Ghost of a Chance

2 The Midnight Sun

Alex regretted promising to help the Bickmans almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. They were nice enough people, sure, and they’d been dealt a bum hand, but helping them would mean calling her. He didn’t even want to think about that.

He did, however, really need to get paid. He had about thirty cents in his pocket and that was pretty much it.

To avoid making the dreaded call, Alex crossed town to The Lunch Box, a diner a few blocks from the brownstone where he rented a room from his mentor, Dr. Bell. Iggy would be making dinner soon, but Alex hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. He hadn’t really been up to food after his encounter with the landfill.

“Hey, sugar,” the waitress said as Alex sat down at the counter. “Haven’t seen you in here in a while. What’ll it be?”

A faded tag on her blue apron read, Doris, but she was such a fixture at the diner that she didn’t really need a name-tag. Alex wondered if The Lunch Box even had another waitress.

“Coffee,” he said.

Hungry or not, he wasn’t about to insult Iggy by eating right before dinner. Besides, he didn’t have enough money to spare for even a poached egg.

“Anyone leave a copy of the Times lying around?” he asked.

“Just this,” Doris said, handing him a folded paper before putting a coffee cup in front of him.

As she filled the cup, Alex turned over the paper. It was thin and square instead of the regular newspaper shape, and its masthead bore the title, The Midnight Sun. A massive headline took up almost the top third of the paper, declaring; Ghost Killer Strikes Again.

Alex resisted the urge to groan. The Midnight Sun was a tabloid, devoid of any actual journalism, and full of salacious rumors and celebrity stories that appealed to the gossip-hungry masses. Still, Alex knew Iggy would want to discuss the news of the day over dinner and it had been a while since Alex had read anything Iggy didn’t already know.

As he drank his coffee, Alex scanned the article. According to the author, one Billy Tasker, the suicide of an elderly man in a fashionable Inner-Ring home matched a pair of suicides in the last few weeks. In all three cases, the victims were found alone in a locked room. Tasker claimed that he had inside knowledge of the coroner’s report, saying that each victim was stabbed twice in the chest by a long, thin blade. The mysterious part was that no weapon was found at any of the crime scenes.

Of course, Tasker’s conclusion was that this was the work of a vengeful spirit, murdering people who had undoubtedly slighted it in life. Alex tossed the paper away in disgust, reminding himself that the last time he saw a copy of The Midnight Sun, it had claimed that runewright magic was actually the language of Atlantis.

“There you are,” a familiar voice said from behind him.

Alex turned to find Police Detective Danny Pak standing just inside the door. He was in his late twenties, only a few years younger than Alex’s thirty-two, with black hair, olive skin, and dark eyes. His features reflected his Japanese heritage and were made more prominent by the fact that he always had an infectious grin. He was also one of Alex’s only close friends.

“What are you doing here?” Alex asked, picking up his hat up from the neighboring stool so Danny could sit down.

“Danny comes here all the time,” Doris said, setting a coffee cup in front of the detective. “You want the usual, hon?”

“Yes, please,” Danny said as he sat.

Alex raised an eyebrow. He’d been to Danny’s apartment and it was on the other side of Central Park from The Lunch Box. There wasn’t any reason for him to go this far out of his way for dinner.

He shifted his gaze to the kitchen. About a year ago Alex had met Mary, a pretty girl working a lunch counter who wanted to be a full-fledged cook. Alex sent her here and she’d been working at The Lunch Box ever since.

“It’s not like that,” Danny said, reading Alex’s expression. To his credit, he didn’t blush at all.

“Then you must have come to see me,” Alex said. “Lucky you caught me, since I don’t usually eat dinner here.”

“I did want to see you,” Danny said, ignoring Alex’s innuendo. “I need your help.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“You heard about the rash of thefts we’ve been having?”

Alex shrugged. New York was a big city with over a million people; someone was always getting robbed somewhere.

“A bunch of deliveries have been hit,” Danny added.

“Any pattern?”

Danny shook his head and sighed.

“No,” he said. “That’s the frustrating thing. The stuff that got taken is random. Some of it makes sense to steal, but the rest is just junk. A whole truckload of dungarees went missing, along with a load of paper napkins bound for Delaware.”

Doris set a pastrami on rye in front of him and he paused to take a bite.

“People are pretty desperate these days,” Alex said while Danny chewed. “Maybe they’re just stealing whatever they can get their hands on.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I just can’t seem to catch a break on this. I figured if you could use one of your finding runes to locate any of the stolen property, that might be the only shot I’ve got.”

