Wild Wild Death

by Casey Daniels

  “Only there’s no reason a truck would need to be up where you were. That road doesn’t lead much of anywhere.”

  “Then maybe—”

  “Maybe you were following somebody who didn’t want to be followed?”

  Damn cops for all their insight.

  I drummed my fingers against the washing machine, the rhythm keeping pace with the frantic thoughts spinning through my head like the laundry in the rinse water. “I don’t know anyone around here I’d want to follow.” I managed to say this at the same time I gave him a look that said anyone included him, and oh, how I hated having to do that! Bad enough Brian and his band of felons had risked Dan’s safety. Now they were messing with my love life, and I didn’t appreciate it. “I’m just a tourist, remember. Just soaking in some of the local color.”

  “And if I’m any judge, getting yourself in a heap of trouble.” He’d taken off his cowboy hat when he stepped into the Laundromat, and he set it on the closest washer. “I just thought you should know. About the nails, that is. You strike me as being a smart woman, but you may have underestimated whoever it is you’re following. You see what I’m getting at, don’t you? They know you’re on to them. That’s why they tossed those nails on the road. To flatten your tires. To strand you out there in the high desert. You’re lucky that ol’ truck came along and picked you up. The desert isn’t a kind place, not if you aren’t prepared. There are plenty of coyotes up that way, and mountain lions. Bears, too, though you don’t have to worry about them all that much. Not unless you just so happen to step between a mother and her cub. No, the desert at night… it might be a pretty place, but it sure isn’t a safe one.”

  I didn’t point out that it wasn’t all that great during the day, either. Heck, he lived around here. He should have already known that.

  “I’m just saying”—he shuffled a step closer—“we’d be better off working together than we are working against each other. And in the long run, you’d be safer.”

  I sucked in a long breath, pulled back my shoulders, and faced him. “I appreciate it. I really do. And I wish I could help you. But you’ve got it all wrong. Thanks to that shaman of yours, you’re concocting some mysterious story for me, but you see, there isn’t one. You can’t help me find anything, because I’m not looking for anything. And you can’t keep me safe from anyone, because there’s nobody I need to be kept safe from. So even though you think you know a lot about me—”

  “You’ve heard the legend of the raven, right?” Jesse folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned back against one of the washing machines. “You know the story we Indians tell?”

  I was so not in the mood for a cultural lesson. Not when, for all I knew, Brian was sitting in some nearby building watching us through binoculars and thinking we were talking about Dan. There was a bench along the far wall and I turned to head that way. “I really don’t—”

  Jesse’s hand on my arm stopped me cold. Or I should say hot. Fire burned up my arm and puddled somewhere between my heart and my stomach. Maybe he felt it, too, because as quickly as he grabbed me, he let go and stepped back, and I swear, when he started to talk, he was a little winded.

  “My people… they say that a raven is a magical bird. It sees the past. It sees the future. The shaman tells me you’re a raven.”

  “What, so now you think I’m some kind of fortune-teller? Don’t I wish! I could make a killing—figuratively speaking, of course—if I knew next spring’s fashion trends before anyone else. But then, that’s probably not what you’re talking about. Is this just your way of telling me that I should know I’m getting into trouble and I should head back home where I belong?”

  “Raven understands that sometimes there’s more to the world than just what we see with our physical eyes. He’s a messenger who brings word from the Other Side. Just like Raven sees the past and the future, he sees the living. And the dead.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You can be really creepy. You know that, don’t you?”

  Jesse shrugged. “It’s what the shaman tells me.”

  “That you can be really creepy?”

  “That you are the raven.”

  “Sorry. My coloring is all wrong.” I managed my sweetest smile. “And what does this have to do with you bugging me about looking for whatever it is you think I’m looking for, anyway?”

  “I have no idea,” Jesse said. “When I asked the shaman the very same thing, he told me I’d have to figure it out for myself.” He plopped his hat on his head, sauntered to the door, and walked out. A minute later, I watched the patrol car cruise out of the parking lot and head south.

