Burn All Alike

by Nene Adams

  “How’d you find the grave? No, wait…Pharaoh DuPeret. You said you went to see him yesterday.” Leaning a hip against the counter, Veronica studied the skeleton.

  Mackenzie blew out a sigh. On the way home a few hours ago, she’d debated with herself how much she should tell Veronica, who was bound to freak out about the whole “possessed by a spirit and/or possibly dead” experience. Thank God Veronica reached the most plausible explanation on her own.

  She still didn’t understand what Jun had done last night.

  Myrtle Johnson’s words haunted her: an open door is an invitation. Had she and Jun swapped places? Had her consciousness—maybe her soul—been trapped in his bones while he’d used her like a biological backhoe to uncover his burial site? Was the incense responsible? Or did other spirits have the power to hijack her flesh and do as they pleased, leaving her awake and aware in their graves?

  The idea frightened her worse than the first time she went swimming after watching Jaws, and Cousin Jimmy snuck up on her underwater and grabbed her ankle. In her thrashing, screaming fit, she’d swallowed too much water, barfed on him and kicked him in the nuts.

  “Why didn’t you want me to go with you?” Veronica sounded too casual, too bland to be anything except upset.

  Mackenzie glanced up to meet Veronica’s steady green gaze. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Involving you didn’t feel right.” She carefully stepped around the skeleton on the floor and put her arms around Veronica’s waist. “I’m sorry.”

  Veronica set the coffee mug on the counter and returned the hug. “Don’t keep me in the dark, Mac,” she murmured. “You scare me sometimes.”

  “Sorry,” Mackenzie repeated, burying her flushed face in Veronica’s neck and breathing in the scent she loved.

  “Okay, what’s done is done.” Veronica loosened her grip. “I’m not sure what you intend to do with Jun’s remains, though.” She frowned. “Osame’s in Potter’s Field. We can’t arrange for Jun to be buried next to her. The plots are assigned by a clerk working for the Board of County Commissioners. We can’t exhume Osame without the medical examiner’s help. Neither one of us has any influence in those places. What’s your plan?”

  “I don’t have one,” Mackenzie confessed, turning to put two slices of whole wheat bread into the toaster. “I guess I’m just so sick of the ghost and the damned fires and…well, Ronnie, all I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Veronica pulled a straight face, but not before Mackenzie noticed a definite upward quirk at the corner of her mouth. “We can’t leave human remains in the apartment. For one thing, it’s a Health Code violation.”

  The toast was ready. Mackenzie pulled out a slice, burning her fingers, and began spreading butter. “What do you think we ought to do?” She winced when the toast’s heat caused a blister on her thumb to throb. Damned shovel.

  “The police are out. You’d be arrested for trespassing, if nothing else.” Veronica picked her way to the refrigerator to retrieve a half-full jar of Sarah Grace’s peach preserves.

  The next several minutes were spent eating toast liberally smeared with preserves. At last, Mackenzie brushed crumbs off the front of her shirt and suggested, “What if we take the body to Abbot Imamura? Don’t give me that constipated look, Ronnie. Osame woke up angrier than a bear with toothache because her remains were disturbed, right? I’m working on the assumption that reuniting her and Jun will end the problem. We were lucky last time. That fire out at the old folks’ home could’ve been a lot worse and you know it.”

  “You think Abbot Imamura can help.”

  “He said he could stop her. Having Jun’s body on hand might help.”

  Veronica finished the rest of her toast in silence. “I’ll call the abbot after I put some clothes on,” she said finally. “If he doesn’t want to take possession, we’ll need another plan.”

  Mackenzie nodded, her breath frozen in her lungs. The word possession caused her toast to threaten a return. As soon as Veronica left the kitchen to get dressed, she put her head in her hands. The recollection of staring up at her body—at her own slack face and empty eyes—from the bottom of a grave…she couldn’t put words to the feelings the memory evoked. Sphincter-puckering, vomit-inducing horror came close.

  She managed to calm down before Veronica returned.

  “Abbot Imamura says he’ll take charge of Jun’s body.” Veronica had put on the same pair of jeans she’d worn last night, paired with a peacock blue top that brightened her eyes to the color of limes. “He’s not sure if it’ll help with Osame or not.”

