Ashes.
Possession.
Containment spells.
The thoughts didn’t just float through my head and swirl through my dreams all that night, they pounded around inside my brain like they were wearing steel-toed boots.
Was it any wonder I was a little bleary-eyed the next morning?
My head thumping, I dragged into the office. Surprise, surprise, I perked up instantly as soon as I was inside my door.
Quinn was there waiting for me!
My all-out happiness at seeing him lasted about as long as the heartbeat that reminded me of what Caleb had talked about the night before. He said there was a possibility that Quinn was possessed.
‘Hey!’ My favorite boy in blue (who happened to be wearing a charcoal suit that day) was perched on the edge of my desk, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. I knew from the plastic bag they were in that he’d stopped to get them at a grocery store rather than at a florist, but I didn’t hold that against him. There is something about a macho cop in a killer suit carrying a perky bunch of pink, lilac, and yellow daisies that can’t help but melt a girl’s heart.
He slid off the desk and gave me the smile that never failed to make me sizzle, his arms wide open. ‘What, after all these days of not seeing me, you’re just going to stand over there and not come here and give me a kiss?’
I snapped out of the dark thoughts that had kept me frozen near the door. This was Quinn smiling at me, not some stranger. His amazing green eyes weren’t devoid of emotion like my mom’s had been at the bridal fair when she attacked me. There was love shining in them and in the smile that warmed me down to my toes.
And besides, he hadn’t once called me my sweet.
‘I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.’ I darted over and gave him that kiss he wanted, and the second my lips touched his, I realized how much I’d missed him. When we were done (it took a bit, but like I said, it had been a while) and he handed me the flowers, I slipped them out of the bag and put the bouquet on my desk next to the vase of roses he’d sent me a few days earlier. ‘I know you’ve been busy. I didn’t think you’d have a chance to stop by.’
‘And you …’ he tapped the tip of my nose with one finger. ‘… haven’t been answering your phone. What’s up?’
I covered up a shrug when I slipped out of my leopard-print raincoat. ‘I didn’t want to bother you.’ I didn’t want to admit to him that my mother had tried to kill me, either, because that was a story for another time. ‘I figured you were knee deep in the Dean McClure investigation.’
‘Exactly what I’ve been doing.’
There was so much enthusiasm in Quinn’s voice, something that felt very much like hope tangled around my heart. I thought back to what he’d told me when we’d first discussed the case. ‘You don’t think McClure is the scum of the earth and the world is better off without him?’
Quinn laughed. ‘Yeah, well he was the scum of the earth. And he was trying to cause trouble for me with my lieutenant. But that half-baked accusation of his never would have flown.’ He sloughed it off as nothing. ‘Even if he did have a serious beef with me, you don’t think I wouldn’t work hard on McClure’s case, do you? That wouldn’t be right. Every victim deserves justice, and annoying or not, McClure was a victim.’
Spoken like the Quinn of old, the true-blue cop with a moral code that was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar!
Relief swept through me like a wave, and I threw myself into Quinn’s arms and kissed him so hard, I knocked him back onto my desk.
When we came up for air, he laughed. ‘What was that for?’
I couldn’t tell him it was for proving that Caleb was dead wrong. Back when Quinn said those things about McClure, when he destroyed the note McClure had written to his lieutenant, he wasn’t possessed, he was tired, overworked, stressed.
And when he walked away from the crime scene with the murder weapon?
A shiver slipped up my spine and raced across my shoulders and, before he could notice, I backed out of Quinn’s arms.
I was one hundred percent positive that he had an explanation for that, too, and that he’d tell me when the time was right.
‘Dinner at my place tonight?’ he asked.
I pretended I had to think about it. ‘What are you cooking?’
‘It depends how much time I have on my hands. I might be just finishing up with the McClure case.’
This was good news and, at the same time I wondered if it could have anything to do with Wally Birch and his mention of the missing Ness ashes, Quinn grinned.
‘Cindy McClure,’ he said quite simply.
There was a vase on the bookshelf across the room and I went over and retrieved it and plopped the flowers in it. I’d get water for them later. For now, the trip across the room gave me a moment to line up what I remembered about the Widow McClure. ‘I’m not surprised,’ I admitted. ‘She hated that Dean spent all their money on gangster memorabilia. And she lied about her alibi for the night of the murder, too.’
I almost felt guilty for taking the wind out of Quinn’s sails, but I couldn’t help but grin.
‘She told me,’ I explained. ‘She told me that she was out with friends at the time of the murder, but the restaurant she said she was at hasn’t opened yet. I bet she told you the same thing.’
