Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (10 page)

“I don’t think he likes being called Bubba,” Schenk said.

“He doesn’t mind so much if it’s coming from a friend. He really
didn’t like it when Malashock said it, though. Not one bit.” I
frowned. “So the owner of the Oh Yeah! is an ex-cop, eh? Retired. Didn’t get a name. That’s why you police types hang out here.”

Schenk put his fork down with a clunk and pressed the meat of his back into the chair. It cracked a warning, and he readjusted his
legs on
either side to compensate. “Got all that from molesting the
tabletop?”

“Groping,” I corrected with a snort-laugh. “I’m a Groper, not a molester.” I filed that away for later, though, so I could tell Batten.
“And
yes. I saw them both, and her reason for coming, although she’d
rather hit a Starbucks, frankly.”

“Saw?”

“More of an impression, really,” I explained, pulling my glove back on. “I didn’t get a lot of physical details about either, except
that she felt like a brunette. To be fair, I knew that already. I’ve met her before.”

“What does a brunette feel like?”

“I should have a cheeky answer to that, but I don’t. I also sensed she was wearing a really snazzy red leather jacket.”
And that she has no friends
.

Schenk digested this. He dipped some more toast in egg yolk. Then he wiped his hands on a napkin without eating more, drained his coffee, and waved the waitress over for a refill. She was happy to
oblige. One of the women from the next table used the waitress’s
motion as an excuse to glance at Schenk; she took him in from head to toe with an appreciative but subtle ogle, decided he was doable, and went back to her pancakes. Schenk didn’t seem to have any idea he’d just passed a visual inspection. The woman saw me staring, and
I gave her a
he’s-not-remotely-mine
eyebrow-and-lip signal, an
unspoken go-ahead. She smiled down into her coffee, embarrassed. The Blue Sense reported she’d never have the nerve to approach him, but if he struck up a conversation, she’d have to work hard not to swoon right out of her seat. I wondered how many opportunities this man was missing out on because he had no idea he was being checked out.

Schenk dropped his voice. “Are you finished making friends across the aisle, or should I wait?”

I hid my mouth behind my napkin. “I’m trying to get you laid, dude. You’re welcome.”

He thumped his file hard with one thick finger, but his eyes said he knew exactly what was going on at the next table.
Well, well
, I thought.
Can’t slip anything past this one
.

“According to the statement we got from her boyfriend, Simon
Hiscott, he and Ms. Wyatt walked through the gap in the chain link toward the sand piles,” Schenk said, opening the file to scan his
notes
and pictures, “at approximately nine o’clock. At which point, Ms.
Wyatt
turned away from Mr. Hiscott, stared into the canal, and then
jumped into the water.”

Thinking of the ice, snow, and slush piled at that end of the
canal, I asked, “Jumped, not slipped?”

“Jumped.”

“Just like that? Mid-winter swan dive?”

“According to him, she went underwater head-first, arms at her side. And didn’t come back up. We’re in the process of getting video from the Seaway.”

“When you do, can I see it?”

“Possibly,” he said noncommittally.

“Marks on him?” I asked.

“None.” He sipped black coffee, putting his pencil between middle and forefinger like a cigarette. I wondered if he was an ex-
smoker.

“Is Simon Hiscott alive?”

“As opposed to?”

“Dead?” I shrugged, thinking revenant. “Undead, maybe?”

“Living, breathing human.”

“I’m going to ask you something,” I said, pointing at him with a crispy strip of bacon, “and I want you to keep an open mind.”

“Hooboy.” The pencil began to
taptaptap
softly on his files, and when his brows knit, his lips did that doubtful pucker again, like brows and lips were attached by the same drawstring. “Can’t wait to hear this.”

“If there was some form of mind control involved, do you like him for it?”

“He had an engagement ring in his pocket with their names engraved on it. He was waiting for the right moment and says he’d just about worked up the nerve.”

“That’s sad, if it’s genuine,” I murmured, and comforted myself by wolfing the rest of my bacon.

“If,” he repeated, not a question. The pencil paused in its tapping.

