I was talkin’ with somebody, right? he asked himself. Maybe not. I think I just need a fix. Better grab that game system. Should be able to get a bit for it. I hope.
Feeling strangely happy, Walt walked to the game system and pulled the cords out of the back.
Chapter 9: Crime Scene
Tuesday, 12:15 AM
The computer pinged, and Shane looked up from the translation he was working on. There was a new email from Captain Thompson.
Shane placed a bookmark in the text, closed it, and then opened the email. The subject line read, Nashua.
There was a file attached to the email, and Shane clicked on it. The computer opened the file, and Shane was greeted with several pages of reports, and then photos of the crime scene. He ignored the images that focused solely on the bodies of the killer and his victim. Instead, Shane enlarged the photos, seeking the one item he knew to be in the room.
He saw it after several minutes of searching.
There they are, he thought, lighting a cigarette and sitting back in his chair. Just like she said they were. They don’t seem to be important to the crime scene, so, in theory, the damned things should still be there.
I probably shouldn’t rush right over there, though, he mused. Cops tend to frown on people stomping around crime scenes, even if they have been processed. Plus, I’ll need to give James a quick call in the morning, see if he’s had any luck with finding any history for the glasses. I doubt it. That would be too much to hope for.
Shane picked up a cold cup of tea and sipped at the dregs. His body longed for the powerful taste of whiskey, but he refused to yield to the desire.
Laughter interrupted his solitude, and when he looked up, he saw the dead girl Eloise rush past the open door to the library. One of the Davis sisters was chasing after her.
Shane shook his head. Who in the hell locked those women up? And why? What’d they do, refuse to marry someone? Tell their father or an uncle no?
Disgusted, he stood up and stretched. Several vertebrae in his back popped, and he winced. He rubbed at the back of his head, knowing he shouldn’t sit for lengthy periods of time.
I wish Jacinta was here, he thought. I miss her.
He walked out of the study and into the hallway. Glancing around, he saw Carl standing by the front window, looking down into the lamp-lit street.
“How’s it going?” Shane asked the dead man as he walked to the window.
Carl glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “It goes well, thank you. Eloise and the Davis sisters are outside now.”
Shane came to a stop beside the dead man and peered down into the yard. The three sisters and Eloise were chasing each other back and forth.
“It makes me wonder,” Carl said after a moment of silence. “Who placed those women in an asylum?”
Shane chuckled, and Carl looked at him with surprise.
Shaking his head, Shane explained, “No, I just had the same thought in the library. That’s why I laughed.”
The dead man smiled and gave a small nod. He returned his attention to the ghosts in the yard. Absently, Carl asked, “How are you feeling, Shane?”
“I don’t know,” Shane answered after a moment. “Part of me feels good. Great, really. But that’s when I think of Jacinta. She makes me happy.”
“And what of the other part?” A deep sadness filled his voice, and Shane remembered Carl’s own tragic story, the love he had been denied, and the punishment that had claimed the German’s life.
“That part’s worried,” Shane answered. “I wonder what’s going to go wrong. I don’t mean with the relationship. She’s great. Even if it ends, I’ll be happy to have her as my friend. I know I’m rough. Difficult. No, I worry that something from our world, Carl, our twisted little bit of nightmare is going to reach out and take her away from me. It’s one thing to know she’s out and about in Detroit, living her life. It’s another to think that some dead SOB is going to kill her.”
Carl nodded. Then, after a brief silence, he asked, “Do you want to send one of us home with her when next she visits?”
Shane smiled. “No. She has her relative. He’s a hard man. I think if any dead tried to harm her, he would step in. And there’s no reason to think he hasn’t already.”
“Very good, my friend.” Carl sighed. The mantel clock in the lower study chimed out the hour of one, and the dead man looked at Shane. “You should best get some sleep. You are, I trust, going to attempt to retrieve the sunglasses in the morning?”
“Whatever gave you that idea, Carl?” Shane asked, feigning surprise. “You act like I do absurd things that put my life in danger.”
Carl raised an eyebrow, and Shane chuckled.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “You’re right, I need some sleep. You’ll keep an eye on the sisters and our Eloise?”
“I always do, my friend,” Carl smiled.
With that, Shane turned and made his way toward his bedroom, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on him.
Chapter 10: Hiding at Home
Tuesday, 2:00 AM
The room was small, barely large enough for the old metal-framed military cot that stood alongside one wall. Across from it was a single, battered bureau. Beside the room’s solitary door was a wall locker that served as a closet, and the room had a single window that looked down onto Canal Street and the veterans’ park.
Rooms at the Laton Hotel were cheap, nasty, and each floor had one communal bathroom.
Walt Knight hated living there, but it was all he could afford with his habit.
The thought of heroin set him to scratching, and his attention was drawn to the top of the bureau. He had cleared it of everything, even his needle and the rest of his kit for shooting up. All that occupied its scarred top was the pair of sunglasses he had taken from the crime scene.
Walt couldn’t take his eyes from them.
What was more, he didn’t want to.
The room’s temperature sank, and he pulled the old, rough woolen blanket that had come with the room around his shoulders.
Miriam appeared a moment later beside the bureau. She smiled and walked to the window. For a moment, she looked out at Canal Street and the junkies loitering around the monuments of the veterans’ park.
“This world is so strange,” she murmured. “So different from the one I remember.”
“Um,” Walt began, trying to think of a way to frame his question, his mind slipping in and out of focus. “When were you born?”
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. “Hm, how about we stick to when I died? A lady, even a dead one, doesn’t like to reveal her age.”
Walt grinned sheepishly, his cheeks red with embarrassment.
“Anyway,” she continued, turning around, “I died in 1957. Shot in the belly, as you can see.”
Walt nodded. He didn’t like to look at her wound or the blood on her skin and pants. It hurt him to think of her in pain.
Miriam sat beside him on the bed, the cold emanating from her penetrating the wool.
“Do you want to hear how I died?” she asked in a low, husky whisper. “Do you want to know who did it to me?”
Walt didn’t want to, but he felt as though he needed to. “Yes,” he answered.