Voodoo Shanghai, page 7
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“Oh, hell no,” I said as soon as I stepped into Aaron’s apartment.
It wasn’t Aaron standing in the entrance, guilt written all over his face, that inspired my disgust. It was the man sitting at his kitchen table with a shit-eating smirk. I spun around, only to find Aaron blocking my exit.
“Wait!” Aaron said, holding out his arms, in defence or conciliation, maybe both.
“Aaron,” I managed, my face hot. “Is this your idea of a bad joke?” Because it sure as hell wasn’t the breakfast he’d promised me.
“Detective Baal was acting under my orders, Ms. Strange,” Captain Marks called out. I turned to face him and his thinly veiled contempt. “I asked him to invite you, nice and polite like, to the bargaining table, as it were, since we don’t exactly have a good track record in that regard.” He sneered at the last part.
“The polite part or the invitations?”
“Both.” He gestured to the table. “And look—Baal has gone to such trouble to make us a nice spread. Would be a shame to let it all go to waste.” He dug into a plate of syrup-drenched pancakes. All I could think about was wiping that grin off his face. Instead, I turned on Aaron.
“I swear to god, open that door right now or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” the captain shouted. A bully tactic, meant to make you jump, which is exactly what I did. He laughed, and all I could do was bunch my fists.
The captain kicked out the chair directly across from him. It scraped loudly against the tile floor. “Have a seat, Strange. Listen to what I have to say—you’re already here. Detective Baal over there will even pour you a cup of coffee.” He held up his own in mock cheers, still visibly amused at my discomfort.
Unfortunately, I was already here, and clearly the captain wanted to talk. I had no illusions as to what would happen if I stormed out. He’d come up with another way to talk to me, probably involving a jail cell. He’d done so before. I shook my head and took a seat, shooting Aaron a look that I hoped communicated my fury.
Still grinning, the captain picked up the plate of bacon, passing it my way. “Here, Strange, try the bacon. Detective Baal’s not a half-bad cook.”
“What do you want?” I asked as Aaron slid a cup of coffee in front of me. The fact that Marks was so visibly enjoying himself really pissed me off.
“Can the attitude, Strange. There’s been a new development in the Martin Dane kidnapping case. Katy Price has been found in Portland, Oregon. You’ve been following the case since we last spoke?”
“Hard not to, since the kidnapping has been all over the news.” The media had jumped on the terror bandwagon, assuming it had to be Dane from beyond the grave. As I’d said, I had yet to be convinced.
“Go on, Strange.” The captain winked at me, a mocking gesture, and slid a manila folder across the table towards me. “Indulge me and take a peek. You know you want to.”
Against my better judgment, I gave in and flipped the folder open—if only to assuage my curiosity as to what it was about this murder that had catalyzed this ambush.
Jesus Christ…
Despite working with the dead day in, day out, it’s never easy for me to look at bodies—especially those of murder victims. It’s ten times worse when they’re young.
I’d seen the Missing photos of Katy online and on TV. Katy had been a pretty girl—athletic, long-limbed, a tennis player and academic achiever. I’d like to think her photo went viral out of hope she’d be discovered alive—that maybe the constant iterations of her face and the gruesome specifics of Dane’s string of murders would inspire people to listen for muffled cries or report suspicious behaviour in their neighbourhoods—and not for the ratings that a sensationalized serial killer murder spree and a pretty young face inspire, not for the morbid fascination the public has with disasters—brimstone and fire.
I like to think that even I can be an optimist sometimes.
No young woman deserves to be murdered, but with Katy, people just couldn’t help but feel the injustice. She was that kind of girl, the definition of a good kid. She’d done well in school, respected her curfew, excelled at team sports, dressed modestly. Unlike how I’d been as a teen. She was also white. Most of Dane’s victims had been white, meaning the public outcry had been threefold.
Regardless of race and affluence, Katy should never, in a million years, have found herself the target of a serial killer, in the hallway of her own school, no less.
