Delia's Shadow (31 page)

A sense of futility infused itself in every gesture, but Gabe went through the procedure they’d set, covering the desk in clean paper and wearing cotton gloves to open the envelope. Using Jeff to deliver the letter canceled any chance of fingerprints on the outside, but he couldn’t dismiss the possibility of Ethan making a mistake and leaving a trace of himself behind. They knew who he was now. They still needed evidence to tie him to the crimes.

Evidence that would send Ethan Brennan to the gallows.

The crisp black ink was the same, the sketched figures of Anubis and Osiris in the customary place instead of a signature, but the message from Ethan had changed.

“He’s offering us a challenge, Jack. A sporting chance as he calls it.” He passed the sheets of cheap paper to his partner. “Ethan’s warning us he plans to kill two people at the fairgrounds during the fireworks exhibition on Fourth of July. If we find him in time, they get to live.”

Jack read aloud. “‘Two will be chosen from the crowd and taken for judgment in my father’s court. The beast waits to consume hearts heavy with sin.’” He thumbed through the rest of the letter and handed it back. “I don’t know why I wager against Dora, I always lose. I bet her that Ethan was faking the obsession with the court of the dead, but he really is a madman. No wonder she laughed and told Daniel to take my money. What are the chances of getting the mayor to close the fair on the Fourth?”

“Probably about the same as you winning a bet with Dora.” A sharp pain behind his eye joined the throbbing in his temples. Supper might help, sleep definitely would. “I’m hoping Jeff can remember the man he saw well enough to give us a description. Talking to him is your job, he’ll be more comfortable with you and Rockwell. I’ll talk to Jeff’s mother. Once the box from Sheriff Leeds arrives and Dad takes a look at everything, maybe we’ll have an idea of what Brennan looks like. We have five days to come up with a plan.”

Jack tugged at his mustache and frowned. “I don’t trust this. Why give us warning this time?”

“I don’t trust this either, he still thinks he’s smarter than us. Ethan has something planned.” Something to make them look like fools. Gabe unlocked his bottom drawer and added the newest letter to the file. He prayed he wouldn’t have to add more pins to the map. “Let’s go talk to Jeff. Maybe he left us some food.”

“Not much chance of that, Lieutenant. He’s a growing boy and a skinny one at that.” Jack pulled open the door and waved him out. “You’ll have to wait and ask Annie to feed you.”

“That would be a real hardship, Sergeant. But if there’s apple pie involved, I think I could bear up.” Gabe’s mood lightened at the thought of seeing Delia and eating in the kitchen with her. Another habit he’d settled into with her, one he dearly loved and wanted to make a permanent part of his life.

After nine years of mourning and dwelling on the past, planning a future with Delia was exciting, if just a bit frightening. That was another hardship he’d bear gladly. The rewards would be more than worth any attack of nerves.

Now that he’d started living again, Gabe didn’t plan to stop.

Delia

I carefully printed another name from Sadie’s list onto a pink envelope, stuffed a wedding invitation inside, and added it to the stack. Sadie labored over addressing the outer envelopes in a neat, rounded hand. We’d nearly buried the oval table in piles of vellum inserts, creamy RSVP cards, and rose-tinted reply envelopes. Even a small wedding required more paper and writing than I’d ever thought possible. Ink-stained fingers and paper cuts had become the norm for both of us.

Mine was the easier task. Sadie had insisted on lettering all the addresses herself, refusing my repeated offers to help. The more wedding chores she took on, the less time she had to dwell on her mother’s illness or what danger Jack might be in at any moment. I sympathized. We shared the same fears, the same worries.

Sadie was better at diversion and distraction. I tended to brood. And I’d other things to dwell upon aside from my worry for Gabe.

Since the trip to Matt and Moira’s farm, more ghosts had come to occupy our house. They were quiet and didn’t do anything beyond watching me, but the numbers grew daily. Aileen had brought them in over the last week, made sure I saw each new addition, and vanished again. Each phantom followed me as Aileen did. I couldn’t escape them.

No one needed to tell me that each new ghost was another of Ethan Brennan’s victims. The truth of that squirmed under my skin, grubs burrowing deep in a fallen log. They wanted me to find where he’d abandoned their bodies and see them placed in proper graves, bringing their loved ones a measure of peace. Knowing what the ghosts wanted didn’t tell me how to find their earthly remains. Dora was my sole hope in this regard.

