Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

I still don’t know why, but I asked if I could see. Fiona didn’t hesitate to agree.

The stairs up to the second floor were so narrow and steep I didn’t see how a normal sized man could navigate them. Fiona grabbed the railing and hopped all the way up. Gregory remained downstairs, and so did Sparks.

The attic was empty. Except for an irregular patch in the middle and the small round window I’d seen from the driveway the whole room was covered in plaster. There were footprints pressed into the floor and some marks that weren’t as easy to make out.

“What’s with all the plaster?” I asked. It didn’t seem in keeping with the rest of the house. Fiona scowled.

“It was for a spell,” she said. “Saving mankind can be a pain in the ass sometimes.” She limped to the bare wood in the center of the room. “I’d clean it up but as you can see the portal is taking care of it a little at a time.” I moved closer. Inside the bare spot was a pentagram no bigger than the palm of my hand.

“This is it?”

“It moves around and changes size. If the changes are based on any kind of system, no one in my family has been able to figure out what it is. It never leaves the floor or the attic. It’s a two-way portal, so I take care not to leave anything in this room.” As we walked across the floor, it crunched.

“Do you keep plaster on hand for monster emergencies?” I asked.

“No, it’s for repairs. Sometimes things get out. I find a shotgun solves most problems, and lye takes care of the rest.”

“And the wizardry comes in when?”

“The plaster,” she said. “No regular exterminator would think to ward off psychic cheese wasps with plaster of Paris, but it works like a charm.”

“Psychic cheese wasps?”

“I’m sure it had more gravitas in their native language,” she said, frowning at the floor.

“If you ask me, they weren’t really wasps, but they sure did like cheese.”

“Who doesn’t? Cheese is delicious.” I looked out the window. “Your garden is lovely, by the way.” From this vantage point, I could see the part of her yard that was hidden from the driveway by the greenhouse. It was too late in the season for all but a few stubborn roses, but what was there, was beautiful.

“Thanks. I used to have a vegetable garden, but none of the vegetables turned out quite right, so now it’s strictly flowers and fall color.”

“What do you mean by not quite right?”

“Blue,” she said. “It’s true what they say about blue food. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, I couldn’t have brought myself to eat it. The flowers also have a blue tinge. I try to keep that in mind when I decide what to plant.”

“It worked.” I turned to head back downstairs. “Why did you agree to show me this?”

“I’m trying to impress you,” she said as if it were obvious. “You seem semi-sensible for a trendy consultant. . .”

“So?”

“So if the next time you step onto that site you find out it’s less harmless ghosts and more cheese wasps, please fill me in.” She escorted me out of the attic.

“You don’t want outsiders messing around in your territory, do you?”

“No. There are already enough cults and wanna-be super villains lurking in our woods. The last thing we need is an evil mall or God forbid, an occult reality show.”

“I’ll remember that,” I promised. “Thanks again for lunch.”

“See you around,” she said, waving goodbye. “If you’re still here you can have lunch with me again the day after tomorrow.”

As I drove away, I thought about Fiona and the town. Clearly the locals and the tourists thought that this place was crawling with supernatural activity. Until now I’d only had experience with the dead, and I preferred it that way. There was enough oddness in my life.

“What do you think, Sparks?” I asked. “Should we stick around and make a lot of money, or tell Steve to find another necromancer?”

Cheeeze
. . .was the reply I got
. I want cheeeze
. . .

I nearly drove off the road. Once I got control of the car again, I pulled over and jumped out. I grabbed a road map from the door, rolled it up, and looked for the source of the voice. The direct origin was Sparks of course. That meant there was a shade somewhere in my car.

Cheeeze
. . . the thin, plaintive voice called.
Tasty cheeeze
. . . I reminded myself that shades were mostly harmless and leaned into the car. Then I saw it, clinging to the bottom of the rearview mirror.

Cheeeze
. . . it said, swaying back and forth.

The psychic cheese wasp did look a lot like a real wasp. It was dark brown and longer than my hand. Its stinger was half again the length of its body. Its antennae were long and curled back around its body. The most noticeable difference between it and a regular wasp was that the psychic cheese wasp didn’t have eyes. As soon as it noticed me it dropped from the mirror and hovered in front of my face.

