by Nina Post
A Division of Whampa, LLC
P.O. Box 2160
Reston, VA 20195
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http://curiosityquills.com
©2013 Nina Post, LLC
http://www.ninapost.com
Cover Art by Ricky Gunawan
http://ricky-gunawan.daportfolio.com
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ISBN: 978-1-62007-166-3 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-62007-167-0 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-62007-168-7 (hardcover)
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About the Author
A Taste of Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse
A Taste of Last Donut Shop of the Apocalypse
A Taste of One Ghost Per Serving
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For Jeremy
And for Mom
The cat followed the familiar one and the dangling can of tuna into the garden patch. He jumped up like a fish in a river to reach the tuna, but it was just out of his grasp.
Once the cat arrived in the garden, he forgot all about the tuna. Within a minute, he was rolling around the dewy patch in Dionysian ecstasy, the tuna a distant memory, the especially potent catnip – different from before – all he knew and all he ever cared to know.
The cat, who felt very, very different, knew that the most familiar one — the one who petted him and spoke to him in soothing tones — was dead, and that the strangers would never find her. To remedy this, the grieving cat created a bubble — a bubble with its own peculiar amount of dark energy — and an unstable universe popped into existence. The cat didn’t know why, exactly, but he knew it was the only way.
Jamesville County homicide detective Shawn Danger bounced lightly on the sturdy trampoline in his living room. The bouncing helped him think, and at the moment, it was helping him think about the open case file he just reread. Staying in motion did wonders for forming mental connections. He’d read, bounce, read a little more, bounce. He bought the house because it had an open living room: the stairs were in the middle of the house and the bedroom was on the right side. This left plenty of height for his six-three frame on a trampoline. Along with that, he didn’t always want to go outside in the northwest Pennsylvania weather to run or walk.
The phone rang. He ignored it and let the call go to the machine. The repetition of the bounce was important, and he didn’t like to be interrupted. He kept meaning to disconnect the landline, preferably by machete, but he only thought of it while he was jumping.
His cat, Comet – an inquisitive, playful, and affectionate wirehair – stared up at him, tail swishing.
“Forget it.” Shawn tried to speak when he was descending, not at his apex. “It’s my family, calling to give me a hard time.”
Comet tilted his head and Shawn gave him a pointed look as he rose then landed, knees bending. “What, you think we won a lifetime supply of sardines?”
The cat meowed in response, which Shawn took as ‘You never know.’
The machine clicked on. “Shawn, it’s Melly.” The three words like three bullets. Amelia, one of his older sisters and a natural-born bully.
“You’re sullying the purity of my trampoline time!” Shawn yelled at Melly, though she couldn’t hear him. Comet jumped up on the counter and pawed at the machine like he was trying to dig out the tape. Shawn appreciated the effort.
“You’d better be coming to Dad’s birthday party this weekend. He won’t be around forever — ”
“It’s already been too long,” Shawn added, though she couldn’t hear him.
“And you’ll feel like crap when it’s too late.”
“Only if I never got to tell him off,” Shawn called out.
Melly continued. “So RSVP before I kick your balls into a crêpe. Bye!”
Shawn tried something that was as fancy as he ever got on the trampoline, turning in mid-air so he landed in alternate direction, and waited for the phone to ring again.
It did. It always did. His family loved nothing more than to boss him around. Trying to make him feel terrible about everything came in a close second. He left his message recording time short on purpose, but it just meant they always called a second or even third time. He made a mental note to extend the parameters. Let ‘em talk for an hour if they wanted. They’d be wasting their time, but his phone wouldn’t ring as often.
She still wasn’t done. “And don’t give us that bullshit work excuse again. The dead can wait for the living.”
He pressed his lips together and bounced gently. And that was why he saw his family as little as possible. He had stopped trying to tell them that yes, there was, in fact, considerable urgency. That if they – the few of them who worked homicide – didn’t get a good lead within forty-eight hours, they probably wouldn’t get a solve. And he had stopped trying to tell them that he worked for the dead, not the County Police Department’s Detective Division, even though only one of those groups paid his salary and provided his benefits.
There was no waiting. You sank your teeth into the scruff of the case and didn’t let go for days. If someone tried to distract you, like your family who insisted you attend a family event even though all they cared about was taking pictures of the food, you just got a firmer grip and snarled until they let you alone. And if your father’s birthday fell within that period, well, too bad. He had already been to too many family events, and had learned his lesson too many times.
He jumped off the trampoline, muscles flexing in his chinos as he landed. He ran a palm over Comet’s back, then sat at the kitchen table. The evening edition of the paper had a piece about the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the area. He pushed the paper aside and turned the case file in a circle with his fingertips, ruminating, then buckled down and read through it again.
When he was done, he hauled himself back up and got ready for bed, a process that seemed to take longer every year.
At 4:44 a.m., his phone rang again.
It took a few rings for Shawn to wake up enough to realize what was making that sound. This time, he knew it wasn’t his family trying to get him to do something he didn’t want to do. He reached over for the phone, grabbed the notepad and pen he always kept on the bedside table, and wrote down the info.