But she had. Her entire family had somehow offended Dane’s sensibilities. As I’d said to Astrid last night, there are some people for whom death really is unfair.
There were ten photos in total, which I spread across Aaron’s tablecloth. I’d like to say I didn’t flinch at what I saw, that I was immune to crime scene photos—the violence and death frozen in time. But that would be a lie. I pushed my own emotions aside and forced myself to look.
The first five images looked as if they’d been taken in a 1950s-style kitchen, except the walls were rough-sheared wood and the ground was dirt, as though this was a barn. Renovated for occupancy, though the occupancy seemed to be intended for the dead. There was a chrome and Arborite table not unlike the one Nate had found us, except this one was done in shades of light blue and orange.
I whistled as I examined a close-up of Katy. She’d been dressed in an outfit that clearly reflected Dane’s fantasy, a bright-pink 1950s-style poodle skirt paired with a T-shirt-style white button-up blouse and black patent Mary Janes. The clothes looked vintage, and her dark, curly hair had been pulled tightly back into a short ponytail.
“Definitely his trademark,” I said absently. The purpose of the imagery and what it meant to Dane was anyone’s guess—but rumour had it he’d had an unnatural obsession with the “good old days” and had targeted families that might have offended 1950s sensitivities: same-sex couples, single parents and divorcees, outsider and introverted kids who dabbled in drugs, alcohol or the Otherside. What the hell had bothered him about Katy and her family was anyone’s guess.
It definitely fit part of Dane’s MO. But was it him? I ran through the possibilities in my head. Serial killers are a pain in the ass when they’re dead—classic poltergeist fodder, since the hunger to kill people never dies. Still, abducting a person in broad daylight without an audience…In my experience, poltergeists don’t do anything subtle or by half measures. They are all about chaos, on as large a scale as possible.
“It could be a copycat, or maybe Dane’s found a fan,” I said. “You’d be surprised how great serial killer ghosts are at homing in on the one person on the other side of the mirror who is just itching to dabble in a little mayhem and murder.”
Marks shook his head, and for the first time since I sat down the amusement faltered. “The experts have ruled out a copycat. It’s Dane all right.”
“How?”
Marks shook his head. “Not your concern. The experts are sure. The photos?”
That only made me more dubious, but I turned my attention back to the series of photos. I frowned—there was something odd about her position.
“Shit.” There were five of Katy sitting across from herself at the orange-and-blue kitchen table, arms folded, staring at her own body. It was her ghost. Her mirror image, wearing the same blue skirt and white top. The corpse must have been strapped to the chair, the way it sat up straight.
That alone wasn’t so strange. Ghosts have no problem being photographed. Neither was her hanging around her own body. When a person is violently killed or suddenly dies, often their ghost doesn’t cross the barrier—not immediately. I’d even come across ghosts who followed their corpses around, as if by this action they reclaimed a fraction of control over the event that had stolen their life. Sometimes they even tie themselves to a place—a home or a death site. This was one of two reasons I never stepped a damn foot inside a hospital if I could help it.
No, Katy hanging around her body waiting for it to be found wasn’t outside the norm—but there were a lot of other things wrong.
“Ghosts don’t appear in the clothes they died in.” I tapped the photo. “She should be dressed in something familiar—her own clothes, track pants, T-shirts, sneakers, a hoodie, jeans.”
“Could it be shock?” Aaron asked.
I frowned, considering the question as I went back to the photos, searching for the time stamps, momentarily letting my own curiosity take precedence over how uncomfortable this meeting was. “Possibly, but…” I stopped, realizing what else was needling me about the photos.
The five photos of Katy’s ghost had been taken over twenty-four hours, at four- or five-hour intervals. The most recent had been taken yesterday afternoon.
