by Eli Constant
“Who is this again?” Andrea’s princess voice has frayed at the edges a little, veering dangerously close to villain.
“Look, you must be new at the station, but the Chief and I go way back. He’ll want to talk to me.” I didn’t have time to wonder about that. The same seven people have worked at Bonneau’s single, small station for nearly four years—with the exception of Steve who’d only come on a year after Terrance made Chief after a John had been paralyzed in the line of duty. Bullet straight to the spine, severed it completely. There wasn’t any coming back from that—not unless you spoke money and could get into specialty trials and afford the best doctors.
So a new arrival meant one of two things—someone got fired or the city had finally gotten around to increasing the budget for municipal services. I was hoping it was the latter. Bonneau was moving on up if so—eight employees. Yippy. I liked my seven familiar faces though. And they were used to me. None of them gawked at me like I had a third eye anymore when I called with information and couldn’t explain where I’d gotten said information.
“Look, I’ll take down a message and he can decide if he wants to call you back,” she responds, obviously trying to keep her professional voice in place now. I can hear a faint tapping and I can visualize the woman thrumming her too-long nails against her desk top.
“Jesus, just let me talk to Goodman.” I could kick myself for never plugging Terrance’s personal number into my cell. I’d remedy that as soon as possible.
“I’m sorry, but like I said, he’s in a meeting.” She was firm, her voice almost going Valley Girl with the effort. You give little people power... and they go multiple personality with it.
Sighing, I try a different approach. “Hey, I’m not trying to be pushy or anything. I’m just in a hurry. Please tell Chief Goodman that Victoria Cage is on the phone and she has information regarding the child prostitution ring.” I don’t mention Lilly. She’s still too fresh. My fingers grip the steering wheel tighter, phantom memory reminding me what it felt like when she touched my hand.
“Please hold.” Andrea’s voice is nearly mechanical now, like she’s decided I’m not worth the effort. Whatever, as long as I get what I want—she can go back to being a Disney princess on cocaine.
Before I can say another word, I’m on hold listening to the very worst type of music—popular songs covered by unpopular people and the recordings so scratchy they make a person long for nails on a chalkboard. I take the phone away from my ear and rest it against my lap, muffling the sound a little with the material of my dress. I can still hear it well enough to recognize the click as the tune dies and Terrance’s voice fills the void.
“Tori, what you got?”
God, I loved Terrance. Predictable to a fault and he always got straight to the point. “I went to see Jim yesterday—” I began.
“And you didn’t check in with me before or after.” Terrance interrupted, sounding distinctly like a chiding school teacher. “I’ve told you before, Tori, you’re a civilian. I shouldn’t even be letting you go out to meet people and ask questions alone. I shouldn’t let you do it with an escort. It’s not protocol and I—”
My turn to interrupt him. “How many cases have I helped you solve now, Terrance? Pretty sure I’m even officially listed as an outside consultant now for the department.”
“That may be true, but—”
“But nothing, Terrance. Jim won’t talk to cops. I’ve explained that before. You either send me or you get nothing. He’s my informant. Period.”
Silence met my words. Bonneau was a small town. Jim’s bar was on the outskirts, on the way to Moncks Corner. He was barely even in Terrance’s jurisdiction.
“Someday, I’m going to get a badge on you, Tori.”
“Over my dead body.” I meant those words and the irony wasn’t lost on me. “Now just listen. Your main suspect is at Jim’s right now, possibly doing a deal. The guy could even be Lilly’s killer.” Point for me, I don’t choke on her name, even though saying it threatens bile up my throat.
“Shit, we’ll meet you there.”
“No bells or whistles. Come in quiet and clean. No uniforms.” I think I sound professional, very S.W.A.T.
Terrance chuckles, even though it’s totally inappropriate for the situation. “You try so hard, Tori, but you sound like a bad Hollywood movie written by a little shit that knows jack about police work.”
