Corpse Whisperer (2 page)

Trudging into his office, he tried to pull the door closed behind him. Celia held a multi-ringed hand on it. “This is serious. There’s going to be another fire.”

Frustration gnashed his teeth. He’d been down this road and he didn’t like the scenery. “That serial arsonist has been tried and convicted. He’s serving his sentence as we speak.”

“It isn’t the same one. A copycat.”

Zach landed in his chair then rubbed a hand down his face. Maybe if he “yessed” her to death she’d go away. “How do you know this?”

“May I sit?”

He indicated the second-hand chair he’d bought for real clients when he hung out his private eye shingle. Tugging a notepad closer, he reached for a pen. “Go ahead.”

She pressed her lips together as if something undesirable would escape them. He didn’t roll his eyes at her theatrics, but that took all of his restraint.

“I dreamt it last night,” she said when her gyrations were done.

“You said that last time and we arrested the wrong guy.”

She shook her head. “No, you didn’t listen to all that I said.”

“Whatever, Celia. Say what you have to say then leave. You probably have to be at work.”

She settled on the chair with her butt barely touched in the seat. “Listen carefully. An apartment building is going to burn. It will be arson for hire and the person is close to you or knows someone close to you. I’m not sure if it is firsthand or secondhand contact.”

His head spun. “Could you be more specific?” With his pen poised over the yellow pad he waited for her to elaborate.

“The apartment building is old.”

“We have at least three old buildings in Glen Hills alone. More in the rest of the county. What exactly do you expect me to do with this information?”

She stood, turning away from him. She waved her hands in the air. “Use it how you like. You will anyway.”

Her colorful robe

swirled as she exited his office. Multiple necklaces clanked together reminding him of a prison door closing.

Zach expected her to hop onto a broom, but instead she drove off in an expensive, foreign sedan. “Guess voodoo pays off.”

***

Grace fell into bed after her shift. Exhaustion slowed her body, while her mind moved at light speed. She needed to pack to move the next day, her only day off for a week. The details begged to be dealt with, but she had no energy.

Then the phone rang. Phone calls in the middle of the night were never good. She would have traded her ability for the ability to predict who was calling. Maybe she should get caller I.D.

“Hello,” she mumbled, hoping it wasn’t an insomniac telemarketer.

“Gracie,” a voice danced out of the receiver.

Her eyes flipped open and she sat up in her bed. Her heart warmed to hear his voice. “Mark. Where are you?” Her best friend Mark Handon.

“In California.”

“Oh? An acting gig?”

“Nah, I’m directing.” His laughed soothed her through the phone. She hadn’t talked to him in ages. She blinked. He hadn’t called last time she rewound.

“Are you sure you should be in that hotbed of excess and drugs?”

An exasperated sigh came out of him. “It’s been three months, Gracie. I truly want to stay clean. Trust me.”

“I’ll try.”

“Best I can hope for. Did I wake you?”

She shifted on her pillows then propped them behind her. “No, what’s up? How’d you find me?”

“I have my ways. Besides I figured I sold you on Glen Hills. It was a neat town to grow up in.”

As if he were psychic, he did always find her. “If I didn’t trust you I’d think you were a stalker. Are you really in California?”

She checked her Mickey Mouse clock.

“It’s two in the morning, here. I’m waiting for the sun to come up. Too bad I’m on the beach facing west.”

She had to laugh. He didn’t sound stoned, but then he was a little off-center, even sober. “You can’t do anything the way the rest of us do it, can you?

“So how’s your new place? Shame about Ken.”

For a moment her recent breakup and relocation sent a pain through her heart. Part of her knew she had unfinished business with her ex. “It was time to move on.”

“Yeah, you’d been in that town for a whole two years. I was sure you were putting down roots,” Mark said.

“You make that sound like a bad thing.”

She shifted the sheet over her. Despite the continent separating them, she didn’t like speaking on the phone to Mark if she were naked.

“Well, you know me. I’m never gonna own a house.”

He’d be fifty wandering from acting job to acting job. She didn’t envy his wanderlust. Just once she’d like to stay in one place more than a few years. “No white picket fences in your future.”

