squelch it, stomp it back. This was one case where I adamantly did not want to know what someone was feeling, about me or anything else. As if sensing this struggle inside me, Rowena glanced at my leather gloves as I clutched the handles of the grocery bag. She stuffed her own bare hands inside the pockets of her sweatshirt and looked at me expectantly. I tried to imagine what in the world to say next. An apology? For what, exactly? For wearing gloves? For being psychic? For not calling to be yelled at and rejected? For not at least trying? I’m not sorry about accepting Harry. Rowena kept her eyes on my face and seemed to be waiting. She always could win a staring contest, and could go freakishly long without blinking. No one in their right mind would play poker with Rowena Baranuik.

  “Anyway,” she said, letting me off the hook, “Mom’s pleased.” Pause. “With Harry.”

  “Not with me,” I said again.

  “Right.”

  I nodded, chewing my bottom lip. “Well, this is all news to me. Harry didn’t mention Dad’s request.” He wouldn’t have mentioned it to me, though; he’d simply taken care of it and moved on, not wanting to upset me.

  “Margot says not to break this board.” She looked at me with that expectant look again, like she was waiting for a fight.

  “I hardly ever break stuff,” I lied.

  “She’s not painting another.”

  “I won’t ask her to.”

  “She had nightmares after she made this one. That’s why I had it. Stored it in my garden shed.”

  I looked at the bent and battered green aluminum shed that had been there long before this place belonged to Rowena. It was draped with a blue tarp to block snow and rain from getting in the hole that some storm had made, and not all that recently, by the looks of it. If Harry thought my place was a dump, he’d have hauled both me and my sister out of hers bodily and would be on the phone to his renovators before either of us could squawk.

  “Well, thank you for letting me borrow the board. Do you want it back?”

  “It gave Margot the creeps,” she said, repeating. “She won’t make another.”

  I got that much already, thanks was trapped behind my teeth. With anyone else I’d have been losing my shit by now, letting the expletives fly, but this was a chance, however slight, at an inroad to family peace. I peeked at the fancy scrying board in the bag, took a deep breath, and let my frustration go on the exhale. “I’ll be careful with it. Do you want me to bring it back when I'm done?”

  “It’s just something pretty to look at,” she said. “I don’t use it. I’m not into the occult. Taints the soul.”

  Look at? I thought you kept it in the shed. “Ah. So what I’m hearing you say is, 'I’d like something pretty to look at for Christmas.' Like, maybe a TV that works?”

  “Witches don’t buy Christmas presents,” she said, too quickly, and with a cool little laugh. “You’ve never bought me a Christmas present.”

  That was wildly untrue, but her barb struck home. I still held my tongue, somehow; she was intentionally ignoring the extra stockings Carrie and I had made all the younger kids when we were teens, and, later, the gifts Harry and I lavished on the family, even as their resentment toward us planted roots that showed no signs of dying back or pulling free.

  “Okay, Rowena,” I said, disappointed. This isn’t how I wanted this to go. “No presents.”

  I made to get back in the hearse and Rowena’s hands came back out of her pockets; though she didn’t exactly reach for me, the gesture stalled my feet.

  She said, “I, uh, contacted that Lennie Epp fellow like you said. Going to see him Thursday for an hour.”

  “Not sure you’ll make much of a dent in an hour, but enjoy.” I added, “You do good work, kiddo. I’m proud of that, if it matters.” I nodded, not knowing what else to say but not prepared to give up as long as she was still willing to talk. “Good work, for sure.”

  “I hear from Carrie that you do good work, too,” she offered, “except for all the people dying.”

  She tried. I didn’t smile, though a dark part of me found it deeply amusing. “Yeah, well, I try to keep the death toll low in every case. That’s a real source of pride for me. Is Claire out west?”

  “Her last year,” Rowena said, and then, reluctantly, as if it was a precious family secret I shouldn’t be privy to, she added, “Biology. But not monsters. No preternatural stuff. Real science. Marine biology.”

  “Good,” I said, ignoring the little digs. Real science. I wondered if Mr. Merritt would mind taking me for a dozen donuts after this ordeal; I was so not used to biting my tongue. I opened my mouth to tell her that Carrie mentioned it to me, second guessed that, and shut up. Then I thought to mention Wesley staying with me, but felt that no one in the family was quite ready to handle his life choices, and kept my teeth together.

  She watched me struggle and said nothing, waiting.

  I did my best not to look behind her at the run down house, the busted ten-speed bike stuck in a wedge of piled snow. If I asked Harry to, he’d send around a crew to patch the windows today, spring for a new bike, or a car, or whatever else she was denying herself as self-punishment. “Do you need anything? Anything at all?”

  “Trying to be a big sister, now?”

