by A. J. Aalto
Harry ran a cool hand along the fringe of my hair, ran his fingertips through, finger-styling until the look pleased him.
“Nice as nine pence,” he judged, which I assumed was a good thing. “What are you thinking, my pet?”
“That this skirt is way too short,” I warned him, covering my bare thighs with my hands. “How will I sit down in the funeral home?”
“Like a lady,” Harry sighed. “You can manage that, can't you?”
“Yeah sure, like a lady flashing her gitchies to the world.”
“A lady who should perhaps stand all night.”
“A lady who can barely stand upright in these slut heels someone forced her to wear.” I displayed four-inch heels in the same retina-melting magenta silk as the shirt.
“A lady who should have worn some dark knickers under her clothing, if that is the case.” Harry's eyes rolled up to search the roof of the limo for patience.
“A lady who's already wearing the panties her companion picked out.”
“A lady who shouldn't say the word panties quite so vociferously in mixed company,” he said quietly in my ear, eyeing the chauffer.
“A lady packin’ heat, Professor Higgins, check this.” I gave a little flip of my jacket to demonstrate how it hid the holstered Beretta Cougar. “And don't try to talk me out of it. I'm sick of being the only one who isn't dangerous.”
“Dangerous.” He blinked as though the word didn't compute when used in relation to me. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Flames and ether, give me strength.”
“Let Sherlock come at me with a knife, now, and see what happens.”
Harry rubbed his forehead some more. If he'd been human, I'd have guessed he was getting a headache. “Is your little hand cannon loaded this time?”
“I put a clip in just before we left. Maybe I even did it properly.”
He surveyed me. “You're right-handed, you are aware?”
I glared at him. “Think you're so smart.”
“If Agent Batten catches you with the gun holstered on the wrong side, he will not be impressed.” He stared long out the window into the darkness. “If he catches you with it at all, he may have you in shackles before the night is through.”
Batten putting me in his handcuffs might not be such a bad thing, I thought, but did not say. I turned my face to the window so he wouldn't see my private smile, and felt a swell of helpless arousal that I tried to stamp down, knowing my Cold Company would pick up on it immediately. How about Batten in the handcuffs? All naked and at my mercy…
Below the chill that Harry always carried with him I felt a breeze on bare skin and yanked the shirt further down around my freshly-applied bandages.
Harry sputtered, “For heaven's sake, stop giving your blouse the Picard maneuver, you will ruin the silk.”
“You're miserable,” I accused. “What's your malfunction?”
“Such insolence.” His lips set in a tight line. “Sometimes I wonder why I tolerate that pretty mouth of yours at all.”
Stunned by his moodiness, I settled back into the seat and scowled at the back of the chauffer's black hat, wondering if revenants got PMS. Harry went back to staring out the window and gave me a full-on cold shoulder, a proper chilly silence, until the limo glided to a stop in front of the funeral home.
Up on the big white stairs above a crowd of milling mourners and photographers, Batten and Chapel waited expectantly in funereal black, creases crisp, shoes shined. They looked like G-men waiting for the president.
“Do try not to shock the cameramen like an incoherent starlet, my pet?” Harry suggested quietly as we waited for the chauffer to open his door. I slid closer to him and touched the back of his hand.
“If the gun is the problem, I'll leave it in here under the seat.”
He didn't answer.
“Ok, if my mouth is the problem, Harry, I can leave it in the limo. Or I could just slap a bandage over it. Maybe the limo driver has some duct tape…”
“Forgive me, my love. You are not the problem.” He hung his head. “I'll try harder to block it.”
“Block what?”
When he refrained from answering, I closed my eyes, tried to focus on his emotional signature and felt nothing. Stupid broken Bond. As soon as the chauffer had the door cracked Harry was out and comfortably bathed in the flashing of cameras. Immortals not only didn't show on film but almost always overexposed digital images, especially if they got close to the camera. Harry didn't have anything to worry about there, unlike me, who had every reason to worry about film.