Give me cheeeze
. . .
want cheeeze
. I must have picked it up in Fiona’s attic. I wouldn’t say I was feeling an irresistible compulsion to acquire cheese, but there’s something incredibly pathetic about one psychic cheese wasp. Sure, a swarm of them would be devastating, but not one little shade.

“I’ve got to put you back,” I said out loud.

Cheeeze pleeze
. . . I looked at Sparks. He seemed calm. I was never sure if he understood what he was transmitting, so that was no help.

“You can’t eat cheese,” I said. “You’re dead.”

No, cheeeze? Want cheeeze
! This was probably the clearest communication I’d ever had with a shade, and it was lame. I’ll admit, I do have a soft spot for the dead, and Mr. Cheeeze didn’t seem too bad.

“All right, we’ll go look at cheese,” I told it. “But I’m laying you to rest the day after tomorrow.”

Cheeeze! Cheeeze! Cheeeze!

I got back in the car and drove into town. The cheese wasp got back into the car with me. When I got back to the hotel, the older woman was still there. When I spoke to her, she introduced herself as Mrs. Whateley. I asked her about room service. She looked surprised by my request for cheese but agreed to send some up.

The inability to eat didn’t seem to upset my new buddy. It hovered around a block of cheddar all evening muttering to itself about cheese while I read and ate my dinner in peace.

Sometime after ten I looked out the window. I could see lights in the field moving away from the hotel. They halted at the edge of the forest and began to disappear. I turned the lights out to get a better view. Mr. Cheeeze immediately went quiet. I looked at it. It was still hovering over the cheese. Sparks was floating next to me. At this range, if Mr. Cheeeze had been saying anything, Sparks would be letting me know. So psychic cheese wasps shut up in the dark. It was good to know. I looked outside again, and most of the lights were gone. Just two were left floating at the edge of the swamp. I wondered if they were tourists or locals. Either way, it didn’t concern me, and I was tired, so I went to bed.

***

I woke up to a droning buzz.

Cheeeze. . . cheeeze. . .cheeeze. . .
I’d left the curtains open, and sunlight was pouring into the room. I could have ignored it, but for me if it’s light outside it’s time to get up. In a way, Mr. Cheeeze’s discourtesy helped me because it meant I was dressed and ready to go down to breakfast when the police showed up.  

After being taken to the police station by two men in black suits who refused to answer any of my questions, or speak to me at all for that matter, I was escorted to an interrogation room and handcuffed to the table.

I wished I’d packed a suit and worn it this morning. I was still wearing oversized pants and a black turtleneck, an outfit more popular with robbers than respectable citizens. As soon as I got out of here I was going to buy a Christmas sweater or something else equally disarming.

It’s always been one of my life’s little mysteries that Sparks and his ilk are invisible to almost everyone but shades are not. The officers wouldn’t talk to me, but they clearly didn’t like Mr. Cheeeze. They also didn’t like that it seemed determined to follow me everywhere. It joined Sparks on my shoulder and wouldn’t move. Not that anyone was eager to try to budge a mysterious insectoid the size of a softball. After arguing with each other about what to do next, they left me alone. The next person to enter the room was dressed in khaki. He introduced himself as Sheriff Warren and sat down across the table from me. He was an older man with a military-style haircut. His mustache was neatly trimmed and almost entirely white.

“Is that supposed to be a familiar?” he asked. I’d never been questioned by a government employee who knew anything about the occult. I didn’t know how to respond. I thought about everyone else I’d met so far and decided to go with the truth.

“No, it’s a ghost, and it’s haunting me.” The sheriff raised an eyebrow.

“That’s a hell of a ghost,” he said. “It looks like a tarantula hawk.”

“I don’t know much about insects,” I said.

“That’s neither here nor there,” he said. “Where were you between two and five this morning?”

“Asleep in my hotel room.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?”

“Just the wasp,” I said.

Cheeeze wasp
. . . Mr. Cheeeze corrected me.

“And which hotel were you staying at?”

“The Gates of Sleep,” I said. Sherriff Warren frowned.

“Really?”

“Yes, I’m checked in and everything.”

“And you were in your room before midnight?”

“Yes. . .” He stared at Mr. Cheeeze again.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” he said. “We’ll check their surveillance tapes of course, but I doubt you’ve got much to add.”

