In the Air Tonight (7 page)

“Coffee’s on the counter,” the older man said, never lifting his gaze from the stove.

“Thank you.” Bobby served himself. The brew wasn’t as strong as he was used to, but considering the coffee in New Orleans, what was?

“Sit. It’s almost done.”

Whatever
it
was, it smelled too good to miss.

“I was going to make
pannukakku
,” Larsen said. “But I took you for more of a
hoppel poppel
man.”

“Sir?” Bobby asked. What language was he speaking?

“Call me John.” Larsen turned with a cast-iron skillet in one hand and what appeared to be a hamburger turner for a very large hamburger in the other.

He crossed to the table and divided the heavenly smelling mass onto two plates. Bobby recognized potatoes, eggs, onions, salami. He took a bite and also tasted cheese, spices.

“Salt and pepper?”

“Shh,” Bobby said, and let the mixture of flavors mix and melt on his tongue. He took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and did it again.

“I was right about the
hoppel poppel
.”

“If that’s what this is, then definitely.”

“You’ve never had one?”

Bobby shook his head and kept eating. In every bite he found a different taste, each one better than the last.

“It’s a German breakfast casserole. A lot of Germans in Wisconsin. More Scandinavians round here. Which is why I nearly made
pannukakku
.” At Bobby’s quizzical expression John continued. “Finnish oven pancake. They’re good, but not as filling, and they take forty-five minutes to bake. I got up too late.”

Bobby glanced at the window, through which shone a watery gray dawn. There’d been far too many days when he’d come
home
in light like that.

John refilled both their coffee cups. Bobby let him. He was still filling his face.

“Your daughter said I’d be impressed with your cooking.” Bobby set his fork on an empty plate. “She was right.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. My wife was a fantastic cook. When she got sick, I tried to entice her to eat with all of her favorites.”

“I was sorry to hear of your loss.”

John cast Bobby a quick, somewhat surprised glance. “Raye isn’t usually so chatty.”

“I wouldn’t say she was chatty.”

“She hasn’t known you twelve hours and she’s already told you her mother passed. Round here, that’s considered at least third-date conversation.”

“Around here there wouldn’t be any need for the conversation, everyone would know about her mother’s passing almost as soon as it happened.”

John’s brows lifted. “Pretty smart, aren’t you?”

Bobby wasn’t sure if he should agree or disagree. Depended what kind of smart John was talking about—book smart, street smart, or smart-ass. Bobby would admit to being at least two out of three, but maybe not right here, or right now, or to John Larsen.

Instead, he took his dishes to the sink. “I might be in town another night. Is that all right?”

John brought his own dishes over. “I don’t have anyone waiting on your room.”

Did that mean he could stay or not? Bobby decided to assume that he could. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere else to go.

“You never answered my question last night.” John began to fill the sink with warm water, squirting in a healthy stream of dish soap. “Are you here because of the dead woman?”

Bobby nearly grabbed a dishtowel, then remembered he had an appointment.

“I am,” he agreed, and moved toward the door.

“You came a long way. Why?”

“I really can’t say.”

Bobby had no idea what folks in the town had seen, what information the chief had released. Bizarrely, people confessed to all sorts of things they hadn’t done for reasons beyond his understanding. Retaining a pertinent fact could prevent the wrong person from being convicted, no matter how much they might want to be.

“Did I get your back up last night with my question?”

“Which one?”

“About your people. Where you’re from. We ask that around here. Didn’t mean any insult by it.”

“If I had a dau—” Bobby’s voice cracked, and he discovered he couldn’t finish that sentence. At least not the way he’d planned to. “I can understand your concern.”

“I don’t think you do. I don’t care if you’re…” He waved his hand in the general direction of Bobby’s head.

“Black?” Bobby asked.

“You don’t look black to me. More … tan.”

“My people are French and Spanish.”

“Doucet.” John nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Also Haitian, with a little
who knows
thrown in.”

“Like Raye,” John said.

Bobby doubted Raye was Haitian, but then again—who knew?