I flipped out of the limo like a performing seal, lost in a graceless tangle of bare limbs. I nearly broke an ankle twisting my high heel on the curb. The madly clutching hand I threw out to catch myself landed in Harry's crotch. Harry quickly caught me by the elbow and hauled me upright, his grip squeezing hard both for my safety and with barely contained irritation. I wobbled against him, venturing a peek at his blank face. I followed his gaze up to see Batten's lips writhe in a hard-squelched grin.
Harry sighed, wrapping his arm around my waist and covering the tell-tale bulge caused by the holstered Beretta with his hand.
“Always a lady,” he noted with forced cheer, nodding in greeting at Chapel.
TWENTY-SEVEN
My father's endless supply of prose, compulsively scribbled in his own Moleskine notebooks, may have been useful here at Pennywick Funeral Home in Ten Springs. I was at a total loss. There were never good words at a funeral. Good coffee, maybe. Good flowers. Good squares, if you got there early. Never good words. Just stale stock phrases that meant nothing, said to soothe the mourner's discomfort more than to buoy the family. At a funeral following a particularly horrific end, like Kristin Davis', there weren't words at all. Hallmark sympathy card writers would have been stricken mute.
Harry left my side, disappeared into the press of people in search of comfort. Why his mood had suddenly become so foul, I could only guess. No one liked burying a kid, I suppose, even when that kid is a stranger. Or maybe I had really put my foot in it, in the limo.
I joined Batten beside the guest book set up by a massive spray of doleful stargazer lilies. I hate lilies: the smell of them, the way their color fades from flamingo to a sickly, wilted grey-pink. They remind me of sudden goodbyes, and of Grandma Vi, and of the massive bouquets that had been Harry's outpouring of misery, dwarfing her small bronze urn. It had seemed impossible that such a big personality like Vi's could be condensed into an urn that fit so neatly in Harry's trembling hands, as he'd helped my mother set Vi in a hole in the ground. It had felt so wrong to turn and walk away, so wrong to leave Vi alone where she'd stay, sequestered in a lonesome cemetery, never to come away with us again, to the warmth of indoor heating, music, laughter. At the time, it had seemed impossible to close the gulf between this strange Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt and me, in the back seat of my father's car, his head turned away to get one last glimpse of the cemetery. He would never return, for fear of keeping her spirit chained to Earth with the dead's affinity for the dead.
I caught my breath as the memory pricked my heart, and searched for Harry's reassuring silhouette. No taller than most women, Harry would nonetheless stand out by the old-fashioned cut of his overcoat swinging cape-like at ankle-length, or his graceful glide across the quiet carpeting, silent as a creeping shadow, or the diplomatic inclination of his head as he politely answered the curious and uneasy glances of mortals. But I didn't see him.
Batten was scanning the guest book, looking at the names. He glanced over and did a double-take at my skirt.
“Too short?” I asked.
He maintained his blank cop-face. “Fortunately, yes.”
“I told Harry it was inappropriate. He insisted that his opinion trumped mine.”
“Well, God bless Harry.” He looked sideways at me. “How much for ten minutes in the handicapped stall?”
“You shouldn't say shit like that to me, dumbass. You're going to get us both in tro
uble.”
His lips did a lewd curl. “Not gonna pay for back-talk.”
I tried not to smile back, shaking my head. “Fuck you: not an invitation.”
“Jacket new?”
“You hardly know me well enough to be familiar with my whole wardrobe,” I reminded him. “I could be a leather jacket kind of girl.”
“And a push-up bra kind of girl,” Batten noted.
“I'm not pushing-up. This is just how my boobs go,” I lied. “Besides, Harry said you wanted ‘saucy vixen’.”
Batten's mouth opened and then snapped shut. “Dead guy knows me better than I thought.”
“He gave me a choice,” I confessed. “This, or the tiniest plaid kilt you ever saw.”
“I have totally misjudged Harry. He has fantastic taste.”
“Dick.” I wobbled closer to the table so I could lean on it. “I'm very uncomfortable.”
“Somewhere there's a barefoot hooker who'd appreciate her shoes back.”
