Authors: Terri Persons
He walked through her condo door—without opening the door—while Bernadette was on her knees unpacking a crate of wineglasses. Frightened, she dropped a goblet on the floor and jumped to her feet. “Hey!”
“Not finished unpacking
yet
? Pathetic. And alone on a Saturday night? More pathetic still.”
“It’s Sunday.” She stumbled backward. “Go away.”
He pointed to the broken glass. “Should I get a broom?”
She held up her hands to fend him off. “Use it to fly away.”
“Wanted to congratulate you on the case. See if you wanted to—”
She cut him off. “I don’t want to do anything with you.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Not very neighborly.”
She backed up until she felt the sofa behind her legs. She put her hand over the front pocket of her jeans and was disappointed she felt no bulge; she’d left her gun on the kitchen counter. Then she told herself she was being ridiculous—she couldn’t kill a ghost. “You’re not my neighbor. You’re a dead guy. Get the hell away from me.”
The right side of his mouth curled up into a smirk. “You weren’t so eager to part ways last time we were together.”
She wondered if her heart was pounding so loud it would drown out her words. “I didn’t know you were…”
“So good in the sack?”
“This has never happened to me before,” she said defensively. “It’s not like I go around getting drunk with dead guys and hopping into their beds.”
The crooked smile vanished from his face. “It was a first for me, too. All of this is new.”
Was she the only living person able to make contact with him? Her fear was immediately overshadowed by intense curiosity. Maybe she could unravel how all of this worked. Could be it was connected to her sight. She lowered herself onto the couch, but sat on the edge in case she needed to escape quickly. “Let me get this straight. No one else has seen you? This haunting thing isn’t your regular gig?”
He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, stepped over the glass, and went around the box. “I made enough racket once to keep a couple from buying my place. The Realtor blamed it on pigeons or rats or some such nonsense. A little boy downstairs can see Oscar, but not me. Go figure. His parents told the kid not to pet strange dogs. If only they knew
how
strange.”
“Why can I see you? Is it something about me? Something about you? Something with this building? How were we able to…”
“Do it like bunnies?”
She frowned. “That’s not how I’d put it, but yes. How?”
“I have no idea why or how. I do know that it was wonderful. I hope you don’t push me away. Please don’t push me away. I’ve been so lonely, and now there’s someone who can see me and talk to me. Touch me.”
She crossed her arms in front of her. “We can’t…I can’t let that happen again.”
He opened his mouth to respond and then closed it. He thumbed to an armchair parked to the right of the couch. “May I?”
“Go ahead.”
“Appreciate it.” He plopped onto the cushion.
“What’s with the popping in or materializing or whatever? There was a time when you bothered to knock.”
He rapped twice on her coffee table. “How’s that?”
“Hilarious.”
He crossed his ankle over his knee. Oscar appeared on his lap. Augie stroked the dog’s back. “Bad dog. You should have knocked first.”
Bernadette started at the dachshund. “How did you make the dog do that? Appear like that?”
Augie ignored her question and ran his eyes around her condo. “Looks like you’re getting settled in. Nice. The motorcycle is a unique decorating touch. Didn’t notice it before.”
“It’s a dirt bike.”
“I should get one for my place. More interesting than a piano.”
“Your place. What happens when they sell it? Where’re you and Oscar gonna go then?”
He stopped petting his dog and flashed a wicked grin. “No one will
ever
want to buy my joint. I guarantee it.”
She had to smile along with him. “You’re evil.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m stuck here.”
Suddenly a dozen topics popped into her head. Life and death and the angels and the devil. A single question rose above the clutter. She had to pose it, even though she feared the answer. “Have you seen him?”
His brows furrowed. “Who?”
She immediately regretted asking; it would be better not to know. “Forget it.”
“Your Michael?”
Her stomach fluttered; Augie knew her husband’s name. She leaned forward, hungry for details. “He’s at peace? Happy? What’s it like for him? Is he in a better place?”
“How should I know? I’m stuck here. Unless a lot has changed since I was in Sunday school, a warehouse overlooking the Mississippi River is not the definition of heaven. I’m waiting for that
better place
myself.”
“You know too much about me and about the case. You knew my husband’s name. How did you know his name?”
“Look,” he sputtered, losing patience with her questions. “There’s a lot I don’t know, and a lot I do.”
“How? You must have some insight into the afterlife.”
“Why must I?”
She jumped out of her seat. “Because you’re a spirit or ghost or a poltergeist or whatever you want to call yourself! What
do
you call yourself?”
“
Dead guy.
Your terminology. Works fine for me.”
“Asshole dead guy.” She walked around the couch and headed into the kitchen. Bernadette yanked open the refrigerator and leaned one hand against the door. She prayed he’d be gone by the time she turned around. She pulled out a bottle of beer.
“I could go for three of those,” he yelled after her.
“Thirsty dead guy,” she muttered, pulling out two additional bottles and plucking a magnetic bottle opener off the refrigerator. She dropped it all on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“St. Pauli,” he said, picking up one of the bottles and popping off the top. “Excellent. This would have been my pick for a last drink—had those bloodthirsty animals allowed a last drink.”
She sat down and watched while he chugged. Through the green glass, she saw the beer disappear as he swallowed. “How does it work?”
He set his half-empty bottle down on the table and stifled a burp. “What?”
Before she answered, she picked up a bottle, pried off the cap, and took a long drink. She held the bottle on her lap, between her thighs. “How can you drink if you’re dead, and what about food? Your dog must poop. You were carrying a poop bag when we met.”
