Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1)

by E. C. Bell

  “Mary?” she asked and she smiled at me, all cool perfection, as I tried to pull some semblance of order to my hair, then gave it all up. She wasn’t noticing me, anyhow. She was trying to make certain the waning light from the window was catching her profile just so.

  “It’s Marie,” I said. She shrugged.

  “I didn’t know you got a job here. How cool! Isn’t Jimmy a sweetie?”

  Andrea held her pose one more moment, to be sure I saw how perfect she was, then walked over and gave me a quick hug.

  “I heard you ended up in the hospital after the explosion. Wasn’t that just terrible? Did you see that horrible woman attack me? I almost got killed and she attacked me!” She sighed theatrically and sat down in the chair in front of the desk.

  “Is Jimmy in his office? I have to talk to him, I’ve got a situation brewing and I need his advice.”

  She posed dramatically for a moment more. When I didn’t react appropriately, she frowned.

  “So, can I talk to him or what?”

  “Are you talking about Jimmy Lavall?” I sat down in the chair behind the receptionist desk. It was a good thing I did, too, because my legs began shaking. I needed to drink water, a lot of it, very soon. But first, I had to deal with Andrea.

  “Well, yes. Who else would you think I’d want to talk to?”

  “You can’t talk to Jimmy.”

  “Why not? Is he out of town? God, that guy goes out of town more often than I change my underwear!” She got up and sashayed impatiently in front of the desk. “When’s he coming back?”

  “He’s not coming back.” I gestured to the chair she had so recently vacated. The water and everything else was going to have to wait. “Sit down, please. I have something I have to tell you.”

  After I told Andrea that Jimmy the Elder was dead, and Andrea had a cry, I persuaded her to tell me why she needed a private investigator.

  “It’s not really for me this time, it’s for my cousin,” Andrea sniffed, dabbing at her eyes. “She got herself into a bunch of trouble, and I needed Jimmy to help her out.” That brought on a fresh round of tears, and I handed her the entire box of tissues instead of doling them out one at a time.

  “What happened?”

  Andrea dug around in her oversized purse and pulled out a newspaper with “Death by Crucifixion!” emblazoned across the front page. She opened up the paper, and placed it on the desk in front of me.

  “The police think she’s involved, somehow. In this.” She pointed at the huge headline, and then at the picture of the victim. “They think she killed him. She’s a nut bar, but she wouldn’t kill anybody. I’m sure of it.”

  I stared at the picture of the tree, which was situated in front of Holy Trinity Church, not four blocks from here. I realized this was the place Farley had told me about, before he moved on. The ghost Farley had seen was the guy who’d been murdered. And Farley had told me exactly where he was.

  “Andrea, I know the perfect person to take this case.” I tried to smile as I spoke, though I felt like I was talking through cotton, like I was suddenly stretched as thin as spider web. I needed to hydrate desperately.

  “Oh, who? Somebody good, I hope, because my cousin is in it deep.”

  “It’s the guy who now owns this agency. It’s Jimmy’s nephew, James.”

  “Oh, isn’t that cute!” Andrea’s mouth quirked up. “He won’t have to change the name on the door or anything. Is he any good?”

  I thought of James lying in the other room, his head swaddled in bandages, trying to sleep off the smack to the head he received in his last case, and I snorted. It made me feel better. Closer to normal. Whatever that is.

  “He’s the best money can buy.” I glanced down at the headline, and then over at her, trying for a sprightly smile. “And he has a good team.”

  “So, do you think he’ll take the case?”

  When he learns how to be a detective, he will, I thought.

  “Yes, he probably will.”

  I glanced back at the closed door that separated James from us, and hoped he’d keep quiet a bit longer. “He’ll be back later this evening. We’ll get in touch with you, then.”

  “Wonderful!” She stood and hugged me again, before heading for the door. “I’m so glad to see you. We must do margaritas again, soon.”

  Then she was gone, a not-so faint whiff of her perfume hanging in the air.

  I walked over and grabbed a glass, pouring myself some tepid water, and downing it as quickly as I could. As I poured myself a second glass, I glanced back at the newspaper article, and shrugged.

  “This one will be easier than Farley. After all, I know where the dead guy is, and we know he’s been murdered. All I have to do is go down to the church and talk to him. I mean, how hard can that be?”

  I drank most of the next glass, and sloshed over to the desk. I was doing this because both James and I needed some money so we could pull our lives back together. Oh, and I had made that promise to Farley. I was determined to follow through on that. Those were the two big reasons I’d agreed to take this job.

  After that, I’m done. After that, it’s a normal life.

  I mean it this time.

  Acknowledgements

  Wow. Where to start? I guess at the beginning. My thanks to the 3-Day Novel contest, where I met Farley Hewitt and Marie Jenner for the first time. (This was also where I learned how much I love caramel apples!) I didn’t win, but I won. You know?

  To Billie Milholland and Ryan McFadden. It feels like we’ve been friends forever. You two held my hand through the many iterations of this story (plus all that other crazy stuff we tried) and kept me more or less sane. More or less. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  I have so many friends in the writing community, I barely know where to start. But some of you had a direct impact on this book, so... Aaron Humphrey, thanks for pointing out Marie needed a real voice in this story. You’re the reason I ended up writing it this way! To the rest of the Cult of Pain, thanks for helping me beat the beginning into submission. Chad Ginther, thanks for telling me what genre this story was, for real. Best book whisperer, ever! Janice MacDonald and Randy Williams, you are both so giving of your time and your expertise, we in the genre writing scene in Edmonton are lucky to have you. (And my launch dress is going to look spectacular!) To Robert J Sawyer, thanks for your support for all these years. You’re a good teacher and a good friend.

  Now, to family. Jess, thank you for reading the very first raggedy ass version of this novel from beginning to end, even though you had finals and had to study. You helped me realize I just might have something worth keeping. (And your first cover idea is still hanging in my office, as inspiration.) Thank you Jon, for convincing all your friends that they just might like reading my stuff as much as you do. Thank you Mom, for listening to me ramble on, hour after hour, about my imaginary friends and all the trouble they cause. And thank you Harold, for giving me the space to actually be a writer, this time, for real. I love you guys!

  Special thanks to Guillem Mari for the amazing cover art, to Lucia Starkey for the cover layout, and to Ryah Deines for the interior layout.

  And finally to Margaret Curelas, publisher, and one of the bravest women I know. Thanks for wanting to see this story out in the world as much as I did.

  Biography

  E.C.Bell (also known as Eileen Bell) has had short fiction published in magazines and several anthologies, including the double Aurora Award winning Women of the Apocalypse and the Aurora winning “Bourbon and Eggnog.” When she’s not writing, she’s in Edmonton, Alberta, living a fine life in her round house (that is in a perpetual state of renovation) with her husband, her two dogs, and her ever hungry goldfish.

 

 

 
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