Deadworld

by J N Duncan

  Shelby snorted. “Big surprise there. Bet I just scared the living crap out of her.”

  “Probably.”

  “They know anything?”

  “Just that I was at the scene. I don’t want them to know anything yet. Okay?”

  “Nick-”

  “Not yet, Shel,” he said, adamant. The agents could not get involved at this point. It would be far too dangerous for them, especially with a medium to clue them into what they were up against. The trick of course would be to maintain a position he would not be forced to lie from, and with a little luck this would be over before they even realized what was happening. He would not lie to them. They were law, after all, and that was at least one code he had not broken over the course of a century and a half.

  “Fine, you stubborn shit.” She mumbled the last word and moved out of the way as the agents came back into the room.

  Agent Carpenter had a cup of tea in her hand, likely the quick work of Cynthia. Smart woman. It had not even occurred to him to offer anything.

  “Everything okay, Agent Carpenter? There’s some stomach flu going around. I hope you haven’t caught it.” It was lame, but Nick felt sorry for her and wanted to say something consoling. It was, however, the wrong thing to say, by the look on Agent Rutledge’s face. Her eyes had narrowed, and her hands were now thrust in her pockets. She knew quite well it wasn’t the flu.

  Agent Rutledge’s voice tipped on the fine edge of anger. “Do you sense any ghosts around here now, Mr. Anderson?”

  “This building has a couple of them that show up now and again.”

  Her mouth drew down into a thin line. “Do you sense any of them now?”

  This woman was going to be trouble. The sort that would not go away once she sniffed something wrong, and her partner throwing up had put a foul scent in her brain to be sure. “One of them was around earlier, but nothing now. No.” It was the truth, for the most part.

  Agent Rutledge glanced back at her partner and then at Shelby. “Want to tell me what happened with your father in 1970, Mr. Anderson?”

  Stoic as he could render himself, Nick nearly grimaced at Shelby’s wide-eyed reaction to the question, which likely didn’t go unnoticed. “I was three years old then, Agent Rutledge.”

  “Agent Carpenter, can I have that newspaper clipping, please?”

  Nick found a familiar news article slapped down on the desk before him. “Ah. Well, my sordid family history is now brought to light.” Out of the corner of his eye, Nick watched Shelby roll her eyes. What a lovely situation this was turning into.

  “So you know your father was involved in a case that bears a striking resemblance to this one, Mr. Anderson?”

  Nick steeled himself. Show nothing. This is a solid story I’ve told a thousand times. “From what I read about it, the method does bare some similarities.”

  “You never talked to your father about what happened?”

  “My father left just before my fourth birthday. I never saw him again.” His hearing picked up the nearly silent snort of air from Shelby. He gave her a quick, hard stare, but she only sat there with her arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow arched up at him. It was a necessary lie. The feds would not handle the truth very well and would likely throw his ass in jail.

  “Anyone told you, Mr. Anderson, that you are the spitting image of your father?”

  “On occasion.” This time Shelby’s noise of annoyance was clearly audible, and Agent Rutledge whirled around on her.

  “Something here bothering you, Ms. Fontaine?”

  “Nothing a swift kick in the head won’t solve,” she said, her ruby lips spreading into a large, not-so-amused grin. “Sorry. I have my own issues with the cowboy here.”

  Agent Rutledge said nothing for a moment, looking first at Nick and then back at Shelby. He could tell the agent was stifling some angry reply. He got the impression the fuse on this woman was a bit on the short side.

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m getting the shit end of the stick here?”

  “Beg your pardon?” Nick said.

  “Something’s missing here,” she said, voice lowered. “I don’t think you’re being entirely truthful with me, Mr. Anderson. My partner here throws up because she senses something is off… way off in this place, and yet you act like it’s just any other day, like ghosts are just a usual occurrence with you.”

  “They are, Agent Rutledge.”

  “Damn-” She cut herself off and snatched up the article from the desk. “I don’t buy it. You know, it might be to your advantage to cooperate just a little more. The situation here is serious.”

