The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (2 page)

Riga climbed onto a stool, rested one foot on the brass rail.  Surfer Pete worked the bar on Thursdays.  He was a shameless flirt and good looking in a beach boy sort of way.  She enjoyed the flirting, but Pete was half her age and Riga old-fashioned enough to think that still meant something.

Pete threw his bar rag over one muscled shoulder and ambled over.  He tossed his shaggy head, knocking back the dirty blonde hair that had fallen into his eyes.  “Hey, Riga.  What are you drinking tonight?”

“I’ll take the Zin.”

He grinned, his teeth gleaming whitely against his tanned skin.  “You’re out, doll.”

“I brought a case in last week.  I couldn’t have gone through it all.”  Riga clutched the edge of the bar, panicked – the alcoholic was always the last to know she had a problem.  “How’s that possible?  Did I drink it?”

Pete motioned toward the trio on Riga’s left with his chin.  “No, your buddy and his girlfriends did.  They’ve really been putting it away.” 

Riga looked at the stranger, her lips compressing.  One of her bottles (her last?) was open on the bar in front of the trio. Riga reached across one of the blondes and grabbed it.  “I don’t know the guy,” she said to Pete.  “You’ve been conned.  Get me a glass, will you?”

Pete laughed, grabbing a wine glass from beneath the counter.  He twirled it in his fingers and placed it before her.  “Come off it, Riga.”

The man leaned backward, craning his neck so he could look past his companion at her.  “If you wanted me to buy you a drink, all you had to do was ask.”  His voice was low and sensuous and she felt its vibration deep in her chest.

She gave him a long look.  Thousand dollar suit, face like a chiseled Greek statue, voluptuous lips, ebony hair cut and styled to perfection.  With looks like that, he must have women throwing themselves at him.  Money and all the women he wanted, whenever he wanted – hardly a path to character building experiences.  Her lip curled.

“This is my wine you’re drinking,” she said. 

He smiled, slow and seductive.  The light in his eyes, an unusual green brown, shifted like river water.  “No need to be like that, Riga.  We’re old friends.”

The use of her name by the stranger rattled her.  Then she remembered: Takako had bellowed it out when Riga came in.  Mystery number one solved.  Mystery number two, how he’d tricked Pete out of her wine, still festered.

Riga turned back toward the bar and stared at the rows of bottles, her reflection mirrored back to her.  Now she looked like a spitting mad Rita Hayworth, her delicate features hardening, her hair glinting copper in the dim light. 

There was a whiff of magic about the man in the suit, but it slid away from her mental probing, she couldn’t pin it down.  That annoyed her.  Twice in one day – was she slipping?  She took a deep breath, but her irritation grew in spite of it.  She’d been taken for some wine, that was all.  Riga took a swallow from her own glass but couldn’t taste it.  She took another drink, then put the glass down and left, avoiding the man’s gaze.

She stopped Takako on her way out.  “That guy’s no friend of mine,” Riga said.  “If he comes in again, he can buy his own drinks.” 

She stalked out, pushing the door open with more force than necessary.  It banged against the back wall and Riga had to skip out of the way to avoid its rebound. 

She didn’t hear Takako’s bemused reply:  “But you two have been coming here together for years.”

Chapter 3: A Funny Valentine

Riga walked home, her long strides burning off her annoyance, the steep hills burning her thighs.  She lived in a condo atop Nob Hill, behind Grace Cathedral, and stopped at the Cathedral for a quick walk through the outdoor labyrinth, a simple design set in the paving stones.  The tourists were gone at this time of day and she blitzkrieged along its path – one way in, one way out.  Even at top speed, the labyrinth calmed her, forcing her to pay attention to where she placed each foot, focusing her thoughts, until she finally slowed, then stopped in its hub.  When she left the labyrinth, she was centered again.

She walked the last blocks more sedately now, enjoying the hint of salt in the air, the coming chill in the wind, the art deco lines of her building, rising out of the hillside.  Riga could never have afforded the place on her haphazard income and fortunately, she didn’t have to.  She’d landed an extended house sitting gig, and with another two hundred and twenty-odd years left on the assignment, wasn’t worried about having to find a new place anytime soon. 

Riga nodded to the doorman and his dog barked at her in welcome.  She’d once asked him what kind of dog it was – it looked like something out of an old English hunt painting, should have had a dead pheasant at its paws.  The doorman had shrugged.  It was just a dog, he’d said, and that was what he’d named it.  Poor Dog, he answered to everyone.

