Ghost of a Chance (15 page)

“Adam thinks Pixie might have done it.”

“She’s a kid.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but
you have to admit, from the watch’s point of view, he may have a
point. She’s a child, yes, but she’s a polter—one who apparently
has a history of emotional troubles, not to mention possesses the
strength necessary to throttle a grown man. What if Spider sneaked
up on her and attacked? She might have defended herself and
accidentally killed him. And we both know how the League deals with
children who unintentionally kill.”

My father gave me a jaded look. “That’s
stretching.”

“I know. I don’t really believe Pixie did
it, but she could still be considered a suspect. There’s something
about her… Dad, does she strike you in any way odd?”

“Odd?” He frowned for a moment. “Odd
how?”

“It’s hard to define. Kind of…
clueless.”

“She’s a teenager, Karma. They tend to be
that way.”

“I don’t mean in a normal way. It’s as if
she’s new to everything polter, but that can’t be. Unless…”

“Unless what?” The conversation was losing
interest for my father. He had moved a few steps to the sideboard
and was rearranging the bottles and glasses.

I decided to let it go. My brain was too
confused to try to pick out subtle nuances. “It doesn’t matter.
I’ll just have to make Adam see that she’s not really a viable
suspect. Which brings me to another subject.”

“Savannah knowing more than she lets on? I
agree with you on that. She’s definitely a ringer. Although she
puts on a good act. Look at her now, all gaga over Adam’s
spirits.”

I didn’t even look at where Savannah had
been emoting like crazy after Adam had had his house spirits
appear. “I wasn’t referring to her, but thanks for reminding me. I
want to mention that to Adam. I was, in fact, talking about
you.”

Dad spun around to look at me. “What about
me?”

“You disliked Spider a lot,” I said slowly,
watching his face. “You hated his attitude toward polters.”

He grinned. “Casting me in the role of first
murderer, eh? I’m afraid it won’t work, Karma. I was here with
Savannah. She was grilling Pixie and me about the life of a
polter.”

“Hmm.” He looked innocent. He wasn’t wired
or apporting, either or both of which I’d expect if he’d been up to
no good. But there was the incident of the apports earlier, when I
had come downstairs from being sick…

“Sorry, honey. Other than Adam, there isn’t
anyone else.”

“On the contrary, there are several others
who
might
have done it,” I said, going over a mental list of
the house’s inmates. “Adam’s spirits might have felt threatened by
Spider’s having the power to destroy them. Amanita was hiding
behind the heater in the basement. She might have felt threatened
enough to kill him. It’s not likely, but it is within the realm of
physical possibility.”

Dad patted me on the arm. “Honey, I think
you’re just going to have to face the facts.”

“What facts?” Adam asked from behind me.

“That sooner or later, just about everyone
who ever met Spider wanted him dead.”

“I have no doubt of that.” Adam glanced at
his watch. “My captain is not happy about the events of the
evening. We’d better get started with the interviews. The sooner we
get this sorted out, the better for everyone.”

“Will you be in trouble for not calling the
mundane police right away?” I asked, pulling a notepad and pen from
my purse. Dad sent me a warning glance as I followed Adam over to
the far side of the room.

He shrugged. “Assuming we find the murderer
before the seal is up, no. The watch will take care of everything,
including fixing it with the mundane police. Karma…”

“Uh-oh. That look doesn’t bode well. What’s
wrong now?”

“It’s the captain… he looked you up.”

I nodded and stared at the carpet. I’d known
that eventually the captain of the watch would find out about me.
“I take it I’m no longer a deputy?”

The expressions on Adam’s face were almost
comical. “It’s my fault, really. When I first talked to him, I told
him you were a TAE. Your position in the League made it natural
that you would work with me.”

“But then he went and looked me up and now
I’m suspect number one?” I asked lightly, wrapping my arms around
myself. For some reason, the air surrounding me felt chilled.

“I told him you didn’t kill your
husband.”

I looked up to meet his pale blue eyes. They
reminded me of a photo of a glacier I’d seen as a child. “Thank you
for your faith.”

