by Linda Welch
I get a kick out of seeing Star and Jerry in their fifties finery. Star wears a tight, white pencil skirt, pink sweater worn backward so the buttons fasten down her spine, black ballet slippers and dainty white socks. Her shining black hair has a pronounced pouf where it meets her shoulders and brows above dark-blue eyes are delicately filled in with black pencil. Jerry looks smart in tailored tan slacks, a cream sweater vest and brown suede shoes. His bright auburn hair stands up in a lacquered wave, freckles spatter his nose and cheeks and he habitually fingers the ends of his sparse sideburns.
I wondered how Artie, Jerry and Star would take to having the fire-blackened ruins razed and replaced with a brand spanking new manufacturing plant when the Humphries family built it three years ago. They were delighted. They were every employee’s unseen family, relishing their triumphs and pleasures, mourning their failures and losses, delighting in the gossip.
Unlike Artie, Jerry and Star are not stuck in the Fifties. They wholeheartedly embraced the twenty-first century and enthusiastically discuss what they hear about sex, TV and movie stars. Artie mourns the days of his youth when men were men and youngsters called you sir. He threatens to wash their mouths out with soap and water, which of course sends them into gales of laughter.
Now it was gone. Three fires destroyed three factories.
My friends will not have to wait long till they pass over. Peter Walther pleaded temporary insanity so escaped the death penalty, but his family declared him incapable of caring for himself and admitted him to an expensive, discrete sanatorium in Colorado. He’s ninety-eight now; he won’t last much longer. When he goes on his way, so do my spectral buddies.
But they were going to moan like the devil now they’d lost their “friends,” the plant’s eighty-two ex-employees.
Artie jabbed his hand at me. “You took your time.”
“Told you she’d come, though, didn’t I,” said Jerry.
I peered into the depths again. “Where are they?”
Artie cocked his thumb at the west wall. I spotted them in the gloom, a nude man and two nude women sitting on the floor of what was once an office.
Clarion PD neglected to tell me the victims were naked.
The fire was arson and killed young Will Humphries and two employees. Clarion PD asked me if I could discover who lit the fire and killed Selene Humphries’ son. I told them I possibly could.
Will, Janice Stacey and Velma Torrence should not have been in the plant. Definitely not in their birthday suits. The fire did not touch them; in the manner of my old friends, they died of smoke inhalation. Smut faintly filmed their skin and hair. They lay face down on the floor as they drew in their last breath of air.
I picked my way over a collapsed girder and a mess of unidentifiable debris between me and the office. They stood when they noticed me, their postures awkward and Will fidgeted his hands, then dropped them to cover his groin.
A scrawny little dude with spindly limbs and rounded shoulders, Will stood shorter than the girls. He turned his head away and stuck his nose in the air. A little on the heavy side and in her late thirties, Velma kept trying to drag her long, straight, red-brown hair down to cover breasts which were already beginning to sag. Her green eyes would not meet mine. Janice wore her ash-blond hair shoulder-length and curled, but her eyebrows were brown, as were her eyes. She had a pouting mouth and cheeks round as apples. Mascara ran down her cheeks. She wept as she died.
“Will,” I said. “Janice. Velma.”
They didn’t ask the usual questions: what happened, why am I here? Artie already told them what they needed to know about their situation, and about me.
Knowing they were alive when ash filled the air gave me a sick feeling. They were terrified, trapped back here by the smoke and flames.
“Did you see who did this?”
Velma took a step toward me. “It was - ”
Will’s head whipped up and he snapped, “Be quiet!”
Velma flinched.
They knew who killed them, but Will wanted to keep it quiet? Hm. I don’t welcome visions of a shade’s last moment, but one would be handy right about now.
Ignoring Will, I spoke to the girls. “You can tell me and he can’t do one damned thing about it.”
“I can make their lives miserable,” said Will.
