Shadows of Old Ghosts

by Stephanie Zayatz

  “You think Aiden called him?”

  “I’m not sure what else we could be in trouble for.”

  She shrugged and scanned her security badge to get in the door, held it open for him. “There’s not exactly much else we could have done.”

  When they got to the bottom of the stairs and took a right down the long corridor that ended with Xander’s office, neither of them were expecting what they found when they opened the door.

  Aviira straightened. “Shit, now what did I do?”

  The tall, rail-thin black man in a DPD uniform turned in his chair to look at them. He had Captain’s bars on his chest. One disinterested eyebrow went up.

  “A pleasure as always, Miss Rasin. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you were on the fast track to being fired last time we spoke.”

  “No, you’re right about that.”

  He gave her a thin smile. “And yet here you are.”

  “Funny how that works,” she said quietly, clearing her throat. She knew the hangover wasn’t helping, but she suddenly felt nauseous.

  Jirel sensed a complicated history.

  Xander stood up behind his desk and motioned for them to come in. “Captain Beal has a few questions for you about Lieutenant Devaney.”

  Jirel shot Xander a glare across the room. It was typically the Informant’s job to wrangle questions from the humans, especially when police had gotten tangled up in the mix. Xander sent him back a desperate look that said he’d tried his best and indicated that they should take a seat.

  “I understand you were the two who found the Lieutenant,” Beal said as they sat down. He turned his chair out to see them better.

  “Yes, I’m afraid we did,” Jirel said.

  “Your official report started that you entered the premises after he’d contacted you to come and get some information from him.”

  Aviira glanced at Xander, feeling a note of nervousness slip into her gut. Any time the humans came poking around their cases it was not good, even less so when there was supernatural activity involved. Their very existence rode on being able to keep that as quiet as possible.

  Jirel said, “Lieutenant Devaney was locating some identities for us from the forensics department. He called to say that he’d gotten them but was too ill to bring them to the precinct and we were welcome to come to his home and get them.”

  Beal nodded. “And so when you arrived and there was no answer…”

  They were both quiet for a moment longer than they should have been as they each silently begged the other to respond. “The back door was open,” Jirel said. “We could see him from the outside and knew something was wrong.”

  “I see.” He turned his dark eyes to Aviira and looked at her for a second, like he was trying to get her side of the story. “And there was no one else in the house?”

  Jirel spoke again. “No sir.”

  Beal never took his eyes off Aviira. A little smile crooked up the corners of his mouth. “Working with a partner must be good for you, Miss Rasin. I don’t think I’ve ever been in your presence this long without having the pleasure of listening to you run your mouth.”

  She knew him well enough to know that he meant it as a compliment, and a light-hearted one at that. She’d had enough run-ins with him to be a good judge of his character. Still, she didn’t know what to say, so she just forced a smile.

  Beal cleared his throat and reached into the leather bag at his feet, withdrew a sealed evidence bag, and set it on Xander’s desk for everyone to see. There was a used shell inside.

  Aviira had never tried harder in her life to keep a straight face. Next to her, Jirel had gone oddly still.

  “Forensics found this in the house,” Beal said. “I know you’re thinking to ask me if it’s possibly from Lieutenant Devaney’s service weapon, but it’s not. Our forensics team took a look at it and were able to lift a partial fingerprint off it which led us to you, Mr. Turmaine. And since you were the last two people known to be in contact with Lieutenant Devaney before he died of very sudden circumstances, you’ll understand why I’m a little curious that you apparently fired your weapon in his home.”

  Nobody said anything for a long time. Then Jirel said, knowing full well he was walking a dangerous line, “Has there been an autopsy performed on Lieutenant Devaney?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Beal looked at him for a long moment, tilted his head to one side. “Severe flu complications,” he said. “Burst a vessel in his brain from the coughing, specifically.”

  “Well, then there can’t be any suspicion that we might have killed him.”

  “I never said there was,” the Captain said with a small shake of his head.

  Aviira bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. He’d insinuated it and he damn well knew it. She actually surprised herself by keeping her mouth shut. Beal looked at her in a way that said he was expecting her to call his bluff, too.

  “And yet there’s still evidence that a weapon was fired in his house immediately before or after his death.”

  Xander said, “Captain Beal. I know that you know well enough about our business here that we sometimes deal with things that we can’t go speaking about to the public.”

  “Of course I do,” Beal said, glancing back at him for a moment. “But there’s a dead cop in the picture right now. I know that you know well enough that I can’t just ignore that.”

  Before Xander could say anything, Jirel brought in a small breath. “We were working closely with Lieutenant Devaney on a missing persons case when some bodies were located under somewhat suspicious means. It appears that the person responsible thought that the lieutenant was the investigating officer and decided to drop in on him to perhaps attempt to threaten him.”

  “Are you saying that this person was in the house with Lieutenant Devaney when you arrived?”

  “Yes.”

  “And were they responsible for his passing?”

  “No.”

  “But you were for theirs.”

  Aviira saw something twitch in the side of Jirel’s jaw. Captain Beal had a way of working his way through a conversation without actually saying what needed to be said.

