Death and Relaxation

by Devon Monk

  “You worry, Reed Daughter?”

  “Today seems to be a good day for it. I just wanted to remind you that now that you are here, in Ordinary, and your powers are stored there.” I pointed back to the shop. “You are vulnerable. You are mortal. You can be killed.”

  “I know.” His eyes gleamed. “Wouldn’t that be a most interesting thing?”

  “No. It’s not interesting. It’s just a permanent thing that will take loads of my time and effort and even more paperwork. I already have one power to deal with. I don’t want to have to hold two and find new owners for both, understand?”

  “I understand your concern.”

  I didn’t think he was taking me seriously. Maybe the direct approach would work. “Please, don’t do anything to get yourself killed.”

  “I shall strive to become an upstanding and long-lived mortal, Delaney.”

  I nodded. “Using my name? That’s a good start. Thank you, Than.”

  He tipped his head to the side and gave me the kind of half bow that I would expect out of a butler.

  “Do you have a place to stay? Would you like me to drop you off anywhere? Hades runs a cute little bed and breakfast.”

  “Hades,” he said with some distaste. Then he looked up at the sky and down at the street, the cars, the people walking into the city library, all with the same sense of quiet wonder.

  “I believe I shall take a constitutional and acquaint myself with the possibilities. Good day, Delaney.”

  “Good day, Than.”

  With that, he started off north. His smooth, even gait, head held high, was an odd contrast with his crazy-bright shirt and sleek black slacks. I wondered if his shoes were going to give him blisters, but decided that might be another mortal experience he would find interesting.

  Chapter 11

  MYRA AND Jean were both at their desks, pretending to work. Roy was over at the coffee station stirring a paper cup. They all threw me glances filled with relief.

  Trillium Ruiz, a graceful, poised woman with deep brown skin and eyes that leaned hazel-gold sat on the small couch in our lobby. She wore a cascade of earrings, slacks, and a tailored jacket over a white shirt. She ran the Ordinary Post, our local newspaper, and didn’t know about the creatures or deities in town.

  “Chief Reed.” She stood, her pad and pen already in her hands.

  “Hello, Trillium. Here on personal business?”

  “No. Just need a statement for the paper.”

  “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “Is it true that Heim Dalton was found dead last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know the cause of death?”

  “The cause of death is still under investigation. We suspect drowning.”

  “When did this drowning happen?”

  “Late last night.”

  “Were there any witnesses?”

  “No comment.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “Really, chief? That’s not exactly a make-or-break question for investigating a drowning.”

  “My statement stands. And I’ll finish it off for you. We at the department are very sorry for the loss of one of the members of our community. We are doing everything we can to confirm the cause of his death and to alert his next of kin. I think that about covers it.”

  “Do you suspect foul play?”

  “No comment. This is an ongoing investigation, Trillium. We’re not going to give our final report until we have one.”

  “All right,” she said. “All right.” She clicked the pen and flipped the cover on the notepad.

  “Why hasn’t this death hit the news?”

  I leaned against Jean’s desk. “I have no idea. It’s not my job to babysit the local stations.”

  “So you’re telling me you’re not trying to keep this death out of the media?”

  I sighed. “That’s correct. Look, we’re small potatoes among small potatoes. News of a fisherman falling off his boat and drowning gets a ten-second mention on the news stations in Portland only if it’s a slow news day. There’s no sizzle in it. He wasn’t lost as sea, he’s not a minor, he wasn’t on vacation or battling cancer, or drunk, or saving a puppy.

  “It’s not surprising that our story, his story—no matter how tragic it was—didn’t make the evening news. Believe me, I am very, very sorry he has passed. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen to anyone. But I don’t expect most people outside this town to take note of it.”

  What I wasn’t about to tell her was that a few of the supernaturals in town kept tabs on how our news was delivered to the larger cities. We basically had friends in low places outside town who either took the shine off any news that might give away our secrets, or found ways to bury it in more important, more urgent stories.

