The Love-Haight Case Files (22 page)

Gretchen “harrumphed” again and returned to her desk.

Dagger took a step toward the door. “No, Tom, there’s no subway or underground beneath that part of Chinatown. I’ve been in this city a while, I’m good with its history. The densest part of San Fran … it wasn’t always land. It was water, the shoreline right about Montgomery Street. The land changed, quakes and such, the gold rush … the town grew up around Montgomery and Washington, buildings were set down on the skeletons of abandoned ships.”

“There are ships buried under Chinatown?”

“Yeah. A bunch of ships.” Dagger touched his fingers to his bandaged face. “Apparently Mei-li wants what is in those ships. She can’t get to the ships unless she gets rid of the buildings, and she needed Arnold’s money to do that. Bet she doesn’t get much of it in the divorce.”

A hint of sadness crept into Thomas’s voice. “Arnold should fare very well in the divorce. He has a very good attorney.”

“Yeah, your father. We need to talk about him someday. Hey, I’m out of here. I’m gonna stop by and see Evey.”

“They said no visitors until sometime this afternoon,” Thomas said.

“And you always play by the rules, don’t you, Tom? I’ll tell Evey you’ll be bringing your ghostly self over later.”

Thomas waited until Dagger had peeled away from the curb, then he floated up the staircase, past Evelyn’s empty apartment, past the doorway to his “haunt” on the third floor, and to the roof.

Pete was sitting in one of the folding chairs near the edge of the roof, studying birds on the tops of the buildings across the street. The gargoyle reached to his feet and grabbed a pair of binoculars.

“Where’d you get the binoculars?” Thomas drifted closer.

“Z-man found them in a pawn shop. Said it was an early Christmas gift. Minolta Activa, large front lens, wide eye cups, coated, fog proof and waterproof.”

“What are you watching?”

“A grouping of Black Phoebes.”

Thomas waited.

“Hard to tell the males from the females, the plumage is identical. There are some juveniles with them, feathers the color of cinnamon. They will darken in a few weeks, pick up a white underbelly. I cannot hear them, but I know their song and quite like it. Maybe they will come closer and sing to me. ‘Tee-hee tee ho,’ they sing. ‘Sisee sitsew.’ A pair has a nest near that chimney.” Pete pointed to the blues bar’s roof. “There is a little overhang, and they have cemented the nest with mud. Typical. You know, flycatchers make up the largest family of birds worldwide. There are hundreds of known species. These Black Phoebes have six subspecies.”

“How do you know so much about birds?”

“Books. Evey loves books, said I could read hers anytime. She has quite a few on bird watching.”

Thomas started; he didn’t realize Evelyn had been bringing books up here.

“She said I could read anything on her shelves. She even has a stash of books in her closet.”

“You’ve been to her apartment?”

“Sure. She has me in for tea once in a while.”

Thomas noticed the gargoyle train the binoculars elsewhere. He put them down when two pigeons landed on the law office’s ledge and started cooing.

“So, you can come inside the building?”

“Sure.”

“Franklin Arnold isn’t going to tear down this building and put up condos. He can’t get around the neighborhood’s zoning restrictions. And I’ve started the paperwork—well, Gretchen is filling out the forms—to get this place on the National Register. You’re going to be all right, Pete.”

“Good to know. But I would feel a lot better if you started getting more paying clients. Building needs some more renovations. Z-man was barely able to pay the roof repair bill. Z-man needs some more money for school too, and to pay off his loans. After he graduates with his bachelor’s, he wants to get into law school. Says he wants to be a lawyer.” The gargoyle made a snorting sound. “I think he should be a writer, but he has his heart set on law. He probably admires you.”

They didn’t say anything for a time, Pete continuing to watch the pigeons, which strutted back and forth on the ledge, lifting their tails and making deposits on the trim, cooing.

Pete stood, folded the chair, and placed it and the binoculars under the tarp.

