Halfway Dead (7 page)

I saw Anna stroll into the diner, and I smiled. I say she strolled because sashay sounds a bit lewd, even though men tend to lean out of their chairs to watch her pass. She’s a small woman, like me, but with short hair and a slippery grace that I’ll never have. She moved to town enormously pregnant two years ago, had a daughter, and then attacked her baby weight in a unique manner. Anna began, of all things, hula hooping in her garage while listening to electronic dance music.

It was a transformation that the town hasn’t quite adjusted to, and might never. She immediately began collecting interesting tattoos that ranged up and down her left arm in a brilliant spray of colors; there were leaves, a vine, and berries in their autumn hues. It was an arresting display, made more interesting by the fact that it gave men and women alike an excuse to examine her more closely. Anna is not a shy, retiring blossom. The girl who began as a cute but pudgy brunette became something like a Balinese dancer, her frame muscular and erotic, and frankly, I was a bit disgusted that I hadn’t thought of it first. Anna took excellent care of her new body by smoking and drinking soda all day. She really was a dedicated athlete. When she wasn’t standing in front of the diner chugging the remains of her current can of pop, she was flicking a cigarette butt away with the kind of civic disdain that only really hot girls can get away with. Then, she would invariably enter the diner, smile at me, and sit down to eat three pancakes, eggs over light on top, and a side of syrup to dunk the whole mess into. Oh, and coffee. A bucket, if we had it, but a constant refill would work, too.

I should probably mention that I’m almost certain Anna is a wood nymph or some other truly exotic creature. There are elements of her life that simply don’t add up, but I haven’t had an occasion to pin her down in conversation and ask her, rather pointedly, if she’s a creature of myth and legend, or just gifted with incredibly good genes. Yes, I’m a bit jealous. I don’t know how she maintains a winter tan, I don’t know how she eats . . . well, everything, and I cannot fathom why, of all things, she decided that the hula hoop was the key to her newfound legendary hotness. It’s a mystery.

By the time I personally delivered Anna’s usual to her, she was on her third cup of coffee, chatting amiably with a bewildered older tourist who looked like he’d been thunderstruck. She was asking him a question about the pattern on his shirt—a hideous, but kitschy cool array of fish, canoes, and crossed paddles. I listened to him reply that he’d owned the shirt since 1967, and it was most likely polyester, but he couldn’t be sure. Anna cheerfully leaned over and lifted the well-worn tag from the collar to investigate, unintentionally giving the man a close-up view of her pert breasts. It was all quite a bit to take for the senior citizen, but he smiled in a bemused kind of way, sensing that Anna was just possessed with a relentless curiosity rather than being flirtatious.

“And before you ask, young lady, I purchased it in Dayton, Ohio, and no, the store doesn’t exist. It burned down in the late 70s, well before you arrived on this planet.” His grin was a touch smug, but friendly, and he unconsciously straightened his collar with a delicacy that told me he liked his shirt just a
little
bit more now that Anna had fussed over it.

As I slid the plate before her, I ventured a not-so-subtle question while the moment was right. “Yes, Anna, surely you must have been born in the 1990s, how could you possibly know such vintage clothing?”

She wrinkled her nose in a
nice try
kind of gesture and began eating the pancakes like she’d just been released from a hunger strike.

“Hmmph.” I raised a brow, pointed at her with mild threat, and went back to the kitchen. I’d grill her at some later time, but now I was certain she was magical in nature. I still said smart money was on her being a wood nymph, but I was open to other possibilities.

My witchmark serves a couple of purposes. The first is the hair that grows from the scar. Every color is represented, and I use the individual strands as critical components of my offensive spells. I also use the hair when I need to bind something to myself. It’s more boring than it sounds, but after you’ve lost your house keys for the millionth time, you learn that magic can be put to work in unimaginative but useful ways. The second thing my witchmark does is act as a sort of early warning system. There’s something about the accrued magic of our family that lets me know when things are about to get dicey, and I felt that unwelcome fizz through the skin of my mark just as the door opened behind me.

The detective who’d been staring at me the day before was standing in the door, surveying the diner with that falsely-casual nature that cops use when they’re trying not to spook someone. His brown eyes swept the room in a pace that was slow and easy; this was something I sensed he’d done many times before. He wore a white shirt, tan slacks, and shoes that looked like he could run in them. I noticed all of these things because he was only five feet away, and before I could recede into the safety of my kitchen, he locked eyes with me and took two quick steps in my direction, his hands loosely held at his sides.

I stayed relaxed. Whatever he was, it wasn’t magical, and I’m not afraid of cops. Humans can be rotten to the core, and I can deal with them, but this guy just seemed capable and a bit smarter than his facial expression was letting on. I adopted a bland look of my own and stood silently, letting the bustle of the diner protect me from an awkward pause in a conversation that hadn’t yet started. I’m patient when I need to be; I learned it from dealing with Gus.

“Carlie?” he asked, but he wasn’t really asking. He already knew my name.

I thought it was interesting that he called me Carlie. I nodded, waiting. He looked around easily, then made an internal decision. “What’s good here?” He smiled, and I sensed that he was actually going to eat. Whatever he wanted, his hurry wasn’t so great that breakfast needed to wait. I decided that was good.

“What are your feelings about waffles?” I tilted my head at him, watching.

He held up three fingers. “I am pro-waffle. I am pro-coffee. And I am, most certainly, pro-maple syrup, but only if it’s real.” His voice was mild and friendly.