“Unfortunately”—his Adam’s apple bobbed up
and down as he swallowed—“the captain feels that someone whose
association with the League is due to wergeld does not have the
loyalty wished for in a deputy.”

“I understand. So would you like to
interview me now, or should I just go sit over there with the rest
of the suspects?”

“I want you to sit down here and take notes
for me.” He gave me a long, level look. “I deputized you; that
stands.”

“But your captain—”

“Isn’t here, and I am. Sit.”

I found a smile and shared it with Adam. In
an evening of emotional upheaval and horror, he turned out to be a
small beacon of pleasure.

“Everyone!” Adam clapped his hands for
attention. “Savannah, please, enough with the pictures. I’m sure
Tony and Jules will be happy to model for you another time.”

The faint buzzing noise that had been on the
fringe of my awareness gave a little jump. I frowned, looking
around for an air ionizer or some other electrical device that
might have been capable of making the almost inaudible white noise,
but there was nothing evident.

I moved an ancient stained glass
Tiffany-like lamp from the center to the far edge of the table Adam
had decided would do as our interview area. I carefully flexed the
frayed cord, but it didn’t make any noise. I tucked it out of the
way so no one would step on it and get shocked. Adam wanted to keep
everyone under his eye while we conducted interviews, a prospect I
found a bit daunting. The room was filled—not only with my own gang
of imps, Pixie, and my father, but also with Adam’s ménage a à
trois. Savannah was in seventh heaven at the sight of honest-to-god
spirits. It took her a good fifteen minutes to get past the fact
that the spirits were real, at which point she began taking picture
after picture.

She fussed for a moment about Adam’s order.
“Oh, I wish I’d thought to bring the digital camcorder in with me.
Couldn’t I please run out to the car and get it? I swear I’ll be
right back, and won’t talk to anyone.”

Adam shook his head. “The seal can’t be
broken for another ten hours. No one goes in or out until I’m
satisfied.”

“But this is a highly important historic
moment!” she said, waving her hand toward Jules and Tony, who were
serving coffee and almond cake. My father sat next to Amanita,
while Pixie was curled up in a window seat with her iPod, clearly
distancing herself from everyone else in the room. “Two,
two
genuine spirits are present, along with you poltergeists, and
a…”

She stopped, her face screwed up.

I watched her carefully before smiling.
“Finding it overwhelming?”

“Well, yes! I mean, who wouldn’t!”

Who indeed? I wondered if she really was
hiding knowledge of the Otherworld from us, or if she’d just
happened to make a couple of lucky guesses. The best way to find
out would be to give her enough rope, I decided. If she wanted an
audience, I’d play along, so I continued to nod as she went on.

“I’m still not sure… That woman there, she’s
a
unicorn
? How is that possible? Shouldn’t she look like a
white horse with a horn or something similar?”

“Unicorns have the ability to shape-shift.
They prefer the human form because it’s much easier in today’s
world to be human than it would be to be a four-footed, supposedly
legendary beast. I’ve never met one before to really discuss the
issue, but it makes sense to me.”

“I suppose so.” She cast a doubtful glance
at Amanita, took a quick picture of her, then tucked the camera
back into her bag.

Adam cleared his throat. “As you all know, I
am a member of the watch of the Akashic League. I have been asked
to investigate the death of Spider Marx before turning it over to
the mundane police.”

“Mundane?” Savannah turned to my father.

Dad shot me a quick glance before answering.
“He means non-Otherworldian. Mortal-world police, in other
words.”

“Oh.” Savannah nodded for Adam to
continue.

He stood silent, his pale blue gaze moving
quickly from person to person. “Karma is also a member of the
League and, as such, has been deputized to assist me with
investigating. We will interview you all, one at a time.”

“I’m not a part of your underworld,”
Meredith drawled from the room’s most comfortable chair. I noted he
had managed to possess himself of yet another glass of whiskey. “I
don’t have to answer any of your questions. You have no right to
interfere with Savannah or me, not to mention it’s illegal to
interview us without our lawyer present.”

“It’s ‘Otherworld,’ not ‘underworld,’ ” Dad
corrected, not looking at Meredith, “which you very well know.”