“Well, yeah. It’s also a good cover story. If you were gonna
murder your girlfriend, buying an engagement ring a few days before is a good way to demonstrate you planned on keeping her around, yes? Having it engraved furthers that display.”

“That’s fairly cynical.”

“You disagree?”

“Didn’t say that.”

My phone buzzed against my butt cheek to indicate a text and I dug it out to peek at it. Carrie, the only member of my family, other
than Wes, who still spoke to me.
Come see me tonight at mom’s. You can tell me about this date with a lawyer.
And then, a second later:
What’s with you and soulless bloodsuckers?

I sighed and put the phone face down on the table. How did she
know about that? How did my family always know every move I
made? Wes was a bat, but I didn't take Harry for a rat. For people who wanted to have nothing to do with me they sure couldn’t stay away. She wanted me to see her at my mother’s house? Was she out of her mind? “I need an espresso.”

Schenk indicated my empty mug. “Want me to flag down some more bad coffee?”

I considered this, feeling drained by my travels, using half my brainpower to figure out how to dodge my family for the next few
days, and the other half to remember where the nearest Tim
Horton’s was, and shook my head. “Divers searched the canal for her body?”

“And out into the lake by Municipal Beach. A shoe surfaced near
the coast guard station, a few scraps of what might have been the
blue coat she was wearing caught up against the wall on the east side of the canal.”

“What kind of shoe?”

I expected a Batten-like “what the fuck does that matter?” but Schenk flipped a page over and said, “Brown leather half-boot.”

I drummed my thumb on the side of the table. “Real leather or some cheap alternative?”

This time, he looked like he wanted to ask, but answered, “Real leather.”

I filed that away in case it became important.

An older man in a vivid yellow golf shirt with a drum belly trapped behind a black apron brought the next pot of coffee, and
offered Schenk a sunny smile. It was thirty degrees below zero outside, but this guy
was wearing short sleeves. His forehead was sweaty. I was still
bundled in my parka and dreaming of a hot bath.

“Longshanks,” Yellow Shirt greeted. “Haven’t seen you in a few weeks. Welcome back.”

Schenk gave him a fond return smile, watched him tend to the other patrons like a bumblebee settling from one flower to the next, contentedly busy.

Knee-jerk, I opened my mouth to mock the apt nickname, but heard Harry in my head advising against it. Keeping my teeth
together was the hardest thing I’d done all day, but I reminded myself I was there on a trial basis. Self-restraint, me?
Point: Marnie.

Schenk let me sift through his files and photos, pictures of the
crowd taken during the search and rescue attempt. I could see a bunch of nosy citizens behind the yellow tape up the road, a gaggle
of cops
near the ambulances and shiny white police cars, reporters with cameras and video cameras and microphones. There was one guy
standing apart from the others, one boot propped on a pile of hard-packed frozen slush, one pale hand on the chain link fence between the Welland Canal and the stretch of road heading north.

“Who’s this dude in black?” My gloved pointer hovered over his picture.

“Why finger him instead of anyone else in that crowd?”

“He looks like a creep. Or a rock star. Or a creepy rock star.”

Schenk’s pencil resumed its drumming, this time on his denim-clad thigh. “Ren Scarrow.”

“He must weigh about as much as my left thigh.”

“So, two pounds?”

“Funny. Look at him. He’s built like a praying mantis. Or maybe that’s an illusion caused by the skinny jeans.” I squinted. “Who is he?”

“Exorcist, or so he says.”

“Amateur or professional?”

A blink. “Is that a serious question?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” I peeked across the imposing bulk of his left forearm where it blocked part of his notes, and he moved the arm to give me access. “Renfield Aquinas Thackeray Scarrow. I’m going to want to see his Red Flag.”

“His what?”

“Exorcists licensed to speak with demons on behalf of the
Church
carry a kit, including their Red Flag. Exorcists licensed by the
government
also carry a kit and a different Red Flag.” I tapped my right biceps with a gloved forefinger. “They sometimes wear it here on their sleeve. It’s more of a patch, really, but Red Patch doesn’t sound very
bad-ass.”

