Fatal Secrets

by Ehsani, Vered

  “At faking it,” Lee finished the sentence. “Yes, Cal, you told me that before.”

  “I need to ask him a question, that’s all.”

  “He didn’t steal anything from you.” Lee said it as a statement of fact, but there was a hint of a question at the end.

  Cal’s mouth opened, his eyebrows shot up and after a second of thought, he chuckled. “No, ma’am, of course not. He wouldn’t steal from me. He knows better than that. Is that what you’re worried about? I’ve nothing against him, not at all. I just need one small piece of information, that’s all. Then I’ll be moving along. Like I said, I don’t want no trouble. Can’t really afford it.” He grinned and winked, as if he was sharing a joke with her.

  Lee rubbed her face with both hands and asked, “What kind of information?”

  “Well, now, that’s between me and him, ma’am.” Cal was still smiling, still looking charming and irritatingly angelic.

  I threw a book at him. The book, a hefty hard cover, smacked into Cal’s face. Cal looked around, his smile and charm gone.

  “Who threw that?” he barked.

  “That would be Axe Cooper,” Lee responded mildly.

  “So he’s not dead after all,” Cal hooted triumphantly. “Get out where I can see you, you yellow belly.”

  “Yellow belly?” Lee repeated, her mouth twitching around the words. “Are you for real?”

  The book rose up and began snapping its covers, a set of toothless jaws lined with paper. The paper jaws snapped at Cal’s nose.

  “Dang, how’re you doing that?” Cal asked as he grabbed at the book and tugged it away from the force that was holding it.

  “I’m not. That would be your friend. You know: Axe Cooper. The not-dead ghost. He’s about to throw another one.”

  A volley of books hurtled towards Cal, who dove under the dining room table, the soles of his cowboy boots the only thing sticking out.

  Lee yawned widely. “This has been fun and it was lovely seeing you again, Cal. Have a nice night.” She turned to go.

  “You just gonna leave him there?” I demanded as I prepared to slide a book under the table, aiming for Cal’s midsection.

  “Don’t leave me here,” Cal yelled, as if he had heard me.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Lee answered. “Axe, make sure you have these books back in their shelves by the morning. In alphabetical order by book title. Oh, and also organised by genre.”

  Cal crawled out from under the table and jumped up in time to see the voluminous Chinese-English dictionary come hurtling at a level below his waist.

  “Ouch,” Lee drawled. “That had to hurt.”

  Cal was doubled over and having trouble breathing. His eyes were closed, his mouth moving soundlessly. Lee side-stepped around him, opened the front door, gently grabbed his elbow, pushed him out into the hallway and closed the door with a satisfying thud.

  “You’re getting better,” Lee remarked.

  I slouched in the bookshelf, de-energised but grinning. “Thanks. Top that, Easter Bunny.”

  “Uh… what?”

  “I’m beat,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought you said. Remember,” and she waved a finger at me. “All this mess.” She indicated the dozen books crashed out on the floor. “Back in there,” and she jabbed the bookshelf.

  “You’re welcome for saving your life.”

  Lee laughed. “As if. I wasn’t in any real danger. Goodnight.”

  Brain Drain

  The problem with being a ghost…

  Let me rephrase that. One of the problems with being a ghost is that you, or rather I, have lots of time to think. I don’t have to sleep, eat, shower, do laundry or anything related to the maintenance of a body and its material surroundings. Sounds like the perfect holiday, right?

  Well, that’s when I get confronted with one of the other problems with being a ghost: the longer I remain earthbound, the greater the risk of complete and permanent amnesia. The two freaks with wings who’d shown up at my death told me I had to right the wrongs, or eventually forget everything, including myself. And the Chief said something about regrets and eternity.

  Things to look forward to.

  So I had lots of time to think about all the memories I would eventually lose, including the one that was already fading. The one where I bury a body in Dead Man’s Flats. The one about Amos.

  I had no idea who Amos is. Or was.

  I think I once knew him. And he may have been the one I buried. What bugged me was why I was burying anyone at all. Had I killed him? And was I plagued with secret regret that was holding me back from moving on? And what did Cal want from me anyways?

