Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (22 page)

“End of shipping season, they drain the locks and the water goes out of the pond,” Schenk confirmed.

“But clearly they haven’t done it yet.”

“Winter came early.”

“And when they empty it, the mud at the bottom of the pond freezes, shifts, and heaves.”

Schenk nodded. “A while back some local historian working on
a book found human remains. He called the cops in, figuring it might have been a cold-case murder victim. The anthropologists
from Hamilton decided they were from someone who had been interred here in the early eighteen-hundreds. They didn't say anything about foul play one way or the other, though.” So, Schenk had some snark in him after all; I was beginning to worry that he was a Boy Scout in a Godzilla suit.

I thought morosely about the hundreds of people abandoned under the cold, dark water as life carried on without them, as though they had never existed, or no longer mattered. The horror of that
struck me in the chest, and I suddenly had trouble breathing. I
turned
away from Schenk, pretending to study an interesting buckthorn tree, poking at the berries frozen to one branch with one gloved
finger while my mind chewed over this new information.

Scarrow had said that we had an angry ghost. If my remains were lost and uncared for, I’d be angry, too. Was that the problem?
Had
Britney gone snooping and disturbed a jealous spirit, a lost entity
envious of her freedom and vitality? Had Britney said something disrespectful
and awoken a bitter remnant of the past? Had she stepped on
someone's
incorporeal wang? Scarrow had also said Britney wanted to keep
spirits around for her entertainment. How would she have been attempting that? And what would the aftermath be? I refused to glance over at the body; it was totally possible that I was turning my back on the aftermath. Something flickered in my peripheral vision, catching my eye from under the water.

Tiny flickers of light.

I turned to tap Schenk’s arm to tell him about it, but he was already squinting in the same spot. The Blue Sense sputtered awake
to report Schenk’s quick, aggressive attention to detail, his remarkable ability to shove his feelings about the victim into a mental box and shut them away in a flexible, analytical mind. The Blue Sense dissipated almost immediately, snuffed by my own anxiety. I tried to relax and empathetically probe around him again, but I was standing fifteen
feet from a corpse covered in ectoplasm, and the jitters had my
Talents
in a stranglehold. Schenk and I stepped closer to one another
without really thinking about it, and the snow under our feet squeaked. My science fled, and my dark humor stepped up to the rescue with a hundred inappropriate things to say.

I said none of them. Instead, I asked, “Do you hear dogs?”

“Dear Diary: Who let the dogs out?” Schenk whispered. “Write that down.”

“Pretty sure that was the Baha Men,” I whispered back, so
grateful for his humor that I could have thrown him a party.

Schenk said, “Your phone is buzzing.”

It was. It was on silent, but was vibrating like mad in my back pocket. How he'd heard it when I wasn’t even coherent enough to feel it was beyond me; maybe his eyes hadn't frozen as solidly as my butt had. That was some serious attention to detail; Batten would
just have been checking out my ass and saying something
annoyingly sexy.
Point: Longshanks.
I pulled off a glove, hissing when the
too
cold air hit my skin, and dug my phone out.

“Baranuik,” I said sharply.

Chapel’s voice was tentative. “Everything all right, Marnie?”

He was probably confused by the lack of cheeky repartee. I looked down at the body crew setting things up to move Britney
Wyatt out of
the water. “Things have been better, Agent Chapel. For instance, I really need a coffee and a cruller, and my chance of getting either
doesn’t look good. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to give you a heads up on a few changes as per the investigation by Internal Affairs.”

I bristled, but held my tongue in check.
Point: Marnie
. “I can handle change, boss man,” I lied. “Change and I are like this.” I held two crossed fingers up, not that he could see it through the phone. Schenk glanced at me curiously. To his credit, he kept his mouth
shut, but his lips did that
yeah right
pucker.

Chapel said, “Great. Well, firstly, the zombie beetles had to go.”

“Fred and Wilma? For realsies?” I sucked my teeth. “They were plague free! I made sure.”

“Also, the investigators suggested that you refrain from using certain words in your reports.”

I sighed long, searching the sky above for patience. “Like what words?”

“I have a list,” he said helpfully.

