The floor creaked. He was walking away.
Piper's cheeks felt hot, and her eyes were burning. She reached up and yanked the beaded-metal cord, extinguishing the too-bright light. She took three calming breaths in the dark and then pulled the light back on again. When the hundred watts flooded the room, she found she was not alone.
George Morrison was there, looking confused.
“You're back,” Piper exclaimed. “I thought you were gone, moved on, or whatever.”
On the other side of the door, Otis said, “What? Are you saying something?”
She called out to him, “Be out in a minute!” It was such a ridiculously ordinary thing to say.
“Be out in a minute? Huh? Did you just speak to me in English?” Otis sounded more annoyed than surprised.
She answered in Mandarin, “Just powdering my nose.”
To George's ghostly face, she whispered, “I'll explain later.” George curled his upper lip in a “meh” expression that said he either already knew the relevant details or didn't care to. He turned and inspected the shelves in the pantry.
Piper could hear Otis shuffling around. He knocked on the door again. “This is the best I have.” There was a scraping on the floor. She looked down to see a slim metal can opener and an IKEA catalog being shoved under the door.
She laughed softly. Even in the face of disaster, Otis was so quick and funny. It was a shame things between them had gotten so messed up. Her sinuses stung again, her throat tightened, and two tears spilled down her cheeks. She brushed the tears away, silently admonishing herself for being such a mess. Her shame was so great that her parents probably felt it, halfway across the world.
She reached for the door handle. It was time to come out of Otis's pantry and face the music. But George stopped her with one translucent hand in front of her face.
“What?” She turned toward him. “Does the world's most famous author have some ideas about how to salvage this disaster?” She frowned. “Oh, who am I kidding. You're only good at making messes and killing off the best characters. You don't even know how to get things right again, do you?”
George pulled his head back, blinked, and slowly lowered his gaze to the floor. His head bowed forward dejectedly.
On the other side of the door, Otis asked, “Who are you talking to in there? Are you on your phone?”
Piper sighed. “I'm sorry,” she whispered to George. “I didn't mean to be cruel. You gave the world so much. Who cares if it wasn't perfect and you never finished? Someone will pick up the torch.”
He lifted his head slowly and pointed at her while raising one eyebrow.
“Me?” She held one hand to her chest. “I wouldn't know where to start.” She remembered what she'd overheard at his house on Friday night. “George, I overheard something about a notebook. Do you have notes somewhere about the ending of the series?”
Now he smiled, looking boyish. Maybe he did have a notebook, well hidden from his sister and editor.
“Where is it?” She bit her lower lip. That was the multimillion-dollar question.
He pointed to the ceiling and waggled his eyebrows.
“It's in heaven?”
He nodded.
Great. Piper groaned and punched him in the arm, her fist passing through nothing but chilly air. Enough goofing around, she thought, and reached again for the door handle. Once more, George stopped her with a hand in front of her face.
She turned and gave him a dirty look, but it ricocheted off with no effect. He reached into one of the pantry's shelves and wrapped his ghostly fingers around a metallic object. This object wasn't on the side with the Costco-bulk items, but the other side—the junky-looking one with a yard-sale variety of knick-knacks. Half of the stuff looked destined for the garbage bin, but George was keenly interested in one thing. He pulled his hand away, and she saw it. A candlestick holder. It was squat, solid, and somewhat familiar.
Piper had seen this object before. It was the twin of the candlestick holder that she'd seen at the Morrison house. Officer Jerkface had accused Piper of hitting George with it and then hiding the evidence. Had he been making random guesses, or did he know the candlestick holder was a murder weapon? She hadn't thought of it since that first chaotic night.
Now here it was, inside Otis's pantry.
George gave her a knowing look. Her stomach dropped like one of Wile E. Coyote's anvils being dropped off a cliff. She knew what the ghost was going to do next. He mimed being struck on the back of the head, brutally hard, and then pointed meaningfully at the candlestick holder. George was excellent at charades when he tried.
She could barely breathe, but she exhaled, “The murder weapon.”
George nodded vigorously.
“Okay. Who used it to hit you? Was it this guy?” She pointed to the door. “Was it Otis?”
George threw his hands up in confusion. He didn't know.
“Well, have you ever seen this guy before tonight?”
He scratched his chin and then slowly shook his head, but he didn't seem certain.
On the other side of the door, Otis had been silent for several minutes. Piper got the sensation she was being watched inside the pantry, perhaps through a keyhole, or the large gaps at the sides of the door.
She flicked off the light again. In the darkness, she couldn't see George at all. He'd disappeared again, but something remained. The candlestick holder was now glowing in the dark, like some super-obvious clue in a video game. She instantly understood what she needed to do.
Piper opened her purse, pulled out a fresh, unused dog-scoop bag, and used it to bag the eerily glowing candlestick holder. She twirled the bag in a practiced motion and stuck the whole thing into her purse.
Then she finally unlocked and opened the pantry door.
Teddy greeted her with a happy bark, wagging his tail so hard he was in danger of toppling over.
The spartan apartment was empty. Otis was nowhere to be seen.