“Well,” John went on as if they were talking about nothing more important than the weather, and maybe to him, they weren’t. “Good luck.”

Bobby paused with the door partway open. “Do I need a key?”

“I’ll be here. If I’m not, the door’s always open.”

Which made Bobby wonder if he should stow his duffel in the rental car. On the other hand, if someone wanted to steal his toothbrush and dirty socks, let them. However …

“Maybe you should start locking the place.”

“I’m not sure I have a key.”

“Does anyone lock their doors in town?”

“Not many.”

If Raye hadn’t, maybe someone
had
been in her apartment. Though it still didn’t explain where the man had gone, and so damn fast, leaving no trace behind.

*   *   *

I slept better than I expected. Probably because I’d stayed awake well past midnight hoping for a visit from my Puritan. But the only creature that stirred was the old lady in her chair—rocking, rocking, rocking. The creak of that chair eventually lulled me to sleep, and I did so without dreams—or at least any that I remembered.

As soon as I woke I dressed in the clothes I’d discarded on the floor, splashed water on my face, attempted to wake Jenn—twice—then hurried to my apartment, hoping I wouldn’t run into too many people who wanted to know why I looked like I was taking the run-walk of shame down First Street.

Another reason not to sleep with anyone from here. That run-walk could become legendary. Ask Jenn.

I was in the shower before I remembered the maniac; by then it was too late. If he threw back the curtain and started to hack away with his ghostly meat cleaver I could ignore him just as well naked as not. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

The memory of Bobby’s blue eyes had me choosing a slightly newer, tighter pair of jeans and a sweater instead of a sweatshirt.

Which meant someone would throw up on me. It was a given.

I reached my classroom with very little time to spare, but it was still better than yesterday. The children filed in, and Susan ran toward me with such fervor I figured the winner in the barfing competition would be her.

“Stafford has a new friend,” she said.

“New friends are always nice.”

There’d been times in the past when the children had invented invisible friends for their friend who wasn’t exactly invisible.

“Her name is Genevieve.”

Interesting. Most invisible Stafford friends were named less exotically. Poopy Head came to mind.

I forgot about Stafford in the upheaval that began each new day. Getting fifteen five-year-olds into their seats long enough to count how many I had missing often took so long that I was missing one by the time I finished. But I managed. I always did. This wasn’t my first rodeo.

We studied shapes, grouping quadrilaterals and circles and triangles. You could never get kids prepared for geometry too soon, or at least that’s what the curriculum said. I handed out a worksheet; the children pulled out their crayons so they could color all the squares blue and so on. It wasn’t until morning recess that I spared a thought for Stafford, and then only because I saw him.

And his new friend.

At first I wasn’t sure if she was dead. Just because the child was hanging out with Stafford didn’t mean she was a ghost. Didn’t mean she wasn’t either. More often than not, the specters I saw seemed very real. At least until they disappeared, walked through a wall, or walked through me. Talk about an ice bath.

I joined the two of them on the edge of the playground where they sat side by side on a bench.

“This is Genevieve.” Stafford seemed so happy I almost liked him.

Genevieve had big blue eyes, short, curly chestnut hair, and skin just a shade darker than my own. The freckles on her nose were nearly as adorable as her frilly white skirt, black tights, ballet flats, and a pink T-shirt that spelled
PRINCESS
in bright, white sequins. No matter how far the women’s movement came, really, who didn’t want to be a princess?

“I’m Miss Larsen.” I held out my hand, thankful I was on duty for recess, so the only people who might see me shaking hands with air would be children who’d seen me do such things before.

Genevieve’s hand passed right through mine. She was dead all right.

Her lip trembled. She flexed her fingers. “Ouch,” she whispered. “Hot.”

“Sorry.” I rubbed my own hand on my jeans. It burned too—like frostbite.

I’d met other ghost children. A curve of the interstate bumped against the school property line. For some reason that meant elementary-school-age spirits killed on that highway often wound up here. They hung about to resolve fairly simple issues.