“So, have you time slipped again?”

She sighed. Only Mark knew about her gift. He was her safe haven when the talent became too much for her to handle. “Yeah, I have. For three weeks I’ve avoided dead people.”

“So what happened?”

“I had no choice but to enter a hospital room. I even steered clear of her, but she managed to touch me. Hey, you didn’t call me the first time around.”

“You know I can’t explain this any better than you can. So was she murdered?”

Grace tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She liked talking to Mark. He understood her in so many ways. “Always. The victims of natural causes don’t bother to get in touch with me,” she said.

“This getting you down?”

“Just the last time. I never solved it and she still died.”

“You’re whining. You’re not a superhero.”

“But wasn’t I given this odd gift to help people? If I don’t, then what’s the use?”

A deep, feminine voice purred in the background. Then Mark said, “Gracie, I have to go.”

“I’ll bet. Ever the Casanova.”

“You know me.”

The dial tone hummed, their connection severed.

***

Zach typed Grace’s name and license plate number into his computer. Hopefully nothing would come back. He didn’t want to see his ex taken in by anyone.

Shaking his head he turned his mind back to his task. But his thoughts stilled on the idea of his baby growing inside Dolores.

He didn’t feel anything for her.
Was he monster?

He’d love the baby because he couldn’t do anything else.

The computer sat on a scarred wooden desk he’d found at an estate sale. Something about it called to him. He even left the initials “D.W.” in it. He did put on a clear finish and bought a glass blotter it to protect the character it possessed.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when Grace’s name appeared in the national database. The one he shouldn’t still have access to, but his teen neighbor hacked into for him.

She’d been accused of murder. “That can’t be good.”

He yanked the phone off the hook and dialed Dolores’ house. The house where his child would grow up.

Calling up the archives for a newspaper local to where Grace lived when she under suspicion, he listened to Dolores’ phone ring.

The answering machine picked up and Zach contemplated not leaving a message. “Lors, call me at work or on my cell. It’s important.”

He dropped the receiver back in its cradle, frustration seeping into his bones. He’d offered to buy her a cell phone, but she saw no reason for it. Right now he’d give anything to get in touch with her. Grace Harmony had to be bad news.

Shame since he found her attractive, but women like that were akin to Black Widow spiders. She’d probably eat her young, too.

Then he smacked his own forehead, Dolores’ whereabouts came clear to him. “What day is it?”

Tuesday, his discarded newspaper told him.

She’s at work. He tried her there.

“Hi, Zach. Is something wrong?” she said. Her voice sounded faraway, distracted.

Too many years of him calling that he’d be home late for dinner. She always assumed there was a problem. “Not wrong. What do you know about this Grace Harmony?”

“Why, she a murderer?”

His eyes dropped closed. Little did she know. “I’m serious, Lors. What do you know about her?”

“She’s a medic at Community Hospital.”

“Did she tell you where she lived before coming to Glen Hills?”

“No, I didn’t ask. Why the interrogation?”

His other line rang, but he ignored it. They’d call back. “She’s in the computer. She’s been charged with a crime.”

“Was she convicted?”

“No, but--”

“Well, then she’s fine.”

The clock ticked on the wall. His cheap, metal blinds clanged in the breeze.

“Cops don’t charge people with crimes for no reason,” he argued.

“But sometimes innocent people get charged. You know that.”

You’d think she’d be more jaded having been married to him for so long. He rubbed a hand down his face. Maybe his cynicism blocked him from seeing the good in everyone. “They may be innocent of that crime, but not of others.”

“We’ve had this argument before. Let’s not go there,” she said.

“You’re right, but when is she moving in?”
“Later this morning. I’m taking an early lunch and giving her the key.”

“What time?”

He had to be somewhere in an hour, but he’d fit it in no matter what the consequences. He needed to confront this woman before she moved in and couldn’t be moved out.

“Eleven. She’s eager to get in.”

“Can you stall until I get there?”

“Why?”

“I need to see her for myself.”

She sighed. “You don’t trust me.”

“That’s not true. I just trust my own instincts more.”