He made the bed with hospital corners, turned off his alarm clock, then put on pants, socks, and a belt, leaving his shirt and coat in the closet. Like his joints, the old wood floors creaked in the usual spots when he crossed the room.
He went into the bathroom, made sure the lid was up and used the john, squinting in the bright light. He washed his hands and brushed his teeth with his electric brush, quickly ran his electric razor over his face, then washed his face. He went back to the closet, put on his shirt, his tie, and his coat, then combed his hair. He purposely tried to clear his mind before he got to the site, like how the Ghostbusters tried not to think of anything that could destroy the world. He wanted a clean slate, unmarred with plans or regrets.
Comet ran into his room and brushed past his pant legs, which were forever covered with white cat hair. Shawn kneeled down to pet him.
“This is probably it for the next three days, so make it last. As much as I would like to do my job and pet you eight times a day, I can’t.”
Comet hissed, but it ended in a plaintive meow.
“Yeah, yeah. We
ll, maybe you can make your own special world where humans do nothing but pet cats all day.”
Shawn hurried downstairs with the cat at his heels, and stopped by the kitchen to check on the food and water bowls. He put a little more food into the bowl — Comet wasn’t a big eater, anyway — and ran his palm over his back. Comet purred and blinked lazily.
Shawn grabbed his keys and headed for the front door, then saw something out of the corner of his eye.
Another cat, a big one, the color of a dark chocolate Twix bar, rich brown and caramel, was perched on the trampoline. Its tail was as thick and feathery as a lemur’s, and when Shawn got a little closer, he saw that it had two different-colored eyes, one blue and one green.
“Friend of yours, Comet?” Shawn didn’t have time to deal with the extra cat right then. He presumed that Comet had somehow invited it in and figured that one extra cat would be fine for one day, or whenever he could stop at home again.
He locked the door behind him and went out into the crisp autumn morning, his mind clear, the tree-scented breeze soft and cool against his face, ready to find another murderer.
The killer turned and left the woman’s cat to its own devices, then walked towards the car, parked between the main and the carriage house. After sealing the still-full can of tuna in a Ziplocg then putting that into a Mrowman’s grocery bag, the killer placed the pole in his trunk, then popped a couple of pills. They pulled on a pair of disposable rubber gloves and shoved an extra pair in a pocket.
They went back into the main house, stopped in the kitchen for a fat slice of apple pie followed by a long drink of milk, then took the stairs up to the second floor and to a small bedroom on the right. It was decorated almost like a little girl’s room, but with a marble floor and what the killer knew was a Sister Parish wallpaper – green Chou Chou. The room had a small round bed, an elaborate system of wall-mounted walkways and dangling things, toys, a full bookshelf, two hand-painted porcelain bowls, and a mural of birds on the south wall.
They crossed the landing to the largest bedroom. Her bedroom. The hand-painted sign above the door read, In Good Times, Beware.
They stood just inside the door, breathing faster, then strode in and jerked open the top drawer in the hand-carved cherrywood bedside table. They took out the small vibrator, set it on the table, then crushed it into pieces with the lamp base. They opened the bottom drawer and took out Anvils: An American History and savagely tore it into confetti, then ripped into her silk-cased pillow with a knife.
They went into the enormous closet that looked like a room in an expensive yacht, ignored the designer dresses she never wore and went straight to the khaki pants and plaid shirts she preferred. They shivered at the sound of the fabric coming apart, and left the scraps on the closet floor.
Not nearly sated, feeling more than capable of destroying the entire house, the killer dragged a knife across the silk quilt on her king-sized bed, stuffed an antique German teddy bear into the fireplace after ripping off its arms, and plucked the leaves off the Ficus lyrata. In the bathroom, the killer dumped out miniature bottles of talcum powder, baths salts, shampoo, and anything with a lid onto the marble floor. They picked up the small anvil by the bedroom door and threw it at the framed Matisse on the wall. The impact made a startling crashing sound as glass was propelled in shards to the floor, the painting itself destroyed, a gaping, ragged hole in the middle.
Tired and finally spent, the killer crawled into the wide bathtub and sobbed, head in hands.
They leaned back, tears stringing paths down their cheeks. They sucked in a deep breath and scratched at a rash, wondering why anyone ever expected reward or acknowledgment for their good deeds, since all you ever got in return was pain and ingratitude.
A body, possibly the body of reclusive heiress Haviland Sylvain, had been found at the Sylvain mansion at 77 Cherry Street and Shawn was assigned as homicide lead.
Shawn drove his Acura sedan in the dark to the address, and even though his GPS spoke softly to him while navigating him from place to the other, he was familiar with the house. Everyone in town was familiar with it, though no one had really seen the woman who lived there. The Sylvain family had owned the estate since they had it built in the nineteenth century, and the heiress to the fortune — Shawn didn’t remember what spawned said fortune — had lived there for several years, at least.
That covered all Shawn knew about the mansion and the apparent victim inside of it. Some said she was a professor of quantum physics, some a spy, some simply crazy, but the one thing everyone agreed on was that she never came out of that house. She wasn’t a person that anyone ever saw at Argosy Foods or the Rite-Aid or the butcher or the library. She never even accepted deliveries or interacted directly with service people.