“I could use some help in the law office,” Thomas said. “I’m at a disadvantage. I can’t open books, turn pages, can’t use the Internet. And I can’t ask Evelyn to be my hands. Or Gretchen for that matter. They’ve got plenty on their plates.”

Pete shuffled close to the pigeons; they didn’t fly away. Bold or used to the gargoyle, Thomas thought.

“I can’t pay you, though I could have Evelyn get some beer.”

“That would help you get more clients? Handle more business? Me helping?”

“I hope.”

“And more money?”

“That’s my thinking.”

“Sure. When do you want me to start?”

“How about tomorrow morning?”

Pete’s hand shot out, his stone fingers closing around a pigeon. The other flew off in a flurry of feathers.

Thomas watched in horror as Pete squished the bird and tossed it over the side of the building.

“Pete … why … how?”

“I like birds, Tom. Actually, I love birds … to watch them … Black Phoebes, rails, sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Chestnut-backed Chickadees. But pigeons? Pigeons are not birds. Pigeons are rats with wings and they crap all over me. This?” He faced Thomas and held his bloody palm out, then stooped and wiped it against the roof. “This was just a preemptive strike.” Then he climbed over the edge of the roof and affixed himself to the corner. “See you tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 2.16

Thomas saw ghosts in Chinatown. They were harder to see in bright light, especially on this cloudless late morning. They looked like thin, watery patches of air, and he had to concentrate to make out the details, suspecting he appeared similarly to them. There were a few in every block—men, women, children, even a couple of dragon-faced creatures with long slender tails.… the first OT ghosts he’d seen. They didn’t interact with each other. They just wandered, and not far. Most seemed to be confined to a particular section of street. However, one of the dragon-faced ghosts traveled quite a few blocks, and so Thomas suspected it was anchored to a concept rather than a place.

Police were still on the scene at the abandoned furniture store. It looked like an episode of
CSI:
with all the little tent-shaped markers set throughout the first floor, digital cameras taking pictures, pieces of evidence being bagged and boxed up. If it was bloody, it was placed in cardboard boxes; plastic degraded DNA, Thomas knew. He’d been to crime scenes, and he could tell the crime scene techs had been here a lot of hours. Police were going through the other buildings Mei-li had purchased. A bat-winged officer carried out a cardboard file box from the tattoo parlor. The bat-winged cop was the only OT he saw working the scene. Most departments avoided hiring them, a discrimination Thomas hoped to address down the road.

He sank through the floor and into the basement where he saw an amazing gathering of ghosts. They were so thick it looked like a cloud had come to ground, and they talked in Chinese … he couldn’t understand a single word.

Technicians worked around them, bagging remains, taking photographs, and shivering—not realizing it was the specters that were responsible for the drop in temperature. There were children, men, women, all human, all Chinese, and it looked like they’d died in threadbare garments.

“Hello,” Thomas tried.

A chorus of voices came at him, but nothing he could understand.

One of the technicians—all of them dressed in something similar to Hazmat suits—held a hand to an ear. The ghosts, at least some of them, were talking in voices that the living could hear.

“Hello,” Thomas repeated.

More voices, a buzz of Chinese words. Their expressions held a mix of emotions, sadness the most prevalent, but there was joy, too, probably at being discovered and for the promise of justice.

Thomas sank through the concrete floor and into the earth beneath. He’d mastered the ability to see in utter darkness, and he made out shapes—rocks, old railroad ties, a broken, rusted G.I. Joe lunch pail. He went deeper and spiraled outward. There were no ghosts down here, just dirt and rocks and the occasional piece of railroad detritus.

Deeper. He’d lost track of the sounds and the sensation rattled him. He heard absolutely nothing. He’d never heard absolutely nothing ever before. Always the sounds of the city had crept in, even in the quiet moments between conversations, or at times in the park when he’d sat—when he was living—on a bench and watched the sunset. Those quiet moments had never been wholly quiet.

The absence of noise … was this what death sounded like?