“Stuff it, Terrance.” But I’m smiling. I can’t help myself. I do try, overly hard, to fit myself into humanity’s mold, not just with police work, but with everything. It’s a product of hiding in plain sight. My frown comes back though, as I pass the elementary school and playground. Lilly’s body had been found shoved into the enclosed slide. The janitor had found her when he was out picking up trash. I think about what else he needs to know, racking my brain because I know I’ve forgotten something important.
For his part, Terrance is staying quiet on the other end of the line, like he knows there’s something more even though I’ve given no indication that there is. Finally, he says something. “Anything else, Tori, or can I hang up and get the hell in the car?”
Get the hell in the car.
“Terrance, one of the men who hurt Lilly...” it was always a risk sharing things with the living that the dead have shared with me. “he drove a car with a really particular paint job. Like an oil slick.” I left out the other bits—the red shirt, the sunglasses. I knew they were important, but the less I shared, the safer I was.
“I don’t normally ask how you know things, Tori, but—”
“You don’t ask. I keep helping. That’s the only way this works. You know that.”
“But if Jim’s your informant and he told you this, then he might be involved.” He says the words slowly, as if willing a crazy woman to see the logic.
“Jim has helped you through me more times than I can count, Terrance. He’s got nothing to do with this. He’d never hurt a little girl.” I quell the rage I feel at Terrance suspecting Jim might be part of this, because he’s just being a good damn cop. I can’t fault him for that. “I’d tell you how I know, if I could. You know I would.”
“Yeah, I know that.” He sighs and I hear the scratch of a pencil against paper. He’s probably got his small, brown notebook out—the one he keeps shoved into a cargo pocket of his pants at all times. “We had a suspect who drove a Mercedes AMG. Paint job sounds similar. Real fancy, changed colors depending on how the sun hit it. He had an airtight alibi, but we’ll look into him again. If he’s even still in town. Business type, claimed to just be passing through. Vehicle popped up on surveillance near where she was snatched.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m glad the car means something to you. Maybe it’ll give you more to hold over his head, get some answers out of him.”
“Maybe. Seriously though, Tori. Stop trying to sound like a cop. And, girl, you’ve got to stop acting like one too. You can’t go off and meet someone without backup. You won’t go to the self-defense classes, even though they’re free. You won’t let me take you to the range to practice shooting. Jesus, I won’t always be there to keep you safe,” he scolds again.
His words hit me hard in the gut, because I know he’d put his body in front of mine to keep it from harm. He’s done it before. “I don’t know if I can change how I am, Terrance. Meet me at Jim’s. You can come in with me, but Steve or anyone else should wait outside.”
I know Terrance is nodding in response. He says nothing though and the phone dies in my hands. He does that sometimes, his mind focused on other things.
I’m only a short ways from Jim’s now. The homes I pass begin to wake up, one by one, their windows filling with light that is filtered through blinds and curtains.
As an afterthought, I call my assistant Dean. He answers on the first ring. It’s hard to balance my work-work and my gift’s work.
“Hey, Tori. Where are you?”
“On an errand that couldn’t wait. Sorry I haven’t made it back th
ere yet.” I switch hands, my left aching from holding the phone to my ear. Dean is used to my disappearing every now and then. He used to ask me questions constantly. Once, he’d caught me talking to an empty room. We’d laughed it off, but sometimes I wonder if he suspects something.
“That’s fine. We’ve only just gotten back ourselves.”
“The mother wouldn’t leave I’m guessing?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so bad.” Dean makes an odd sound and I can almost feel his body shuddering through the phone.
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
We’re quiet for a moment.
Dean breaks the silence. “Hey, the phone was ringing when we came back—someone wants us to do another service on Monday if we can manage it. I told them you’d give them a call back.”
I nod. He can’t see me of course. “Yeah, we should be able to handle that.” I think about my schedule. It’s a slow week. Only one client meeting with a Mr. Grayson set up for Wednesday. “I might try to push them to next Tuesday, but otherwise we’ll do it. Actually, can you call them back for me and go ahead and accept the job? I might not be able to meet with them, but it would be good for you to get your feet wet in that department.”
