The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (13 page)

Donovan looked around, his dark brow furrowed.  “I thought this place was getting seedy.  That would explain it.”

Her mind flared with fear and rage.  She called it by name, letting it evaporate and an icy calm descended.

Riga gripped Pete hard by the wrist.  “Go home,” she said. 

The muscles in his arms and torso jerked, as if he’d received an electric shock.  He blinked, looking dazed.

Riga released Pete as if she’d been burned.  “You need to go home now,” she repeated.

The noise level in the billiard parlor plummeted.  She turned.  Everyone’s eyes were on her, the force of their regard pressing upon her like a weight.  “Go home,” she shouted.  “All of you!”

As if a breath were being held, motion was suspended.  Then someone turned and lurched to the door.  Like a dam breaking, others followed, streaming into the cool night air.

Her dark calm evaporated and the world tilted.  Riga’s knees buckled.  She grabbed the bar to keep from falling.  Donovan seized her elbow and put his other arm around her shoulders.  She trembled in his arms, unsure if her knees would support her. 

 “Are you alright?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes.”  She tried to take a step, stumbled.  Her brain felt disconnected from her body.  “No.”

“Let’s get you out of here.”

“My office is upstairs,” she said.

They waited until Takako had locked the place up, watching her fall into a cab.  They didn’t speak until they were inside Riga’s office. 

Unwillingly, she stepped out of Donovan’s protective embrace, and removed a bottle of brandy from one of her desk drawers.  She fumbled with the top, watching him take in her Spartan office. 

“Interesting place you’ve got here,” he said.  “It’s not what I would have expected.”

She splashed brandy into the glasses.  “Why would a girl with a place on Nob Hill have a grotty little office like this one?”

“I wouldn’t call it grotty.  But the thought crossed my mind.”

“The condo’s not mine.  I did a favor for the owner, he lets me stay there.”

Donovan raised an eyebrow.  “Must have been some favor.”  He turned to examine the whiteboard and the photos from Helen’s house.   “This is the case you’re working on now?”

She walked over and handed him a glass.  “That’s my client.” 

“Gruesome,” he said, nodding at the photos on the board.  He put the shot glass to his lips, and knocked it back.  “How are you feeling now?”

Riga took a swallow of the brandy, made a face.  “Better.”  She half-sat, half-leaned against the desk, stretching her long legs before her.  “It’s been a rough night.”

He gazed at her, his cool green eyes appraising.  “Did something else happen?”

She told him about Liz.

Donovan held the empty shot glass against his lips, considering.  He reached past her for the bottle, closing the distance between them.  His hand grazed hers and she felt electricity dance between them.

“You saved her,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“How did you know there was something wrong?”

She had to crane her neck to look at him, he was so close.  Riga liked the feel of him in her orbit.  “With Liz?  I don’t know, I just knew.”

“You must have sensed something,” he pressed.  “What was it?”

Riga thought about it. “I could hear music through her door,” she said slowly.  “There was a strong scent of paint.  But I didn’t sense her inside.  I didn’t sense anything and I think that’s what was wrong.  I should have felt her presence there.” 

 “That makes sense.  But it doesn’t explain what just happened downstairs.”

“Why did you go to the billiard parlor?  The first time, I mean?  Why that place?”

 He shrugged.  “The hotel bored me.  I wanted to go somewhere and began to drive.  I ended up there and then you walked in and I knew I was in the right place.”

She felt a shiver of pleasure at his words, but they were just words, she reminded herself.  “But why were you able to leave when no one else did?”

“Why were you?” he countered. 

Riga raked a hand through her auburn hair.  “Do you mean to say you have no idea why this is happening?”

 “I’m not even sure what is going on, much less why.  What happened back there, Riga?  If the place was a trap, why were you able to release the others?  And why is it that wherever I go, there you are?”

Riga laughed.  The sound was an octave higher than normal.  “I was about to ask you the same thing.” 

They stared at each other.  “So,” he continued, “it appears that one or both of us are causing whatever’s going on.  You’re right, we seem to be entangled.”  He didn’t sound displeased by the thought.

He reached past her again, taking the stack of Tarot cards from her desk, riffling through them.  “What’s this?”  He placed a finger on the graph she’d drawn on her desk. 