That’s what he had heard. He would determine the veracity himself.
The mansion was set far apart from nearby houses. Its long, curved driveway led up to the dark, mammoth, three-and-a-half-story hulk of a brownstone mansion. Its deep-inset, stained glass windows made him think of a stout, firmly-girdled, pre-WWI housekeeper, only the skin of her face and hands showing, brooking no insouciance. Any person rooming in the Sylvain mansion would have to enjoy the feeling of having something dense and heavy surrounding them.
Shawn remembered how as a kid he would build forts as an emotional bulwark, using sofa cushions, pillows, sheets — anything that would give him a buffer between him and his parents, his sisters. He lived in one world, of the cushion fort, and they lived in another. He would even prop his mattress up against the door so they couldn’t come in and hassle him; so his sisters couldn’t come in and play North Korean Dictator with him. What a crappy game that was.
As the only boy in the house, he got his own room, and that wasn’t enough, so he made another room inside of it, to muffle the fighting, the yelling outside the door. Not dangerous, normally, just threatening and chaotic. And Shawn liked order.
He nodded at the linebacker-sized patrol officer stationed in the front.
“Morning, Cale. You were first responder?” He always got that information before he got to the scene.
“Yes, sir.”
“Who called this in?” Shawn asked the physically intimidating but baby-faced patrolman.
Cale checked his sheet on the clipboard. “Kendall Peterson called it in at 4:12 a.m. Claims he’s an employee at the mansion. He was working in the basement all night, didn’t hear a thing. He went upstairs to check the house, found the victim, then called right away.”
“What was Mr. Peterson working on in the basement?” Shawn took the clipboard and quickly parsed the fields Cale had filled out. “I hope not cataloging decapitated heads?” He handed the clipboard back to Cale, who grimaced and read off the sheet.
“Uh, no, Detective.” Cale referred to the sheet on the board. “Mr. Peterson’s job is to purchase, inventory, dust, and weigh the anvil collection in the basement.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Shawn started in the door.
“More specifically,” Cale added, and Shawn turned. “Mr. Peterson had made several anvil purchases at an estate sale earlier in the day and was, quote,” Cale glanced at the clipboard, “‘preoccupied with getting the anvils inventoried and weighed, as well as re-weighing the entire collection.’”
“It’s funny, because that’s exactly what I was doing when they called me in for this case.”
Cale snorted. “What a coincidence. So was I. But I like to put costumes on my anvils.”
Shawn grinned. Cale was usually earnest and literal, but he could surprise you.
“Well, anyway, Detective, that’s all I know.” Cale put the board under his arm. “They retained Mr. Peterson in the basement. Chris is down there with him.”
Shawn wagged a finger. “The division doesn’t officially condone torture, but sometimes a little water might drip from the ceiling. Especially in a basement.”
“It’s an old house.” Cale shrugged. “Things leak. By the way, scen
e’s on the second floor.”
Shawn put a hand up in parting.
The front double doors were two giant slabs of mahogany, decoratively carved with what looked like tortoises and moons and flowers. The door knockers were as large as the shoes of one of Helios’s horses, and the lock was extraordinarily intricate, made of iron, gold, silver, bronze, and maybe brass. Shawn knew his metals. It was one of the few things he knew, along with types of wood, homicide, a scattershot variety of what he learned for his B.A. in English Lit at Lycoming, and cats. Though cats were still largely a mystery. And he only knew one cat.
The lock was finely etched, recently polished, and probably illustrated something, though Shawn didn’t know what. It looked like there was a frog, and a young girl reaching out for a ball in a marsh. There were etchings on the largest part, on the small section on the right side, and in a small part at the top, where there was a castle by itself.
One of the doors was propped open and he ducked through under the yellow tape.
Inside, it was cold and faintly clammy, like a stone-walled basement. The entry hall, or maybe they called it a reception hall, was enormous. It was bigger than his house, with room entrances on all sides. He could easily picture the curving staircase in Asgard. Silver and stained-glass light fixtures glowed from the walls, spilling pools of light on the inlaid floor, which Shawn guessed was polished limestone. The glow illuminated the damask wall coverings, the carved woodwork, stenciled ceilings, and brass fireplace with a glass mosaic surround. A mural of tortoises decorated an alcove in the wide hall.
On the right was a study, next to an oak paneled coat-room with its own damn fireplace, and for some crazy reason, its own marble sink. For hungover guests about to drive home?
He paused by a full-size mirror and ran his hand over his tie — pretty sharp! — and then took notice of a spindly-legged rosewood hall table in the entry hall that probably cost more than his salary. Lit sconces brightened an oak and brass hall clock next to a framed photograph. Shawn leaned over to get a closer look: a young woman, Shawn supposed in her early twenties, with straight and thick red hair, tamed into clean lines, and a serious, almost fearful expression in big blue eyes. She was wearing a blue shift dress and low black heels. A giant rock of a diamond on her left ring finger. The man next to her was large — not fat, but stocky, with short black hair and ice-blue eyes, both intense and distant. His hand was placed on the small of her back, but her expression almost seemed to indicate he had a gun digging into her spine. Was that her husband? Where was he?
