Unquiet Dreams (7 page)

“Mrs. Farnsworth?” Murdock spoke softly.

The woman lifted her head in our direction without speaking.

“Mrs. Farnsworth, I’m Detective Leonard Murdock. I’m very sorry for your loss today.”

She didn’t so much nod as rock back and forth slightly. “Thank you.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Another woman crossed the room, sat on the couch, and with gentle hands took the younger child into her own lap. Mrs. Farnsworth squeezed her other daughter’s hand and stood. Without speaking, she led us through a crowded hallway lined with more people. Their conversations fell away as we passed, their faces tracking with questions.

We entered a back bedroom, obviously her room, crowded with a bedroom set too large for the space. Everything was neat and orderly, the faint odor of dime-store rose water in the air. She sat on the bed.

“Mrs. Farnsworth, when was the last time you spoke to Dennis?”

“Last night before I went to work. He was supposed to be watching his sisters. Molly said he went out about eleven o’clock and made her swear not to tell. He said he’d be back in an hour.”

“Did he seem different? Preoccupied? Worried?”

She shook her head. “He seemed fine. Happy. It was just a regular day.”

“Do you know if he was in any kind of trouble?” Murdock asked.

She shook her head again. “Not that I knew. He’s that age when it isn’t cool to confide in his mother.”

“What about his father?”

Her voice and face went flat. “Gone. Ten years.”

“What about friends? A lot of kids on the porch.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know his friends anymore. I work two jobs. Denny was quiet. He was trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Was it working?” I asked. Murdock shot me a look, but I ignored him.

“I don’t know,” she said in a tiny voice.

I crouched down so that she could look down at me. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Farnsworth, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Connor Grey. I’m helping to investigate any unique aspects to this…situation. Do you know why Dennis was on Summer Street?”

She shrugged. “He hung around up the Weird. Found some group that he liked.”

“A gang?”

Finally, she stirred out of her lethargy. “He is not in a gang! Denny hated gangs. That’s how he got in trouble—some gang trying to recruit him. His high school counselor got him involved in a community group.”

I liked and didn’t like where this was going. “Unity?”

She nodded. “That’s it. He seemed to like it there. His grades went up.”

“Did Dennis know Alvud Kruge?”

Her eyes searched the carpet. “He talked about Mr. K. all the time. He liked him.”

“Do you know what happened to Alvud Kruge today?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes. My son couldn’t have done something like that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“Mrs. Farnsworth, did Dennis confide in anyone?” Murdock asked.

Her face hardened a bit as she looked at him. “He had a girlfriend. Crystal. Crystal Finch.”

“Do you have an address or phone number?”

“No. Somewhere on E Street. He ended the relationship.”

“Why’s that?” Murdock asked.

“Because I asked him to. That girl was bad news. Bad family. Trouble.”

“Is there anyone you can think of that might have wanted to cause Dennis harm?”

She exhaled sharply through her nose. “Look where we live. I work two jobs, and this is the best I can do. No one needs a reason to harm you around here. And I can’t think of a single reason why someone would…why someone would…” She teared up. “No, I don’t know.” The tears began to spill.

“Mrs. Farnsworth…” Murdock began.

She bunched a tissue under her nose. “I want my girls. Please, get my girls. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Murdock pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Okay. Here, please call me if you think of anything. I’ll call on you tomorrow to see if you need anything.”

She took the card wordlessly, not looking at it. I stood and backed out of the room with Murdock. He turned back a moment. “If I may ask one more question, Mrs. Farnsworth, did Denny have a pair of orange Nikes?”

She shook her head. “No. He had white sneakers. I don’t know what kind.”

“Thank you,” Murdock said. We made our way back through the apartment. Murdock paused by the couch and squatted in front of the older girl. “Are you Molly?” She nodded.

“Did Denny say where he was going last night?”

She stared at Murdock with wide, solemn eyes. “No. He said he had something important to do.”

“Did he say what?”

Molly glanced at the woman cradling her sister. She leaned close to Murdock. “No, but he went with Crystal,” she whispered. “I saw her up the street. Don’t tell Mum or she’ll be mad.”

