A Moonlit Task: An Urban Fantasy Mystery Novel (End Gate Series Book 1)

by Tom Hansen

  Still the dreams had come, as they had since Richard left. Someone calling out her name, unseen. More a shadow than a person, always out of reach. Hints of blue and white, ruffles, and the scrape of bare feet on wood floor just out of sight around a corner as she turned her head this way and that.

  They didn’t come every night, but often enough that it was a common occurrence. Edna thought it was ghosts trying to contact her. Nancy thought it was just her mind trying to process Richard’s disappearance.

  Last night’s nightmare contained no blue dress, no woman with a singsong voice. This time it was the black tip of a tail and the ever-present crying of an aged Asian woman.

  She got some coffee brewing and retrieved her bloody coat from the laundry room to bring the item back to the kitchen.

  The object inside the pocket was cold to the touch and caked with dried blood. She cringed as she rolled it around in her fingers, the coppery sick taste seemingly transferred through her fingertips.

  It was a tiger, sitting on its haunches, looking proud and regal. Its mouth hung open in a growl as it stared straight ahead with piercing eyes. Its thick head borne by broad, powerful shoulders.

  She stepped up to the sink, turned on the hot water and scrubbed off the dried blood with yesterday’s washcloth.

  Underneath was an intense deep green of stone that revealed itself as she kept scrubbing. The stone was slightly translucent. She’d seen jade before, but she didn’t remember the colors being quite this intense. The glossy stone emanated sophistication, a stateliness mirrored in its feline figure.

  She felt something toward this object; it was hard to pinpoint, like the bottle of wine she found the last night. There was a memory trying to surface, though she was sure she had never seen anything similar to this before.

  It reminded her of the treasured egg her mother had kept on the mantle, a family heirloom passed down through generations. She remembered the scolding her mother had given her when she had dragged a chair over to get a closer look.

  This jade figurine was almost … sacred. It belonged to someone. It had a history.

  Once she was done, she placed it on her butcher-block countertop and observed it from afar while pouring coffee for herself.

  It was about three inches tall, with a half-inch thick base as long and as wide as the cat that sat upon it. The tiger’s head was up, alert, its eyes focused straight ahead. She could almost imagine the tip of its tail tapping the ground beside its feet, a steady thump of grandeur and poise. Her memory plucked at the previous night’s string, reminding her of the correlation between the figure on her countertop and the one that left scratch marks on her car.

  But there was something more, a tug on a memory that had taken place even earlier. Maybe it was the sip of coffee, but an idea had been percolating.

  After picking it up, sure enough, she found some strange looking chicken scratch under the base that looked vaguely familiar yet otherworldly.

  She placed it down on the counter again, taking a step back. Why a tiger figurine? Why was Linda holding this after being mauled by the same? Was it some calling card for a tiger murderer? Did Linda know her killer?

  That’s when the phone rang. Edna was right on cue.

  “Well, will you look at that.” Nancy looked out her kitchen’s window. “The kitten is curled up on my porch. I need to go shopping and pick it up some kibble soon.” Nancy walked to her cupboard for a can of tuna to tide the thing over till she made it to the store.

  “What kitten?” Edna’s voice over the phone was terse and suspicious.

  “The one from the alleyway last night, remember? I put it in the garage when I got in but it must have gotten out. Anyway, you were saying about a zoo?”

  “Oh yes. So I called an old friend from the zoo; he and I are meeting for lunch today. I haven’t seen him in ages. He was quite good in the sack, you know.”

  Nancy smiled. Edna didn’t seem to have an off-switch for personal details.

  “So you are consulting him about his expert sleeping skills?”

  “Oh, no, he works with the large cats at the zoo.”

  “So what are you going to ask him about? Tigers?”

  “Of course, plus any other juicy tidbits he cares to wing my way. I mean, isn’t it strange to see a tiger downtown? There has to be a reason.”