  While Lee slept in blissful slumber, I floated horizontal in her living room and mulled over Amos and the mystery body. I thought about the memories I’d almost lost during the situation with CEO Perkins, my former boss who’s ordered my murder. Yeah, nice boss, eh? Nothing to do with my work performance, mind you. I was a decent enough janitor. Point is, I got my memories back as soon as I’d righted the wrong, so to speak.

  I really didn’t want to dig up a body.

  I gazed out the window. All I could see was a downpour. That’s Vancouverite speak for ‘heavy rain’. More like a flood. A blurry globe of light indicated where a streetlamp was, but that’s all I could see, apart from water.

  I missed Calgary. Lots of sunshine, blue sky, even in winter. And totally off limits for me while I was alive.

  I sighed, flipped over so I was floating face down, and wondered if I could convince Lee to dig up a body for me. Oh yeah. She’d love that.

  Then again, what’re best friends for if you can’t ask them to dig up a body for you once in a while?

  Death by Donuts

  I didn’t notice when night oozed into day. Dawn was a painfully prolonged procedure of gradually decreasing levels of blacks and dark greys, colours that were eventually replaced by a silver-tinged grey. A brighter patch of light grey indicated where the sun was lurking. Cold drops of rain pinged against the windows.

  In other words, a typical mid-winter morning in Vancouver.

  “Are you coming?” Lee asked as she slipped into her navy blue raincoat. The hem hung near her ankles, making her look like a little girl who was playing dress-up. Her hiking boots, her favourite, also looked too big.

  “Sure. Nothing else to do,” I said.

  I didn’t mean to sound pathetic, but it came out like that. I wondered yet again what would’ve happened if I’d listened to those angels who tried to guide me to the tunnel of light. I glanced over at Lee, who was battling with an umbrella that was reluctant to come out of the closet. If I had gone with the angels, I reminded myself, CEO Perkins’ henchmen would’ve murdered her. That’s what would’ve happened.

  “And we’re off,” Lee called out, triumphantly brandishing her black umbrella over her head.

  I floated beside her as she dodged puddles and other umbrella-carrying pedestrians, most of whom were also dressed in dark coloured raincoats and huddled under black umbrellas. As we entered busier streets, the sidewalks became more congested with umbrellas. Despite all the rain Vancouver was known to receive, the sidewalks weren’t designed for crowds of umbrellas. It was a wonder no one lost an eye as people jostled their umbrellas up, down and to the side. Maybe the sidewalk designers had done their work during August, the only sort of dry month of the year.

  Chan’s Chinese Chow was located a few blocks away, in a cluster of restaurants and markets sandwiched between East Pender and East Hastings, in Chinatown. The restaurant’s entrance opened up to Gore Avenue. Having been shot in front of that entrance, I personally found the road name rather ironic.

  We stopped outside Chan’s, gazing up at the big yellow sign written in Chinese, with small English text below. The diner was known for its great food, lousy ambiance and a couple murders. Although to be fair, the murders weren’t about or caused by the food and they didn’t take place in Chan’s but outs
ide on the sidewalk. Once that news broke, Chan’s became even more popular. Vancouverites are always on the lookout for the next new experience; apparently, eating where someone had been shot is the in-thing in culinary experiences. Go figure.

  Whatever the cause for its popularity, it did have the best Chinese food in the area. Considering Chan is located smack within Chinatown, that’s saying something.

  Donut Delight, a closet-sized donut shop with bright lighting and a smudged shop sign above the entrance, was located on the other side of a narrow alley. It had also seen an increase in sales of its sugar loaded, weight-enhancing treats, for the same reason. Only Lee and us ghosts knew it was the hangout of three deathmarks: sinister, mobile shadows that were the opposite of a birthmark. Both me and Faye Random were connected to a deathmark, as we’d both been murdered in front of the shop. We still hadn’t figured out who the third person had been.

  “Fond memories?” Lee interrupted my reverie.

  “Yup,” I said straight-faced. “Visiting the site of my murder is always lots of fun.”