“I was trying to develop a model of the universe, but it’s still a work in progress.”

At his look, she said, “I know, better minds than I have attempted it.  But my model takes a magical perspective.”

“What’s missing?”

“A reason why the dimensions sometimes bump up against each other – or at least, that’s my explanation for the encounters people report with UFOs and certain supernatural beings, or even deities.  I don’t think they’re coming here, I think our dimensions sometimes cross and there and here become the same place.  That’s what brings us into contact with them.”

“Them?  Like faeries?” Donovan asked.

Riga shuddered.  “Faeries too, though they seem to be able to hang around our plane longer.  My model doesn’t explain why the dimensions cross, or why certain beings manage to stay while others just pop in and out for brief moments.  Of course, the dimensions may not cross at all – many believe that certain entities simply have the ability to move between them.  However, they never stay long and events seem to repeat in certain localities, so I think there’s an exogenous factor.”  God, she sounded pompous.  Why did she always go into professor mode when someone asked her about magic?

He traced the X axis with his finger.  “What’s imaginary time?”

“Any time we’re not in – the past, the future.  To us, it’s all imaginary, which theoretically means we can access all those points.”

He turned away from her as if bored by the topic and went to the whiteboard, looking at the Tarot card she’d affixed there.  “Do you use these in your investigations?”

“Sometimes.”

“You can’t swing a cat without hitting a psychic in Vegas.  Most are frauds.”

“Most?”

“The others are merely deluded.”  He turned to her, his smile shark-like.  “I prefer the frauds.”

“You’ve never encountered one that you thought was real?”

“No.   You find that surprising?”

“You say you’re a skeptic, but you’re awfully open to what’s happening now, to me, to us.  Or are you just humoring me?”

“No.  I want to see how it will end.  Don’t you?”

Riga poured herself another drink.  She wasn’t so sure.

Chapter 20: The Devil

Donovan drove her home.  He was quiet on the short drive back to Riga’s place and she realized after he’d dropped her off that once again, she’d failed to extract any real information from him.  

Riga channeled her irritation into work, banging out her article on Aaron’s projects.  She e-mailed it to Dora, feeling a sense of satisfaction that she’d completed something today.

But she tossed and turned that night, sleeping late the following morning.  When she finally arrived at her office, she found the door open, loud voices echoing from within.  Riga entered cautiously, sensing nothing good was in the offing.

A man sat behind her desk, rummaging through the drawers.  He was thin and sandy haired, with a nose like a blade, and wore a buttoned up blue shirt with a plastic badge clipped to the pocket.  A doughy woman with what looked like a Geiger counter wanded the wall.  Another woman pulled books from the shelf. 

The man looked up as Riga entered.  “You can’t come in here,” he barked. 

“Strange.  I pay rent on the place.” Riga pulled a visitor’s chair out and sat down across the desk from him, crossing a leg over one knee.  “What’s going on?”

“You’re Riga Hayworth?” he said.

She nodded.

He slid a form across the desk to her.  Her heart sank when she saw the pink and yellow sheets below it – carbon copies could not be good news.

“We’re from the Environmental Commission,” he said. 

“You’re from the EPA?” Riga said blankly, not looking at the papers.

“No.  They’re federal.  We’re with the city.  It’s come to our attention you don’t have an environmental permit for your operations.  This is an order to cease and desist all operations until our findings are completed.”

Riga sucked in her breath.  “I wasn’t aware private investigators needed an environmental permit,” she said coolly.

“You’re not a regular private investigator though.  In fact, it’s unclear what category you fall under or what you’ve been doing here.”

“I don’t even have an air conditioner,” she said, gesturing to the walls.  The heating had never worked either, but she didn’t expect any sympathy on that score.  “My operations don’t have any unusual affect on the environment.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She shrugged.  “If the city wants to waste taxpayer money on me—“

“The city won’t.  You’ll be paying for the review.”

Riga compressed her lips, too angry to speak. 

“We’ll let you know when our review has been completed,” he said dismissively.

She felt a curse building inside her head, and ached to blast the smarmy bastard with it.  In the back of her mind, she wondered about that – she’d never felt the urge to curse anyone before.  Her rage dropped away as if a switch had been flipped. 