“Exorcists and psychics,” Schenk said; it sounded like he was trying to soothe himself so I didn’t interrupt. I really wanted to add,
“... and stiffs, oh my,” but I was winning in the self-control
department, today.
Point, Marnie
.

When his lament did not continue, I squinted at the picture. “What’s that he’s holding?”

“A pair of leashes.”

“Um, ew?” I said, and felt my shoulders squinch up. “What kind of pervert walks around with leashes at a crime scene?”

“Day job. He trains cadaver dogs for the Ontario Canine
Forensics
Association at his place on,” he paused, thinking, “Seaway Haulage Road.”

But where are the dogs?
“There are houses at this end of the Haulage?”

“Just his.” His big finger hit a map he’d sketched. “It’s a
converted
church and parish hall; he lives in the church bit, works out of the
hall.”

“Graveyard still there?”

“Moved about five years back,” Schenk supplied.

“Moved the stones, or all of it?”

“Not sure. Why?”

“Morbid curiosity,” I admitted. “The Haulage, eh? That’s just on the other side of the canal.”

Schenk murmured thoughtfully but noncommittally and tossed his pencil on the table, busying his hand with stirring a spoon in his cup, although there was nothing in it but black coffee. Maybe he was
seeing if it would dissolve the spoon. “Practically his back-fucking-yard.”

“That makes the canal a real convenient dump site,” I suggested, “if you wanted to revisit your crimes, say.”

Schenk was silent on this, but I thought his eyes agreed with me. I sat back in the chair. Mine creaked, too.

“Exorcist?” I asked. “You talked to him. Him, out of that whole crowd. Why him?”

“He looks like a creepy rock star?” He made it a question, and I smiled.

“Does he think a demon is responsible?”

“Not his theory, no.” The spoon tapped on the cup,
taptaptap
, before he laid it aside on a napkin. “He believes this is the work of a ghost.”

His calculating green eyes cut to mine to judge my reaction;
what he must have seen was my
is-he-an-actual-idiot
face, because that’s how I felt.

“Uh, no,” I said with a disappointed little laugh. I dumped a
bunch of sugar in my coffee and gave it a noisy stir. “No, no, no.”

“So, ‘no’ then?”

I added more heavy cream. “Not possible.”

Schenk’s eyebrows did a slow rise. “You’re telling me, as a self-proclaimed preternatural expert—”

“Hey,” I said with an indignant sniff, “I’m not self-proclaimed. Other people proclaim that about me.”

The
yeah-right
lip pucker re-appeared, but this time it was tinged with a bit of friendly teasing. “Sure. So, you’re saying, in your sorta-expert opinion, the answer is
not
‘a ghost did it.’”

“I’m telling you that Creepy Leash Dude is either lying, or he’s a full-on dumbass,” I said firmly. “Ghosts cannot affect the physical
realm. They’re lost souls who are, generally speaking, unaware of human existence. Theirs is a struggle toward paradise and eternal
rest,
or rebirth, which is an even more difficult journey. We’re not even a blip on their radar. Even the rare ones who
do
notice us certainly
can’t
summon the enormous energy it would require to manifest,
communicate with the living, or affect people or objects.”

Something nagged me about that, having said it. I was repeating word-for-word what the science told me… but hadn’t I
just
finished writing a paper for
Fast Science Quarterly
on zombie anatomy and the complete breakdown of the headshot theory? I had discovered, by neatly blowing most of Zombie Dunnachie’s brains out, that as long
as the brain stem was intact, that sucker can keep on coming. I’d been fielding calls from preternatural biology students wanting to do
thesis work on this development since August. Preternatural biology is a young field of study, and prevailing theories were being disproven all the time. So why was I so sure of myself on the matter of ghosts?

Schenk’s spoon clunking pointless circles in his mug again drew my focus back. “His theory is that a ghost is luring people into the water and drowning them.”

“People, plural?” I asked. “Has there been more than one disappearance?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“And for what reason would this supposed ghost do such a thing?”