“Of course you do,” I said under my breath, and shot Schenk a sour smile. I covered the phone with my hand and whispered, “Work call.”

Schenk nodded and indicated I should go ahead and take my time. A uniformed officer was escorting Father Scarrow down the road. Under a long, black wool coat, Scarrow was in his high-collared cassock again, but he didn’t move like a holy man. This guy had a
swagger that couldn’t be hidden by a robe or blunted by the treacherous path; he moved with a liquid sensuality that bordered on wrong, given his
former profession. Two German Shepherds strolled at his heel on red leashes. Those leashes were wrapped around one lean, capable,
and conspicuously bare hand. The dogs constantly glanced up at him for guidance, ignoring all the people around them. What a field day the media must have had when he showed up this time. I had no doubt that when he’d lurked about at Lock One when Britney Wyatt went missing, the media didn’t notice him. Now, the priest and his dogs would be quite the spectacle.

I tuned back in to Chapel, who began reading from his list of no-no words. “Bitching, awesome, coolio, sweet-ass…”

“Oh,
come on!”
I exclaimed. “I know my higher-ups appreciate me injecting some color into what would otherwise be mind-
numbingly dull reports.”

Considering that my only higher-up was Agent Chapel himself,
this was his chance to disagree. I felt a mild press of amusement through the phone, warming my cheek. “Also, Marnie, in the reports
on
the zombie attacks, you referred to the reanimated remains of
Deputy Neil Dunnachie as ‘that slug-rotten cocksplurt.’”

“Justifiably so. If someone tries to eat my face,” I said, “I can call them whatever I want. That’s a rule.”

Father Scarrow pulled up beside Schenk, and I was aware of a prickly heat under my parka; I didn’t know if it was another rash or some kind of sick arousal on my part, but either way, I was blaming the exorcist. Neither Scarrow nor Schenk made an effort to give me privacy for my phone call, especially after my last statement.

“Look,” I appealed to Chapel, “I know I’m a colorful employee, and kind of a handful. But I’m, like, a lovable scamp. Right? Can’t you tell them that?”

I could practically hear his smile over the phone. “I did, Marnie. Their recommendations came down through Assistant Director Johnston, and Geoff’s somewhat less forgiving than I am.” Gary didn't have to practice his people skills. He also didn't need to lay on the understatement with a dump truck like that.

“Okay,” I said. “This is me agreeing with you, Agent Chapel. I promise I’ll tone it down on the official reports. Will I get in trouble if I slip up on the rough copies?”

“You’re the only one who looks at those, Marnie.”

“Right. Bitchin’. Sweet-ass, even,” I said. Then, realizing I owed Jeeves another two grand, I dropped my voice. “You didn’t really tell Internal Affairs that I was a handful?”

“No,” he assured me, “but I did say ‘colorful employee and lovable scamp.’”

“Fibber,” I accused, trying not to chuckle at an active crime scene. “Is everything else okay at home?”

“Very quiet. I understand from Mark that your guest is convalescing peacefully alongside Wesley, and that Mark’s had no
trouble, save a couple bad scratches he got from playing referee between Wesley in bat form and Bob the Cat.”

I smiled and wished him goodnight, putting my phone away,
gladly pulling my glove back on my freezing hand. My knuckles ached from the cold, and I wondered if later Harry would massage my hands for me. The thought of my Cold Company rubbing my aches away with his comforting hands, warmed by the effects of a nice, deep feeding, provided a much needed moment of comfort. I was standing in the cold night next to a giggle-inducing exorcist who had no business being sexy at all, much less this close to a corpse, but I’d go home and escape these worries by spending some quality time with my Harry. Shored up by that thought, I turned to tune in to Scarrow’s lecture about ectoplasm.

“When MUCE-grade ectoplasm collides with water it builds up an electrical field, and given enough movement and friction, can release a spark similar to ball lightning.” Scarrow looked at me to include me in the conversation. “Poltergeist emissions of this sort are known to be igniparous. And by that, I mean—”

“Bringing forth the fire.” I nodded to show him I understood where he was going. I didn’t look at Schenk, but I felt him tense on my other side.

