Aiden’s eyes got big. “Bodies? Human bodies?”
Jirel nodded. “In the shed out back. Under it.”
“Jesus Christ. Do you know who they were?”
“Not yet. We’re still investigating that. We talked to the new owner, but it looks like they’ve been there longer than she owned the place. So we talked to your wife. Ex-wife, sorry.”
Aviira held up a hand. “Wait, I missed this part.”
Aiden looked toward her. “Loretta and I separated a year ago.”
She exchanged a look with Jirel. He gave her a discreet nod.
“Anyway. We talked to her and she told us that you’d had an affair and she was very concerned about the other woman involved.”
“She said what?”
“Just relaying to you what she told us.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.” Aiden waved a hand in agitation, pulled in a breath.
“We can give you some time,” Jirel said softly. “I know this is difficult.”
Aiden ran a hand across his face. “No, I’m sorry. Better get this out of the way so you can continue what you were investigating.” He composed himself with a quick sigh. “I separated from Loretta last year. She’s been finding every way she can to slow the process.”
Jirel nodded slowly and explained to Aiden the reason they were looking for him in the first place, including the discovery that the bodies had been reanimated. Aviira watched Aiden’s face the whole time for signs that any of this information might not have been new.
“And she thought that—my girlfriend was responsible for the bodies under the shed?” Aiden said when he finished. His eyes were beginning to look a little glazed over.
“That’s right. She actually used the word witch to describe her.”
Aiden snorted; the sound escaped as if he couldn’t help keep it in. “A what?”
“You understand why we had to look into this,” Jirel said.
“Of course I do, but…that’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. Hazel’s father works with me for the Alliance, do you think he’d allow her to be involved in anything like witchcraft? Something like that would be political suicide.”
So was dating the young daughter of a coworker before signing divorce papers, Aviira mused. She managed to keep the thought to herself.
“There’s no way she could have been keeping something like that from you?” Aviira asked.
“How could she have kept it from me but Loretta knew?” Aiden said. “Loretta didn’t even know her name.”
“She claimed that she found some things in the rental house that Hazel might have left to mark her territory, as it were,” Aviira said.
Aiden shook his head. “I know it’s her word against mine here, but Hazel never so much as set foot in that house.”
“I hate to state the obvious here,” Aviira said quietly. “But usually when there’s some sort of domestic disturbance surrounding a relationship that involves more than two people…”
She didn’t have to finish. Aiden gave her a flat look. “As in, Loretta did this?”
“You know her better than I do,” she said. “She does have plenty of motive.”
“No,” Aiden said, shaking his head sharply. “No, Loretta might have been angry at me for starting up a relationship, but there’s no way she would have resorted to murder.”
Jirel tried a different route. “What brought on the divorce? You’d been married for some time, hadn’t you?”
“Nearly ten years,” Aiden said. A look that stopped somewhere between regret and resentment took hold of his face. He took in a deep breath. “Three or four years ago, we started trying to have a baby. We tried for a year and nothing happened...we tried seeing different doctors, all these treatments...nothing worked. It was really starting to take a toll on Loretta. She had this group of friends, these women she’d known for several years from a book club, and she started seeing them all the time. Coffee every morning, lunch every week, I’d come home from a week away in New York and she’d have left a note saying she was going on some retreat at the last moment. At first I thought it was good for her. I was gone a lot, it gave her someone to be with, people to talk to. Then things started to get...off. Her behavior was odd, and I thought it was nothing more than the stress, you know?”
“What kind of behavior?” Aviira asked.
“She stopped talking to me, started getting more reclusive...and then it suddenly all switched, just like that. She told me that she had discovered the real reason she couldn’t have a baby and she had fixed it with, uh, holistic health, all these hippie treatments she had been researching with her girlfriends. I thought, this was it, she’d snapped and the stress had turned into manic depression or something...I told her I thought it would be helpful to seek professional counseling and a real doctor and she...” He paused, shaking his head as his eyes glassed over again. “Snapped. Really snapped. Attacked me. She came after me with a knife screaming that I had no idea what she was going through. That I wasn’t willing to make it all work out. I made it out of the house, called the police, had a restraining order put on her...I tried to have her institutionalized but the judge refused.”
Out the corner of his eye, Jirel saw a visible shudder go through Aviira. When he looked toward her, she only cleared her throat and put one hand up to her mouth to fiddle with the scar on the corner of her lip.
Aiden did not seem to notice. “Since I couldn’t force her to get help I told her I wanted a divorce. Admittedly, I was too selfish to do it right away because I was right in the middle of important Alliance work and I didn’t want anything to interrupt that. I sought a separation from her and told her I would happily pay alimony but she’d have to stay quiet until then. Since then she’s been...very quiet. I haven’t heard from her in months. She cashes the checks I send her and never calls. I heard a rumor that she’d started seeing someone even. I thought she was doing better. I don’t think these women are good for her though. I don’t think she’s dangerous, just being fed a lot of bullshit right now.”
“She came at you with a knife,” Aviira said quietly. “I’d say that’s fairly dangerous.”
