Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (32 page)

“I’d like to speak to Miss Baranuik alone,” Scarrow said,
struggling with the ancient zipper as it twisted.

“I still require Miss Baranuik’s assistance for the time being. You can speak to her on your own time, if she chooses to do so.” Schenk said. “Please detail for me the circumstances under which this item came into your possession.”

The zipper broke, and Scarrow used his hands to just push it the
rest of the way open. All the strain dropped from his face like
someone had slapped him with a limp bunch of rotten celery. It was replaced with the realization that he was utterly and entirely fucked.

Softly, he said, with horrified wonder and astonishing diction, “That shifty little shitdick.”

Probably, I shouldn't have brayed with laughter. I definitely shouldn't have fallen off the couch and landed on my ass while doing so. Probably, I'd go to hell for laughing at a priest's distress. Probably, Asmodeus would high-five me for it when I got there.

“I have no idea how
this
came into my possession, officer, because
this
was not here last night.” He reached in and lifted a
ceramic skull
with a handle and a broken spout. It was a heavy, ceramic teapot without its lid.
Bitchin’ teapot
, the mischievous part of my brain
supplied, and I pushed that thought away and tried to quell my giggles. The hole in
the top was chipped along the edges with a great, tea-stained
fracture on one side.

As Schenk got up to make a phone call in the hall, I asked,
“What makes you think Barnaby Nowland took your photographs?”

“He was the only person here last night,” Scarrow said. He
nailed
me with a knowing look and my guts squirmed. “And you’re the
only person who got close enough to take that picture out of my pocket.”

I took it out of my notebook and returned it with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Sometimes, I do things the wrong way.”

“Yes, I see that.” He glanced at my gloved hands and asked,
“Did you do your psychic thing on this?”

I nodded, but didn’t offer him any further insights, or mention my cowering, spectral guest at North House. “It’s a
carte-de-visite
.”

“Yes. They generally went out of fashion when the cabinet card came into use in the 1870’s, but some families continued to use them. The Briggs-Adsit family held on to the past quite firmly. Not one of them was particularly good at letting go.” He held the print gingerly, though it was laminated for protection. “I’ve narrowed my search to them, and the O’Donnells. There’s more spiritual upset in the O’Donnell family, obviously, because of the murders—“

“Wait, what?” I knew one of the famous Donnellys, Patrick, was
buried at the new Red Hook cemetery. “Do you mean the Black Donnellys?”

“No, the lesser-known White-O’Donnells.”

“Are you fucking with me?” I asked. I grimaced and added to what I owed Mr. Merritt, but how many times is a girl going to say something like that to a man of the cloth?
So
totally worth it.

“No, I’m quite serious.” Scarrow stared unhappily at the skull teapot. “Paul and Mary-Ellen White-O’Donnell are both buried in the Old Red Hook Cemetery, and died in a terrible murder/suicide. That sort of passing leaves a great psychic scar on a spirit. Britney believed she saw Paul White-O’Donnell. She called him ‘Tall Man with Flower’ in a video blog she kept.”

He showed me the
carte-de-visite
, the one I had given back. “This
young man is Captain John Briggs-Adsit. In case you can’t read the rest, it’s Mother and Father, 1864. His mother had a notorious
temper.”

“And the uniform?”

“American Civil War. They fled to Canada after John was discharged earlier that year.” He drifted off, shaking his head at something I was not privy to. “Barnaby Nowland is in danger and he doesn’t even realize it.”

Schenk’s voice rose in the hall to an aggravated mutter, but I couldn’t make out the words. The dogs in the safe room snuffled with their big noses under the door and scratched, causing the door to rattle in its casing. One of them gave a single, plaintive yelp
.

I asked, “What would Barnaby do with the skull?”

“He once expressed a desire to see it on his mantelpiece.”

Blerg.
“Does he know that Britney may have
died
because of the skull?”

“He seemed emotionally unaffected by that when we spoke last night. He asked for the skull. I told him no and that I needed it.”

“Did you tell him what you needed it
for
?” Okay, not the subtlest gambit into figuring out his motivations, but he was barely paying attention to me as it was. I just wanted him to keep talking.

