by Linda Welch
Maggie coughed. “Not that I agreed to tell him anything.”
But she might still be valuable. Again, I recalled Royal’s promise he would not let me linger as a shade, he’d kill whoever murdered me and free me to pass over.
I’d think of a way to convince Royal, but later, after I stopped him committing murder. I had to get to the shooter first.
Time to let her into the secret lives of shades. “I think you’re the one person in Clarion who can help me.” I sat on the other end of the couch. “Maggie, I see people whose death results from an act of violence. To me, they look much like living people, except their expressions are stiff and they whisper to me. They are stuck where they died until their killer dies, unless they know how to move by attaching to a living person’s aura. It’s how we came to you. Now I need help.
“I want to find out who shot me and get to them before Royal does, but moving from one location to another takes an age. We’ll save time if you take us where we need to go.”
“But what if, meanwhile, he pulls the plug?” Jack asked.
“I don’t think he will till after he finds the shooter and. . . .” I hesitated. How much should I tell Maggie?
“And kills him,” Mel finished for me.
I glared at her as I spoke to Maggie. “Yeah. Shades of the violently slain are tied to their place of death until their killer dies. Royal swore he would not let that happen to me. If he believes I can’t be saved, he’ll go after the person who shot me. He’s been grilling Mike Warren for info and I think Mike has something. If he does, you can guarantee Royal’s not far behind him.”
“Wait,” Maggie said. “You want me to investigate your attempted murder?”
Jack chuckled. “Lord, no, girl! We’ll do the investigating. You’ll be our transportation.”
“Please help, Maggie,” I pleaded with all the emotion I could muster.
“Sure, no problem.” Grinning massively, she bounced on the sofa. Then she lost her smile. “I’m not confronting a murderer.”
“You don’t have to. If we can discover who he is and where he is, you take it to Captain Mike Warren at Clarion PD.”
“But how do I explain to him?”
“Tell him the truth.”
“He won’t believe me.”
“I’ve worked with Mike for years. If anyone will believe you, he will. No, it won’t be easy, and if he doesn’t, he still has to check out your story.”
“Ookay,” she said dubiously, stretching the word. “What do you want me to do?”
I thought of the time we left Carrie at Provo PD. “Jack, Mel, we’re going to the precinct to get intel. Maggie will drop us off in the foyer and we can grab a ride to Homicide. I’ll stick with Mike, read everything which comes across his desk, go where he goes and listen to everything he and his guys say about my . . . attack. You and Mel can shadow the other detectives as far as you’re able.”
“Why? How is it going to help?” asked Jack.
“Maybe it won’t but it’s all I got right now.”
Jack sighed. Not the parody of a sigh I’m used to, what appeared to be an actual inhalation and gusty exhalation. “All right.”
I told Maggie about our visit to the PD with Royal and why I thought Mike had information he refused to share.
“It’s a hunch,” I concluded, “but I’ve learned to trust them.”
“Clarion PD it is. Whatever you need.”
“You’re okay with all this?”
“Okay?” She grinned widely. “This is fantastic!”
“I don’t know about fantastic.”
She hugged her shoulders. “But it is. I see spirits. I do see spirits! And I can help them!” She started chuckling quite wildly and covered her mouth with her hands to muffle chuffs and snorts.
“Here we go again,” Jack said with an eye roll.
A few more chuckles and she regained her composure. “It doesn’t matter. If it’s this once, it’s enough. I’m not an utter fraud.”
I looked out at the bitter weather. “Okay. Great. Shall we go?”
Another violent, delighted nod from Maggie. She sped across the room to the bathroom. “Give me a minute.”
Mel siddled to me and whispered, “I hope she can keep it together when we get to Clarion PD.”
“So do I.” I grimaced. “Or she has someone who can bail her out of lockup.”
Maggie emerged with her teal-colored hair gelled and spiked. “So I drop you off at the station. How do I hook up with you when you need me again?”
