To Die Fur (A Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mystery) (13 page)

“No, that part pretty much runs itself,” I said. “But I do have to keep an eye on the prowlers.”

“Prowlers?”

“Ghosts that weren’t pets or wildlife. Animals from circuses, public aquariums, and theme parks, mostly. They’re attracted to this place but kind of skittish. Mostly they roam around the periphery.”

“Speaking of which,” Eli said, “we have a new one.”

“Oh?” I said. “What species?”

“Liger,” said Eli.

I blinked.

In retrospect, it was obvious. But for some reason, I never entertained the thought that Augustus would become a prowler. Prowlers were outsiders, beings that for various reasons didn’t quite fit in. Augustus seemed too regal, too
wanted,
for that.

Being an outsider was lonely … but then, so was being royalty.

“Wait, wait,
wait,
” I said. “We have the spirit of a dead liger prowling around, Ben now knows all those things I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,
and
we’re in imminent need of a Thunderbird?”

“Yep,” said Eli, hopping from the head of the horse to the broad back. “Thanks for thumbnailing it. Now, let’s get down to business.”

“Absolutely,” said Ben. “Good old, straightforward, everyday business. Uh-huh.”

“Maybe you should sit down,” I suggested.

I meant on a nearby bench, but Ben just sank straight down to the ground, where he hugged his knees like a ten-year-old and looked bewildered.

[Perhaps,] said Whiskey, [we’re not
quite
ready.]

Eli squinted down at Ben. “Maybe not. Well, we don’t need him yet, anyway. What we do need is for someone to go talk to Augustus.”

“I think Tango was following him,” I said. “But I haven’t seen her all morning. I thought she’d just gone off somewhere to mourn—”

[She may not have been able to keep up. Ghosts can go places the living can’t.]

“For someone with a pulse she did all right,” said Eli. “Augustus came tearing through here a few hours ago. Scattered a lot of spirits in his way, disappeared over the rise. Tango was a few minutes behind him. They’ve been playing cat and moose ever since.”

“Moose?” said Ben. “There are moose?”

“Well, he’s practically the size of a moose. But even so, he’s managing to avoid Tango; never goes very far from the graveyard, but won’t let her get close, either. Classic prowler behavior.”

“Any idea where they are now?”

“Last I heard he was over by the south fence.”

The Crossroads acted like a psychic amplifier; if Whiskey, Tango, or I was anywhere within its boundaries, we could talk to one another like we were standing a few feet apart. I tried it now:
Tango, you there?

I got a reply immediately.

Yes. You have eyes on Augustus?

Well, that would spook anyone, one way or another.
Have you been able to communicate with him?

[You must be feeling invigorated. That’s less sleep than you usually need.]

Aaaaaaaaaaand she’s back.
Is that true?
I asked Whiskey.
You can’t track ectoplasm?

[It’s not my fault. You can’t track a scent that doesn’t exist.]

“Foxtrot?” Ben asked. “You’ve been staring into space and making weird faces for the last minute or so. Are you having some sort of seizure? Or maybe I am?”

“Just talking to Whiskey and Tango.”

“Oh. Tango can turn invisible, too. Of course.”

[No, she can’t. We’re just having a private conversation.]

Ben started when he heard Whiskey’s voice in his head. “Don’t
do
that!”

“Get used to it,” said Eli. “He’s not the only supernatural being you’re going to be having conversations with.”

“I’ll try to work it into the conversation,” I said. “You know, between the dead liger and the invisible cat.”

Ben looked hopelessly confused. “Work
what
into the conversation between the dead liger and the invisible cat?”

Whoops. Didn’t mean to say that out loud.

[Stop interrupting. She’s trying to have two conversations at once.]

“I’m not
on
a damn cell phone!”

“Okay, okay!” said Ben, looking a little irritated. “I didn’t say you were! I just want to know what’s going on with the liger and the invisible cat!”

“She’s not invisible!”

“You don’t have to shout!”

“You think this is shouting? Wait until you try feeding my invisible cat that crappy new cat food you’ve been buying!”

[Oh, dear God.]

“People,” said Eli, pronouncing the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “let’s just calm down. Foxtrot, you and Whiskey go talk to Tango in person. Ben, you and I still need to palaver. Okay?”

Ben stopped glaring at me and turned to look at Eli. His glare faded pretty quickly. “Yeah, sure, okay.”

[Let’s go, Foxtrot.] Whiskey trotted away, and I reluctantly followed him.

As soon as we were out of sight—and, therefore, mind—Whiskey said, [Foxtrot. You need to focus—we have a developing situation here and your hormones are getting in the way.]

“It was a minor disagreement. I was frustrated.”

[That’s not what it smelled like to me.]

I shook my head as we made our way through the graves. An iguana that must have been six feet long gave me a curious look before trudging out of our way. “You know I hate when you do that. Quit sticking your nose in my pheromones.”

[I apologize. But you need to stop thinking about Ben as a potential mating partner and start seeing him as a supernatural creature with supernatural responsibilities instead.]

“Right. What’s that all about? Why did Eli bring him in? What
are
a Thunderbird’s responsibilities, other than making weathermen look bad?”

[Primarily, they function as—]

He never got to finish.

Tango yelled in my head, and a large white shape rocketed through a bush in front of us like a runaway cloud—Augustus, bounding straight at us. Both Whiskey and I dove aside in reflex, and he zoomed past us without a second glance.

Tango darted around the bush a second later, in hot pursuit.

[Tally-ho,] Whiskey said as we gave chase.

