Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files)

by A. J. Aalto

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “You look like Freddie Mercury,” I replied.

  “Careful,” he growled, “or I’ll show you something that’ll give you nightmares for a week.”

  “Why, is it Movember in your pants as well? Did you shave a pube-stache?”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “That’s it. You asked for it.” He plunked his finger in the air to indicate something over my shoulder.

  Harry had changed. The first thing I saw was a snow white suit, complete with white cummerbund and white tie; it was like Tom Wolfe’s wicked, sartorial doppelganger had come to visit. Harry stayed far enough away so that he didn’t fry the webcam, but close enough to be seen in the back corner of the office.

  There was a brand spanking new Snidely Whiplash mustache on Harry’s upper lip that hadn’t been there a minute ago. He had waxed the tips up. It had to be a wig, if an upper-lip wig is even a thing, because instantly growing facial hair was not a revenant power I’d ever heard of. Magic mustache, I thought. Beardomancy. I was used to his quick-change routines, even without Combat Butler assistance, but he was laying it on pretty damn thick.

  I tried to pretend I didn’t see it. That lasted all of three seconds. “Why do you hate me?”

  “Hate you? My muddled muttonhead, surely you must know how you electrify and disarm me,” Harry said, twirling his mustache tip like a cartoon villain.

  “That so?”

  “You are the vehicle of my urgent and unruly lust,” Harry declared, turning on the drama, though I suspected that was an act he put on for Batten’s sake. “The black pit where once my heart did beat is now a yawning chasm of doom ruled only by you.”

  Oh my. “Doom chasm. Boy, that’s sexy.”

  Batten cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to interrupt the romance, but I have business to discuss with Miss Doom Chasm.”

  I sat up straight. “No no, that’s not happening, that’s not a nickname.”

  “It’s perfect,” Batten said.

  Harry made a pleased noise of accomplishment behind me and began rummaging in the closet for something. He hauled out a piece of his luggage and began piling neatly folded women’s clothing on the bed. I had packed none of it. In fact, not a stitch of it looked familiar. Harry had been shopping again.

  I collected myself and stared Batten down in the monitor. “Did you call just to bother me with your face hair and your sass mouth? Or maybe you want to sell me oatmeal, since you're sporting some serious Wilford Brimley action there.”

  “No,” Batten said. “Seems you put in a couple questionable requisition forms last week. Chapel asked me to check on them before Internal Affairs has a fit.”

  I tapped my lips with a gloved forefinger and made a show of thinking hard. “Probably, he means the Desert Eagle.”

  “Christ.”

  “Is that the iffy one?” I shrugged. “Party poopers.”

  His jaw did its clench/unclench dance, and this time, it made his Mario-and-Luigi mustache wiggle. “You’re not getting a Desert Eagle.”

  “Well, of course not! That thing weighs five pounds. Look at my spindly arms. They’re like limp noodles.” I waved them up and down to demonstrate their pitiful size and general uselessness. “I can’t hold up a Desert Eagle straight and hit a target.”

  Harry’s amused chuckle behind me said he agreed.

  “Then why did you request one?” Batten demanded.

  “Because I can. I work for the FBI. Who knows what they’ll give me? I won’t know if I don’t try.” I screwed my face up. “Is that the only one they had a problem with?”

  Batten pinched his right earlobe and began pulling at it, while his left hand flapped a piece of paper at the screen. “Tell me you didn’t order a flamethrower.”

  “Well, I’m not going to use it,” I said, leaving the duh implied. “A standard M2 Flamethrower weighs like seventy fucking pounds.”

  Mr. Merritt cleared his throat and set down a coffee mug and a tiny almond cookie on a saucer. I sighed. “Harry, I owe Mr. Merritt another thousand dollars.”

  “Mmhmm,” Harry said, taking down a hat box from the closet and paying me the barest minimum of attention.

  I looked at the single cookie. “Are there any more cookies, Mr. Merritt?”

  “Only as many as you might require, madam.” He cocked his head in question. “I’ll fetch several dozen, shall I?”

  “Harry, your butler is the best man on the planet and I love him.”

  “Hmmnn, yes,” Harry noted. “As always, your affections are quite easily purchased with a bit of sugar, flour, and butter, my fickle thing. Do take your vitamins. We don’t want an unexpected visit.”

