“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ve been laboring under a mountain of ticking clocks all night! With nary a chime or cuckoo among them.”
She nodded slowly. “Huh.”
I sighed histrionically. “One thing I am sure of though…”
Katie turned quickly. “What’s that?”
“That Donna Sanderson does have one hot little ass!”
Katie grabbed my arm roughly as we came even with the smoking study. “Oh, yeah?” She threw open the door. “Wanna see something hot, sailor? Come inside with me!”
She shut the study door behind us, twisted the lock.
I watched her with some surprise, turned to the narrow pull-out sofa dubiously. “We’re finally going to have sex and you pick this thing for a bed?”
Katie ignored me, switched on the bright overhead light.
I scrunched my face. “Ow! Look, the thing is, I’m a little shy. Could we turn down the lights, please? I have this abnormally large sexual apparatus, you see, and—“
“Knock off the shit and have a look at this.” She thrust the still-clenched hanky at me.
I took it, unfolded it. Blinked. Looked closer. Looked back up at Katie. “What? I have a booger?”
“Turn it over.”
I did. Finally glimpsed the thin trace of red.
Held the hanky closer. “What is it?”
“Smell it.”
I smelled the hanky. “Paint?”
Katie rolled her eyes, yanked back the piece of material. “It’s a good thing you’re inordinately prescient, Bledsoe, you’re certainly a lousy investigator!”
“So you’ve told me.”
“It’s blood, Sherlock. Fresh. From the surface of the carpet ball.”
I took back the hanky, held it under the light. “You can tell that just by smelling?”
“With my eyes closed and a week-old cold. I’ve seen hundreds of those stains on every kind of material imaginable. It’s blood, Elliot. Human, if I’m any judge of horseflesh.”
“Whose?”
She shrugged. “That would be the question.”
I studied the white linen. “Maybe Byron cut his finger or something.”
When I looked up, she was smiling. “Thought you’d say that. Thought Byron and Donna might think that too. That’s why I took the hanky and wiped it off before Byron came into the room and reached for the ball.”
I was tired and dizzy. “I don’t get it. You were trying to clean the carpet ball?”
Gently. Patiently. “No, Dr. Switzer, I was trying to retain a sample before somebody else ‘cleaned’ it--by rubbing most of it off. Accidently, presumably.”
I made a silent ‘ah-ha’ with my mouth, then handed the hanky back to her. “Well, Byron said carpet ball could be a rough game!”
Katie was still looking at the stained linen when I pecked her forehead wearily and exited through the study door. I barely heard her voice behind me as she switched off the light and the hall went dark again.
“Someone’s playing rough all right…”
SEVEN
I was just dreaming about someone soft and warm and sensual that looked like Katie and smelled like Katie but who touched me in a way Katie had never touched me before when I felt a hard presence flop down on the divan cushion beside me. My eyes sprang open in sleepy frustration.
Katie was staring down at me, expression alarmed.
“Katie?”
She had her jersey half off one shoulder, a single pink breast exposed. She yanked it up in hasty chagrin. “Shit. Sorry.”
I blinked sleep from my eyes, rubbed at them as I sat up on the Sanderson’s divan. “I don’t…what’s going on--?”
Katie sat back stiffly on the sofa edge, appraising me with concern. “Nothing good, I’m afraid.”
I craned around for my watch, “What time is it?” I asked, remembered I was still wearing it: 7:08 a.m.
I ran a hand through my tousled scalp, shook my head to wake up fully. Katie still wore that nervous look when I turned back to her. “Kate? A-Are you okay?”
“I am now. Thank-you.”
I rubbed at my cheeks, shook my head hard again. “Had the most vivid dream. Thought you were—“
“I know what you thought.”
My breath caught. “ How’d you know?”
She looked briefly at my pajama trousers. “It’s obvious,” she said shortly.
I blushed embarrassment. “That’s just urine reten—“
Katie looked about us uneasily as though someone or something might be watching. “You’d better get up, Elliot. The tech guys will be here soon…”
I shove back into the cushions, appraised her intently. “Not until ten, you said. Hey—“
She turned from gazing at the distant work station. She looked pale.