  I let go a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “Damn it!” I pounded the washing machine with my fist. “Doesn’t it figure, just when I meet a guy who—”

  “You like him, huh?” Goodshot popped up right on top of my washing machine. “You got good taste. He’s Indian. Indian men make good husbands.”

  “I’m not looking for a husband.”

  He floated down to the floor. “Your boots say otherwise.”

  “My boots!” Honestly, I was so tired of men talking nonsense, I nearly screamed. I took out my frustrations on that pile of towels I’d just folded, slapping them back into the clothes basket I’d plucked them out of just a few minutes before. “I don’t see how my boots—”

  “A woman never wears boots that fancy unless she’s out to get a man. You know how it works. He notices the boots, so he checks to see if her legs are strong, and that tells him if she’s a hard worker.” He skimmed a look over me. “After he looks over her legs, he studies her body. So he can judge if she’ll be good at bearin’ his children. From there, he has to figure out if that’s the face he wants lookin’ at him from the pillow next to him each mornin’. But believe me, Pepper, it all starts with the boots.”

  “Whatever!” I tossed the last towel in the basket. “Or it could be that a woman buys a pair of boots because she likes the boots. Period.”

  He scrunched up his nose and shook his head. “They ain’t practical for ridin’ or ropin’.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not going to be doing any riding or roping.”

  “But you are goin’ be doin’ some investigatin’, right?” It wasn’t what he said so much that got me interested as it was the gleam in his eyes when he said it. He had my attention and he knew it, and once he did, he went right on. “Figured you’d been so busy making moony eyes at that policeman, you hadn’t heard the news yet. About that woman over at the saloon down the street, that Norma. She’s dead. Local cops found her last night from what I heard. Strangled, right there in her own house. Can’t imagine it has anything to do with my bones, but I figured as how you should know. I was over near her house—”

  “You know where Norma lives?”

  “Lived,” he corrected me, and since he understood the difference between present tense and past in a far different way than I did, I let him. “Wouldn’t have noticed at all except as how she lived right next to the cemetery. We were over there, me and Anarosa and Kitty and Suzanna. You know, shootin’ the breeze and talkin’ about old times. And we saw all the commotion last night. Pity, that Norma bein’ such a young woman and all.”

  It was more coincidence than pity, and I’m not a big believer in coincidence. I spun the dial on the washer so that the water would drain and I could get my clothes out and toss them in a dryer. That way, when I got back, I could pick them up.

  “The cops are there now?” I asked Goodshot.

  He shook his head. “Been dead all day, pardon the pun. They took what was left of Norma away last night and locked up the house behind them. And I never would have even mentioned it to you, except that a little while ago, don’t you know it, but a man showed up at the house. Not a policeman, somebody who didn’t have no business there. I know this for a fact, because he didn’t go in through the door. He broke a window round back and got in the house that way. Can’t say what any of it means, or if it’s im
portant. But I thought you might like to know.”

  I think he realized he was right because I’d already raced out of the Laundromat and was waiting for him out on the sidewalk. Goodshot led the way to the ratty adobe right next to the cemetery. Anarosa, Kitty, and Suzanna (a pretty little blonde with a bowed mouth and a gosh-shucks looks on her face) were already there.

  “He’s still inside,” Kitty whispered, though since she was dead and nobody could hear her except me, it didn’t really seem to matter.

  “We are watching him for you, yes.” Anarosa’s cheeks were pink with excitement. No easy thing for a ghost.

  “Not very Christian of him.” Suzanna’s hands were folded at her waist, her jaw was tight, and that cute little chin of hers trembled with outrage. “Brazen as brass, that’s what he is. He went into the house even though that sign there says it’s a crime scene and no one’s allowed in.” I couldn’t help but notice that when she pointed this out, she looked right at Kitty and Anarosa and batted the long lashes on her big blue eyes. No doubt, she was the only one of them who could read and she wasn’t about to let them forget it.

  “You guys cover the front of the house.” I waved them that way. “Nobody’s going to see you, anyway, and you can yell to me if he tries to get out that way. I’m going to…” I was already in stealth mode, stooped over, making my way along the side of the house. I reminded myself that they could be as loud as they wanted to be, but I had to whisper. “I want to see what this guy is up to.”