The doorbell chimed. Annie was forbidden to answer the door on Gabe’s orders, another restriction on our lives. Noah Baxter set his book on the floor and moved to the dining room entrance, hand on his gun. One of the other officers opened the door, greeting Isadora and her cadre of guards. Noah relaxed and went back to his book.

Dora began flirting shamelessly with the man in the entryway almost immediately. Sadie rolled her eyes and kept at her lettering. Charming and enthralling each man in Gabe’s squad, no matter how old or young, was a temptation Dora didn’t attempt to resist. I suspected all of the single men had succumbed to one degree or another, while the older, settled men recognized she wasn’t serious. They played along in any case, all of them flattered even if they didn’t choose to admit to it.

It was a game to Dora, her own form of distraction, and she never carried any flirtation too far. The stress of aiding Gabe and Jack took its toll and she grew thinner, wan, and more fragile each time I saw her. I had enormous respect for her strength, but even the very strong break. This case needed to end soon for all of us.

Isadora swept into the room, dressed in scarlet and gold, the ostrich plumes on her hat bobbing in time with her steps. She winked at me and turned to Noah Baxter. “Noah, please be a dear and ask Annie to bring us some tea. Delia and I have private things to discuss and much as I adore you, I’m going to ask you to leave. I’ve complete faith you can keep us safe from the entryway. Why don’t you see if you can win your money back from Corey? He brought his deck of cards.”

“I won’t play cards with any deck Polk’s had to himself for longer than a minute or two. That’s how I lost in the first place.” Baxter marked his place in the book with a red ribbon and set it on a side table. He held a chair for Dora, getting her settled and comfortable. “I’ll have Annie fetch your tea, Miss Bobet. Should I tell her to bring milk as well as sugar?”

“You remembered!” Dora positively beamed, turning all her considerable charm on Baxter. He stood straighter, preening under her praise and attention. “How thoughtful you are, Noah. Yes, please ask Annie to bring the milk if you would. Perhaps a little something to snack on as well. I’m absolutely famished.”

Sadie rolled her eyes again and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Before her engagement to Jack, she’d behaved just as outrageously. Not that she’d admit to such behavior now, but I remembered well.

Baxter bustled away, eager to do what ever Isadora asked. She slumped back in her chair, shut her eyes, and rubbed her temples. “I am starving. And this day has been positively draining. Touring murder sites with your charming beau gave me a raging headache, Dee. I may need a little time to recover before we tackle your problem. How many ghosts are there?”

Closing my eyes helped me concentrate and separate the essence of one restless soul from another. What I saw with my eyes wasn’t always true when it came to ghosts. Dora had shown me the trick of seeing with that other sense inside, leaving anything within the house to me as a way to hone my skill. How quickly I’d learned was a frightening blessing. “As near as I can tell, at least twenty, but I feel sure there are more and I just can’t see them well enough to count. A great many of the ghosts cluster together. That makes distinguishing between them harder.”

Dora winced. “Ghosts that clump that tightly are often buried in a common grave and the bones jumbled together. Sorting that when the time comes will be difficult.”

Light played across the wall behind Dora, reflections and shimmers rippling as if a ghostly river flowed through the house. The ghosts of Ethan’s victims kept their distance from Isadora as they did Annie, reluctant to approach her too closely.

I understood why with Annie, she’d threatened to send Aileen away often enough that all the ghosts feared attracting her notice. That wasn’t the case with Dora, but try as I might, the reason eluded me. Perhaps they knew she was stretched to the edge of endurance and didn’t want to drain her further. That the dead might show her compassion was as logical and probable as anything else involving the spirits in my life.

Annie carried in an oval tea tray with deep, raised sides. The tea service and a plate of cookies were nestled into the center, slices of pale yellow cheese, pieces of bread, grapes, and a dish of strawberries wedged into the space around the silver teapot. She set the tray on the one end of the table we hadn’t filled with wedding debris.

“Go ahead and start in. I’ll be back in a tick with milk and sugar for the tea, and a jug of cream for the berries.” Annie wiped her hands on her apron and hurried off. “Be thinking if there’s anything else you might want. I need to get lunch up to Miss Esther soon.”

I piled cheese, bread and grapes on a plate and set it in front of Dora.

