by Lisa Emme
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right. It’s not my fault. We’ll call the police…after we figure out what’s going on. It’s not like old Lester’s going anywhere, I suppose.”
By the time we’d caught up with Tess, she was back at the grave where I had left my phone and threatening to turn the show off.
“Hey!” Bob came floating towards me. “We had a deal.”
“We did, only you didn’t mention someone had already been there and dug the grave up.” I put my hands on my hips and gave Bob a stern look.
“Well, you never asked that, did you? You asked where Pierce was buried and I told you. It’s not my fault if the other guy beat you to it.”
“To it? Did you see what he found in the grave?”
“He didn’t find diddly. Well, except for old Lester himself. The guy was right pissed off, too.”
“What’s going on? What’s he saying?" Tess grabbed my arm eagerly.
“He’s saying Dudley’s accomplice, whoever he is, came up empty-handed.”
“You mean the bag wasn’t there?”
“I guess not.”
“So, if it wasn’t there. Where could it be?”
“Oh, the bag was there all right,” Bob added absently, his eyes already glued back on the TV show still playing on my phone.
Grabbing the phone, I clicked pause. “What do you mean the bag was there. If it was there, why didn’t the graverobber find it?”
Bob reached for the phone, scowling, but his hands passed through mine. I put my hands on my hips, stuffing my phone back in my pocket, and raised an impatient eyebrow at him.
“Fine! The bag’s not there because Haskell took it, didn’t he?” Bob shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time he helped himself to a little something.”
“What?”
“For fuck’s sake, Harry. What is it now?" Tess stamped her foot in frustration at not being able to hear Bob’s half of the conversation.
“Bob says George Haskell, the groundskeeper, found the bag and took it before he covered up the plot after the funeral. Supposedly it’s not the first time Haskell has helped himself to something from a grave.”
“Well, if that’s the case, we have to find this Haskell guy before Dudley’s accomplice does.”
“Better hurry then,” Bob replied with a snort. “The guy is way ahead of you. He’s probably on his way to Haskell’s now. At least that’s what I assume he was doing when he broke into the Funeral Home office – getting Haskell’s address.”
“Shit. Tess, text Bryce and tell him we need George Haskell’s address asap. I’ll call Nash.” I pulled my phone out and started to dial Nash.
“Hey! What about my show?" Bob hovered angrily over me.
“Your show will have to wait. I promise I’ll let you watch the rest the next time I see you.”
***
Nash was not happy to hear my news, especially since he was in the middle of his own homicide investigation. He was even less impressed to learn we were on our way to Haskell’s which turned out to be only a block from the cemetery, so once Nash said he’d let the detectives investigating the jewelry store robbery know what was going down, I hung up on him rather than listen to his inevitable lecture on staying out of police business.
We pulled up in front of Haskell’s house – a small, well-kept, one-and-a-half storey from the post-war era – and surveyed the street. It appeared quiet, but there was a beat-up car a few doors down that seemed out of place.
Tess took the lead, signalling to Isaac and me to follow. Haskell’s front porch was dark, but there was a light on inside filtering through from the back of the house. Ignoring the front, Tess moved silently around to the side, stopping when she came to another door. Isaac and I came to a stop behind her. We could hear voices, one raised in anger, the other quieter and sounding plaintive, coming from the window above us.
“Give me a boost,” Tess whispered, pointing to the window. We both looked at Isaac.
With a roll of his eyes, Isaac bent, clasping his hands to form a basket. Tess grinned and then placed her foot in his hands and he effortlessly lifted her up so she could peek in the window. After a minute, she gestured to Isaac to set her down.
“Crap! There’s one angry-looking dude in there working over another guy who I assume is Haskell.”
“Might I suggest this is perhaps a time where the situation is best left to the police?" Isaac’s eyebrow lifted in question.
“I don’t know if Haskell has the time,” Tess replied, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a gun. It was a Sig Sauer with a pink hand grip.