“You want me to get all the particulars from them and go through the costs and such?” Dean sounds reservedly excited, almost surprised that I trust him that much.
“Yes. Just keep me informed how everything goes, okay?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll keep everything written down and on your desk if I can’t get you on the phone or in person.” He’s eager as a boy who’s just been gifted a new puppy.
“That’d be great. Why don’t you just lock the place up for tonight? We can clear out the flowers and stuff tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely,” I say.
“Great. I’ll give the Tacklons a call back to arrange the meeting and then I’m starving. And you won’t be surprised to know that Max has some big date he’s frothing at the mouth to get to.” Dean laughs and it’s such a nice, vibrant sound.
“Of course Max has a date. It’s a Tuesday.” A genuine smile reshapes the frown that’s been across my face most of the day. Max is a sweet kid, just graduated high school, and all he cares about is money, girls, and his mustang. He gets the girls easy enough— with his dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Dean, with his amber-hued hair and dark brown eyes, isn’t much older than Max at twenty, but he’s infinitely more mature. Listen to me. I’m only twenty-five and I talk like I’m the wise old spinster. Really though, I have a hard time recalling anytime in my life when I’d felt so carefree.
Maybe back in college, when Adam was alive and I thought we’d marry and he’d make big money as a lawyer and I’d do nothing except raise beautiful children and paint beautiful pictures and help the occasional spirit or two. That was a time when I thought I could live without the dead interfering, when I believed, for a fleeting moment, that I could be something more than just a necromancer. Adam supported me. He’d even helped me now and again by dropping final notes from the dead into loved ones’ mailboxes. There was never going to be anyone like him again. I was never going to trust anyone like that again. A person just didn’t get so lucky in a lifetime.
“Well, I’ll see you in the morning then?” Dean makes it a question, clearly ready to hang up.
“Yep, see you then.” I end the call and tuck the cell phone between my thighs as I finish the drive to the bar. The smile on my face is fleeting, gone before I see the neon of the bar sign.
When I pull the sedan into a space at the bar, I unbuckle and turn around to kneel in the driver’s seat and dig in the seat’s rear pocket for the can of mace I’m fairly sure is still there from the Huntsburger funeral. The man’s son had been a real creep. So much so that I debated staying in a hotel for a few nights afterward when he offered to ‘come over and make sure my apartment was secure’. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be recommending Huntsburger Security Services to my friends.
In the Bronco, I keep a few small knives tucked away in sheaths that belt to various parts of my body. I’m not a huge fan of guns, although Terrance would like to change that, along with wanting me to take self-defense courses. I keep ignoring him. Besides, with knives, you have to be thoughtful. You have to get close. Personal. Hurting someone should never be so easy that you can do it at a distance with the flick of a finger. But I have no knives today. The mace will have to do. Besides, I’d have actual police back up.
My stomach knots and twist. No matter how many times I do something like this, no matter how tough I acted, I still feel like an untested kid jumping into war.
A tap on my window makes me jump.
Chief Terrance Goodman is standing outside my car. He towers over it, his six foot two frame not weighed down by the extra fluff around his middle. He moves back as I push my door open and stand up also. I tilt my head to meet his eyes. They are a deep navy blue against his café latte-hued skin and crowned by long, dark lashes. He’s a handsome man. Even the fine lines around his mouth add to his face’s charm.
“You clean up nice. Bit too nice for a dive like this.” Terrance eyes me up and down.
“We had Lilly Miller’s funeral today.” I say the words flatly and he shuffles his feet in response. It doesn’t take much to make Terrance uncomfortable. I mean, he’s great around blood and guts and he could handle himself in a fight, no doubt about that. But under the big man’s outer skin lay a region of cotton candy and gummy bears. He’d told me once that he found it hard to go home, to face his happiness, when so many people didn’t get the joy he had.
I’d told him he had to stop thinking that way. His kids needed him and he couldn’t control the entire world, only his personal one.