My eyes dropped to his shriveled genitalia. “Yeah, I see how the scenery could get on their nerves. But you’re gonna be stuck here together for a good long time even if your killer gets the death sentence. You know how the justice system works. It’ll be easier if you get along. Be nice to each other.”
“Yeah, him and Jerry can compare freckles.” Star came to stand beside me. “I’ll tell you.”
“You shut up, bitch,” Will yelled across the intervening space, except the yell came out a hoarse whisper.
“Yeah? And what you gonna do if I don’t, darlin’?”
“I’ll … I’ll… .” Will spluttered.
Star folded her arms. “You think your whores would want anything to do with you if you weren’t the owner’s son?”
“I’m not a whore,” Velma wailed.
“Shut up, tramp.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, young lady,” from Artie.
“That’s what they called her sort in my days,” Star retorted.
Aha. Now I knew how Will and the girls came to be here late at night after the plant closed.
“You’re nothing but a pathetic weed,” Star told Will coolly.
I didn’t think Will’s personality attracted the two factory girls and he was not much in the way of looks. Star had him nailed - stick him in a lawn with the other dandelions and he’d be hard to spot. Either they sucked up to the boss’ son, or Will browbeat them into their little after-hours romp.
“Star, if you know who did this, why am I in here talking to them?” I waved at the naked threesome. “You could have told me when I arrived.”
She shrugged. “That’d be no fun. You’d be in and out like a shot.”
I could be on my way home instead of faced with Will’s bony body and limp member. But I understood. Star, Jerry and Artie lost their link to the outside world when the plant burned and subsequently closed. I was all they had for now and they would keep me here as long as possible.
“I am mortified,” Velma said, sounding so as she stared at Artie, Star and Jerry. “They watched us and they’ll never let us forget.” She waved one hand at Star. “I know she won’t.”
“Dead to rights, you little tart,” Star said.
Artie threw his hands in the air.
“Stop it,” Janice said. She turned to Will. “Why are you defending him? He killed you.”
“He didn’t know I was here!”
“He knows now. If he’s suffering over your death, it’s not enough for me. I want him to pay.” She nodded at the front of the plant. “He parked out front. I thought Will was gonna shit a brick. But his dad stayed outside.”
Officer Yales didn’t ask me to make a statement down at the PD. I inwardly chuckled at the notion. A woman who sees ghosts is told by one that the owner’s husband started the fire which burned their plant and unknowingly killed his son? Oh yeah, that would look good on paper.
Was Selene involved? If you rule out mischief, revenge and plain stupidity, the motive for arson is usually money. Maybe the Humphries were in financial difficulties and wanted the insurance payout.
Now they’d lost the one thing which really mattered to them.
Clarion PD would pursue my “lead.” And they would nab Harmon Humphries. He claimed to be out of the country when the plant burned and proving he was not should be easy enough.
Walking away from the plant, I smiled. I couldn’t be at Clarion PD’s beck and call now, I had my own cases to pursue, but I enjoyed involvement in an official police case now and then, just like the old days. And I silently gloated when they came to me for help because a case stymied them.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw a
tall man with long, glistening copper-gold hair near the lot’s entrance. But when I looked in that direction, holding my breath, it was the factory sign and sunlight glinting off the brass lettering.
I swallowed a sigh. At least the plant was a distraction, but over too quickly. Royal had been gone only two days, so why did I feel so … uneasy?
The way he left raised my hackles. On the rare occasions when Gelpha business pulled him out of bed at odd hours of the night, if I didn’t wake, he woke me so I wouldn’t worry. Why not this time? I did come half awake, but I thought he got up to use the bathroom. I went back to sleep. And not a word, a note, a phone call since then. No reassurance he would be back.
I shivered, hunched my shoulders and plunged my hands deep in the pockets of my down coat. Idiot. Royal’s fine. Not much can harm a powerful demon.
Not much. But they can be hurt. They can be killed.
Stop it! I chided myself. He’s just fine, wherever he is.