“Ghost lights. Spirit flame. Similar to Will-o’-the-Wisp, with the difference being poltergeist emissions are not a constant glow. Brief, rapid flashes,” Scarrow confirmed. “It may have been mesmerizing.”

“Are you suggesting it was
purposefully
mesmerizing?” I asked,
remembering Schenk’s near-hypnotic state beside the canal; it
seemed like forever ago, but had only been the previous night. I was already tired of ghosts and their nonsense.

“I wouldn’t be prepared to suggest malevolent sentience,”
Scarrow said, “but I also wouldn’t discount the possibility,
considering tonight’s discovery.”

“In your opinion, these MUCE-spreading ghosts may have bewitched Britney Wyatt and caused her to dive into the canal to her death?” I asked him.

Schenk shifted in his boots, likely to stir his circulation and get some blood moving to his cold toes. “But you said—“

Scarrow interjected, “Yes, there are ghosts here. Ghosts in the water. But no,
these
ghosts, the ones that left behind ectoplasm, did not kill her. I don’t believe that. She’s still here.”

I jolted unhappily. “Britney is?”

“And they’re here with her. Look at the dogs.”

Staring at the same spot in the water one started wagging his tail. The other flopped on his belly and let out a strange yip, bowing his muzzle into the slush and snuffling.

“They do not mean to hold her with them,” Scarrow posited as
though he were thinking aloud. “I do not think the IHEs that left the ectoplasm are aware of her, any more than they are aware of one another.”

“I don’t understand,” I said with a long sigh. “Why would the ghosts of two hundred-year-old bones still be here after so long?” I noticed Schenk had a little flip-style notebook out, and a pencil. In want of something to go
taptaptap
on that wasn't one of our heads, I guessed he was going to take notes.

“They’re not
still
here.” Scarrow’s lips set in a grim line. I felt a chill, and saw my breath go out in a long fog trail. “This was church land, hallowed ground. The sanctity of these graves guaranteed their freedom from limbo. Anyone buried here who had died peacefully of natural causes, and passed quietly into the beyond, would not have remained in spirit form.”

One of my hands drifted sideways in Father Scarrow’s direction, to grab at his arm, needing to hold onto the solidity of the priest despite the fact that the contact with the holy man would likely cause a rash to prickle on my palms under my gloves. Though the invigorating zing of his presence warmed my veins, thankfully, the giggles hadn’t returned.

“You’re saying they’ve come back,” I said.

“Yes. They’re back.” He lifted his face like he smelled some faint perfume on the air, and for a moment I was reminded of Harry’s distant stares. “Hundreds of them. They’re
all
back.”

As though it had been waiting for a cue from some director off-stage, the wind picked up, blowing past him with such force as to snap the black fabric of his cassock noisily. It billowed out behind him with an appropriately dramatic flourish. He looked down at it with a glimmer of recognition, and glanced at me to see if I noted it, too. I grudgingly nodded. I tried again to relax enough for the Blue Sense to feel around and pick up some feelings and emotions, but it spluttered and spat like flame on a cheap candle wick, dying as soon as it swelled to any useful proportion. Frustrated, I rolled my left-hand glove off into my pocket and side stepped closer to the priest,
preparing to “accidentally” brush his hand with mine to see if I
could Grope some clarity out of him.

“Six hundred forlorn spirits, despairing,” he said. “Their final resting place has been disturbed, Ms. Baranuik.”

“By Britney?”

“By human hands, yes,” Scarrow said, “hers included. But it wasn’t the humans that brought these ghosts back.”

The wind groaned down low, seeming to vibrate through the air; my shoulders went up, and it wasn't all in response to his pretentious portentousness. Scarrow looked like he wanted to say more. His brown eyes gleamed with the need to unburden himself. When
Schenk wasn’t looking, Scarrow’s eyes widened slightly, meaningfully. I nodded. We’d talk privately, later. Maybe it would be over beers and seven-ten splits, but I doubted it. I used our silent concurrence to move a final step closer, and brushed his cassock with my palm, seeking his
hand. It wasn’t his hand I caught, but the lip of a pocket. Immediately, there was a jolt to my fingertips. Something important,
very close, drawing me in, tickling like the aftereffects of an electric shock.