Anton Strout - Deader Still

“Or I can just check this marvelous thing called the Internet,” I said.

Connor gave me a stern look. “Yeah, well, maybe these will show something the others don’t,” he said. “The Inter-net doesn’t solve all, especially when it comes to the occult. Just get going.”

I hesitated. I didn’t necessarily want to go back downtown to the offices, but Connor was clearly trying to reassert his authority over me after the lead I had been given by the Inspectre.

“What, kid?” he said, but it wasn’t just his normal shortness with me. He looked pissed off. Was it just the job, or was it something more? Connor walked over, meeting me eye to eye.

“Is that a problem?” he asked.

I shook my head no immediately. I didn’t like being put in my new role of responsibility, especially if it meant this type of confrontation came with it. Connor must have seen the look of fear and concern in my eyes. He backed off.

“Sorry, kid,” he said. There was a weariness on his face I had never seen before. “There’s just a lot going on right now.”

“You wanna talk about it?” I offered.

Immediately, the anger returned to his face. Anger and fear. “No. Just drop it, okay?”

This was a new attitude for Connor, and he didn’t wear it well. Back when we had been testing my skills, he had started to trust me as a partner. That trust meant a lot, especially since it had partly concerned the disappearance of his brother. Now it seemed gone, and I made a decision not to push it for now. I had already pushed my luck by going through his desk. I changed the subject.

“What about the booth back at Comic Con?” I said. “Won’t Inspectre Quimbley need me there?”

“Don’t worry,” Connor said, relaxing with the switch to more mundane subject matter. “I can cover the booth with the Inspectre.”

The thought didn’t exactly thrill me. If I wasn’t there to monitor the situation, what might the Inspectre possibly tell my partner about the case? Would the fact that I outrank Connor on this investigation come up?

I didn’t think so. Orders given under the confidence of the Fraternal Order of Goodness were usually not discussed with outsiders. At least, I hoped that was the case.

Handling the actual investigation of Cleopatra’s Needle all by myself back at the Lovecraft Café would give me a chance to find out if it meant anything to the case at all.

“Sure,” I said, resigning myself to his orders. It was just easier to let Connor think he was in control, especially because he didn’t look like he wanted to be crossed at the moment. Besides, his instincts in this investigation seemed to be leading us in the right direction, so no harm, no foul.

“I’ll log what I know with Godfrey or one of the other archivists once I get a better idea what arcane connections this thing might have,” I said.

Connor nodded and I started up the path leading to the park’s Fifth Avenue exit.

“Oh, and kid?” he shouted after me. I turned. Connor was staring down at the base of the spire where the jogger had been found. “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow morning. Davidson said the time of death was sometime between four and six.”

“Let’s hope this ghost jogger is a repeater, then,” I said. I didn’t relish the idea of waiting for this ghost to appear again, but the likelihood of it showing up was stronger during the hours it had originally died. “So what time are we talking?” My body already ached from our chase, and without an early bedtime, I knew it would be as stiff as a board come morning. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Connor checked his watch.

“On second thought,” he said. “Maybe you just better meet me here at three a.m.”

“You sure it’s wise to be here that late at night?” I shouted back down the hill. “You’re wary of the park in daylight hours.”

“Kid, the idea of being here at night terrifies me,” he said, looking around, “but I’m sick of playing catch-up on this case. If we go back to the docks now, we’d simply be wasting time. We need to catch this ghost if we’re going to get some answers. We’ve got a job to do, and even though I’m not happy about being out here at three a.m., at least I can take comfort that I won’t be alone in my misery.”

Connor smiled and turned back to the spire just in time to miss me flipping him off, which, all in all, was probably a good thing. I didn’t need to give him any excuses when we met up later tonight to push me into the path of any creepy crawlies or boogeymen we might run into.

By the time I got back to the office, I was thankful that my pants had finally dried from their dip in the reservoir to retrieve my bat. As I walked through the coffee shop, I noticed that Godfrey Candella was scribbling furiously in one of his notebooks. He barely looked up.

I pushed my way through the theater curtain and headed down the aisle toward the offices. Nosferatu played on-screen, and an army of young gothsicles was crowding the theater for it. I continued on, swiping through the office door and then shutting it against the stench of clove cigarettes coming from the theater.

The main office area was pretty busy this time of day, and I couldn’t find signs of Jane anywhere. I stopped by my desk, hoping to remember where I had scrawled her phone number at some point. Since I only had it programmed onto the SIM card of my now-melted phone, I didn’t know it off the top of my head. Who the hell memorizes phone numbers these days anyway?

After several minutes of looking, I shifted a growing pile of my casework into my in-box, and found the number scrawled on the corner of my desk blotter. I also noticed that someone had already printed out black-and-white copies of the obelisk photos Connor had taken and left them on his desk.

I sat down and flipped through the photos while dialing Jane’s cell phone number from the phone at my desk. It felt strange to be using a regular phone, and I wondered if I had ever actually used it before at all.

“Tome, Sweet Tome,” I heard Jane say when she finally answered. “Everything from abracadabra to zoology for the cryptozoologist. How may I help you?”

“Jane,” I said. “It’s me.” I checked the number on the caller ID. I hadn’t dialed the bookstore, had I? “I’m sorry . . . Did I call the store by mistake?”

“Shoot,” she said. “No, you got my cell. I’m back in the Stacks, and I forgot what line I was answering. I’m a bit distracted right now. Sorry.”

The sounds of her shifting books around came over the line.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just happy to hear your voice.”

“Oh,” Jane exclaimed. “Did you get your new phone from Supply yet?”

“No. I’m at my desk. I was hoping to get a little investigative work done, hoping you were here.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“We’ve established that.”

“Right . . . duh!”

She was back to her normal self, not a trace of the ol’ darkness. There was something so cute about the way she sounded that all of the paranoia that Mina had planted in me last night started melting away.

“I could probably swing by the store,” I said. “I have to log some time back in the Black Stacks anyway. We came across this Egyptian monolith thing in Central Park when Connor and I were called in to check out a dead jogger at the base of it. I have to head back out to the park at some ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow, but I need to check the Stacks in the meantime to see if there’s anything listed about Cleopatra’s Needle in them.”

In the background, I heard a male voice, and the cadence of it seemed distinctly like Director Wesker. His words gave way to laughter and Jane started laughing as well.