And his were better, unless they involved love. For sex, he could pick them, differentiate the losers from the winners, but when any emotion entered into the bargain, what a mess.

“Jerk,” she said, but no venom colored her words.

He’d always been honest with her. “Yes, but you like me anyway.”

“You have a charm about you. A very, raw, rugged one at that.”

Just like his desk.

He chuckled. Her flirting on another day would have put him at ease. Today he had a bad feeling. “Will you stall?”

“Okay, but not too long. You know I’m not good at that.”

“Thanks, dear,” he said.

He hung up before he realized what he called her.

***

For a woman on her lunch hour, Dolores was chatty to Grace. They stood on the driveway in front of Grace’s car, loaded to beyond full.

The day had dawned overcast with a forecast for possible showers. Grace wished it held off until she finished. Listening to Dolores, she shifted from foot to foot.

“I cleaned the furniture last week, right after I put the ad in the paper.”

Dolores looked around as she spoke as if waiting for someone. The next moment a battered compact came into view. The driver parked the vehicle on the street behind Dolores’ car.

Maybe an inspector, but Grace’s cop radar pinged when he stepped out of his vehicle. He reeked of the self-assurance borne of fighting bad guys.

Not a bad sight to look at either. Too bad. Relationships didn’t last when you time slipped. You didn’t forget, but your lovers did.

Damn.

He surveyed the area before walking to the women. Confidence colored his steps. Shoulders a mile wide sat atop a fit body. His slicked back, black hair crowded at the base of his neck in a mob of curls.

His movements reminded her of a cat, despite his bulk. Was he just as predatory? She swallowed hard and clenched her fists behind her back. Something about him awakened her as if she were a female panther reunited with her mate.

The man in the gray suit with a perfectly pressed, white shirt leaned down to kiss Dolores on the cheek. Not a friendly kiss, but a rather intimate one without being on the lips.

The father of Dolores’ child?
Suspect number one even if he was a cop.

“Grace, this is my . . .” She stopped as if unsure how to introduce him. “This is Zach. He’s my overprotective ex-husband.”

Graced nodded and held out her hand. “You wanted to check me out before I moved in.”

“Yes.”

His firm grip didn’t hurt or intimidate her. But the fleeting touch sent a ripple of sensation down her spine. Had she ever met this man? A sense of déjà vu swept through her, different than when a corpse touched her.

Her gaze never left him, never letting on about her emotions. “So you’ve met me. Am I an axe murderer?”

He tilted his head and his gray eyes bore into her over his sunglasses. “I’ve never met one of those.”

She cocked her head. “Use your imagination. What would an axe murderer look like?”

His tongue came out and did a slow trail across his lips. “Probably not like you. You’re much too petite to wield such a bulky weapon.”

As he spoke his gaze swept over her and she might as well have been naked. Or a steak dinner with all the trimmings for the intensity of his look. His eyes went back to her face, a sly smile tilting his lips.

“Good. May I move in?”

“He doesn’t have a say in that,” Dolores said.

Grace slid her gaze to her new landlord.

“I have a few questions for Grace,” Zach said.

Bet he ran a background check.
“Oh? Is your name on the lease?”

His jaw tightened around his already chiseled face. “No, but I have a vested interest in you being the right tenant.”

Grace looked at Dolores who said, “Just humor him. I have to get back to work. You need anything else? All the utilities are turned on. I took the liberty of putting them in your name, you just have to call the companies with the rest of the information.” She backed away toward her Toyota parked on the street. “The numbers are on the table by the door.”

“Thanks, Dolores.”
She waved a hand at Grace and slid into her car. Zach watched her drive away as Grace watched him. When he turned his gaze back to her, she handed him a box.

“I’m not a moving company,” he said.

“You want to interrogate me, you have to work. I only have today to move in and get settled. I work the next four days.”

He looked at the box in his hands as if it were an alien, then shrugged. “Fine.”

Grace didn’t look back to see if he followed her. She assumed he intended to extract information about her last residence and that last case. With a deep breath and a heavy suitcase, she braced herself for the onslaught.