  “Great.” Mackenzie shoved her frizzy black curls back from her face with both hands. “I’ll help you carry this guy downstairs to the truck,” she pointed at the skeleton, “but I need a shower first. Do we have time?”

  Veronica nodded. “The ritual’s tonight.”

  Mackenzie paused on her way to the bedroom and turned around. “What ritual?”

  “At the Obon festival. The abbot will call Osame to the temple and do a ritual that’s supposed to bring her peace.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  “Did you forget?” Veronica squatted and began pulling the edges of the tarp closed over the skeleton.

  “It slipped my mind. Are you going to work?”

  Veronica finished and stood, brushing red dirt off her hands. Dried crumbs rained on the floor. She fetched a broom from the corner. “I’ve got the day off, thought we could make pickles at my house. We can take the body to the temple late this afternoon.”

  Standing over a hot stove in the Indian summer heat didn’t sound like a lot of fun, but Mackenzie thought sweat therapy might help her burn off the jitters she’d suffered since last night. “Sure, Ronnie. Sounds like a plan to me.”

  Later, at Veronica’s house on Carter Crescent, while adding black peppercorns, chili flakes, peeled whole garlic cloves, yellow mustard seeds and dill flowers to each sterilized glass jar lined up on the counter, Mackenzie felt much calmer. She enjoyed cooking and fooling around in the kitchen. Unlike Veronica, who made great pickles but would otherwise starve to death if left to her own devices.

  She stuffed thinly julienned vegetables—carrots, red and yellow peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, sugar snap peas, crookneck squash and Napa cabbage—into the jars, packing them tightly. Veronica followed, pouring in a hot vinegar, sugar and salt brine.

  Mackenzie’s mouth watered. She loved the sweet and sour tangle of vegetables piled on sandwiches or as a side dish to grilled meats. These particular jars were headed to the refrigerator after cooling. She and Veronica had already put up pickled red onions spiked with juniper berries, cauliflower with cumin and coriander seeds, and pickled Swiss chard stems bought from the farmer’s market. The chard looked pretty and pink.

  Veronica wiped her hands on a dish towel. “There’ll be food at the festival, if you can wait. If not, it’s boiled eggs. I think I’ve got an avocado around here somewhere.”

  “I’ll wait,” Mackenzie said, thinking about the sad, wrinkled, alarmingly deflated avocado huddling in a corner of the refrigerator with a mold bearded tomato keeping it company. She offered Veronica a kiss and a pat on the butt. “Go ahead and shower first.”

  When she heard the sound of the shower starting, she went to the living room, intending to check her cell phone for any missed calls. She halted in the doorway.

  Alexander Purvis, attorney and possible felon, stood next to the sofa holding a gun.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mackenzie’s gaze traveled from the gun pointed at her to the man holding it. “What the hell do you want?” she demanded, hands on her hips. Alexander Purvis didn’t frighten her one bit. In fact, had he been standing closer, she’d have done her best to claw that hateful smirk off his face, pea shooter be damned.

  Purvis’s smug smile became a snarl. “Money,” he replied coolly. “You cost me a lot of money, Ms. Cross. My fee should have been forty percent of a half million dollar settle
ment, but since my former client’s been arrested, charged with arson, and implicated me in his crimes…well, I’ll take my payment directly as I find myself in sudden need of a vacation.”

  “Man, you ain’t right in the head. Don’t you know this is a deputy’s house?” Mackenzie shuffled a little further away in the hope of making a break for the kitchen.

  He shifted the gun to cover her. “Don’t do anything foolish, Ms. Cross. While I prefer to keep matters civilized, I have no trouble using violence if necessary.”

  She shrugged.

  “We’ll go to your bank. I want a cashier’s check in the amount of two hundred fifty-eight thousand dollars. There’s no use lying to me,” Purvis went on when Mackenzie opened her mouth to make a denial. “I had a credit report done and I know to the penny how much you’ve got available in liquid assets.”

  Mackenzie listened to the muted sound of the shower running in the bathroom. She had to get this crazy asshole out of the house and away from Veronica, who was currently naked, unarmed and vulnerable. She’d cooperate with him for now. “Fine. It’s only money. I guess we’re taking your car, right?”