“I just meant in general. These women, this group, whoever they are, are obviously getting into her head. I think that’s worse than anything she could do on her own. Anybody can snap.”
Aviira closed her eyes for a second longer than it took to blink and tapped a finger on the corner of her lip. When she opened her eyes again, Jirel was watching her with a mixture of concern and curiosity written across his face.
“Snap badly enough to kill someone?” Jirel asked as he drew his eyes away from Aviira.
Aiden swallowed. “No. I know her, deep down, she could never do that. Besides…why would she draw your attention to a crime she was about to commit?”
Aviira glanced at Jirel. They both knew exactly why, but it seemed Aiden Dannels was unwilling to consider the possibility that his soon-to-be ex-wife was framing him.
“You don’t have any professional enemies, do you?” Jirel asked. He shrugged, as if he knew he was grasping at straws.
“No, not that I can think of.”
“How does Hazel’s father feel about you dating his daughter?” Aviira said.
“You think he would have killed his own daughter?” Aiden asked.
“No, I’m just entertaining the possibility of a hit on you that went bad.” She shrugged. “See a lot of weird shit in this business.”
“I know you do,” Aiden said with a nod. “But there was no animosity between us.”
“Doesn’t rule out the possibility of a hit in general,” Jirel said. “You’re an important person.”
Aiden turned his gaze toward the trees, stared off for a minute. “Still doesn’t explain where the bodies came from.”
Or the other shit they’d run into so far, Aviira thought. Jirel shifted his weight onto his other leg and she sensed he was entertaining a similar thought.
“Our best bet
right now is to assume they’re connected somehow,” he said. “And that person tried to kill you or Hazel.”
“Or both,” Aviira murmured.
Aiden stared off into space for a while before returning to the two of them. “So if there is someone practicing witchcraft, and they used my property as a dumping space…but it wasn’t Hazel…who is it?”
Jirel took in a deep breath. “That’s the million dollar question of the day, I’m afraid.”
***
“This makes no sense whatsoever,” Aviira said.
Jirel sighed in agreement and leaned back in the couch cushions, poking his fingers into his eyes until stars appeared behind the lids. Aviira was sitting on the kitchen island, obsessively braiding and re-braiding her hair. The afternoon had gone overcast while they remained at the scene, angry clouds the color of wet concrete building up over the western sky and turning it dark even though it was only six o’clock.
“Loretta framing her husband for murder makes a little sense, she’s pissed that he’s divorcing her and already picked up a new younger woman. She has plenty of motive there.” Aviira stared out the back door of the cabin and eventually shook her head. “But that woman had been attacked within a minute or two of us getting there.”
“And there was no sign anyone had gone in or out of that place,” Jirel said.
“Exactly. I mean, let’s be real here, you don’t maul someone to death like that and get out without at least leaving some footprints or dripping everywhere. Shit, look at me, I just stood there and held her hand and I still got blood all over me.”
“Which rules out the possibility of an animal.”
Aviira scoffed. “No, no way. A human being trying to get out of there without being seen would have left behind tracks. An animal would have made an even bigger mess. And there was no place in there that looked like an animal could have gotten in or out.”
“Good enough for the official report though.”
She nodded, and they sat there in the silence for a few minutes. The wind was picking up outside, blowing the trees angrily. Jirel sat up finally and leaned his elbows on his knees.
“What about suicide?” he said.
Aviira glanced at him, thought about it for a second, and shook her head slowly. “There was no weapon,” she said absently as she thought it over again. “I mean unless she threw it across the room and we never noticed it. But those gashes were pretty deep, and at weird angles. I don’t think she could have done that to herself. Plus—”
She paused abruptly, and Jirel looked up at her. She swallowed.
“What?”
Aviira shook her head, trying to make an expression that said it was no big deal. “Nothing. Just the look in her eyes. She was scared.”
Jirel heard the way her throat closed up around the word scared. It was the first time he’d seen any kind of serious emotion out of her. Aviira took in a deep breath and sighed it out, then came off the island and went to the screen door, turning her back to him and looking out while she composed herself. He gave her a moment.
“Never had someone die on me,” she said softly after a minute.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Jirel said.
She turned around and looked at him. She’d almost forgotten that the reason they were here together was that he’d inadvertently gotten someone killed on assignment.
“What happened?” she asked.
He raised his eyes to her, considered the question for a second. “She was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend. Guy was obsessive and violent. Told her if he couldn’t have her then nobody could. She had restraining orders but it didn’t do anything. I was more or less acting as her bodyguard. I was still pissed at Jayne for transferring partners, and it had still only been a few months since my girlfriend walked out.” He shook his head. “I should have taken myself off the case. I was too distracted. Anyway. She had asked to go into a restaurant alone with a friend, so I agreed to wait outside for her. I was sitting in my car in the parking lot and not paying enough attention and he walked up right as she was coming out and shot her.”
“I heard about this,” Aviira said softly. “I had no idea that was you.”
He nodded. “That was me.”