  Nick nodded. He felt a little sorry for her, but the truth would just unravel that knot of anger, and nothing would get solved now. She would be back. It was just a matter of time.

  “I understand your concern. The murder of a child is about as serious as it gets, and under the circumstances, I would’ve been checking me out as well, but I assure you, I had nothing to do with that boy’s murder.”

  The hands came out of their pockets and perched on her hips now. “Why do I find no reassurance in that, Mr. Anderson?”

  Shelby chuckled, and when Agent Rutledge faced her again, Agent Carpenter finally stood up. “You know, Jackie, it might behoove us to interview Ms. Fontaine and the secretary separately now. Their perspectives on things might even it all out.”

  Ah, cooler heads at last. Nick smiled. He decided he liked the medium. The stable one of the group. They did the good-cop-bad-cop thing pretty well, he had to admit. He managed to wipe off the smile before Agent Rutledge turned back to face him.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Mr. Anderson, would you mind leaving us with Ms. Fontaine and your secretary for a few minutes? It won’t take long. I promise.” The last word dripped acid on the floor.

  Nick got to his feet, all too happy to dissipate some of the tension coiled in the air. “I’ll get Cynthia and let you have at them. I’m sure they’ll cooperate to their fullest abilities.” He nodded slightly and stepped around the desk, walking out of the room without looking back.

  “Mr. Anderson?” Laurel said, stopping him in the doorway. “I have one more question first.”

  He gave her the friendly smile, hoping she would not come much closer than she already was. “Sure.”

  “You said you help people with ghost problems, more or less.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I did.”

  “How is it exactly that you do that?” She moved over next to Agent Rutledge now, who visibly relaxed when she stopped next to her.

  “Difficult to say,” Nick answered. “Being a medium, you should understand the complexities involved in trying to define any sort of psychic ability.”

  “Are you psychic, Mr. Anderson?”

  From most, Nick would have caught the subtle sarcasm behind the question, but she was utterly serious.

  He paused. “I would say no. It’s just something I can do.”

  She turned and looked hesitantly over at Shelby, who leaned against her chair. “And you, Ms. Fontaine?”

  Shelby smiled-the mischievous smile this time, the flirty “you’re kinda cute” smile he had loved so many years ago. “What about me, Ms. Carpenter?”

  “Can we cut the coy bullshit?” Jackie snapped. “Just answer the goddamn question.”

  Shelby frowned and sighed at Jackie. “Mr. Anderson and I…” She looked over at Nick for a moment, the smile not quite fading away. “We share the ability.”

  Agent Carpenter’s eyes widened. “That’s very interesting, and rather unusual.”

  Shelby shrugged. “We’re an unusual group.”

  Nick wanted to laugh at that but refrained. It did not even approach the truth. Agent Carpenter looked hard at him, with that probing look he knew went beyond ordinary senses. There was little he could do about that. He leaned against the door frame, waiting for her response.

  “Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Your cooperation is appreciated. Just a few minutes with your employees
here, and we should be done. For now.”

  “I’ll just get some coffee and wait for you all out here. I hope you can catch the guy. Truly, I do.”

  Cynthia walked up now, and Nick would not be surprised if she had been standing in the hallway the entire time listening in. “They have a few questions for you, Cyn. Holler if there’s a problem.”

  She nodded, mouth set firm. He knew she would not be put off by them, but the nerves were still there. “I will.”

  Nick started to step around her, but Agent Carpenter stepped up to the door. “Thanks again, Mr. Anderson. We’re sorry to have interrupted your day like this.”

  He sensed what she wanted even before her hand began to extend, and he gave her a fleeting smile before ducking around Cynthia and heading for the coffeepot. Not yet, Ms. Carpenter. You and I both know what you want to find out, and now is not a good time.