  “It just seems like someone should care,” she said.

  “Someone does. We do. You do.”

  “Does he have any next of kin?” She sounded a lot less reporter, and a lot more person concerned about how this loss was going to affect others.

  I liked her for that.

  “As far as we know, no. Parents passed away, no siblings. Last of his family line. We’re doing our due diligence.”

  That was a lie. Heimdall was not the first Heimdall. But he was several hundred years old by my calculations. Any relatives he might have—and he might actually have some great-great-greats descended from his bloodline—would never have met him, and certainly wouldn’t have known of him.

  Gods were darned private people.

  “Here you go,” Roy said, handing Trillium the coffee.

  She smiled, instantly more at ease with Roy than with me. I didn’t know how he did that—and there was nothing magic about it. Roy was as mortal as I was. Maybe more.

  Definitely more.

  But whenever he was around, people felt more relaxed, more at ease.

  It wasn’t the only reason I was grateful he had decided to work with us, but it was a reason I had come to appreciate.

  “Thanks.” She took the cup. “One more thing.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Do you know who’s going to replace him on the Rhubarb Rally judging committee?”

  “On the what now?”

  “Heim was a judge for the Rhubarb Rally.”

  I glanced at Myra and Jean, who both shrugged. “When did that happen?”

  “I think Chris talked him into it three or four months ago.”

  “Chris Lagon.”

  She nodded. “Since Heim has passed, the committee is looking for a replacement.”

  He had just passed hours ago. It was amazing how quickly word got around this town. I was seriously impressed we could keep anything secret.

  “Those contest coordinators are on the ball. Who’s heading that up?”

  “Bertie.”

  Bertie was a sweet old lady with so much energy that she left the rest of us in the dust. She was also a valkyrie, which meant if she wanted you to do something, you were going to do it, even if she had to drag you over your own dead body.

  “I’d check with her, then. I’m sure she’ll have a new judge nailed down by the end of the day.”

  “All right. If I need clarification on anything, I’ll call. Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Come on back anytime.”

  She walked out of the lobby.

  “Nicely done, sis,” Jean said.

  “Just doing my job. Which I do every day. All the time. Why are you all looking at me like that?”

  “We’re not looking at you like anything,” Myra said. “We’re just watching out for you. Now that you’ve taken on that part-time job.”

  She meant the god power.

  “How are you doing with it?” she asked.

  You mean that thing that’s yelling and thrashing around in my head?

  “Fine,” I said. “Still fine.”

  “How did it go?” Jean grinned. “Did they throw punches? Break any bones?”

  “Who?” I walked to my d
esk and dug through my drawer for some painkillers. The yelling and thrashing were edging toward headache land.

  “Death and Crow. Crow made him angry, didn’t he? Crow makes everyone angry.”

  “They got along fine, you big ol’ gossip. And even if Crow did make him angry”—I lifted a finger and pointed it at Roy, who gave me wide, innocent eyes—“none of you should be betting money on these things.”

  “It wasn’t money,” Jean said. “It was just a bet.”

  “Do I want to know?” I sat, took the pills with the cold coffee left over in my mug, and logged on to my computer.

  “If Death would punch Crow in the face,” Jean said. “From all the stories Crow tells, Death has been after him for years. Since they are both mortal, I thought a little payback might be on the menu.”

  “Crow’s always telling a story about something,” I said. “Only some of it is true, and the true stuff isn’t usually the part you’d think it is.”

  Jean walked over to my desk and messed with the pencil cup. “That’s so disappointing.”

  “Peacefulness is disappointing?”

  She shrugged. “I like it when things get a little stirred up. Speaking of stirred up: how was your night?”

  “Well, someone died, and I got knocked out by a god power. So pretty terrific, thanks.”

  “Not that part of your night. The before part with Ryder, and the after part. With Ryder.”

  “It was fine.”