  “We arrived at the Lieutenant’s house upon his invitation and saw his body in the living room, and our suspect in the house with him,” she said. “Our immediate assumption was what one would assume, and my partner made a decision. We didn’t know that the Lieutenant had already passed of natural causes.”

  Captain Beal considered her, flicked his eyes between the two of them. “And then you removed evidence of this because…”

  Jirel cleared his throat. “Let’s just say it would have made for a very confusing situation.”

  Beal looked back at Xander, who shrugged a little. “You’re aware of the kinds of things we sometimes deal with,” he said again. “Perhaps it’s best that we forget about this detail—” he nodded toward the evidence bag “—and assume we knew only that Lieutenant Devaney passed of natural causes and was discovered by my two detectives here.”

  The two of them looked at each other for a long while. This was the quiet, unspoken law between the Society and the humans: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, you stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours. It wasn’t technically legal, but there was a lot of gray area when it came to what was and was not allowed to be shared when it came to classified Society information.

  Finally, Captain Beal nodded his head. “Yes, perhaps that’s best.” He glanced at Aviira and Jirel again. “Perhaps next time if you wish to keep classified information under your hats your detectives will do a better job cleaning up their messes.”

  “I’ll schedule a meeting about it,” Xander said. Aviira held in a smile.

  Beal rose to his feet and picked up his bag, leaving the evidence bag on Xander’s desk. He started to leave and then paused, glanced back at Jirel.

  “Good luck,” he said to him. Jirel’s eyebrows went up a little. Bea
l nodded with his chin toward Aviira. “I’m sure you’ve probably noticed by now that she’s crazy.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Jirel said as he flicked his gaze to Aviira. She held his eyes.

  Beal smirked, glanced at Aviira and then back at Xander. “Have a good one.” He shut the door behind him.

  Xander sat down with a heavy sigh. “Jesus, I hate that guy,” he said quietly.

  “He’s a big softy,” Aviira said with a shrug. “You just have to get to know him.”

  “You seem to know him pretty well.”

  “You bring enough fucked up human suspects to the police station and eventually the Captain notices you,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “He’s the biggest reason I almost got fired.”

  Xander frowned and looked at them for a moment. “You two look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” Jirel said.

  “To be fair I’m hungover as hell,” Aviira said, letting her eyes go wide for a moment. “He just looks like shit for no good reason.”

  They looked at each other and Jirel shook his head as if in disbelief, but couldn’t hold in a smile. He laughed a bit and shook his head.

  “Jerk.”

  Xander watched the exchange and couldn’t tell if it was sincere or just backhanded flirting. Jirel looked back at him and the smile dropped from his face when he saw the look on Xander’s face: don’t you dare.

  “I heard what happened,” Xander said. “Aiden Dannels called me yesterday morning to make sure we were both on the same page about the media. So far nobody’s managed to pick up on it, thank God. Considering his divorce is still hush-hush it probably wouldn’t look good if he showed up in the mountains with a dead girlfriend.” He paused and pursed his lips for a second, looking serious. “He said to pass on his thanks that you were there and took care of everything.”

  “Didn’t really have a choice,” Aviira said quietly. “Kind of difficult to walk away from a scene like that.”

  Xander nodded his head in a tight movement. “Well…I got a call this morning from the county coroner’s office. The medical examiner on the case wants you two to go take a look at the body.”

  Aviira frowned. “What for?”

  He shrugged. “Wouldn’t tell me, but I’m assuming he thinks there must be something you two need to know.”

  “Great,” she whispered.

  Xander eyed them both for a bit. “What did you find up there?”

  Jirel shook his head a little. “We aren’t sure,” he said quietly. “Had the look of a homicide but the pieces just don’t fit. It had to have happened moments before we got there and we didn’t see anyone. And the door was locked from the inside.”

  “Dannels have an alibi?”

  “Mhm. He told me her father worked with him at the Alliance,” Jirel said. “Someone on the up and up as he was would never want to get wrapped up in the murder of a coworker’s daughter.”

  “He probably shouldn’t have been fucking her either if that’s the case,” Aviira murmured quietly. “Especially not with divorce papers still on the table.”

  Xander shrugged. “And what about a hit? Maybe he hired someone to do it for him?”

  “He’s got no motive, really. And, again, if that’s the case, whoever did it must have been a fucking ghost or something.”

  “As good a guess as any at this point,” Aviira said in a dull tone. “It just doesn’t make much sense considering his ex told us that she thought the girlfriend was a danger, and then the girlfriend is the one who winds up dead.”

  “You considering the ex?” Xander asked.

  They looked at each other. They were both wearing indecisive faces. Jirel shrugged finally.

  “We’re not not considering her, but it seems a stretch at this point.”

  “Why?”

  “She pointed us in this direction,” Aviira said. “If she was in the business of whacking her husband’s new squeeze I feel like she should have pushed us in a different direction. She told us about the girlfriend. We never would have been the wiser if she hadn’t said anything.”

  “We have this book club or whatever it is,” Jirel said. “Both Loretta and that woman who drove her car into the river last week were members of it. I’m willing to bet there’s a connection there.”

