Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (30 page)

“Why's that?” I dabbed fruitlessly at my tit with a napkin.

“A gentle hazard is always preferable to the alternative.”

My cheeks flamed; instantly his hand shot out to take my hand.

“Such flippant condemnations should never cross a gentleman's lips. I do apologize.” I dabbed more furiously. He took my napkin away. “That's quite enough, Lady Macbeth, the spot is not coming out without the handiwork of a dry cleaner.”

I sighed deeply, and confessed, “I'm pretty sure I flashed the cameras earlier like a drunk celebrity getting out of the limo.”

“You very nearly tore off my bollocks.”

I winced. “And yet, you people still try to get me to leave the house!”

Harry advised, “While your coffee mishap dries, perhaps you should practice speaking to other people without tripping over your tongue? There's a familiar face.”

He motioned with his chin subtly to a corner, where a frail elderly lady was sitting in an upholstered chair, sipping hesitantly from a Styrofoam cup. Her white hair glowed like a soft halo under discrete track lighting. On the wall directly above her was a large oil painting, a still life of fruit in a bowl done in deep jewel tones. It loomed over her in its heavy cherry wood frame that matched the deep reddish wood of the gleaming casket—I was guessing the best that money could buy—sitting ten feet from her.

“Is that Ruby Valli?” I whispered. “What's she doing here?”

“Paying respects, I should imagine. I understand she is the organist at the church the Davis’ attend, and was Kristin's piano teacher.”

That didn't sound right. Mrs. Valli was a precognitive, an ex-senior psychic investigator from First Floor at GD&C who had a reputation for dabbling in the dark arts. Why work in a Christian church? Perhaps the black magic mumbo jumbo was just a moldy old rumor that bore no merit. Or perhaps, I had just found a possible source for information about the flesh magic that reanimated Kristin Davis’ skull in my mailbox. Would it be dreadfully impolite to ask about dismemberment at the funeral of the victim of the crime? Probably I couldn't ask here. Ruby Valli looked directly at me through the crowded room. I smiled faintly, the restrained half-smile that you give at funerals, and approached her.

“Mrs. Valli?” She didn't seem to hear so well, from the frowning enquiry on her face, so I bent closer to her, spoke louder and introduced myself. When she shook her head in confusion, I explained, “We both worked at Gold-Drake & Cross. Well, actually, I came just after your retirement party. But I've heard so much about you over the years, I feel like we're colleagues.”

A beautiful, warm smile lit her face. “Oh, honey, that's sweet of you to say. What a terrible night this is. I wish we could have met under different circumstances.” And then, losing interest in me quite suddenly, she dismissed, “Well, it was nice to meet you, dear.”

I got the idea that if she'd been ambulatory, she'd have turned on her sensible heels and left me standing in open-mouthed rejection. As it was, I hovered, sure I'd been shooed by someone who wanted nothing to do with me, awkwardly wavering in my slut
shoes. I glanced uncertainly over my shoulder at Harry, who frowned encouragement at me.

“I, uh, I wonder if I could come visit you at your shop, Mrs. Valli? We could have a talk. Would that be okay?”

“My shop, dear?” She looked surprised that I was still standing there. Her eyes scanned me from head to toe through thick glasses, clearly not impressed with what she saw. “You don't come to my shop.”

“I don't?” I blinked. “When don't I?” I heard myself and shook my head. “I'd be wearing pants. What I mean is…” I lowered my voice. “Mrs. Valli, have you seen my future?”

“My shop burns down, dear,” she told me simply, as though she were discussing the weather, or the war in the Mid-East. “I learned a long time ago not to interfere with the visions I might be blessed with. I'm going to stay with my nephew in San Bernardino next week while I look for the new house. I find a nice little place on the West coast. Green vinyl siding.”

I didn't know what to say. Speaking to precognitives was always eerily confusing. Seers creep-out the rest of us: the Gropers, the Feelers, no one really likes to hear about what was coming. Before I could open my mouth again, Ruby Valli motioned to Hood and Dunnachie by the doorway with Batten. “There's one you need to watch more carefully, dear.”

“What do you mean?” I turned so my hips covered her view and they wouldn't see her talking about them. “Which one? Why?”