  Nancy couldn’t agree more, but she had another purpose, one that she wasn’t quite ready to tell Edna about. The two hadn’t had a chance to catch up on last night’s activities and Linda’s deathbed request. She had been all ready to tell her friend, but after the weird vibes she got from the figurine, she decided it might be a conversation left for another time.

  Edna interrupted her thought. “I’ll find out everything and drop by this afternoon when done. Oh, and don’t worry about lunch. I’ll bring you some.”

  “Turkey club with swiss,” they said in unison.

  Edna laughed. “You are too predictable.”

  “That I am, but before you go, can you look something up for me on the internet?”

  Nancy hung up and stared at the number she had written down on the pad beside the phone. Edna’s quick online search gave her the number of Linda’s shop, a place called Ye Olde Herb Shoppe.

  She dialed and listened to the number ring five times before the machine answered. She left a hasty message giving her name and number before hanging up.

  Nancy tossed the phone onto one of the cushioned chairs next to her French doors that opened out onto the back patio.

  Exiting to her backyard, she looked for the kitten. A rustling in the overgrown grass full of weeds told her where the scamp was hiding. She sighed as she surveyed the carnage. So many weeds this year, and she was getting too old to bend down to pull them. She walked over to retrieve the feline. “Come here, little one. Need to get you cleaned up like I should have done last night.”

  A small hand rake and a glove lying haphazardly on the ground caught her eye. She righted the small garden gnome that had fallen over before picking up the discarded tools.

  More scatterbrained by the day. Nancy shook her head as she walked back to put away the items she had left out.

  “Now that you have decided to adopt me, what shall we call you?” Tucked in the crook of her arm, the kitten purred loud enough that Nancy could hear it over the din of the local birds chirping all around her.

  Edna bounced into the house with a shopping bag on one arm and a takeout bag on the other.

  “Darling, you won’t believe the day I’ve had!” Edna held out the bag of food to Nancy, who took it and pawed through it as she walked back to the kitchen island.

  “Took you long enough. I nearly broke down and made lunch,” Nancy said, scrutinizing the contents of the takeout bag.

  “Sorry about that. Eduardo and I took a little longer than expected.”

  “Eduardo?” Nancy raised her eyebrow as she pulled out the paper-wrapped sandwich.

  Edna plopped down in a chair at the small breakfast nook table and pulled off her shoes. “These dreadful things have to go in the trash.”

  Nancy was too busy delving into her sandwich to engage with Edna on the matter of non-comfortable shoes, but she did want to know about the zoo. The best way to get Edna to talk was to keep quiet. This time she had a grilled turkey, bacon, and swiss on wheat to help.

  Edna tossed her shoes onto the rug and leaned back like she was in an easy chair. “You won’t believe the dirt I learned. All those vicious deaths we keep hearing about in the news lately? I think they are all related to the tiger we saw last night. The police went to the zoo about four weeks ago asking if any large cats had escaped. Of course they hadn’t, but the police were asking questions related to exactly what kind of damage a cat of that nature would do to a person and wanted specifics on where they would be hunting, living, et cetera.”

  Nancy nodded along. She’d had the same thought the night before when the beast was sitting on top of her hood. She still couldn’t get over the no
tion that a predatory feline was roaming around the isthmus. She tried to ignore the fact that she and Edna came very close to being the next casualties. Someone had to own that thing; it was unrealistic for a tiger to evade capture in a city for so long.

  “Well, of course the police have kept in contact since then. Eduardo said that they’ve had other killings. Interestingly, they are all older women, at least that’s what the police have been telling him. Don’t you find that strange? They never mentioned that in the news, did they?”

  “They didn’t. Very strange indeed,” Nancy agreed. The whole thing didn’t make sense. Tiger on the loose, killing old ladies. She thought back to the night before with Linda in the alleyway. Had Linda actually said witches were dying?

  Nancy pushed the thought out of her mind.

  Illogical ramblings of a dying woman.