  Mr. Merritt excused himself to do a cookie run, and I took my pill bottle from Harry so I could take one of my little, white, not-exactly-vitamins with my coffee. The bremelanotide fiddled with my libido, and while that might make life more difficult for an already frisky gal such as me, it also fooled a certain three-headed demon king into thinking I was happily Bonding physically with my Companion on a regular basis. They weren't nearly as pleasant as what they were covering up for.

  “Seriously,” I said, turning back to Batten, already finishing my first cookie, “can you see me running around from case to case heaving a flamethrower?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Those things run out of fuel in ten seconds and totally give away your position. Flamethrowers suck. Unless you’re torching nests of killer bees in China. Then, flamethrowers rule.”

  Batten just stared. Then his lips curved into a smirk that hit me low in the belly, a strange smile full of surrender and mischief.

  “What?” I said. “I’m super serious.”

  Batten said, “You need to stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “The weapons banter.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s turning me on.”

  I blinked with surprise and was smiling, too. Before I knew better, I leaned closer to the webcam and said sultrily, “The Desert Eagle’s cockloads of recoil would knock me on my ass. That’s totally hot, right?”

  He chuckled. “Using that image later.”

  I got the implication and let out a shocked laugh. “Time and place for that show, please.”

  Harry cleared his throat behind me to remind us of his presence. “I’m sure I would not like to discover Mr. Batten in a state of dishabille. I trust you will limit this behavior, or else one might be moved to toss that machine right out—“

  “I’m kidding, Harry!” I said, and mouthed at the webcam I’m so not kidding. Batten’s leer said he knew it.

  “Tramp,” Harry sighed.

  “If I were capable of shame that assessment might embarrass me,” I agreed. I remembered the elastic band on my wrist and snapped it. It didn’t work, so I snapped it again, and then gave up.

  “Never a classy moment with Marnie ‘Thousand Euphemisms for Penis’ Baranuik,” Batten said.

  I scowled. “I was gonna say something else about dong, but you inferred I’m not a lady, so now I can’t. Fucker.”

  “Way to prove me wrong.”

  Mr. Merritt had silently returned with a plate of shortbread and cleared his throat once more with meaning.

  “Harry, I owe the Combat Butler three thousand more dollars.”

  “Well, do mind your tongue, darling. Despite what you might be tempted to believe, my funds are not infinite,” he said. “Perhaps you ought to pay your debt to Mr. Merritt from your FBI salary.”

  “I can’t afford any swears on government pay!” I objected.

  Harry swept closer to the webcam, as close as he dared, ignored my financial ju-jitsu, but did quirk an eyebrow at the tendril of playfulness that slipped through the Bond. “You may be pleased to note, Mr. Batten, that Miss Doom Chasm has given Mr. Binswanger his walking papers.”

  “I what?” I munched a cookie furiously. “When did I do that?”

  Harry tsked at me. “But, of course, I too
k care of the odious task on your behalf. I would not have my gentle lamb face such an unnecessarily unpleasant scene.”

  “You broke up with a man for me?” I groaned. “I’m not dating anyone ever again. All my relationships end in the crap heap. Or maybe a creep heap.”

  “Let me find my surprised face. I know I left it around here somewhere.” Batten began shuffling through the papers on my desk, like a sarcasm-dipped dick.

  “Hey,” I said, “it's hard to find someone who’s man enough for this much woman. And stop rummaging in my things. There's stuff there you don't wanna see.”

  “Hard to find a cleanup man for that much disaster, more like,” Batten said. “You need a whole crew.”

  I gave a dreamy sigh and stared off into the ether. “A whole crew. That is what I need. Does the FBI have a requisition form for that? Are the specifications I can check off, for stuff like 'six-pack abs,' and 'prone to unbuttoning shirts,' and 'mute?’”

  Harry gave a disapproving cluck of his tongue, and I snapped my wrist elastic again. “Has your officer welcomed you into the folds of his investigation, ducky?”

  “He’s tolerating me,” I said.

  Harry gave a surprised flutter of his lashes. “Is he, now? How unexpected. Only, how did you manage this?”