“The hunter, of course. I see fire from him. Fire and alcohol, the instruments of the devil. Not to mention dishonesty. He deceives you.” She looked up at me and blinked through her glasses. “Please keep clear of the shop. The bones are cast, but the future is fluid. I'd hate for anyone to get hurt on my account.” Ruby Valli struggled out of the chair to her feet and took two experimental, shuffling steps aside with the help of her cane, leaving me looking at the back of her curly-haired head.

Avoiding the grieving parents and keeping my jacket yanked over the warm, damp coffee stain, I strutted over to where Hood and Dunnachie had been left standing post. I found if I walked quickly and confidently enough, my ankles didn't have time to buckle and I
wasn't in as much danger of doing a face-plant. Hood watched me approach with a mix of uncertainty and poorly concealed amusement, his one hand leaving his side in case he had to catch me. Dunnachie's long, morose hawk face was barren of expression.

Hood nodded a hello. “Those shoes are murder on your arches. Better hope you don't have to dash off.”

“I am painfully aware of their limitations,” I assured him, accidentally getting caught in the swampy gaze that was still, I discovered happily, a blend of sympathetic and skeptical. Skeptathetic. Handsome; not in a cocky badass way like Batten, more of a corn-fed, clear-eyed cowboy way. “No Danika Sherlock yet.”

To his partner, Hood said, “Sweeping back entrance again.”

Deputy Dunnachie nodded, ignoring me completely. I followed the path of his gaze, tracing Harry's every elegant move across the room.

I asked Dunnachie, “The beetle bites didn't cause any lasting damage, I hope?”

“If the vampire hadn't been there, there wouldn't have been necrophile beetles in the first place.”

I'd never heard his voice before. He sounded like he'd had a hedgehog squatting in his voice box for the last decade that periodically tried to claw its way out. If he wasn't a whiskey-drinking chain-smoker, I'd eat my frog-print underpants.

“Well, that's debatable. There still would have been a severed head,” I said cautiously. “If that revenant hadn't squished the necrophile beetles, they'd have burrowed into your brain.”

I thought he was going to argue, but he surprised me with, “You have a very quick-thinking monster roommate.”

“Thanks,” I said, before I realized he was being glib. “I should tell you, in case you're wasting effort pursuing this: Harry didn't kill Kristin Davis.”

“Says you.” He didn't turn that long face of his down to look at me.

“Well, yeah.” Clearly, my word wasn't going to carry much water with this particular cop. “If it makes you happy to watch him, go for it. He is fascinating to look at. If you're trying to figure out why, it's the otherworldliness.”

His Adam's apple bobbed; his eyes were flat and unafraid like a well-fed alligator in a Florida gator farm. “Predators often revisit their victims.”

“The hell you say,” I gasped, feigning shock.

Irritation buckled his eyebrows. “This viewing is the perfect place for him to relive his crime.”

“I know all that junk. I work with Supervisory Special Agent Know-it-all,” I said. “But you're wrong about Harry. He had no intention of coming. He's only here to guard me.”

“And why are you here?”

“I'm a suspect?” I laughed, but it quickly died. “The only thing I've ever been accused of killing is a good time and a plate of cookies. The PCU wanted me here. Normally, I'd do the opposite of what everyone wants me to do, but since I have PMS and needed to come out for chocolate anyway, here I am.”

He finally looked down at me. Everything about Neil Dunnachie was sharp and craggy, from his aquiline nose to his high Spock-like eyebrows, to the worn, over-suntanned skin, making him look a lot older than he was. There were faint acne scars pitting his chin. I think that's why he grew a scruff of a goatee over it. A full beard would have worked better. Still, despite the odd angles and worn appearance, or maybe because of them, he was interesting to look at. He had not only a cop's competence and natural resilience, but something deeper, more personal, a bullshit-resistance inside hard eyes that had seen unspeakable things. Not a guy who got rattled easily. I had a feeling that no amount of feminine wiles would sway this man once he set his mind on something, and right now his mind was set on monster equals murder.

He asked me, “You got some place you'd rather be?”

“Chernobyl? A super-max prison yard? Up Shit Creek? Anywhere but here. Being here reminds me of my grandmother's funeral. My father giving me the silent treatment. My mother collapsed in a folding chair. My siblings bickering and being generally stupid. And in the middle of it all, oblivious to his new family, Harry… pale, cold and utterly devastated.” I didn't know why I was bothering to share, but the words came anyway. “Harry hung at my mother's side. I think she was the only one who felt the same degree of pain as he
did about Vi's passing. The grandchildren rarely saw her. My father was too self-interested to care. Harry… he seemed lost.”

