Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues (8 page)

He chuckled. “I’m sure it will be repaired before that, Skye.”

Lucas walked around the area where Harold’s body had been. He closed his eyes and concentrated, a dark frown on his face. When he finished, he faced Abe. “I feel something here, but I don’t know what it is.”

Morris laughed loudly. “Good thing he doesn’t want to work for you, Abe. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”

“What is it you don’t understand, Lucas?” Abe ignored Morris, as he usually did.

“I believe it is something about the context of the man’s death. There is magic left here from the killer, but the snakes were real, perhaps enchanted.”

Abe stared at me instead of Lucas. “Is he saying he doesn’t know who killed Harold?”

“I think so. Sorry. I thought he might be able to help.”

“Yes. I think perhaps you had better go it alone. This one seems to be as useless as you claim.” Abe thanked Lucas in a loud voice for his help before he and Morris disappeared back inside the tattoo shop.

“He seemed unimpressed.” Lucas smiled as he ducked under the crime scene tape. “He doubts my magic, doesn’t he?”

“It’s probably just as well. I’m sure it’s better if the two of you don’t spend a lot of time together.”

We started back toward the mortuary and the Festiva in the parking lot. I was determined to see Gerald Linker before I went home that day. I wanted to do it right away in case a surprise LEP pick up happened. Sometimes it seemed as though Abe forgot that one of his people needed to end their twenty years until the last moment.

“I kept something to myself,” Lucas confided as we got into the car.

“Smart.” I turned to him. “What was it?”

He rubbed his hands together and then held out his left hand. “I know what the killer looks like.”

“Show me.”

A pale blue mist formed in the palm of his hand. The mist became more solid, taking on the features of a man. As I watched, the ghost man in Lucas’s hand started moving. He leaned against the old brick wall, smoking cigarettes as he waited for his prey.

“I found some gold glittery rings on a few cigarette butts in the alley. They just called to me out of all the other garbage out there. I knew they were important.”

“His face is not as well defined as I would like.” Lucas and I peered into the tiny blue man’s face. “Perhaps I might be able to make it clearer for you.”

But the image vanished. Lucas rubbed his hands again, but it didn’t return.

“You do still have some magic,” I observed, not ever quite sure if this was a good or bad thing.

“It has taken me almost a year to get this far, and still I can’t make this what it needs to be. Perhaps there is some control but nothing as powerful as I might like.”

“Still, it’s something. I wasn’t sure if the cigarettes meant anything. I’ll go to a smoke shop and see if anyone can ID the wrapper.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

I smiled and squeezed his hand. At least it was something I could report to Abe to let him know I was working on the case. I didn’t have to tell him about the image Lucas had conjured. And I’d have time to check out Gerald Linker.

It was a long drive back to Wanderer’s Lake. The weather looked iffy. I didn’t want to take Lucas with me to see Gerald, but I didn’t want to take a chance that I might have to put it off. If Gerald had any information that could help me with Jacob’s death, I was hungry for it.

I started the Festiva—not a bit of trouble. Who knew magic was good for making cars go?

“I need to make another stop,” I explained as we left the mortuary.

“The smoke shop?”

“No. This is personal. You don’t have to come in with me. You can wait in the car.”

“I don’t mind going with you. Is there some danger involved?”

“No.” I told him about the lead I’d had on Jacob’s death. “This man might have some answers.”

“Unlikely since you said he couldn’t do anything to help his dead wife,” he reminded me.

I swerved in and out of traffic as I headed toward the address. “They thought he was crazy. No one would listen to him. I will. That might make a difference.”

He looked at me. “Or it could kill you.”

“Unlikely since I’m already dead. It will be okay, Lucas. I can handle myself. You wait in the car. Okay?”

I thought the matter was resolved until we came up on the old blue-sided house. Lucas got out of the car at the same time I did.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“I shall nonetheless.” He slammed the door hard enough to let me know that I couldn’t change his mind.

“Just don’t get in the way. We don’t know—you might be able to die.”

