by Ann Charles
“No,” she said, looking from the mirror to me. “It was the old radio in the attic again.”
“What are you talking about?” Cooper asked, so she filled him in on the old radio and how it played on its own. When she finished, he asked, “And this is the second night it’s happened?”
“Well, I wasn’t there Friday night, but Freesia said she heard it that night and went up to check it out. It stopped as soon as she entered the attic.”
“And last night?” I asked. “Did it stop when you entered?”
“Yes. But when I turned to leave, it started up again. Then I approached it, and the stupid thing kicked off again. I did that two more times and then just gave up and went back to my apartment.”
“Did it keep playing?”
She nodded. “It finally stopped around dawn. I zoned in and out a few times, but each time I woke I could hear it overhead.”
I turned to Cooper. “You think Big Jake Tender liked old country music?”
He leaned his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes. “We should ask Nyce what this means. I’m out of my league here.”
A sharp knock on my window made me jump and turn.
Detective Hawke’s face filled my view.
Cooper whispered, “Keep your mouth shut, Parker. Let me handle this.” He rolled down my window.
I crossed my arms, glaring at the bonehead. I so wanted to do a Three Stooges move on his big honking nose for throwing Doc in jail yesterday, but I obeyed Cooper’s orders.
Hawke gripped the windowsill, his smile smug and calling for a kiss from my boot heel. “Hey, Coop. How’s our number-one suspect doing?”
“What’s going on, Hawke?” he asked, ignoring the question.
“Nothing, just coming home a little early today. The boys down at the station have everything under control.” Hawke waved in at Natalie. “Hey, Nat. Feel like inviting me up for some dinner and a movie?”
“Beals is coming home with us,” Cooper said.
“Another time, gorgeous,” he said to Natalie with a wink. He patted the roof above my window. “You better take Parker home and put her back in her cage.”
I glared at Cooper to keep from grabbing Hawke’s fingers and bending them backward until something snapped.
“I’m taking her back to her office,” Cooper said calmly. “She’ll get herself home from there.”
“Make sure she doesn’t fly off on her broom.”
“We’re done here,” Cooper said. He started to roll up the window. “I’ll see you in the morning, Hawke.”
“I’ll see you on Tuesday, Parker,” Hawke said, stepping back with that smug grin still filling his melon.
“What’s on Tuesday?” Natalie called from the back.
Cooper left the window open a couple of inches so Hawke could reply.
“I called my old pal from the lab and made a deal. Lab results by Tuesday in exchange for tickets to the next three Broncos home games.” He rubbed his hands together, his gaze locked onto me. “It looks like we’ll have a murderer in jail by mid-week.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Detective Hawke popped my balloon, the pea-brained snollyguster.
The passenger side window closed the rest of the way, blocking out the cold air and Hawke’s obnoxious laughter as Cooper shifted into gear and rolled away.
“Fuck,” I said, leaning back against the headrest. “What are the chances I’m going to get out of this mess?”
Even Cooper’s worry lines had wrinkles. “I know a lawyer who might be able to help delay things a little, give Nyce and me more time to figure out who really killed her.”
“I’m not going to let this happen, Vi.” Natalie reached up and squeezed my shoulder.
“What does that mean?” Cooper asked, scowling at her in the rearview mirror.
“Exactly what I said, Coop. I didn’t stutter.”
“Natalie,” he started.
She sat back. “Don’t ‘Natalie’ me in that cop voice of yours, dammit. You do what you can do in your capacity as a detective to help Violet, and let me do what I can as her best friend.”
“Nat.” I turned around to look at her. “I can’t allow you to get in the middle of this.”
Her laugh was short. “I’ve never been anywhere but in the middle, right next to you.”
“You won’t be any help if you’re in jail, Beals. And don’t think for a minute that Detective Hawke will take it easy on you. His bloodlust for Parker has him acting irrationally.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” she muttered, making a snarly face at the back of his head. “Who said I’m going to do anything illegal?”
She was beginning to sound like a woman on a mission. I jumped on her bandwagon. “You have something in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Cornelius said something to me the other day in the bathroom that gave me an idea.”
“You mean when you two were looking in the mirror?” I remembered wondering what in the heck they were doing.
“Yeah. He told me that mirrors are often considered portals for spirits. When I asked why, he went on about the properties of silver on the back of old mirrors, electromagnetic fields, conductivity, ultraviolet light, and more scientific crapola. The point he was making was that ghosts can easily pass through mirrors into our world.”
“And you believed him?” Cooper clearly didn’t.
It was my turn to scowl. “Cooper, tell me something. Why were you looking in that dresser mirror today when we joined you in the upstairs bedroom?”
He glanced my way while navigating the narrow street. “I could see the ghost in the reflection.”
“And then the same ghost appeared next to me outside of the reflection, didn’t he?”
A frown was his response.
“You’re in this with us now whether you like it or not,” I told him. “That means you have to stop being pissy about being able to see ghosts. You need to open your black and white mind and accept that there is a lot of ectoplasmic gray surrounding you.” I focused back on Natalie. “So, what’s your idea?”
