Murder at Chipmunk Lake

by Mary Hughes

  Olyeo unlocked and opened the building’s door, nodding my husband inside. To me, the dark doorway gaped like a monster’s maw.

  Julian simply strode through.

  I hopped out of our car and followed. As I passed Olyeo, I resisted the urge to accidentally knee him in the groin. Hey, I’ve grown up some. The fact Snagrat might have seen me and gotten ideas had nothing to do with it.

  Inside the hut it was shadowy. I made out a blob in the center which seemed to be a cage of some sort.

  “What’s going on?” I stepped through the doorway onto concrete floor.

  The commissioner flipped on lights. Cinder block walls were painted washable-gloss gray. The cage was metal bars covered with wire mesh. A toilet and two plastic lawn chairs were inside the cage.

  The metal fire door shut behind Olyeo with a final-sounding clang. “Small change of plans. Things to do, people to see.” He wiped his brow. “Emerson, you’ll wait in there until Parker is free to transport you to the county complex.”

  “Is that an animal cage?” Julian said.

  “Whatever it was, it’s the town’s temporary lockup now. Get in.”

  Both Julian and I impaled him with pointed looks.

  Olyeo put up both palms. “Hey, you try outfitting a department on a budget of couch change. A buck ninety-eight doesn’t go so far these days. We repo’d the place for back taxes and it makes a dandy holding cell for sobering up drunks. It’s also near the road between the town and the county seat, so it’s handy to lock up the odd real criminal waiting for transport. Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe and you won’t be here long. A day at most. Now, get in.”

  “Of course.” Julian sauntered urbanely inside. Probably thinking what I was—the cage was wire, not lead. Once the commissioner was gone my hubby could just mist out.

  Murphy Q. Fubar must’ve taken that as a challenge.

  Olyeo shut the door and shot the bolt. A buzz sprang up, a sixty-cycle hum.

  Julian fell back a step from the wire mesh walls, neck stiff.

  “What happened?” I rushed closer. “What is that sound?”

  “Nixie, stop.” Julian held up a frantic palm.

  Olyeo flipped a rubber-covered metal U over a tab, slipped a padlock into the U, and clicked it shut. “It’s electrified. Shutting the door automatically closes the circuit.”

  I swallowed bile. This was bad. Julian could mist through anything except thick lead, running water—and electrical current.

  But he could voice his way out. I touched my throat and twitched my eyebrows significantly.

  He simply sighed and pointed.

  The commissioner was already through the red fire door.

  With a grimace, I hurried outside.

  He was at his car. “Okay, Ms. Emerson. Let’s go.”

  “No, wait. I want to stay with my husband.”

  Olyeo shook his head. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

  “You’re leaving Julian here alone?”

  “The cage will protect him. Now, come on. I’ll lead you back to the main road.”

  “A bad guy with a good wire cutters—”

  “Will only get the bad guy electrocuted.” He frowned at me. “And don’t you get any funny ideas.”

  “No ideas. No wire cutters. You can search.” I held up my arms. Meanwhile my brain was churning. “I really need to talk to my husband. Five minutes?”

  He considered me, then brushed past me to the hut’s door, unlocking it. “Two minutes. Then I’m gone. Don’t leave anything inside. The door will lock on your way out.”

  “Got it.” I was hoping he’d come in where Julian could voice him, but unfortunately he stayed right where he was. So, Plan B. I traipsed nonchalantly into the hut and waved. He released the door and it again clanged shut.

  I turned to my husband and dropped the act. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Julian was prowling his cage like a big, black-maned lion, examining bars and furniture alike for weaknesses.

  “The holes in the mesh are pretty big. Can you mist through them?”

  “The electrical field extends past the wires. But I’ll try.” He poofed his body into a Julian-shaped cloud. The cloud condensed into a stream of smoke like a misty snake, and arrowed for one of the mesh openings.

  Zap. The tip of the smoke snake flamed like a candlewick catching fire.

  Julian snapped solid, reeling. The end of his nose was on fire.

  “Are you okay?” I lurched toward him.

