Demon on a Distant Shore (17 page)

“Mark
that
on your calendar!” from Carrie.

I bit down on my lower lip till it hurt more than the chuckle trying to bubble from my throat. “Did she mean they really
don’t
like to talk about Johnny’s death, or warning us not to mention it?”

“Either option brings up the question,
why
?”

I rolled down the car window to let air in and draped my arm outside. “I want to go see Johnny tonight, tell him what we have.”

“I’ll come,” Carrie declared.

“
She
wants to come,” I told Royal.

“
She
is becoming a nuisance.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“And she’s not deaf either,” Carrie piped up from close behind us.

In The Hart and Garter, Royal headed upstairs as I went in the
Ladies
, knowing Carrie would follow. I had to do something before our conversations sent him over the edge. Rather, before
I
sent him over the edge. I didn’t want us to fight over Carrie, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear her. She would just get worse.

I washed my hands while I thought it over. Carrie bent over for a closer look at a vase of artificial flowers. “I thought these were real. It’s a shame, isn’t it, how so much nowadays is artificial. Flowers, hair, nails, breasts, you name it, they recreate it.”

“They?”

“The people who make them, dear.”

I dried my hands. “Carrie, how would you like a job?”

“A job? Doing what? Don’t be silly, I can’t
work
.”

I faced her, resting back on the lip of the sink. “This would be for me and you’re perfect for it. In fact, you’re the only one can do it.”

“Really? What is it then?”

“Keep your ears and eyes open. Listen to what people say, if they mention anything you think might interest me.”

Her mouth popped open as she thought. Then she said, “You mean concerning the Nortons.”

“And Peter Cooper. And stay close to the Shorts. I think they know a lot more than they’re saying.”

“I doubt I’ll hear anything from them. They keep quiet when I’m near.”

“They know you’re here?” A trill of excitement ran through me, which faded with her next words.

“I think they sense me. There was the time Greg said ‘get thee gone, demon,” but he wasn’t looking at me.”

Her hands went to her cheeks. “Oh. What if they
can
see me?”
She dropped her hands and looked in the mirror as if at her reflection.
“
What if I do look like a demon, or a rotting body, like in all those zombie films? You lied to me!
I don’t look quite nice, not at all.” She patted at her face. “I have that blue-white, rotten-looking skin, don’t I. Are my eyes squidgy?”

I covered my mouth with my hand and managed to snort in my palm. With a Herculean effort, I sobered. “Carrie, I swear you look fine.”

She perked up. “If you say so, dear.”

Up one minute, down the next. As I already mentioned, shades are temperamental.

Royal busily pecked at the keyboard, updating our report for Patty Norton. Then we headed downstairs to supper. Having missed lunch, hunger cramped my stomach.

With no tables available in the restaurant and a twenty-minute wait, we decided to eat in the bar. The number of people who greeted Royal by name, with a smile, did not surprise me. It always happens. He’s a likeable guy and a little natural Gelpha allure goes a long way. It works on different folks differently. As a cop for Clarion PD, everyone willingly lent Detective Royal Mortensen a hand. Jealousy, petty-rivalry, one-upmanship, all the stuff you find in a busy, often competitive workplace, Royal had no part in it. Hell, they probably would have lent him money if he asked. Men want to be his best bud and women tend to fall over themselves getting close to him.

We took a table for two near the door.

“Is she here?” he asked.

I didn’t have to ask who he meant. “She’s someplace nearby, but she won’t bother us.”

He quizzically tipped his head.

I studied the menu. “I invited her to join the team, asked her to listen to the staff and locals and tell me what she hears.”

I risked looking up. One corner of his mouth inched up in a half-smile. “You know what you are letting yourself in for.”

I sighed. What Carrie and I considered interesting probably differed wildly. I dropped my gaze to the menu again. “She’ll swamp me with village gossip, but in the meantime, she’ll be so busy snooping she’ll stay out of our hair.”

Two couples stopped by to say hello before the waitress got to us; one local, the other from Texas. I thought we had a problem with the latter. They wanted to pull up chairs and chat about the good old U. S. of A, or rather, which part of the US Royal came from, why he was in Little Barrow, how they could take him to local areas of interest, etcetera. I might as well have not been there. Happily, no chairs were free.

“If you’re ever in Houston, look us up. Let me give you our number.” The guy smiled at his wife. “You got anything to write on, Honeybunch?”

“Sure have, Sweetie Pie, in my fanny pack.” She unzipped her pack and looked inside.

I heard a strange whickering noise and looked over my shoulder at two women who sat at the table next to ours. They were giggling. I looked back at Royal as the Texan handed him a small piece of paper. “You all be sure to come by and see us.”