“Did you know that the fine nation of Canada has a maple syrup reserve?” I asked him.

“I do. It’s a critical market item that they consider more than just a symbolic issue.” When I raised my brows, he added, “I read a lot.” Then he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Jim Dietrich.”

“Hi, Jim. Why were you watching me?” I gave him a level stare. I don’t like feeling cornered.

He busied himself adjusting silverware, giving his knife a cursory glance, and then placing it pointedly back on the counter. When he looked up, his eyes were fixed on me with far more than simple curiosity. “Call it a professional interest.”

I wasn’t exactly intimidated, so I jerked a thumb over my shoulder and said, “Enjoy your breakfast. I need to cook.”

His hand shot up, palm outward. “I apologize, I shouldn’t have been lurking, and I really do want to eat. I’m not a police officer, or special secret agent or anything like that. I mean, I was, but not now. I need your help, nothing illegal, and if you’ll give me a moment of your time, I would consider it an act of kindness, not an obligation.” He folded his hands and waited, brows raised to indicate he didn’t know what I was going to say.

That made two of us.

I put a hand on my hip as my eyes narrowed. I still felt
something
was unusual, but there wasn’t imminent danger. “I get done at two. I’ll be available for five minutes, and then I have things to do.” I nodded in dismissal and turned to reclaim the grill. I was getting a bit tired of men waiting for me after my shift. There didn’t seem to be any good news, just weirdness, and my instincts told me it was only going to get more intense.

***

I was right. Jim Dietrich had been a cop—a state investigator in Maryland, and I was asking him why he left. He didn’t hesitate with his answer, which was always a good sign, but I had a minor weakness spell locked and loaded just in case. I kept one hand at my side as we leaned against a tree across the street from the diner. I imagined the phone lines were sizzling with calls to Gran, and made a note to see her as soon as possible to head the rumors off at the pass.

“So, you’re no longer an investigator?” I asked, inviting him to continue.

“I didn’t say that. I’m not an investigator with any government agency,” he clarified.

“But you still presumably, I don’t know, look for clues, crack the case, all that? In what capacity?” I asked.

He rubbed his hands together, a nervous tic if ever I’ve seen one. “I work for a private security firm doing a specific type of loss prevention.” When I looked away, as if tired of our conversation, he added, “I prevent industrial espionage. Spying. And I do it within a highly-specialized field.”

“Let me guess,” I began, “I’m not sure how to say this, but you protect intellectual property? Say, you might protect a rare kind of plant or tree, if it had a great deal of value?”

His eyes bugged, but only for a second. He swore softly under his breath. “Who got to you? Has someone paid you off?” He sounded tired, not angry. This whole business with a single tree was quickly spiraling out of control. I had to rethink exactly how much money was at stake here.

“How much money is on the line?” It seemed like being coy was childish, and I’m no kid. I just wear their sizes of clothes. Saves on money, but opens me to ridicule when I realize I’m wearing the same shirt as a ten-year-old standing next to me at the movie theater. Awkward.

I saw him processing how much to tell me, and I know he decided to hold back. “I don’t know. Hundreds of millions of dollars, I would think. Certainly enough for some people to kill repeatedly.”

Alarms went off. “Repeatedly?”

He nodded, slowly. “This morning. Fourth Lake. There was a body found in the restroom of a gas station. Looks like a blood clot, but I doubt it.”

“Was it someone from Forestry?” I asked. I watched Jim adjust his opinion of me upward. I clearly knew more than he anticipated.

“In a sense. It was an undersecretary from the Department of the Interior. That’s a noted federal position. If someone killed him, they did so without caring that the entire might of the FBI would drop on them like a sack of hammers. The Feds don’t allow their own to get picked off without turning the county upside down, if need be,” Jim said grimly.

“Oh.” I made a few unsavory connections in my mind, and the conclusion was something that I wasn’t comfortable discussing with a stranger. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to admit it to myself, but if I was betting, I’d say magic was the cause of these deaths.

Jim let me be for a moment, then asked, “Have you ever met anyone named Helen Lewis?”

“No, I don’t even recognize the name. Why?”

He held out a hand and began to count. “From my evidence, she was the first person to die in this area . . . by unusual means.”

“The first? Where?” This was news. I thought I knew what was happening in my area, but then again, it’s a big place.

“Old Forge Pond, to the south. She died eating an ice cream cone. Thirty-eight years old. A runner. Perfect health. Guess who she worked for?” His eyes were watchful. He was deciding if I was liar.

“The Federal government?” I asked.

A nod, and he gave me a chilly smile. “State. She was an inspector who worked the border, mostly. Sort of a customs agent.”

“Stop right there,” I told him. My tone invited no disagreement. I was younger, by a bit, but I was not a pushover. I also had a few centuries of magic backing me up, and I didn’t like the direction our chat was headed.

“Ok.” No argument from Jim. That was a pleasant surprise.

“I don’t know you. You might think you know me, but you don’t. Trust me. I don’t like people dying in any manner, but if you expect to use cheap tricks to interrogate me while I’m standing in front of my own job, and in my own town, then you’re dumber than you look.” When his face reddened, I went on. “Everything you ask me from this point on must be the entire question, not an edited version. Understand? Now, would you care to repeat your description of this humble government servant who choked to death on an ice cream cone?”

He smiled a bit, just at the corner of his mouth. “Fair enough. She wasn’t a customs agent, or some random employee for the state.”