He lost track of up and down, disoriented by the dark stillness. He imagined this was like being caught in an avalanche, the snow thundering over a skier and cutting out light, and then sound, nothing to tell up from down.

Thomas picked a direction and continued in it. He lost sense of time, too, but he continued to wander, finding the bones of small animals, the husks of burrowing insects, a piece of rotted canvas, a beam of rotted wood, an anchor.

He couldn’t tell how many ships were buried under this section of Chinatown. Thomas tried inventorying the masts, but realized that wasn’t helping. Some ships would have had one, others two or three, and not one was intact. All broken, he couldn’t picture them like jigsaw pieces to arrange them and get an actual count.

Many, he settled on. The husks of many ships were packed tightly under Chinatown. There were a few skeletons, but not enough to suggest that a ship sank with an entire crew. And there were no ghosts … not a soul haunted this place. Books had essentially turned to pulp, though some covers had been preserved by the press of the earth. Pieces of brass lanterns, cooking pots, though again there were not a lot, hinting that most of the useable items had been taken off the ships before they were left to rot and become part of the ground.

Then Thomas found two exceptions. He’d studied admiralty, and types of ships were actually mentioned in one of his law books. These two were older, one with the hull intact. It looked like something out of
Pirates of the Caribbean
or
Mutiny on the Bounty
. He imagined that they must have been tall and beautiful … and filled with treasure, galleons or schooners.

Thick gold coins were strewn across a wide stretch of ground, pearls that probably had been strung were scattered between them, all held tightly by the hard-packed earth and bands of wood and iron. A chalice, a gold platter, silver candelabras, and more. So much more. The wealth was staggering, and Thomas was mesmerized by it.

How could Mei-li have known it was here?

Thomas continued his search, finding rotted paintings, chunks of ivory. Images were carved on some of the pieces, looking like cameos.

Mei-li knew because she’d been here, Thomas guessed, a very long time ago. One of the pieces of ivory bore the image he’d seen on the computer screen—Mei-li. She hadn’t changed. Beautiful, with almond eyes and a high neck, the suggestion of a pearl choker necklace.

Was it the same necklace he’d seen in the Internet picture?

He would have shuddered had he been living. Dagger said Mei-li claimed to be immortal, some sort of fox-spirit. And if that was true, and if Mei-li had been on this ship when it sailed above the waves, she’d try again to regain her treasure.

A veritable king’s ransom, all the gold and jewels, and a few odd-shaped baubles that despite the black cocoon of the earth glowed with some eldritch light.

Mei-li would try again.

And Thomas, no longer burdened by the confines of mortality, would be around when she made the attempt.

It took him a while to discover which direction was “up,” and he emerged in the basement of Lo He’s Acupuncture, which likewise was being investigated by the police. It was dark outside, and Thomas checked the watch on a passerby: 9 p.m.

He’d spent hours upon hours under the earth. Hospital visiting hours were over by now, and so the nurses would not want him to disturb Evelyn. Thomas was one to play by the rules.

But tonight … just for tonight he’d take a page out of Dagger’s book and act like the rules did not apply to him.

Tonight he had a story to tell Evelyn.

***

Case #3 Habeas Corpse

Chapter 3.1

Nika Rondik awoke from her vision with a shiver. It was always the same, a foggy mist clearing to a mélange of images, sounds, words, and sometimes smells, then an abrupt sensation of falling into cold water shocking her awake. She gasped for breath.

Another vision about Thomas Brock’s law offices—this one about Evelyn Love. Poor girl. Nika had read in
The San Francisco Chronicle
about the vicious attack on her at the Thai restaurant. But that had been some time ago and hadn’t been preceded by a warning vision.

Visions were like that—not always timely or helpful, even when you could make out what they were about. This one was a vision of warning, but not of danger—a heart pumping hot red blood, with an irregular beat that eventually slowed, the blood it pumped cooling. A classic sign of unrequited passion or struggles of the heart. Clearly, Evelyn faced conflict and turmoil in her love life. That kind of thing would be useful enough for Nika’s paying clients, but was hardly urgent or concrete enough to get her an audience with a stranger.