She grabbed Teddy's leash and headed for the door, stepping lightly but quickly, the heavy evidence in her purse bumping against her hip.
She got outside, down the rickety metal fire escape, and onto the side street.
Now what? Her pulse was pounding in her ears, her heart beating faster than it had years ago at a school camping trip, when the camp counselor had told scary campfire stories about El Chupacabra, a mutant hybrid animal who reputedly drained the blood from goats and other livestock. That night, even though she was camping in California, far from the beast's natural southwestern territory, she'd trembled in her sleeping bag in the tent, her senses straining to detect the sounds of an approaching blood-thirsty killer.
Something flickered at the edge of her vision. Was it El Chupacabra?
No, not unless the goat sucker had taken to wearing trousers with suspenders.
It was George, walking ahead. He kept glancing back and waving for her to follow. Teddy had already taken the hint and was tugging at his leash.
Piper tucked her heavy purse against her side and followed George and Teddy, all the way to the Copeland Police Station.
Chapter 16
9:00 p.m.
Copeland Police Department
Piper sat in the police station's waiting room with her purse on her lap. The candlestick holder she'd grabbed from Otis's apartment felt heavier and heavier with each passing minute. She wished she'd been allowed to bring Teddy into the station for backup, but the receptionist had insisted he stay outside, tied to a fire-engine red, swirly metal thing that was either a bike rack or modern art or both. Teddy sensed his mistress looking his way and shot her a hurt look through the glass doors. Why you no love me? (Teddy always spoke in the I-Can-Haz-Cheezburger language of pet-photo captions on the internet.)
Piper blew Teddy a kiss, and he snapped at a passing moth at the same time, giving the appearance he was catching the blown kiss.
“Did you see that?” Piper grinned at George Morrison, who'd been materializing in and out
of the room. He'd been back for a few minutes, pacing impatiently. “Teddy is a very clever dog,” she said.
George raised one eyebrow, tilting the angle of his jaunty fisherman's cap. He glanced over at Teddy and back at Piper with a warm smile, ghostly teeth glowing.
Piper took a calming breath, temporarily gladdened by sharing a cute Teddy moment with her friend. Then the heaviness of the object inside the purse on her lap reminded her of the purpose of her visit. George hadn't been able to tell her in words, but his intentions seemed clear enough. He wanted her to turn over the candlestick holder to the police. That meant turning in Otis as a person of interest—maybe a killer, maybe an accomplice.
She shifted to the edge of her chair and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“Maybe we should come back tomorrow,” she whispered, but she was talking to empty air. He was gone again. “George? Come back here right now, or I really will be leaving.”
She got to her feet, clutching her heavy purse to her side, mindful to keep her shoulders level in case she was being observed. Outside the door, Teddy was happily snapping at more moths. The receptionist who'd been at the front desk was no longer there. Piper shifted toward the exit, rapidly losing her nerve with each small step. The police were going to think she was crazy. She didn't even have a plausible cover story for why she'd grabbed the heavy metal object and stuck it in her purse rather than simply reporting… what, exactly? She couldn't tell the truth, that a ghost had been touching the candlestick holder, making it glow in the dark. On the walk to the station, she'd rehearsed a few lines about getting hunches, but now, under the bright lights of the waiting room, her planned lies turned to dust, like movie vampires at sunrise.
Suddenly, George stepped into the waiting room through a wall, looking frantic. He waved for Piper to come with him.
“I was just leaving,” she said.
He made more frantic gestures and beckoned her toward him.
“Follow you where?” She held out her hands, palms up. “George, I can't walk through walls. One of the drawbacks of being corporeal.”
He disappeared again.
She sighed, slouching her shoulders, which made the strap of her bag slip down. Her Coach purse dropped to the tile floor with a tell-tale thud. As the sound faded, Piper's ears roared with silence and then approaching footsteps. Was that the sound of the receptionist returning with the chief of police? She grabbed her purse and hung it on the other shoulder.
George returned once more, through a different wall. He waved for her to come with him, toward the receptionist desk. She took a step just as a flash of memory came to her from the previous night, when she and Winnie had trespassed in the Morrison home. She couldn't remember anything specific, other than the feeling of terror. Piper froze and rubbed the bumpy flesh on her forearms. Bad things happen when you sneak around where you aren't supposed to be.
George waved urgently. He wasn't taking no for an answer. She swallowed down her fears and followed him, skirting around the reception desk and into a hallway. They only traveled about ten feet before being stopped by a security door. Of course there was a door. It was a police station, after all.
George punched his fist into the security-card reader to the right of the door. The light on the reader turned green, and the door lock clicked. Piper nodded appreciatively. Nice trick. So that was how he turned on the television and changed channels. He had a special way with electronics.
She opened the unlocked door and followed him through. They traveled straight and then left, down a hallway. Over the hum of the station's cooling system, she could hear people chatting in what sounded like a staff lounge. Some were bickering over refilling the coffee pot. Two men quibbled over whose turn it was to deal with the “pain in the butt” this time. Piper realized, with a rush of mixed emotions, that they were talking about her. She was horrified, as most people would be, to hear about herself in someone else's conversation, but she was also giddy with glee about where she was. She might be a nuisance, but she was a nuisance with a ghost who could walk through walls and open locked doors. Take that, dummies!
