by Linda Welch
She still stands outside the Sun and Bun Cafe. I spend a little time with May Wentworth when I go to San Francisco, but I see her in the early hours of the morning when few people are about, and I always carry my gun.
I made a long-distance call to California, to the only person I know who is like me. I met Lynn at a training gig for police consultants, where we learned about standard police procedures during various cases, so we don’t get in the way and end up being more a hindrance than a help. She marched right up to me. “Hi, I’m Lynn and I see dead people.” I thought, whoa lady, you just haul your skinny little butt away from me, until she added in a whisper, “like you do.” Turned out, Lynn not only sees the shades of the dead, she’s also telepathic. She picked a heap of stuff out of my mind. She knew what I was the minute I walked in the auditorium.
Lynn’s talent is sporadic and she doesn’t actually see shades as I do. To her they are amorphous, and there is no rhyme or reason to why she sees one here and there and not all of them, which is good for Lynn, as I can’t imagine how she could cope with seeing every dead person who lingers. She doesn’t pick thoughts from every person’s head, either. They come to her as flashes, and again, randomly. She calls them insights. And Lynn is the only other person I know who sees demons as they truly are.
“This is Lynn!” her bright voice said.
“Hi, Lynn. It’s Tiff.”
“Tiffany!”
I hate her calling me Tiffany. I hate my name. Really, I do. It brings to mind some bouncy, fluffy little valley girl who goes around saying ohmygod! all the time. Someone about as far removed from me as anyone can be.
“Yeah, well, I’m kinda in a rush, Lynn. Sorry. On my way to town. I need some answers if you have them.”
Unfazed by my abruptness, Lynn kept her silence, waiting for me to speak again.
“I got a woman who walked a half-block from the scene,” I went on, knowing Lynn knew I meant one of the departed. “I didn’t think they could.”
The silence on the end of the line lasted longer than I expected, or liked. Finally Lynn said, speaking slowly as if thinking it through, “In every aspect of life, and death, there are exceptions to the rule. I was talking to an uncooperative little spirit in a rural area of Pennsylvania, when he told me to go to hell and walked right out of the house. The last I saw of him, he was trotting down a dirt road leading to the highway. The killer was unhuman, Tiffany.”
“Unhuman? You mean… ?”
“Yes. He was one of the Otherworldy.”
A chill ran down my spine. Otherworldy. Demon.
Chapter Three
The Clarion City Police Department and Fifth District Court share a big shiny building on Linden. It’s all concrete and metal, with reflective glass windows which dazzle you if you drive near when the sun hits them. The acoustics in the place make voices echo and bounce around and you can’t tell from which direction they come, and stiletto heels rattle like hailstones on marble. The old building on Madison, built in the 1930s, has more character but no longer has the capacity. In addition, the city jail abuts the new building, making everything more convenient for police and court alike.
A few people sat on uncomfortable wooden benches along the perimeter and more milled about. Despite my Civilian Consultant’s badge, I had to cross the gargantuan entry hall and report in to the desk sergeant. I went up the escalator and took an elevator to the fourth floor, where I moseyed along the corridor, through the Squad Room and in Lieutenant Mike Warren’s office.
I had worked with a number of police officers, and Mike was the only one who didn’t roll his eyes when he listened to me, plus he headed up Homicide. If anyone knew about Lindy’s case, he did.
Mike is a very large man, all over. He’s not fat, it’s mostly muscle, but he’s widely built, if you know what I mean. His flat slick of wheat-colored hair sticks out over slightly prominent brows and a bulbous nose, and his reddish pockmarked skin gives him a permanently overheated look. He tends to hunch his shoulders, and he hunched over his desk as I walked in.
I plopped down in the chair facing his desk. “Favor, Mike?”
He grimaced at me as he leaned back. “Depends… .”
“Coralinda Marchant.”
Looking interested, Mike squinched up one eye. “Lived up behind you, right? You sensing something?”
Bless him, he didn’t even accentuate “sensing,” saying it like a regular word where I was concerned.
Of course, the drawback of pretending to have a psychic talent is I can’t repeat the lengthy conversations I have with the departed, so I couldn’t always give Mike the whole story. I would get his take on the case before I told him I thought Lindy was murdered.
“I’m getting she’s worried about her little boy.”
He made a harrumph noise in his throat. “Then you’re mistaken. She didn’t have a child.”
This stopped me cold. No child? No little boy? “Are you sure?”
He laid his hand flat on the manila folder on his blotter. “It’s all here. We’ve talked to every resident in her apartment block over the last two days. Asking if they know of any next of kin, other relatives, or friends, is standard procedure. Nobody mentioned a son.”
Trying to block out the background hum of a busy precinct, I thought hard for a second. “What about personal effects? Pictures in her wallet? Kid’s stuff in the apartment?”
He shook his head side to side. “Nothing.”
“I don’t understand,” I muttered more to myself. I gave him my best pleading look, which produced a deep sigh from him. “Could you dig a little, Mike? Pretty please? Just for me?”
He rolled his eyes before closing them, hefted a sigh. “Not officially, but if it makes you feel better, I can make a few calls.”