As they walked off, I glanced at the chuckling women. “I think they’re laughing at us.”

“Not us.” Royal grinned. “Our Texan friends.”

“Why?”

“Because
fanny
has a different meaning in England.”

Dare I ask? But I didn’t need to.

“Let’s just say, it is on the
other
side of a woman’s body.”

On the other . . . . My eyes went wide. “You mean vagina?”

Smiling, Royal dipped his head and reprimanded me in a hushed voice. “Tiff!”

“Why? You have a problem with
vaginas
,” I said louder than necessary.

I flipped a quick peek at the women. One smiled into her hand, the other held a napkin to her mouth, but I could see a grin coming out either side.

I should have known better than try to embarrass Royal. He grinned wolfishly, all teeth. “Do I? You are the expert in that area.”

A smothered hoot from the next table. I guess it is possible to break through the famous British reserve.

The women’s titters and whispers died off as we studied our menus, and Royal retaliated. “Mm, braised kidney.”

He got the response he expected. I made a face. “Yuk! I don’t understand how you can eat animal innards?”

Looking innocent, he lofted his eyebrows at me. “You eat hotdogs. You love hotdogs.”

I lifted my menu higher to hide my face. “That’s different.”

A waitress bustled to the table, a short blonde in a black micro-mini dress, a white apron sashed so tightly at her waist it almost cut her in two. I smiled happily at her, because she gave me a reason to ignore Royal’s amusement.

Kidneys and hotdogs? No comparison.

Royal tapped the table. “You could order from the bar menu.”

“Where is it?”

The girl piped up. “On the tablemat.”

I looked down. Oh, yeah. I spotted some weird items on the menu - I recognized Welsh Rarebit, but Bubble and Squeak? - but the rest looked promising. Soup, sandwiches, salads and pasties.

“What dressings do you have?”

“Caesar, French, a nice raspberry vinaigrette, and Heinz salad cream.”

I’d never heard of salad cream, so I went for the house salad with French dressing.

The girl hung over Royal with her mouth open, virtually drooling on him. I cleared my throat loudly. “I’ll have the dressing on the side, please.”

She begrudgingly gave me her full attention. “The side of what?”

I lost my smile. “The plate.”

Off she went.

I relaxed back in my chair. Warm from the press of bodies and loud with chatter, the inn hummed tonight. It was summer in Little Barrow, but with the sky darkening and the mellow lights in the bar casting their glow, the aura of a cozy winter evening permeated the place.

We sat quietly until our food arrived. I couldn’t help grinning at mine. A gigantic fresh salad heaped the plate and instead of filling a tiny container, a thin pool of dressing seeped from the rim into the greens. “That wasn’t quite what I meant,” I murmured under my breath.

Royal snorted.

I unfolded my napkin, laid it over my knees and sighed. I hoped Carrie would not interrupt our meal with information she considered invaluable. I gave her the perfect excuse to barge in whenever she wanted. “I have a feeling we should relish these moments of relative peace and quiet.”

“You mean your new friend?”

“She’s not
my
friend
.”

“I think you like her.”

I briskly and unnecessarily shook out the napkin and resettled it on my knees. “Like her? She drives me insane!”

“If I am not mistaken, you were window-shopping.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I have never seen you window-shop before,” he persisted, straight-faced. “Is that not something girlfriends do together?”

He didn’t fool me. I studied his expression till he couldn’t fake serious any longer and the impulse to laugh at my expense became too much for him. He let out a chuff.

I tried to paste a mean look on my face, but my lips twitched. “You think I like a woman who jabbers nonstop?”

“You tell me.”

But I did kind of like her. “She’s. . . .” I pursed my lips. “She has more personality than some living people I know.”

Taking our time getting to Johnny, we ambled in the evening dusk. I felt comfortably full and a little sleepy. Royal whistled a low melody. The clouds had cleared from the sky, an oval moon shone bright and high in the west, illuminating the quaint village cottages and their gardens.

A notion popped into my head. “I wonder if we should be doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Telling Johnny we have evidence which could convict Darnel Fowler, when we don’t know it will.”

“Your call, Tiff.”

I squeezed my lips together in frustration. If only we were home in Clarion. I would know what to do there. I knew people who would at least check up on what I told them. But if we went to the British police, what could we say? I couldn’t think of any way than to tell them the truth and I doubted they would seriously consider anything a self-proclaimed ghost-speaker said.

But if I didn’t help Johnny, I couldn’t help the little Elemental; though I had a gut feeling there was more to the creature’s distress than the death of one boy. I had to think of a way to get the police involved in Johnny’s death, because we should be on our way to Oban.