Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel)

by Laura Resnick

“Run for cover,” Quinn concluded. “So why the hell did Nolan tail him?”

  “Why the hell didn’t you control Nolan?” Lopez snapped at Quinn.

  I resisted the urge to bang their heads together. “Quinn got sick when he got here and had to lie down,” I said. “Nolan was at the wake alone when Danny showed up and made a scene, claiming that he knows who killed Uncle Six and will have vengeance. With no police around, Nolan decided to tail him when he left, to see if there was anything behind his boasting.”

  “Oh, my God,” Quinn groaned. “There goes my badge, too.”

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “Nolan is fine.”

  “Wait . . . Danny Teng says Joe Ning was murdered, and he knows who did it?” Lopez asked, making sure he’d understood my rushed account of events. “I need to talk to him.”

  “No, I should talk to him,” said Quinn. “You’re supposed to stay away from anything to do with Ning, remember?”

  “That would include skipping the wake, right?” John asked. “The whole Ning family is here tonight. Well, except for Paul. I guess they don’t let you out of maximum security for a funeral?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on attending. That’s why I told Quinn I’d pick him up outside Antonelli’s. So no one would see me.” Lopez added darkly, “But I was expecting to pick up Quinn and Mr. Congeniality.”

  “Esther says Nolan is fine.” Quinn promptly changed the subject. “You were right, by the way. Goldman’s at the wake.”

  “Of course he is, that reptile,” muttered Lopez. “Probably slithering all over the Ning family even as we speak.”

  “I wish he wasn’t Jewish,” I grumbled.

  “Let it go, Esther,” said Lopez.

  “You mean Alan Goldman?” asked John. “That guy who’s all over the media today, talking about Uncle Six like he was a paragon of virtue and claiming that you . . . uh . . .”

  Lopez’s expression was resigned. “Yep.”

  John cleared his throat and said to me, “If things are under control here, I should probably go help Dad. He’s been on the floor running things alone ever since I heard the barking and the sh . . . Uh, I should go help him.”

  I nodded. “Go ahead, John.”

  “When I got here, I thought maybe seeing Goldman was what suddenly made me want to vomit,” Quinn said to Lopez as John headed back the same direction that Lucky and Max had taken Nelli.

  “And when I got here, I thought you were going to have your throat ripped out. Speaking of which . . .” Lopez returned his attention to the call he intended to make.

  I made a reflexive motion, but Quinn beat me to it. He covered Lopez’s phone with his hand and shook his head.

  “The dog is not a problem,” he said firmly.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lopez said.

  “Look, she doesn’t like me, and tonight I was on her turf and I scared her.” He decided to leave it at that. “Don’t call it in. I want the dog left alone.”

  “Why?” Lopez frowned at him. “What about the next person she attacks, Andy?”

  I said, “There won’t be a next—”

  “Shut up,” said Lopez. “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  “We’re not calling it in,” Quinn said firmly.

  “Andy—”

  “And I’m calling it a night,” he said, turning in the same direction John had gone a few moments ago. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going?” Lopez said in alarm. “The dog is in that direction.”

  “So is my coat, and I’m not leaving without it.”

  “I’ll get your coat,” said Lopez. “And then I’ll take you home.”

  “No, thanks,” said Quinn. “I think I’ll stop and get a new phone on the way home.”

  “I’ve got a car,” said Lopez. “I can drop you—”

  “No, you and Esther stay here and make up. Or fight. Whatever. Kind of hard to tell the difference, with you two.” He snickered a little. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And I guess I should talk to Danny Teng tomorrow, too. I’ve got a few questions for him, that’s for sure. And it sounds like Nolan knows where to find the guy.”

  “Andy—”

  “Wouldn’t it be great if Joe Ning really was murdered and we can prove it? That would get rid of Goldman, wouldn’t it? Or am I just a cockeyed optimist?” He was at the door to the back rooms by now. “Well, goodnight.”

  And then he was gone.

  Lopez stood with his back to me, staring at the door through which his partner had just left the elegant old Italian funeral home for the workrooms where Nelli had been taken minutes ago. I could tell he was very puzzled by Quinn’s behavior.

  “I don’t think Danny actually knows anything,” I said. “Nolan told me that—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Danny Teng with you.” He turned to face me. “I don’t even want to talk about Nolan.”

  “No, I guess Nolan does enough talking about Nolan to fill up the . . . Never mind.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence between us. His face—interesting, intelligent, and good-looking without being pretty—looked strained and tired. I could see his tension and fatigue, now that we were looking at each other silently, without sparring and bickering.

  The demon is really working on him, I thought.

  Max was right, I realized. Whatever the entity’s goal was, it didn’t want Lopez interfering. So wearing him down had become almost as important as harassing Quinn. The demon had recognized the steel inside of him and knew he could pose a problem if not sufficiently distracted and misdirected.

  “Two things,” he said wearily, the veil of his black lashes fluttering down over his blue eyes for a moment. “I asked you to do just two things.”

  “Huh?”

  “Leave Quinn alone, and do something about that dog.”

  “Oh.”

  “Esther . . .” He spread his hands, and I could see that he was bemused, stressed, and fed up. “What are you doing?”

