We’d spent the night in a cheap motel, plotting and planning our new venture after signing the lease yesterday. Today, we’d come to assess what we were faced with—and what we were faced with was an “as is” situation. Apparently, even as much of a disaster as this place was, it was considered prime real estate, and Fergus McDuff had made it abundantly clear we were renting at our own risk.
Counting to ten, I prayed for patience. I didn’t want to snap at Coop, but I’ll admit, I had to clench my teeth to keep from doing so. It wasn’t her fault everything about this place we were convinced we could turn into a tattoo parlor was beyond a fixer-upper. It made me long for the cute shop we’d had so briefly in Washington, and for our friends Stevie, Belfry, Arkady, and Winterbottom.
“Um, Trixie?” Coop said again.
I looked up to find her with a bucket hooked at her elbow, sponge in hand, and a frown on her exquisitely proportioned face.
“What’s up now, Coop?”
“Where did Mr. Knuckles go?”
I almost burst out laughing. Knuckles—or Donald P. Ledbetter, according to his application—was a burly man of, were I to guess, six foot three, easily three hundred portly pounds, and a gentleman of very few words.
When he’d seen us from our grimy picture window, wobbling in our attempt to hang up our new sign, he’d strode into the store, his sleeve tattoos brilliant and intricate, and immediately stuck out a beefy hand to introduce himself.
As he approached me, I remember thinking he looked typically Oregonian, with his ratty but clean T-shirt, three silver studs above his left eyebrow, a nose ring fit for a bull, with graying chestnut-brown hair buzzed at the sides and the longish top brushed casually to the side. His face was round, his eyes wide and clear blue and, above all, friendly.
He reminded me of what a Portland version of Santa Claus would look like. All beards and laid-back T-shirts with peace signs on them.
He’d stomped toward me as though I owed him money and introduced himself as Knuckles, the best tattooist in the Pacific Northwest. Then he’d just stared at me, seemingly unmoved by Coop or her ethereal beauty when she’d come to stand next to me in protective mode. Because you know, he was a stranger, and Coop was ultra wary of all strangers.
I’d stuck my hand out and introduced myself, and after he’d swallowed my fingers in his wide grip, he’d pulled a photo album of his portfolio from under his arm and opened it without speaking a word.
I wasn’t ready to hire anyone just yet or even consider renting the spaces. I wasn’t even ready to trust we could walk across the floor without falling in, but I found myself popping open the black vinyl album anyway and perusing while Coop looked over my shoulder.
She’d pointed a slender finger at one particular tat of a fully opened rose sprouting from a woman’s belly button, so multi-faceted and layered, it had taken my breath away.
Coop’s, too, because she’d muttered, “Well done.” Which was indeed high praise coming from the Coopster. Then she’d paused in thought for a moment. “Do you think that thing on his face requires a lot of conditioner?” she whispered.
I laughed at her, tugging my T-shirt down over my hips. “You mean his beard? I don’t know, but he has enough hair on his chin to make a bald man weep,” I whispered back.
“I love conditioner. We didn’t have that in Hell,” she’d informed me in her matter-of-fact way before returning to her work, leaving me alone with Knuckles.
He looked at me with his intense blue eyes and said, “Bathroom? May I?”
“If you could call it that—in the back to the right. But I warn you, it’s worse than a Porta Potty at a toxic waste site on a hot July day.”
He nodded and waved a meaty hand dismissively at me as though smelly Porta Potties were no sweat and went off to the back to use the bathroom. And that was the last I’d heard from him as I went back to pulling up more flooring.
Now, when I looked at Coop, her hair up in a messy bun, her cheeks heightened by a splotch of crimson, I had to wonder. Where had Knuckles gone? And why was he called Knuckles, anyway? Donald was a nice enough name. Did tattoo artists go by pseudonyms? Oh, dear. I had so much to learn…
Pushing the bandana I wore up on my forehead, I frowned. “He asked to use the bathroom. I don’t know where he went. Maybe I’d better check.”