“I’d need something that links to any of the missing items.”

Danny nodded and took another bite of his sandwich.

“I thought of that,” he said with his mouth full. “I’ve got some leather from the machine that made a missing crate of work boots.”

Alex shook his head.

“That’s not going to do it,” he said. “They probably made a dozen pairs of boots from that one piece. The rune will only have something to lock on to if the boots are still together in the same place, and that’s assuming they all were in that one missing shipment.”

“That’s not likely,” Danny admitted.

“Alex,” a new voice said.

He looked up to see Mary emerge from the kitchen. She was a slim girl with brown hair and freckles on her nose. When she saw him, her face lit up in a smile.

“You haven’t been by in a long time,” she chided him. “Why didn’t you tell Doris to say hello?”

“Sorry, Mary,” Alex said, feeling a bit guilty. “Too busy with my own problems, I guess. How’s the work?”

Mary beamed.

“I love it,” she said. “Max says business has tripled since I started. He gave me a raise.”

“That’s great,” Alex averred.

She turned to Danny and slipped her apron off, over her head.

“Mario is already here,” she noted. “So, I’m officially off-duty.” Alex raised an eyebrow and Mary smiled. “Danny is taking me dancing.”

“Is he now?” Alex asked with a smirk. Danny had an eye for the ladies and Mary was a real looker. Alex had wondered how long it would take him to ask her out.

“If I get you a list of what was stolen,” Danny said, as if he hadn’t heard Mary, “would you look over it?”

“Sure,” Alex said, standing up and putting on his hat. “Drop it by for Leslie in the morning.” He tossed a dime on the counter, five cents for the coffee and five for Doris, then winked at Mary. “You kids have fun.”

The brownstone where Alex lived belonged to his mentor, Dr. Ignatius Bell. It was a four-story, Mid-Ring building just six blocks from Central Park. When Iggy retired from His Majesty’s Navy and moved to New York, he’d found Alex selling runes on a street corner. Since the Brits only used runewrights for military doctors, Iggy took Alex under his wing and trained him to be a proper runewright.

He’d also trained Alex to be a detective.

Iggy hadn’t been entirely honest with Alex when he took him in. He had been a doctor in the Navy, but he’d retired decades earlier, become a writer, and written the most famous detective in history.

Sherlock Holmes.

Iggy, or rather Arthur, hadn’t wanted to leave his home and his family, but he’d done one other thing while he served in the Navy: he’d found the Archimedean Monograph. Originally written by Archimedes of Syracuse, the Monograph contained some of the most powerful and dangerous runes in history. It was a book many people sought, some of them perfectly willing to murder to get it. So Arthur Conan Ignatius Doyle became Ignatius Bell and moved to New York for the safety of his family.

The brownstone didn’t look any different from its neighbors, just a row house of tan brick, but it was protected by powerful runes and wards. As Alex approached, he pulled out his battered pocket watch and flipped open the cover. As part of his training with Iggy, Alex had written small, delicate runes on the inside of the lid. These allowed him to open the front door by simply twisting the knob. Without the watch and its runes, a whole gang of men couldn’t have opened that door with a battering ram.

“You’re early,” Iggy said when Alex came through the inner door of the brownstone’s vestibule. “Dinner’s not quite done yet.” Cooking was a serious hobby that Iggy had picked up during his navy days.

Alex hung up his hat and moved through the front library to the kitchen. Iggy stood at the range, stirring something in a steaming pot. He was tall and slender with wavy silver hair and a bottle-brush mustache to match. Though he was well into his seventies, Iggy had the energy of a man half his age.

“Don’t mind me,” Alex said, picking up Iggy’s issue of the New York Times from the sideboard and sitting down at the kitchen table. “It’s been a long day.”

“Did you see the story about those robberies all over the city?”

“No,” Alex admitted. “But Danny mentioned them. Supposed to be completely random so it doesn’t sound like the work of a gang, just desperate people.”

“How is Danny?”

“Out dancing with Mary,” Alex said, paging trough the paper as fast as he dared.

“He’d better not break her heart,” Iggy said, taking his pot off the burner. “I’ll never forgive him if she stops cooking at the diner.”

Alex chuckled at that.

“You’re all heart,” he said.

“I eat lunch there almost every day,” Iggy admitted.

“It says here that the government of Spain is suing some American over a museum exhibit,” Alex said, changing the subject.

