by Ann Charles
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Prudence’s mind game tickled me clear to my toes after the crap I’d put up with from the bully detective ever since the first time he’d insinuated the color of my hair reflected my intelligence. Cooper acted like he didn’t find this barking act nearly as amusing as I did. However, I had a feeling that deep inside, the steely-eyed hardass enjoyed it—a lot. Hell, I’d wager it was right up there with cleaning his guns.
“Checking what?” Hawke asked, rubbing the spittle from his chin and then scowling down at his wet hand.
The best part of Prudence’s trigger trick was that Hawke sort of temporarily blacked out while remaining conscious whenever the word snollyguster was spoken in front of him.
“Checking to see if we had any company here right now.” I leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, “As in the wispy kind.” I pulled my collar tight on my cashmere coat. “Detective Cooper tells me that you requested my presence due to some possible ectoplasmic troubles here.”
The irony in Hawke’s request was that Cooper was the one who could see dead people, and Doc was the mental medium. Me? I was only good at interacting with one particular ghost, who liked to slap me around with her possessed “puppets” every chance she got, dangnabbit.
Hawke smirked down at me, making me want to flick him in the nose, but I jammed my hands into my coat pockets instead. “The officers who were first on the scene claim that a ghost broke into the bank located inside of the store. They swear the proof is on the surveillance video, but it just looks like a dust devil going through the bank, if you ask me.”
A dust devil inside of a building? “And you think they’re being silly?”
His expression made that clear, but I wanted to hear him confirm it, anyway. “Of course. There are no such things as ghosts.”
“But why would a dust devil blow through an empty bank, Detective Hawke?” I leaned forward, lowering my voice conspiratorially. “Do you think maybe Taz robbed the bank? If memory serves, he’s very fast and quite destructive.”
“Taz?” He looked toward Cooper. “Who’s this Taz?”
“Christ.” Cooper squeezed the bridge of his nose. “She means the Tasmanian Devil in Looney Tunes. You know, the Bugs Bunny cartoons.”
I held up my finger, making a point. “I bet that Bugs put Taz up to it. We are hip-deep in winter here. Carrots are few and far between, and not nearly as cheap as they are in the summer.”
Doc had returned in time to hear my question and Taz-as-burglar theory. His smile escaped from behind his pinched lips. Without a word, he turned around and walked away again. Apparently, his funny bone was extra ticklish tonight. What I wouldn’t do to be home in our warm bed torturing him with feathers.
Hawke’s cheeks mottled, his nostrils flaring. “You think this is some kind of joke, witch?”
“That’s Witch Parker to you, Detective, and no, I do not think this is funny at all.” I thought he was hysterical, though. “Was there any money stolen?”
“No,” Cooper answered for him. “Just papers and lamps knocked off desks, and a glass bottle thrown against the wall.”
I looked at Doc, who’d returned to our circle again. Would he be able to sniff out any residual ectoplasmic signs from the imp? Cooper had already shown that he couldn’t see or even feel the imp when it sat on his shoulder. Harvey, on the other hand, could hear it for some reason, but that was it.
“So, what do you want me to do?” I leaned into Doc, letting his body block the wind that was beginning to make my cheeks numb. “Go into the bank and see if I can sense any residual energy left behind by this spirit?”
Hawke snorted. “That sounds like a bunch of hokum to me.”
I glared at him. “Then why in the hell am I standing here after midnight freezing my ass off, Detective?”
“If you’re truly a medium, like Coop here says you are,” he started.
“I never said that,” Cooper bit out.
Hawke continued anyway. “Then you can see ghosts, right?”
“Sure,” I said, lying like a pro. Whatever it took to let this horse out of the starting gate.
“I want you to watch the surveillance tape with me and tell me what you see. I looked at it already and there’s nobody there, but the boys from Lead are spooked by what they saw.”
“Ohhh.” I finally figured out what my purpose was here. “What you really want me to do is watch the camera feed and tell the other coppers that there’s nothing roaming around in the bank even if I do see something.”