Exact same posture, same position of the head…
Not wanting to talk to Marks more than absolutely necessary, I held a photo up to Aaron. “Does she ever move? In between shots?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Not an inch—and she hasn’t said a word, either. She was still there yesterday evening when I last spoke to my contact, Stephan,” he added, anticipating my next question.
I looked for even the slightest alteration in her ghost’s position between the different photographs.
“Okay. That is odd,” I admitted, when I couldn’t find one. Ghosts are anything but still. They move, interact with their surroundings and the people they come in contact with—that’s the point. They don’t say “the restless dead” for nothing. But by all accounts Katy was a statue.
I gave Aaron a sideways glance. “Is there any preliminary on the toxicology report? A chemical or drug found on the scene?”
Dane had strangled all his victims, but not before injecting them with a neurotoxin, one that immobilized them without killing them. He then posed them around the table, locked in, watching the horror unfold. Dane had been careful with the strangulation, using compression on both sides of his immobilized victims’ necks to avoid breaking the hyoid bone and crushing the trachea. It was a coroner from California who first noticed it, the slight bruising on the side of the neck of a young victim, hemorrhaged eyes. On further inspection, he found the damage to the artery.
It was subtle—the kind of subtlety and effort people go to when they want to keep their methods hidden—or show off.
“None on the scene,” Aaron said.
“Time of death?”
Marks answered this time. “Two days ago.”
“Any sign of Dane?” I asked, searching Marks’s face for anything behind the smirk that would tell me he was lying.
“Above my pay grade. And classified.”
Bullshit. “I’ll give it to you the photos are intriguing.” I returned his smirk. “I’ve looked. What do you want?”
Captain Marks sneered at me, and Aaron cursed under his breath.
“Depends who you ask,” Marks said, dropping his napkin over his plate of unfinished food. “The FBI want you to fly down and consult. See if you can figure out how Dane’s still killing from six feet under, amongst other things. Me?” He stood and came around the table to hover over me. “I don’t care if you figure out the how. I want you to find and bind the son of a bitch.”
“Captain, that’s not what we discussed,” Aaron warned. “Kincaid already said—”
I cut him off. “No.” It was simple, to the point. I wasn’t binding a ghost—not even Dane. “Better yet, tell them to get Liam Sinclair.”
The captain didn’t seem too put off by my refusal. “Well,” he grunted, heaving on his heavy jacket. “I’ll let you take that up with the FBI, in Portland,” he said.
“No. As in not until hell freezes over and pigs fly—”
The captain didn’t let me finish. “Cut the crap, Strange. You and I both know you can’t resist sticking your nose in a good murder. Doubly so when a ghost is involved. Baal, make the travel arrangements.” To me, before he closed the door, he added, “Consider yourself shanghaied.”
I kept silent for a grand total of ten seconds after the door shut behind the captain. I turned on Aaron. “How the hell could you?”
“I swear, Kincaid, I let him know we were meeting, but I didn’t know he was going to show up here. If I had any idea…” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. I should have known better.”
I was still furious and would have liked nothing more than to scream at Aaron, but the sincerity on his face convinced me. He’d been bamboozled as well. Some breakfast…
With nothing to say and an empty stomach, I did what any self-respecting practitioner would do: I dug into the breakfast of bacon, hash browns and pancakes. Aaron had the good sense to let me eat in silence.
When I had finished, he cleared my plate and returned to the table carrying two refilled coffees, mine black, which he passed to me.
After taking a long moment to glare at Aaron and let him know just how pissed I was, I returned to the manila folder the captain had left behind.
Aaron kept quiet while I spread things out for a second time.
There were only two very brief FBI reports included with the photos—heavily redacted, which was odd for paranormal cases. The first was an account of the new murder scene, and the second was a coroner’s report. Strangulation was the cause of Katy’s death, but the toxicology wasn’t back and wouldn’t be for a month at least.
Well, it was consistent with Dane’s MO at the very least.
Now, where was the report I really needed? I leafed through the folder but couldn’t find it, only photographs of the grisly scene. I glanced up. “It says in the redacted report there was a practitioner on site.”