  “No. Nope.” She sat on my desk. “I need to hear a lot more than ‘fine’ when Ryder Bailey is involved.”

  I looked away from my computer, sat back. “Where is he?”

  “Lunch run.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Spill.”

  “Death thinks someone murdered Heim.”

  That wiped the gleeful look off her face.

  “What?” Myra said. She walked over to stand by my desk too. Roy rolled his chair out into the aisle so he could watch us and the switchboard at the same time.

  “I asked him if he knew how Heim died. He said he wasn’t a dime-store prognosticator nor a big fan of murder.”

  “Huh,” Jean breathed, surprised. “Whatdoyouknow.”

  Myra rubbed a thumb over the inside of her finger. It was a habit she’d had for as long as I could remember. Some kind of fake luck gesture Abban, the tallest leprechaun I’d ever met, taught her when we were in elementary school. “He said it was murder?”

  “I asked him point blank if he thought Heim had been murdered, he said yes.”

  “Wellshit,” Jean said, running her words together like she did when she was dealing with something over her head. “Fuckhell.”

  “All right.” Myra’s voice was calm, professional. “We can work with that. Who would want Heim dead?”

  “None of the deities come to mind immediately,” I said.

  There were squabbles and grudges between deities that couldn’t be erased just because they were on vacation. But we kept an eye on those sorts of things. Heimdall didn’t seem to have enemies among the gods here. Not enemies who would be willing to kill another deity and risk losing vacation rights permanently.

  “Maybe Hera?” Jean suggested, getting some space between her words. “I heard Heim was taking his best fish to Chris’s place for his new cook, and giving the seconds to Hera’s bar and grill.”

  I tapped her name into the suspect list. “We can check. Did she seem upset about it?”

  “I overheard her calling him a lot of bad names,” Jean said.

  “Okay, have we seen any other deit upset?”

  She shook her head, and so did Myra.

  “Creatures?” I asked.

  “Chris?” Myra suggested.

  “Because he’s getting the best fish Heim could catch? How does that warrant murder?”

  “According to Dan Perkin, Chris is dead-set on winning the drink category in the rally. Heim was a judge. Maybe Heim told him he wasn’t going to vote for Chris’s beer.”

  “Chris told me he doesn’t care about the award.”

  “Still,” Myra said. “We should follow up.”

  Jean unwrapped a square piece of pink gum and stuck it in her mouth. “Labs came back.” Her words smelled like blueberry. “Blunt trauma to the back of the head, salt water in the lungs.”

  “So another water creature? Nymphs? Mers? Any other creats upset with Heim?”

  We all looked over at Roy. He shook his head. “Not that I can think of.”

  “We’ll check the waters people anyway. Which brings us to mortals.” I placed my fingers on my keyboard. “Go.”

  Myra started. “We’ll want to talk to his ex Lila, and her sister Margot. See if there is any hostility there. Maybe Pete Bell? He was always trying to steal Heim’s whale-watching customers.”

  It wasn’t much to go on. We all knew that. Heim had been easygoing and not the type to make enemies, which, while admirable while he was alive, made our jobs a lot harder now that he was dead.

  “Maybe we should check in with Bertie,” Myra said. “She talked him into judging for the festival. Maybe he edged out someone else who got mad about it. She’d know who else was in the running.”

  I nodded and put her in as an information source to follow up on.

  “I’d like to take a look at his finances too,” I said. “Make sure he was on the up and up with what he was catching and shipping.”

  “He was,” Roy said. “Clean as a whistle. Barbara’s firm does his accounts.”

  Barbara was Roy’s wife. She owned the accounting firm in town. If she said he was clean, I believed it.

  “Maybe we should add Dan Perkin to the list,” Jean said. “He’s made an enemy of everyone.”

  It was sort of the office joke, although it was also true. Dan really didn’t have many friends. Any investigation from criminal mischief, lost newspaper deliveries, or missing socks always pointed to Dan.