I reached for her hand reflexively. It was like ice. “Are you sick?”
“Not…exactly. Not now.”
My eyes dropped to her jersey, still remembering the exposed breast, the dilated expanse, the coral nipple. Katie seemed to be shivering now. I reached for her.
“It’s this house,” I said.
I felt her head shake next to mine. “No. Not all of it. The nursery, certainly. And this…”
She held up her left palm. The red mark on the third finger was very faint.
“From the hanky,” she said huskily, “I noticed it last night after you left. Tried to scrub it off. It’s still mostly there, as you can see.”
I pulled her closer, kissed her forehead. “You’re not making sense, sweetie. This creepy old Victorian is getting to you.”
“More than you know, maybe. Getting to both of us.”
“We need some fresh air, the smell of new-mowed campus grass.”
“Elliot--?
“Huh?”
She pushed up suddenly on one elbow. “I need to get it analyzed, dated and DNA tested. The blood. If it is blood. But I don’t have the equipment here, damnit!”
“The tech guys?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. They sometimes carry small kits. If I’d known, I’d have insisted.”
I squeezed her knee. “How could you have known?”
Katie pulled away, stood up curtly. “You always have to know. Always have to be one jump ahead of it…”
Then she turned and headed back to the stairs. “Better get dressed, Elliot. I think Byron’s already left for work, I’ll go see if Katie’s up yet.”
I watched her slim form dwindle, blend with hall shadows.
Thinking: one jump ahead of what?
* * *
The tech guys arrived at ten sharp.
Four of them.
They arrived in a big RV carrying box load after box load of mysterious, excelsior-wrapped equipment into the house. I wouldn’t say they were arrogant exactly, but they were certainly confident in their work, and I was glad Byron wasn’t around when those cardboard boxes and wooden crates sometimes came within an inch of knocking over this collectible or that. I’m pretty sure Donna felt the same way. The kids were up and it was hard enough keeping their greedy little pink paws away from Byron’s stuff, let alone watching the careless hustle and bustle of mystery-box-carrying strangers swaggering around upstairs and down like they owned the joint, placing this piece of apparatus exactly here, that piece precisely there, and treating every cable and component of it like they were part of the king’s jewels. The stuff did look rather on the expensive side, but since I had no idea what it was a paranormal technician did or how, I’ll stop now before I make a fool of myself.
The crew was all young, late 20’s or early thirties—Tee shirts (some with food stains) and jeans. They were all intense-looking, slightly aloof and unequivocally nerdy. And, each in his own way, clearly brilliant.
The eldest-looking one, a guy named Riff, was the exception: tall, dark and yes, handsome, almost in a Hollywood movie star way. Riff must have been that rare breed of nerd who was good-looking in spite of his nerdiness;
he was well dressed in jacket, jeans and loafers, quite the opposite of the slovenly crew he came with. Of the four, he seemed—if anyone—to be in somewhat of a supervisory position; at least he did more talking than hauling and installing, though clearly Katie was the one in charge here. She not only knew what every piece of the strange-looking equipment was, but how it worked and exactly where she wanted it. Most of it ended up in the nursery.
Only one piece of precious high-techery got broken when Nathaniel, not so safely in Donna’s arms, reached out in passing and pulled down something on a long pole topped with a small glass, radar-like dish. One of the techs, the fat balding one with the majority of food stains, turned so red I thought he was going to go apoplectic, but it turned out to be a not-vital piece of the inventory and Katie, thankfully on her way downstairs in time to witness the accident, swept a dazed Nathaniel into her arms, smiling casually, then whirled to Donna and me and suggested that we give these good gentleman the time and space to do their job and get set up by taking a leisurely lunch break, maybe seeing some of the San Diego sights, if Donna would be so kind?
Donna all but cheered with relief, grabbed up Natalie and we were out of there.
I don’t think any of the tech crew missed us. Especially the fat guy.