I ignored the jab, since the gleam in his eyes told me he liked the whole outfit just fine. I straightened my skirt and smoothed it behind me with one hand, mostly to check that I wasn't flashing my gitchies at the senior citizens behind me. “I don't see Sherlock.”
“It's more important that she sees you, so go mingle. Be professional. Smooth.”
“Smooth, professional mingling would require walking without flipping on my face, right? Don't see it happening.” I looked around the room and did a headcount, trying not to make direct eye contact. I had effectively garnered an alarming amount of attention just standing here in the far corner, but that might have been the skirt. If the furnace went on while I was standing here by the vent I was in serious jeopardy of having a Marilyn Monroe moment, only far less glamorous.
“I'm glad I'm going to miss the church part,” I said.
“You, sitting on a church pew, in that skirt? In front of God-fearing church folk?” Batten shook his head, raising his gaze to search the mourners. I did the same.
“Chapel's here somewhere?” Batten nodded. Funerals made some people ramble on to fill the silence and struck others dumb. I was the nervous babbling type. “Was the limo your idea? It was show-off-y.” Met with silence, I answered myself, “Guess that's the idea.” Then: “What if she doesn't show?” And: “I need a cookie.”
Something about the way Batten stood, legs spread wide and sturdy, owning his space with a military bearing, shoulders back, jaw tight, made me wanna hit him with a hammer then sit in his lap and suck his tongue a little. As complicated as my feelings for Jerkface may be, it's kinda hard to hide that you're thinking about sucking someone's face when you're staring right at them. I had to look away.
“Where's Harry?” he asked.
“He went to see if they were putting out another tray of cookies at some point. We missed the first batch.”
“What is it with you and cookies?”
“Some people drink when they're stressed. Some smoke. Some bone their psychic consultants.”
Batten adjusted his earpiece then folded his hands in front of the aforementioned boner. “Consultant, singular.”
“Until my metabolism hits the skids, I'll eat as many cookies as I damn well please.”
As if I'd spoken of the devil himself, Harry arrived with a little paper plate piled with cookies and gooey squares.
“Sugar for your scowl, my livid little nightingale?” He set the plate in my hand. “Why is it, Agent Batten, that whenever I disrupt the pair of you, my pet has an aggravated look on her face?”
“Another tuxedo.” Batten scanned Harry from head to toe. “You look like the damn phantom of the opera. Doesn't bother you to stand out?”
“I couldn't possibly not stand out,” Harry pointed out with a shrug, and though it sounded arrogant it was also true. “Mortal eyes are helplessly drawn to undying grace.”
Batten rolled his eyes. “You could try toning it down.”
“Wardrobe advice from a man who dresses like a stud farmer.” Harry gave him a clearly critical head-to-toe inspection. “How comical.”
“Not here, you two, not now,” I whispered, wavering on my heels like a newborn foal taking its first steps. “Please.”
“Don't look now, I think our vampire just called me a stud,” Batten said.
Harry smiled unpleasantly. “You could raid a Wal-Mart and upgrade what passes for your style, Agent Batten.”
I took Harry by the elbow and wheeled him away, landing us both beside the coffee urn. “Hear that?”
“Hmm, yes. ‘Our’ vampire.” Harry inclined his head. “Agent Batten ought to watch his choice of phrases. People will think he's in love with me.”
“Not that,” I shushed, although I had heard the “our” and noted it with a mixture of interest and suspicion. “The piano.”
“It is a video in the next room,” he said in the funeral-home hushed voice that is an unspoken law. “Miss Davis was taking piano lessons and had an ear for music from the sounds of it. Yes.” He cocked his head slightly. “There's talent there…a shame she had only taken to the ivories two months before. Her father said that Beethoven was her favorite.”
“You spoke to Mr. Davis?”
“He too finds comfort in a biscuit.”
I drew coffee from the urn and doctored it sweet. “There they are now.”