Scarrow played with the
carte-de-visite
, turning it around in those bony, nimble fingers. His big Adam’s apple bobbed. “I was only out of the room for a minute. He must have come prepared though, with this teapot… which, by the way, bears an eerie resemblance to the skull in more than one way.”

“C'mon, dude, focus. What do you think
you
need this skull for?”

“If I can find out exactly whose skull it is, I can return it to that person’s grave, along with any personal effects that might boost any show of respect.”

Personal effects. Like the necklace. Speaking of boosting things.

He continued, “Then I can attempt to exorcise the rage from the spirit’s aura, and dismiss any other spirits this poltergeist has lured back through the veil.”

I gaped, and then laughed without meaning to. “How the hel--ck would you do
any
of that?”

“Helck?” Scarrow’s lips twisted and one eyebrow twitched up.

“I don’t swear anymore,” I fibbed. “I’m a good girl when I’m in Canada, eh?”
Apparently.

“You pick-pocketed a man of the cloth, lied to that same priest in
a church, and asked him if he is, quote, 'fucking with you,'” he
confirmed. “Interesting choices.”

My life was a nonstop cavalcade of bones and boners, and I didn't have time to examine the poor life choices that delivered me here, and I definitely didn't need to have decisions questioned by an aging rock-and-roll Reverend who got tossed out of the church for sticking his dick in the eye of doctrinal opinion. Maybe later, after a few drinks, and Harry making reassuring noises in my ear as he fed, I could indulge in some introspection and have a good, solid laugh
about it. I could use a lot more of that, and it seemed like a pretty
good decision to me.

“Ex-priest,” I pointed out, looking up at the high, beamed ceiling. “And ex-church. My point is, the cemetery was flooded over
ninety
years ago. I’ve seen pictures of it after the water gets drained in
winter.
There are no obvious plots, no headstones, nada. You can’t tell
where the plots would have been, and even if you did have some sort of old map…,” I winced. “I hate to say this, but between the shifting mud, the frost heave, the rotted caskets, the water invasions… the bodies would have been displaced. Who knows, they may have even done earth moving in there when they dredged the canal or built up the retention ponds.” I thought about the humped promontory with its broken cement. “I know they at least cleared some of the fallen walls from the old canal that used to run nearby. I’ve tripped over some of the remnants.”

“So we do it together,” he decided, his eyes flashing with new
excitement. “I can prove to you that ghosts interact with us. I can
also
prove that a poltergeist can force its way through the veil without
being held or swayed by demons. Together we can present the
evidence to the church.” He lowered his voice so Schenk couldn’t hear it from the hall. “I’ll take you where an experience is almost guaranteed. But just us. Not your officer.”

My internal alarm bell started firing off warnings about people I
had foolishly trusted in the past.
Danika Sherlock. Ruby Valli. Gregori
Nazaire. Neil Dunnachie. Malas Nazaire
.
Declan Edgar
. But mostly, it
wanted to return again and again to Ruby, the harmless-seeming old lady with the bright skirts and squeaky Wellington boots, who had
seemed like the obvious person to go to when I needed expert help,
and
who had put roofies in my Chai and nearly sacrificed me to a
demon. Now, as the exorcist looked at me with his eyes full of fire, I thought,
do not drink the tea
.

“Okay, where is it?” I said, standing in a rush. “Probably you don’t even hide it well because who would ransack a priest’s stuff,
right?”

“Marnie, what—“

“Where is it?” I ran my gloved hands under the couch cushions, tossing throw pillows around the room, pulling down the back cushions on the Chesterfield.

“Where is what?” Scarrow asked.

“The grimoire. The roofies.” I started pacing, and then began a
hasty investigation of his bookshelves, tipping every one of the
books onto the floor, ignoring the hard covers hitting my boots. “I’m not an idiot, Renfield Aquinas Thackeray Scarrow. Mr. Rats. There, I said it. Rats! Rats! Go ahead, rip my nipples off!”

“Marnie, shhh,” Scarrow said, indicating the cop in the hall.

“No. No, I won’t hush. Where’s the Wolfsbane? Come on, I’m
calling you out, mister. Let’s see what you got.”

“I’ve got nothing,” Scarrow insisted, showing me his open hands. This made me think of Chapel’s soothing psychological
moves, and further infuriated me.

