Canyons Of Night (12 page)

“Yes.” Charlotte picked up the mug of tea. “Well, I am now. I had a panic attack when I found the body but, hey, I think I deserved it under the circumstances.”

“Absolutely. A dead body is enough to give anyone a panic attack.” Rachel paused, the mug halfway to her lips. Her dark eyes shadowed with concern. “You’re still having problems with panic attacks?”

“They aren’t nearly as frequent as they were when I was coming into my talent, thank heavens. But if I get too anxious or badly shaken, my talent automatically flares from zero to sixty. If that happens, it can set off an attack. I’ll concentrate on starting the inventory this afternoon. That will take my mind off what happened this morning.”

They were in the small coffee shop at the back of Shadow Bay Books. Like Charlotte, Rachel had spent many summers on Rainshadow. They were the same age and, in addition to sharing the normal trials and tribulations of the teenage years, they had shared the bond that came with the development of talents that neither of them had wanted or understood.

Rachel’s great-aunt and the aunt’s lifelong partner had owned the bookshop in those days. But a year ago the couple had retired unexpectedly and offered the business to Rachel. They had instructed her to do whatever she wanted with the shop and then they had moved to the sunnier climes of a desert retirement community.

Rachel had confided to Charlotte that at first she had been stunned because she had no idea the pair had the financial wherewithal to finance a high-end retirement community in the desert.
I always thought they were just squeaking by on the income from the bookstore and a few investments they made over the years. Who knew the investments were in a couple of small start-ups that got bought out for a fortune?

Rachel had matured into an attractive young woman. There was a lively energy about her that was infectious. But Charlotte sensed shadows and mysteries in her friend’s amber brown eyes that had not been present all those years ago.

The summer friendship between the two women had gone into a long period of hibernation after they went off to college and started their separate adult lives. But when they had both found themselves back on Rainshadow it was as if they had never been apart. There was still a lot of history to catch up on but the old bond between them had snapped back into existence immediately. It was as if they had never been apart.

“So this Jeremy Gaines was a client of yours?” Rachel asked.

“Ex-client.” Charlotte sipped some tea. “Can’t imagine why he came here or why he was in my shop last night.”

“Got any ideas?”

Charlotte smiled wryly. “You sound like the chief. The answer is no idea whatsoever.”

“How did your association with Gaines end?”

“Badly. And from the way you phrased the question, I think you’ve been reading too much suspense and mystery fiction.”

“Not like there’s much else to do here on Rainshadow,” Rachel said.

“Which brings up the obvious question—why did we both come back?”

“Don’t know about you,” Rachel said, “but I needed a change and I’ve always had this fantasy of operating a bookstore. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I more or less fired Jeremy as a client. He got pissed. Made a pest of himself for a while.”

“Stalker?”

“My family was starting to think so,” Charlotte admitted.

“And then he shows up here inside your shop. You know what? I’ll bet he
was
stalking you. Probably came here last night to do something very nasty inside Looking Glass. That’s the sort of thing stalkers start out with.”

“I suppose it’s a possibility,” Charlotte said.

“Lucky he dropped dead of a heart attack when he did. Guys like that, they just keep going and the violence tends to escalate. The only way to stop them is to kill them.”

A chill shivered through Charlotte. “You speak from experience, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “I do.”

“
WORD
AROUND
TOWN
IS
THAT
THE
GUY
WHO
DROPPED
dead in Charlotte’s shop was stalking her,” Myrna said. “Probably came here to vandalize her store or leave a dead rat on the premises in order to frighten her. Good thing he dropped dead when he did.”

Slade stopped at the desk and scooped up a stack of printouts. “It was convenient.”

Myrna started to say something else but she got distracted by Rex, who came bouncing down the hall from the direction of the break room.

“Oh, good,” Myrna said. “Looks like he finished the rest of today’s loaf of Thelma’s zucchini bread.”

“You gave him some more?” Slade asked.

“It’s either that or I start dumping the bread off the cliff at Lighthouse Point. No human being could possibly eat as much zucchini bread as Thelma is making this year. She had a bumper crop of zucchini, enough to go into commercial production.”