  “He’s no idiot. He figures it’s better to humor you than have you raising a stink and stalking him,” Batten said. “He’s not wrong.”

  I showed him my sourest smile and favorite middle finger, and told them about my meeting with Scarrow, leaving out anything to do with ABBA and playing human shield at Father Frisky’s church. I told them about the case, and the missing girl, and the devastated boyfriend, and the business cards, and the rumors of ghosts at the rectory. I left out my urge to giggle, since I couldn’t yet explain it, and any mention of his skinny jeans, because I didn’t think either of them would appreciate the mental image. “It just so happens that I’m going to be invaluable on this case, Smarmy McSmugpants.”

  “Grope some evidence?” Batten asked.

  “Not successfully.”

  “Find a monster?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Psychically feel a bad guy’s guilt?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “So what good are you?”

  “Hey! I’ve contributed lots so far. Ideas and such. Also, I’m on my way out now, to do all that stuff you just said.”

  “That so?”

  I glared at the Skype box, stuck my tongue out, and hung up on him. Presto! A Batten-Be-Gone button. It was immensely satisfying to see him disappear in a blink, and to know he would gripe about it, filling the silence in my little cabin with his grumbling.

  “I’ll show him,” I told Harry.

  Harry gave me a distracted and patronizing, “But of course you will, pet.”

  I dug out my small diary and pencil and opened it to today’s date, writing: Dear Diary: I don’t like this place. It costs too much to swear. I thought about my next words, and then confided to the paper: Why do I work for the FBI when I can’t do any of the cool stuff I want to do? I should totally get the flamethrower. Am I supposed to sign this “love, Marnie?” Love, Marnie.

  When Combat Butler returned, I put on my prettiest smile and handed him my empty cup. “Mr. Merritt, may I please borrow the Stiffmobile?”

  CHAPTER 10

  I DIDN'T GET to borrow the Stiffmobile.

  Harry fussed excessively about its outdated safety features (it had a seatbelt, and that was it) and lamented the availability of replacement parts for both the Bentley and myself, so I ended up piloting a still-swanky BMW sedan instead, which was Buick-like enough to keep me from being too bummed about things. It also had really nice heated seats, so my butt was happy, at least until I got out of the car.

  I stood on the frozen, hard-packed sand with my gloved fists on my hips, scowling out at the black, tossing surface of Lake Ontario. The night was clear, and across the lake I could see the lights of Toronto to the northwest, the CN Tower a bright, phallic spire. By my boots, there was a skein of churned ice and slush at the edge of the water. Every so often, it made a noise like bones cracking that made my shoulders tighten up around my ears. I could see marine rescue boats bobbing at the end of the cape where the canal opened into the lake. Someone had found another scrap of something, perhaps; the activity had shaken the bees’ nest of media attention. A news helicopter thumped in the air above me, spotlight swinging, searching in vain for that perfect, gruesome shot to headline the morning reports. Noisy vulture. Where was the suckered tentacle of the Kraken when you needed it? I sighed away my disgust and turned my wind-chapped face to the row of beach houses up the slight hill of sand that ran to snow-covered weed and grass before hitting a row of chain link fences clotted with chunks of ice.

  The old summer cottage had been painted the cheerful, vibrant hue of dandelions by the original owners; it was now a chipped, yellowish mess, looking like a giant had carelessly spit out a tooth that was no longer cutting it. My sisters Claire and Rowena shared the rent, although, according to Carrie, Claire was studying marine biology in British Columbia for the year. Most of the other cottages had been renovated, not simply repainted, back in the eighties; Rowena’s was still a ramshackle dump. One of the back windows was boarded up and covered with heavy black plastic. The lights were all off in the house, except for a bare bulb over the back step. It swung back and forth in the vigorous wind, casting shadows haphazardly as it dodged the snatching limbs of the neighbor’s denuded willow tree.

  I wondered if Rowena was home. I wondered if I’d be welcome. I wondered if she knew I was here, if the rest of the family had told her. I hadn’t seen Rowena since I left Virgil, Ontario for Seattle, when she told me she had no intention of contacting me ever again unless I was willing to “make things right” and give Harry over to Dad, as if Harry was some sort of preternatural prize and had no say in the matter. I didn’t, of course, and she’d kept her word. Two hundred feet of sand and a chain link fence separated us, but she may as well have been on the opposite side of the Niagara River gorge.