“Bless you, Dee.” The skin under Dora’s eyes was the bruised purple of ripe plums. “I’d no idea our tour of the city would drag on so long. I’d have made provisions otherwise.”

Sadie put down her pen and blotted dry the freshly inked envelope. “Did you make any progress?”

Feigning no more than mild curiosity didn’t fool me. Sadie wanted this over as much as any of us. Ethan’s shadow loomed over her wedding and her life with Jack. Progress in finding him was of more than passing interest to her.

“If you mean did we find Ethan’s lair, sadly the answer is no. He’s scattered bodies and left traces of himself all over the city.” Dora broke off tiny pieces of cheese, nibbling each one slowly. As ill as I’d been after touching evidence from Sarah Miles’s death, I could easily imagine how Isadora felt. “The only new thing we learned for certain is that he’d been to Elaine Meadows’s cottage more than once. Ethan might have been seen, or so Gabe hopes. He and Jack have men talking to the neighbors again.”

“They have a description from the newsboy now. That should help.” I settled across from Dora with my own plate. The little boy had spoken of a tall man, dressed in calf-high black boots, gray trousers, a black bowler hat, and a matching black wool coat. Hack drivers and cabbies dressed thus, a uniform of sorts they wore winter or summer. Working as a cabbie explained much about how Ethan moved about the city, unnoticed and unseen.

The man who’d watched me the night I met Gabe was dressed just the same. That Ethan might have been that near was too horrible to think on and I didn’t dwell on the possibility, dismissing it as too wild of a chance. He couldn’t have known who I was then or picked me out of the crowd. The Pan Pacific grounds were filled with cabbies looking for a fare, taking advantage of increased custom. Ethan hadn’t hunted me. He hadn’t.

“Having a vague idea of who to ask about will help, yes.” Dora shrugged and popped a grape into her mouth. “But people seldom remember tradesmen or cab drivers, not unless they deal with them repeatedly or they’ve cause to remember. Ethan is much the same as the killers I helped track in Atlanta. He’ll go out of his way to avoid giving people a reason to remember him.”

“That’s why Aaron Casey disappeared. Ethan made a mistake.” Sadie pushed her chair back and stood. “I’m going up to sit with Mama and feed her lunch. The two of you can talk ghosts to your hearts content while I’m gone.”

Annie brought in the rest of the fixings for tea as Sadie hurried toward the stairs. Time not spent on wedding preparations or with Jack, she spent with her mother. Each hour and minute was precious to her. None of us knew how much time was left to Esther.

By the time Dora finished her second cup of tea, color was returning to her face and sparkle to her eyes. “Now that I’m not ready to expire, we can talk about your problem. The timing puzzles me a bit. My first thought is that the victims should have begun to gather around you as soon as you returned home. That they didn’t is the most troubling part of this for me. It worries me that Aileen’s ghost appears to be gathering the victims in one place. She might be stronger than I’d imagined.” She frowned and made a dismissive gesture. “Or perhaps it’s nothing more than all this poking into murder scenes and evidence has stirred up the spirits. I shouldn’t go hunting for trouble. The most important thing is preventing you from being swamped by their demands. We can determine why later.”

“I’d like to help them, Dora. Banishing the ghosts seems cruel, considering.” I toyed with the grape stems lying on my plate, plucked clean and bare as winter branches. The sweet scent lingered, mingled with the stronger odor of ripe strawberries. Both smelled of summer. “If there’s a way to find the bodies and see them buried, I’m willing to try.”

She folded her arms, leaned back in her chair, and smiled. Long, pale fingers drummed against the scarlet of her sleeve, rustling the stiff fabric. I’d amused her, but the deep-rooted cynicism that was so much a part of Dora never went away. “That’s why these spirits haunt you and not me. I’m not willing to assign pure motives to any ghost, much less one that appears as focused and determined as Aileen Fitzgerald. We’ve had this talk before, Dee. You can’t let your soft heart overtake good sense when dealing with ghosts. Protecting yourself comes first.”

“I was hoping to find a middle ground. Somewhere short of self-sacrifice and not as extreme as leaving Ethan’s victims unburied for eternity.” I shoved my plate away and folded my hands on the tabletop. “I’m not naïve enough to think this an easy task. And I recognize the necessity of waiting to find their bodies until after Ethan is caught. All I’m asking for now is a way to keep my sanity.”