Riga answered to no one.

She stepped into a waiting elevator, the black and white dog trailing behind her.  The elevators made her uneasy but her condo was five floors up and that was too much stair climbing.  She knelt down and scratched the dog behind his floppy ears.  He panted happily, his tawny eyes rolling. 

The elevator stopped with a bump and the building lurched sideways.  She gasped, grabbed the metal rail beside her.  Enclosed space, three floors up, earthquake – it was Riga’s personal trifecta of fear.  The dog barked, placing a paw upon her knee, looking worried. But the earthquake seemed to be over.  The doors slid open and Riga stumbled out, heart banging in her chest.  She glanced up at the hallway chandeliers.  They were motionless.  A small quake then, it just felt worse because she’d been in an elevator.  Yay, San Francisco, she thought weakly.

The dog, still in the elevator, barked once.  She reached inside and pushed the down button for him.  He watched her until the doors closed.

Riga walked down the hall and stopped short, her breath drawing inward with a hiss at the sight of the pink Valentine, wedged partly beneath her door.  She’d been half-expecting it; it had been that kind of day.  She pulled her sleeves over her hands and picked it up gingerly, trying not to smudge prints she knew would not be there.   Then she realized she couldn’t open the door with the handmade card held between her wrists, cursed, and stuffed the small, garish pink paper into her jacket pocket, careless of prints, and let herself in.

Riga strode to the kitchen counter and lay the pink construction paper heart upon it.  Written across the heart in a childish scrawl were the words: “I adore u.” 

She studied the paper heart for a long moment, then took it into her study and stuck it with a magnet to the whiteboard there, beside the others.  The hearts formed two rows, lined up in order received:

Bee mine

I love U

U R sweet

Let’s kiss

My love

I adore u

When the first heart had arrived, she’d shrugged it off.  At the second’s arrival, Riga had been irritated enough to dust for prints.  There weren’t any.  By the fourth, she’d rigged a discreet camera to watch her door.  But when she reviewed the tape all she saw was an empty doormat, followed by a quick blip of electrical snow, and in the next shot the Valentine was there.  Next, she placed a camera against the peep hole in her door.  The view from the fisheye didn’t reach the doormat, but it would capture anyone who came near.  Valentine number five arrived and there was nothing on the tape – not even a blip of white noise. 

She couldn’t ward the hall, because her neighbor used it too.  Magic couldn’t solve everything – not that she hadn’t tried.  Her attempts to use the Valentines to magically reveal her stalker had failed.  It was as if he didn’t exist.

The construction paper was a common brand, schoolchildren used it.  She’d called in a favor and had the ink analyzed; it was from a normal felt tip pen.  There was only one anomaly: the smudges of dirt on each Valentine from a local park.

It was driving her crazy.

Chapter 4: Nino’s cross

Her wards were still up, so she knew her admirer had not invaded her home.  But Riga searched the condo anyway.   The walkthrough reassured her, her paranormal senses detecting only her own energies.  Her eyes told her the same – nothing had been disturbed.  Her odd travel artifacts, private library, and tasteful furniture had only her own aura upon them.  She straightened an old travel poster with a Moroccan scene – it always tilted to the left – and smoothed back the edge of one of her cheerful Pakistani carpets.  Normal.

Reassured, Riga crossed the hall and knocked on the door of 5b, more from boredom than any hope her neighbor, Liz, had seen anything.  She heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back, the clunk of something being shifted to the floor.  Eventually, Liz opened the door. 

Liz balanced against the doorframe, awkward without her walking stick.  She ran one thin hand through her bombshell blonde hair.  She’d lost weight again, Riga noticed, her collar bones standing out painfully against her white t-shirt.  Keeping weight on was a constant battle for Liz, something Riga could not relate to.

“Hi, Riga!  What’s going on?”

“I was wondering if you’d seen anyone hanging around my door today.”  Riga said, “I was supposed to meet a client at my office but I’m afraid there might have been some mix-up and he came here instead.”  If she did have a stalker (and she wasn’t willing to admit that yet), Riga didn’t want to talk about him.  Stalkers were often in the peripheries of one’s social network and if Riga blabbed, word might reach and encourage him.