“You’re not going to see anything,” Hawke said, sounding so darn certain of it.
“But Detective Cooper said papers were knocked to the ground and a bottle was smashed?”
“I think someone around here is fucking with us,” Hawke said, wrinkling his upper lip. “Playing a practical joke.” His gaze narrowed. He stepped closer, bearing down on me. “You wouldn’t happen to have any idea who that might be, would you, Witch Parker?”
Doc pulled me aside, taking my place in Hawke’s face. “Couldn’t this have waited until tomorrow morning, Detective?”
“Maybe,” Hawke said, easing back. “But the boys over there are nerved up. They don’t need to go home and start spreading rumors about a ghost in town. Real medium or not, your girlfriend can calm them down and keep things under wraps for us.”
“She’s only a medium,” Doc said. “Not a psychiatrist.”
Hawke shrugged. “Same difference. They both screw with your head.” He pointed toward the front doors leading into the grocery store. “The bank entrance is inside to the left. The security guard is in there waiting for us. Let’s get this over with so Cooper can get to the station and write up the report on it.”
I looked back and forth between Cooper and Hawke. “Why does Detective Cooper have to write the report? You’re the one on duty tonight.”
“Because I have other unsolved cases starring you to work on. I don’t have time for this petty shit.”
They didn’t all star me, only a few, but I didn’t bother to correct him. “Detective Cooper doesn’t have time either.”
“Parker,” Cooper said and shook his head.
“Yeah, listen to your good buddy.” Hawke spouted, a superior gleam in his eyes. “After all, you two are joined at the hip these days.” He leered at me. “And who knows where else.”
“Don’t push your luck tonight,” Doc said.
“Is that a threat?” Detective Hawke puffed up his chest.
“No, it’s a prediction,” I said, shivering deeper into my coat. “If there is an entity inside the bank, it might pick up on your negative energy and be attracted to it. I’d hate to have it latch onto you like a ghost tick. Many spirits are known to be parasitic in nature, siphoning negative energy off people. Remember The Amityville Horror and what happened to that family?”
“That was just a movie,” Hawke pooh-poohed. “Besides, that was about devil possession, not a ghost parasite.”
I smiled with my big clown smile again. “Was it?”
Hawke recoiled at whatever he saw on my face.
“That’s enough terrorizing for tonight, Madam Medium.” Doc draped his arm over my shoulders, leading me toward the glass doors. “Remember,” he said in my ear, “No matter what you see on the video, stay cool and be vague. Detective Hawke will be watching you, looking for anything that proves you to be a fake in his eyes.”
“But I am a fake,” I whispered back.
“Not really. I think you have more supernatural abilities in your pinkie than most of us do in our whole body.” He kissed my temple and then stepped forward and held the door for me.
A tall police officer with a blunt chin opened one of the bank doors for us. I led the way inside, noticing the smell of fresh dirt in the air from the plants that had been knocked over. Doc followed, sniffing. Was he picking up a ghost? Or could he actually smell the imp? Raised brows aimed his way earned me a quick “No” shake of the head.
The cop
ushered the way into a back room before I could introduce Doc or myself to him.
“Spooky Parker is here,” he told a guy wearing a patch with “Security” sewn on it over his left breast pocket.
Spooky Parker? I frowned at Doc.
He tweaked my chin. “It appears your reputation precedes you, Short Medium.”
I gave him a brief smile at his play on the nickname Cornelius usually used for him. “Yeah, and that has me a little worried from the get-go.”
“You can do this.” He kissed my forehead, and then he looked at the cop who’d let us in the bank door. “I’ll be right back. Don’t start the show without me.” Doc walked over to the cop, saying something I couldn’t hear that won him an easy smile from the officer.
That left me alone with the security guard. “Hi, uh …” I glanced at the tag pinned on his shirt and read, “Bill. I’m Violet Parker.” Not Spooky Parker. “That guy over there is Doc Nyce.”
Bill appeared to be about Harvey’s age, maybe older. His white hair was thin on top but thick at his ears. His shoulders stooped a little, but the rest of him looked fit as a fiddle. His white moustache twitched at the ends as he looked me over.
