No one but Nina Simone answered.
Nine
Once again, I was awakened from sleep in the wee hours of the night, this time by Mogwai turning from a warm, dense ball of fur curled against my side into a hissing, spitting, feral creature uttering a low, unearthly wail. Leaping from the bed, Mogwai dashed toward the screened porch.
I sat bolt upright. “What the—”
Outside the screened porch, there was a clatter and a clash, followed by the sound of a door banging open, a rising guttural roar, an alarmed human-sounding shout, and the sound of running feet pounding down the alley.
Yanking on a pair of jeans below the tank top I slept in, I grabbed my phone, unlocked the door to my apartment, and ran downstairs.
Mrs. Browne was in the alley, a broom clutched in her gnarled hands and raised like a club. There was no trace now of the sweet little old lady she usually appeared to be. The lines on her wizened face had hardened into something ancient and fierce and dangerous, filled with all the righteous fury of a brownie protecting its household.
That was another reason I usually felt safe in my apartment at night. Left to their own devices and provided the appropriate offerings—in Mrs. Browne’s case, a fully stocked and prepped bakery kitchen—brownies are benevolent, domestic souls. When threatened, they can and will defend their chosen household with the strength of ten.
“Daisy, lass.” She lowered her broom, her expression easing. “Are ye well?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Browne. Did you see what it was?”
She shook her head. “I heard the ruckus and came a-running.” Her broad nostrils flared. “Mortal by the smell o’ him, with a skinful o’ beer.” She pointed toward the west end of the alley, where it curved past the Christian Science church. “He went thataway. Do ye reckon it were just a burglar or a creepin’ Tom?”
There was a soft thud from that direction, then a movement in the shadows that made me jump. Mogwai stalked out, his fur bristling.
I relaxed. “I don’t know. I’d like to think so, but . . .”
“But there’s ill doin’s afoot.” Mrs. Browne peered at me beneath her furrowed brow, her deep-set eyes as dark as bog water. “Have ye spoken to the nixies yet?”
“Not yet.” Nixies fell into the same category as naiads and undines. “I’ll go at dawn.”
She patted my hand. “I’ve a nice tray of buns fresh from the oven. Come inside and have one, child. It will help settle your nerves.”
It wasn’t an offer anyone in their right mind would refuse, no matter what the circumstances. Pocketing my phone, I followed her in through the back door of the kitchen, Mogwai winding around my ankles.
I perched on a stool, nibbling on the warm cinnamon bun Mrs. Browne gave me. Trust me: If you think you know what heaven in the form of a fresh cinnamon bun tastes like, you’re mistaken. This was cloud-light and soft as a pillow, laced with subtle layers of butter and cinnamon, just the right amount of icing melting atop it, miles away from the immense, glutinous blobs of dough drenched in cloyingly sweet icing you get at those Cinnabon franchises that permeate malls and airports. Aside from inducing a passing concern that I might be succumbing to gluttony, it did indeed help settle my nerves.
“Do ye reckon this was about the boy who was killed?” Mrs. Browne asked, pouring some cream into a bowl for Mogwai. He lapped it eagerly.
I took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Do you know for a fact he was killed?”
“Nay.” Her look turned shrewd. “But I know for a fact you’d not be looking into it if there weren’t somewhat off about the boy’s death. The regular police, aye. Not you, Daisy, lass.”
I took another bite. “It may be nothing. But if you hear anything about it in the community, you’ll let me know?”
Mrs. Browne huffed. “Don’t go offendin’ me, now! Of course I will. But no one I’ve spoken to knows aught.” She upended a large bowl of bread dough onto the counter, dusted her strong, nut-brown hands with flour, and began pummeling the yeasty mass. “You do know your dear mother’s worried about you?”
“I know.” Smiling, I finished my cinnamon bun. “That’s why she’s got you looking out for me, isn’t it?”
She didn’t return my smile. “You be careful, child. I do what I can to protect my own here.” She waved one floury hand in the direction of the door. “There’s naught I can do out there.”
Hopping down from the stool, I kissed her wizened cheek. “I know, Mrs. B. Thank you. If you hear something out back in a few minutes, it’s just me.”
She huffed again, flapping her hand at me. “Go on with ye, then.”
With Mogwai trotting at my heels, I went upstairs to fetch my flashlight, then back downstairs to have a look around.
There was a dent in the plastic lid of the bakery’s Dumpster. Scanning the ground beneath it with the beam of my flashlight, I made out the faint impression of a footprint in the dusty patch between the alley and the Dumpster. It was facing away from, not toward, the disposal unit.