“There was.”
I frowned. “Then where is the paranormal analysis? They’re standard at the federal level. All FBI paranormal investigations have them.”
“They decided they wanted a cold read from you,” Aaron said.
I sighed and resumed my perusal of the photos and two sheets of paper. A cold read was one thing—but redacting entire sections of reports or outright omitting them? I needed something beyond photos to go on. Otherside and bindings don’t photograph.
“Aaron, I’m not sure what you and the captain expect here, but if I can’t see the Otherside, and no practitioner has given me a report of what they saw…” I piled the photos and reports back in the folder. “On the surface, Dane looks good for it,” I admitted. “But it still doesn’t mean it’s him, Aaron. It could be an accomplice, a living one, and despite the 1950s scenery, there’s only one victim this time. If it’s Dane, he’s changed his pattern.” Serial killers have predictable patterns, impulses that mete themselves out, more so once they are dead. If it was Dane somehow reaching from the grave…“And you’re both ignoring the fact that no one has seen Dane’s poltergeist!” Despite the kidnapping of Katy and the murder of her family, Dane’s ghost hadn’t been seen since Liam Sinclair’s disastrous raising.
“Dane evaded the authorities for years. He could be doing the same thing now.”
I sighed. “You’re thinking like the living, not the dead. Poltergeists like a show, they want terror and mayhem as widespread as they can get it. Movie theatres, shopping malls, concerts, buses, schools—the bigger the audience, the better. I have a hard time believing Dane took Katy and killed her family without putting on some kind of show, no matter how good he looks for it.” Aaron was frowning at me, still unconvinced, so I added, “Look, it’s not a bad theory, but a poltergeist doesn’t care about getting caught anymore, because it can’t. They’re undead, pent-up balls of rage with no restraint. The idea that Dane has somehow found a way around that is…”
Is what? Dubious? Still circumstantial? But the image of Katy’s ghost frozen in the murder scene stopped me. I picked up my coffee and leaned back in the chair. A week she’d been missing, and kept alive where exactly? And by whom? What that must have done to her—waiting to die. “I will give you that the frozen ghost is intriguing, and despite Marks ambushing me, I want to help her. What does the on-site practitioner say?”
It was subtle, but Aaron flinched.
I zeroed in. “Who is it?” The FBI were involved, after all. If they suspected a paranormal element, they had a roster of the best practitioners in the USA to draw from…minus myself. I wasn’t federally licensed, because I hate paperwork and paying extra for bureaucracy.
He hesitated, but just for a moment. “It doesn’t matter who. A paranormal case like this comes around once a century, Kincaid. Stephan is a friend in the FBI who specializes in the paranormal. I told him about you, and he wants a second opinion. Yours. On site.”
I made a face. “Considering their taste in practitioners, that’s not as complimentary as you might think.” I did not want to be thrown into the same professional camp as Sinclair, strangled by my own zombie.
And I couldn’t help asking myself whether the FBI really did want my opinion or, like Marks, did they think I could bind a ghost? Considering it was the FBI, they should have plenty of both practitioners and binders on staff. I can’t count how many murder victims I’ve helped the Seattle police interview, but I hadn’t even made the FBI’s top ten list. Granted, I didn’t have a federal licence. And now they were asking for me?
I hid my grimace behind the coffee mug—a perfectly clean and unchipped, unstained white mug, so unlike my own mismatched kitchenware.
Damn it, what are you getting yourself involved in this time?
“There’d be ground rules, Aaron,” I started. “First, I don’t give a shit what the captain says, I’m not there to bind any ghosts—for anyone.”
Aaron nodded. “Agreed. And what else? You said ‘first.’ ”
I let out a breath. “My second is that your friend Stephan, or whoever is in charge, is paying me a flat consulting rate—just to fly down and look.”
Aaron didn’t even blink. “That can be arranged. And the third?”