“About what?”

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” he reiterated. He muttered something else I didn’t quite catch. “No, wait; you were at the construction site yesterday, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. He was the spitting image of a man silently counting to ten.

“I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you,” he said. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No, I was arrested before I had a chance to eat.”

“We didn’t arrest you,” he said. “You’re just here for questioning.”

“I was handcuffed and read my rights,” I said. “And I distinctly heard the phrase ‘you’re under arrest’ right before the silent treatment started.”

“I’m unarresting you,” Sherriff Warren stated. “I can do that. It’s my police station and my jail after all.” His voice rose with each word. I got the impression that I wasn’t the only person in the room that had skipped breakfast this morning. He got up and uncuffed me. “There’s a lovely diner right next door if you’d like to have something to eat. I can guarantee those state troopers won’t bother you. Then we can start this interview over.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said.

“Hey Earl!” he yelled. “Take this kid to get some food, will you? I need to have a talk with our new friends!” A tall blond man I assumed was Earl emerged from an office at the front of the station. He was younger than the sheriff.

“Just let them live, boss,” the man I assumed was Earl said. “It ain’t their fault. God only had so many brains to hand out, you know.” The sheriff laughed.

“Fine, I won’t kill them. I’ll just maim them.” Earl smiled. He was one of those rare people who looks older when they smile.

“I’ll get you a muffin while I’m next door, shall I?” Earl said. “And some juice.”

“Make sure to get that ghost out of here too.”

After I’d had some juice and was feeling more civil, I asked Earl what I’d been arrested for in the first place.

“Murder,” he said as he added cream to his coffee.

I felt immensely relieved. Unless someone had been poisoned, I wouldn’t stay on the suspect list for long. I’m a ninety-pound weakling, and I look it. He looked up at me, considering something.

“Did you know anyone at the site well?”

“I’ve known Mr. Trenton for years,” I told him. “Other than that, I was only introduced to Mr. Lott yesterday.” Earl nodded.

“The good news is, those two are fine. The bad news is, a lot of people aren’t.”

“Are you going to make me guess?” I asked. “Just tell me what happened last night.” He smiled.

“Hey, I’m a policeman collecting info. So please, guess.”

I thought about it.

“A protestor was killed?”

“Nope.”

“A construction worker was killed.”

“Wrong again.”

“You said it was murder,” I reminded him. “That doesn’t leave anything else. No, wait, was it a tourist?”

“Ha ha, no.” Somehow he was able to say ‘ha ha’ and still sound genuinely amused. “It was the entire morning crew. They were killed in a very disturbing manner.”

“Oh,” I said. We sat in silence for a few minutes. Even Mr. Cheeeze was quiet.

“Disturbing how?” I asked.

“I’m probably not supposed to tell,” Earl said. “The state guys want to be in charge, you know, and they think you did it.”

“Why me?”

“Because you showed up yesterday, I suppose. And you’re into the occult. Not that that’s unusual around here. I doubt they’ll keep that up once they really look at you. I don’t think you’re physically capable of . . . you don’t really want to know.”

On the contrary, now I really, really wanted to know what the hell had happened.

“So why doesn’t your boss suspect me?” I asked. “He gave up instantly.”

“Weeeell,” Earl said, drawing it out, “you were at The Gates at the time of the murders. With the state police involved we’ll have to check surveillance tapes and so on, but if you were at the hotel at midnight then you were asleep until four, and there’s no getting around it. Besides, there were locals in the crew, and they wouldn’t have just stood around if you showed up with one of these things.” Mr. Cheeeze was trying to get into the parmesan shaker. Earl reached over the table and poked the psychic cheese wasp. The shade bounced away when he prodded it more firmly, then began its cheeeze refrain again.

“Are they really that bad?”

“One might not be,” Earl said, “they’re dumb on their own. In groups, they’re smart. And they don’t stop at eating cheese. We were lucky to get out of that one. Plus, they’re noisy when they’re alive.”

“They’re noisy dead too,” I told him. “You just can’t hear it.”

“You can? That’s interesting.”

“By the way, how do you know about them? I wasn’t sure what it was, and your boss didn’t recognize it.”