  Purvis motioned with the gun. “You’ll see.” When Mackenzie came closer, he roughly grabbed her arm as if intending to frog-march her out of the house.

  “Drop the gun, Mr. Purvis.” Veronica stood in the doorway between the living room and the hall, her hair soaking wet. Water streamed down her face and she wore a sloppily tied bathrobe with a yellow ducky pattern, but the service weapon in her fist commanded immediate respect, as did the badge pinned to the front of the robe.

  “Let me go, you sorry sack of shit,” Mackenzie spat, fighting his grip.

  Purvis yanked her around and held her against his chest, her arm twisted behind her back. Balanced on her toes, she tensed, her shoulder and elbow on fire.

  “Mac, hush,” Veronica said calmly, her face pale, her expression set in granite. “Mr. Purvis, a law enforcement officer has ordered you to relinquish your firearm.”

  “I know, but you’re not in a position to tell me what to do.” Purvis smirked. “How about you drop your weapon, Deputy. Then I’ll take Ms. Cross for a ride.”

  Furious, Mackenzie tried to squirm, but movement increased the pain in her shoulder. She settled for delivering a kick backward to the man’s shin, wishing she’d had the foresight to don a pair of softball cleats that morning. A bare foot couldn’t do as much damage.

  He grunted and forced her arm higher, putting more stress on the joints.

  Mackenzie bit the inside of her cheek to keep from hollering. “I owe you a punch in the dick, douche bag,” she panted through the pain. God, she hated bullies!

  “Settle down.” Veronica’s expression didn’t change. “No one needs to get hurt.”

  “Except this stubborn little heifer,” Purvis replied angrily, giving Mackenzie’s arm another agonizing yank.

  Veronica’s nostrils pinched, but her weapon’s muzzle never wavered. “Mr. Purvis, are you threatening Ms. Cross with bodily harm?”

  He let out a short bark of laughter. “You bet.”

  Mackenzie focused on Veronica. Something bad—something epic—was about to go down. She felt the stirrings of violence in the air, gathering like storm clouds over the mountains. Purvis, you goddamned bug, you’re about to meet the windshield.

  “Are you aware you’ve committed multiple felonies?” Veronica pressed, maintaining her dangerously reasonable tone.

  “And I’ll commit more unless you back off, Deputy.”

  “Are you resisting arrest?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you’re prepared to use deadly force against myself and your hostage?”

  “Yes!” Purvis half shouted, his patience clearly gone. “Now get out of my way, you stupid b—”

  The gunshot cut him off.

  Mackenzie tore herself out of Purvis’s slackening grasp. He collapsed to his knees and fell over, blood oozing down his brow. Hitching breaths hissed in and out of his mouth.

  “Come away, Mac.” Veronica took her hand and tugged.

  She stumbled, but momentum kept her on her feet until she reached the kitchen, where she stopped and clung to the edge of the counter. The sharp tang of vinegar and spices helped clear her head. Behind her, she heard Veronica talking, probably making a 911 call.

  “Are you okay?” Veronica asked after a moment.

  Leaning against the warm bulwark of Veronica’s body, Mackenzie unlocked her jaw to say, “I’m peachy, unless I have his blood in my hair.”

  “No.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He’s breathing and his pulse is strong. The bullet creased his scalp.”

  Mackenzie sighed in mingled relief and disappointment. On the other hand, what if Purvis had been killed and his spirit returned to haunt her? She shuddered and let Veronica hold her until she heard police sirens wailing closer.

  Several deputies and a couple of paramedics arrived first. Ten minutes later, Detective “Pee Wee” Davis walked through the door.

  Giving a statement at the station took an hour or so since Detective Davis kept asking the same questions over and over, no doubt hoping to catch an inconsistency in her story. Mackenzie held her temper in check only because if she blew her top, she’d never get out of there. Rather than insult the man, she adopted a toothy smile that left him visibly perturbed.

  When she finished with Davis, she hung around across the street at Stubbs Park, waiting for Veronica. The sun had lowered in the sky since they’d left the house, reduced to a golden sheen seeping over the tops of Big Brother and Little Sister Ridges. She sat on a bench by the fountain, thinking about Turner Erskine, Alexander Purvis, Rosalyn Parker and the lengths people went to for greed’s sake.