Oscar looked at the bottles on the table and whined. Augie retrieved his beer, cupped his hand in front of the dog, and poured a puddle into his palm. The dog lapped it up. “Boozehound.”
“August,” said Bernadette. “Augie. How does it work? How do you do things?”
He wiped his hand on his pants. “Elaborate. What
things
?”
“How did you light up your condo for me?”
“Let’s just say no one else in this building can hold a candle to our lovemaking—because they can’t find their candles.”
“You stole all that stuff from the other lofts.”
“I prefer the term
spirited away
.”
“Semantics. What about the champagne? How can you pour it? How can you drink? Can you get drunk?”
Augie tipped back the bottle and polished off his beer. He set the bottle down and reached for another. “I intend to. Hope you’ve got more in the fridge.”
“Dammit. Answer my questions.”
He yanked off the top of his second beer and tossed the cap and opener on the table. “Jesus H. Christ.
Can you get drunk? Does your pooch poop? Have you seen my suicidal hubby?
Is that the best you can do? No wonder the bureau is so fucked up. What about the big stuff? Holy crap. How about
Is there a heaven and a hell? Does God exist and is He pissed at us?
”
“Is He?”
“How should I know?” He lifted the beer to his mouth, tipped it back, and gulped.
“That’s why I didn’t ask those big questions.” She pulled the bottle from between her legs, took a long drink, and set her St. Pauli on the table. “You obviously don’t know. You can’t even tell me why you can drink beer. For a dead dude, you’re very ignorant about the hereafter. Maybe you need to take a night class. Read one of those dummy books—
Life After Death for Dummies.
”
He laughed in the middle of a chug, coughed, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Man, that feels good.”
“What?”
“Beer up my nose. Haven’t had beer up my nose since…” His voice trailed off.
“Do you think you’re still here—haunting the place, or whatever you call it—because there’re some loose ends related to your murder? I could help. Garcia says they never caught the guys.”
His face seemed to darken for a moment. “They never caught the guys because they’ve got it all wrong. And, for that matter, Garcia’s got it all wrong about his wife.”
Her eyes widened. “Tell me.”
“That’s another conversation, on another dark and windy night.” He took a swig of beer. “My turn. I’d like to fire off some questions about the crazy-priest case.”
“Why? You knew about shit happening in the case before I did. That warning about the wake. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“No problem. Like I told you: some things I know and some I don’t.”
“That dream. You were trying to warn me then, too.
A good priest.
”
“Dream? Now you lost me.”
She scrutinized his face and couldn’t tell if he was lying. Probably better not to know. “Never mind,” she said.
He polished off his beer. “Now, what about my questions?”
“It’s only been a week since we got our guy, and the file is still open.” She picked up her beer and took a sip. Wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “But what the hell. Who’re you gonna tell, right? Fire away.”
“Did you ever find Marta’s body?”
“Along the river, not far from where we found Archer. She was trussed up like the others.”
“How did the son-of-a-bitch lure her back to Minnesota so he could nail her?”
“He didn’t need a ploy to get Marta back to town. She had family and friends here. She bopped back and forth all the time. Unfortunately, that’s why no one reported her missing immediately. Work thought she’d extended her visit back home, and the folks here thought she was headed back to Milwaukee.”
“How’d he get her into the park, though? How’d he get all of them into the woods?”
“We think he forced them into his car trunk, drove them to the edge of the woods, and then marched them deeper inside at gunpoint. That’s our theory, at least. We found kick marks inside his car trunk.” Augie seemed genuinely curious and had good questions. The remnants of the lawyer in him? She found herself interested in what he had to say. “Does that sound plausible, counselor?”
He smiled. “All circumstantial evidence, but I won’t raise any objections.”
“What else you wanna know?”
“Archer’s hand ever turn up?”
“Still missing. Raccoon food.”
“Serves him right. Too bad Quaid didn’t chop off the perve’s rod and feed it to the squirrels.”
Her brows went up. “The noble defense attorney shows his true colors.”
“You know what most of us
really
think of our clients. Speaking of felons…Who was next on Quaid’s list? Was there a list?”
“There was.” She took a long drink. “Our computer guys found it in Quaid’s electronic files. He’d used his position in the prison ministry to snoop around and assemble a list of guys he wanted to execute after they got out.”
“What’s wrong with that? I like that. It’s better than the catch-and-release we have going on now.”
“Some of the folks on his list weren’t cons; they were judges and defense attorneys.”
“Kill all the lawyers and let God sort ’em out.”
She grinned. “You morphed two different bumper stickers with that one.”
“What set this all in motion was the home invasion and murders?”
“And his own inaction.”
His brows furrowed. “Come again?”
She hesitated. She didn’t know why, but she was about to tell Augie something she hadn’t even told Garcia. “Quaid hid in a closet in his parents’ bedroom while just outside the door his sisters were being raped and knifed. Imagine hearing those noises and being frozen with fear.”
“That’s understandable, actually.”
“But then he did the unthinkable,” she said. “He didn’t call the police or paramedics from the house. Didn’t go to the neighbors for help. He went all the way back to school and hid under the covers until the cops tracked him down to tell him his entire family had been wasted.”
“Was that a calculated move? Did he do all that to avoid being labeled a chickenshit, or was it some form of shock? Did he even remember witnessing what he’d witnessed back home?”
“I don’t know. Really don’t.”