* * *
Donna strapped the kids in the back in their baby seats, with Katie and me up front, and drove the family Lexus over the Coronado bridge north on Interstate 5 to Route 163 through Cabrillo Canyon to a pass under the Cabrillo Bridge, a stretch of road often called one of America’s most beautiful parkways. Then on to Florida Drive, and into Balboa park, where we delighted the kids with soaring fountains, enormous koi ponds, the big lath-and-stucco birdcage-like Botanical Building, the lovely Casa de Balboa with its stylish reflection pool, the cactus gardens, the Science center and best of all the open courtyards with their guitar strumming brucksters and jugglers atop towering unicycles.
“This is the coolest park I’ve ever seen!” I said as we walked the palm-flanked main promenade of the myriad Exposition buildings toward the National History Museum. “What is this incredible architecture?”
Donna smiled pride, toting Nathaniel in a backpack while Katie carried the baby girl. “Basically the park is a combination of the Panama-California Exposition and the Pacific International Exposition. Both obviously of heavily Spanish influence. You can see it there at the entrance to the del Prado Theater, the ornamentation framing the doors. It’s called Churrigueresque. Most of the buildings still standing are from a Fair celebrating the 1914 completion of the Panama Canal. One of the architects, Carleton Winslow, is a hero of Byron’s. Winslow chose to use the style of highly ornamented Spanish Baroque. It was called the Spanish Colonial Revival Style, and it reigned for decades in Southern California. It’s still the primary vernacular in architecture out here. Pretty impressive.”
An admiring Katie turned to her. “You’re pretty impressive yourself!”
Donna hunched modesty. “Byron could tell you a lot more, he’s the real architect.”
We ate lunch at a beautiful outdoors restaurant called the Café del Moro opposite the park’s Japanese Gardens. The food was as seductive as the atmosphere. I glanced around the open air tables and sculptured, manicured arroyos with wonder. “And I thought Austin was a beautiful town.”
Donna grinned behind sunglasses. “You haven’t even seen the Zoo or the Old Globe Theater. Or the Natural History Museum with the new William Stout dinosaur murals. Then there’s Old Town, of course, the Point Loma lighthouse, Mission Bay Park where you can swim and jet ski, and Sea World—“
“Wanna go See World!” Nathaniel announced eagerly.
“Uh-oh,” from Donna, patting the child’s leg behind her, “we’ll never hear the end of it now!”
Katie leaned back from the table, smiled into glorious sunshine. “It must be like being on a permanent vacation!”
Donna’s grin seemed to fade a shade.
Katie caught it, returned to her French fries. “So…You’re a native San Diegan, but Byron’s from L.A.?”
Donna was staring off into space, grin lost now. “Pardon? Oh. Actually I’m from Sacramento but my folks brought me down to stay at the Del in Coronado every summer. And Byron’s from the Midwest originally. He went to UCLA for his architectural degree. He was called down here for a few weeks in the summer of 2005 to help re-plan the tennis courts and pavilions at the Del.”
Katie frowned slightly. “The Del?”
“That big hotel with the red turrets you saw on your way in?”
“Yes,” I encouraged, “like to pay that a visit sometime.”
Donna nodded solemnly, drifting again.
“If…we have time.”
She looked back at me. “Of course! We’ll be glad to show you around. Byron and I were…” and she seemed to drift again for an instant, “…married there, you know.”
“At the hotel?”
She nodded at her plate. “There’s a lovely little arboretum behind the back entrance. Lots of couples marry there. It’s quite beautiful.”
Katie watched her. “Must hold some wonderful memories for you.”
Donna didn’t respond.
What the hell was going on?
“Started without me, eh!”
We turned in unison. Byron was scooting an extra chair to our table, all smiles and looking dashing in his tailored power suit.
“Byron!” Katie glowed up at the chiseled tan, the beach boy hair. “Aren’t you constructing a gas station or something?”
Byron swung in between her and his wife. “My crew is. I hope! Being the boss has its little privileges! Didn’t Donna tell you I was joining you for lunch?” He held up his cellular. “Or coffee anyway; I already grabbed a sandwich downtown.”