  “You didn’t have to come.”

  “I’m not complaining. Ladies first.” I waved her into Chan’s which, by the way, has no relationship with Lily ‘Lee’ Chan. If you look up ‘Chan’ in the Vancouver phone book, you’ll find pages and pages dedicated to that name.

  We entered the narrow, crowded restaurant, and were audibly assaulted by the shouts of the pimply-faced teen, Chan Junior, as he yelled in Chinese to the kitchen staff while managing the cash register. After thirty years of operation, the place could really use a face-lift, but Chan Senior never bothered. Why change anything when the current setup did so well? The dim lighting was barely enough to read the greasy menu without straining your eyes too much but conveniently dark enough so you couldn’t see the decades of grime ground into the cracked floor tiles, the cheap plastic chairs and tables, the chipped counter top.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I reminded Lee with a grin. I didn’t have to tell her; she was keeping her hands firmly inside her coat pockets.

  “Greasy paw marks everywhere,” Lee muttered under her breath. “When do they wipe down the surfaces and with what? Haven’t they heard of Lysol?”

  I snickered. “At least they pass on the savings in cleaning product not purchased to the customer.”

  “I’d rather pay more.” She was talking while trying not to move her lips. Vancouverites are pretty relaxed but even they might get a tad nervous at being close to an old lady talking to invisible friends.

  “It’s a wonder you even eat out at all, Lee,” I said with a chuckle. “Remember when you pretended to be an inspector to check out Chan’s kitchen?”

  She smiled reluctantly and whispered, “Yes. That’s why I know I can eat here. At least the kitchen is sort of clean. No bubonic plague or typhoid.”

  A couple customers leaning against the grimy counter turned to Lee, probably wondering who she was talking with, and quickly looked away, as if madness might be a visually contagious disease worse than typhoid.

  Faye zinged through the wall separating the diner from the kitchen. “Hell-o-o-o,” she shrieked. “Lee, you look so sweet, in a very frumpy, old school sort of way. I’m so glad Axe’s friends haven’t killed you off yet. Axe, sugar lump, where is Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome?”

  “I’m so glad no one else can see or hear this,” Lee muttered.

  “Shadow’s having some shadow time,” I replied. “And Cal is not my friend.”

  Faye pouted. “That’s a great pity.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to Shadow’s absence or Cal not being my friend. I didn’t bother to follow up on that.

  She continued in a breathless voice. “Have you talked with Bob yet?”

  Frowning, I shrugged my shoulders. “Didn’t know I had to.” Then I remembered his request at the party. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

  “Oh.” She sunk down. “That’s strange. He was desperate to talk with you. Something about life and death and death again.”

  I shrugged my shoulders again. “We’ll meet up soon enough.”

  “Why did you want to meet here, Faye?” Lee whispered at a menu that was now obscuring her face. She had pulled on gloves so she could hold the menu without touching all the greasy marks and food residue splatted on the plastic.

  “Obviously, we couldn’t very well meet in Donut Delight, now could we, honey?” Faye asked with a toss of her head, her bouncy demeanour returning. “On account of those dreadful deathmarks.” She shivered delicately as if mentioning them by name would invoke their presence or their wrath. “I don’t want to be eaten up by one of them and turned into some…” She waved her hands vaguely around her. “Some monster hybrid with no memory of who I am.”

  “Obviously,” Lee repeated, poking at a strange coloured splotch in the middle of her menu. “What is that thing?”

  “Don’t touch it,” I ordered. “It looks alive. Could be venomous. Those gloves won’t save you.”

  Lee peered over the edge of the menu at me, shook her head slightly, and stared down again. “Why are we meeting here instead of The Ghost Post or my place, is what I meant, Faye.”

  “Oh.” Faye nodded. “Your place is out, because as handsome and charming as Axe’s best friend Cal is, his other friend Frankenstein might shoot you. You told me you have to be at the courthouse for Perkins’ trial, and we’re not too far from there. But more importantly, this is where one of those mystery murders happened. The third deathmark!”