He meant if it will shut you up. I smiled my thanks. “Would you? I’d really appreciate it. Lawrence Marchant, like his mother.”
He got to his feet, my signal he was done with me and wanted me gone from his office. “Consider it done.”
But I was not through. “Autopsy?”
He tapped the folder with his index finger. “We’ll know more when the medical examiner is through with her, but preliminary results seem to indicate heart attack. I got someone talking to her family physician right now.”
Is this a day for surprises. “But she drowned!”
“Did you get that from her?”
I pulled on my lower lip with my teeth, gave him a thoughtful look. “No.”
“But you read in the paper she was found in her tub, so you jumped to the conclusion. Right?”
Crapola. Lindy didn’t say she drowned. She didn’t know what happened. I couldn’t argue on this one. I slumped lower in the chair. “Right.”
“We thought the same when we found her, but no bruising to indicate she slipped and knocked herself out, or anyone held her under. Looks like it was her heart, Tiff.”
I nodded distractedly. Mike perched his butt on the edge of his desk. “It’s not like you to jump to conclusions, Tiff.”
“I know,” I said, wriggling my shoulders. I straightened up. “But I am positive of one thing, Mike. Lindy Marchant has … had a son. His name is Lawrence Marchant, and he’s out there somewhere.”
A roll of his eyes, a light shake of the chin, and Mike forced a smile. “Okay, Tiff. I’ll make those calls and get back to you. Okay?”
“Thanks, Mike.” I gave him a bright smile as I got to my feet and waved my hand bye.
As I walked back through the Squad Room with its underlying aroma of male bodies and inadequately applied deodorant, someone in the far corner went woo woo and someone else did a lousy impression of a creaking door. I ignored them. A lot of PDs occasionally use psychics, so you’d think they would appreciate the work I did for them instead of making fun of me. But that’s life in any police division; they get their fun where and when they can, because what they deal with most of the time is far from amusing.
Mike and his crew called me the
Ice Queen, which had nothing to do with regal bearing or giving them the cold shoulder, because neither applied.
My silver-white hair hangs to my hips when loose, but can be a pain because of its weight, so I generally wear it in one long, fat braid. Someone told me my eyes are icy-blue and my tip-tilted nose makes me look aloof. I don’t accentuate my wide mouth with lip color, as it stands out too much against my pale skin. And I am not a habitual smiler; my expression veers toward neutral.
So I was the Ice Queen. I was okay with the title. Rather they called me that to my face than repeated aloud what they said behind my back.
I sat in my Subaru, thinking.
I didn’t know a thing about Lawrence, but I had no reason to ask Lindy. I thought Mike would give me some plausible reason why Lawrence was not named in the newspaper, something fairly innocuous, and I could go back home and get rid of Lindy. Did she lie to me? Shades do lie, and they can become confused. I think they cannot always distinguish between their reality, dreams or cravings when they were alive, and it becomes mixed up in their minds. Did Lindy want a child she never had? But she was newly dead; surely she had not deteriorated to such a degree in a brief time. So, either she lied to me, or the neighbors lied, or … I really did not want to think about a third possibility.
The alternative to Lindy lying was going to give me heartburn.
Otherwordly. Not human.
Dead people are not the only things I see.
Why can Lynn and I see demons as they really are? I have no idea. I’m pretty sure other people see normal, human men.
I gave my wrist an experimental shake, making my bracelet jingle, making sure it was there. Every tiny charm was a crucifix and each a different metal. The gold and silver made the bracelet pretty, but I bought it for the charms of metal alloys. I wore the bracelet on my right wrist and a watch with a gray steel band on my left. A stainless-steel rosary hung around my neck. We’d never had a problem with the Otherworldy in Clarion, but Lynn thought a lot of nasty stuff in other parts of the world, of the inexplicable kind, could be attributed to them. As far as I knew, at least one demon lived in Clarion, so I took precautions.
Everything I knew about the Otherworldy I got from Lynn, although knew was the wrong word. She spent years researching them, but it was really guesswork gathered from myth, unexplained sightings and unsolved mysteries. They can move like the wind, their hearing is acute and they are far stronger than we humans. Although they are fine with pure metals, they don’t tolerate alloys well. Hence my watch and jewelry. As for the crucifixes, I just happened to like crucifix jewelry.
Lynn was trying to be ethnically sensitive, calling them the Otherworldy. It was too much of a mouthful for me; I called them demons. Not that I thought they were creatures from hell. I didn’t know what they were, or where they came from. They could be aliens from outer space for all I knew. But with their slightly pointed teeth and glimmering eyes, demon seemed an apt description.
Gorge Ligori, our friendly neighborhood demon, did not know I knew what he was. The first time I went in his store, I couldn’t decide whether I had risen to heaven or descended to hell. He is so freaking gorgeous, the prettiest man you’ll ever see, almost too lovely to be a man, in fact. His long hair glows, sun-bright, golden, and on sunny days appears to reflect on his face and turn his tanned skin a lighter version of the same color. His golden brows arch enquiringly over sparking teal eyes. Lynn told me all demons are tall, but she’s wrong—Gorge is about five-foot-five. Yet I see how she reached that conclusion, for although petite and slim, the picture of Gorge in my mind is of a tall, slender man, supple as a willow.
