by Tim McGregor
Owen turned away. “Just get it over with for fuck’s sakes.”
Justin placed his hand over Kaitlin’s brow in an almost tender manner. He smiled. “Evelyn sends her love.”
Chapter 22
NO ONE HAD MUCH to say on the drive home. Both Mockler and Gantry tried to gently prod her into conversation but Billie remained mute, staring out the window as the scenery tumbled past. After a while the men stopped trying and they drove on in silence into the heart of the Ambitious City.
The car pulled up before her building and everyone climbed out. Gantry backed off when the detective nodded at him, indicating he needed a minute.
Pulling Billie aside, he lifted her chin up until her eyes met his. “I need to get back to meet the forensic team. Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she uttered in a flat tone.
“Is there someone who could stay with you? Jen or Tammy?” Mockler wagged his chin at the Englishman waiting by the car. “Even Gantry.”
Billie flattened her hand against his chest. “I’m okay, honest. I just need time to let it sink in.”
“I don’t think you should be alone right now. And I’ll be busy the rest of the night.”
A smidgen of a smile brightened her face. “I’m fine. Honest. I’d be awful company right now anyway.”
Craning her neck up for a kiss, she patted his chest and stepped back. “Don’t let me keep you. You’ve got a long night ahead of you.”
He broke away, glancing over to Gantry. “See her home,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
Up the three flights, Billie pushed open her door.
“You don’t bother locking your door?” Gantry said. “Is that wise in your neighbourhood?”
“No need.” She peeled off her jacket and draped it over a chair. “I got something way more effective protecting my place.”
Gantry stopped cold, scanning the room warily. “Where is that little shit anyway?”
“I don’t know,” she said, crossing into the kitchen. “He’s usually here at night.”
Gantry relaxed and joined her in the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he said, “Why do you keep that legless freak around anyway?”
Billie ran the tap and scrubbed her grimy hands. “I’m kind of fond of him now. He’s the best roomie I’ve ever had.”
“You got nothing to slake the thirst?” Gantry groused, scrounging through the fridge. “Remedy that for next time, yeah?”
“There’s some bottles on top there. You can fix a drink, if you want.”
“Never mind. I need to run anyway.” He let the refrigerator swing closed. “You’ll be alright, yeah?”
She assured him she would be and saw him to the door. Gantry gripped the knob but hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“When we found your mum, what did you expect to happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Billie sighed. “A sense of her? An image or a feeling.”
“Her spirit?”
“Yes. Even some residual energy left behind.”
Gantry scratched his head. “Have you ever felt her spirit?”
“Never. And I’m aware of the irony. Being surrounded by ghosts everywhere, but the only one I want to see has never shown.” She looked up at him. “Why is that?”
“Maybe she’s just not here. The ghosts you see are the ones trapped here, unwilling or unable to move on. Maybe your mum isn’t one of them.”
“You think she’s moved on into…what? Heaven? The afterlife?”
This time he shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“So that part is real? Heaven. Angels and halos and stuff?”
“I didn’t say that. I know there’s dead people who linger. What happens beyond that is a guess, no more.”
She looked disappointed. The room grew quiet. Gantry opened the door. “I’ll check in on you later, Billie.”
Billie said goodbye and closed the door behind him. Wind knifed in through the partially open window and she crossed the room to close it. Silence all around. She wondered where Half-Boy was and why he insisted on leaving a window open. It was unlike him to miss an opportunity to harass Gantry. She wondered why he hated the Englishman so.
A sudden pain stitched through her gut, immediate and fierce. It flamed hot in her belly like a dull blade intent on disemboweling her. The pain stitched a name into her mind’s eye, a smoke signal to the source of the agony.
Kaitlin.
~
John Gantry’s radar was fine-tuned for trouble and, under different circumstances, it would have also pinged at the distress signal that cut Billie in half. Unfortunately, it was masked under a different psychic blip minutes before. Striking just as he hit the street from Billie’s apartment, this warning signal smelled distinctly of smoke.
A short cab ride across town, he stood before the burnt-out shell of what was once the Miskatonic Bookshop. The excitement was long over, the pumper trucks and firefighters in heavy gear long gone. The fire marshal was on hand, along with investigators and what he guessed were engineers and building inspectors. The brick frame of the narrow building still stood but everything else had been consumed in the inferno. The rest was charred timbers and broken pipes. The roof had caved in and two men were digging through the mess. The whole area reeked of wet ash and toxic smoke.
The key to finding information was knowing who to ask. The older man who appeared to be in charge would most likely shoo him away if harassed with questions. There was another man off to the side of the razed building, quietly jotting notes onto a clipboard. Gantry made for him.
“Tell me that isn’t the old bookshop,” Gantry said, approaching the man with the clipboard.
The man looked up from his notes, unsure if the stranger was addressing him. “I’m afraid so.”
“Christ, that’s a shame,” Gantry exclaimed. “Old Lars there, he had a brilliant collection. Was anything saved?”
The other man shook his head. “Not a thing. In fact, the books would have fuelled the fire once it took hold. You know the shop owner?”