  “No.” I sighed and tried again, a bit of my anger leaking out. “I just want you to understand, I’m a resource you can draw on if you need—“

  She stopped me. “Your wealthy dead man can’t buy me, Marnie.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I insisted, but my voice had raised enough to echo in the carport. I swallowed my frustration back, afraid to lose what little ground I’d gained, afraid she’d shut down. “The door’s open, is all I meant. I understand that luxury is something you think you don’t deserve, kiddo, but adding a bit of comfort to the basics isn’t a crime. I’m here for you, even when I’m…” I made a flinging hand motion to the south to indicate Colorado. “There for you.”

  An awkward silence fell, during which I could hear water dripping from the icicles on her gutters in a steady patter. There was no wind this morning. The sun off the snow was nearly blinding.

  “Well, maybe you could call sometime,” Rowena suggested. “Tell me what kind of cases you’re working on that gives you two black eyes and a fat lip.”

  I felt a warm swell
of hope. It was something. She was leaving the door open a crack. “Sure. And to be fair, I only have one black eye.”

  Rowena shook her head slowly. “Don’t look at yourself in the mirror much, do you?”

  I winked one eye and then the other. Both hurt equally. Balls. I closed both tightly, and the ache in my sockets tore an elongated ooooowwww from me.

  Rowena snorted. “Dork.”

  “I’ll call you next week some time,” I promised. “I’d like to check on Mr. Epp, if that doesn’t breach some code of confidentiality or ethics or whatever.”

  Rowena let a self-deprecating smile slip. “We’re Baranuiks,” she reminded me, and started walking back to her house, hugging the afghan tighter. “We ain’t got no stinkin’ ethics.”

  She hurried and did not look back; I watched her until the door closed with a jingle-bell sound, hinting at holiday decorations inside. The sun felt nice on my cheeks. I glanced up at the sky, feather grey with hints of blue. An artistic hand had painted white and grey clouds with the lightest of brushstrokes across today’s sky. I got back in the idling hearse and sat in the passenger seat, clamping down on the threat of happy tears while Mr. Merritt took his time folding the fat newspaper and then pretended to fine tune something with the dials and buttons on the dash. Finally, he offered me my ski mask. He’d been keeping it warm for me under one of his thighs.

  “Tim Horton’s, madam?”

  I laughed with relief, turning my face away so he wouldn’t see my eyes well up. First, my sister doesn’t spit in my face, now coffee? This day was coming up Marnie! If the poltergeist didn’t kill me, it might be the best day ever.

  CHAPTER 26

  Mr. Merritt cruised into the parking lot at the Oh Yeah! Café and I spotted Schenk’s sedan. The lot had been plowed into high piles occupying a couple of the outlying parking spaces, and the sun was making a little headway towards melting some of the dregs and ice that remained on the exposed pavement. I stuffed my sister’s scrying board in my backpack before heading in to see Schenk. I passed Detective Sergeant Malashock on her way out; The Blue Sense stirred to offer up her confusion, frustration, and disappointment. She didn’t recognize me with my ski mask on, not even when I threw her my patented flowery salute, complete with finger wiggles.

  Schenk, on the other hand, recognized me immediately. He was finishing up some rye toast, wiping it on his plate in egg yolk and hot sauce. “Grab a seat, Cinderblock. Take that thing off, they’re gonna think you’re sticking up the joint.”

  “Can’t.” I left the balaclava on, but took my parka off and hung it on the back of the chair before sitting. “It got worse.”

  “Twizzler marks?”

  I blew hot air out the little nose holes in my mask. “You’re a funny guy.”

  “The fat lip?”

  “The black eye,” I said, drawing it out to emphasize my displeasure, leaning across the table as if daring him to push me. “Eyes, plural.”

  A twitch of a smirk. “Lemme see.”

  “You’re not my friend anymore,” I said sullenly, pulling a laminated menu card closer with one gloved hand. “I’m getting a new ski mask with a mouth hole so I can stick my tongue out at you.”

  “I’ll knit you one, eh?”

  “Get right on that, would ya?” I twirled a finger around my masked face to indicate the damage. “This is all my mom’s fault, you realize.”

  “Your mother hit you?” He said it like he wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  “Nope, just in the mood to trash my mother behind her back.”

  “I have a feeling she started it.”

  “You've met her,” I said, as if this explained everything.

  “She seems nice,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  “You were probably high,” I said. “You should stop smokin’ reefer on the job, officer. It’s messing with your job performance.”

  We happened to glance past the struggling begonias on the window ledge to the parking lot at the same time, to see Malashock still standing by her car, talking on the phone. She began to pace parallel to the front bumper, high heeled boots avoiding a snow-filled pot hole. The waitress came by our table, refilled Schenk’s coffee, turned my cup over, filled it, and put a plate of French toast in front of me. After she went away I frowned down at the plate. “I didn’t order this.”