Kiss Mommy good-bye.

I want my dolly to go along
.

Half the time I had them out of the building and into the light before the other children even knew they’d arrived. Which was why Susan had been so excited about Genevieve. I couldn’t remember the last time there’d been more than Stafford on the ghost-o-meter.

I also couldn’t remember anyone named Genevieve in New Bergin, and I hadn’t heard about an accident on the interstate lately. So why was she here?

Genevieve probably wouldn’t know. It often took ghosts a few days—months, years—to catch up. Nevertheless …

“Where are you from, honey?”

“Don’t,” Stafford ordered, though I wasn’t sure if he was telling me not to ask or telling her not to answer.

I never got a chance to find out. He took her hand, and they went poof. My gaze drifted over the playground. If Stafford thought he could get a rousing game of run around in circles until you puke—one of his favorites—started, I’d put a stop to it and quiz Genevieve again. However, my kids, and everyone else’s, were behaving the way kids do. Some playing nice, some not playing at all, and some not playing nicely.

“Drop it!” I pointed at the third-grade boy who had just picked up a worm and hauled back to toss it at a second-grade girl. I was in no mood for the high-pitched screaming that would ensue whether the thing landed in her hair or not.

He dropped it—whew!—and I headed for the door just as the bell rang. I took one final gander at the playground but caught no sign of Stafford or his friend.

He would be back. My luck was not that good. If Genevieve was with him, I’d try again. Maybe, by then, I’d know why she was here, and I could help her not to be.

Over my lunch period, I went to my computer. Google was no damn help at all. According to the search engine, the only death in New Bergin all week was that of a sister of a U.S. Marshal. The woman’s photo revealed her to be the poor one-armed lady on First Street, Anne McKenna.

Anne’s being the sister of a U.S. Marshal was interesting on several levels. Her brother had been assigned to the western district and stationed in Madison. She’d lived there too. Why was she in New Bergin in the first place?

Who would want to kill her? Obviously her brother had enemies, but she’d been a hospice worker. Because of my mother’s illness, I’d dealt with them plenty. No one was calmer or friendlier; those people were saints. And there were far too few of them to throw away.

Last, but certainly far from least, what did a detective from New Orleans have to do with any of it?

All good questions, none of which I would find the answers to on the Internet, nor the reason I’d come to it in the first place.

Genevieve.

I’d need to discover her last name before I could do a more advanced search.

*   *   *

Bobby walked into the police station at 7:01. He was pretty proud of himself.

Chief Johnson wasn’t. He scowled at the clock, but at least he didn’t comment.

“Follow me.”

Bobby cast a longing glance at the coffeepot. He doubted what was in there would do much beyond eat his stomach lining, but there were days he thought such eating was what kept him awake and functional. Right now he was barely either one. However, he’d been raised in the South where manners reigned and one did not take anything that wasn’t offered. Even bad coffee.

He followed the chief down a corridor and through a door at the back of the station. It appeared he and Johnson were the only people in the place beyond the ancient dispatcher. Bobby couldn’t tell if the officer was male or female—short gray hair, glasses, dumpy—the nameplate read
Jan Knutson
. Not helpful.

The door opened into a long, white corridor exactly the same as the first. But this one spilled into a funeral home, with an equally androgynous secretary. At least the nameplate read
Marion
. Then the person spoke—in a baritone—and Bobby remembered that John Wayne’s real name had been the same.

“Morning.” Marion pointed to yet another door, nodded to Bobby, then went back to his computer.

The smells beyond door number two identified the place even before they’d descended the stairs into the basement embalming area where a man—this time Bobby was certain—was hard at work on the single body in the room.

“Dr. Christiansen,” Johnson said.

The fellow was tall and lean, he had to bend over fairly far to remove something pink from the corpse and set it on a scale. He was of an age with the police chief, but he still had all his fluffy blond hair.

“You must be the detective from New Orleans.” Christiansen peered at the weight with eyes as blue as everyone else’s in town but Raye’s, then turned back to the body.