Anton Strout - Dead Waters

“Let’s get going, then,” Connor said. “The sooner we wrap this up for the Inspectre, the sooner we all get back to our regular office drudgery.”

Jane gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Awesome,” she said. “Let me go tell Director Wesker I’m heading back out and grab my coat. My boss won’t be too pleased, but then again, when is he ever?”

She gave us a quick smile before I could even agree with her, and then ran off through the black curtains that led back into the theater and our offices.

“Making us work as a couple,” I mused. “Do I get time and a half for that or something?”

Connor shook his head. “Not in this economy,” he said, pulling his coat on.

“Then it sucks to be working in this economy,” I said. “And in this weather.”

“Can’t control either,” Connor said, “but don’t sweat it, kid. You need to worry about the things you can control.”

“Thanks for covering for me back at our desks,” I said. “When she asked about what I couldn’t shake.”

Connor smiled. “No problem,” he said. “Don’t worry about that, either. The older you get, the more practiced you get at lying on the fly. You go through enough relationships and it just gets easier.”

“Such a romantic,” I said. “Well, I’ve got that to look forward to, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the future too much,” he said, turning away from me and walking off.

“Oh, no?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said, heading for the coffee counter. “Probably won’t live long enough.”

Professor Mason Redfield’s apartment was the way we had left it hours earlier—minus the professor’s body from the middle of his living room, of course.

“Nice to see the regular cops can still act as a cleanup crew,” Connor said.

“I prefer to think of them as our janitors,” I said, leaving the spot where the body had lain and heading off to a set of bookcases on my right.

“Tsk-tsk,” Jane said. “Now, boys, be nice. They were perfectly fine when I was roaming the halls here.”

“Of course they were,” I said, starting to look through the volumes of theater and film books stacked neatly along them. “You’ve got girly bits and all the stuff that guys want to be nice to.”

Jane shrugged and fixed me with a wicked grin from across the room. “I wonder if one of them would let me have more storage space in their apartment,” she said.

My face flushed as a jealousy far more potent than my own would have been gurgled up. “Maybe,” I said, a little tweaked that she was bringing it up in front of Connor. “You want to try your luck with one of them? Go for it.”

Connor stepped between us and spoke before Jane had a chance to respond. “Can we please focus on the casework here?” he asked. “This is a murder scene, not The Dating Game . Show some respect for the departed professor and the Inspectre. Now focus. Do you think he’d entrust this particular investigation to just anybody?”

“You’re right,” Jane said. “Sorry.”

“Me, too,” I said, willing myself to calm down. The flare subsided.

The three of us set about exploring the apartment. Despite nothing triggering my power earlier, I pressed my power into a few of the books on the shelves, bringing up nothing but a variety of images of the still-living Professor Redfield lecturing students down at New York University.

“Anything?” Connor asked. “We need some kind of motivation for this murder.”

“Maybe he failed the wrong film student,” I suggested.

Connor shook his head. “Still wouldn’t explain this ghost woman in green Jane was told about,” he said.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Then maybe they’re building this place on an Indian burial ground. . . ?”

Jane gave me a weak smile, one side of her mouth curling up all cute-like. “Let’s not get all Poltergeist now.”

I looked back to Connor.

He shrugged and scanned the apartment. “What she said. I wouldn’t go with Poltergeist . I’m still not picking up any displaced spirits here.”

I went back to scanning the bookshelves. “Just throwing out suggestions in the face of nothing here,” I said. “Trying to keep my thinking outside of the box.”

“Could you try to keep it in a nearby box at least?” Connor said, agitated.

“Hey,” I said, spinning around, his agitation causing my tattooist’s anger to spike. “I’m trying here.”

“Guys,” Jane said, but the two of us were too busy sniping at each other to give her our attention.

“Try harder, then,” Connor said.

“Guys,” Jane whispered, with urgency this time. Connor and I turned to look at her. She was staring past us at the wall of windows behind us. I turned back to it with caution. Beyond the glass, a lone female figure stood in the darkness and pouring rain on the patio out by the swimming pool. Long black hair rolled in loose curls over her shoulders and a green drape of a gown that covered her body. She stood there motionless, staring.

Jane whispered, “What do we do?”

“We establish contact,” Connor said, creeping toward the glass doors. He reached into the outer pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a corked vial. “Or trap her and make her talk.”

“Lead on, ghost whisperer,” I said and fell in step behind him. When he got to the glass doors, he slid one of them open and the three of us stepped out onto the patio. The rain came down hard, making countless circular ripples along the surface of the pool as it fell. Connor stepped out into the rain. The woman’s eyes followed him, yet she remained poised and stock-still.

Connor thumbed the stopper off the vial in his hand. Its contents rose up into the air in a twist of brown smoke and drifted off toward her, but the tendrils failed to wind their way around her, instead dissipating. Connor looked back over his shoulder at us. “Not a ghost,” he said and slipped the empty vial back into his coat pocket. “Never trust neighbors to classify something right.”

I stepped forward. “Excuse me,” I shouted out to her. “You want to tell us what you’re doing out here?”

The woman shifted her focus over to me. She was striking, with high cheekbones, but when her eyes met mine, a chill cut into my soul.

“Hey!” Connor said, snapping his fingers to get her attention once more. “The kid asked you a question. Did you know the professor. . . and how did you get out here?”

“She’s not talking,” Jane said.

“I noticed that,” Connor said.

“We can take care of that downtown,” I said. I pulled out my bat and extended it even though the woman definitely wasn’t hiding anything on her—not in that dress, anyway.

Her eyes went to my hands. I walked toward her through the downfall of rain, but for every step I took, the woman backed away one.

“Easy, now,” I said. “We’re going to get answers from you, one way or the other.”

I kept advancing as she retreated until her back was pressed up against the railing between two of the gargoyles at the far edge of the patio. I paused as I gave the stone statues the once-over. If they came to life or anything like that, I was not going to be happy.

The farther away from the building I stepped, the worse the storm got, wind whipping all around us. Behind the woman, I could see the East River and the skyline of Queens off in the distance, giving me a bout of vertigo from the perspective.

After a moment of inspecting the gargoyles, I decided they looked inanimate enough and started closing with the woman once more. I stepped around the pool to avoid it and kept moving with caution toward the woman, fishing a pair of handcuffs out of my coat’s inside pocket. It was exciting to have someone cuffable for a change. “Don’t do anything stupid,” I said. “We’re authorized by the Department of Extraordinary Affairs to take you into custody for the possible murder of Professor Mason Redfield.”