“Phillip Leland,” Iggy supplied. “The adventurer who found the treasure of the Almiranta. She was part of the 1715 treasure fleet that went down in a hurricane. Only the Almiranta made it out. Leland found it sunk off the coast of North Carolina.”

“Paper says the treasure is worth almost one hundred million dollars.”

“Which is why the Spanish government wants it back. They’re claiming that the Almiranta and everything on it are still the property of Spain.”

Alex flipped back to the article and scanned it.

“What does that have to do with the Museum of American History?” he asked.

“Leland loaned most of the treasure to them,” Iggy said. “It’s been on display there for a month but they’ve had to take it down until the case is settled.”

“Do you think Leland will have to return it?”

“No.” Iggy shook his head. “Salvage laws are hundreds of years old. The Spanish are grasping at straws.”

“So what do you think about this ghost killer?” Alex asked, hiding a grin behind the paper.

Iggy groaned.

“Not you too,” he said in an indignant voice. “Does everyone read that disreputable rag?”

“Doris had a copy,” Alex explained. “How did you see it?”

“I played pinochle with Doctor Anderson down at the coroner’s office this afternoon,” he said. “He always reads that trash. But, since you bring it up, tell me what you think of these deaths while you help me set the table.”

Alex put the paper aside and went to the cupboard for plates and silverware.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say the victims weren’t killed by a ghost,” Alex said, fighting not to grin.

“Please,” Iggy said in a wounded tone as he set out the bread and butter. “Don’t indulge childish fantasy at my dinner table.”

“If the details in the story are correct, the victims were all found alone in locked rooms,” Alex said. “The police had to break in each time.”

“What does that tell you?”

“Locked rooms mean suicide,” Alex said with a shrug.

“You don’t sound sure.”

“According to the story, the victims were all stabbed twice in the chest,” Alex said, filling two glasses with water. “I can’t imagine someone killing themselves that way, let alone three people. Most people just turn on the gas and stick their head in the oven.”

“A graphic, but accurate description,” Iggy said, setting a tureen of stew on the table. “What about the absence of a murder weapon? Wouldn’t that indicate that someone else was there?”

Alex nodded as they both sat down. He waited until Iggy said grace before continuing.

“Well, you’ve always said that if you remove the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” Alex said. “If there’s two stab wounds and no weapon, it has to be murder. Someone is managing to get into and out of those locked rooms.”

“How?” Iggy asked, serving the stew. “Are there secret passages?”

“No,” Alex said. “Two of the murders were in upscale homes, but one was in an outer ring tenement house. Besides, the police would have checked for that; they’re not idiots.”

“Then how is our murderer doing it?”

Alex thought about that while he ate. There were only so many ways a crime like this could have been committed, and without examining the rooms in question, it was hard to draw a conclusion.

“A runewright could do it with an escape rune,” he said at last.

Iggy thought about that for a few moments, then shrugged.

“It’s possible,” he admitted. “But that seems like a long way to go for something as easy as murder. The killer would be shaving months off his own life every time he used a rune to escape the locked room. Not to mention the cost.”

Alex nodded. Escape runes could cost over a hundred dollars when you factored in the exotic inks.

“That would make these murders the most expensive in history,” he said. “In dollars and life.”

They passed ideas back and forth for another half-hour while they ate, but nothing felt right. In the end, Alex suggested that the tabloid had probably got the details wrong and these were three unrelated suicides.

“That paper needs to go out of business,” Iggy said at last. “I hope the mayor’s wife takes them down.”

“Who?” Alex asked as he began clearing the table.

“The mayor’s wife is suing The Midnight Sun,” Iggy explained, lighting a cigar as he watched Alex. According to their arrangement, Iggy did the cooking and Alex did the washing up.

“Why?”

“They’ve been out to get her for months,” Iggy explained, puffing out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “You can’t open that rag without reading something salacious about her.”

Alex hadn’t known that, but he didn’t even know who the mayor actually was, to say nothing of his wife.

“Well,” Iggy said, rising, “I believe I’m going to the library to read for a few hours. Come join me when you’re done.”

That actually sounded like a great idea. Alex hadn’t had time for pleasure reading in weeks.

“Sorry, Iggy,” he said as he scrubbed his plate. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

“Oh well,” Iggy said, heading off toward the library. “Suit yourself.”