“You’re packing? You didn’t tell me you were bringing a gun.” I gaped at her in surprise.
“I’m a private detective, of course I’m packing.”
“It’s pink.”
“I know, right? Isn’t it cute?" She held it up so I could see it better. “I thought it could be my signature or something. The lady detective with the pink gun.”
“Well, it certainly would be memorable to be shot by a girl with a pink gun. It looks smaller than usual.”
“It is. It fits my hand perfectly and the grip is super comfortable.”
“Excuse me ladies, I hate to interrupt, but it sounds like things are getting a little more heated inside.” Isaac gave us a long-suffering look.
There was a huge crash, like something tipping over and dishes being smashed, and then a voice roared, “Tell me where they are! I know you’ve got them.”
CRASH!
SMASH!
“Tell me or I’ll break your head next.”
“I think we just ran out of time,” Tess whispered. She put her hand on the door knob only to find it locked. Lucky for her, she had a witch with her. She tipped her head at the knob, eyebrows raised. I gave the tumbler mechanism a little nudge and then nodded my head at Tess to try again. She smiled as the knob turned silently.
“Maybe we should wait, Tess,” I whispered, having second thoughts.
BANG!
The gunshot echoed through the quiet neighbourhood, followed by a wail of pain. Lights snapped on in the neighbouring houses and a dog began to bark.
Tess threw open the door, gun at the ready and ran into the house.
“Shit!” I muttered, having no choice but to follow her in. There were three short steps up from the landing and then we burst into the kitchen.
“Stop!” Tess shouted, aiming her gun at the man. A second man, Haskell I assumed, was tied to a chair, bleeding profusely from the bullet-wound in his kneecap.
“What the fuck?" The armed man turned and pointed his gun at Tess.
From that point, everything happened so fast it was all a blur.
Without even thinking, I pushed his gun up and away from Tess using my telekinesis. The man gasped in surprise as the gun flew from his hand.
“Harry, catch!” Tess shouted, tossing me her gun as she rushed at the man. She laid him out with a roundhouse kick to the head and he went down like a ton of bricks. I fumbled with the gun, finally getting my hand around it properly and pointing it at the man on the floor, but Tess was already on top of him, zip tying his hands behind his back.
As the first sirens approached in the distance a few minutes later, Tess’s gun was safely back in her holster under her jacket, the man on the floor was zip tied and shouting holy murder and Isaac was applying pressure to Haskell’s injured leg. Tess and I, meanwhile, were frantically searching for the missing gems.
“Geez, we saved his life. You’d at least think he would tell us where he hid them out of gratitude.” Tess scowled at Haskell again, but the man remained tight-lipped, more than likely afraid to incriminate himself further.
“We’re running out of time,” I replied as the sirens drew closer. I turned to Isaac. “Do you think you could, you know…” I held my fingers to my head and wiggled them. “Do that mind meld thing you do and find out where he hid them?”
“Please, Isaac?" Tess turned her puppy eyes
on him.
Isaac sighed. “If only to stop you from staring at me like that,” he replied, fighting back a grin. He cleared his throat and then touched his fingers to Haskell’s temples. “Try the living room under the coffee table. There is a loose floorboard.”
Haskell gasped. Isaac turned and fixed him with a steely gaze. “You will remember nothing of this.” Haskell’s face fell blank.
Tess raced back into the living room and a moment later let out a happy shout. “Oh, Georgie, you naughty boy. Look at all this stuff.”
I joined her in the living room and gaped at Haskell’s treasure trove of ill-gotten booty – rings, watches, diamonds, pearls, earrings and last, but not least, a brown paper bag full of stolen gems. He had quite the retirement fund going.
“Holy crap! Did you steal all of this stuff from the dead?” I scowled at Haskell across the room. “We should have let the guy shoot you again.”
***
As usual, once the police arrived, it was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. They immediately separated us and took our statements to the point of almost grilling us for the details – at least that’s how it felt to me. I guess even having an “in” with the police through Nash wasn’t enough to cut us any slack.
