The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery)

by Kirsten Weiss

  “Did I say ‘warning?’ I meant prophecy.” His face hardened. “Aaron.”

  “Your nemesis? It’s possible.” She picked up her glass, swirled the wine. “He’s in construction so he deals with permitting. It would make sense that he’d have the connections to get me investigated.”

  “He’s also a vindictive S.O.B.”

  “I’m starting to think there’s more history between you two than you’ve told me.”

  Donovan tilted his goblet back, drank. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry.”

  Riga cocked her head. “How?”

  “I have connections, too.”

  “No. Thank you, but I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why?”

  There were so many reasons. She didn’t want to lose more control over the situation than she had, she didn’t want to feel obligated, and she didn’t know if Donovan’s connections were on the up and up. She evaded his gaze, pretended to examine the play of light on the wine. “Because dealing with the government shouldn’t be a matter of who you pay or who you know.”

  “Perhaps it shouldn’t be, but that’s the way it is.”

  “I’d rather take care of it myself,” she said stubbornly.

  “Suit yourself. What else happened?”

  “I’m not done with the Tarot card yet. Where did you get the magnet you stuck it to the board with?” Riga took another sip, let it linger on her tongue. Donovan’s recommendation had been a good one.

  “Since I’m not in the habit of carrying magnets in my pockets, it must have come from your board. Where do you think I got it?”

  “I think it came from Helen Baro’s house.”

  “Your dead client? That’s disturbing. What else has happened?”

  She ran through the rest of it – Liz, the mad man in the hospital, the accidental banishment of Vinnie the ghost.

  Donovan leaned forward, his brow wrinkling. “Pen banished the ghost? You’re sure? Pen?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Riga said, irritated by the reminder.

  “That changes things,” he muttered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What?” He looked up as if he’d just remembered she was there. “Oh. It seems Pen has inherited some of your gifts.”

  Riga didn’t believe that was what he’d meant at all.

  He nudged her feet with his black cowboy boots and she felt a shiver of electricity race between them. She wanted to tell him more, to unburden herself about the imbroglio in the parking lot. But Pen was right. It was private. He shouldn’t know.

  “So,” he began, “now are you going to tell me who ripped the collar off your shirt?”

  She looked down at the tear in surprise. “Damn.”

  Chapter 27: Mothers and Daughters

  Pen had never seen her mother so angry. Worse than last night’s screaming, though, was the “understanding” mother, who cornered Pen over breakfast the next morning.

  “Pen, we need to talk.” Her mother poured herself a cup of coffee from the counter and stirred it noisily, her teaspoon clinking off the side of the World’s Greatest Mom mug. It had a chipped edge. Pen had bought it for her in the fifth grade.

  “What?” Pen asked, wary.

  “About last night–”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have gone there.”

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say.” Rebecca put the cup down upon the kitchen table and sat across from her.

  Pen waited, pushing her oatmeal around the cheerful blue bowl with her spoon. She mashed it to the left side, then the right.

  “What happened to you last night was terrible. Your father and I have discussed it, and think you should talk to someone about what happened.”

  “You mean the police?”

  “God, no!” her mother exploded. “Riga could be arrested. I was talking about a counselor. Someone who specializes in… what you went through. They hurt you, Pen.”

  Pen squirmed. She almost wished her mom would start yelling again. But a small voice inside her told her she deserved this. “No, they didn’t. If anything, they’re the ones hurting now.”

  Her mother’s eyes flashed. “Good. I hope Riga smashed them into bloody pulps.”

  Pen stared at her mother, taken aback.

  “But that wasn’t what I was talking about,” her mother said. “Something like this leaves other types of scars. I know a wonderful counselor. She’s funny, interesting, I really think you’ll like her.”

  “A psychiatrist?”