  “Nixie, no! Don’t touch the wire.” He slapped a hand over his nose. “The current is strong. Enough to shock baby Fred.”

  I pulled up short. “I like Fred, rather.”

  He raised a black brow. “Maybe you’ve already been zapped?”

  “I’m okay. Are you?”

  “Healing.” He lifted his hand. His poor aristocratic schnoz looked like a charred sausage.

  “Dam…is a mother horse. Wish I had those wire cutters Olyeo was talking about.”

  “There may be another option.” He knelt and ran his fingers along the floor.

  “Oh, right. The Z axis.” I breathed out some of my tension. Most people forget to look above and below. Not my brilliant master vampire. The concrete floor was smooth except for two features—the toilet and a drain. “So mist through the water. That wouldn’t kill you.”

  “No. But mist takes concentration. Water…tickles.”

  “I thought that was just running water.”

  “Running water hurts, but all water is distracting. And the drain…” His fingers disappeared into the floor, and when he rose to his feet, he didn’t look happy. “Not the drain, either. The water table is too high. The ground is soaked, right up to the bottom of the concrete.”

  “You can’t mist out at all?”

  “No.”

  The room spun and my stomach tried to flush out my bowels. My husband was stuck in that cage.

  Chapter Nine

  I tried to talk myself down. It wasn’t like Julian was in immediate danger.

  Me, on the other hand…crap. I’d expected to have him by my side to figure out this stalker-murder thing.

  While I’ve been confused and out of my depth before, I’d never felt quite so vulnerable. I opened a hand over my belly and squeaked, “But I can’t leave you.”

  “Nixie, sweetheart. It’ll be all right.” He reached for me. I reached out in return.

  Spark, snap, flash!

  We both jumped back. His hands jerked up; his fingers were on fire.

  My stomach dropped out my sphincter. I stood there, quivering between needing to comfort him with touch and needing to keep away from deadly zapping stuff.

  He blew the fires out, grimacing in pain. Deflamed, I could see why. His fingers were crispy.

  “It’ll be all right,” he repeated. As he spoke, bits of charred flesh dropped off, showing new pink skin underneath.

  “Of course it will.” I took a couple deepish breaths to bring my guts under control. Vampires healed just about anything. Didn’t mean it was pretty or painless, but they healed. “What happened?”

  “My digits interacted with the electrical current. Typically, humans will merely suffer an electric shock, but my physiology operates with significant differences.”

  “You mean getting zapped is harder for v-guys.” I’d managed to whittle Julian down to words used in the last five hundred years, but under stress his vocab still rocketed up the syllable count. “So you can’t tear the mesh with your super-strength. How are we going to get you out, then?”

  His expression went grim, never a good sign. “For now, I’m not getting out.”

  My heart started pounding again. “But you have to get out. The local law thinks you’re their perp, thanks to the terrible trio, who probably really did it. Dam…ing up a river, if only you could play your ace. You couldn’t have killed Caldwell because you can’t be out during the day—”

  “Which would only make them
suspect you.”

  “Shi—mmy me a dance.” I stared at him. “Right.” I closed my eyes briefly and shook my head. “Bottom line, if they’re looking at either of us, it means they’re not looking for the real perp. So we have to. Which means getting you out.” I opened my eyes and tried to see a way. He could have bent the inch-thick bars like rubber—if they weren’t electrified. The metal mesh with its half-inch diameter holes would have been craters to his mist—again, if electricity didn’t figure in. “Stupid Edison.”

  “Volta.”

  “Huh?”

  “Electrical pioneer. Volta, or Faraday. Volta invented the voltaic pile or battery, while Faraday invented the electric motor, both well before Edison was even born. Or Benjamin Franklin—”

  “Or Logan Steel.” I snapped my fingers. Our Side had a techie guru. Steel’s talented brain was hidden behind golden movie star looks and a deadly grace, but what obscure tech problems he couldn’t solve, his wife Liese could. “Maybe he can work some of his magic.”

  “Not unless he really can work magic. Six hours minimum to drive up here, remember?”

  “Six hours is waitable.” I started to ease myself to the floor.