Rex vaulted up onto Myrna’s desk and chortled a greeting. He clutched a black beaded object.

“What on earth does he have in his grubby little paws?” Myrna asked. “He’d better not be bringing a dead bird in here. Hmm. Looks like an old evening purse, one of those tiny little bags ladies use to hold a lipstick and a compact.”

Slade looked at the beaded purse.

“Damn,” he said. “Rex must have snuck into Charlotte’s shop while we were getting Gaines’s body ready to transport.”

“Uh-oh,” Myrna said. “If it came from Looking Glass, it’s probably not just some old evening bag. It’s probably a valuable antique.”

“Probably,” Slade said.

Rex put the purse on the desk. He selected a few shiny paperclips from Myrna’s stash and put them into the bag. When he was satisfied, he grabbed the purse and jumped back down to the floor. Then he dashed off in the direction of Slade’s office.

“Something tells me the purse may have lost some of its value,” Myrna said.

“I’ll put it down as an office expense,” Slade said.

“Speaking of Charlotte, how’s she doing? Must have been quite a shock for her, walking in on a dead body like that.”

“She said something about conducting an inventory, so I think she’s recovering.”

“Not to change the subject, but how was your date last night?”

“We both survived it,” Slade said.

The door of the station opened. Kirk Willis, Slade’s one and only officer, entered. He used both hands to remove his sunglasses in a practiced, deliberate gesture.

Myrna smiled but said nothing.

“Heard the dead guy was a stalker,” Kirk said.

Kirk was in his early twenties, a tall, still-gangly young man who didn’t look a day over nineteen. He had been with the department for less than a year when Slade had arrived to take over as head of the department. Kirk had made no secret that he was not enthralled with his job. He had entered the police academy only after he had been forced to accept that his dream of working as a ghost hunter down in the catacombs was not going to happen. Kirk could pull a little ghost light but not enough to make him a Guild man.

Police work was a fallback profession as far as Kirk was concerned. Winding up in a small department in a town that was nothing more than a dot on the map on an island that wasn’t even on a lot of maps had been a soul-crushing experience for him.

Kirk’s attitude had improved briefly after they had taken down the drug runners who had ducked into the harbor earlier that week, but Slade didn’t expect the newfound professional pride to last long. He empathized with the younger man. After all, he was planning to get the hell off the island, himself, as soon as possible. But being a short-timer was no excuse for an unprofessional attitude. He was going to have to have a chat with Kirk. There was a job to be done, and as long as Kirk was getting a paycheck from the town of Shadow Bay he was going to do that job right.

“The stalker theory makes sense,” Myrna said. “I heard that Gaines was a former client of Charlotte’s back in Frequency. Evidently he tried to date her and she declined.”

“Explains what he was doing on the island,” Kirk said. “Right, Chief?”

“It does,” Slade said. “And for the moment, that is the official theory of the death.”

Kirk and Myrna stared at him, eyes widening.

“Official theory?” Kirk repeated cautiously. “Are you saying it might not be the correct theory?”

“We are going to conduct an investigation to rule out homicide,” Slade said. “But this will be a very low-profile project. Neither one of you will say a word about it outside this office. Not to anyone. Is that understood?”

“You got it, Chief.” Kirk’s dark eyes brightened with enthusiasm. “You really think someone murdered Gaines?”

“Yes, and before you ask, it wasn’t Charlotte.”

Myrna cleared her throat. “And we know this, how?”

Slade raised his brows. “I used to work for the
FBPI
, remember? I’ve done a lot of crime-scene investigation. The psychic evidence at the scene of Gaines’s murder tells me that Charlotte was not the killer.”

Myrna nodded. “You’re the expert on paranormal forensics. But you’re sure this is murder, not a heart attack?”

“I’m positive,” Slade said.

“Poison, maybe?” Kirk offered. “They say some poisons don’t show up in autopsies.”

“That’s true,” Slade said. “But there’s another possibility. A severe shock from a power source can stop the heart. We’ll know more when we have the three basics.”

“Means, motive, and opportunity,” Kirk said. He was practically vibrating with enthusiasm now.