“Not very well. Boosted a few books from him here and there.” Gantry looked over the people on the sidewalk. “Is he here?”
“We’re still trying to contact Mr. Cranston. Do you know if he’s out of town?”
“He was here two days ago. Showed me round the back where he keeps the good stuff.”
The man frowned and wrote something in his notes. Gantry studied the man’s expression. “Tell me you didn’t find someone in there?”
“One victim was recovered from the fire. The police are trying to determine the deceased’s identity.”
Gantry’s reaction required no false acting, the shock was genuine. “Oh no. The poor tosser.”
Observing Gantry, the other man turned over a fresh page of notes. “Can I get your name, sir? And when the last time you were at this location?”
“What started the fire?”
“We’re in the process of determining that right now.”
“I know but you lads can sniff it out without all the testing, yeah? Was it a bad wire or a cooking fire?”
“Nothing’s been ruled out but neither of those appear to be the case. There are signs of an accelerant, however.”
“Arson? Christ.”
Gantry walked away but the man insisted on getting his name and contact info. Howard Gunther Albee was the name he provided, along with a phone number poached from a massage parlour sign across the street. Never one to miss a potential source of info, Gantry poured on the charm and got the fellow’s name and number before walking away.
Retreating to the other side of the street, he lit up and watched the crew work for a while.
There were simply no coincidences, he mused. The world was a tangible and defined thing that held only so much. If you push on it in one spot, it will displace or push back in another. The question here, looking out at the blackened timbers of the former book shop, was who or what ha
d pushed back? Had it been the Bourdain woman? Could she have known he was rooting around her history in Lars’ collection of old magazines, trying to understand her hold on the pulp hack, Albee? It seemed unlikely. Would the spirit of a dead woman have used an accelerant to torch the place? It was hard to imagine her splashing a can of petrol over the place and playing with matches. There was a chance she sent someone to do her dirty work for her. Someone clumsy and unimaginative enough to torch the place with fuel.
If not Evelyn Bourdain, then who?
The booming thunder of bass drew his attention to a car driving past the scene. It slowed as it came alongside the emergency vehicles, music blaring heavily from the open windows, then it sped on, disappearing at the next corner.
The music got under his skin, a wall of noise usually described as Death Metal, and just like that, John Gantry had his answer. Not only did he distinguish one sub-genre of metal from another, he instantly recognized the band in question. His old friend and all-around-jackass, Crypto Death Machine. There was no coincidence that the car slowing to take a look at the destruction was blaring Crypto tunes.
He flicked the cigarette away, trying to recall Crypto’s real name because he wanted to know exactly what to carve on the bastard’s tombstone.
Stanley Gottferb.
R.I.P.
~
Racing down the hospital corridor to Kaitlin’s room, Billie skidded to a stop when she saw police officers crowding the hallway. Her stomach dropped out of her. Was she too late? She marched for Kaitlin’s room but was stopped immediately.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Is Kaitlin all right?”
“Are you a friend of hers?” the officer asked.
“Yes. What happened?”
The officer blocked her path. “Could you wait over here, miss? Another officer will talk to you in a minute.”
“At least tell me she’s okay. Did something happen to her?”
The officer eased her out of the way as more officers and hospital staff streamed past them. He asked her to be patient without answering any questions. Billie fumed at being shuffled aside. Then she spotted Jen lingering to one side like a wallflower among the bustle of police and hospital staff. She reached for her.
“Jen, what happened?”
The young woman startled at being touched, her eyes snapping out of her thousand-yard stare. “Billie?”
“Is Kaitlin hurt?”
Jen pulled her arm out of Billie’s grasp. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything.”
“Why are the police here? Did they call you?”
“I just got here and found all this,” Jen replied, pulling away even more. “What are you doing here?”
“I felt something was wrong. With Kaitlin.”
The expression on Jen’s face shifted from worry to impatience. “Would you stop? Now’s not the time.”
Billie froze, taken aback by her friend’s sudden anger. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you have to keep up this act of yours?” Jen seethed. “Kyle was right. You are dangerous.”
Something flipped around inside Billie. The confusion and fear over Kaitlin flamed to anger. She snatched Jen’s arm in no gentlee grip and in that moment, she suddenly hated her oldest friend. “Why do you hate me?”
“When are you going to stop this act of yours? This voodoo bullshit you keep doing. I don’t even know who you are anymore.” Jen tore her arm free a second time. “Ow.”
Billie didn’t realize how hard her grip was. Her fingernails left red scratch marks on her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry…”
Jen walked away without another word, leaving Billie adrift in the stream of people passing to and fro. She felt seasick.
“Billie?”
She turned at the sound of her name to see a plainclothes officer cutting toward her. Another detective in the Homicide Unit.
“Detective Odinbeck?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said. “Is Mockler with you?”
“No. What happened here?”
“Your friend was attacked. She’s okay. Shaken up but she’s not hurt.”
“Attacked? By who?”
“Two men that your friend knows. We’re tracking them down now. Will you come with me?” Cutting through the crowd, he escorted her down the corridor. “Kaitlin’s been asking for you.”
