Jayne Krentz - In Too Deep

He hunkered down, bracing his back against the wooden wall of the café, and methodically consumed the chicken dinner. Really, it was a shame the way people threw away good food. All the starving kids in the world and yet folks in the Cove tossed out perfectly edible stuff like chicken and mashed potatoes and peas every night. Same deal with muffins and coffee in the mornings. Damn shame.

He finished the meal and got to his feet. He went back to the garbage can, lifted the lid and deposited the empty take-out container inside.

Adjusting the hood of the long, heavy coat to shield his face from the rain, he resumed his patrol. The pressure in his head had been building again lately. That was not good. It meant something bad was going to happen.

He had discovered the warm, waterproof coat and the boots sitting on top of another trash container in the Cove. He was pretty sure that particular can was located in the alley behind the PI’s office.

The PI was important to Scargill Cove, but Walker wasn’t sure why, not yet, at any rate. He knew what he knew and that was enough. He had gotten the same whispery sense of certainty again when Isabella Valdez arrived in town. He had watched her walk into the Cove that night and known that she belonged there. Just like Jones.

Walker walked behind the row of darkened shops and turned right at the corner. The familiar route took him past the Scar. It was early, not quite seven o’clock. The tavern was still busy. He could hear the voices of the regulars inside. Elvis music drifted out into the night. He paid no attention. Everything was normal in this sector. His job was to keep an eye out for things that were wrong or out of place.

There had already been a couple of very disturbing developments today. Several hours ago Isabella had driven out of town. Jones had followed not long after. Walker had been very relieved when Isabella had returned, but it alarmed him that Jones had not yet come back to town.

He looked in the windows of the bookshop. It had closed recently following the death of the proprietor, a guy named Fitch. The book-seller had keeled over one day down in the basement. Heart attack, the authorities said. But Walker had known from the start that Fitch was bad news, an outsider who did not belong in the Cove. No loss.

He walked some more and checked out the windows of Isabella’s apartment above Toomey’s Treasures. The shades were closed but the lights were on. She was safe inside for the night. That was good. That was the way it should be.

Walker heard the low growl of Jones’s SUV in the street. The PI was back in town. The pressure in Walker’s head eased.

Jones parked the big vehicle behind the building that housed the Jones & Jones office. Walker waited in a darkened doorway, hands crammed into his pockets. He watched the upstairs window of the agency, waiting for the lights to go on inside. The lights were almost always on in J&J.

But the lights did not come on tonight. Instead, Fallon Jones emerged on the street and started toward Isabella’s apartment. He carried his computer in one hand and a bulky object wrapped in a blanket under one arm. He walked right past the doorway where Walker stood. Most folks would not have been aware that Walker was there, but Jones always seemed to sense his presence, always acknowledged him.

“Evening, Walker,” Fallon Jones said.

Walker did not respond. He was too stunned. He did not know what Jones was carrying in the blanket, but he recognized the traces of energy emanating from the object.

The pressure in his head abruptly got stronger, becoming almost intolerable. He resumed his rounds in a desperate effort to ease the pain while he tried to decide how to handle the catastrophe that had just struck the Cove.

Her name was Millicent Bridewell,” Fallon said. “She was a brilliant inventor and a trained clockmaker who lived during the Victorian era. She was also a powerful talent with a very unusual gift for accessing the paranormal properties of glass. All of her inventions include glass of some kind.”

“Like the face of the clock?” Isabella asked.

“Yes.” Fallon looked at the blanket-wrapped clock sitting on the floor of Isabella’s apartment. “Glass is still a big mystery to the Arcane experts. It’s unique in that it has properties of both liquids and solids. Generally speaking, paranormal energy passing through glass has unpredictable effects. But Bridewell figured out how to control the results. She used her talents to create a large number of what she called her clockwork curiosities. They were actually weapons.”

“How many did she make?” Isabella asked.

“No one knows for certain. She operated a legitimate shop that featured beautiful clockwork curiosities. Essentially, her creations were elegant toys for wealthy collectors. But she also ran a side business that catered to a different clientele.”

“What kind of clientele would that be?”

“Folks who wanted other folks such as inconvenient spouses or business partners permanently removed.”

“Got it,” Isabella said. “In other words Mrs. Bridewell ran a murder-for-hire business.”

“Well, in fairness to Mrs. B, she always insisted that the customer had to actually commit the murder. She considered herself an artist, after all, not a professional killer.”

“But she supplied the murder weapon,” Isabella said.

“Which was disguised as a charming example of the clockmaker’s art. The victim never saw it coming until it was too late.”

Fallon took a swallow of the whiskey Isabella had poured for him and let himself sink into the lumpy sofa. A great weariness was seeping into his bones, but it was not the kind of drowsiness that would promote sleep. The whiskey was taking off some of the edge, but it couldn’t touch the deep places. He would not get any real rest tonight. Just as well—he needed to think.

He watched Isabella through half-closed eyes. She was moving around in the minuscule kitchenette, putting together a meal. Her motions were economical, efficient, graceful. He was not hungry, but whatever she was making was starting to smell good.

He had been surprised when she had suggested that he come to her apartment for dinner after he finished with the county cops. We both need to decompress , she said. He wasn’t accustomed to decompressing with anyone else, but it had suddenly seemed like an excellent idea.

Isabella’s apartment was a warm, cheerful space filled with thriving green plants and cast-off furniture. The former tenant had disappeared one night, leaving no forwarding address, not an uncommon event in the Cove. Ralph Toomey owned the shabby rooms above his shop. He had offered them to Isabella and told her she could have the previous occupant’s furniture as well.

She had taken the apartment but declined the furniture. Fallon had helped Toomey haul a battered table, a couple of wobbly chairs, an unattractively stained mattress and rusty bedsprings to the town dump.

On the final expedition to the dump, a plastic baggie full of marijuana had fallen out of one ripped cushion.

“Always wondered how he managed to pay the rent,” Toomey remarked, pocketing the baggie. “Guy had no visible means of support. Figured he was in the business.”

“Probably explains why he disappeared in a hurry,” Fallon said.

Scargill Cove was on the fringes of the Emerald Triangle, a tricounty region in Northern California. In these parts it was freely acknowledged that marijuana was the largest cash crop, an economic engine that supported a multitude of businesses from gardening supply stores to gas stations. It also brought with it the usual law enforcement problems.

Toomey contemplated the stained mattress that they had tossed over the cliff into the ravine that served as the Cove’s dump.