  “I did.” When I tried to pass it to him, he clarified, “For you.”

  “How’d you know I was coming?”

  “Felt a disturbance in the Force.”

  I looked at him steadily; when Dickie Binswanger ordered for me without asking, I hated it. When Schenk did it, I found it considerate and endearing. I knew he was going to insist on paying for it. This time, I would let him without a fight.

  He shook his head at me, smiling. “Take the damned thing off. Your face can’t be that bad.”

  “You won’t vomit?”

  “No promises. Sorry.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, Longshanks, it hurts to smile.” I pulled the ski mask off but held onto it, in case my bruises had gotten even worse than when I checked them in the rear view mirror of the hearse in Rowena’s driveway. I snuck a look at Schenk’s face to check his reaction. He was doing an excellent job of not smiling, but his eyes said he wanted to.

  “I’m not going to lie,” he said, eating the last crust of rye. “It’s bad.”

  “It could be worse?” I made it a question.

  He nixed that with a quick, “Not without cutting something off,” and pulled a folder from his bag. “Did some digging on the Briggs-Adsits.”

  “How?”

  He paused in the act of shuffling through his papers to give me an I’m-a-detective-you-simpleton look. I gave him an answering okay-duh-but-how eyebrow lift. It hurt my bruised face, and I touched my fat lip gingerly. “Okay, where?” I specified.

  “Local museum had some interesting records from the times. Very distinctive folks, the Briggs-Adsits. You were right about the psychosis, though nowhere in these notes was syphilis mentioned. A few months before John Senior’s death, church records show that Mother Adsit – whom they call Elizabeth, Beth, Bess, Betty, and Betsy, depending on the source – was asked to stop bringing John Junior to church because he was disrupting Mass. After the funeral of her husband, she stopped coming to church, but had a bug up her ass about the whole thing and began harassing other churchgoers at their homes. The local sheriff, who was the law here before Niagara Regional Police existed, told her to settle down and knock it off, basically, after which she came at the parishioners with her wooden spoon.” He gave me a look.

  “The Spoon of Doom,” I said, making a little O with my swollen lips and drawing it out all spooky-like. My toast was terrified, so I stabbed it with my fork and put it out of its misery.

  “Son dies a few months later, head injuries 'sustained in a fall.' Officially, declared an accident.”

  “Right,” I said. “Killer Spoon.”

  “She refused to let her son be buried in the church’s cemetery, and there are no records of him being buried anywhere else.”

  “Ew?” I munched French toast, doctored my coffee carefully and braced for impact before sipping it. “That’s grody to the max.”

  “You’re not old enough to say 'grody to the max.'”

  “But you are,” I said. “I’m using the vernacular of your youth.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t. It's heinous. Bogus. Gnarly. Whatever the opposite of ‘radical’ was.” He killed the smile that was threatening to appear with a mouthful of coffee.

  “Do I want to know what happened to soft-headed John Junior’s body?”

  “No idea, but he seems to have ended up in or near Mother Briggs-Adsit's own casket in the original Red Hook cemetery, so explain that one.”

  “A two-bodies-one-box situation?” I suggested. “How many years apart?”

  “She lived another twelve years, and was one of the last people buried at the original Red Hook cemetery bef
ore the church was torn down in 1879. In 1920, they put the call out for people to move their kin before the overflow pond was installed.”

  “But no one was left to move the Briggs-Adsits,” I finished, “among those hundreds of others.”

  He rubbed his face with one large hand. “The coroner is attending to Nowland’s autopsy today, but I expect the same results as that of Ms. Wyatt’s; severe hypothermia. Found Nowland’s car by Lock Three. No idea how either he or Britney got up all the locks into the overflow pond at the Twin Flight Locks, or how they got there without anyone along the way noticing it. I can’t charge a poltergeist with murder, so this may all be moot. What do I do about it?”

  “I vote we find this desecrated grave, return the skull and the tear vial, send the soldier’s ghost into the light, exorcise the poltergeist, and then hit the nearest donut shop.” I forked a piece of syrup-sodden French toast into my mouth. “After all that, I’m gonna need a Dutchie real bad.”

  “Because you don’t get enough sugar, right?”

  “Probably, I could never get enough sugar.”

  “How about diabetes? Could you get enough of that?”

  “I’m a DaySitter,” I said smugly, swirling another hunk of French toast in syrup. “I can’t get diabetes.”

  “But you can get whipped to death by Twizzlers. What an interesting life you lead.”

  “The way I figure it, a truly messy death is inevitable,” I said, “but only for one of us. You’re probably gonna be okay.”