Still, she felt some connection to both Evelyn and her colleagues at the law office. She had to find out why.

Her phone rang.

“Hello,” she answered. Who could be calling her this late at night? “Ah, cousin Javor.” That explained the lateness of the call. “Do I know of a good lawyer? Well, not from personal experience, but … yes … yes, I do.”

O O O

Although Evelyn avoided the Tenderloin after the sun went down, she made an exception tonight. She’d passed the bar exam and had accepted an invitation to celebrate with friends at the Golden Pumpkin, a trendy vegetarian restaurant—in the heart of the Tenderloin.

Some said the forty-square-block district in San Francisco got its name because it was the “soft underbelly” by the bay, referring to the graft, vice, and corruption that thrived in the area. Others claimed it was a clever reference to the “loins” of the hookers who prowled the streets. Evelyn preferred a different explanation, that cops had dubbed it the Tenderloin because they earned hazard pay here, which let them afford steak rather than hamburger.

The restaurant’s spring rolls were marvelous, as was the lemon tofu “chicken” that she was working her way through … all compliments of the restaurant owner, who’d offered the small winter crop of San Francisco Law School graduates a congratulatory free meal this week.

The verdict was still out on whether Evelyn was enjoying the company, or rather whether she would
allow
herself to enjoy it. She ran her index finger around the edge of the wine glass. It didn’t hum, not crystal, but then this restaurant reeked of shabby-chic with its out-of-date decor. Goose bumps danced on the back of her neck. Despite the convivial and Zen-like atmosphere, she felt uneasy, like someone was watching her.

Probably just Constantine.

Constantine sat directly across from her, playing footsy under the table, an extension of the casual flirting he’d employed in admiralty class—maritime law. She’d done nothing to discourage him then and was debating whether to encourage him now. That’s why she’d come here tonight, right? To flirt back, and in earnest?

Their group was at the far end of the large pumpkin-orange dining room. The light from the cheap chandeliers made Constantine’s black hair gleam; Evelyn figured he’d oiled it. He was good-looking, a long, heart-shaped face graced with a five-day stubble that passed for a fashionable beard. His eyes were an unnatural bright blue, probably from contacts. She thought the color suited him. His smile was his best feature, and it had tugged her to the restaurant. There were ten others who had picked tonight to use the free meal deal, altogether a dozen young lawyers ready to take on the world. Their conversations were a pleasant buzz of job offers, workload, and future plans that mixed with the music softly playing; she recognized Origen’s “Sequence of Art,” a fusion of classical and new age jazz.

The place was busy, all of the diners appearing human and under thirty. She’d expected to see a few OTs in the mix. The undead variety was noted to cluster in the Tenderloin. Maybe there were some OTs here after all and she couldn’t distinguish them. Sometimes they looked human enough.

The feeling of being watched intensified and the goose bumps danced faster.

“We could go to my place after,” Constantine suggested. “You haven’t seen my digs in Nob Hill. It’s not far, and—”

Evelyn sucked in a breath. She liked him, she really did. She’d been entertaining taking the friendship further. Lord knew she could use a little romance in her life, especially now with the bar exam behind her. There hadn’t been time for dates the past few years—law school and work occupying nearly all her waking hours.

Constantine was easy on the eyes.

She liked to watch him, listen to him—his voice rich like Captain Jean Luc Picard’s of
Next Generation
fame. He smelled faintly of sweet musk. But now, sitting with him so close and outside the academic and legal atmosphere … now the notion of turning their friendship into something more wasn’t having quite the comfortable feel she’d thought it might. Maybe coming here was a mistake. Or maybe she just wasn’t ready to add another layer to her already complicated life.

“I have to work tomorrow, Con.”