Someone had climbed onto the Dumpster, then jumped down and run away, scared off by Mogwai’s caterwauling and Mrs. Browne’s wrath.
My tail twitched with nervous energy.
Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I glanced at the time. A quarter hour short of three o’clock in the morning. That meant it could have been nothing, an energetic drunk meandering home unusually late from the bar, hopped up on vodka and Red Bull and bent on idle mayhem. I squatted lower and studied the footprint, measuring it against my own. It definitely belonged to either a man, or a woman with unfortunately large feet. Given the odds, I’d bet on the former. The imprint had been left by a sturdy industrial tread, maybe a work boot.
Or a motorcycle boot.
Oh, crap.
I knocked on the back door of the bakery kitchen before poking my head inside. “Mrs. Browne?”
“Eh?” She cocked her head at me.
“You said you thought it was a mortal,” I said. “Any chance it could have been a ghoul?”
I was hoping she would say no.
Instead, she looked thoughtful. “Well, now, that would depend on its diet, Daisy, lass. Those what exist on pure emotion, more often than not they reek of misery. But there’s ghouls that walk among us and pass for ordinary folk. They can eat and drink like mortals; it’s only that they take no sustenance from it. One of those . . .” She shrugged. “Aye, one of those might have fooled my nose.”
I sighed.
Her expression hardened. “Don’t tell me you’re mixed up with the likes o’ them, Daisy Johanssen!”
“No, no.” I willed away a quick vision of Stefan Ludovic and his disturbingly patient ice-blue gaze. “Just checking.”
Back outside, I stood uncertainly before the Dumpster, thumbing through the contact list on my phone.
I wanted to call Cody.
But lingering guilt stayed my hand. Also, I didn’t have the first piece of evidence that my late-night maybe-would-be intruder had anything to do with this case. Hell, we didn’t even know whether it was a case yet.
So I settled for splitting the difference. Treating it as a possibility, I used my phone to take photos of the dented Dumpster lid and the dusty boot print.
“Good enough?” I asked Mogwai.
Mogwai answered with a low, distressed howl followed by a gagging sound, his sides heaving as he hunched over in the alley, opened his jaws, and barfed a prodigious mixture of kibble and rich cream all over the boot print. Distancing himself from the mess, he shot me an embarrassed look.
I’d had a feeling that bowl of cream was a bad idea, but so is refusing a brownie’s hospitality.
Oh, well.
“Never mind,” I said to him. “At least you puked outside, big guy. C’mon; let’s go back to bed.”
Approximately two hours later, my alarm rousted me from the warm confines of my bed, Creedence Clearwater Revival informing me that there was, in fact, a bad moon on the rise.
“No shit,” I mumbled, slapping at the snooze alarm. “Tell me something I don’t know, huh?”
Seven minutes later, Mick Jagger told me that while he was so hot for me, I was so cold, like an ice-cream cone.
“As if.” This time I turned the alarm off and hauled myself upright. “You’re an old man, Mick Jagger. When’s the last time you had an ice-cream cone?”
The clock radio remained silent. Nestled into a tangle of sheets and blanket, Mogwai purred obliviously.
It was a bit after five o’clock in the morning and still dark outside. Yawning, I dragged myself into presentable clothing. Naiads are particular about appearances. A short skirt of summer-weight gray wool, check. A sleeveless white cotton shirt, check. Freshwater pearls looped around my neck, check. Given the hike ahead of me, I opted for sensible footwear, shoving my feet into a pair of white Keds and hoping the naiads would overlook them.
My old Honda Civic hadn’t been driven for a couple of days, and it whined in protest when I turned the key in the ignition before catching. It wasn’t that far to the nature preserve, but after last night, I didn’t feel like walking the streets alone.
Even in the car, I found myself glancing nervously in the rearview mirror, but the town was empty.
Five minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Ellsworth Nature Preserve. It, too, was empty. You might think that would be a given at this hour, but the preserve was a favorite haunt of birdwatchers, and those people are crazy.
Flicking on my flashlight, I set out along the marked trail that led to the river. That was the easy part. When I reached the river, I departed from the trail and plunged into the undergrowth.
I’d spent a lot of time playing along the river as a kid, but that had been years ago, and it seemed I’d lost the knack of moving effortlessly through nature. Twigs caught at my hair, and vines tangled my feet. I blundered underneath low-hanging branches and tripped over fallen logs.
By the time I reached my destination, a broad, secluded bend in the river, there were streaks of orange and pink in the sky, mirrored in the still surface of the water. A shy green heron took issue at my approach, tall-stepping carefully away into deeper cover among the reeds. Dragonflies were beginning to stir, darting about on translucent wings.