by Keri Arthur
Page 9
His gaze met mine again, expression sharp. “I’m not liking what you’re implying with that question. ”
“I’m implying nothing. I’m just curious as to why you might be running here when it’s generally out of character for dwarves to be near the ocean. ”
He snorted. “It’s out of character for elves to be so damn nosey, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you. ”
“I’m not an elf. ”
“You damn well look it. ” He hesitated, then said gruffly, “I got a call from a prospective client. She wanted to meet near the beach, and it was easier to jog down here than go to the bother of getting the car out and then trying to find parking. ”
He met prospective clients in lime green shorts? What the hell sort of business was he in? “Do you know how she died?”
“What does it matter? She’s dead, and that’s the end of it. ”
“It’s not. The killer is still out there and he needs to be found. ”
He glanced at me and snorted. “And a slender little thing like you is going to do that?”
“Probably not, but I suspect my client will at least want to know why she was killed. ”
He grunted and crossed his arms. “She’d be happy to know someone did care enough to find out why this happened. ”
I raised my eyebrows. “Meaning you have no idea why someone might want to do this to her?”
“No,” he said, gaze on the empty sand and sorrow in his voice.
He might not know why she was killed, but he did know something. Of that I was suddenly sure. I hesitated, wanting to push but suspecting he might walk away if I did. “How well did you know Mona?”
He glanced up again, gaze narrowed. “Ten months. ” His admission was almost grudging. “I used to drive her about, for shopping and the like, when business was slow. ”
I nodded. A lot of sirens employed drivers, simply because few ever bothered getting a driver’s license. Mom had once explained that it was simply easier to pay someone else to worry about traffic and rules. And of course, cash rarely ever exchanged hands in such deals. “What sort of business do you run?”
“I own Mighty Mouse Bodyguard Services. ”
I smiled. “Cool name. ”
“Yeah, it gets remembered. ” He half shrugged, his gaze going back to where Mona had lain.
“Would she have said something to you if she’d suspected she was in trouble?”
He seemed to hunker down into himself. “She should have. She didn’t. ”
That wasn’t really unusual. Sirens usually treated their drivers as little more than another business transaction, but this dwarf’s reaction to her death seemed to suggest there was more to their dealings than that.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Haven’t seen her for a few days. ” He hesitated, and shook his bald head. Droplets of water fell from it like tears. “She was so excited. ”
“About what?”
“About leaving the business,” he said softly. “About giving it all away and becoming a married woman. ”
“You’re kidding, right?” I couldn’t help the incredulous note in my voice. As my brother had noted not so long ago, a siren giving up her song was as unheard of as a dragon giving up its wings. It was a part of them, a part of who they were. Oh, some of them certainly tried—Mom had, on numerous occasions, as she’d gotten older. But every time she’d come back, and every time she’d stated it would have been easier to give up breathing. I had no doubt that she was still using her song, even though age had all but crippled her.
“I never kid,” the dwarf said, voice sour. He glanced at his watch. “I have to get going. Good luck with your search. ”
I dug my wallet out of my pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to him. “Call me if you remember anything useful. ”
The dwarf glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. “So you are a bloody PI. Here I was thinking you were just another nosy reporter spinning a tale. ”
“I don’t spin tales. ” At least, not that often.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, and walked away.
I went back to my car and drove home to Abbotsford, but finding a parking space once I’d arrived was an entirely different matter. Some bastard had parked a big black van in my usual spot and, in the process, had managed to block a good half of the narrow street. I edged my old Toyota past it, then continued on, working my way back up Park Street before finding a spot half a block from home.
My house was a single-fronted, double-story Victorian on the corner of Park and Stafford Streets, and it pretty much faded into the background when it came to looks. The government had declared this section of Abbotsford a heritage area a year ago, and most of the other Victorians in the street had received the required face lift. I’d been in the process of doing the same when I’d been working at the paper, but had concentrated on getting the inside liveable rather than the outside pretty.
Of course, I could do what many other residents had done and go the quick-fix route, but I refused to shell out a weekly retainer for a wizard to keep a restoration spell on it. It might be old fashioned, but I’d rather be sure that the place was solid rather than merely looking solid.