  “A psychologist,” her mother corrected.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me!” But as she said it, she began to wonder. She’d never been one of the popular girls in school, always an outsider. Though she and her friends sneered at the prom, it hurt her that no one had asked. If she was normal, she would have “fit,” wouldn’t she? If she was normal, she wouldn’t see ghosts. Her voice rose, panicked. “I’m not crazy!”

  “Of course you’re not, honey,” her mother soothed.

  Pen pushed away from the table. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Oh!” her mother said, bewildered. “ Well, think about it, Pen. If you want to talk to me…?”

  Pen grunted something incomprehensible and fled the house. The day was cool and foggy. Again. Pen hadn’t any destination in mind, she just wanted out and away. She took the coast road and parked in a cove outside Pacifica, wandering down to the sandy beach. The ocean was iron gray, the foam from its waves tinged sickly brown. A gust of wind dashed a light spray of water in her face and Pen zipped her military jacket to her chin.

  She wandered the beach, head down, blinking back tears. Something was wrong with her. It ran through her head, a mantra she couldn’t stop, until she saw something which arrested her motion. Two oblong stones had been placed end up in the sand like a tiny Stonehenge, a temple for faeries. A bulbous piece of seaweed lay artistically beside it. She wondered who had put the stones there, and if the seaweed had been placed beside them or had just washed up there.

  A shadow cut across her line of sight.

  “Yours?”

  Pen looked up, startled. It was the man from the pie place, Riga’s friend. Dave? Dan? He wore the same long woolen coat, but today a black scarf was knotted around his throat in an elegant cravat. He was handsome in an old-fashioned sort of way, Pen thought, “old” being the operative word. The man had to be forty. At least.

  “Strange, aren’t they?” he asked, nodding toward the stones.

  “It looks like a home for Titania and Oberon.” She realized she was showing off, and felt herself coloring.

  His lips quirked, as if he understood. “Shakespeare?”

  She tried to redeem herself. “It was our school play last year. I was a stage hand.” He wants to talk about Riga, a voice in her head told her. “Riga says A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s most magical play,” she blurted.

  “I’m partial to the Tempest, but won’t argue with your aunt.”

  She jammed her hands in her pockets, hunching her shoulders. Now that she’d stopped walking, she felt the cold.

  “You came here to be alone,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He turned to leave.

  “No, wait!”

  He turned back, looking at her curiously.

  She picked at a hangnail, careful not to look at him. “How do you know my aunt?”

  “We go back a long way.”

  “She’s never mentioned you.”

  “Sometimes she has a hard time remembering.”

  Pen saw a small, flat stone beside her feet and chucked it toward the water. The waves receded and the stone fell short upon the sand. “What do you want with her now?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Want with her? Nothing. But I think she’s in danger. I’d like to help, but I’m afraid she doesn’t trust me. She nearly bit my head off when I asked her about the altercation last night.” He chuckled at the memory. “She really is magnificent when she’s angry.�
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  “Then you didn’t see her angry,” Pen said flatly. She shivered, thinking of her aunt’s expression, cold and terrible, when she’d fought the two men.

  “Riga likes to work alone, doesn’t she?”

  Pen nodded, miserable. It was true, she realized. Riga had taken her on because she felt sorry for her. And all she’d done was screw things up. But Riga had asked for her help with the computer mapping – that was something she knew Riga couldn’t do on her own. Could her aunt really go to jail? She scuffed her toes in the sand, covering up a little hole made by a sand crab. She watched it dig its way out, scuttling sideways, its single large claw snapping, then burrow back into the sand.

  “You’re more help to her than you realize,” he said.

  She looked up, startled. It was as if he’d picked up her thoughts. “I dunno.”

  “What did you learn at the Hanged Man?”

  That topic seemed safe enough. She shrugged. “Not much. Herman – that’s Helen’s husband – met there with a local councilwoman named Faye the night he died.”

  “Not much? That sounds like a good lead.”

  “I guess,” she muttered.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Just some jerks.”

  Donovan stilled. “There was more than one?”