Nothing would restore a sense of normalcy to the Davis family, not even vengeance. They were beyond saving, and it showed in their sallow cheeks, Mrs. Davis’ blush standing out too bright on her pale cheeks like spots of warning, lips that hung heavy in the corners. Three years before Mrs. Davis had had a stroke and she had limited movement on her left side. Her wheelchair was the best money could buy. Her shoes were Christian Lacroix and her Belgian-cut diamonds must have cost more than my Buick. Today their money would only serve to lift the financial burden of the services. Relief from the emotional burden couldn't be bought, unless you counted the sedatives that were dampening what I could feel from Mrs. Davis, psychically, across the room.
I knew I couldn't stall much longer. I had to introduce myself. I sipped nervously at my coffee and completely missed my mouth. Coffee splattered my breast at the nipple, an unfortunate perfect circle, an Arabica bean areola.
Harry sucked his teeth disapprovingly. “‘Tis a very good thing that you are gentle, my angel.”
“Why's that?” I dabbed fruitlessly at my tit with a napkin.
“A gentle hazard is always preferable to the alternative.”
My cheeks flamed; instantly his hand shot out to take my hand.
“Such flippant condemnations should never cross a gentleman's lips. I do apologize.” I dabbed more furiously. He took my napkin away. “That's quite enough, Lady Macbeth, the spot is not coming out without the handiwork of a dry cleaner.”
I sighed deeply, and confessed, “I'm pretty sure I flashed the cameras earlier like a drunk celebrity getting out of the limo.”
“You very nearly tore off my bollocks.”
I winced. “And yet, you people still try to get me to leave the house!”
Harry advised, “While your coffee mishap dries, perhaps you should practice speaking to other people without tripping over your tongue? There's a familiar face.”
He motioned with his chin subtly to a corner, where a frail elderly lady was sitting in an upholstered chair, sipping hesitantly from a Styrofoam cup. Her white hair glowed like a soft halo under discrete track lighting. On the wall directly above her was a large oil painting, a still life of fruit in a bowl done in deep jewel tones. It loomed over her in its heavy cherry wood frame that matched the deep reddish wood of the gleaming casket—I was guessing the best that money could buy—sitting ten feet from her.
“Is that Ruby Valli?” I whispered. “What's she doing here?”
“Paying respects, I should imagine. I understand she is the organist at the church the Davis’ attend, and was Kristin's piano teacher.”
That didn't sound right. Mrs. Va
lli was a precognitive, an ex-senior psychic investigator from First Floor at GD&C who had a reputation for dabbling in the dark arts. Why work in a Christian church? Perhaps the black magic mumbo jumbo was just a moldy old rumor that bore no merit. Or perhaps, I had just found a possible source for information about the flesh magic that reanimated Kristin Davis’ skull in my mailbox. Would it be dreadfully impolite to ask about dismemberment at the funeral of the victim of the crime? Probably I couldn't ask here. Ruby Valli looked directly at me through the crowded room. I smiled faintly, the restrained half-smile that you give at funerals, and approached her.
“Mrs. Valli?” She didn't seem to hear so well, from the frowning enquiry on her face, so I bent closer to her, spoke louder and introduced myself. When she shook her head in confusion, I explained, “We both worked at Gold-Drake & Cross. Well, actually, I came just after your retirement party. But I've heard so much about you over the years, I feel like we're colleagues.”
A beautiful, warm smile lit her face. “Oh, honey, that's sweet of you to say. What a terrible night this is. I wish we could have met under different circumstances.” And then, losing interest in me quite suddenly, she dismissed, “Well, it was nice to meet you, dear.”
I got the idea that if she'd been ambulatory, she'd have turned on her sensible heels and left me standing in open-mouthed rejection. As it was, I hovered, sure I'd been shooed by someone who wanted nothing to do with me, awkwardly wavering in my slut shoes. I glanced uncertainly over my shoulder at Harry, who frowned encouragement at me.
“I, uh, I wonder if I could come visit you at your shop, Mrs. Valli? We could have a talk. Would that be okay?”
“My shop, dear?” She looked surprised that I was still standing there. Her eyes scanned me from head to toe through thick glasses, clearly not impressed with what she saw. “You don't come to my shop.”