Murdock smiled to reassure her. “I won’t. Your mum’s asking for you and your sister.”

We left the apartment. The porch was decidedly emptier than when we had arrived. The fey kids were gone. Of the ones left, Murdock started asking about their relationship to Dennis. I stepped down to the sidewalk. He was just covering the bases. I was willing to bet that the kids who really knew Denny Farnsworth had left when they saw us. Tough kids don’t talk to cops if they can avoid it.

I wandered back to Murdock’s car. As I leaned against the fender, I noticed a woman a couple of houses down. If the height of her skirt were any indication, she had not taken into account the coming night chill. And if the flash of her sequin top was any indication, she had wandered into the wrong end of the neighborhood. She wasn’t watching the street, though. She watched the Farnsworth house, craning her neck every time a girl stepped onto the porch. Just the girls. A gut-level intuition kicked in.

I strolled over. As I got closer, I could see the heavy makeup, the overdyed hair. She had that look that said early thirties, trying to cover up enough wear and tear for someone in her forties desperately hoping she looked in her twenties. It probably worked later in the evening.

Without looking at me, she said, “Not now, hon. I got business.”

“Mrs. Finch?” I said.

Her head whipped around fast on that. She eyed me up and down, then turned back to watch the house. “Not hardly.”

“Looking for Crystal?”

She bit her lower lip and looked at me sideways. “You know where she’s at?”

“That answers my next question. She’s not here, Mrs. Finch. I got the feeling inside she wouldn’t be welcome.”

She flipped her hair and stared directly at me know. Cool, hard eyes, not the type I would find comforting if I were looking for a little short-term company. “Ain’t no Mrs. Finch. That was Crystal’s daddy’s name. You a cop?”

“Not really. But I’d still like to talk to Crystal.”

“Oh, you’d ‘like to talk to Crystal,’” she mimicked. “Get in line, buddy. I haven’t seen her in three days. When I heard about Denny, I thought I might get her here.”

I glanced up at the house. Murdock had made his way onto the steps and was talking to the last couple of kids remaining. “You don’t seem very upset.”

She shrugged. “Not my kid. Shit happens.”

“What can you tell me about Crystal?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Crystal? How about she’s an ungrateful little bitch who owes me seventy-five bucks, and if she don’t turn up real soon, she can just stay wherever she’s landed. How’s that?”

“Very maternal,” I said.

She curled her upper lip. “Go to hell, Mr. Not-really-a-cop. You see Crystal, you tell her I want my cash.” She walked away, her high heels boring holes into the sidewalk. I watched her go and thought you don’t have to be fey to land on the wrong side of the street around here.

I went back to Murdock’s car to wait for him. Night descended on the city, a darker night than usual. Death may be the great equalizer, but the Weird is a close second. That two people died there, one so prominent, the other so not, demonstrates it. The fact that they had a connection to each other shows how the high and low can both find the same knock on the door.

A high-pitched ringing jolted me out of sleep. I knew that sound and dreaded it every time I heard it. One of my protection wards had gone off. I slid out of bed into my jeans in one smooth motion. In less than two seconds, I was across the room and standing to the side of the door with a classic Louisville slugger in my hand. The bat had two functions: it was charged with a deflector spell that would activate if someone threw essence at me, and it hurt like hell if I whomped someone with it. In either case, the idea was to give me some breathing space to call for help if I needed it.

Several wards protect my apartment. Some of them are passive—they act like barriers against charged essence. Some are reactive—like those that test for an individual’s essence to determine whether that person is someone I trust. That’s how people like Murdock and Joe can come and go without freaking out the wards. And some are active, doing a regular scan for any unusual activity. None of them will completely protect me. That’s where the signal wards come in. They’re scattered around the building and keyed to my essence. I touch one, and an emergency signal shoots to the Guild. Only I know where they all are. They are my fail-safe, presuming I live long enough for help to arrive.