Haskell had been carried out on a gurney and taken to the hospital under police supervision with charges pending once they sorted out where all the loot came from. We learned the big guy Tess zipped tied was Willie Dudley, Milton’s older brother. Turned out old Willie had jumped bail a month ago and was on the lamb. Tess was beside herself with glee because not only did she recover the Bronstein’s missing jewels, the arresting officers gave her a claim notice for the bounty on Willie.
“If this pays out big, maybe we should add skip tracers to the list of services we offer at TBD Investigations.” Tess stared at the voucher, biting her lip in thought.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” I replied. “I think bounty hunter is more adventure than I’m looking for.” I frowned at her. “You could have gotten shot, barreling in like that.”
Tess grinned at me. “I knew you had my back.”
“You’re free to go, ladies,” Detective Michaels, one of the guys from the Robbery Division, said, as he led Isaac back into the dining room where they had us cooling our heels. “Here you go, Mr. Smith,” he continued, handing Isaac his driver’s license. “Thank you again for your cooperation.”
“My pleasure, Detective. Always eager to help the authorities.”
When Michaels left the room, I fixed Isaac with an incredulous stare. “Mr. Smith? Seriously? Could you have come up with a more generic name?”
“The smith profession has long been highly regarded. It provides the perfect surname, when one requires such a thing.”
“But Smith? It screams alias.”
Isaac shrugged. “I have also been a Taylor, a Brewer, and a Mason. As you can imagine, I have had quite a few different names over the years.”
For some reason, Isaac’s statement made me sad. “Don’t you get tired of the charade? Having to change identities every couple of decades, never getting to be yourself?”
Isaac looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Yes, at one time. At one time, I’d had enough, but then I met you, Harry. These past few months have been the first time in centuries I can at last ‘be myself’, as you say. For that, I am truly grateful.”
“Hey,” Tess interjected, brushing past us. “If you two are done with your little greeting card moment, could we get going? I’ve got an early class to teach in the morning.”
Chapter Six
It was after four in the morning by the time we returned home. With Tess’s early class, she wasn’t going to get much sleep, but she’d functioned on less in the past, so I wasn’t worried. Besides, she probably ended up with more sleep than me.
Nash was waiting, sitting on the stairs, when we arrived back at the fire hall. Isaac and Tess quickly made themselves scarce, leaving us alone.
“The door was locked,” Nash said.
“That’s never stopped you before,” I replied, brushing past him. I started up the stairs, stopping halfway from the top when I realized he wasn’t following. “Are you coming up?”
Nash took a deep breath. “No, I needed…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I just wanted to see you.”
“You mean your wolf needed to see me and make sure I was okay.”
Nash shrugged. “Does it matter, Harry? I am the wolf and the wolf is me.”
“It’s too late, or should I say too early, for that sort of philosophical discussion.” I shifted uncomfortably, crossing my arms. “But we do need to have a conversation.”
“Yes, we do. Soon.”
Glad that he agreed, but frustrated about being put off yet again, I huffed out a breath and started back up the stairs, tossing a “Goodnight, Nash,” over my shoulder.
“Harry,” he called after me. I stopped and looked back down at him expectantly, but Nash merely sighed and shook his head. “Goodnight, Harry,” he replied.
***
I finally gave up pretending to sleep a few hours later and pulled on my gym clothes to go for a run. The smell of fresh-baked cinnamon buns wafted out of the shop as I passed by, so I stopped to grab a gooey bun of goodness for the road which earned me a lot of funny looks during my run. You’d think people had never seen someone scarfing down a cinnamon bun while jogging before.
I did an extra lap of my usual route because I hadn’t finished brooding about Nash after the first one and finally arrived at the Rockford Gym, Tess’s Uncle Rodrigo’s place, with sticky fingers and an overwhelming urge to punch something.