It was eight o’clock when Alex finally got upstairs to his room. The room, like most of Alex’s life, was plain and simple. A metal framed bed stuck out from the back wall, flanked on either side by an end table, one empty and the other bearing an alarm clock, a telephone, a shot glass, and a mostly-empty bottle of bourbon. A dresser and a desk stood against one wall, one on either side of a large window. The opposite wall had two doors, one to his clothes closet and the other to a tiny bathroom complete with a stand-up shower. A comfortable reading chair stood alone with a small table next to it with a plain, brass lamp on it.

He took off his coat and poured himself a shot of bourbon from the bottle on his bedside table. His telephone sat right next to the bottle, but he studiously avoided looking at it.

After ten minutes and another shot of the bourbon, he finally pulled his red rune book out of his jacket and sat on his bed. He turned to the back of the book, just inside the back cover, where a pouch had been sewn. Inside, Alex kept business cards and anything important he might need with him.

He pulled a crisp, white card with sky blue printing on it out of the pouch. There were only two words on the card, along with a phone number.

Sorsha Kincaid.

Alex had met Sorsha in her capacity as an FBI consultant. She was the most incredible woman Alex had ever met, beautiful, sensual, and most important, dangerous. Sorsha was one of the New York Six, the six sorcerers who made their home in the greatest city in the world.

It was Sorsha that Alex had helped recover the missing plague last year. He’d thought she disliked him, but when Alex traded most of his life force to keep her floating castle from crashing into the city, she’d been very upset. The last time he saw her, she declared that she never wanted to see him again.

At the time, he’d thought that was a fine arrangement, but lately, he’d found himself missing her. He felt a connection to her that he could neither justify nor explain.

He sighed and picked up the phone, giving the operator the number. A moment later a cold, contralto voice slithered down the wire and into his ear.

“Hello?”

“Sorceress,” he said, in his most annoyingly cheery voice. “It’s been a long time.”

“Alex?” Her voice changed; it held none of the disdain he had expected. She seemed almost happy to hear from him. Alex suddenly became very aware of his own heartbeat.

“You do remember,” he said, trying to keep his voice easy and relaxed.

“I remember telling you never to call me again,” she said, her voice back to its usual imperious chill.

“Actually,” Alex said, a smile spreading across his face. “You said you never wanted to see me again. This doesn’t count.”

He didn’t know why he felt the need to antagonize a woman who had once threatened to freeze him solid, but it was an urge he simply couldn’t resist.

“This counts, Mr. Lockerby,” Sorsha said, her formal speech patterns reasserting themselves. “But since you’ve already interrupted me, why have you called?”

“I need a favor.”

Sorsha didn’t sigh, but Alex could feel her rolling her eyes through the phone.

“You are without question the most brash annoyance I’ve ever known,” she said. “And that’s saying something. What makes you think I have the time or the inclination to do you a favor?”

“It isn’t for me,” he said, then he explained about Bickman and his wife and their predicament.

“So, if I understand you,” Sorsha said once Alex finished, “you need help finding these people employment so they can pay you?”

Maybe that’s why he liked the sorceress so much — she saw through him so easily. That didn’t really make sense, but Alex couldn’t resist the thought.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to smile even though the sorceress couldn’t actually see him.

“That’s not exactly how I would put it,” he said. “These people need help and you’re the only person I know who travels in the circles that might need their services.”

The line went silent for a long minute and Alex could almost feel the chill on the other end seeping through the phone.

“As it happens, I might be able to help,” she said at last. “Tell Mr. Bickman to come by my office in the Chrysler building tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see him then.”

“Thanks, doll.”

“Don’t push your luck, Mr. Lockerby,” Sorsha said, then the line went dead with a loud click.

Alex replaced the receiver on the phone and looked around his room as if he expected there to be an audience.

“That went well,” he said to the empty air.

A knock at his door made him turn. Before he could respond, Iggy pushed it open.

“Are you finished?” he asked from the door.

“You heard?”

“Sorry, lad,” Iggy said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. How is Ms. Kincaid?”

“Chilly,” Alex said with a grin. “What can I do for you?”

“You have a visitor,” he said. “From the police,” he added at Alex’s confused look.

“Wow,” Alex said. “Danny must really have blown it.”

“It’s not Danny,” Iggy said with a serious look. “It’s the Lieutenant.”

“Callahan?” Alex asked. Frank Callahan was Danny’s boss on the police force and definitely wasn’t Alex’s biggest fan. “What does he want?”

“I suppose he wants your help,” Iggy said. “Apparently the ghost has killed again.”