I remembered my brand new Mary-Janes blistering and rubbing my heel. I remembered watching this stylish creature I'd inherited, wondering what exactly that meant, what he truly was—down to the science, although at the time, science wasn't my strong suit—how this was going to work. I remembered Vi's urn, and trying not to imagine her body being burnt into ashes on a slab…an urn, Harry had explained quietly, because she'd spent enough time in caskets. Her companion's casket, where she spent her days, sleeping curled at his side so they could be awake all night together. I remember thinking I might have to quit school, or take night classes, and would I ever have a job? Get married? Have children? Vi had a child: my mother. Harry was not the father; revenants have dead sperm. So was Harry ok with her sleeping with other men? With my grandfather, Matts? There had been so many questions I hadn't felt comfortable asking, competing for attention with my broken heart.

Dunnachie interrupted my thoughts. “He doesn't seem lost tonight.”

“Well, it's less personal, but he feels their sorrow, their devastation. Harry's an empathic revenant, that's one of his Talents. He's not even attempting to block it the way I am.” I needed another cookie, but the platter had been cleared away. I couldn't even get crumbs. “He's trying to alter the distress he's exposed to, by making the Davis’ feel better. In that way, he's more charitable than I am. I just want to go home and be done with this. I haven't even been able to go meet them yet, to shake their hands and say how sorry I am for their loss.” I rubbed my ungloved hands on my skirt to dry the sweat and left a smudge on the silk. I looked around for Harry. He was standing directly behind me and I jerked guiltily.

“Pardon us, officer.” He pulled me aside. “You are perspiring. Shall I take your coat?” He slid it off my shoulders and I made sure my silk shirt was covering my gun. It didn't cover it well, but no one would notice unless they looked right at my bum. “Agent Batten would like a word, and then I do believe we're taking our leave.”

“Thank the Lady,” I whispered. “I feel like we've been here all night. You know, Ruby Valli didn't want to talk to me. She didn't want me coming to her store, either.”

“Chances are, at her age, she does not have the energy for the pandemonium your company guarantees.” He looked like he completely understood; I elbowed him.

“She also said her store was going to burn down.”

Harry breathed a soft laugh out of his nose. “Seers make announcements. ‘Tis their only charge in life. Were she always right, she would be holding grand seminars like Ville Aaman, not turning tarot cards and selling tumbled stones in a magic shop.”

Batten's voice was a harsh hiss at the back of my head. “Are you wearing a fucking gun?”

I jumped guiltily again, set my lips in a line and craned over my shoulder. “Why are you looking at my butt?”

“You'll pass it to me, nice and slow,” he told me. “Then go make your condolences and go home.”

I took exception to the word “home”, like it was our place, not mine. I also took exception to relinquishing the only thing that was giving me a measure of confidence.

“No,” I shushed. “I've learned my lesson. My life sucks so bad that I need to be constantly armed. That's just a fact. I'm over it. I suggest you get over it, too. My gun doesn't leave my hip.”

“That's the dumbest thing I've heard you say,” Batten said low. “Give me the damn thing before you shoot yourself in the ass.”

“If you had allowed MJ a gun in Buffalo, she may not have been placed in such peril, may not in fact have been wounded at all,” Harry spoke up. The icy shadow of his body close to mine was familiar and comforting, but as Batten stepped closer on the other side of me, I could feel the impatient huff of steamy air as Mark took a deep breath and exhaled angrily. I was a hot-and-cold sandwich.

“You could have come to Buffalo,” Batten reminded Harry. “You chose to stay in Portland. It may have helped to have you there.”

Harry stiffened. Batten had finally found the thorn in his side.

“Buffalo. The Armpit of America. Too right, I could have prevented much had I been there. A pity.” After a meaningful glare, he stalked away. Batten watched him go with new interest.

“I hit a nerve with Tall, Limp and Pasty?”

“Don't call him that.” I floundered. “He's not tall.” And he's not always limp.

“All right,” Batten agreed, sliding his hand to my hip, taking the gun. His lake-bottom blue eyes dared me to argue as he tucked my gun somewhere behind him. “Does Lord Fancy Pants have a problem with Buffalo?”

“Specifically with Cheektowaga,” I said pointedly.