He leaned closer, smelling like minty cologne, and lowered his voice. “I’ve heard all about you, Sparky.”
Sparky! Uh-oh. Heard what? From whom? This could go either way for me. “You have?”
His pale-green eyes reflected the half-wall full of video screens behind me. “Word on the street is that you’re making an honest man out of Willis Harvey.”
If my eyebrows shot any higher, they’d have busted through the ceiling. “Come again?” Getting married to Harvey? I was already hitched to a dead old guy, thanks to my sister. Harvey would have to get in line.
Bill wheezed. “Old Willis is quite a catch. He’s made it all of these years without getting locked into a double yoke.” He shrugged. “But you are quite a whippersnapper, according to the ladies down at the senior center. It’s no wonder you stole the Mongoose’s heart. Although some of them windbags think that Harvey’s nephew is the big fish you’re really trying to hook.”
Cooper? “They do?”
“Yep. But if that’s true, you’d better be careful. If he’s anything like those TV detectives, they tend to go sour in the head what with all of the pressure put on them to solve crimes.” Doc joined us about that time, drawing Bill’s gaze. “So who’s this doctor of yours? You travel with your own physician?”
“Sure.” I chuckled at the absurdity of what I’d heard was being spread over at gossip central. Patting Doc on the chest, I played along. “This here’s my gynecologist.”
Bill’s eyes widened. “No kidding?”
“Uh, Violet?” Doc sounded like his throat was squeezing his vocal chords.
“I’m just joshing you, Bill.” I put my hand beside my mouth and whispered, “This big fish here is my lover. Tell those gals at the senior center that Ol’ Man Harvey refused my offer of marriage and broke my heart. But before I landed in the gutter with nothing more than a bottle of tequila to keep me company, Doc Nyce here came along and swept me off my feet.”
“He did, huh?” Bill eyed Doc from head to toe. “Yep, he’s a biggun’ all right, that’s for sure.”
“He sure is.” I gave Doc a saucy wink. “Now, Bill, back to business. Detective Hawke wants me to take a look at the tape from earlier tonight. He thinks you might have a ghost on your hands.”
Bill’s grin flipped into a worried frown. “It sure appears that way.” He leaned over the computer keyboard and punched a couple of keys. “Here,” he said, pointing at one of the lower screens. “See for yourself.”
Cooper and Hawke joined us as the video started playing. Hawke hovered beside me, both feet in my personal space, as usual, while I leaned down to watch the screen. I resisted the urge to shove him away and focused on the video.
The feed was a little grainy, the scene in monochrome only. I watched for several seconds as nothing happened. Then a pile of papers flew off the corner of a desk in the lower right part of the screen.
I bent closer, squinting as the small, raisin-skinned imp who’d thrown its candy at my windshield ran across the screen and leapt up on the bank teller counter. It lifted a bottle to its lips—a wine bottle from the looks of it—and tipped it back all of the way, guzzling down the drink. When the imp finished, it scowled at the bottle and tipped it upside down. Then he pounded on the bottom of it and held it up to his eye, staring inside of the bottle. With a shriek that made me jump, which gained a suspicious look from Hawke, the imp chucked the bottle against the opposite wall, where it shattered like it had been blasted from a rocket launcher.
Then the little shit really went bananas, scattering more papers, throwing plants, jumping up and down on chairs and clawing up the fabric. Finally, after it finished what I guessed to be a tantrum, it ran off the screen.
Bill, the security guard, reached forward and hit the pause button. “That’s it. Nothing else happens after that.”
I chewed on my lip, wondering how I should handle this. Detective Hawke was watching me like I might sprout a pair of antennae at any moment.
“Well?” Hawke prompted, tapping his foot.
I glanced at Doc and then Cooper. Both wore frowns, the former staring at the video monitor, the steely-eyed other locked onto me.
“I think what we’re dealing with here is telekinesis.” At least I hoped that was the right word.
Doc glanced my way, nodding slightly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hawke asked.