  “Nixie, no.” He swallowed hard. Whatever was coming next, he didn’t like it. “Sweetheart, I’m in a cage. I can’t protect you.”

  “There’s a locked door.”

  “And we still don’t know who killed Caldwell. If it’s one of my kind, locked doors are no challenge.” He shook his black head. “Even human criminals have been known to pick locks.”

  Like the terrible trolls, he meant. “They don’t know we’re here.” But I stayed on my feet. My frustration translated into motion; I stalked around the room, trying to do a root canal on my hair with my fingers. I stalked full circle back to my husband and nailed him in the eye. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to be safe.” His eyes were pleading. “Get in the car and drive home.”

  He was really concerned. It scared me. “You mean Meiers-Corners home? I’m not leaving you up here by yourself.”

  He searched my eyes and must’ve read my determination because he caved a little. “At least go somewhere you’ll have people around you. Please, Nixie. Olyeo won’t wait forever. I’m relatively safe here, but I don’t want you walking through that clearing alone.”

  “I’ve taken care of myself for twenty-six years. I’m sure I haven’t forgotten how in seven months.” Except somehow it felt like I had forgotten, and my bravado fell flat. “Besides, where would I go?”

  “What about that tavern Ann mentioned, where we could get milk at odd hours—the Thunder Tap?”

  I have to admit the idea of being around other people was appealing. But the thought of him trapped here… I glanced around, trying to see the place from a v-guy point of view. A single window, high above. Not terribly big, but it faced east. When the sun rose it would flood this place with killing rays.

  Julian, in his cage, didn’t have a lot of wiggle room.

  His gaze followed mine and his jaw muscles jumped. But he said “Don’t worry” yet again, which only made me worry all the more. Nothin’ fazed my vampire lawyer, but this obviously did.

  “Too late. I’m officially shook. I’m calling Steel.” I pulled out my cell and immediately felt better. Action always helped. I thumbed through my contacts…but didn’t find the name. I was breathing fast, about to panic, when I saw Liese Schmetterling’s face. She’d been Logan’s wife for a while now—I’d played their wedding—but between band things and vampire things and urping pregnancy things, I hadn’t gotten around to updating my address book. I slapped a hand to my breastbone to slow my thumping heart and put the call through.

  “Hi, Nixie.” Liese answered, out of breath, but that was par for v-spouses. The guys were monsters after all, with libidos to match. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to pick your brain. Feel free to let your pretty guy chime in.” Pretty. I snorted. I called him that because of his shoulder-length blond mane, but Logan Steel was one of those few lucky guys whose long hair only enhanced his masculinity. “Julian’s stuck in an electrified cage.” I described the setup. “Any ideas how to get him out?”

  There was some murmuring in the background. “Nothing we can do from here,” Liese said. “We’ll jump in the car and come up.”

  “Problem. There’s an east window. I need something before dawn.” Before the sun fried my husband to a crisp. Now near midnight, sunrise an early 5:25 this far north, it wouldn’t leave them a lot of wiggleroom for bad roads or bathroom breaks. “Isn’t there something I can do now?”

  “If you were an engineer, sure. The thing is, the cage might have zones, which wouldn’t fail all at once.” She went on, liberally throwing around words like ohms and amperes, until I cut in.

  Rude, but Liese was a geek, brilliant, but she considered every last detail absolutely essential. No “cutting to the chase” for her. If minds were trees, she’d brachiate the twiggiest extremities for hours, working her way to the trunk while my phone battery died. Normally I enjoyed listening to her, but in this case, time was awastin’.

  “Liese, chill. Can you explain in words I get?”

  “Oh. Well, you’ll have to be careful not to get electrocuted. Get a metal bar, copper or iron or something conductive. Then short the thing out. It might take more than one.”

  I grinned. “Awesome.”

  “Nixie, wait. Make sure you get the right tool, all right? The wrong one could fry your motherboard.”

  “It might hurt the baby?”

  “Yes. Are you sure we can’t come up?”

  “Not unless you can fly.”

  “I’m sorry, Logan can’t shapeshift yet.”