  “So here is the best part.” Edna’s grin reeked of gossip and whispers. She had dirt and it was eating her up not to tell it. “This isn’t the first time Madison has seen a big cat on the loose, did you know this?”

  Nancy instantly knew what Edna was talking about, and scolded herself for not remembering it. About a decade before, there had been a fighting ring among some of the very wealthy people of Madison. They would smuggle in illegal cats through Canada and fight them to the death. One of the cats got out and, being starved and tortured, had killed a mother and her young child before being put down by the authorities. It was a horrible tragedy and Nancy couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the connection until now.

  She put down the rest of the sandwich, suddenly not hungry.

  Edna had continued to drone on, telling Nancy the same thing she was thinking. “Eduardo thinks the smuggling ring might be to blame. He thinks it still might be going on. I have no unearthly idea why anyone would want to keep one of those things as pets. Dreadful creatures. Speaking of which, how is the kitten?”

  Nancy leaned to the side and indicated the back door with a nod of the head. “You’re welcome to go see her. I might call her Loki because of how mischievous she is. She keeps knocking down my garden gnomes.”

  Edna glanced at the door for a moment before looking back. “I’m sure she’ll be fine outside. Oh, so did you call that place? Linda’s shop?”

  “I left a message earlier.”

  “Oh good. I thought the name was interesting. Ye Olde Herb Shoppe. That poor woman. The police aren’t the only ones asking questions about large cats lately.” Edna pulled up one foot and rubbed her arch. “So, about this rumored fight club in the area.”

  “It’s horrible.”

  “I know. That’s why we have to find them.”

  Nancy was glad she didn’t have her mouth full of food, or Edna would be wearing a partially chewed sandwich right now.

  “You’re kidding, I hope?” Doing anything that dangerous was out of the question. Nancy was perfectly happy sitting at home. It was just a matter of time before Edna dragged her into something they wouldn’t be able to escape. She thought about the previous night’s activities. Going down that alley was the dumbest thing she’d done in the last year, but that had been different; she’d had to go.

  “Just a small investigation, a peek around the secret curtain, if you will.”

  Nancy’s mood darkened. “Absolutely not. We need to leave that to the authorities.” She got up and looked out through the window to her front yard, mostly out of habit and to try to end the conversation. This whole thing seemed wrong. She shouldn’t meddle in police business, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what Linda had told her.

  This is my task.

  Edna didn’t seem to care that Nancy had just shut her down. “Oh come on, Nan, aren’t you a little bit curious?”

  “I am, but looking up a fight ring? Don’t you think that’s a little much? We already survived one encounter with that thing, do you really want to make it two?”

  Edna pursed her lips. “I suppose you are right, but the next time I want to do something crazy, you promise to follow along?”

  Nancy knew she would regret it, but if she didn’t give in to Edna’s crazy once in a while, it would just get worse and worse.

  “Fine. I agree.”

  Edna giggled with delight. “I’m going to hold you to it!”

  Nancy’s stomach tightened; she knew Edna would. Nancy turned to eye her car in the driveway, the noonday sunlight bouncing off the roof, reminding her of the scratches in the hood.

  Nancy sighed. “You know my insurance company isn’t going to believe this.”

  “They’ll have to! Make sure to give them the police report number so they can look it up.”

  “Still,” she mused, dropping the curtain and turning around, “after the last incident, I have to wonder if they are going to keep believing me. I promised I would stay away from farm animals.”

  “Well, that was hardly your fault. Who would have thought there would be an enraged moose loose in the streets of New Orleans? Besides, a tiger isn’t a farm animal.”

  Nancy got a gleam in her eye. “Neither was a moose, yet there we were.”

  She would deal with the insurance company later, but thoughts about last night had her wondering about the figurine again. She had placed it in the library to put it out of sight. She wondered if she should tell Edna about it. The line of thinking got her wondering how she was going to find this Peter person. She did enjoy mysteries, but usually from the comfort of a good book and with all the lights on in the house. And the door locked.

