I searched the parking lot again to see if anyone was watching me, but it was empty of people, creatures, and deities.
There was no date on the envelope or the paper, but someone inside would know when the mail had been delivered, and how. If this had come to the casino via some unusual way, I wanted to know the details.
I tucked Thanatos’s contract into the glove compartment and locked it, then walked back into the casino, my nerves tight, even though I didn’t let it show.
Myra had the gift of always being where she needed to be at the right time. Jean could tell when something bad was going to happen and usually had an idea as to what it was.
My family gift was a little different.
What I hadn’t told Thanatos, because it wasn’t his concern, was that the only way a god power could be given to a mortal was through me. I was the bridge between mortality and the immortal, a wire through which power could travel and connect to its new host.
That was a family thing too, handed down through the generations. It didn’t always show up in the firstborn—there was a great-great grand uncle Otis, who was the sixth-born, and he had been one of the best bridges for power transfer.
Dad had been the most recent bridge. He’d made me stand with him one time when I was fourteen to watch him endure that pain. Endure that power.
I’d had nightmares of it for years afterward.
So far, I hadn’t had to bridge a god power. Not a single god had died while on vacation in the last year. Not even Poseidon, who was a chronic idiot when it came to staying alive as a mortal.
If I had any say in it, no god ever would.
I strode back into the casino to do my due diligence. I’d check in with the cashier and anyone else who had seen the envelope delivered. Find out who had dropped it off. Then I’d head back to town before Death got there.
Chapter 6
I PULLED into the station. Six cars filled the parking lot—one was Myra’s squad car. One was Roy’s sleek convertible. Two had tow tags on them, and one was Jean’s truck. The other was a sedan—Washington plates. Out-of-towner.
I dragged my hair back into the rubber band and swung into my official jacket, the white envelope in my pocket. I dug Thanatos’s contract out of the glove box and strolled in.
Roy sat behind the counter and switchboard. He was a big, amiable man in his seventies. His wide, dark face supported a thick white mustache and a shock of white hair trimmed tight to his skull, making his bright brown eyes stand out. He worked LAPD dispatch back in the day, retired up here to Ordinary, and was one of the few mortals who knew the town’s secrets.
“Afternoon, chief,” he said.
“Afternoon, Roy. How’s the day?”
“Smooth sailing.”
He always said it was smooth sailing. If a sinkhole swallowed up the station and dropped us all into a volcano, he’d say it was smooth sailing until the last sizzle.
Myra stood at her desk talking to the out-of-towner—a businessman who was waving a parking ticket in her face. She glanced up at me over his shoulder, her light blue eyes narrowing a moment. I gave her a
later
nod, and she went back to not changing her mind for the guy.
I strolled to the record room, which was just a little storage space with shelves for cleaning supplies on one wall and files on the others. I stashed Thanatos’s contract in the hidden safe we used for temporary keeping until it could be stored back home in our family vault.
I didn’t lock up the white envelope. I wanted to show it to Myra.
By the time I walked back out, the parking ticket guy was out the door.
“So did you give him the small-town rent-a-cop break?” I asked Myra, using the insult he’d last thrown at her.
“I gave him the small-town hospitality of not throwing him in jail for being an ass.”
Roy chuckled. He was working on his newest Rubik’s Cube, which looked tiny in his hands. He had a collection of them. I had no idea why.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“He signed. So I expect him to swing by for his welcome packet in the next day or so.” I dropped my jacket across my chair and sat.
“What does he look like?”
“Thin. Meticulous. Pale. Black suit and eyes. Elegant undertaker sort. I think he’d be hard to miss.” I dug the envelope out and handed it to her.
She scanned the name. “Typewriter?”
“Yep.”
“Did he give this to you?”
“No. It was left at the drop. Delivered by normal means. The cashier said it arrived like all the others: in a sealed, prepaid postal box.”
“Weren’t you just out there Friday?”
“This showed up today. Same route driver.”
Myra pinched it so that the envelope yawned open. She tugged out the paper and read it.
“What in the hell does that mean?”
“I have no idea. Thoughts?”