  Carefully, I raised myself up on tiptoe and looked into the window. Kitchen. Small, messy, and nothing going on in there. I flattened my back to the wall and moved on to the next window. This one was a combination living room and dining room and I had no better luck there. Cursing under my breath, I moved around to the other side of the house.

  Norma’s bedroom was painted a brassy shade of yellow and decorated with pictures of tropical islands torn from magazines. Water, water everywhere, and I guess I couldn’t blame a woman who lived in this parched wonderland for craving blue ocean waves. Of course, it wasn’t Norma’s decorating talents (or lack thereof) that interested me nearly as much as seeing Brian inside her bedroom, rooting around in Norma’s closet.

  I kept low, peeking in through one corner of the window and watching as he tossed shoes and purses and a couple shabby sweatshirts over his shoulder and onto the floor. When he froze, his hand on something deep in the closet, I tensed and held my breath.

  It came out in a whoosh of astonishment when Brian pulled my Jimmy Choo glazed canvas tote bag out of the closet. Grinning, he unzipped the bag, turned it over, and shook it.

  Nothing fell out but a few flakes of dust.

  Goodshot’s bones weren’t in there.

  Not what I expected, and I will admit, I was puzzled. Brian? Not so much. Like he wasn’t the least bit surprised, he slipped the bag over one shoulder, the better to hang on to it, and turned toward the door.

  It is never wise to let emotion get tangled up in an investigation. I knew this in my head. Too bad it was so tough convincing the rest of me. Heck, I’d paid a lot of money for that bag. And I loved it. Nearly as much as I loved my new boots. Now Brian had the tote and… well, heck, there was no way I was going to let him walk away with it.

  Anger pounding through me like each of my boot-shod steps in the dusty soil, I marched to the front of the house.

  “Son of a bitch,” I grumbled. “He’s in there, all right, and he just found the bag. My bag. Your bones aren’t in it,” I added when Goodshot’s eyes lit up. “So he must be looking for them in the house. Or for something else. Whatever it is, he’s planning on taking it out of there in my tote bag.”

  I wasn’t exactly surprised when Goodshot gave me a blank look in answer to this impassioned narrative. Not so Kitty. Her eyes narrowed and her painted mouth thinned. “Your bag, right? And it’s something you took a fancy to the first time ever you laid eyes on it? That man in there has it?”

  “You got that right, sister, and I’ll tell you what, it proves Norma must have been the one who swiped Goodshot’s bones when the lights went out, and she kept my bag as payment for her effort. Only I don’t know what she did with the bones, or why Brian wants the tote bag.” I sent a laser look at the door. “I do know there’s no way that lowlife’s getting out of here with my Jimmy Choo!”

  With the ghosts trailing behind me, I stationed myself in front of the door. Of course, it didn’t take but a couple seconds for me to come to my senses and realize Brian wasn’t going to come out that way. He was going to leave the way he’d gotten in, through that broken window out back. En masse, we headed that way, and I’d just turned the corner to the back of the house when—

  Well, I can’t say exactly what happened because it happened so fast.

  I only know that something came out of nowhere, something that felt like a piece of lumber. It smacked me right over the head.

  My knees crumpled and I hit the dirt. The last thing I remember hearing was Brian’s footsteps as he ran away. The last thing I remember seeing…

  Goodshot, Kitty, Anarosa, and Suzanna hovered over me, wringing their hands and looking around for help they wouldn’t have been able to summon even if they could find it. At least I think it was them. The ghosts faded, but not a little at a time like they sometimes do when I’m talking to them and they don’t want to be bothered. They burst like bubbles, right in front of my eyes. First Suzanna. Then Kitty. Then Anarosa.

  My eyes spun in my head and a burst of lights, like a galaxy of exploding supernovas, erupted across my field of vision. Through the blinding brightness I saw Goodshot. There one second. Gone the next.

  I was all alone.

  “Where’s… Goodshot?”