  Her shoulder twinged, breaking into her thoughts. She carefully worked her arm, rotating the joint. Not crunchy, just sore. No need to visit the doctor.

  Veronica finally exited the police station and stood on the steps. She jogged across the street when Mackenzie waved. “Okay, we’re done for now,” she said as she approached. “I’m on administrative leave pending investigation into an officer involved shooting. Purvis is under arrest and at the hospital, no skull fractures, a bad concussion and ten stitches in his scalp. They’re holding him overnight. Tomorrow, Detective Davis plans to take his statement and hopefully a confession, but I wouldn’t count on it. You catch a man like Purvis standing over a dead body with a smoking firearm in his hand, he’ll still plead innocent. Speaking of which—” She fixed Mackenzie with a glare. “If you’re ever in a hostage situation again, Mac, don’t antagonize the hostage taker when he’s holding a gun to your head.”

  “Purvis wouldn’t have hurt me,” Mackenzie scoffed. “He’s all bluff.”

  “You couldn’t see his expression. I did.” Veronica sat down on the bench, a grim set to her mouth. “It’s hard to take someone’s life in cold blood if you’ve never done it before. Hard, but not impossible. There’s this moment—I’ve seen it—when the person with the gun makes a decision to shoot. It’s on their face, in their eyes, in their body language. Purvis had that look. He’d reached the point of no return. His finger tightened on the trigger. I couldn’t let him do it. I took the shot, but I could’ve hit you instead.”

  “Ronnie, I trust you.” Mackenzie wormed her way under Veronica’s arm and rested her head on the offered shoulder. She’d never point out that Veronica had goaded Purvis, too, forcing him to verbally check off a laundry list of offenses to legitimize the use of deadly force. “Besides, I’ve seen your marksmanship scores. As far as I’m concerned, you saved my life, so excuse me while I play the world’s smallest violin for Purvis.”

  Veronica chuckled, choked and returned the hug. “Just be careful,” she whispered.

  “I will. Promise.” Mackenzie basked in the peacefulness, content to sit and breathe a while with her lover before the demands of the living and the dead had to be answered.

  Chapter Thirty-Six
<
br />   Decorated paper lanterns swayed on lines strung up around the temple’s parking lot, the soft illumination gleaming on parked vehicles.

  Mackenzie exited the truck. She heard the sound of drums, deep and rhythmic thuds booming from beyond the red painted torii gate. Taking Veronica’s hand, she walked along the garden path toward the temple.

  Food vendors had set up stalls along the way. Mackenzie didn’t recognize most of the sights or smells, but she battled with the crowds to sample anything that caught her fancy: shrimp tempura, chicken yakitori, Spam musubi, a pastry made from rice stuffed with sweetened red beans, minced octopus dumplings and a steamed pork bun. She also tried something billed as a “ninja dog” which turned out to be a beef hot dog covered in fresh cucumber relish, thinly shredded cabbage and miso sauce. Weird, she decided, but good.

  Veronica stuck to a rice ball filled with vegetables and a green tea snow cone.

  Mackenzie decided to skip the games booths and noodle eating contest, but on the suggestion of a monk, she put a couple of dollars into a collection box and turned to face a large screen made of slender bamboo poles. Rolled and folded white paper strips were tied around the poles—omikuji, he told her, a method of fortune-telling.

  For fun, she removed a random strip and unfolded it. To her consternation, the paper’s surface was covered in Japanese writing. She asked the monk to translate.

  “Great curse,” he said at once. At her indrawn breath, he added with a small smile, “Don’t worry. When you’re done, leave the fortune on the pine branch over there with the others. The tree will absorb the bad luck. Do you want me to finish translating?”

  Mackenzie nodded, but hardly heard the standard banalities about love, work, travel, and money. Great curse? The chilling phrase seemed a presentiment of danger. She thanked the monk and moved on, Veronica walking stiffly beside her.

  Off to one side of the temple, several men worked big drums, creating an insistent beat. Women wearing kimonos danced on the long veranda, raising their arms and clapping their hands. Several festival goers joined in, fumbling through the simple steps as a Japanese woman came to a microphone and began singing in her native language.