“Thanatos?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t strike me as the type who would go through the mystery of whatever this is. I think he’s the kind who would enjoy telling bad news to someone face to face.”
She scanned the back of the envelope and held it up to the light. “Could it have something to do with the explosion?”
“I don’t know. Did you find anything?”
She replaced the letter in the envelope and handed it back to me. I dropped it into my In box.
“It was dynamite. About a half a stick.”
I nodded. That wasn’t going to do us a lot of good for narrowing down who the suspect might be. Plenty of people in this area had dynamite. Especially anyone with land that needed clearing.
“I’ve gone through the photos. Can’t see any evidence of who might have snuck into his backyard to blow up the garden patch, but it was a direct hit. Only his rhubarb was destroyed.”
“And his burn pile,” I added.
She nodded. “That was a favor, if you ask me.”
“So who in town doesn’t like Dan Perkin?”
“I think the shorter list is who in town doesn’t hate Dan Perkin.”
I nodded and scrubbed at my forehead. The lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. “Pearl likes Dan.”
“Pearl has a soft heart for everyone,” Roy said, finally joining the conversation.
I walked over so I could see him better. Also to make coffee, because I hadn’t had nearly enough pots of it yet today. “You have insight on this one, Roy?”
“Not really, no. But I think if someone had been out to kill Dan, or to do him any real harm, they wouldn’t have blown up his burn pile. Just as easy to stick dynamite under his house. Or his car.”
I agreed with him. This was sounding more like a case of criminal mischief with the intent to harass. Certainly damage of property too, but not something intended for a lethal outcome.
“Did you check the hardware and feed store?” I asked Myra.
“Yes. They’re going through their books and will be sending me a list of people they’ve sold dynamite to in the last few months.”
I scooped coffee into the filter and added a second helping.
“Hitting the hard stuff a little heavy today, aren’t you, chief?” Roy set the cube down. All the same colored squares were lined up on their respective sides, except for the corner square of each, which had the colors out of place.
“Not hard enough,” I said.
Myra gave me that look that said maybe I should knock off the coffee and take a nap instead.
“Maybe you should knock off the coffee and take a nap.”
Mind reader.
“Too much to do. Haven’t even started the report from this morning. Still need to hire someone to help out around here. Did either of you know Chris Lagon was seeing Margot from out of town?”
“Cowboy hat, feather-hair Margot?” Roy asked.
I nodded. The grumble of coffee filling the carafe soothed my nerves with the sweet promise of un-soothing them.
“They’ve been off and on for the last week or two.” Myra plunked a tea bag in her mug, then poured hot water out of the electric kettle into it.
Roy made a “hm” sound. He didn’t miss the things going on in town, but he wasn’t a gossip.
“Do you want to let us in on that?” I asked.
“She’s Lila Carson’s sister, you know.”
“I did not know.” I poured coffee into my mug even though the pot wasn’t done brewing. “Thought her name was Lapointe?”
“Divorced. Maiden name.”
“Has Lila been in town with her too?”
Myra swished the tea bag, then looped it around the handle of her mug. “I saw Lila and Margot at their old place last week.”
“The antique shop?”
Their parents had opened a curiosity and antique shop that could not be missed, since they’d painted it cotton-candy pink with turquoise trim. It had drawn tourists and turned a good profit under their care for years. But when they’d retired to Arizona, Lila had inherited it.
She’d reluctantly returned from Paris, cleaned out the place, and changed the old candy-colored antique shop into a fussy importer of Parisian art and decor.
It hadn’t turned a profit since.
“I thought she was done with this town,” I said.
“She didn’t leave because the business was failing,” Myra said quietly.
I knew exactly why she’d left. She’d been dating a god—Heimdall, to be exact. She hadn’t known he was a god. That was another unbreakable rule deities had to follow—no sharing the secret. She thought he was a fisherman who took people out on whale-watching trips in the spring.
And yes, he was a fisherman. Nice, quiet-spoken man for the god who was supposed to alert all the gods in Valhalla that Ragnarok was upon them.