“The coffee house across the street, Beanz,” Mel suggested. “Can you be there every morning? We should be able to get in there easily enough.”
“Every?” My brows felt as if they rose. “I hope we can do this today.”
“Whatever. But it’ll have to be noon till eight, when I’m at work,” said Maggie.
I meant to point out she didn’t make sense, when she added, “I work the afternoon shift at Beanz, Tuesday through Saturday.”
Well, how convenient. Due to the location, cops went to Beanz a lot for their coffee and pastries.
“That’s me, part-time medium, part-time barista.” Maggie headed for the door.
We followed in a rush as she trotted down the stairs, opened a small closet at the bottom and took out a black hoodie. After struggling into it, she turned and peered as if trying to bring us into focus. “How do we do this? You said you have to attach to a person?”
We moved behind her and grasped her aura.
“Okay, we’re on,” I told her. “Let’s go.”
She took a step, stopped. “Are you sure? I don’t feel you.”
I reminded myself of how outrageously bizarre all of this must be to her. I spoke quickly as her head turned. “It might be better if you keep your eyes ahead. We’ll try to stay behind you.” She might freak out if she saw us all over her.
Maggie swallowed hard and moved off, but she crept along as if loathe to dislodge us. Patience, Tiff, I told myself.
As if I ever had patience for anything. By the time we got through the house and outside to a small unattached garage, I wanted to shake speed into her. If I could shake her. No automatic opener for Maggie, she unhurriedly bent to reach the handle and slowly raised the door.
A robin’s-egg-blue Mini Cooper. Were I solid, I’d have to crawl in and sit with my knees pressed to my chin. Being incorporeal had its advantages, though I’d have preferred being alive and crunched like a pretzel inside the Mini.
Inside, we released Maggie and inched to the back seat. Mel pretended to bounce up and down. “I’ve wanted a Mini since one drove past the house.”
Too busy wondering how the three of us fitted inside a Mini without overlapping, I didn’t comment.
Maggie backed the car along a short gravel drive to Third Street and drove to the nearby intersection. The sleet had stopped but the sky looked solid and leaden. We took a right on Pennsylvania and headed for the city center.
I turned my gaze from the sullen streets to Maggie. “Tell us about yourself.”
She glanced in my direction, quickly away. “Nothing to tell.”
“Please. I’m interested.” I wanted her to fill the nothingness I existed in with words. I missed everything I’d taken for granted to the extent I didn’t notice it before. The pine scent from a tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror, the slippery inflexibility of stiff vinyl seating, exhaust fumes from other vehicles. Everyday smells you don’t often notice, but now the lack preyed on my mind.
I understood why Jack and Mel chattered so much.
Maggie’s fingers tapped the steering wheel. “Lived in Bountiful with my parents and sister most of my life. Went to Bountiful Elementary, South Davis Junior High and Bountiful High. Graduated, majored in IT and minored in psychology at U of U, but two years in knew I didn’t want any of it. So I dropped out. My parents said I didn’t aspire to anything. Maybe they’re right. I’m twenty-five and can blend coffee fifty various ways and toast an Engli
sh muffin without burning it. My grandma left the house to my parents when she died and they asked me to move in as caretaker when they relocated to California. I think they were diplomatic, they knew I wouldn’t let them give me the house. Now I’m paying them rent-to-own.
“And here we are!” she concluded. With the engine idling, she opened the car door and stuck her foot out, then whipped it back in. “Damn, I didn’t think about location. Someone at Beanz might look out the window. I can think of a reason to stop for a second but not for going in the courthouse. Can I leave you in the street?”
“Sure,” Jack and I said in unison.
She pushed the door wider and started to ease out.
“Wait!”
Maggie froze, all over, including her face.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Give us a second to get into position.” I hastened to touch her aura; Jack and Mel already stuck to her like glue.
“Go,” I urged when I held her in my grasp.
She scooted from the car and we went with her. Jack and Mel immediately released her. I took a few seconds; I still had to get used to this.
Maggie walked around her car, pretending to check the tires.