The front yard of the older house reminded me of what Apple Betty’s Inn had looked like before Lucas came to stay. The shrubs, flowers, and trees were overgrown. Weeds grew up through cracks in the sidewalk. The screen door had been taken off the house and set on the porch. The front door was weathered, paint peeling from it.

I took out my Beretta as we approached.

“You said this wasn’t dangerous,” Lucas said.

“There’s no reason to be careless,” I told him in a muted voice. “This man has been through a lot in the last few years. I don’t want to take any chances.”

Lucas nodded, and I pushed myself into the lead ahead of him. It made sense since I had the gun. We went slowly up the stairs. I could feel him scanning the windows and doors as I did. There was no sign that anyone was home, no car in the drive or music coming from the house.

We were at the door. I held the Beretta to the side and down so it wasn’t easily visible. I knocked on the shabby wood portal, but there was no response.

“Do you hear anything?” I whispered.

“No.” He paused. “Wait—”

Only a breath later, a shotgun shell blew a large hole in the door. I fell to the porch, taking Lucas with me. It seemed someone was home after all.

Chapter Ten

“Gerald Linker!” I called out from my place on the worn porch. “My name is Skye Mertz. My husband died on State Road 3714, just like your wife Julie. I need your help.”

There was no response. Maybe it was a good sign. At least he didn’t shoot at us again.

“Gerald?” I tried again. “I know everyone has given you a hard time. They don’t believe what you saw. They think your wife was killed in the wreck. They think the same thing about my husband, Jacob. Let’s work together. We can figure this out.”

There was no response again. Feeling hopeful, I raised my head to peer in through the hole in the door. Before I could move, the business end of the shotgun was pushed through it and into my face.

I might have learned the truth about whether or not zombies could die except that Lucas pushed me back and put his body in front of mine. He waved his hand and called out a word that I didn’t understand.

Breathing hard, I whispered, “What happened?”

Lucas pushed the door open. The man on the other side of it didn’t move. The shotgun was still stuck through the hole. His eyes were transfixed on the door.

I poked him. Gerald still didn’t move. “Did you do this?”

“You were in danger.” He shrugged and stepped back to look at the frozen man.

“It’s the emotional thing, right? You just stopped him with your magic. You’ve used it twice in one day—actually only about an hour apart.”

“It is better than you having a hole in your head, alive or dead.”

“You’re probably right. And at least you didn’t kill him. Do you know how to make him move again?”

He blinked. “I am not certain as yet. Perhaps the answer will come to me.”

I sat down on a broken wood chair that was propped up by a kitchen table covered in beer cans and takeout food packaging. “Got any ideas?”

“No. I’m not sure what I did.” Lucas circled Gerald the same way he’d circled the spot where Harold had died.

“Maybe we can take the gun away from him before he starts moving again and the whole thing gets ugly.” I pried the shotgun from Gerald’s stiff hands. He looked exhausted and much older than I expected from the pictures I’d seen of him in the newspaper.

He was pliable though. I took the shells out of the shotgun and put them in my pocket. I put the gun on the table and tucked my Beretta in its holster.

“Now what?” I asked Lucas.

“Now we wait. No magic lasts forever.”

“That seems like a broad parameter.” I sat in the chair by the table and waited.

It didn’t take long. Gerald began to flex his fingers and blink his eyes. The next instant, he was walking and talking. He wasn’t sure about what had happened and wasn’t happy about it.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?” He glanced around, perplexed.

“Take it easy,” I advised, getting to my feet. “I’m Skye Mertz. I want to talk about your wife.”

“Go away.” He shoved his burly body between me and Lucas to go into the living room. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

I followed him. The room looked as though it had gone through an earthquake, but I pushed some empty food containers off a chair and sat opposite him.

“I know you’ve told a lot of people about what happened that night, but I guarantee you’ll never find a better audience than me. My husband, Jacob, died the same way. I didn’t cause a ruckus like you did because I almost died too.”