  Chapter 9

  After a fruitless twenty minutes’ worth of questioning that had Jackie ready to arrest the lot of them, she drove them back toward the city. Evening traffic had congested the roadways, but, thankfully, she and Laurel were going in the opposite direction. Some semblance of proper color had finally returned to Laurel’s face.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  Laurel nodded again. “I’m fine, really. It just threw me for a loop, is all. Totally unexpected. I’m not even sure how to describe it.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “The barfing spoke volumes.”

  Laurel gave her a halfhearted laugh. “Sorry about that. Not good for the image, I know.”

  “Screw the image. I was worried I’d have to call nine-one-one.”

  “I’ll be okay, Jackie. A little sleep, and I’ll be good to go.”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  Laurel nodded, and they drove in silence for a few moments.

  “So what does it mean? That it’s so overwhelming as to make you sick?”

  “I honestly have no clue,” Laurel said. “Normally, when I try to contact the other side, it takes a lot of concentration and effort to just get a peep out of the spirit world. But when I touched Ms. Fontaine, it was like someone kicked open the door and bowled me over.”

  “Then this whole ghost-hunting thing they claim? It’s not just a front or scam for something?”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say there’s a whole truckload of psychic power in that office back there. If anyone could claim to be able to track down ghosts, that girl could do it.”

  “What about Anderson?”

  “Maybe. I tried to shake his hand before we left, but he avoided touching me like I had the plague.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Why would he want to avoid that?”

  “Keep his power a secret? I don’t know. That kind of thing gets out to the public, and he’d have the tabloids all over him.”

  Jackie nodded. “True enough. The bastard was avoiding everything though. He was doing his damnedest to appease us and get us the hell out.”

  “Worked pretty well, too,” Laurel said with a chuckle. “We don’t have much more than what we came with. Very… persuasive man.”

  Jackie jumped on the gas and sped around a slower-moving car before cutting back in and braking for a sharp turn onto the freeway ramp. “It’s those fucking eyes. I want to know what kind of trick he was pulling to do that.”

  “I’d guess it has something to do with that power they have, or maybe it’s just because he was kinda hot.”

  Jackie snorted. “Did you see the saddle above his desk? Damn cowboy wannabes. I can’t stand them. This case is heading right into the Twilight Zone, isn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty sure they know something they aren’t telling us, and the cowboy schtick was real, guarantee it.”

  “Ha! Pretty sure? I’ll bet you a box of Annabelle’s finest that they are hip deep in this shit. Anderson had some connection to that penny, I’m positive. Maybe Denny or Hauser can dig up something on that. I don’t like cowboys.”

  Laurel sighed and sank back farther into the seat. “Maybe. We don’t have much to go on with them. The connection to that old murder case is flimsy. And you do too like cowboys. Haven’t you seen, like, every Eastwood Western ever made?”

  “We work with flimsy all the time, Laur. Flimsy Bullshit Investigations. That’s us. I want to find out what he knows though. He knows something and doesn’t want to say. If there’s no direct involvement, why not tell us? Whom or what are they protecting?”

  Her eyes were closed. “All good questions, grasshopper. You must meditate upon them and seek enlightenment.”

  “Who’s Grasshopper?”

  Laurel smiled. “Never mind. Just get me home. I really need to sleep this off, and admit it-you have a disturbing attraction to cowboys.”

  She laughed. “Eastwood kicked ass and, like any good man, didn’t talk much.”

  “Mr. Anderson didn’t say much either, smart-ass.”

  After dropping Laurel off at her cute little bungalow house, Jackie headed back downtown and pulled into Marly’s, a local bar not far from headquarters, frequented by much of the building’s staff. A shot or two would chill her nerves and set her mind on track to see if any of the pieces were fitting together in a way she hadn’t noticed yet.

  In her usual booth in the corner at one end of the bar, Jackie picked up the last fry from her basket and swirled it around in the dregs of the remaining ketchup. The crowd at Marly’s had hit the dinnertime peak. It was noisy, dim, and bustling, and she wished her timing had been better. She liked it far better when the place was half empty and you could hear the jukebox. Billie Holiday was singing, and only every third word could be heard.