  I thought about denying that I had acted in direct opposition to his instructions to leave Quinn alone, but there really didn’t seem much point, since he’d found me here with the guy.

  “You didn’t sic Nolan on us to punish me, did you?” Lopez shook his head. “I should have known better.”

  “About thinking I’d punish you?”

  “About thinking I can figure you out. About thinking I have the faintest idea how your mind works,” he said. “I should have remembered that my first guess is never right where you’re concerned.”

  When I didn’t respond, he said, “It wasn’t about me at all, was it? You manipulated Nolan into shadowing us so you could monitor Andy.”

  “Yes.” Keeping my voice calm and reasonable, I said, “There’s something not right about Andy. He’s not a bad man, and I think he can be helped. But right now, he’s dangerous.”

  “So am I, if someone pushes me far enough.” There was an edge to his voice now.

  “This isn’t about you,” I said. “Well, okay, in a way it is. I’m that much more worried because you’re the person he’s with most of the time, rather than some stranger I don’t—”

  “As soon as you found out he and I had gone off in separate directions today, you used Nolan to track down Andy.” It bothered me, how cold his voice was now. “And what a coincidence, as soon as he gets here, Andy suddenly gets so sick, he has to go lie down.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a coinci . . .” I met his hard gaze and realized what he was implying. “Oh, my God, you think we did something to him?”

  “And then you, Max, and Lucky all show up here together.”

  “No, Lucky was already here.” But that probably wasn’t the point.

  “When I got here, that neurotic dog was about to rip out Andy’s throat.” He asked darkly, “W
hat would have happened to him if I hadn’t arrived when I did? Would he be lying dead on the floor now?”

  “No, of course not! He was on his way out the door when you got here. We were asking him not to leave, but no one was trying to prevent him. Ask him if you don’t believe me!”

  I remembered belatedly that we had taken Quinn hostage and discussed sneaking him out of here in a coffin. So it wouldn’t be a good idea to encourage Lopez to probe into our behavior tonight. I tried a different path. “Anyhow, didn’t Quinn just tell you he wants Nelli left alone? He’s obviously not seek—”

  “He’s obviously not in his right mind!”

  “No, he’s not,” I agreed. “Though not in the way that you mean.”

  “Did you have Nolan slip him something during dinner?” Lopez demanded. “Something that took effect when Andy got here?”

  “No!”

  “Who’s idea was it? Max’s?” He took me by the shoulders. “Yours?”

  “We didn’t slip him anything!”

  “You want me to believe that he walked through the door of a place where you were all lying in wait for him—”

  “We weren’t lying in wait!”

  “—and suddenly fell ill?”

  “We followed him!”

  “So you followed him when Nolan told you where he was going. And then what. You improvised?” he prodded, giving me a shake, his grip tight on my arms. “You’re good at that. What did you do to him, Esther?”

  “Nothing!” This wasn’t strictly true, but it seemed best not to go into details. Especially given the mood Lopez was in. “He’s fine. You can see he’s fine!” I gestured to the door through which Quinn had recently departed. “So stop this! You’ve got to stop.”

  I was uncomfortable by now. Lopez was right; when pushed, he seemed dangerous.

  He looked down at each of his hands, gripping my shoulders, and in that moment, we both realized how tightly he was holding me. He let go abruptly as he drew in a sharp breath and fell back a step.

  Our eyes met. His expression went from cold anger and frustration to shock, followed by regret. Then sad resignation.

  “I think I do need to stop.” His voice sounded hollow. Looking very tired, he rubbed a hand over his face, stood very still for a long moment, then shoved both hands into his pockets. “Yeah. I’ve got to stop, Esther.”

  “Stop . . . ?” I had a feeling the subject had just changed abruptly.

  “I should have been stronger.” He shook his head. “Should have stayed away in the first place. I tried, but . . . And I still feel like I can’t . . .” He fell silent, staring at the floor, then said, “No, I have to be stronger than this.”

  My heart was thudding and my throat felt tight. I took a few deep breaths so my voice would hold steady as I asked, “Is this the talk we’ve been meaning to have? About us?”

  He kept looking at the floor. “I think it is.”

  “And you’re saying . . .” My voice shook a little this time, so I fell silent.

  “I have to stop. Stop chasing my tail. Stop. . . . being this quarreling, miserable idiot I’ve turned into.” Now he met my eyes. “And stop being a cop who hides things and prevaricates and puts fiction into his reports, all because of a woman.”

  A few weeks ago, he had buried evidence—albeit only for a day or two—proving that my longtime employer, restaurant owner Stella Butera, was laundering money for the Gambellos. He did it because he knew that shutting down her business would be tough on me. Lopez corrected his misstep, but he tormented himself over it, and it led to more tension between us. I found out about it the same day Joe Ning died. Since then, I hadn’t let myself think about what Lopez had done, but deep under my skin, I had been worried.

  Now I said, “I never asked you to—”

  “I know. But it’s convenient for you that I’m so crazy about you I keep kicking things under the carpet for your sake. Again and again.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not.” He shrugged. “Does it make a difference that it’s not fair? Does that change anything?”