Lucas raised one brow but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know you,” Gerald said. “Why should I trust you? You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“Yes, I do. I looked you up. I know what they did to you for telling the truth. I’m sorry that happened, but you and I could still make this right.”

Gerald’s broad face hadn’t seen a razor or soap and water in a while. His clothes were filthy and reeked of food and sweat. There was no air conditioning in the old house, and the scurrying I heard along the walls sounded like his companions were mostly rats.

“Julie is dead. That’s what I didn’t get when it happened. Nothing can bring her back.” He started sobbing and put his head in his hands. “Who cares about the rest of it? She’s gone.”

I bit my lip, empathizing with what he felt. Hadn’t I felt the same way many times since Jacob’s death? It was what had kept me from delving any deeper into what had killed him.

“But it does matter, Gerald.” I told him the same thing I’d told myself that morning. “It matters because there’s more involved than Julie and Jacob. More people are going to die out there. I’m an ex-cop. You’re an ex-soldier. No one is better suited to figuring out what happened. It’s bred in us to care about more than ourselves.”

Gerald was still crying when he looked up at me with terrible anguish in his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this again. So much has happened. I don’t believe anymore, you know? I always believed that the system worked for us. It doesn’t. There’s nothing there but the abyss.”

“There’s us.” I touched his hand. “We can still make a difference. I know you don’t have any children, but I have a daughter who asks about her father every day. I want to be able to tell her that I did the best I could to find his killer. Don’t you want to be able to say that too?”

He nodded and wiped the tears from his face with the back of his sleeve. “I want to. I really do. I don’t know how. There’s nothing left of me but memories and anger.”

I got to my feet. “Let me help you, and you can help me. Let’s do this, Gerald. Let’s make Jacob and Julie’s deaths mean something.”

He got to his feet with more difficulty, but he slowly held out his hand. “Maybe I was just missing a partner. Maybe we can help each other.”

I wanted to hug him, but my nose wouldn’t let me. The first thing he needed was a shower and clean clothes. I told him as much. He chuckled but quickly went to the bathroom. I searched through a chest I found in the bedroom and got out clean jeans and a plaid, button-down shirt. I couldn’t find clean underwear or socks, but I located a pair of sandals that looked as though they would fit him.

“Nice words,” Lucas commented. “You have a plan to go with them?”

“First I want to hear his story about the night his wife was killed. We can take a look at the details from both our experiences. Once we compare notes, we can decide what to do next.”

“The chances are very good that magic is involved in these deaths.” Lucas looked at a picture of Gerald in his uniform that was hanging on the bedroom wall. “They don’t sound ordinary to me.”

“Not everything involves magic,” I said even though my words from yesterday—before I saw snakes coming out of Harold—came back to me. “I know it seems as though there’s a lot of magic going around right now. But I worked the streets of Nashville for ten years and never saw anything magical.”

“How do you know?”

I was glad there was no time to answer because I didn’t have a good response, and it was possible he was right. One thing I did know—I had never encountered a man who was choked to death by a snake. And there were plenty of odd cases, but there was always a rational, non-magical explanation.

Gerald came right out of the shower with a hand towel held in front of his private parts. He must have also forgotten basic rules of society due to his bereavement.

“I’m sorry. My electric razor isn’t working, and I’m out of shaving cream.” He ran his hand through his shaggy, damp hair. “I really need a cup of coffee.”

Lucas smiled but didn’t speak.

“I think I could use a cup too.” I pointed to the clothes I’d found that were on the bed. “Get dressed, and we’ll make some.”

Lucas and I ransacked the kitchen while Gerald got dressed. There was no coffee, no food of any kind.

“Not any clean dishes either,” Lucas remarked as he opened cabinets and the refrigerator. “I think he lives on food that others make for him.”

“Take-out,” I corrected automatically. “I don’t think he’s been out of the house in a long time. We’ll have to go get coffee and food. I think he needs to eat too.”

“You might not be able to prop him up long enough to get the answers you seek,” Lucas said.

“It won’t take that long. One good conversation and I’ll know what he knows. We just have to get past the crying and get him thinking again.”