“Oh, to be independently wealthy,” I chided, “If you ever get tired of that Lexus my birthday’s next month.”
“Better wait ‘till it’s paid off,” Donna said under her breath.
There was a small awkward silence as Byron gave his wife a wry look.
Then he brightened again. “So! What do you think of our little park?”
“I’m moving in next week!” from Katie.
“I’ll never get her back to Texas,” I groaned.
Byron grinned. “You two certainly do sound—“
“—like a married couple,” Katie nodded, humoring him. “I know.”
“A very happy married couple,” from a sober Donna.
That remark brought another moment of awkward silence, which Katie quickly broke-up by consulting her watch. “Well, we’ve still got lots of time before my L.A. tech crew destroys your house! What shall we do? Byron, you with us?”
“I’m all yours!”
“Direct that line at your wife, please!” I elbowed him.
Byron chuckled. “Screw you, Bledsoe.”
“I want to see the Timken Museum of Art!” Katie bounced in her chair.
“Too bad,” I said, finishing my last bite of Godfather Pie, “I want to see the Old Globe Theatre.”
“Art Museum!” from Katie.
“Globe Theater,” from me.
Katie turned patiently to Donna Sanderson. “See what a happily married couple we are?”
Donna smiled once more as she put down her napkin. “Tell you what. Katie. Why don’t you and I visit the museum and the boys here can check out the theater? Shall we put it to a vote?”
“No need,” I grinned, pulling at Byron, “it’s already ratified! Meet you in front of the main promenade fountain in one hour! Uh, Katie? Grab the bill, huh? Sweetie?”
Katie smirked, picked up her handbag.
“No, you’re our guests…” from Byron, reaching inside his jacket.
“Don’t be a chauvinist!” from a slightly strident Donna, “let the lady pay!”
Another moment of awkward silence. I hustled Byron out of there.
* * *
We stood in the lush, terraced gardens surrounding the Old Gl
obe Theater.
“Originally built in 1935 by architect Richard Requa for the California Pacific Exposition, and to remedy San Diego’s Great Depression era ills,” Byron was explaining.
“Looks like the real thing,” I marveled.
Byron snorted. “It ain’t. Not even the original copy. That burned down in 1978 along with the Aerospace Museum, the latter losing over 4 million dollars in exhibits. Arson.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah. The park has had its troubles. The Old Globe was rebuilt in 1981. Queen Elizabeth herself presented it at the dedication ceremony in ’83, if you can believe that.”
“I do. It’s beautiful.”
Byron nodded wistfully. “Let’s hope it stays that way…”
I looked over at him.
He sighed a sigh that seemed to come from deep inside. “The 1980’s were not kind to Balboa Park. Lots of reports of vandalism, rape, arson, even murder. Sad. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about it all, it was that infamous. One of the Old Globe Theater’s starring actors was stabbed to death in the middle of the day in February of ’85. A 36-year-old woman was gang-raped and murdered in June of ’86. Two more murders in 1993 and the shooting of a drama student walking over the Cabrillo Bridge in 1994. That last one finally convinced management some serious nighttime lighting was needed for the park, including video security cameras.”
“Jesus, that’s awful.”
Byron nodded. “Yeah. Everything decays eventually…” he murmured softly, “…everything decays eventually…” It sounded like a disconsolate mantra.
I didn’t know what to say; all of this was so suddenly out of nowhere. Byron’s tanned beach boy smile belying deeper truths.
Byron studied the park. “I’ve been concerned again for the place since the recession began in 2008. Among other things…”
I leaned back against a steel fence surrounding a cactus garden, hands in pockets, squinting at the sun to read Byron’s expression. “Other things--?”
Byron sighed, leaned back beside me, casting a glace around at all the fragile beauty. “As you may have noticed at lunch, there’s a slight…tension between Donna and me.”
I followed his eyes to the gorgeous surroundings. “Trouble in paradise?”
NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 7