He nodded. ‘She did. Which was dumb, because she should have known that was an easy thing to check. Turns out she was actually with the guy she’s been seeing on the side. What she didn’t mention …’ I have to admit, sometimes when Quinn looks so pleased with himself, it drives me nuts. He’s a competitive guy and he loves to win and when he thinks he’s one-upped me (I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s actually happened a time or two), the left corner of his mouth pulls into a satisfied little smirk that drives me crazy. Sometimes I want to slap that smile off his face. Sometimes I think it’s as sexy as hell. This time, I swear, I was so relieved to see him acting like Quinn and talking like Quinn and not being mysterious or trying to kill me like some other people had done lately, I didn’t much care. He grinned and I grinned back and, yes, all was right with the world.
‘She’ll be able to sell all McClure’s junk now,’ I said, though I was sure Quinn didn’t need the reminder. ‘That’s why Cindy killed him, right? She couldn’t stand him collecting any more gangster stuff.’
‘Wrong.’
He laughed, but hey, Quinn is nothing if not a good sport. He knew it wouldn’t be fair not to provide an explanation. ‘McClure had been buying up gangster memorabilia for years, and he already had an extensive collection when he married Cindy. That was six years ago. That collection … well, you saw it, Pepper. You saw how carefully he had everything displayed. His collection was the most important thing in his life. From what the people I’ve interviewed told me, it was even more important to him than his marriage.’
I can’t exactly say the pieces fell into place because there were still plenty of gaps, but I can say I was beginning to get a better picture. I gasped. ‘He started collecting a long time ago. He wouldn’t risk losing that collection, not for anyone or anything. They had a prenup, didn’t they?’
‘Sexy and smart!’ Quinn gave me a quick kiss. ‘Their prenup specifies that Cindy takes possession of Dean’s collection on the event of his death, but if they were ever to divorce—’
I swear, if I wasn’t so happy to see Quinn acting like the man I was crazy about, I would have slapped my forehead. ‘Dean was talking to an attorney?’
‘The papers were about to be filed. Cindy had to act fast, or she was going to be left with nothing.’
‘You’re brilliant,’ I told him, but Quinn being Quinn, he already knew that. ‘So she killed Dean before he divorced her and left her with nothing. Now that he’s dead, she can sell off his collection and get all the money. But what about …’ Honestly, I hated to ruin a special moment, but I couldn’t help myself. ‘So what did she do with Eliot Ness’s ashes?’ I asked Quinn and didn’t bother to add, ‘And why is Wally Birch looking for them?’ because I was still pretty fuzzy about that part of the equation.
He sloughed off my question. ‘My guess is that she took those first thing, right after the murder. Or maybe before. Maybe McClure found out she’d taken them and they fought about it, and maybe that’s how she ended up killing him. I don’t know the details, not yet. But don’t worry, once we arrest her, she’ll start talking. Then she can tell us who she sold the ashes to, we can get them back, and you and Eliot Ness …’ As if he thought he actually might see him somewhere in the office, Quinn looked around. ‘Well, that’s what you said he’s after, right? He wants his ashes sprinkled at the lake so he can rest in peace.’
‘Exactly.’ I did my best to sound upbeat. Not so easy considering the thoughts that still pounded through my head. How did Wally know about the ashes in the first place? And why did he care? Why was Wally looking for them?
I didn’t have the heart to put the kibosh on Quinn’s good mood so I told myself this was all a subject for another discussion and I was sure that when we had that talk, he’d explain about the fountain pen holder, too.
Possession schmussession!
Quinn was Quinn, and I was a woman in love. There wasn’t anything or anyone who could ruin my mood.
I hoped the sizzling smile I sent him told him just that, and in case it didn’t, I closed in on Quinn, step by slow step. ‘Did you say what time tonight?’ I asked him.
‘I was thinking six.’
‘And is this a formal occasion?’ I fingered the lapel of his suit jacket. ‘I mean, should I get all dressed up? Or would you rather I wear nothing at all?’
He wrapped his arms around my waist and slid his hands down my hips and across my butt, pulling me closer. ‘Nothing at all sounds perfect to me,’ he growled in my ear. ‘We’ll light a fire, open a bottle of wine and—’
‘I sho’do hope I’m not interruptin’ anything.’
Just like that, the heat inside me changed to ice and, still caught in Quinn’s arms, I turned to find Caleb sitting in my office doorway.
‘Good mornin’!’ He had the nerve to act casual. Yeah, like he hadn’t been eavesdropping and hadn’t heard all that about fires and bottles of wine and no clothes at all. If I had any doubts, all I had to do was look at the wide smile he gave me when he looked me up and down like he could picture the whole thing. ‘Nice to see you again, Mizz Martin.’