  More importantly, you could run a tab with Marly, and he didn’t believe water had a place in his bar other than for washing dishes. The drinks were strong. Jackie washed down her last fry with the last of her beer, setting the pint glass next to the pair of empty shot glasses Shelly had brought earlier. Shelly was a smart waitress. She never let more than two empties sit on your table. After a while you tended to forget exactly how many you had drank. Jackie could not remember. Six shots? Or was it just four? If it had been six, she would have to wait a bit before leaving. Sadly, the warmth of the tequila had not worked its wonders in untangling the day’s events, leaving her muddled and annoyed.

  Across the room-through the tangled web of eaters, those meandering with drinks from the bar to their table, and a light haze of smoke in the dim lighting-some of the FBI guys were gathered at a table. Jackie had watched them come in, and, fortunately, they had not noticed her. She had moved to the other side of her booth so her back was more to them. The last thing she wanted was to get called over and asked about the case or to sit and listen to them comment on the body parts of every woman walking to the bar. Besides, Pernetti had joined them, and she just could not stand the prick. How did his wife put up with him? He was a pig with a capital P.

  Worse, the nagging feeling about this case was not getting burned away with the wave of alcohol. Ghosts, psychics, and twelve-year-olds getting drained of blood had her stomach crawling. They’d had one case five years earlier where Jackie had witnessed enough to make her believe Laurel’s psychic weirdness was not bullshit. The case would not have been solved without her, and nothing brought about feelings of ineffectualness like the supernatural. There were no rules, no structure, no FBI training on handling that kind of strange, and this one was strange enough to freak Laurel out. Jackie hoped to hell it was just a normal psycho siphoning off people’s blood.

  The image of Archie would not go away. She could see the boy running away from his fighting and screaming parents, wanting something he could never have there. It struck far deeper than Jackie wanted to admit, and the tequila was failing to trickle down that far.

  Where the hell was Shelly? She wanted one more for the road, and the girl had obviously decided she had had enough. The ticket lay facedown on the edge of the table. The bitch had slipped it in
at some point in the last twenty minutes. Damn stealth waitress.

  Jackie picked up the check and made her way to the bar. Definitely needed one more for the road. Maybe she would just walk back over to headquarters and go through that info on the cowboy again.

  “Hey, Jack!” Marly said with a welcoming grin. His burly hands moved with deceptive grace as they dried one pint glass after another and put them under the bar counter. “’Bout time you came up and said hello. Why you hiding out in the corner over there?”

  She shrugged. “New case. Ugly one. Just mulling over shit, you know how it is. It’s going to frustrate me, I can tell already.” Fucking cowboy is going to be a pain in the ass.

  “Christ, Jack. Frustrated already?” Pernetti’s voice cut in like a mouthful of castor oil.

  Goddamn, Pernetti. Did the guy ever know when to shut up? She turned toward his table, which sat off the other corner of the bar. “When’s the last time you weren’t frustrated, Pernetti?” The other three at the table chuckled at Pernetti, who gave her a “is that all you got?” look and looked at her for more. They knew there would be more from Jackie Rutledge. “Not counting Charlene down in shipping.”

  That garnered a few outright laughs and good-natured heckling. Pernetti’s shiny crown of a forehead flushed a lovely shade of pink. His affair with the shipping clerk was common knowledge, except perhaps to his wife.

  Pernetti then sat back in his chair, waving off the barb. “Have a couple more drinks, Jack. That should ease the frustration.”

  Jackie stepped back from the bar and faced Pernetti. At that moment, Shelly walked by, a trayful of food in her hands.

  “Careful, hon. Leave the prick alone.”

  Jackie frowned at Shelly’s back as the waitress walked off into the crowd, tray held high. Leave him alone? He’s the asshole who started it, and now the fucker is accusing me of drinking too much? I’ll carefully plant my steel-toed boot up his ass. Jackie pushed through the bar crowd, ignoring the beer that spilled over her arm and the ensuing swearing from the girl she had bumped into.