It never ceased to amaze me that the gods worked jobs during their mortal vacation that had nothing to do with their god powers.
The quiet of the sea had been Heimdall’s chosen profession.
Still, he had a little of that light that gods, even unpowered gods, carried. Some mortals were more susceptible to it. Moths to eternal flames.
Lila Carson had fallen fast and hard for the quiet fisherman.
It had lasted two years, then Heimdall—or Heim, as he preferred to be called—had broken up with her.
Heim might be a quiet fisherman, but Lila Carson and her broken heart did not leave that relationship quietly. Furiously would be a better term.
Vengefully.
Great. Just what I needed in my town. A jilted ex-lover to a god.
“So we’re keeping eye on Margot and Lila,” I said.
“I’ll make sure Chris knows that Margot and Lila are sisters,” Myra said.
“Better go out now and tell him,” I said. “The easiest disaster to deal with is the one we can prevent.”
“Sure.” Myra shrugged into her jacket. “Oh, and Jean got a line on someone for temporary help. You okay with us hiring without your input?”
“Able body, listens to orders, not Dan Perkin, and it’s fine by me.”
I thought I caught an all-too-satisfied smile before she started toward the door. “Good. We’ll do paperwork, then introductions tonight at Jump Off’s around seven.”
“Why are we conducting a hire in a brewery?”
“Because you need to eat a decent meal, and the casual setting will make getting to know our new team member more pleasant.”
“Who put you in charge of office decisions?”
“You did. Just now.” She paused at the door. “As soon as you get that report done, go home and get some sleep.”
“Not my boss.”
She snorted. “Call it a strong suggestion from a coworker. Take a long lunch break, okay? Roy will call if something else blows up.”
Roy gave a quick two-finger salute, then went back to clicking the Rubik’s Cube.
I shook my head and watched her stroll out the door. Death, destruction, and a pile of paperwork. What a way to start the day. I took a drink of the coffee.
It went down bitter and thick, and I chuckled. If Myra and Jean really had roped someone into helping us out, I’d make them do my paperwork.
“Any idea who they have on the hook to hire?” I asked Roy as I settled in at my desk again.
“Nope.”
I was pretty sure he was lying.
“Any reason why you’re lying to your boss?”
This time he smiled, though he didn’t take his eyes away from the cube. “Yep.”
The phone rang, and he answered it. By the time he was done taking down the information about a car that had been sitting in the community garden parking lot for the last six days, a car that was either filled with brown clothes or clown clothes—I couldn’t quite catch the details—the coffee had done its trick and I was deep into my report, making headway.
~~~
I PARKED below my house. It was evening, just a little after six, and already getting dark.
Even in the warm enclosure of my car, I could hear the ocean, could hear the rain on the roof, the wind smoothing the tough, twisted coastal pines.
The day had just never let up, and I was utterly beat. I’d pulled together my report on the explosion and all the people I’d talked to, then had followed up on Odin’s complaint that Zeus had purposely trashed his favorite chainsaw when he’d borrowed it. After that, it was six phone calls from Dan Perkin, who wanted to know when I was arresting Chris Lagon. He’d called three more times since then, but I’d let them all go to voice mail.
Jean stumbled in late to take over the switchboard from Roy—wouldn’t game all day, my ass—and Roy cut out early because he had grandchildren coming to visit. It had been nonstop fires to put out all day.
I had an interview to conduct in less than an hour. In a bar.
How had I let Myra talk me into that?
I think it was the promise of a decent meal I didn’t have to cook.
What I wanted to do was sleep for about a day. But I needed to shower, change. Maybe do something with my hair.
At least Thanatos hadn’t shown up yet. Maybe he would tomorrow. Or better yet, maybe he’d come to town tonight while Jean was on duty. Good. Let her handle our newest vacationing deity.
All I had to handle was one new hire. And since Myra and Jean had already picked him or her out, I could just eat my burger and fries and pull the friendly-but-stern boss act.
Piece of cake.
I picked up Thanatos’s contract and got out of the Jeep. My very steep concrete stairway built into the hill might as well have been carved into the side of Mt. Everest. I slogged up the stairs.