The attractive smile faded. “At least you have a job already, Evey, though that little hole-in-the-wall on Haight isn’t much of a firm. You really could do better. Hell, you graduated with a four-point-oh. You could probably get on anywhere you wanted.”

“Maybe.” In fact, she probably could. But Evelyn wasn’t sure she wanted to work someplace else. She liked the cutting-edge law she and Thomas were tackling, a lot of it OT work. The cases were varied and the clients more than a little interesting. But it hadn’t been lucrative. They were barely getting by.

The toe of his shoe edged higher on her leg, pausing halfway up her calf. The contact—and the wine—made her giddy. “Have you thought about Brock, Davis & Davis? Brock, Davis & Davis is damn prestigious, Evey.”

Constantine’s mention of that law firm soured things. The lemon “chicken” suddenly felt heavy in her stomach.

“Brock, Davis & Brock pays the going—”

“Brock? Oh. No.” That was the enemy as far as she was concerned.

“It’s the city’s biggest firm, Evey. Celebrated, influential. I’ve been pursuing them.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “In fact, I have an interview Monday.” He dropped his gaze to his plate, and she saw him cross his fingers.

Still the feeling of being watched persisted, but Constantine wasn’t the source.

“I didn’t know, Con.” Her finger stopped its course around the wine glass rim and she stared at his nose, slightly shiny.

A hint of his smile returned and he raised his head, his voice still a conspiratorial whisper. “I was keeping it a secret, not wanting to jinx it, you know. This isn’t the traditional hiring season, after all. But I’m too excited, had to tell someone … you. I’d interned for them last summer, worked some weekends in the fall, and worked all of January.”

“I didn’t know that, either.”

“Yeah, well, I hadn’t exactly publicized it. When I wasn’t Shepardizing their string cites and summarizing deposition transcripts, I wasn’t much more than a glorified errand boy, a step-and-fetch-it that had coffee orders memorized for the two dozen suits on my designated floors.”

“They do have a lot of lawyers. You’d get lost in the crowd.”

He threw back the wine in one long swallow and stretched a hand out to touch hers. “At first I’d get lost, and that’s provided they’ll even take me. I know the hours would be awful, the assignments crap in the beginning. That’s the deal with big firms. Eighty hours a week or more. The money would be good, though. Amazing, actually. They start associates at a hundred and sixty thousand. Nobody else pays that around here, not right out of the gate. Hell, that’s as much as the big firms dole out to newbies in Manhattan.”

Their companions’ conversations drifted to the fore, and Evelyn pretended to be interested in what someone else was saying. Brock, Davis & Davis favored anti-OT cases, and she and Thomas had butted heads with some of their lawyers in court. Constantine was no longer quite so easy on the eyes. He was still talking, and she’d missed some of it.

“—but I figure it will all be worth it … if I can get on. Put in the impossible hours, do the grunt work, jump through the requisite hoops, get salary bumps, find myself creeping higher on the ladder.”

Creeping? Creep. That was a word Evelyn would ascribe to a Brock, Davis & Davis lawyer.

“I have to get up early,” she said. “Work tomorrow.” She pushed back and caught the attention of the others at the long table. “This has been lovely, guys. We should do this again in a few months, catch up.”

They said their goodbyes as she stood and smoothed at her skirt and dropped a ten on the table toward the tip. There was no such thing as a free meal, right? Constantine got up, too.

“Evey, is something wrong? Are you okay? Did I say something—”

She shook her head. “I’m fine, you’re fine. Nothing’s wrong.” But there was something wrong … the notion of Constantine courting Brock, Davis & Davis, coupled with the eyes she still felt on her. Someone was watching her, but she couldn’t tell who, everyone in the dining room seemed engrossed with their own meals and companions. “I really do have to get going. A rain check on seeing your Nob Hill place?”

He seemed to brighten at that. “Can I at least walk you to the bus stop?”

“No” was on her tongue, but she nodded. This was the Tenderloin, after all, and though Evelyn had an I-can-take-care-of-myself attitude, she wasn’t stupid. Her wounds from the incident at the Thai restaurant had just barely healed. “I’d like that.”