As I rose, pulling my gloves off, Coop grabbed a hammer and held it up—which meant look out; she’d clobber first, ask questions later. At least it wasn’t her sword. I’d managed to convince her the fine people of Cobbler Cove wouldn’t appreciate that weapon of shiny menace waved under their noses.
I shook my finger at her. “Coop, I don’t think we’re going to need a hammer for this. Simmer down, Terminator.”
“I’m not a Terminator. That’s a specific breed of demon. I only terminated when threatened,” she said, letting the hammer swing at her side.
I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. It was a movie…” Then I flapped a hand in the air. “Never mind. Regardless, we don’t know if he’s a threat yet, Coop.”
Still, her eyes narrowed, glittering and brilliant green. “What if he’s stealing our things?”
Sighing, I asked, “Like what? Our Hibachi grill and my underwear? Don’t be silly, Coop. We don’t have much to steal. We haven’t even unloaded the car yet, and the rest of the stuff Stevie so kindly sent via UPS won’t be here until tomorrow. And you can’t hit him in the head with a hammer for it, anyway. You must always ask before you rush to judgment, Coop, unless catching someone in the act, of course. And even then, violence isn’t always the answer.”
She looked at me pensively, twisting a stray lock of hair around her finger. “Gosh. All these rules. I was only going to hit him in the knees.”
As the rain pummeled the roof and slid through the holes in the ceiling, I grimaced. “Put the hammer away, Coop. We’ll be fine.” Brushing past her, I went down the long, narrow hallway leading to our dink of a filthy bathroom and knocked on the warped door. “Knuckles?”
When no sound came from the bathroom, my heart skipped a beat. “Um, Mr. Ledbetter? Are you okay?”
“I’m here.” Knuckles’s hoarse whisper came from near the dark exit door at the very end of the hall, his gravelly voice sounding odd.
Coop was behind me in an instant, a protective hand on my shoulder, her steady breathing in my ear and, as seen from the corner of my eye, the hammer held high in the air.
I hated thinking about why Coop was so quick to assume the worst. To always be on guard the way she was had to be exhausting.
But I suppose she’d been in Hell for a very long time. Likely, she’d seen things. Horrible things—things I hoped one day she’d talk to me about. Horrible things I prayed hadn’t happened to her personally. But I never asked. Not yet. Not until she was ready.
“Coop,” I soothed, feeling slightly hesitant now myself. “Slow that roll. No violence. Remember?”
“I’m just keeping my options open. Stevie said always be prepared. I’m only preparing.”
I patted the hand she’d placed on my shoulder and tried to remain calm. “Knuckles, what are you doing back there?”
I still couldn’t see him clearly, which reminded me we needed to replace that dangling light bulb above the exit door tout de suite.
I heard him clear his throat, and then I finally saw the outline of his bear-like body just before I heard Coop take a whiff of air.
“I smell something familiar,” she whispered in my ear, her voice laced with what I had to guess was fear. A rarity, as Coop is so emotionless—even when she’s ecstatic.
I froze and sniffed, too, but I didn’t smell anything except for damp air and possibly some mold. Yet, Coop’s sense of smell, be it chicken and waffles or an emotion like fear, was fierce, and that scared me.
“Familiar? Familiar from where?”
“Hell.” She offered the answer with the kind of nonchalance one offers when asked if they’d like ketchup with their fries.
Yikes.
But I couldn’t dillydally with what Hell smelled like right now.
“Knuckles?” I called again, though this time my voice sounded shaky to my ears.
So, here’s the score. I’m no chickety-chicken, as Coop sometimes calls me when referring to my trepidation about bridges (and parallel parking, if you must know), but I also don’t have the strength of ten linebackers on steroids the way Coop does.
Well, not unless I’m in the height of possession, that is. If you listen to my demon tell the story, then I’m like an entire pro football team gone rabid and on steroids.
Either way, Knuckles is a big guy. Enormous. He outweighs me by at least a hundred and fifty pounds.