  Pen nodded. She shouldn’t say anymore. Her aunt could get in trouble. And she was embarrassed, by her own weakness, her stupidity, her helplessness. Deep in her own misery, she didn’t notice how his voice had darkened or that the noise of the waves had subsided.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  The words rose in her throat. She wanted to scream, to rage, I couldn’t stop them!

  Pen swallowed them down. The wind whipped hard against her and she took a step back. The sound of the waves returned. “I have to go,” she croaked. She stumbled away.

  “Good luck, Pen,” he said. His words were lost in the howling wind.

  Chapter 28: One Mystery, Solved

  The next morning, Riga’s condo was sunk in a thick wall of fog. Brigitte stared in the window, looking miserable, droplets of mist hanging from her nose. Riga took pity on the gargoyle and let her inside. Brigitte was hell on the wooden floors but Riga had another two hundred and twenty years to worry about the consequences. Brigitte sprang to the marble kitchen countertop and stretched out, head on one hand and mystery novel open before her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Ze pages were becoming damp.”

  “Before you get involved in your book, mind if I ask you a question?” Riga said. Brigitte had spent hundreds of years with alchemists and magicians – she’d marinated in magical knowledge.

  Brigitte regarded her curiously, which Riga took for assent.

  “I know that Helen and Donovan have magic,” Riga said, “but I can’t feel it with my senses. Occasionally, it’s like a slide slips out of the frame and I catch a glimpse of it, but then it’s gone. I’ve checked for cloaking spells, but I would swear to it there’s nothing covering their energy, hiding the magic from me.”

  Brigitte shrugged, a gravelly sounding gesture that set Riga’s teeth on edge. “But I cannot sense your power most of ze time. When we first met, I thought you were a foolish girl, who knew nothing of magic – a brave, spirited girl to take on a necromancer, but foolish nevertheless. It was only when I saw your magic that I understood you were ze One of Great Power I was destined to meet. And then the magic bound us together, and I knew.” She returned her gaze to the book. “I did not think there were others. Perhaps you were not the one I awaited after all?”

  Riga blinked. “You never told me this!”

  “I thought you knew. You are ze One of Great Power.”

  “What do you mean, one of great power? What’s so great about it?”

  Brigitte slammed the book shut and glared at her. “I would think you were fishing for ze compliments if I did not know you better. What is wrong with you? Do you know any other magicians who can simply summon power and direct it as you do? No! They need spells, or potions, or demons to do their bidding. You bend ze very nature of time and space with your will! Yes, I taught you ze spells so you could direct your power, learn to control it better, but when was ze last time you used one?

  “How can you be so ignorant? If you only got out more and spent more time with other magicians, you would see it. But no, you must be the loner, Riga Hayworth – Oh, how special am I, with my traumatic putting out of ze lights capability! What a heavy burden! I make myself alone and misunderstood and no man may enter. If you did not have me, who would you have? No one but Pen! And now you turn her away as well.”

  “Pen doesn’t know what she’s getting into! It’s dangerous.”

  “And how will she protect herself if ze one person who can teach her, pushes her away?”

  “She’s too young,” Riga muttered.

  “Hmph!” Brigitte deliberately opened the book and returned to her reading.

  Riga hated it when Brigitte was right.

  The gargoyle’s air of smug triumph was insufferable and Riga escaped to her study. She spent the afternoon on the phone and online, tracking down the councilwoman. Faye was Riga’s last lead, the last thread for her to pull upon. But Brigitte’s exclamations of delight and consternation as her mystery novel unfolded were impossible to ignore.

  “For a woman of intelligence, ze heroine has no sense of fashion,” Brigitte said. She eyed Riga. “Why have I never seen you in ze high heels?”

  “Tough to run from bad guys in,” Riga said, trudging through a city council’s website. No wonder government was so dysfunctional – they couldn’t even organize simple information on the web.