“Right. Guess I thought you would have a change of clothes or something handy.” He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and glances over my head, his eyes focused on something faraway.
“Nope. What you see is what you get.” A grim smile moves my face unpleasantly. I can feel it tugging at my eyes, threatening to drown them in sorrow. I sometimes wonder if that’s why Terrance lets me be so involved. He knows how hard I take each murder that falls into my lap. “Who came with you?” I glance around him, spying a nondescript white van parked in the furthest corner of the lot. I continue to scan our surroundings, waiting for Terrance to answer.
“Steve. Everyone else had families to get home to.”
“Steve has a family. So do you, Terrance. Darryl should have stayed. He’s not even married yet.” I liked Steve. He was a good guy and came onto the force after Terrance was made Chief. He was white as snow and one hundred percent color blind (actually, he was literally color blind too which is why he ended up a police officer and not a pilot like he’d wanted).
“Yeah, I’ve got a family too. And Darryl’s relationship is just as important as mine or Steve’s. His wedding’s only a month away. Debbie might as well be his wife already.” Terrance starts walking towards Jim’s bar then, not even glancing back to see if I’m following.
“Terrance, I’m serious. Why didn’t you bring more people?” I’m a few steps behind Terrance, his shadow falling across my body. He looks like a chalk outline standing upright, a halo of light from the neon of the bar entrance bathing the front of his body.
Unexpectedly, Terrance turns around, stopping in his tracks. “Tori, I take you seriously. Steve is a good enough cop that he’s willing to back me up even when he thinks it’s not worth his time. As soon as the others heard I was coming out here to follow up on one of your leads, they raised hell.”
I could feel my face flushing, going hot with anger. We’d been down this road before. I knew I was lucky that Terrance believed me and I couldn’t expect the whole police force to hang onto every word I said. But, shit, you’d think I’d have earned a little cred for my help in the past. “Don was already on your suspect list. That should warrant a little more call-to-action than one other o
fficer as back-up. It shouldn’t fucking matter that I’m the one that found out where he’s doing his business. I mean, God, you’re the Chief, Terrance.”
“Yeah, Tori, I’m the Chief. But that only goes so far when I’m running around town with someone the cops call Casper, even if she has official consultant status. And I can’t afford to alienate my officers.”
My mouth drops open in surprise. Terrance’s last sentence doesn’t even really register. I’m stuck on one word. One revelation. “Casper? As in... Casper the fucking friendly ghost?”
“It’s just a nickname.” Terrance sighs, rubbing a hand roughly across his face. “You make them nervous. And, frankly, the more I keep them out of stuff involving you, the better my chances are of staying Chief.” He turns around and starts walking again.
It takes me a moment to get my legs working again. Casper. What a fucking awful nickname. I hear an ambulance’s wail in the distance. It’s a ghoul in the night, sending shivers down my spine. The sound draws my eyes to the empty lot next to the bar. There’s a car there, parked where the light doesn’t touch it.
I freeze, a thought crossing my mind. “Hey, Terrance, why do you think they parked over there? There’s only Jim’s right here; nothing else in walking distance.”
Once more, Terrance turns around and I point. His gaze moves to where I indicate. “Hmm.” Without saying more, he moves in the car’s direction. I follow like a little ghost in his shadow. His own personal freaking Casper.
When we arrive, we find a sleek sedan. It’s too dark out to tell the color. Pulling out my cell phone, I depress the button that turns it on and activates the screen. I lift it and let the beam of light flow over the car. The paint job glistens and undulates, changing from black to blue to purple to green.
Like an oil slick.
“Shit, Terrance. It’s the car. We’ve got him. This has to be enough.” I reach out, wanting to touch the unusual paint, but then pull my fingers back. Touching evidence isn’t smart.
He stares at the car, his mouth a hard line. “It’s not, Tori. I can’t write a report based solely on the word of a citizen that can’t tell me how she knows what she knows. You know that.”