As I was there earlier than usual – I’m more of a mid-morning than a morning person – the main area of the gym was much busier than I would have liked. After stopping to wash my hands, I spied Tess over in the far corner of the open studio, teaching her early morning Zumba Step class, the music – a mix of Latin pop and Bollywood party songs – blaring out across the entire gym. I grimaced as the pounding beats drilled into my head. Nearby, the clank of free weights and the steady whine of the treadmills, only added to my discomfort. With a frown, I headed towards the back of the gym where there were several private studios, stopping by the boxing ring to pick up some wraps and training gloves on the way.
I grabbed the first empty studio I came to, making sure to check it hadn’t been reserved for the next hour and then wrote my name on the board so anyone looking for a space would know it was occupied. I sighed in relief as the door swung shut behind me, blocking out much of the din coming from the rest of the gym.
Leaving the lights on low, I let the act of wrapping my hands before donning the gloves help to centre me, so by the time I stepped up to the heavy bag in the corner I was feeling more Zen.
I began with a low-intensity warm-up for ten minutes, jumping into a 30-minute high impact, high intensity routine, working my way through jab and cross, to hook and weave, and finally, with Tess as my inspiration, finishing with a series of roundhouse kicks.
“Whoa, Harry! What did that bag ever do to you?" Max’s voice held a hint of laughter. He stood in the doorway, his gym bag on his shoulder.
I jumped in surprise, feeling guilty. I had planned on avoiding Max if I could for a while. At least until the cherry blossoms ran their course.
With a grunt, I delivered another sweeping kick to the heavy bag, and then gave what I hoped was a guilt-free grin to Max. He was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, his skin covered with a sheen of sweat from his own workout. With his boy-next-door good looks and wavy dark hair, he was the antithesis of who I would have pictured as the Hammer of the Coven, the elected leader of the magic community. His most distinguishing feature was the lock of pure white hair at his right temple – a trait I recently discovered carried over to his other form. It’s not often you see a black panther with a white puff of fur on its chest. Unlike Tess and Nash, and the other werewolves in my life, Max was a skinwalker – a rare
shamanic gift allowed him to assume the shape of his totem animal.
“It stopped by to interrupt my workout without bringing me a drink,” I replied to Max’s question, eyeing his bottle of water.
Max cracked the lid, taking a swig and then gave me a cheeky grin. I quirked an eyebrow at him and he laughed, reaching into his bag to pull out another bottle and toss it to me. I scrambled to catch it – no easy task in boxing gloves – and Max laughed harder.
I managed to tuck the water under my arm while I pulled off my gloves and then I held the cold, sweaty bottle to my forehead.
“Ahhh, that feels good. Thanks.” I unscrewed the lid and took a long swallow.
“No problem. I thought I saw you come in earlier. Why are you hiding back here?”
I shrugged not wanting to get into it with Max. “Just enjoying the quiet.” I grabbed a clean towel from the rack and wiped the sweat off my face. “You have a session with Tess?” I asked, trying to change the subject. For the last few weeks Max had been getting a refresher course in the katana from Tess.
A weird look passed over Max’s face and he shook his head. “No, I have a meeting I have to get to, but I wanted to ask you a question.”
I wrapped the towel around my neck to catch the sweat still streaming down and lifted the water to my lips, gesturing to the nearby bench. “Sure, you want to sit down?" I smiled slyly at him. “Or I’m sure we could find a box somewhere around here.” I snickered at my joke.
“Ha-ha. Yeah, funny. Have you been waiting a month to use that cat joke?”
“Maybe.” I grinned at him.
“Got it all out of your system now, or…”
“Almost…I also wanted to mention that you should swing by the flower shop some time, I potted up some organic catnip. All the kitties in the neighbourhood love it.”
Max snorted and then his face sobered. “Can we be serious now? It’s about Tess.”
“Shoot,” I replied, taking another long drink.
Max’s face flushed slightly and he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I was…I was wondering if you could tell me whether Tess is seeing anyone?”