  Dan was never the actual perpetrator, though we had once caught him throwing rocks at tourist cars parked illegally in disabled parking zones.

  Since Jean sympathized with his stance on that, if not his action, she let him off with a warning.

  But since Dan had also been a target of explosives and he was tied into the Rhubarb Rally, I added his name as an avenue we should explore.

  “I can’t believe you put him on it,” Jean said. “No-goes.” She touched her nose. Myra quickly did the same.

  “Are you two kidding me? What are you? Five?”

  “No,” Jean said, her finger still on her nose. “We are smart. Because we don’t have to interview Dan.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ll talk to Dan, you big babies. Is this it for the start?”

  Jean and Myra dropped their fingers off their noses.

  “All I can think of,” Roy said. “Well, we could check with his deck hand.”

  “Heim had a deck hand? I thought he let Rufus go.”

  “He did.” Roy looked up at the ceiling a moment. “I think the man’s name was Walter. Came hitching into town on his way to California. Fresno. Heim picked him up for a couple whale-watching runs.”

  “Did he go out with him last night?” I asked.

  Myra walked to her desk and plucked up a file folder. She flipped through a few pages. “Coast guard didn’t find anyone else on the boat. No missing persons report.”

  I typed him onto the list. “Not that a hitcher working day jobs is really going to be noticed as missing.”

  She frowned at the file and nodded.

  We all knew we didn’t have much to go on. I found myself wishing we had a dime-store prognosticator on call.

  “This is a good start,” I said, trying to bring up the mood. “Let’s divvy it up and cover ground, ladies. Roy, you got the fort?”

  “I’ll keep the coffee on.”

  “What about Ryder?” Jean asked.

  Oh. I’d forgotten our fifth wheel. We all raised our fingers at the same time and jabbed our noses. Roy sighed like a veteran kindergarten teacher.
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  I glared at my sisters through my fingers.

  “I already did ride-along,” Myra said around her palm.

  “My shift’s almost over.” Jean had chosen to use her middle finger on her nose, of course.

  “I am not going to drag him around behind me all day,” I said.

  And then the door opened and a man walked into the lobby.

  Chapter 12

  MYRA DROPPED her finger a split second before the rest of us and squared off toward our visitor. Not Ryder. It was Cooper, my ex-boyfriend.

  “Can I help you?” If Myra’s words could invoke weather, Cooper would be buried under a snow pack.

  Cooper wore a dark blue T-shirt that was tight enough to show his muscles, and jeans that belted low on his hips. His light hair was pulled back into a band at the base of his neck. Daylight did good things to the angles of his face and lit up his deep brown eyes. He gave Myra an embarrassed smile. “Hi, Myra. How have you been?”

  “Busy. As a matter of fact, we’re all busy.” Not snow pack. Glacier.

  “Right, sure,” he said. “I just…” He glanced over at Jean, who shook her head like she couldn’t believe he was dumb enough to be here.

  Cut your losses, turn around, don’t look at me, I thought.

  When his eyes turned to me, he had that gonna-hurl look of a man begging for a second chance. His gaze strayed to my lips.

  “What’s up, Cooper?” Yes, I took pity on him. Yes, I heard both my sisters’ disgruntled sighs. No, this wasn’t a second chance. This was me being polite and doing my job. He’d come to the station. Maybe there was a problem.

  “I thought maybe you’d have time for lunch?” He finally looked back up and met my gaze. His eyes were amazingly deep, and warm as an endless summer.

  An electric zing rattled through me so hard and fast, I felt like someone had punched me in the sternum. I held my breath as the buzz grew and grew into something bigger, louder, intense.

  Holy crap.

  One look at him and I couldn’t think. Everything in me either went dead still, or was vibrating so fast it felt like stillness.

  And there was Cooper. Right in front of me, brown eyes burning. He was everything I wanted. Everything I desired.

  What? That couldn’t be right. I didn’t want Cooper.