Autumn Bones

Thirty-seven

It should have been awkward, right? The aftermath, I mean.

It wasn’t.

I lay on my belly in a tangle of woolen blankets, my head pillowed on my arms as I told Cody what had happened and why I was there. Outside, the rain had turned into a downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. Inside felt safe and warm. He listened silently, stroking the length of my spine from the nape of my neck to the tip of my tail.

Yeah.

Okay, I know you’ve been wondering. For the record, my tail is approximately nine inches in length, tapering to a point from a diameter of about two inches wide, although it’s broader and flatter at the very base, where the big muscles attach to the coccyx. There’s a fine ridge of pale blond hair that flares out from the base and runs atop it, and it stands on edge and prickles when I’m alarmed, just like the hair on the back of your neck does.

I know, I’ve omitted that point until now. Sue me. Anyway, otherwise it’s hairless. I’m not sure if it qualifies as prehensile. I mean, I don’t use it like monkeys do to grasp objects . . . but I could. Like now, curling it around Cody’s fingers.

And the best part was, he thought nothing of it. He just tweaked it in response, then scratched the base idly. Now I knew why dogs wiggle their butts when you scratch them in just the right spot. It feels ridiculously good. I guess a werewolf ought to know.

“All right,” Cody said when I’d finished my explanation. “Let’s go take a look at the scene.”

Sitting upright, I gestured at the two of us. “Are we going to talk about this?”

“Eventually,” he said. “At the moment, I don’t have the first idea what to say about it, and we’ve got a grave robbery to investigate. So I figured maybe we’d just get to work. You okay with that?”

I thought about it. “I wouldn’t mind something to eat first. And maybe a shower.”

“Well, I suppose another hour’s not going to matter to the Tall Man.” Cody got to his feet, shedding a few pine needles. “I’ll get you a towel and go look in the fridge.”

The only other time I’d eaten at Cody’s, it had involved very, very rare steaks and nothing else. “How about I look in the fridge, and you shower first?”

His mouth quirked. “Fine.”

Less than an hour later, we were on our way, clean and scrubbed, with full bellies. Venison sausage and scrambled eggs, for the record. Cody’s refrigerator didn’t contain anything remotely resembling a vegetable.

Now it started to feel awkward. Pemkowet didn’t have the budget for take-home cars for its officers and since Cody wasn’t scheduled to work that day, there wasn’t a spare cruiser available. It was strange seeing him in uniform behind the wheel of his pickup truck, and it felt strange as hell sitting beside him, my nether regions still pleasantly swollen and tingling. I didn’t know where to look or what to do with my hands. Plus, I’d discovered in the bathroom mirror that I had a couple of serious love bites on my neck. There wasn’t anything I could do about it except turn up the collar on my jacket.

The storm had passed and the rain was easing by the time we reached the mausoleum. Ken Levitt had cordoned off the scene with police tape. Normally, there would have been gawkers alerted by the grapevine, but between the heavy downpour and the early hour, the looky-loos weren’t out yet.

Cody’s nostrils flared as he surveyed the scene, sniffing the air. “Not much left of a scent trail after the rain. Even if there was, there were too many other people’s scents muddling the scene here.”

“What about inside?” I suggested.

“Good idea.”

Unfortunately, the door of the mausoleum had been left open, and wind-driven rain had sluiced into it, dispersing the trail there, too. The scent of decay emanating from the coffin made Cody gag. “Sorry.” He pressed the back of his hand against his lips and gave me an apologetic look. “My sense of smell isn’t as keen as a scent hound’s, and the scent of the Tall Man’s remains is masking anything else. I’m pretty sure the perp wore gloves.”

I shuddered. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Good point.” He shone his flashlight at the floor. “I’m thinking maybe those grease stains are from a jack. It would have taken a lot of leverage to lift that marble slab.”

“So we’re looking for a physics student?” I said.

Cody shrugged. “Could be. Could be someone who works on cars.”

After Cody had determined there was nothing more to be learned inside the mausoleum, we went back outside and did an informal grid search of the surrounding crime scene. If there had been an identifiable set of tire tracks, which wasn’t likely given the amount of traffic there in the past twelve hours, the rain had obliterated them. The groundskeepers were pretty diligent, so despite the popularity of the Tall Man’s resting place among high school students on the make, there wasn’t a lot of trash. A few cigarette butts and a gum wrapper, all of which looked at least several weeks old, and a more recent coffee cozy from Mrs. Browne’s Olde World Bakery.

I winced when Cody held it up on the end of a stick, remembering that I’d seen a member of the coven with a to-go cup of coffee last night. “Yeah . . . I think that might belong to Sheila Reston.”

“From the tattoo parlor?” he asked.