  Something about this one, though, made her want to do something stupid, like tell Edna what Linda had asked her in the alleyway.

  Edna had always been a believer of, well, everything. The woman had faith in multiple gods, aliens, faeries, ghosts, and goblins. You name it, she believed it. She even had a psychic she saw on a regular basis. Nancy knew she was simply wasting money on the whole thing, but it made Edna happy, and it wasn’t like Edna didn’t have the money for it.

  She thought about Linda’s admonishment to find Peter. Nancy frowned.

  If she told Edna about the promise made in that alley, then Edna would want to pursue this Peter guy. How much stock should she place in the promises made to a person on their death bed? The rantings of a dying woman were not exactly lucid. What led to that woman being torn apart by a tiger was the biggest question of all. Why a tiger?

  Edna studied Nancy’s face for a moment. Her countenance changed. “Uh-oh.”

  Nancy looked at her quizzically. “Uh-oh what?”

  Edna pointed. “You have that look.”

  “What look?”

  “The look you get when the answers don’t add up.”

  “I don’t have a look! Okay, maybe I have a look, but what could lead to a tiger stalking downtown Madison?”

  Edna got up to refresh her tea. She grabbed Nancy’s cup off the small table beside her on her way to the kitchen. Nancy followed her in.

  She looked back across the front of her house to the library. “I …” she trailed off, her mind wandering. She wasn’t exactly lying to Edna, but she felt like she should tell her. They rarely kept anything from each other. Maybe it was time to tell Edna.

  Nancy opened her mouth when the phone rang.

  Saved by the bell.

  She picked up the handset on the wall and put it to her ear while she habitually grabbed the pad of paper and pen she kept close by. “Hello?”

  “Hello?” It was a female voice. She had a thick Russian accent. “How you know my number? How you call me?”

  “Anca? Anca Petran?” Nancy ventured a guess given the accent and the previous message she had left.

  She grunted, irritated. Nancy decided to get to the point.

  “My name is Nancy. I called Lin …um, the herb shop and after several rings it clicked over and I was able to leave a voice mail.”

  The woman on the other end of the line cursed. “What you want?”

  “Well, this is going to sound strange, but I was with Linda last night
when … well, she wanted me to contact you.” It wasn’t exactly true. Linda had told her to contact Peter, but she had said something about Anca, and Edna was right. Something was up and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. It wasn’t normal for tigers to go around killing old women in the streets of her town.

  “You were with my partner … er, Linda when she died?”

  Nancy paused, collecting her thoughts.

  “Yes, I found her in the alley before she … well, she passed.” Nancy swallowed. Suddenly her mouth was very dry. “She wanted me to tell—”

  “Not on phone. You come tomorrow,” Anca interrupted.

  “Oh, uh … okay.” Nancy paused, searching for words. “I guess we could stop by tomorrow afternoon. Is it okay if I bring my friend?”

  The woman agreed and gave her address and a time and promptly hung up when Nancy was only halfway done writing down the address.

  “Well, that was strange.”

  Edna looked up, clearly oblivious to the conversation. “Huh?”

  “That was Anca Petran.” She glanced back at the library, feeling a sudden connection to the small jade cat. She remembered what she was going to tell Edna before the phone rang.

  She is not ready yet.

  The voice in her head came strong and powerful. It reminded her of the voice that had told her to go down the alleyway, or the one that told her to pick up the wine. She shuddered. Hearing voices was not normal.

  Yeah, it could wait. She would tell Edna after the meeting.

  “I guess we have a date with a dead woman’s partner tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  “You think they were lesbian?” Edna was hunched over the steering wheel of her newest BMW Roadster, a car that Nancy lovingly called her “post-middle-age crisis purchase.”

  Nancy replied, “Well, the word partner seems like a red flag, doesn’t it? Besides, who are you to judge, based on some of the stories you refuse to tell me about your college years?”

  Edna’s cheeks flushed ever so slightly before responding. “So where are we going again?”