The gate scraped harshly along the concrete as I opened it, meaning it was just another thing to fix on a list that was getting longer by the day. I forced it shut, then headed up the steps two at a time to my front door—which stood wide open.
Laughter drifted out to greet me—raucous, deep laughter I was more than a little familiar with. A mix of amusement and frustration slithered through me as I walked down the long hallway to the kitchen-diner at the rear of the property. Four man-mountains turned and gave me a wide smile of greeting. I knew one of them—Guy, the biggest of the lot. He and I had basically grown up together, having gone to the same all-races primary and high school.
“Welcome back, Harri my friend. ” He held out a can of beer. “Have a drink. ”
It was one of my own beers I was being offered. Guy, like all ogres, believed that what belonged to a friend also belonged to him. And really, who in their right mind would argue the point with an ogre? Especially when they had hands and teeth the size of Guy’s?
Not that that had ever stopped me trying. Being sensible wasn’t always one of my stronger points. Besides, I knew well enough Guy was a sheep in wolf’s clothing. He really wouldn’t hurt a fly—not unless his family or friends were threatened. And in that sort of situation, you wouldn’t want anyone else by your side.
“Guy, how many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my house when I’m not home?”
“But Harri, you didn’t lock the door. And how was I to know you weren’t home unless I came in?”
To an ogre, a deadlock was like a fly on the back of a horse—an irritation, nothing more. “You could knock. And I want the lock replaced. ” Again.
“But I did knock. That was when the door opened. ”
“Then use a little less force next time. ”
He grinned, revealing more tannin-stained teeth. “I’ll try to remember. And I’ll get Kristo to fix the lock. He’s really good at that sort of stuff. ”
I rolled my eyes. Kristo was all I needed. The gnome was good at fixing all manner of items, but he tended to be heavily into the planning side of things and not so big on action. It’d take him all week just to decide a new lock was needed.
“Besides,” Guy continued. “The only thing worth stealing is the stuff we’re drinking and the TV. ”
“Well, at least with you lot here, no one would dare take the TV. ”
Guy raised his beer and grinned in agreement. One of his compatriots let off a fart that sounded like the rumble of a jet taking off, and the other two practically fell about the floor laughing. The whole house shook.
I grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and high tailed it to the safety of the loft. At le
ast the air would be less polluted up there.
“You really have to do something about those ogres,” Ceri commented, her voice filled with exasperation. Her desk was the larger of the two we’d squeezed into the loft space, simply because, at six three, she actually needed the extra leg room. Especially given she’d not only inherited her gargoyle grandfather’s sensitivity to the sun, but also his build. She was, to use an old phrase, built like a Mac truck—but that still made her little compared to the ogres downstairs. “They’re really making this place unlivable. Or at the very least, unworkable. Lord knows how many clients their foul presences have scared away. ”
I placed the yogurt onto the desk, then shucked off my coat off and tossed it over a nearby chair. “I’ve tried. They don’t listen. ”
“If we starve to death, it’ll be their fault,” she muttered, but there was amusement in her tone.
“I’m picking up enough photography work to keep us from actually starving. ” I picked up the coffee pot and raised it in question.
She nodded, and then thrust a hand through slate grey hair—another remnant of her heritage. “I rang Numar’s mom—she hasn’t heard from him, although she did expect him home last night. ”
“Did she mention where he was staying down here?” I walked across to her desk, the floorboards creaking with each step.
Ceri accepted her coffee with a nod of thanks, then said, “Apparently he usually stays with a female friend, but Roda couldn’t remember her name. ”
Which didn’t make it easier to track him down. I made a mental note to ask Keale, then said, “Luckily, I had a little more luck with Lyle’s task. Or maybe that should be a little less luck. ”
“How so?”
I wrinkled my nose and settled down at my own desk. “A siren washed up on the beach this morning. I suspect it might be the woman Lyle hired us to find. ”
“Well, there goes our nice fat paycheck,” she muttered, expression gloomy. “I was hoping you could string the old bastard out for a few days. ”