“Sorry, didn’t see anyone.  I’ve been painting like crazy all afternoon.  Do you want to come in for a drink?” Liz asked.  “I could use one.”

Riga shook her head, no.  “Sure, why not?”  She blinked.  Why had she said that? 

Liz laughed.  “Well make up your mind, will ya?”

 “Sorry.  My head’s not really in the game today,” Riga said.  “And I’ll have that drink.”  She and Liz had been neighbors for years, but didn’t know each other well – Riga’s fault.  Liz had made the offer before. 

Liz tried to smother her look of surprise.  She turned and walked slowly to her kitchen, her gait stiff and uneven.  “I just opened a bottle of Cab,” she called over her shoulder.  “That okay?”

“Sounds great.”  Riga looked around the condo with interest.  The layout was the mirror image of her own: an entry into the living/dining area, kitchen to the right, beds and bath to the left.  However, while Riga’s balcony looked out upon the Golden Gate, Liz had a view of the Bay.  The lights of Berkeley were beginning to twinkle in the darkening light, mountains purpling behind them, the Bay a swathe of deep blue-gray.

Riga tore herself away from the view.  Liz walked toward her, one glass of wine held outstretched, the other close to her hip.  Riga stepped forward and took the glass.  “Thanks.”  She took a sip and let the wine roll across her tongue.  It tasted of mulberries, dark chocolate, and tobacco.  Some people matched their wine to their food.  Riga matched her food to her wine.  “Nice,” she said. 

Liz watched Riga wander to a table littered with paints and brushes.  A canvas was propped against a tabletop easel and on it, Liz had painted a swirl of grape leaves with big, bold strokes. 

“I think there’s a temple beneath all those vines,” Liz said.  “I went for a walk this morning and saw some grapevines in the window of a Greek restaurant.  They were cheap plastic, but they really grabbed me for some reason.  You know?”

Riga had never been plagued by the artistic impulse, so she didn’t know.  She pretended to study the painting.  It did remind her of something, but she couldn’t think of what.

“Your cross – didn’t you tell me it has something to do with grapevines?” Liz asked.

Riga touched the silver cross at her neck and didn’t reply immediately.  She couldn’t recall ever discussing much of anything with Liz.  Then she remembered riding up in the narrow elevator with her neighbor one day, awkward in their forced closeness.  They might have spoken of it during the slow ascent. 

“It’s a St. Nino’s cross, one of Georgia’s patron saints,” Riga said.  “When Nino introduced Christianity to Georgia, the pagans worshipped the grapevine.  She built a cross from the vines and tied the cross bars together with her hair so they could continue worshipping the grapevine, and the cross.”

The early Christians had been masters at subverting Pagan holidays and symbols.  It beat conquest by force, but they’d done plenty of that too.  Good thing she never felt guilty for things she wasn’t actually responsible for.  Riga had enough to answer for, and didn’t believe in original sin.

Liz took a long sip.  “The god of wine – now that’s a religion I could get behind.  Mind if I smoke?”

Riga shook her head.  “It’s your home, go ahead.”

Liz took a silver lighter from the table, fished a packet from her pockets, and fired up a cigarette.  She inhaled deeply.  Her body seemed to settle into its thin frame as she exhaled a stream of smoke. 

Suddenly, a cigarette seemed like a good idea to Riga, but she didn’t smoke.  She drank more wine, thoughtful, feeling a pleasant lethargy steal through her body.  “Did you feel the earthquake?”

Liz shook her head, the smoke forming a zigzag in the air before her.  She watched as it blended together, floating to the ceiling.  “No.  Was there a quake?”

“About ten minutes ago.  I was in the elevator – it scared the hell out of me.”

“Those damn elevators,” Liz said.  “I wonder how old they are?”

They made desultory conversation and Riga remembered why she’d refused Liz’s other invitations.  They had nothing in common but a hallway.  Riga finished her wine, and left. 

She felt off-kilter, out of sorts.  Back in her condo she tried to meditate but her mind wouldn’t cooperate after a glass of wine, so she switched to Tai Chi.  It wasn’t much better.  Finally she put a Miranda Lambert CD in the stereo, and sat on her balcony drinking wine, watching the Golden Gate Bridge wink in the distance.  Her meditation on the Pinot Noir was successful.

The gargoyle on the ledge beside her stirred.  “And how is ze bold Liz?” Her voice was a French-sounding Lauren Bacall.