Riga stood to go and her eyes fell upon the whiteboard.  Her heart beat faster.  A new Tarot card – the Devil – had been stuck to the board with a word magnet like those on Helen’s refrigerator.  The magnet said, “Refrigerator.”  She stepped closer to the whiteboard, peering at the photos she’d taken of Helen’s refrigerator.  She found the “refrigerator” word magnet in a photo, just below the haiku and the box of words that surrounded it.  Had one of the environmental inspectors added it, or had Donovan? 

If the magnet had been taken from Helen’s house, it must have happened after the police had left.  Unless… had Helen’s back door been locked?  Could someone have been in the house with Riga, taken the magnet, and then escaped out the back door before the police arrived?  Riga filched the picture when no one was looking.

She stepped into the hallway, and dug through her wallet for the card the investigating officer had left her, made the call. 

“This is Riga Hayworth.”

There was a pause.  “Who?” the  policewoman said.

“I’m the detective who found Helen Baro’s body.”

“Oh, the
metaphysical
detective.  What do you want?”

“Was the back door locked when you arrived at the house?”

“And why should I tell you that?”

“I think it was locked.  But someone left a refrigerator magnet on my whiteboard today and it looks like it came from Helen’s house.”  Riga saw Mr. Chen standing outside his door.  He caught her eye and she raised a finger – one moment.

“You’re calling me about a refrigerator magnet?” the policewoman said.

“Which may have been removed from a crime scene.”

“It’s not a crime scene.  There’s no evidence that it was anything but an accident.”

“Then you won’t mind confirming if the door was locked?”

The policewoman blew out her breath.  “It was locked.”

Riga thanked her and hung up, then ambled over to Mr. Chen.

He jerked his head – inside – and she followed him. 

“You’ve made someone angry,” he said, his eyes dark with concern.

“The feeling’s mutual.”

His lips quirked in a smile.  “You look disturbed.  Come, I’ve made tea.”

She followed him to the table.  The dojo walls were decorated today with cardboard jack o’lanterns and a lifesize plastic skeleton. 

He followed Riga’s gaze.  “For the kids,” he said. 

He handed her a chipped mug and she twisted it in her hands, thinking of a way to get rid of it while he wasn’t looking.

“It’s good for you,” he said.

Which guaranteed it would taste awful.  She took a sip and made a face.  What did he put in it?

“So, how is your case progressing,” he said.  “Is the problem man, or metaphysics?”

“Both, I think.”

“You think!  What about your beautiful laws of metaphysics?” he asked.  “They aren’t helping?”

She sniffed at the tea.  It smelled of tar and old shoes.  “I may need to rethink my laws.”

In one fluid motion he lowered himself onto a rough wooden bench and curled a leg beneath him.  “Tell me.”

She sat down beside him.  The bench wobbled.  “A metaphysical event doesn’t repeat itself on command.  It’s what you see out of the corner of your eye.  It can’t be nailed down.“

“Like trying to catch a moonbeam in your hand?” he warbled in a passable imitation of Julie Andrews.

She laughed.  “Exactly.  Did you hear about the waterspouts at Half Moon Bay?”

“I read about a waterspout.  There was more than one?”

“Yes, on consecutive days, both when I was there to witness them.  They couldn’t have been natural – the weather didn’t warrant them.  It was a metaphysical event but it violated a prime metaphysical law – or what I thought was a law.”

He tilted his head.  “When the world doesn’t behave the way we expect it to, we think the laws are broken.  But nature simply reacts to the stimuli it’s presented with.  The laws don’t change, but when there is an unexpected action, we get unexpected results.

“Huh,” Riga said, uncertain.

 “Look.”  He placed his mug upon the table.  “Here sits my tea and here it will go on sitting.”  With an abrupt motion, he knocked the cup over and tea flowed across the table.  “Now, if you did not see my hand knock the tea over, you would think the law that a body at rest stays at rest had been broken.  But of course, it hadn’t.”

Riga looked at the spreading tea, wishing he’d knocked hers over instead.  She grabbed a nearby towel and mopped up the mess, placing her full cup behind a fencing mask, where it would be hidden.  “So you’re saying my laws are fine, I’m just not seeing the big picture.”