Doc answered for me, saving me from making a bumbling mess of the situation. “Something is manipulating objects by way of extrasensory perception.”
“Like bending a spoon with your mind,” Bill whispered in awe.
“Exactly.” I took a step back from the video screen, narrowly avoiding Hawke’s foot. I thought about the bottle the imp had thrown. “Bill, did you see any evidence in the grocery store of foul play?”
He scratched his jaw. “Nope. None that I noticed.”
I looked to Hawke. “Have the police officers done a walk-through of the store?”
“Of course,” Hawke sounded as if my question offended him. “That’s the usual protocol at a crime scene.”
Yeah, but were they looking in the right place?
Doc’s gaze locked with mine, his eyes narrowing for a split second. He turned to Cooper. “Detective, would it be okay if Violet and I go take a look in the store?”
“Sure. Follow me.” Cooper led the way back out to the bank doors, holding one open for us. “What are we doing, Nyce?” he said under his breath before Hawke joined us.
“Checking out the liquor section,” I told him as I walked past. When he joined me en route, I added, “The little shit was drinking from the bottle before it chucked it at the wall.”
He snagged my arm as we passed a pallet of packaged noodles, slowing me down. “You could see it on the screen?”
Doc kept walking.
I nodded. “I take it you couldn’t.”
“I could only see the bottle moving around and then fly into the wall and explode.”
I turned to him, whispering, “I could see that and a lot more. The little sucker liked whatever he was drinking from that bottle and when it ran out, he got pissed. That’s why it threw the bottle.” I glanced ahead at Doc, who was skirting between two of the cash registers and heading for the liquor section of the store. “Come on, Cooper.”
Hurrying, I caught up to Doc. “It likes honey.”
“Right, and fermented honey is mead.” Doc glanced my way. “Remember the black bottle of mead from the crate in Mudder Brothers?”
I nodded. “A coincidence?”
“That seems like a stretch.” He looked at Cooper, who joined us in front of the boxed wines. “Look for mead or anything flavored with honey.”
The three of us searched the well-stocked shelves, searching for any signs of missing bottles while H
awke watched with a scowl on his face. Or maybe that was just his usual expression these days.
“This is a fucking waste of time, Coop. We brought Parker here to watch a video, not pick out the wine she wants to drink at her next fancy dinner party.”
When was the last time I threw a fancy dinner party? How about never? I picked up a bottle of Zinfandel to throw at the doubting doofus, but Cooper took the bottle from my hand and set it back on the shelf before I could follow through.
Doc was the one who noticed the missing bottle first. “Over here,” he called.
Cooper, Hawke, and I joined him. There was an empty spot on the shelf around knee level. The other bottles looked untouched, which surprised me. After the way the imp had wreaked havoc on the last two places in its search for honey, and over in the bank, why weren’t there other bottles smashed here?
“Haunted Hills Meadery in Custer,” Doc read on the label of the bottle that would have been next in line behind it, handing it over to me.
“Bingo,” I said, remembering how the imp had glugged it down, trying to get every last drop. Why hadn’t it taken two bottles?
Detective Hawke snatched the bottle from my hand. “So, you’re saying that a ghost came over here, grabbed a bottle like this one, carried it into the bank, and threw it against the wall?” He sounded like he’d believe my flying monkeys would be joining us next for a drink and some darts over at the Golden Sluice before he’d buy any of this.
I nodded. “Something like that.”
He snorted. “Why in the hell would a ghost take a bottle and then smash it against the wall?”
Because the imp was mad that it had run out of mead. Then again, maybe it was already half-crocked and on a bender. I couldn’t tell Hawke any of that, though, so I thought about how Doc might explain something like this, being that I was supposed to be a medium like him.
“Well,” I started, lacing my fingers together. “Some entities don’t realize that they are no longer alive. There is a chance that this particular ghost had an alcohol addiction back when he was still alive with a bad habit of robbing banks.”
Hawke was staring down at the label on the bottle, so he didn’t see Cooper roll his eyes at me. But I did.