“Last night while I was messing around in the attic with that radio, I found an old mirror covered by a sheet. You need to do a séance with that mirror.”
Cooper shook his head. “It’s not going to work.”
“Jeez, Coop.” She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “You are one huge downer some days.”
“I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate here, Natalie.” He glanced at me. “I’m just saying between Hawke and the officers he has assigned to monitor Ms. Wolff’s apartment, there is no way anyone can get in there without him knowing about it.”
“We can go in the middle of the night,” she suggested.
“The stairs are creaky as hell in that place. He’ll hear and come to investigate.”
“So we keep him distracted,” she shot back.
“I’d rather slip him a roofie,” I muttered. And then leave him for the coyotes to gnaw on out in the Badlands.
Cooper slowed for the stop sign at Deadwood’s Main Street, hitting his blinker. “How are you going to distract him?”
“Vi, I need to borrow that little black dress of yours.”
A heavy sigh came from Cooper. “Let me do it. I can get him out of there without you having to sleep with him.”
Natalie scoffed, her cheeks darkening. “Who said I was going to have sex with the big bozo? Man, Coop. You have one of the worst opinions of my character.” She kicked the back of his seat hard enough to make him bounce, telling me, “This guy really pisses me off sometimes.”
Cooper turned in his seat to look at her face to face. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I just … When it comes to you I …”
She pointed out the windshield. “Green light.”
Cooper faced forward and hit the gas.
After a couple of more huffs, she said, “My idea is to take Hawke down to Rapid for dinner and dancing, keeping him out very, very late.”
“
Well,” I chimed in, “if anyone can shoehorn Hawke’s ass out of that apartment, it’s you, Nat. Especially if you slip into a sexy dress and coat those baby inner tubes you call lips with something red and glossy.”
She blew me a loud kiss with her baby inner tubes.
“I still don’t like it,” Cooper snapped.
“Why not?” she pressed.
He hesitated.
Come on, I willed him with my eyes. Say it. Tell her the truth.
“Because the roads will be icy when you drive home. It’s too dangerous to be out.”
Chicken!
“Uh, in case you’ve forgotten, Coop, I’ve lived here in the hills all of my life, too. I know how to drive in winter.”
“Why don’t you let me do the distracting? I can take Hawke to a bar, talk shop with him, and get him wasted.”
“Because you need to help Vi and Doc look for ghosts. You’re the only one who can see them.”
“To what end?” I interrupted their bickering. “If we do this, Natalie, what do you think will come of it?”
“I think Ms. Wolff is up in that attic, listening to her old radio. Using the mirror, Doc and Cornelius and you could somehow draw her out like you guys did with Cooper’s great-grandfather. With Cooper’s ability to see ghosts, he can try to communicate with her. If that doesn’t work, maybe Doc can work his magic and draw her to him, experiencing her death first hand. Either way, we’ll have our murderer by the time sunrise comes around, and Cooper can help us figure out how to lock Detective Hawke’s jaws onto the real killer.”
As ideas went, that was better than what I was pondering, which centered on barreling toward the Mexican border in a 1969 Camaro SS with my kids and Doc in tow while boning up on my Spanish. How many pesos equaled a US dollar these days?
“When do you want to do this?” I asked.
“Tonight.”
“No,” Cooper said, slowing for a red light.
Natalie rattled off a string of curses. “For once, Coop, could you stop being such a fucking naysayer and take a leap of faith.”
“That’s not a leap of faith,” he shot back at her, meeting her glare in the rearview mirror. “That’s a desperate scramble at best.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, weighing her idea with more optimism than Cooper. “I’m not sure I can get Cornelius to join in with so little prep time. He always has a checklist of items he needs for the séance. A process that he insists upon following.”
“There’s always kidnapping,” she said. “Make him wing it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Vi, when you took on the bone cruncher that night behind Harvey’s place, did you have a battle plan, or did you just take a run at the son of a bitch?”
That was definitely adrenaline-fueled running and swinging, and we all three knew it.
“Okay,” I said. “But we need to get Doc on board. Without the master of ceremonies, we might open the wrong door.” Again. Doc was still trying to fix my last screwup with Mrs. Hessler and Wilda. Lo and behold, I could make things worse.
“Are you seriously contemplating Beals’ plan?” Cooper asked me, pulling in behind Calamity Jane Realty.
“Cooper, I don’t exactly have tons of options.”
“Don’t overthink this for once, Vi,” Natalie advised. “Trust in your abilities. Believe in yourself.”
He shifted into park, letting the Durango idle. “That’s it, end of discussion,” he said to me. “Go back to work, and take your Obi Wan wannabe with you.”
I got out, opening Natalie’s door.
She scooted toward me, but then paused midway across. She gave me the hold-on finger and leaned forward between the front seats. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Coop,” she said and then smirked. “Even though you have such a shitty opinion of my reputation.”