  I supposed not. I felt a weight pressing down on me, and I wanted to cling to him. But I didn’t.

  “So you’re saying you want to walk away from this?” I pressed my lips together for a moment. “From me?”

  “No, I’m saying I think I have to.”

  I heard the finality in his voice, and I wanted to cry. So I called on anger, because I didn’t want him to see my tears. “Then you’re right,” I said, my voice a little rough with my effort to keep it from breaking. “You should have stayed away.”

  I’d been on an emotional roller coaster for months—and for what? To wind up right back here, a moment I had no desire to revisit—a moment when most of my internal organs seemed to drop through the floor because he had decided to dump me. Again.

  Nursing a little self-righteous indignation, I said, “After you broke up with me the first time, you should have left me alone. You should never have called me again.”

  “You called me,” he reminded me.

  “No, I didn’t, I . . . Oh.” Actually, he was right about that. “Whatever.”

  I’d had a little trouble with the police one night last summer, and Lopez came to my rescue when I asked. I tried to work out now why that was his fault, but nothing was coming to me.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to do this here and now, or like this,” he said apologetically. “Maybe we should talk some more another time, when we’re both more—”

  “Why?” I said coldly. “Will it make a difference if we talk more? Will it change anything?”

  “I’m pretty stressed right now,” he said. “This isn’t what I thought I was going to say. Or how I thought—”

  “Which part?” I asked. “The bit where you accused me of lying in wait for your partner and drugging him?”

  “But, of course, I didn’t even expect to see you here.” He was veering back toward anger. “What the hell were you doing with Andy? What’s going on?”

  Oh, just tell him, I thought. What does it even matter now?

  “We think he’s being haunted by an archaic Aramaic demon that, for reasons best known to itself, wants to reanimate cadavers.”

  Quinn wouldn’t appreciate my candor, but I didn’t care anymore.

  Lopez looked at me like I’d confirmed his worst fears about my sanity. I didn’t care about that anymore, either.

  The man I’d been obsessed with since last spring was dumping me, and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and hide until the pain passed. His opinion of my statement didn’t seem important right now, not compared to the ache in my chest and the roaring in my ears.

  “Okay, I don’t think there’s much point in us talking about that,” Lopez said after a long moment. “So we’ll skip it. I’m just going to tell you—very seriously, Esther—that you need to—”

  “Oh, need to do what?” I snapped. “Seek psychiatric help? Get drug testing? Give up my friends? Commit myself to a mental ward? What?”

  “You need to stay away from Detective Quinn,” he said, keeping his voice level.

  “You’re making it awfully tempting,” I muttered.

  Fine, I’ll let the demon do whatever it wants to you. And to him. What do I care?

  “I hope I’m making it awfully clear,” he said. “You can’t mess around with people like this, Esther. Something terrible could have happened here tonight. Something that can’t be fixed.”

  I looked at him, my heart breaking, and said, “Something terrible has happened here tonight. Something that can’t be fixed.”

  13

  It was a relief when the door to Antonelli’s opened, carrying a gust of cold wind and breaking the mood.

  A very tall, very skinny white man entered the funeral home. “What a night!” he said from the doorway. “
The Almighty is really testing our mettle, isn’t he?”

  He came down the corridor toward us carrying a large duffel bag. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his curly, dark hair was damp and very windblown. His smile was broad and cheerful, and his cheeks glowed rosily.

  As the newcomer approached us, I wiped at my eyes where tears had just gathered. “Please go now,” I said to Lopez in a choked voice.

  His face creased with concern, doubt, and regret. “Look, why don’t I call you and we can—”

  “No,” I said tightly. “If you’re serious about—about this . . .”

  “Esther . . .”

  “Don’t make it worse,” I said faintly, trying to control my voice. “Please.”

  “I never wanted . . .” He let out his breath and nodded. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll just go.”

  He turned away from me, then paused briefly to examine the other man, hesitant about leaving me alone here with a stranger.

  “Good evening,” the man said cheerfully. “Are you on your way out? Better bundle up!”

  There was something so good-natured about the man that it put me at ease, despite the pain roiling through me as I watched Lopez walk away from me.

  He agreed quietly, “Yes, it’s a grim night . . . Father.”

  “Take care out there,” the man said, turning to one side to get his duffel out of the way as Lopez moved past him. “Watch out for the ice.”

  When the man turned back in my direction, I saw then what Lopez had seen—the white clerical collar of a priest peeking out of the top of his coat.

  “Hello.” I asked doubtfully, “Are you looking for the Ning wake?”

  I glanced beyond him for a moment as the door closed behind Lopez, who didn’t look back at me when he left.

  “No, indeed.” Smiling at me with boyish enthusiasm, the priest said, “I understand you’re in need of an exorcist?”

  • • •

  “I’m not really sure when it started,” Quinn said, sitting in the main reception hall of Antonelli’s.

  Above us, on the wall that faced the street, were three attractive stained glass windows of modest size, glowing warmly in the mellow light cast by the streetlights outside. Quinn sat below them on an armchair upholstered in dark red fabric, while Lucky, the priest, and I sat in a semicircle facing him. Max was pacing nearby.