“Right.” Slade looked at him. “You’re good with a computer. I want you to do a background check on Gaines. There’s reason to believe that he was involved in black-market antiquities. He may have made some enemies.”

“I’ll start on it right away.”

Slade looked at Myrna. “Any luck locating Gaines’s relatives?”

“No, oddly enough. It’s as if he doesn’t have any family.”

“More likely he was living under a fake ID. Look deeper.”

“Will do,” Myrna said. Excitement lit up her face. She straightened her shoulders and swiveled her chair to face her computer.

“Remember,” Slade said. “No one in this office talks to anyone about the investigation. Clear?”

“Clear,” Kirk said.

“Clear,” Myrna said. “Nothing like this has happened around here since those two hikers got lost in the Preserve five years ago.”

The door opened. Devin charged into the office. In his excitement, he forgot to remove his sunglasses.

“What’s a stalker, Grandma?” he demanded.

They all looked at Myrna.

“A stalker is a very bad person,” Myrna said. She glanced at Slade. “Right, Chief?”

“Right,” Slade said. “Very bad.”

Devin frowned. “Do you think the dead guy came here to hurt Miss Enright?”

“It’s a possibility,” Slade said.

“In that case, I’m glad he croaked,” Devin said fiercely. He whirled and ran back toward the door. “I gotta go tell Nate.”

The door closed behind him.

Myrna sighed. “Some things seem so much simpler when you’re that age.”

“Yes,” Slade said. “They do. I’ll be in my office if you find anything.”

He went down the hall. Rex was napping on his back on top of the row of file cabinets that lined the wall. All six paws were in the air. The stolen purse was nearby.

“I hope you’re enjoying the hell out of that purse because you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with Charlotte when she discovers you ripped it off,” Slade warned. “Don’t expect me to pay for it.”

Rex’s blue eyes snapped open. He rolled to his hind legs, picked up the purse, and hopped down onto Slade’s desk.

Slade reached for the crystal-studded bag. “Let me see that thing.”

Rex chortled and graciously released the antique purse. When Slade took it he got a little jolt of energy. It was like inhaling a woman’s tantalizing perfume. Pleasant and ever-so-slightly exhilarating.

“You’re getting a rush out of the energy infused in this thing, aren’t you?” he said to Rex. “Must be a psychic version of dust bunny catnip.”

Rex chortled happily. He retrieved the purse and scampered up onto the wide windowsill. He started to bat the cord that controlled the slatted shades.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to take it away from you,” Slade said. “That purse is your problem. I’ve got enough of my own.”

He lowered himself into the ancient chair behind the big, battered desk. Both pieces of furniture looked as if they had served several generations of his predecessors. He was pretty sure that the desk, along with the vintage wooden chairs, slatted window blinds, and file cabinets filled with yellowed paperwork, qualified as antiques. Like the town, the police station looked as if it had been caught in a time warp.

The desk chair groaned when he turned to face the computer. He had thought about picking up a can of oil down at Herb’s Marine Supply but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. He wouldn’t be hanging around long enough to bother with repairs and maintenance issues.

The one piece of equipment in the office that qualified as state-of-the-art was the computer. It was not department issue. It was his personal computer. He fired it up and settled in to do some serious research on Jeremy Gaines. Kirk could handle the routine background check. He would be able to access police department and business records but he did not have access to the
FBPI
files. If Gaines had been involved in the dangerous world of the para-weapons business, the information was more likely to be buried in the Office files.

Half an hour later he sat back and thought about what he had discovered. He contemplated possibilities for a while and then he picked up the phone and made a call.

When he finished the phone call, he got up and started for the door.

Rex grabbed the purse and leaped down to the floor to follow. Slade picked him up and plopped him on his shoulder.

“If I were you, I’d hide the purse,” he said.

Rex ignored him.

“
YES
,
DAD
, I’M
FINE
,
REALLY
.”
CHARLOTTE
STOOD
BEhind the sales counter, holding the phone to her ear with one hand while she studied the screen of her computer. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to be arrested for murder, at any rate.”