“When you want me, plenty of cops come to Beanz.”
“We’ll get to you, but I don’t know how long we’ll be in there.”
She remained, hesitant, then pushed up one shoulder and got in the car. We watched her make a U in the street and drive away.
Beanz is diagonally across from the courthouse, the first building next to the park on the north side. As Maggie said, cops are there at any given time. They zip across the street for coffee and Danishes, and departments send rookies with orders. We shouldn’t have a problem finding Maggie again.
But getting in the courthouse wasn’t easy. People went in the place but none of them came near enough for us to catch them. We waited fifteen minutes until a taxi dropped off a fare in front of us.
“And we’re off!” Jack said as the man walked toward us.
My experience of catching a ride had so far been easier as we used people strolling or stationary for the moment, but this guy hurried. I silently prayed I could grab him.
“Gotcha!” I said gleefully as I grasped his aura.
“Well done,” from Mel.
“I told you, it gets easier the more you do it,” Jack said as our ride trotted up the steps and in the courthouse building.
He made for the double doors to the actual courthouse so we released him in the big marble foyer. I tried to move and managed two steps before the floor dragged at my feet. Another step, and I couldn’t move at all. I thought when we moved in Homicide, we would in the entire building. Why did shades move freely in some places but not in others? I’d asked myself the question countless times.
We didn’t wait long and latched onto a woman who headed for the escalator, but let go when she veered right to the door giving access to Vice, Narcotics, the Gang Division and Missing Persons. We needed upstairs, the home of Robbery, Homicide and the Cold Case Divisions.
I looked at the foyer, at people waiting on benches or walking through, the desk sergeant behind wire mesh at his cubicle, the towering walls and high windows. I’d been here often.
“Tiff,” Jack said.
I blinked, feeling stupid for getting emotional about a public building. A man in plainclothes with a police badge hung around his neck approached the escalator. We three poised to grab him.
And we moved up the escalator. We jumped off the detective when he headed for Vice and waited another ten minutes for someone who wanted Homicide. The someone turned out to be Detective Grace McMullin, who from the red on her nostrils suffered from yet another bad cold. Sure enough, she stopped to sneeze and blow her nose twice before we got to Homicide.
The squad room ambience, minus its typical bouquet, closed around me again.
Chapter Seven
“McMullin,” Mike bellowed, beating the air with a file folder as he came to his door. “You’re on the Blair case.”
“Jeez, thanks, Mike,” Grace snuffed as she walked to Mike. Her tone indicated the assignment didn’t thrill her. She snatched the file from Mike’s hand and about-turned.
In Mike’s office, I peered at every face-up piece of paper and checked the files on his desk. Nothing. I sat on the chair facing him.
“What ya doing?” Jack asked from behind me.
“Think I’ll wait for a while. Maybe he’ll make a call.”
“About you?”
I nodded. “You and Mel can make yourselves useful. Look at any open paperwork in the squad room. If the phone rings, listen in. If anyone makes a call, ditto.”
Jack made a tsk. His mouth twisted sourly. “How long will we be here?”
“What, you need to be someplace else?”
“Huh.” Jack went to the squad room. He spoke to Mel, both their faces turned in my direction. They split up and wandered.
Mike shuffled his mouse to wake his computer and jabbed away at the keyboard. Perhaps he entered data in my file? The paper copies were for distribution and backup, almost everything goes into a database nowadays. I rose and went to stand behind him.
But he entered numbers on man-hours and other uninteresting stuff. I looked down on his thick thatch of sandy hair and amused myself by blowing on it. Not a hair budged.
This sucked.
I lifted my eyes at a tap on the doorframe. Brad Spacer, one of my favorite detectives, stood in the doorway. He’d grown his salt-and-pepper hair to collar-length and wore a thick blue cable-knit sweater over a white shirt.
He stuck one hand in his Levi’s hip pocket. “Roy was in here.”
“Yeah.” Mike raked one hand through his hair, making it stick up shaggily.