Yes. I weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, okay? Portland is a Mecca for delicious food. From food trucks to gourmet dining, and sometimes I stress eat, as I did last night at this insanely amazing place called Pine State Biscuits. Oh, angel wings and the Pearly Gates, it had to be one of the most scrumptious meals I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Crispy fried chicken breast smothered in cheese on a soft, doughy biscuit, slathered in sausage gravy…
Anyway, back to Knuckles. Maybe he wasn’t so much a teddy bear as a grizzly and Coop was right to be suspicious. Though, he was older than me by at least twenty years. Maybe I could take him if I was spry enough.
“Knuckles?” Coop called out.
“Don’t come back here!” Knuckles suddenly shouted, his voice gruff and commanding. “This isn’t something nice girls like you two should see.”
Aw, grapes of wrath. I wasn’t sure how to process that warning. I haven’t experienced life outside the convent the way most thirty-two-year-olds have, if you know what I mean. So who the frick-frack knew what he was seeing?
A shiver skittered up my spine, much like the one I get just before the evil spirit who shall not be named possesses me.
Hellfire and cabbage. What was Knuckles seeing that ladies like us shouldn’t see?
I inched a bit closer with Coop hot on my heels. “Is someone in a state of undress, Knuckles?” I squeaked.
Coop clucked her tongue in aggravation. “What sort of question is that, Sister Trixie Lavender?” Then she scratched her head. “Um, I mean Trixie. Just plain Trixie.”
I turned around to face her, flustered, my total calm gone the way of hair scrunchies and Beanie Babies. “I don’t know, Coop! He said ladies shouldn’t see whatever it is he’s seeing. It was the first thing that came to mind as un-seeable goes.”
She made a face at me, sucking in her supermodel cheeks before letting the hammer dangle at her side again. “There are a million things that come to mind, and they have nothing to do with your born day suit.”
“Birthday,” I corrected. “It’s birthday suit.”
Coop cocked her head, nodding in concession. “That does sound much better.”
We must have moved forward while we debated nudity because Knuckles shouted again, “Ladies! Please stay where you are! I insist!”
“Is Knuckle’s mansplaining, Trixie? That word’s definition always confuses me. But I like it so much. My tongue likes it, too.”
“Not quite. It’s more like he’s trying to protect us, Coop,” I said, patting her on the arm.
And I’d had enough protection. We had work to do—heaven above, so much work. So, I rushed forward toward the sound of his voice, just as Coop grabbed at my arm to prevent me from going any farther.
Which was fortunate.
If she hadn’t, I would have tripped over the body—possibly slipped in the wide pool of crimson blood seeping along the floor—and landed square on my rear end.
We both gasped as our eyes adjusted to the dark hallway, where Knuckles stood over the lifeless body of none other than Fergus McDuff.
“Blood,” Coop muttered as she pulled me away from Fergus’s body. “Yup.”
Swallowing hard, I clenched my fists together and asked a question to keep from screaming my horror. “Yup, what?”
“Yup. I told you I smelled Hell.”
Chapter 3
Knuckles held a thick hand up as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. His expression remained as flat and unblinking as it had been when he’d introduced himself.
“We need to call the police,” he stated, his deep voice somber.
Coop instantly stiffened, and I can’t say as I blame her. This wasn’t the first, but the second landlord who’d ended up dead in a store we’d rented. Like I said earlier, Coop had been this close to landing in jail for the murder of our last landlord, Hank Morrison. There but for the grace of Stevie Cartwright, who’d doggedly pursued justice for Coop and had almost gotten herself killed in the process, she’d have been charged with murder.
But I’d learned a thing or two about solving a murder from our friends Stevie and Win during that mess. Stevie especially loved a good mystery, and because that drama involved us directly, when we were a safe distance from it, I found I loved a good mystery, too.
Since we’d left Stevie and Ebenezer Falls, I’d read more than a dozen of them at night under my covers so as not to bother Livingston (our yappy, opinionated but beloved owl. I’ll get to him later), with my flashlight as my guide.