Gorge and I belonged to the Heart of Clarion Restoration Society, the nucleus of a project to revitalize the downtown area, so after our first meeting we often saw each other. I made myself treat him like a regular human being, so he did not suspect I recognized him for what he really was. And I have to admit, if Gorge were a human he would be a pretty nice one, along with being absolutely stunning. Gorge owned and ran an antique store in downtown Clarion.
Lynn thought demons had been here a long, long time. She thought they could be the inspiration behind legends and myth: elves, vampires, even angels. She wondered if an Otherworldy being touched Lindy’s spirit as it departed her body, giving it a powerful jolt. Maybe the jolt added to the spirit’s range of abilities, letting Lindy move away from her place of departure. And a demon - though it would have to be a mighty powerful one - could have messed with every mind in the apartment building, making them forget Lawrence. It could have removed any trace of the child before the police got there.
I’ve been in the apartments; the units are similar in design. Even if Lindy went straight from the bathroom to the front door, she would see Lawrence’s stuff had disappeared. The place was cleaned out after she left to find me.
But why would a demon murder Lindy Marchant and go to such lengths to erase all evidence of her son?
I tried to relax. If Lawrence existed, there must be records of him. Lindy had not mentioned his age, but if he went to school, there was one record. If he was younger and went to day-care while she worked, there was another. Birth-certificate. Immunization records… . He left his mark someplace and Mike would find it.
I tried to relax, and I couldn’t. I had the nastiest feeling in my gut.
I ground my clenched fists in my eyeballs. I should get back to Lindy. I needed more information. If Lawrence was taken by Demons… .
Lindy quietly sat under an apple tree. The apples rotting on the ground didn’t seem to bother her, and I noticed the wasps kept their distance. Jack and Mel watched me from the window in the backdoor as I walked over to her. Annoyed I didn’t go inside the house first, they flapped their hands at me agitatedly. I rolled my eyes at them.
Lindy looked up at me and for the briefest of moments before her gaze sank again, although I know I imagined it, I thought I saw hope in her eyes.
I put on my cheerful face. “A friend is making some calls, so it shouldn’t be long now.”
I hunkered down in the grass next to her, folding my arms on my knees. In mid-November the grass was yellow and leaves almost covered the corners of the yard where they had drifted. I should get out there soon with the leaf blower. The harsh winter sun blazed down. I unzipped my jacket.
I didn’t question Lindy about Lawrence, but she needed only a modicum of interest from me to start rattling on about him. I sat back and absorbed it.
Lindy and Lawrence celebrated his sixth birthday on November 9th. He attended the Saint Mary Frances Catholic School down on Monmouth Avenue. Considering she devoted her life to helping the sick and aged, I don’t understand how Mary Frances’ name ended up on a kid’s school. In summer, Lawrence attended the summer program there while Lindy worked. He was smart, and she never had a problem getting him to finish his homework. He liked hamburgers and ice cream and all the other child-popular foods, but his favorite was Cobb salad, which I thought unusual for a little kid. He often played with the other apartment kids in the play park behind their building in the evenings and at weekends, while Lindy sat on the bench. They went to the movies and the skating rink, and went bowling a couple of times, but bowling was new to Lawrence and he didn’t know yet if he liked it.
He was hospitalized with severe bronchitis when ten-months-old and spent two weeks in Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City. Their family physician was William Haskey at Clarion’s Fourth Street Clinic.
Well, there should be plenty of records on this boy and hopefully I’d find some of them in Lindy’s apartment. Although, according to Mike, there was nothing to indicate a child lived in the apartment, the police don’t thoroughly investigate the home of a person who dies of natural causes. I meant to make a careful search and find what they missed. I needed something to get Mike off his rear end and on the trail of young Lawrence.
When she wound down I said, “I’d like a picture of him. Do you have an extra key to your place, under a m
at, or a planter, or on the lintel maybe?”
She shook her head, but her wet hair didn’t move; it clung to her head as if glued on.
I got to my feet. “It’s okay. I can probably get in.”
She rose up with me. “I’ll come with you.”
Damn! If Mike was right and no trace of Lawrence remained in the apartment, she would see his stuff was gone. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’ll just get upset.”
“I don’t think I will.” She looked past the trees to the apartment block. “In fact, I have a strange feeling I should be there. And I want to be surrounded by Lawrence’s things.”
Uh oh! I would not be able to concentrate with a hysterical spirit bugging me. I tried to stop her. “Lindy, I don’t want to have to tromp over to your apartment if we need to talk.”
But no, she walked away from me. She got ten paces before she stopped.
“Funny. I can’t go any further.”
I got ahead of her. She stared at the ground. “My feet won’t move.”
Oh great! I didn’t want her to leave my yard right then, but I definitely didn’t want her stuck here. “Let’s experiment, huh? Try going in another direction.”
So we walked around together. Lindy could walk along the side of my house to where she stood when I first saw her, she could walk through the orchard among the trees, but she couldn’t go more than twenty feet away from the house. She couldn’t get near the wall.