Meredith shot Dad a look that I found
impossible to interpret. I made a mental note to have another talk
with my father at the first opportunity.

“If this murder had taken place with only
mortal people, in a mortal household, then yes, I would have to
abide by mundane laws.” Adam leaned down over Meredith, forcing the
latter back in his chair. “But you are in
my
house, and
there are no lawyers in the Otherworld. We’re going to do things my
way. Got it?”

I looked at the clock on the table. Ten
hours to go. Time was slipping by.

“I don’t care about your Otherworld laws. We
don’t have to say anything to you without our lawyer present,”
Meredith muttered stubbornly, his eyes narrow and hard.

“I don’t mind talking to you,” Savannah said
quickly. “So long as you agree to answer a few of my own questions
about poltergeists, and this Otherworld place that keeps being
mentioned.”

“You will not talk to him without a lawyer,”
Meredith snapped, glaring at his wife.

“Please don’t use that tone with me,” she
said, to my surprise. The Savannah who had been so flustered by
everything hadn’t struck me as a particularly self-confident sort
of woman. “I don’t like it, and it’s not necessary. If I want to
talk to Adam and Karma, I will.”

“You will not! Dammit, woman, I forbid you
to speak to them!”

Adam held up a hand to stop the bickering,
addressing Meredith with a stern eye. “As I said, I am invoking the
right of the watch to interrogate any possible suspects by whatever
means is necessary. And I stress by
whatever
means. End of
discussion.”

Savannah gasped at the threat in his voice.
Meredith scowled, his eyes shifty. I knew he was planning
something, but whether it was just a response to Adam’s admittedly
high-handed manner of dealing with the situation or it was driven
by guilt was not clear to me. For the first time in my life, I
wished I was a full-blooded polter. I would have given anything to
be able to go into unbridled scary poltergeist mode and frighten
the truth out of him. I looked with speculation at my father.

He raised an eyebrow at me, evidently aware
of what it was I was thinking. “It wouldn’t do any good to have me
fly at him,” he said in Poltern. “He’s not afraid of me. You could
do it, though.”

Savannah leaped off the couch and gawked at
my father in a very fine impression of someone nearly startled out
of her skin. “What on earth was that noise? Merciful goddess, are
there more entities here?”

“Oh, that. That’s just poltergeist-speak,”
Tony said as he whisked out from the kitchen with a tray. “It’s how
they talk to one another, although honestly, how anyone is supposed
to understand a bunch of raps and clicks is beyond me. Who’s for
fresh-baked cinnamon-almond croissants? Jules has coffee, as
well.”

“That implies that Meredith is frightened of
me,” I said slowly in Poltern, my toe cracking barely audible.
“Adam, yes. Adam is a figure of authority. But I certainly don’t
represent anything that would worry Meredith.”

Adam said nothing, but his eyes were full of
questions as he watched Meredith select two croissants from the
plate Tony offered.

Savannah spread a look amongst us, rubbing
her arms. Her body language read true. Maybe I was imagining my
sense that she was hiding something… The evening had certainly been
disquieting enough to skew my ability to evaluate people.

“Can’t you smell the fear on him?” Dad
sniffed the air. “Every time he looks at you, it grows
stronger.”

I did the same. “No. The only thing I can
smell is croissant.”

“If only I’d not fallen in love with your
mother… you would have been a full-blooded polter, and would be
able to sense the things we can.” He shook his head sadly, his face
clearing when Tony offered him a powdered-sugar-dusted almond
croissant.

“This is so… strange. Different.
Indefinable,” Savannah said, gesturing vaguely. “I had no idea that
a language could consist of clicks and knocks. Might I ask what it
is you’re saying to each other?”

Adam shook his head when Tony offered him a
plate, and clamped a hand on Meredith’s shoulder instead. “Nothing
important. Since you object the most to being interviewed, why
don’t we get it over with?”

Meredith muttered some pretty rude things
under his breath, but he evidently decided that resistance wasn’t
going to do him any good against Adam. I thanked Tony as I took a
still-warm croissant and a cup of coffee, following the two men to
our little interview cubbyhole.