Busted. I’d been careful not to name anyone until now. “Uh-huh.”

Cody smiled wryly. “It’s okay, Daise. You know I’m the last person in Pemkowet about to call anyone out against their will.”

“I know.”

We had a little moment then, gazing at each other through the lingering rainfall, which was more like a heavy mist at this point. It occurred to me for the first time that I didn’t know how I felt about being with someone who felt the need to conceal his membership in the eldritch community. Not that we were together—I wasn’t foolish or desperate enough to attach any significance to this morning’s unexpected and impulsive hookup—but it was something I definitely hadn’t thought through. I know Cody felt he had the Fairfax clan to protect, but I had an ideal to uphold, too.

After all, I was Hel’s liaison. I was proud of it, and I damn well meant to do everything in my power to keep that title.

I cleared my throat. “Canvass the area for witnesses?”

He nodded. “Police work at its most exciting.”

No kidding.

A couple of hours and some twenty houses later, we had confirmed that no one in the vicinity had seen anything. Well, that’s not strictly true. There were a number of people who’d noticed a bunch of cars and motorcycles congregating in the cemetery around nightfall when our showdown with the Palmer ladies had occurred, but since the gathering dispersed without incident, no one had bothered to report it.

After that, nothing.

I let Cody handle the last few inquiries and took the time to check in with Sinclair.

“I heard,” he said without preamble when he answered his phone. Of course he’d heard the news. The whole town had probably heard it by now. “So what’s up? What’s going on? Do you think it’s related?”

“Other than the fact that someone stole the decayed corpse of Pemkowet’s most infamous murderer, I don’t know what’s going on.” I shifted on the passenger seat of Cody’s truck. Yep, still tingling. “Do you?”

“It was definitely . . . stolen?” Sinclair asked.

“Looks that way,” I said. “Although Hel summoned me last night to warn me that Pemkowet’s dead are restless and may rise, hopefully but not definitely in incorporeal form, and that if we don’t get your grandfather’s duppy contained by Halloween, the gate between the living and the dead may never be closed. Any thoughts?”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Daisy, I am so, so sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said. “It’s not your fault. We all made mistakes, and ultimately, it was my responsibility. So what about Grandpa Morgan?”

“Hell, I’ll try.” Sinclair gave a harsh, broken laugh. “Do you think I can fake sincerity well enough to fool a duppy?”

“I don’t think you have to,” I said. “You’re under my protection and Hel is willing to fight this. She gave me a spirit lantern.”

“A what?”

Thank you! So this wasn’t common knowledge. “It makes ghosts cast a shadow,” I said. “If you fix their shadows to the ground with an iron nail, it lays their spirits to rest. But since your grandfather’s spirit never was at rest, you’re still going to have to, um, recapture it and return it to the vessel in which it was contained. The pickle jar, I mean,” I added in case it was unclear.

“That makes sense. How do you know it was a pickle jar?” Sinclair sounded bemused.

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t! It looked like a pickle jar, okay? Anyway, tell me you can do this, Sinclair.”

“I have to, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you do,” I said. “And the sooner the better. How do we find him?”

“You don’t find a duppy,” Sinclair said. “A duppy finds you. He’ll find us when he’s ready. But thanks to my mother, it could be anywhere. She set him loose on the whole town.”

Crap. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it. “You’ll be ready when he does?” I asked him.

“Damn right I will.” His voice was stronger and more certain this time. “And, Daisy . . . I appreciate it.”

Glancing through the windshield, I saw Cody approaching, shrugging his shoulders to indicate he’d had no success. “Thanks. Sinclair . . . about this grave robbery. I mean, it’s got to be related, right? But how?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re not talking about some ordinary spirit. My grandfather was an obeah man. A powerful one. He could make people do things. Things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Like steal a corpse?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Why?”

There was a rattling sound as he shook his beaded dreadlocks. “Death magic? I don’t know. But maybe if you find the corpse, you’ll find my grandfather’s duppy.”

“Okay. Stay tuned. Let the coven know what’s going on. I’ll talk to you later.” I ended the call as Cody opened the driver’s-side door of the pickup and slid behind the wheel, mist dampening his bronze hair.

We regarded each other.

“No luck?” I hazarded.

“No.” Cody stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. “You?”

“Grandpa Morgan was an obeah man,” I informed him. “It’s possible his spirit could have convinced someone to steal the Tall Man’s remains for unknown nefarious purposes, and it’s possible that if we locate said remains, we may find Grandpa Morgan. Otherwise, no.”

Cody raised his eyebrows. “Nefarious?”

“Uh-huh. What next?”

He put the truck in gear. “Well, I guess we’d better inform the Tall Man’s nearest living kin.”