  Batten had mentioned hunting a revenant in this area, when we'd shared a rare moment with our walls down. I stared back out at the lake to try and see it through his eyes. This was where he’d lost his grandfather, Colonel Jack Batten, in a raid on the lair of Aston Sarokhanian; it was no surprise he hated this place. To me it was a scene from childhood picnics by the lake in the summer, of walking along the sand in search of beach glass, and if the bacteria levels weren’t too high, wading in up to our knees and splashing about. I tried to imagine how cold the water was tonight, and the sound of the ice drove me away, back to the shelter of Mr. Merritt’s unassuming BMW sedan.

  I popped back into the car, not bothering to turn on the heated seats, and cruised up by the pollution treatment plant, where I parked again and finished my coffee, because I am a total pro at choosing scenic tour destinations. Ellie had lived two streets over when we were kids, and we’d spent most of our youth goofing off in what we’d called “the Woods Way,” a seam of naturalized forest separating Port Weller from the Welland Canal, loping down the paths that weaved through the brush and trees; I'd told Sheriff Hood that I wasn't afraid of running through the darkened forest during our early-morning exercise sessions, and this strip of greensward was a big part of why. The two pathways that the public knew about were cordoned off by yellow tape, twisting gently in the night breeze, and the quiet community that lived here didn’t seem to notice. Porch lights were out. Curtains were closed against the night. The flickering blue glow of TV sets lit upper windows of bedrooms and dens. Here and there, chimneys leaked wood smoke.

  When I got out of the car, bringing my little brown paper donut bag with me in case I needed a snack, I heard distant radio chatter to my right, and knew there was probably a uniform stationed near one of the paths. The trick would be choosing my route carefully, using the less-active trails to get through the small forest to the canal, paths known only t
o locals, which that didn’t look like much, and that, in summer, ended in thick, stinking bogs, and filled up with snow this time of year. They wouldn’t be impassable, but it wouldn’t be an easy trek. I used my iPhone's flashlight to lead the way as I cut through from the subdivision to the spot by the sand piles where Schenk had been parked earlier.

  I glanced up the road. It was still blocked off, and two squad cars were sitting driver’s-to-driver’s side, in case the officers keeping warm inside wanted to chat, or pass a thermos or a smoke. They were too far away to notice little old me standing in the dark by the tree line. As long as I stayed out of the puddles of light offered by the street lights and kept my own light's visibility to a minimum, I probably wouldn't be noticed.

  My Doc Martens crunched ice and ground grit, and I thought hadn’t I been waiting for this sound? Then: This sound is awful. I reached in and took a bite of my donut for comfort, then let it slide with a crinkle back into the bag. The wind had picked up, and was making a squeal-ting through the rigging of the tied-up boats, rocking the yachts at the pier on the other side of the canal. The sound of it made the skin at the nape of my neck crawl, and under my cheerful frog hat, my scalp prickled with goose bumps. My frozen bootlaces ticked against the leather. Despite the few empty trucks parked behind chain link fence just beyond the sand piles, and the cops just one loud bellow away, it felt lonely down here.

  Except when I got closer to the canal, I no longer felt alone. Probably, that was my imagination. My stupid, stupid imagination.

  From where I lurked, I could watch the black water in the canal move ever so slightly, more a shift than a ripple. At the lake the wind had bullied the water around, but here, in the shelter of trees, sand piles, and cement walls, the water in the canal was far less disturbed. The surface tension glittered in one spot, forming an imperfect, sparkling oval, a stick-figure head drawn by a child. I blinked and squeezed my eyes shut, sure they were playing tricks on me, while my imagination offered up a list of aquatic monsters that could have been displaced and living in the locks, munching unsuspecting swimmers: nymphs and naiads, sprites and sirens, mermaids, kelpie, selkies, Shellycoat, the Kraken… I had to venture out of the shadows to peer into the water. Two steps closer to the canal. Four steps. Five. I attempted to estimate the water’s depth with nothing to go on except the size of the ships that passed through. Deep enough to host Leviathan? Not likely; besides, the Keeper at the Hellmouth would have boiled the water.