“You didn’t tell him.”
I instantly became alert.
Mike’s meaty shoulders sagged. “I’ve let Roy and Tiff in on a lot, more than I should, and when I want to tell Roy and give him a head start instead of have him browbeat it outta me, I can’t.”
“He’ll learn eventually.”
“Eventually? How about today? The obituary’s in the paper.”
Obituary? Aha, the plot thickens.
“Maybe he won’t see it.”
Mike pressed his lips together and parted them to let a pah huff out. “He will. I’d bet my life on it. Roy will be listening to the radio while he reads newspapers as he watches news shows. He doesn’t miss a trick, which is why he was a darned good detective.”
“Should we assign a man to him?”
“Put a tail on Roy?” Mike snorted. “Might as well try to tie a silk bow on a sidewinder. I’d request a C and D and get it, but it won’t stop him.”
“Yeah. Right,” Brad conceded. He slapped the doorframe and backed into the squad room.
“C and D?” Mel asked.
I hadn’t noticed she and Jack returned to the office. “Cease and Desist.” How odd, to feel excitement sizzle in my invisible body’s veins. “They have a lead. It . . . something to do with an obituary in today’s paper and they think Royal will jump on it.” I hustled through the door. “We have to get our hands on a paper.”
“Not gonna happen,” Jack said.
Oh, right. “I didn’t mean us,” I lied, having forgotten for the moment I didn’t have working hands. “Maggie will read it for us.”
I saw an officer heading out and hastened to catch him. Reaching, I grasped his aura. Jack and Mel came a split second behind me.
Mel sighed loudly. “Look at our Tiff, all grown up and off on her own.”
She made me laugh, and I hadn’t done it in awhile.
And away we went.
Dusk fell between one minute and the next as we floated with our human transportation through the courthouse doors and down the steps. It happens this way in the valley when the sun drops behind the western peaks. Behind the park, the Clarion Hilton’s lighted marquee announced next week’s dinner and auction to benefit The United Way of Nort
hern Utah.
The officer must be new for I didn’t recognize him. He was fast on his feet, fairly hurtling north along the slick sidewalk.
“Maybe he’s thirsting for a cup of joe?” Mel wondered.
But he took a sharp left along Stevens and, surprised, we went with him. Jack and Mel dropped off. I went a few more feet before I made myself let go.
I looked east. At least we stood kitty corner across from Beanz. Now we needed to get over the street and inside.
I saw Maggie in there, her teal-colored head dipped over a table. She unbent, laughing with the customer, and went behind the service counter.
What’s Royal doing? I wondered for the umpteenth time as I waited on the sidewalk metaphorically twiddling my thumbs. Searching the Internet? Scanning the newspapers?
Visiting me in the hospital?
Snow fell in fat flakes, gray in the dimness near a closed and shuttered store, brilliant white and sparkling as they drifted through light from bright white fluorescent signs and shop entrance lights. Pedestrians clomped along, watching where they put their feet, wary of slick ice and frozen snow.
Standing stock still on the street I experienced a sickening sense of isolation. I was the little kid with her nose pressed to the toy store window. The girl standing in the doorway of Chuck E Cheese watching other kids celebrate their birthdays with a party. I was the teen, hungry and shivering on the street corner across from a homey diner where families munched through course after course. I was the solitary woman hitching-hiking her way across Wyoming on Christmas Day.
Again, I stood on the outside looking in. The fact I no longer had a connection or involvement with the world apart from Maggie suddenly terrified me. And I felt lonely, deep in my heart. I had Mel and Jack, and now Maggie, though temporarily. But I looked at Clarion’s streets and felt apart from everything and lonesome for what I might never have again.
My head filled with regrets, but I angrily stamped my feet and firmly banished them. I refused to swim in doubt and grief. I can be a grouch and I err on the side of negativity but I am not a melancholy person and would not be a gloomy shade. I was not dead, my body in Clarion General attested to it. I vowed to get back inside it.