Anyway, I’d learned the police weren’t always on your side, and I’m sure that’s what Coop’s afraid of at this very moment. They’d hauled her off to the police station and questioned her for six solid hours that horrible day.
That alone had been terrifying for someone who’d only been here on Earth a short time and had no last name until Winterbottom’s connection had concocted an ID and life history for her. Add a fight to the death with an angry couple of killers then top that with almost seeing our newfound friend killed, too, and Coop had every right to be tense.
Now I put her protectively behind my back as I paid close attention to not just Knuckles, but the scene of the crime. During the week we’d spent with Stevie, her assortment of otherworldly friends and eclectic pets, she’d taught me some of the things she looks for when a mystery needed solving.
One of them is to always look at everything—every detail of the crime scene—and take pictures if you can get away with it before the police come.
As Knuckles dialed 9-1-1, I turned to Coop. “Listen to me, Coop,” I whispered, my tone urgent. “Have you been studying the birth certificate and ID Win had made for you? You’ll need them for the police.”
She nodded solemnly, her green eyes flitting from Fergus’s body to my face. When given a task, Coop was on it, and she didn’t get off it until she’d mastered said task. I expected this task would be handled with nothing less than her ardent studiousness.
“My name is Cooper O’Shea, Coop for short. I come from a small town in Michigan called Sturgis. I’m thirty-two years old and five-feet-ten-inches tall. I weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds and Stevie says that’s why people are jealous of me. I don’t understand jealousy unless it pertains to coveting an item. I’m not an item. But I love Stevie, and I believe she speaks the truth always. I live with my best friend, Trixie Lavender, and we own a tattoo shop called Inkerbelle’s. My social security number is—”
My hand flipped upward to stop her. “Good girl. I’m so proud of you. Remember that when the police ask you, okay? But only answer the questions they ask. Don’t volunteer any information. None.”
But Coop, normally unruffled, was ruffled. I saw it all over her face as her eyes skittered about the hall, even if outwardly, she appeared emotionless. “I don’t like the police, Trixie. They don’t like me, either.”
This was a fine line I was walking when it came to Coop and authority. I didn’t want her to be fearful of every police officer, but I did want her to know her rights and be cautious because she was indeed innocent and easily led.
“That’s not true, Coop. The police just didn’t know you yet. Remember Stevie’s friend Dana Nelson? He liked you just fine, didn’t he? He sat right next to you on spaghetti night at her house before we
left.”
She did that weird smirk of a smile that left her eyes squinting and her lips in an awkward tilt upward so she showed some teeth, and nodded. “Yes. He was very nice. He gave me his last meatball. I love, love, love meatballs,” she crooned in her odd, almost detached way.
“Right!” I agreed. “Well, he’s a police officer, and he was just doing his job, Coop. Sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles for guys like him. He didn’t believe you were guilty, but he had to do what his boss at the police station told him to do.”
She frowned, the lines in her gorgeous face wrinkling. “He didn’t give me cookies. I like cookies, too. Did he have cookies?”
“No. It’s just an—”
“Expression,” she finished for me. “Humans are stupid with their words. Except Stevie. She’s not stupid. And you. You’re not stupid, either. But Livingston definitely is sometimes.”
Blowing out a breath, I forced myself to stay focused. These next minutes were crucial, according to Stevie. As Knuckles began to wander while he was on the phone with 9-1-1, I eyeballed Fergus McDuff’s body, splayed out on the floor at my feet, and remembered the last time we’d done this. I didn’t want to get so lost in the chaos this time.
And speaking of Livingston… “Coop, while Knuckles calls the police, would you go check on Livingston for me, please? We don’t want another disaster like the last one, where he was left for hours without food, do we?”
Livingston is a demon just like Coop, but he didn’t leave Hell unscathed. He’s also her dearest friend from Hell. Except, when he escaped with her, because he didn’t have a body to inhabit the way Coop did, he needed a vessel. And unlike Coop, he was forced to inhabit the first body he came upon in order to remain here on Earth.
Which happened to be a dead owl on the side of the road.
Then There Were Nun Page 3