  There was only one councilwoman in the area named Faye, so tracking her down wasn’t hard. Making an appointment with her was another matter. Faye’s schedule was guarded by a dragon of a receptionist – no available appointments this week or next. Riga didn’t want to wait that long.

  That afternoon, she fled her condo and drove down the peninsula, to lurk in an empty council hallway as a public meeting went on in the auditorium. Finally, the council doors swung open and people streamed from the chambers. Faye was one of the last, in a cluster of local politicians and bureaucrats. They shook hands and Faye separated from them, heading down the corridor where Riga lay in wait.

  She detached herself from the wall as Faye passed. “Excuse me, do you have a moment? My name’s Riga Hayworth, I write for the Peninsula Times.”

  Faye glanced up at her, disinterested, and kept walking, her sky-high heels silent on the thin brown carpet. “You’ll have to make an appointment with my secretary. I’m rather busy now.” She brushed a speck of lint from her modest cream-colored skirt and jacket set. It was a good look, Riga thought. Conservative, dressy, but not too expensive – a real woman of the people.

  Faye moved quickly, but Riga’s legs were longer and she kept pace with the councilwoman. “Will your secretary be able to tell me why you didn’t tell the police about your meeting with Herman Baro on the night of his death?”

  Faye stopped, paling. Her mouth worked as if she were trying to speak but was unable to get the words out. A dried fleck of her carmine red lipstick flaked off.

  “Off the record.” Riga smiled.

  “My office is this way,” Faye choked out.

  Riga made an “after you” gesture and after a moment’s hesitation, Faye led the way. She unlocked a door with her nameplate upon it, flipping on the lights. Riga followed her inside and chose a leather chair beside a ficus tree. Awards and photos of Faye with various dignitaries filled the walls. A window looked over the parking lot.

  Faye sat behind the desk and gave Riga a cold look, composure restored. “What do you want?”

  “I’m investigating the deaths of Helen and Herman Baro. All I want is information.”

  Faye started, her eyes widening. “Helen’s dead?”

  “You knew her then?”

  She toyed with her pearl necklace. “Not really.”r />
  “Just Herman?”

  “I didn’t know him that well, either.”

  Liar. “In that case, can you tell me what you were doing with him on the night of his death?”

  She folded her hands primly upon the desk. “I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “Yet I’m sure the police would have been interested to learn of it. Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “Because it wasn’t important. Herman had a car accident. I didn’t have anything to add that would have been helpful.”

  Riga smiled thinly. “So much for civic duty.”

  The councilwoman tried for a reasonable look. “It was a business meeting. But we’re both married; there might have been an appearance of impropriety were it to get out I was having drinks with someone who was not my husband. It’s unfair, but that’s politics.”

  “But what sort of business would you have with Aaron Cunningham’s CFO?” Riga could think of a number of innocent explanations. She watched, intrigued, as the councilwoman struggled for a response.

  “You’re fishing,” Faye snapped, rising. “If you feel you need to report this to the police, be my guest. It’s been a long day. I’m going home.”

  Riga left, satisfied. A cage had been rattled.

  The fog had grown denser when she returned home late that afternoon. She entered her building and the doorman grunted hello, glancing up from his newspaper. She wondered where Dog was. The elevator smelled of the animal, but it didn’t bounce, shake, or darken so that seemed like a fair tradeoff. The doors slid open and there was the dog, nose to the bottom of her door. So intent was it upon its task, it didn’t notice her presence.

  In its jaws was a paper valentine. He tucked it carefully beneath her door then turned toward her. The dog froze, one paw raised to take a step. Its head lowered guiltily, its toffee-colored eyes darkened, as if embarrassed.

  “Dog?” Her mind raced. It couldn’t have been – it must have been trained somehow. The doorman? “Have you been leaving me the valentines?” She realized how she sounded, talking to the dog. It wasn’t as if he could talk back.

  He trotted past, and sat beside the elevator doors. The dog’s eyebrows twitched, hopeful.