Sweeping into the room, Billie saw a doctor and another plainclothes officer hovering around the bed. Kaitlin looked frazzled and pale but her eyes lit up at the familiar face. “Billie,” she gasped.
“Can we give these two a moment?” Odinbeck ushered the men from the room and turned to Billie before following them out. “I’ll need to talk to you when you’re done here, so don’t take off.”
“Of course. Does Ray know about this?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him yet.”
The detective hurried from the room and Billie rushed to her friend’s side. “Kaitlin, my God. I just heard. What happened?”
Kaitlin’s movements were slow, her words rasped out in a brittle tremor. “She wants me dead.”
“Who?”
“The woman in that house,” Kaitlin wheezed. “Evelyn.”
Billie felt her throat constrict. “Odinbeck said it was two men.”
“Her puppets.” Kaitlin put a hand over her mouth, as if afraid to speak. “Justin and Owen.”
Billie shook her head, unable to recall the names. “Who?”
“The ghost hunters. Remember? They wanted you to be their psychic.”
Billie crinkled her brow. “Those two? How are they Evelyn’s puppets?”
“They went to the house. Something happened to them. They weren’t the same after that.” Kaitlin’s eyes brimmed red. “They were there that night. When I tried to kill you. I was her puppet too—”
The woman’s sobs choked her words back. Billie pulled her close and let Kaitlin rest her head into her collarbone. She cooed whispers of consolation until the sobs subsided. Easing back, Billie lifted Kaitlin’s chin until they were eye to eye. “Tell me what happened. They came here and attacked you? How? What happened?”
“Justin had a knife. He said that I was a loose end or something. Unworthy.”
Billie scrutinized her friend up and down but there was no blood, no wounds. “But he didn’t hurt you?”
“He tried. But something stopped him. Was it you?”
“No,” Billie said. She wished she had. “What stopped him?”
“I don’t know. Something was in the room with us. Like, instantly. Everything turned cold and then Justin was hurled into the wall.”
“Hurled?”
“Like he’d been hit by a car,” Kaitlin said. She pointed to the wall where the surface was caved in. “It was the freakiest thing I’d ever seen. Owen screamed and then he lifted clean off the ground and flew into the same wall. Both of them were whimpering in fear. I mean, like, scared shitless. Then they raced out of here.”
Billie held her peace. Kaitlin wiped her eyes again and said, “I thought for sure it was you.”
“Did you see anything?”
Kaitlin wagged her head. “No. There was just the cold. It cut right through me.”
Billie chewed her lip as she turned the idea over in her mind. Had Gantry done it? Had he somehow projected himself into the room to save Kaitlin from being killed? Did he have that power? None of that seemed likely. “Did you tell the police everything? Justin and Owen’s last names?”
“Yeah. Even where Owen lives.”
“Then they’ll catch them.” She pulled Kaitlin in for another quick embrace before pulling away. “There’s a ton of cops outside your door. You’ll be safe. But I should go talk to them. Okay?”
Kaitlin said she was and Billie left the room. The corridor seemed even more crowded this time and she rose up on her toes trying to spot Detective Odinbeck among all the others.
That’s when her eye caught something on the corridor ceiling. A gr
uesome smear of dark blood running the length of the hallway. More of it lay slathered over the lintel of the door, disappearing inside Kaitlin’s room.
Chapter 23
TEDIUM WAS NOT SOMETHING that Detective Mockler was unfamiliar with. It came with the job, the whole hurry and wait process of investigation. After the initial rush of a new crime and the first walk-through of the scene came the monotonous waiting as the forensics team took over and methodically sifted every square centimetre.
This night was a little different. This night, he was distracted and welcomed the downtime to reflect on the woman who was consuming all of his thoughts.
The crime scene was in full swing in that lonely spot off the dirt road. A police cruiser, his own unmarked car and the forensic truck were parked before the burned out ruins of Saint Lucia. Generators were up and running to power the banks of lights set up inside the ruins for the crew to work by. When Sozen, head of the forensic recovery team, waved him in, Mockler walked with the man to the edge of the of open grave he had dug with Billie and Gantry. The floodlights angled over the far side of the pit, throwing light over the muddy bones in the dirt.
“Quite the find you got there, detective,” Sozen said, peering into the grave. “You seem to have a knack for finding lost bodies.”
“Just got lucky,” Mockler replied. The last time he had worked with the forensic chief, he had uncovered a mass grave hidden inside the walls of an abandoned warehouse. “Have you gone down yet?”
“Not yet.” Sozen nodded at the open pit. “Did you dig this?”
Mockler lied and said he had. There was no point in mentioning the two people who had dug alongside him. His hands still stung where the shovel had caused blisters to form and then pop. “Not a very neat job, is it?”
“I’ve had worse. We can sift through the backfill to make sure we don’t miss anything.” Sozen scanned over the brick foundation of the church and the wide open sky above and scratched his shaved head. “How the hell did you find this way out here?”
“A psychic told me,” he said with a wink.
“Do you have her card? I could put her to work.” Sozen laughed as he eased himself into the open grave.