  “Cal is not my friend,” I grumped, scratching over the scar on my chin. I didn’t have to touch it to know what the jagged scar looked like. I had traced it so many times when I had been alive, the memory of how I got it was as embedded in my mind as the scar was in my skin. “And what mystery murders?”

  “You slow coach. Keep up with the train, please,” Faye retorted with a roll of her eyes. “DD’s asked us to look into this UN Gang thing. So, using my heightened investigative skills…”

  I snorted and then took an avid interest in a stain on the counter.

  Faye continued glaring at me. “I discovered that there’s a connection between this area of town and the gang.”

  “DD told you,” Lee corrected her, still studying the splotch on her menu. “I think it actually is alive.”

  Faye made a rude sound that didn’t quite match with her cute girlish image. “Fine. DD told me. The part she doesn’t know and we have to find out is who actually murdered the third person, and who the third person was.”

  “So what’s the connection?” I asked as Lee ordered lunch.

  “This whole street…” Faye paused and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “It’s under the protection of the UN Gang.” She leaned back, an elbow sinking into someone’s steaming rice, and nodded her head in satisfaction.

  “A protection racket,” I said and yawned. I knew all about those.

  “Lay-dee. Rice. Steam or fry?” Chan Junior demanded as he pounded on the cash register’s keys.

  “Definitely steamed,” Faye suggested.

  Lee ignored her and ordered fried rice.

  “Eat here? Take?” Chan Junior continued his monosyllabic interrogation.

  “Takeout,” I suggested. “We need to go where you can talk.”

  “Takeout. I’m supposed to be at the courthouse in half an hour,” Lee added, checking her watch.

  “That too,” I agreed. “So are all the shops on this street paying protection?”

  Faye gave me a sly smile. She reminded me of the proverbial cat who’d swallowed the canary. Or better yet, a journalist who had just scooped exclusive coverage of the next big story. To me, that was way scarier than a beach full of armed, Harley Davidson bikers.

  “Now they are,” she finally answered.

  “Meaning?”

  The smile widened. “DD told me.”

  “Just spit it out already,” Lee hissed. A nearby customer nervously glanced over and shifted further down the counter.
<
br />   “Lay-dee. Order. Here. Take,” Chan Junior grunted at Lee and handed her a bag.

  “So what did DD tell you?” I asked as we scurried through the downpour. A bus that would take us to the courthouse several stops away had just pulled in at the corner, and we scrambled into it. Lee led the way to the back, which was empty.

  Faye’s grin was wide, wicked and devious. “One shop tried to buck the trend. The owner didn’t want to pay, and was made an example for the others.”

  “And are you gonna tell us which store or should we start naming all fifty of them?” I asked.

  “Donut Delight,” Faye blurted out, a fist shooting upward in triumph. “The owner of Donut Delight refused to pay, an enforcer went there to chat about it, and the owner died in the process of chatting and enforcing.”

  “The third deathmark,” I breathed out.

  “You got it, sugar,” Faye shouted.

  Something clicked in place. I knew I’d eventually see it, why the third mystery deathmark lurking around Donut Delight had seemed familiar to me when I’d first met it.

  “I know who it is,” I whispered. “And you’re not going to believe it.” I was right: they didn’t.

  The Trial

  Even though I wasn’t on trial, I kept fidgeting. Like I said before, habits are hard to kill.

  It only took us ten minutes to get to the Vancouver Provincial Court on Main Street near Powell. The courthouse was a long, concrete building with one-way windows. That kind of window always remind me of the type of sunglasses worn by cops and by people who don’t want to reveal what’s really happening inside their eyes.

  I never trusted people like that. Same goes for buildings. They’re all hiding something.

  The minute I saw that building with its ‘police sunglasses’ windows, I started fidgeting. It only got worse when we entered our courtroom.

  “Axe Cooper. Would you stop that?” Lee ordered through a fixed smile, her lips barely moving as she stared straight ahead. She was sitting in the area reserved for witnesses. Fortunately, there was no one sitting near her to care that she was apparently talking to invisible friends. “What is wrong with you?”