“Don’t try that body language crap!” I snapped, pointing at his hands. He shook his head, looking baffled. “Maybe black magic’s not your style, huh? Maybe you keep arsenic and strychnine next to your sacrificial altar.”

“Are you finished?”

“Not until I find the other shoe.”

“What other shoe?”

“The one that’s going to drop on my head the minute I trust you.” I pointed a gloved finger at him with a sour smile. “Think I’m easy to fool, eh? Like I never learn from my mistakes? You don’t
want me to bring the big, overprotective cop to the tunnel with us? Hello? Red
flag! I see you waving!” I flailed my arms to demonstrate the big signal I was getting. I grabbed hold of the tilt-down door of the
secretary desk nearby. It was locked; instead of folding down into a writing surface, it just bumped against its lock —
badump badump.
“What’s in here, huh? Your duct tape? Your zip ties? Your murder kit? Your ju-ju go-bag? Your machete? Your voodoo hoodoo dolls?”

“No.” Scarrow scratched the back of his neck. “Just regular, private things.”

“Like what?”

“Like guys have, Marnie,” he said with a so-what shrug.

“I’m not trusting you until you unlock this!”

He dug in his front pocket and tossed me a small pair of keys. “Knock yourself out. If you see anything in there you might like to explore in more detail, you be sure to let me know.”

The Blue Sense smacked me on the nose like a rolled-up
newspaper.
The desk was where he kept his porn and sex toys
. All at once I whipped off a glove and touched the top of the desk, not thinking too closely
about what I might be coming into contact with, and was hit with waves of shameless, unbridled lust, in a variety of flavors and
expressions. Ren Scarrow might be many things, but “piously celibate” was nowhere near that list. I breathed a sigh of relief and made sure my hand was neither tacky nor breaking out in a Harry-inflaming rash. “You’re just trying to intimidate me with what you wank to.”

“I can’t imagine that would intimidate you, Marnie.” He put his
hands in his pockets, apparently reconsidered the suggestion, and
put them on his hips instead. “But ghosts affecting the physical realm; that intimidates you quite a bit. Why are you fighting this?”

“Because I…” I let out a frustrated huff. “You’re trying to
distract me again.”

“Distract you from…?”

“Discovering you’re a villain.”

“I’m only villainous in the dark,” he promised.

“You’re doing it again. Where’s the necklace? And don’t you dare pretend to me that you didn’t steal it from evidence.”

“I need it,” he insisted.

“You’re a thief and a liar,” I said. “And maybe something worse. But you can be all those things in jail when Schenk finds out. He probably heard you confess right now anyway.”

“Fine, let me put your mind at ease. I am not a killer.” He
showed
me a smile, and I was again reminded of the little ways Chapel manipulated his tone or facial expressions or the subtle position of his limbs to elicit the subconscious response he wanted from
someone. “I am not trying to con you or hurt you. But I want something.”

I braced for it. “Is it my eyeballs? I bet it’s my eyeballs. I knew it.”

He chuckled. “No. I want you to witness what I’ve seen.”

“That is totally an eyeball thing! You really suck at anatomy, on top of all of your other failings.”

“And I want you to help me. I think you can. In fact, I know you can. I’ve done exorcisms before, but never on a poltergeist of this magnitude.” He dropped his hands, and for a moment he looked
like
he needed me. The Blue Sense soared to life to wash through the
room, and reported no deception; either he was telling the truth or believed whatever he was saying so strongly that he no longer knew it was
false. “This poltergeist drew Britney Wyatt into that water, and drained every joule of heat from her body. I’m willing to bet the
coroner’s
report will report the cause of death as drowning, but her body temperature was almost certainly lower than even that of the
surrounding water, her tissues showing signs of frostbite deep inside, in the organs. Her
lungs won't have been full of water; if anything, it would be ice, causing them to burst within her chest. She was probably freezing from the inside out before she slipped into unconsciousness, helpless
in the black
water, sucked dry by this angry spirit. And make no mistake: Britney’s own spirit is stuck here until we resolve this. I cannot imagine a more terrifying fate. The poltergeist must be banished
beyond the veil where it cannot touch us, preferably before it hurts anyone else.”