I should not call him a demon when I’ve known for a long time he and his people are Gelpha. Stronger than the average human being, with enhanced senses and the ability to influence us on a sensual, sexual level, demon seemed an appropriate title when I first learned of them.
A smile tickled my lips as I recalled his expression the first time I called him a demon to his face. Now I often say “my big bad demon.” People use endearments casually nowadays, but they don’t come naturally to me and that is as close as I get.
Damn! I stamped my feet down hard as I walked. I needed to get angry. I needed something fierce and hot in my belly, not the slow, sleety coiling which felt suspiciously akin to anxiety.
I tromped back to the rear lot where I parked the Xterra near two huge industrial dumpsters. Exposed to the strong east wind, snow had formed a top crust which my boots broke through, making walking difficult. An icy sheath bowed pine branches nearly to the ground. Snow mounded about low shrubbery.
The Xterra looked lonely and frosty cold. The inside would be as chilly as the outside. I got in, started her up and drove away, watching the gauge to see when she’d warm up enough that I could turn on the heater.
I tore down the icy road. Even the Xterra’s four-wheel-drive couldn’t efficiently cope with a three-inch buildup of ice covered in two inches of slush, not at this speed. Enough commonsense lurked on the fringes of my mind that I tapped the brakes a few times before reaching the next bend, but I still took it wide. I took my foot off the accelerator and let the next hill slow me down naturally.
On the flat, I slammed my palms on the steering wheel. “Okay! Enough!”
This was it; enough with being pathetic. If I found Royal at my house when I got home, he could kiss my ass.
Um. I narrowly missed a half-buried pothole as that statement conjured visions in my mind.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t turn Jack off as easily as the radio. “Jack, can’t you sing something else. I hate that.”
I don’t hate Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, but they do annoy me. The repetitiveness makes them easy for youngsters to learn, and you won’t get a prize for guessing which songs my foster parents made us kids sing when we went door-to-door caroling at Christmas. Some people even enjoy hearing little kids caterwauling tunelessly at the front door during what is supposed to be the season of goodwill.
Remembering Christmas past, I smiled a little. The shelters and foster homes weren’t Dickensian institutions, it wasn’t all bad, and Christmas was a good time of year. Local charities gave us toys, new clothes and Christmas goodies for the table.
My smiled blanked out. I caused a lot of my problems during my childhood and adolescence. I was rebellious and intransigent, even with Deanna and Craig West, the super-nice foster parents who about busted a gut to make me feel safe and loved. Well, maybe not loved. Loving a kid as difficult as me was near impossible, but I believe they wanted to. They treated me with unending patience and kindness. But, anyhow, Craig was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy and went downhill fast. They couldn’t cope with his illness and an intractable fourteen-year-old.
I went back into the system and ended up with the guy who proved what an evil, perverted sonofabitch a foster dad can be.
My eyes unglazed and I took in my small hall, the stand where I tossed my keys and wallet, the pegs for my outerwear, the staircase leading upstairs. I finally found a home, the place I was supposed to be.
“Hey!” Jack barked in my ear. “Did you forget something?”
A home complete with pesky roommates. “Huh?”
An insistent beep turned me back to the front door. I forgot to turn off the security alarm again. Royal installed it after someone bombed his apartment and tried to do the same to my house with a nasty device connected to an electrical outlet. If you find a plug half hanging from an outlet, you automatically push it back in, right? Royal did with his coffeemaker. His superhuman hearing detected an odd click, and his speed got him out the apartment ahead of the blast. I would not have been so fortunate, but the bomb squad found the device in my house after Royal alerted them. He said the security system would pick up the smallest movement above Mac-height, but I still made sure the plug was already seated in the socket before turning on an appliance.
And I still looked over my shoulder on occasion.
“I’m getting into the spirit, because we’re so festive this year,” Jack mocked as he pointed at the ceiling and our single festive decoration.
A bunch of artificial mistletoe attached to a little gold bell. Royal put it up there with the idea he could ring the bell and I’d come running, which I did as fast as my size nines could carry me. Believe me, the reward was worth the effort.