“He was out of town visiting his grandkids when we had the infestation. We were able to clear them out in a couple of weeks.”

“You seem pretty calm about it. What made you move here?”

“What makes you think I’m from out of town?”

“Your accent.”

“Naturally. I grew up in Oklahoma and spent my wild oat sowing years in the Southwest. The cities these days are too hectic for me,” he said. “But I don’t like the open range either. I like to have neighbors, and I like the pace here.”

“And the magic?”

“And the magic,” he agreed. “I can do some of my own, you know. If you give me a quarter, I can make a quarter magically appear. If you give me a twenty, I can make a twenty magically disappear.” I laughed despite myself.

“If that’s your only trick you might want to carry your own change.”

“So you’re not going to fall for it?”

“No.”

Steve chose that moment to walk in. He looked more frazzled than usual. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his shoes didn’t match. He was wearing one dress shoe and one boot. I can’t imagine ever being that distracted. He called my name when he saw me and hurried over to our table.

“Did they really arrest you?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve unarrested him,” Earl said cheerfully. “Busy morning, isn’t it, Mr. Trenton?”

“Yes, it’s been terrible,” Steve said. “You didn’t really kill everyone, did you?”

“Of course not!” I snapped.

“Good, good.” He patted me on the head. Standing this close I could smell that he’d started smoking again. It must have been bad then. “I’ll get one of our lawyers to represent you.” I moved his hand.

“If I’m not under arrest anymore why would I need a lawyer?”

“The state police might not be convinced,” Earl reminded me.

“Anyway, I’m sure I can’t afford your company’s lawyer.”

“You’re right about that,” Steve admitted. “ I can, however. It’s my fault you’re here, so let me pay.”

I didn’t like the idea of owing Steve money, but I didn’t want to be rude. As I said, we’ve known each other a very long time.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him. “So what happened?”

“Have you been questioned yet?” Steve asked.

“No.”

“Then I’ll tell you after. I can’t imagine we’re going to be getting back to work anytime soon after this. I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait before I need you again.”

“That’s fine with me. I’ll probably be told not to leave town.”

“That depends on where you live,” Earl said.

“Anaheim.”

“Yeah, it might be better to stick around.”

“What job did you do there?” Steve asked me. I don’t have a house, so I tend to stay the last place I had work.

“A hotel changing hands,” I told him. “The previous owners tried to boost business by claiming it was haunted but didn’t list any deaths in the disclosure. The buyer wanted to know if the haunting was real.”

“So was it?” Earl asked.

“No. What they hadn’t disclosed was a termite infestation.” While the two men laughed, I finished my breakfast. I hadn’t needed special powers to figure that one out. The little piles of wings around the edges of the building were a dead giveaway. It also didn’t take special powers to realize that a hotel of that one’s size and age almost certainly
had
had someone die in it. To me, that was an indication that more research was required before making such a large purchase. Fortunately for the sellers, they were dealing with equally flaky people. It turned out that I was the only inspector either party had bothered to hire.

The new owners were letting me stay in an apartment they owned for cheap in gratitude, but I didn’t think much of their chances of staying in business, haunted or not. They weren’t much better at managing an apartment either, so I figured it was just a matter of time before I would be looking for a new place to live. Not here, though. I’d try to get a few more jobs lined up in California, or maybe I’d go back to the East Coast. It was too cold and damp here for my tastes.

***

My second questioning by Sheriff Warren went without incident. As expected he made me promise to stay in town. Since I was expecting to spend an hour or so on site and be on my way home I hadn’t packed enough clothes for an extended stay, so it was back to the hotel for directions to the nearest department store.

“HI, I’m Theresa, and there isn’t one,” the girl at the counter said. She couldn’t have been older than thirteen, and she had the distinctive Whateley eyes and bone structure. Luckily for her, she had her mother’s dark skin and red hair, so she escaped looking like a clone of her father. “Unless of course you want to drive an hour and a half to the military base. That’s why I’m looking forward to the mall, even if no one else is.”

“Then do you know where I can buy clothes?” I asked.

“You just want something cheap that fits, right?” she said.

“That’s right. I wasn’t expecting to stay more than a night.”

“Because if you’re really, really not particular, I know a consignment shop that has some clothes in your size.”