  Aviira scowled. “Yeah, you’d be pretty stupid to not take that bet,” she muttered.

  “And the dead cop? How does he tie in?” Xander picked up the evidence bag that Beal had left behind.

  “Had to be a shot over the bow,” Aviira said, glancing at Jirel. He nodded his agreement. “He saw the bodies in the shed, was expendable as a human…easy target. The way he died was a pretty plain warning to us. Whoever this person is might not be willing to get tangled with the Society, but a human isn’t quite such a big deal.”

  Xander made a quiet noise and scratched at his face. “Well…get an alibi off Loretta. I know it sounds like a stretch but we’ve got nothing else going on at this point. Wouldn’t hurt to sit down with Dannels again too…if he was trying to make it look like a break-in he’s done a pretty good job but he’ll snap soon if not. We can bring him in for a questioning any time, I don’t care how important he is, he isn’t above the law.”

  “Dunno,” Aviira said. “If there’s one thing I am good at, it’s seeing through that kind of stuff. I faked out Hunters for over a year. I know how to put up that kind of front. I watched him for that kind of behavior, the faking…if he really did something, he’s fucking stone cold. I didn’t see anything except genuine emotion. The guy was really beat up about it.”

  “All right. Well, go see what the medical examiner has to say. Check out Loretta and talk to Dannels again. I know it’s not much but maybe something will pop out at you.” He gave them both a sympathetic look. “I really did try to give you something easy to at least get back on the horse.”

  Aviira stretched and laced her hands behind her head, shrugged. Gave Jirel a grim expression. “No big deal. By this point I’m used to life trying to fuck me over every chance it gets.”

  ***

  Aviira offered to get them some coffee from the break room while Jirel went upstairs to get the car and meet her at the curb. As she was putting the cream back in the refrigerator after fixing Jirel’s cup, she realized at the last moment that there was someone standing right behind her, and she jumped as a string of profanities burst out of her mouth.

  Tito put a cool hand on her arm. “Jesus, girlfriend. Easy there.”

  She pulled in a deep breath. “I didn’t even realize you were there,” she said, putting a hand on her chest. Her heart was rattling around in her ribcage. “You know how to scare a girl. Christ.”

  He scoffed. “Somebody’s uptight.”

  “Sorry. Long weekend. Shitty case.”

  “I can tell, you look like shit.”

  She blinked. “That’s the third time today I’ve heard that,” she murmured.

  Tito didn’t seem to hear her. “Anyway, that’s why I came upstairs,” he said.

  “To tell me I look like shit?”

  “I found something that might be useful for your case.”

  She gave him a long look as she finished the two cups. She was almost afraid to ask, considering the road their case had been going down. “Oh yeah?”

  Tito leaned against the square table in the corner of the room. “So I kept thinking about those bodies you found, the ones you brought me pictures of. I couldn’t figure out why they looked so familiar to me. So I dug up some case files and came across a case from maybe nine or ten years ago. Cold case, never finished. But the guy was investigating the same kind of thing. Found some bodies that were turned just like the ones you found. SPUC office confirmed that they were Creepers just like yours.”

  The door opened, and both of them glanced back at the young woman who had opened the door. She took one look at Tito and her face went visibly pale. Her eyes flickered toward Aviira and her expression did not improve. After considering the situation for
a moment, she backed out of the room and let the door swing shut.

  Tito rolled his eyes. “I wonder which of us she was more scared by.”

  Aviira stared at him uncomfortably, unfazed by the disruption. “How come the case was never finished?”

  “Because the detective died,” Tito said. “Just out of the blue like that. His file said it was flu complications or some shit. I mean who dies of flu complications ‘sides from old people?”

  A strange expression must have crossed Aviira’s face, because Tito gave her an uncertain sideways look.

  “What?”

  She swallowed. “The cop who called in those bodies ended up dying like two days later,” she said softly. “Just came down with a cold and was dead later that afternoon.”

  “Shit.”

  “Tito, he fucking reanimated,” she whispered. He tilted his head to one side, a serious look crossing his face. “He turned into one of those Creepers and almost killed me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but immediately made a face and shook her head. “I mean, we’ve stumbled on some really serious shit here, Teets. I think something’s been following me around.”

  “You need a place to stay you come stay with me,” Tito said, giving her a serious look. “I don’t fuck around with that sort of shit.”

  She nodded slowly even though the implications were making her stomach churn. “Thanks, I’ll let you know. Do you have those files?”

  “They’re downstairs.”

  She glanced at the clock on the wall behind Tito’s head. “We have to go check out something, could we come by later to get them?”

  “Uh huh. You know I’m always around, girlfriend. And I mean what I said. You think you got something on your ass you come see me. Nothing’s gonna fuck with you while you’re with me.”

  She smirked a little. At least someone was looking out for her, didn’t even matter at this point that he was dead.

  ***

  Aviira relayed Tito’s story to Jirel when she got in the car. Predictably, his expression was one of concern. They spent the rest of the drive to the morgue in an uncomfortable silence.