She rounded a corner and walked right through George. The sudden chill made her sneeze. She stopped and turned around to find him clutching his arms across his chest and looking violated. The roundness of his eyes reminded her of Teddy when he got his temperature taken by the vet.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn't mean to walk through you.”
He slowly uncrossed his arms and shook it off. They were at another security door, so he used his ghostly fist bump on the card reader once again. This door was green with a window made of dappled safety glass. She reached for the door handle, and as her fingers touched the brass knob, the air crackled and the contact point popped with static electricity. She jerked her hand back as though electrocuted.
What was she doing? The wrongness of the situation hit her like a giant tsunami wave. Her ears roared with a low-pitched rumble.
Was she walking into a trap? Inside her purse, she had what could very well be a murder weapon. Now she was going to walk into a police interrogation room carrying it? Was George betraying her, just like a devious, conniving, Machiavellian character from his books? All of that sneaky underhandedness had come from someone's imagination. Even if his sister had been a contributor, George was undoubtedly a schemer.
The lock for the door timed out and turned red. He touched the card reader again, this time more delicately, with the tip of his finger. The light turned green. The room beyond the door was entirely visible through the window. It was small, empty, and had no other way out.
“I don't think so,” Piper said, firmly grounded in the hallway. “That room's a dead end. There's nothing in there.”
George rolled his eyes and slumped with exaggerated frustration. He pointed at the door and held up the fingers of one hand, requesting five minutes.
“Five minutes of what? Sitting in an interrogation room by myself?”
He nodded.
She took a deep breath and asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”
He blinked twice. They stared at each other like they were in a staring contest.
George broke first, glancing away as his entire body shimmered, faded, and then came back. Now he was wearing the furry lion costume he'd worn on Halloween.
“I can trust you because you're dressed like the Cowardly Lion?”
He gave her a pleading look.
She sighed. “Because we're friends.”
He nodded.
“And I'm all you've got,” she said softly.
He held up two furry paws. He blew her a kiss, tracked its boomerang pattern, and caught it in his lion-whiskered mouth. Other than his talents for walking through walls and blipping electronics, his friendship with Piper was all he had.
She swallowed. Friendship was enough. Her friend Winnie would sit in a room for five minutes for her. Piper opened the green door and walked in.
The room was small, dim, and had a window facing another room, where two people sat across from each other at a table. She wasn't inside an interrogation room after all, but an observation room next to one. This was where officers could watch interviews. She'd never been inside one before, but like most people, she had seen the arrangement about a million times in TV shows.
The two people in the next room were no strangers to Piper. Officer Jerkface, with his big dumb head bobbing, sat on one side of the table, across from the female president of George's online fan club, Pandora Lee. Pandora wore a buttoned-up suit jacket that was more conservative than the dress she'd worn at the funeral. She looked less like a wacky eccentric and more like someone closing a corporate merger.
Piper watched them, wishing she could read lips. Pandora flipped her glossy black hair over her shoulders, blinking slowly and seductively at Officer Jerkface, who was talking as much with his hands as with his mouth. No sound came through the glass window. By the look of it, he was mansplaining something, and at g
reat lengths.
“It's a shame we can't hear them,” Piper said to George.
The ghostly author walked over to a panel on the wall and gave it an exploratory poke. The speakers inside the observation room crackled, and suddenly the deep voice of Officer Jerkface filled the silence.
“See, juries today are full of know-it-alls who watch all the CSI shows,” the cop was saying. “You offer them something concrete, something they can understand, and then you'll have yourself a rock-solid case.”
Pandora bit her lower lip and eyed the large cop. Her voice soft and sweet, she asked, “What's considered concrete? Do you mean, like, eyewitness testimony?”
“Sometimes, but eyewitnesses get confused. And they change their minds. Physical evidence is always better.” He counted on his fingers. “Fingerprints, fibers, fluids, photographs.”
She took a deep breath and sighed, heaving her petite chest to its maximum heavability. “Or a murder weapon,” she said.
Officer Jerkface abruptly leaned back in his chair and ran one hand over his buzz cut “Ms. Lee, what are you saying? Is this still just a theoretical discussion, or do you know about something?” He made a fist and bumped the table three times as though striking a gavel. “You wouldn't want to be charged with obstruction of justice, now, would you?”
She held her fingertips to her mouth and giggled like a schoolgirl. “You looked so serious just now. You're scaring me!”
He got to his feet, scraping the chair loudly on the cement floor, and whipped out a pair of handcuffs. “You should be scared,” he growled.
The petite woman stayed in her chair, convulsing with giggles. “Oh, stop it! You're getting me so worked up, and you're not off work for how long?”
His aggressive expression instantly softened. “Not long. I can be at my place in two hours.”
She arched her back and licked her lips. “I could be waiting for you, if you'd like. I just need that key we talked about.”
He reached into his pocket and handed her a single silver key. The top of the key was a hollow heart, studded with pink rhinestones. “Here you go. I had this one cut special for you.”
Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries Page 13