I peeled off my coat as I walked through the hall to the kitchen. The place felt blissfully warm compared to the cold outside. Sitting at my old wood kitchen table, I unzipped my boots and eased them off. I rested for a moment, coat over my knees, and casually glanced at the answering machine. No light blinked to indicate a new message.
“No calls from you know who,” Mel sing-songed.
Oh well. “Guess I needn’t bother looking then, not with you to tell me.”
“You don’t have to bite my head off.”
Under the table, my Scottish terrier MacKlutzy opened his eyes, lifted his head and eyed me as if to say, You’re back? I just noticed. He lumbered to his feet, walked to the pantry and stared as if his eyes had the power to melt the wood which separated him from his food.
“No. Doctor Steve says you’re overweight. You’re not getting a snack each time I come home, it’s bad for you.”
He gave me a bright look from his dark-brown eyes and wagged his tail.
“Don’t try that on me, little buddy. You heard me. You know what ‘no’ means.”
That got me a curled upper lip and snarl for my troubles. With an audible sigh, Mac settled in front of the pantry, head on his front feet.
I went to the hall and threw my coat at the coat-rack, put my boots in the drip tray beneath, then picked my coat off the floor, shook it and hung it up. Back in the kitchen, I stood at the stove. My fat pink fridge hummed next to the pantry, the round plastic wall clock ticked away the seconds.
I’d trekked mushy footprints through the kitchen. After getting some paper towels from the cabinet beneath the sink, I crawled across the floor on hands and knees, mopping.
“Did you get anything out of them?” Jack asked.
“Yep. Harmon Humphries did it.”
“His daddy killed him?”
“I doubt he did it intentionally, Jack.”
Jack slapped palms to cheeks. “How awful. The poor thing.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for him.” Mel rested hands on hips. “He didn’t check the building so he didn’t care who he killed.”
“It was locked for the night, guys. He had no reason to think anyone was in there. He planted the explosive the day before. He pressed the butto
n from outside.”
“What a shame. You can’t claim his ‘information leading to an arrest’ reward,” Mel observed.
I realized I stared at the phone with something close to venom.
“Tiff, I said - ”
I shifted to eye her from beneath my brows. “I heard what you said.”
“But you… .” Mel flounced to the table. “For goshdarned sakes, it’s only been two days and you’re like - ”
“And a half,” Jack corrected. “Two and a half days.”
“I know that!” I rose up on my knees and tossed the paper towels in the bin. “I’m not worried. He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”
“Oh, yes, an exceptionally big boy,” Mel said, followed by a sigh. If dead people could drool, her chin would be awash.
“I tell you, when he wears that one pair of tight black jeans… .”
Getting to my feet, I gave her a filthy look.
“Put him in a pair of Speedos, I swear I would melt,” Jack said.
So would I. Royal in Speedos? Oh. My. God.
Mel exclaimed, “Is she insane?”
She now stood at the kitchen’s west windows, watching Sally from three houses down who wore a white thong bikini as she dashed over her lawn to the curbside mailbox. Bear in mind six inches of snow covered the grass, but she did have heavy rubber boots.
I rolled my eyes. “Bet she won’t do that when it’s ten below.”
Jack zipped to the window. “Would you get a load - ”
“Jack!”
He half-turned to watch her run back in her house. “What is she doing, wearing that in December?”
“She does it intentionally. She knows you enjoy watching.”
“Really? Does… ?” His tone went flat. “Ha ha. Hilarious.”
“She has a tanning bed, Jack. She likes to look toasted year-round.”
Did I expect any radical change in Jack’s behavior in the three months after he and his ex-lover got together and declared their gay status? I did, but he’d been in straight mode too long. He still ogled passing women, or women on television, or pictures of them in the newspaper. I made the mistake of saying he could quit the manly act and he got huffy with me. So I shut up. Jack could be who he wanted to be. None of my business.