  I shook my head. She was sooo literal. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “Nixie—remember. The right tool.” Her tone was urgent.

  “Yup, got it. Bye.” I ended the call and turned to my hubby, all gloomy-faced behind his bars. “She said I need to find a metal rod.”

  “I heard. Be careful.”

  “Right. I’ll start here.” I turned in place like a pregnant barber pole. The silo wasn’t that big and it was soon apparent there were no metal bars inside other than the electrified ones holding my hubby.

  Ignoring Julian’s pleas to go with the commissioner and leave him to his fate—as if—I jury-rigged the door to stay open. I detached the strap of my purse, inserted the flat woven nylon between strike plate and latch and checked carefully to make sure it would stay. When I was satisfied, I left the concrete hut to search outside.

  Olyeo waited in his car. Seeing me, he beeped the horn. “Come on, let’s go.” Both his tone and his face shouted he wasn’t letting me stay one second longer.

  Phooey. I wanted to search the area for metal bars, but I’d need an excuse… Well, yeah. Obvious.

  I danced in place. “I need to…” I nodded toward the woods. Mother Nature’s outhouse.

  Olyeo glared.

  I grinned and pretended innocence while solemnly swearing that I was up to no good. I’d had a lot of practice.

  He rolled his eyes and jerked a nod toward the woodline. I let out a breath and trot-waddled for cover.

  Most work lights are LED these days, but the hut’s lamp, on a high post next to the building, was halogen. Its amber circle was barely enough to light the clearing. A foot into the woods was dark, hanging tree branches casting spooky-looking shadows between. The twigs were bony fingers reaching for me. Still, I tried looking for metal, accompanied by whoo-whoo noises and manic chirping, weird to a girl raised on car fumes and polkas. I had to work not to freak.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped and spun. Snagrat’s weight tossed me into a bobble and I nearly did a two-point landing on my keister.

  The commissioner stood glaring at me with his version of the Cop Awl o’ Truth that Elena used—which I’d been seeing and countering since we’d been pulling t
he tabs off our diapers. I pasted on innocence in the form of a smile. “I lost a button.”

  “Forget the button. We need to get going.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll lead you back to the trunk road. You can get anywhere from there.”

  I heaved a sigh. Even if there were a metric shitton of metal rods here, I wouldn’t see them, there were none in the holding pen, and both Olyeo and Julian were pushing me to get going. I can be almost as stubborn as my husband, but even I recognize when the Universe has put me on a one-way street.

  My best bet was to go. Not giving in, mind you. I was only looking farther afield for the metal bar. “Let me get my purse. Then you can direct me to the Thunder Tap.”

  I collected my purse and strap, let Julian know I was “following orders”—if you’re doomed anyway, might as well take credit, although he knew me well enough to be suspicious. I smiled my most brilliant smile and lifted my shirt, and while the pregnancy-enhanced girls waved hi and he stared like a deer-in-headlights, I yanked my shirt down and skedaddled.

  Now that I’d decided, I wanted to go as fast as possible. That eastern window meant my time was limited.

  Olyeo led me to the county highway, where he stopped and got out. I stopped behind him and buzzed down my window. He leaned in. “Head down this road until you reach blah-blah and go blah-blah until you see a long driveway. Can’t miss it.”

  I could miss it, because I was so turned around I didn’t know which way was east or west or even up and down—and frankly, my idea of triangulating my position is to drive until I hit Lake Michigan; without a big blue watery You Are Here, I was lost.

  Luckily, Eve would know. “Okay.” I waved bye, activated the GPS and searched for The Thunder Tap. Eve, the first lady of electronic devices everywhere, said “go straight” so I did.

  Eve turned me pretty quickly onto a narrow road lined by three-story trees meeting overhead, as dark and closed-in as a spooky train tunnel. I chilled. What if Eve had gone darkside too? Punk Rocker Killed By Disembodied Car Voice. Now there’s a tabloid headline.

  I was chewing my lips and about to turn back when the drive emptied into a large open lot. Stars twinkled reassuringly overhead. Several cars were already parked there. I breathed freer.