My apartment is on a dead-end hallway, so anyone making the turn at the top of the stairs has only my place to go to. The alarm that had gone off was a simple proximity alert at the end of the outside hall. It’s a silent alarm—only I can hear it in my head. I felt another alarm go off, the one within five feet of the door, followed immediately by a banging.

“UBS,” a voice called out.

I relaxed, but only a little. It wouldn’t be the first time someone pretended to be a delivery service before they turned all assassin on you.

“Got any ID?” I called back. I did not move to look through the peephole. That would be expected. Whoever was on the other side of the door would know where I was standing at that moment and could take it as an opportunity to, oh, blow a hole in my head.

“Hello?” the voice said with an edge of annoyance.

I gave a quick look through the peep. He looked like a brownie—tawny skin, curly hair, button nose. The essence trickling through the door verified it as well. And he had the standard brown UBS uniform with the yellow shield sewn into the pocket, though that could have been filched.

Brownies aren’t the most powerful of the fairies. They didn’t have enough essence to make much of a living charging wards or serving as useful bodyguards. They are good at helping with simple tasks that people hate doing, like house-cleaning. A lot of brownies actually did market themselves as housekeepers. The one drawback is their tendency to take insult over the slightest matters. At which point, they mutate into boggarts and become obsessed with vindication. Where they could be quite shy and pleasant as brownies, their boggart aspect is relentlessly annoying. Some bright guy turned that into an advantage by starting the United Brownie Service, one of the most reliable delivery services in the world. When UBS comes calling, you either answer or risk being stalked by an angry boggart.

“How’d you get in the building?” I asked.

“The door was open. Look, I’m double-parked. I’ve got a letter for Connor Grey. Are you him?”

“Just leave it,” I said.

“I need a signature.” Definitely annoyed now. I gave another look-see. His eyes were bulging a little. If I teased him out a bit more, he’d go boggie. I once knew a guy in a divorce case who lived on the run for three months with a screaming, maniacal boggart chasing him down with a subpoena. Not pretty.

I decided to risk it and open the door. You can’t live your life assuming every nutty fairy at your door wants to kill you. The brownie gave me a grudging, almost relieved, smile. I doubt they like going boggart any more than someone likes being on the receiving end of it. Going boggie is a mania and has got to be exhausting.

“Are you Connor Grey?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I need to see your ID.” I didn’t argue. It would just make him upset, so I pulled out my wallet.

He nodded and made a notation on his clipboard. “An emergency meeting of the Guild board of directors has been called for tomorrow.”

I leaned against the doorjamb. “And that concerns me because…?”

He looked down at his clipboard. “You are the druid Connor Grey, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

“So I have you listed as Lady Briallen ab Gwyll’s alternate. She’s out of town.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

He gave me an annoyed look and held his clipboard up. There it was, an official notice from Guildmaster Manus ap Eagan for a board of directors’ meeting tomorrow. Sure enough, there I was, listed as Briallen’s alternate.

“Sign here,” the brownie said, pointing. I chuckled and signed. The brownie handed me an envelope and snatched the clipboard back. “Thanks.”

“Please shut the front door for me.”

“Sure!” He gave me a ridiculous smile. I could not fathom being that happy doing errands. They prefer their brownie aspect over the boggart. By their very nature, they can swing between the two in moments, so having the opportunity to be helpful to me probably took the edge off his initial annoyance with me.

Briallen was an old friend and mentor. She had been on the Boston Guildhouse board of directors since its founding. I knew she was traveling in the Far East over the summer on some obscure educational junket that I could never quite clarify no matter how often I asked. I remember a discussion with her years ago about listing me as a temporary alternate director. I couldn’t believe she had never changed it, especially after the events of the last two years. It wasn’t like her to overlook something like that. On the other hand, what would be like her, though, is to remember exactly that and purposely not change it. For all her professions of being a scholar, which she is, she’s not above a little politicking here and there.

Since the accident that left me ability-impaired, I had effectively been banned from the Guildhouse. The envelope contained a copy of the meeting notice and a Guildhouse building pass. Normally, I couldn’t get in the front door of the Guildhouse without an escort, and here I was being invited to a governing board meeting. I couldn’t wait to see the look on Keeva’s face.