“Natalie, I don’t—”
She cut him off. “That’s not important right now. What is important is that I know you’re trying to help Violet in your own law-abiding way. But the time for proper procedure has come and gone. If we don’t find out who really killed Ms. Wolff, Violet is fucked. Not only that, but her kids are fucked, too. Hell, we’re all fucked, because whether or not you believe in monsters, they’re out there. We need Violet to kill them. If she ends up in prison, you can bet your ass that I will follow the Wile E. Coyote Acme handbook and stop at nothing short of TNT to break her out so she can finish what she was born to do.”
He turned, his face inches from hers. He held her stare, his expression rigid. “I’ll think about it, Beals.”
“Good. You do that, and I’ll give you a couple of hours to get used to the idea before I come looking for you.” She pulled her hood up. “Meet us at Zoe’s for supper and we’ll hash out the details with Doc.” Before he could reply one way or another, Natalie leaned forward and kissed his cheek. She sat back with a tight smile. “Oh, and don’t buy the ghost house. It needs too much work.”
Sliding out beside me, she shut the door and rushed through the cold for Calamity Jane’s back door.
Cooper grimaced at me through the passenger window. I shrugged. What could I say? Natalie was a force of nature. He needed to understand that if he was going to try to lasso her. Besides, she was right. We needed to find Ms. Wolff’s killer pronto, and using his methods would take too long.
I watched his taillights as he drove away. With or without the stubborn detective, I was going up to that attic tonight to try to find answers using my own way.
* * *
Doc listened quietly while Natalie and I laid out our plan during supper, his expression contemplative as he watched me. Cooper kept his objections to himself this time, his silence stony.
“Coop,” Aunt Zoe said, pushing away her plate of mashed-up turkey potpie. She’d been picking more than eating for the last twenty minutes. “What are the chances of you talking to the chief tomorrow morning about Detective Hawke’s erratic behavior and getting him suspended for a few days?”
I didn’t give Cooper a chance to answer. “What good will buying us more time do if that lab report comes on Tuesday? The chief can read it as easily as Hawke.”
She set her fork down. “I’m trying to come up with another option.”
“Why? We have a perfectly good plan.”
“Violet, what if the entity turning on that old radio isn’t Ms. Wolff? Have you thought about that?”
Of course I’d thought about that. I’d just not voiced it to Natalie or anyone else, figuring I’d try to be prepared for whatever came through, good or bad. “Then we’re no worse off than we are currently.”
“We could be,” Doc said, rising and walking over to the sink. He stared out the window into the darkness beyond.
I stared at his back, noticing the tension in his posture. “Have you ever experimented with ghosts and mirrors, Doc?”
He turned around, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. “I’ve never needed mirrors to interact with them.”
“I bet Cornelius has,” Natalie said.
“Maybe you should call him and see,” Aunt Zoe said to me.
“No. We need to surprise him into joining us tonight. If we give him time to think things through, he may balk.”
“As he should,” she said, taking her plate to the trash and scraping the remains of her dissected turkey potpie into it. “I don’t like it. It’s too rash. Something will go wrong.”
Natalie’s phone rang. She took it out of her pocket. “It’s Freesia. I’ll be right back.” She left the table and headed into the living room, answering as she walked.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I looked to Aunt Zoe first for that answer.
She set her plate in the sink. “You release an entity that kills all four of you.” When I grimaced at her, she shrugged. “And that’s just for starters.”
Next, I looked to Cooper. “Let’s hear yours.”
“My what?”
“Worst-case scenario.”
He took
a drink of lemonade before answering. “Hawke is onto us and arrests all of you on some trumped-up charges. You get fired and still wind up in prison; Beals is arrested for trying to spring you from the big house; Nyce destroys his reputation and his customers’ trust; and Curion is hired by the police department to act as their paranormal liaison.”
Well, his imagination was thorough if nothing else. “And what about you?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m forced to walk away from law enforcement for good.”
“But if you behave, they might let you keep your guns.”
He glared at me without comment.
“What about you, Doc? What’s the worst thing you can think of that could happen?”
His dark gaze had a haunted look. “You go into that mirror, Killer, and you never come back out.”
A replay, in other words, of what had happened to my ancestor. A chill ran down my spine, my nightmare with the basket ricocheting through my thoughts.
He smirked, adding, “And the real bitch of it is that I’m really starting to like you, too.”
I lifted my chin. “You think you can get rid of me that easily?”
Before he could answer, Natalie came blowing back into the kitchen with a victory smile in place. “Freesia’s in.”
“What’s that mean?” Cooper asked.
“She’s going to help me keep Hawke distracted down in Rapid tonight.”
Perfect. Natalie wouldn’t be stuck having to fend off Hawke’s big mitts on her own if he got grabby. Although, knowing Natalie, she’d slug him so hard he’d have to go looking for his jaw in the next town over.
“I need to go through your closet,” she told me.
“Have at it,” I told her.
As she left the kitchen, Doc called after her, “Not the purple boots!”
She laughed, her footsteps pounding up the stairs.
I looked at Cooper. “Feel better?”
He leaned his elbows on the table. “I’ll feel better when tonight is over and I’m not stuck trying to figure out how to get your ass out of another one of your grand fuckups.”
“Ah, isn’t that sweet?” I grinned at Doc. “Cooper is worried about little ol’ me.”
“Shut up, Parker.”