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Shot him four times,” he said. His eyebrows went up. “That was really what got me in trouble, not that I’d fucked up the case and gotten my target killed, but that I used excessive force in taking him out.” He shrugged. “That was the official report anyway.”
He turned his eyes to the floor. “You’ve never known true disappointment till someone looks at you and you both know the reason they’re dying is because you fucked up.”
Aviira gave a small grimace.
“I almost resigned. I was so disgusted with myself.”
“What stopped you?”
“Jaren Ullemaster called me. Reminded me why I’d become a Society detective in the first place, reminded me that my father would have wanted me to think of the bigger picture and he probably would have been disappointed if I hung it up after one mistake.” He fidgeted with his ring.
A small rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. Aviira glanced out the screen for a second, then looked back at him and said, “Well, I don’t know if this means much coming from me, but I’m glad you stayed.”
Jirel looked up at her and nodded after a second, unsure how else to voice his appreciation.
***
Jirel revisited the notes he’d taken the day they had visited Loretta Dannels while Aviira braved the rain to bring them back something to eat. She came into the kitchen with sandwiches and a six-pack to find him seated at the island looking like he was trying to reach back into his brain for something that might not actually be there.
“That doesn’t look like an encouraging face,” she said.
“You remember how Aiden said it would have been weird if Loretta knew Hazel was a witch because she didn’t even know her name?”
“Yeah.”
He turned his notebook around to show her the note he’d taken down remarking that Loretta had told them the young woman’s name was Hazel. Aviira’s eyebrows came together.
“Shit, I remember that now.”
Jirel drummed his fingers on the counter. “Coincidence?”
Aviira popped the cap on a beer and handed it to him, shrugged one shoulder with a helpless face. “I mean...it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that she found out and Aiden didn’t know. Women know how to snoop, especially women who think their spouses are cheating on them. Maybe she knew his e-mail password or something. They might not have met, but it doesn’t mean she couldn’t have found out her name.”
She could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced.
“What’re you thinking?”
“Not sure,” he said as he unwrapped his sandwich. “But Loretta’s making me nervous for some reason.”
“Aiden did mention she was involved with some questionable people,” Aviira said, and took a seat at the island next to him. “Maybe one of them is the witch. Got wind of Loretta’s issue and decided to take it into her hands.”
“Wait a second. We never went back to what we think killed Hazel.”
Aviira shrugged. “If we rule out suicide, an intruder, or an animal, what does that leave us?”
Jirel considered her for a long moment. She could tell he didn’t like the answer any more than she did. “Supernatural,” he said finally. “But we can tell she didn’t die the same way that Devaney did. She didn’t reanimate.”
“Moira did say that the purpose of creating one of those Creepers was to get a shade out of it, remember?”
“So you’re thinking it was a shade.”
She shrugged. “Seems as reasonable a solution as any. We have no entrance or exit, no weapon…Moira said that it was a good way to get away with murder without any evidence. So if we fly on that assumption now we’re left with who’s the one controlling it.”
J
irel shook his head, his expression reading as if he wanted to laugh at the insanity of the idea. He ran a hand over his face and then went to his notepad to write down notes. Aviira noted for the first time that he was left-handed.
“We know Loretta might have been involved with some questionable people,” she said. “I think it’s a safe bet to look into one of them.”
He was quiet for a second. Aviira took a bite and looked at his face; she could tell that he was unsure.
“What.”
“What if it’s Loretta?”
She chewed and waited for him to explain his reasoning.
“The bodies were on her property, to begin with. She was the first person to bring up the things she’d seen, we have no proof that any of those things were there before hearing from her. Elaine Turner bought that house from her and wound up dead.”
“She was also in a book club with her, if I remember correctly.”
Jirel turned back in his notes a couple pages and nodded. “She sure was.” He considered it and shook his head. “I don’t know. Just feels a little weird to me.”
“Yeah, but…if she was responsible for all that activity why would she basically send us to investigate further? She was basically shining a light on herself. Seems like if she wanted to cover her tracks she’d shut up about it entirely. She told us about all the witch stuff in the first place, like you said, and pretty much made sure we would look into it.”
Jirel took a pull off his beer and sighed softly. “Well, if Aiden’s right, and she’s nuts, who knows. Chances are she’s got some issues and these women she’s associating with are just feeding her more stuff and that’s driving her over the edge. Obviously she concocted this story about Aiden’s affair because she couldn’t deal with the reality of the divorce. I don’t think Aiden would have attempted to have her put away if he didn’t think it was necessary.”
Aviira set her beer down on the granite a little harder than she meant to, and it made a loud crack.
“Bunch of bullshit,” she said softly. Jirel looked sidelong at her, and she cleared her throat. “I’m not ruling it out,” she said. Jirel recognized the abrupt change of subject. “I’m just saying it would be a little counterintuitive to be responsible for this witchcraft setup and then send a couple of detectives straight into the middle of your operation. I think it’s a much more plausible suggestion to say one of these other women did it.”
Shadows of Old Ghosts Page 14