“A rain check?” Constantine laughed as they exited the restaurant.

It hadn’t been raining when they’d gone in, but it was coming down in buckets now. February was one of the rainiest months of the year in San Francisco. A storm could come out of nowhere. She’d worn a light jacket, the temperatures in the fifties. The rain and the late hour made it colder, though. They stood under the awning. She started to shiver.

“How about you stay dry?” Evelyn suggested. She pointed south. “The bus stop is only three blocks. No use both of us getting drenched.”

“You sure?”

Evelyn thought a real gentleman would have argued with her. He would’ve taken her by the arm and forged out into the downpour.

“Yes, I’m sure. The bogeymen stay indoors in weather like this.” She squeezed his arm. “This really was lovely, a fun evening. Good luck with your interview.” But she didn’t mean the last bit. She hoped he didn’t get the job.

“I’ll call you, let you know how Monday goes.”

She heard the restaurant door close. A look over her shoulder confirmed that Constantine had gone back inside. The sidewalk was empty, and the rain was angry—rat-a-tat-tatting against the pavement. Cars cruised by, their tires sluicing up water and making a shushing sound that accompanied the thunder. Evelyn pulled her jacket up over her head and jogged, ungainly in high heels, the neon of the business signs a blur of pink, green, and blue twitching snakes, the music spilling out of a bar and getting lost in the rain and thunder.

She had one block remaining when she realized someone
was
following her, feet slamming against the cement.

A glance revealed it wasn’t Constantine deciding to be chivalrous after all. It was a pencil-thin figure with burning red eyes. In the hazy glow of the streetlights, she noticed he had a big smear of blood on his white shirt.

Apparently not all of the Tenderloin’s bogeymen were staying indoors.

Chapter 3.2

“Crap.” Evelyn ran faster despite her shoes.

Athletic, she’d often jogged to classes, but running was for pleasure, to feel the welcome burn of exertion crawl through her, the heady adrenalin rush. She always ran
to
something, hated the thought of running
from
anything. But a man with glowing red eyes? And in the Tenderloin? She wasn’t stupid. She’d run from that.

The bus stop was in sight, and that was where she headed. But as she got closer she didn’t see anyone under the small, lighted shelter, and the bus wasn’t there yet. Wait for it? No way in hell. The businesses in this block were either closed for the night or closed indefinitely. A homeless man huddled in a doorway, a half-empty bottle of something cradled in his lap. She didn’t slow her pace to take in any more details.

A glimpse over her shoulder confirmed the red-eyed man still pursued her. She could stop and confront him, fight him if necessary; Evelyn was more proactive than reactive. She’d dealt worse than she got in the Thai fight. But Dagger McKenzie had taught her well—avoid fights if possible. It was healthier.

Farther down and across the street she saw the lights of bars and dive restaurants blink invitingly. Evelyn dodged a few cars and cut toward them, accidentally dropping her purse and not pausing to retrieve it. She’d thought she was outdistancing her pursuer, but somehow he’d closed the distance. His iron-strong fingers dug into her arm, pulling her to a stop in the middle of O’Farrell Street. It hurt like hell. It was the arm she’d been shot in during the failed hit on her in December in the Thai restaurant. He pulled her close, grabbing both her arms now and pinning them against her sides, fingers digging in harder when she struggled. Cars passed by on both sides, no one slowing.

Evelyn twisted so she could look up his face. He opened his mouth, revealing fangs.

A damned vampire!

She wasn’t going to be an easy meal. Evelyn brought her heel up, the spike of it driving into his leg. He growled in pain. At the same time she shouted to attract the attention of a passing motorist. She kicked again and thought she saw a few people looking out the window of a bar across the street, one a blue woman with antennae. Shouted once more, hoping someone would hear her or call the cops if nothing else.

The vampire’s voice was deep, but his words were muffled by the rain and by the hammering of her heart.