Our quarry wasn’t headed for Eli, though. Tango gave us updates as we chased her:

We did our best not to get too far behind, but when Tango told me Augustus had stopped, I slowed down and got Whiskey to do the same. “Let’s see if we can sneak up on him without him bolting,” I panted.
Tango, you hang back, too
.

We crept up to the top of a rise where Tango was crouched. I kept low, below the crest of the hill, and asked Tango what Augustus was doing.

Which grave?

Now, that was odd. Piotr was a Russian circus bear, apparently well known in his native land, and there was a life-sized bronze statue of him on the plot where he was buried. He showed up occasionally, usually riding a unicycle. “Well, he did say he likes bears. Remember, a lot of prowlers are confused; he might think the statue’s a real bear.”

Relevant factoid: While I needed Tango to translate for me if I wanted to talk to living animals, the dead shared a common tongue. To me, it sounded like English, though I doubted that was really true; if French or Spanish or Mandarin were my first language, that was probably what I’d hear in my head when ghosts spoke. Which meant that I could now talk to Augustus directly, if I wanted. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but if he wasn’t amenable to a feline voice maybe he’d listen to a human one.

I mentally cleared my throat, and braincast as gently as I could:
Augustus?

No response, but I thought I felt … something. Like he was aware of me.

My name is Foxtrot.

Quiet alertness.

Do you know where you are?

Silence. Waiting.

I want to help you. If you have questions, I’ll try to answer them.

My turn to wait. Patience is more than a virtue when you’re talking to a cat; it’s a prerequisite and a survival condition. So I just got myself comfortable, lying there on the grass with Whiskey beside me. We waited.

We’d been there a few minutes when I heard footsteps on the grass. A pair of worn cowboy boots walked up and stopped a few feet from my head.

“Morning, Foxtrot,” a familiar voice said.

“Morning, Coop.” Cooper was the graveyard’s other caretaker, the one who tended the graves and cut the grass. He was an old hippie, with a graying handlebar mustache and a ponytail that peeked out from under a battered straw hat. He and I were old friends, but he had no idea what the graveyard really was.

“Having a hard day?” he asked. He peered down at me, silhouetted by the late-morning sun.

“Why do you ask, Coop?”

“’Cause normally you sit on a bench. At least when you’re wearing your work clothes.”

“It’s been a little challenging, yeah. Thought I’d take a short break.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.”

Cooper dropped down into a cross-legged position and reached out to scratch behind Whiskey’s ears. Whiskey wagged his tail and stretched his neck out; even if he did sound a little like an English butler, he was still a dog who loved skritches.

“Heard about the liger,” Cooper said. “That’s a damn shame. Sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, Coop.” It occurred to me that, as cliché as the saying was, Cooper was the first one who’d had the decency to utter it to me. Though Augustus wasn’t exactly lost—he was just on the other side of the hill.

“Kind of a strange place for him to drop dead, wouldn’t you say?” Cooper asked. “Right next to an animal graveyard and all.”

[He has no idea.]

I sighed. “It’s strange that he died at all, Coop.” I kept the fact the death was actually a murder to myself; right now, that was privileged information that I didn’t want to spread around.

“I don’t know. Sure, death can show up from outta nowhere, but more often than not we know when it’s comin’. Can’t always choose the time, but sometimes we can choose the place. Die at home or in a hospital bed, usually.”

“I guess that’s true. You think animals get the same choice?”

Coop plucked a stalk of grass from the ground and fiddled with it. “Some do, I think. Cats, especially. When an old cat’s dying, they’ll creep away and find somewhere to hide. I heard different theories on why, but I got my own.”

“Which is?”

He stuck the grass in the corner of his mouth and chewed on it. “I figure it’s something to do with wherever their spirit goes afterward. Just in a cat’s nature to be cautious in new territory; when they sense they’re about to cross over, they want to sneak in real quiet-like and all alone.”

[That’s the most cogent explanation I’ve ever heard on the subject. Cats don’t die; they burgle the afterlife.]

Despite the fact that Cooper couldn’t remember much of the sixties—thereby proving he was there—he was pretty tuned in to the vibe of the Crossroads. Was he right? Maybe the reason Augustus was still hanging around but wouldn’t let anyone near him had to do with a desire for privacy when he went on to … well, wherever dead ligers went on to.

Hey, Tango? You catch any of that?

And?

One of the annoying things about having two supernatural partners is how they abruptly get all mysterious when my questions venture into the wrong territory. If I wanted to know the life story of an eight-tentacled squid I got the full octobiography; I asked what color the fire hydrants were in Doggy Heaven and I got a blank stare.

“Then I doubt Augustus would choose to die here,” I said to Cooper. “What with all these graves, I imagine it’s pretty crowded around this place.” As I said this, a ghostly peacock with feathers as brilliant as a tropical sunset strolled past, cocking a curious eye in our direction.

“True—but then, Augustus wasn’t exactly a house cat, was he? I’m not saying he chose to die—don’t think most of us ever really choose that—but maybe he saw an opportunity. I mean, if you call a lion the King of the Beasts, what would that make him? Some kind of emperor, I’d think.”

I frowned. “You think he picked here to die because—”

Cooper climbed to his feet. “Well, you could do worse for a kingdom. Suspect it’d be an interesting place to run, anyhow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Foxtrot, I got me some hedges to trim over by the North Dukedom.” He ambled away, still chewing on the stalk of grass.

I glanced over at Whiskey, stretched out in the grass beside me. “Well? What do you make of
that
idea?”

Whiskey yawned. [Well, I know where it came from.] He sniffed the air pointedly in Cooper’s direction. [Afghan Kush, I’d say.]