  That was my voice. Maybe. It sounded like it came from a cave, all muffled and echoey. Since it was barely more than a whisper, listening to it shouldn’t have made my head hurt, but each word pounded through my brain in steel-toed boots.

  “Goodshot?” In my small, rasping voice, I called out to him, but I didn’t get an answer. My eyes were closed, but I turned my head against something warm and nearly fell right back into the blackness I’d been wrapped in. I was safe, only I didn’t know safe from what. I was cared for, only I didn’t know why or who could make me feel this way. I was comfortable. So comfortable, I was tempted to let myself float back into the blackness and forget whatever it was that was tapping at my brain, trying to get my attention. Too bad that whatever wouldn’t let me. “Where…? Goodshot? Kitty? Ana… rosa?”

  “Whatever you’re talking about, it doesn’t matter right now.”

  Jesse’s voice. Only it couldn’t have been, because the last I remembered anything at all, I was back in the Laundromat pretty much telling Jesse to get lost. He drove away. Right before I went—

  Norma’s house.

  Like a tsunami, the memories washed over me: Goodshot and the girls standing lookout at the front door. Me, going around the back, watching Brian take my tote bag out of Norma’s closet. I was pissed. I remembered that loud and clear. I was all set to confront Brian, about the bag and about what the hell he’d done with Dan. And then—

  Though they felt as if they were weighted down by bricks, I forced my eyes open. I was lying on the dusty ground, my head in Jesse’s lap, and he was looking down at me. This close, I saw that his eyes were flecked with amber. Cool color. In a hot sort of way. Too bad it did nothing to brighten the worry that wedged a vee between his eyes.

  Nice. It was nice to have someone worry about me. But even Jesse’s apparent concern wasn’t enough to deflect what my scrambled brain had decided was the most important thing for me to figure out.

  “Where… ? What… ?” When I tried to sit up, he put a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down. But not before I had a chance to take a quick look around. I didn’t see any sign of Goodshot or the other ghosts. And Jesse…

  “You weren’t here,” I told him and reminded myself. “You… you drove away
. And Goodshot came with me to Norma’s, and he was here, but now he’s gone and—”

  A metallic noise to my left made me flinch, and Jesse shot a look that way.

  “Sorry, Chief.” This voice belonged to someone else, someone I didn’t know. When I turned my head to see who it was, Jesse stopped me, one hand on my cheek.

  “It’s just the paramedics,” he said. “They’re going to take you—”

  “Oh, no!” I might have been knocked senseless, but I knew enough to know I wasn’t going to the hospital. Hospitals cost money and I was unemployed, remember. When Jesse put a hand on my arm, I slapped it away. Or at least I tried. The fact that I missed by like a mile said something about my current state of uncoordination. “I can’t—”

  “You’ve got no choice.” He moved aside, carefully turning me over to the paramedics. “Head injuries are nothing to fool with.”

  “And this is a crime scene.” This comment came from a middle-aged guy with a bushy mustache who bent over me and gave me an eagle-eyed look.

  Sheriff by the look of his uniform and badge, and a rush of panic coursed through me. Maybe I wasn’t going to the hospital. Maybe I was going to jail.

  “I didn’t go in the house,” I said. It might have been a more convincing statement if my words didn’t wobble and I didn’t have to press my eyes closed at the end of the sentence. It was that or watch my brain pop out my forehead and go bouncing through town. “I was just walking by and—”

  “Didn’t say nothing about Norma’s crime scene.” The sheriff gave Jesse a look that told me they had already discussed me, and the sheriff had expected me to come up with a half-baked story like this to explain what I was doing there. “Talking about your crime scene, Ms. Martin. Somebody assaulted you. Do you remember what happened?”

  “No.” I shook my head. Or at least I tried. Since the paramedics were in the process of slipping one of those goofy neck braces on me, it was kind of hard. Even that little bit of motion made my head hurt like hell. Maybe it was the pain that dredged up a memory. “Wait! Yes. I remember. It was Jimmy Choo. No, Jimmy Choo was my tote bag. It was Brian. At the stadium watching the baseball game. And in Norma’s house. And—”