He wheeled his chair into the office and, when I slipped away from Quinn, Caleb introduced himself.
I cleared away my mortification with a little cough and wished it was just as easy to get rid of the fire I felt burning my cheeks. ‘Caleb is a—’
‘Librarian,’ he interrupted me and explained to Quinn, his accent so thick that morning I imagined needing a machete to cut through the swamp. ‘Mizz Martin here is preparin’ a new tour for the cemetery and I’m helpin’ her with a little bit of research.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it.’ Quinn moved toward the door, but not before he gave me a smile that heated me through to the soles of my peep-toe pumps. ‘And I’ll see you this evening,’ he said, and left the office.
‘You think that’s smart?’
The good old boy who’d rolled into the office suddenly sounded a whole lot more like the Marine I’d seen in the photograph at Caleb’s place.
I spun away from the door. ‘Do you think it’s any of your business?’
As if he had every right, he rolled around to the desk and looked over the papers I had piled there. Newsletters, tour requests, phone messages. He didn’t fool me one bit, I knew he wasn’t reading any of it. He was stalling for time. Giving me the chance to reconsider what I said.
I did and decided I was right in the first place.
‘This isn’t something you can take lightly,’ he said.
I knew what he was talking about but pretended I didn’t. ‘You barging in here, you mean?’
Finished looking over my desk, he smoothly moved over to the bookshelf and rolled along the front of it, scanning the few books alongside the files, magazines, and stacks of old newspapers Ella was sure I’d use – someday – for research. ‘Me and Melvin have been busy,’ he said, not looking my way. ‘You want to hear what we found out? Or are you gonna be pigheaded just because some guy has an expensive suit and a big’ – he looked over at me, the soul of innocence – ‘bunch of flowers.’
Honestly, there was nothing in my desk I needed, but if I didn’t do something and do it fast, there was a chance I was going to leap across the room and do some serious damage to Caleb, so I sat down, opened the top desk drawer, and rummaged around.
‘It ain’t that easy.’ When I looked up again, he was right next to me. Lesson to be learned: wheelchairs can be pretty quiet. ‘You might want to ignore it, but it ain’t that easy. In fact, if I’m right—’
‘You told me you’re always right.’
I didn’t mean it as a compliment so he had absolutely no reason to smile. ‘Afraid I am this time, too. Which is why you need to set aside your emotions and listen to reason.’
I grumbled a word I didn’t apologize for, slammed my desk drawer closed, and plunked back in my chair. ‘Get it over with,’ I ordered him. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’ll tell you, but you tell me …’ Caleb glanced around the office. ‘Is Ness here?’
Maybe he had been all along because Eliot Ness picked that moment to sparkle right in front of my desk.
‘He’s here,’ I told Caleb. ‘Can you see him?’
He looked where I was looking. ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but there are some things I need to talk to him about. If you’d be so kind as to help?’
I did, and I won’t report all the back-and-forthing that went on, what with Caleb asking questions, Ness answering, me telling Caleb what Ness said. It pretty much went something like this:
‘You knew he was trouble from the start, didn’t you, Mr Ness? I mean, even after you got word that he was dead, you knew there was a chance he could still cause serious harm.’
‘Of course.’ That cloud that was Eliot Ness glittered. ‘When a person is that vicious—’
‘You’re the one who arranged for the containment spell?’
The cloud moved up and down, nodding.
‘I give you a great deal of credit, sir. From what I’ve been reading, a spell like that ain’t easy and finding the right person to work it … well, that’s a whole other thing, am I right? Near as I can remember, there ain’t a listing in the Yellow Pages for witches and warlocks. You put a lot of effort into making sure it got done and got done right. And that spell worked. Worked like a charm for going on seventy years now. Until …’
I wasn’t part of the conversation. I mean, except for being the go-between, but I couldn’t help it, if I didn’t find out what he was talking about, I was going to jump out of my skin. ‘Until what?’ I asked and I didn’t care which of them answered, I looked back and forth between Caleb and Ness.
‘Let me explain,’ Caleb said. ‘Just like you got this ol’ Gift of yours, there are people who have other …’ He turned the thought over in his head. ‘Other talents.’
‘Like you and Melvil Dewey.’
He acknowledged that I was right with a curt nod. ‘And there are others whose jobs are a little more … let’s say esoteric. See, if a person is really bad, I mean a real son-of-a-bitch, and that person dies then comes back in spirit, he can cause a whole bunch of trouble. You’ve found that out.’
I thought of Madeline who had taken over my body, and the ghost of a former police officer who’d tried to make trouble for Quinn and would have succeeded if I hadn’t destroyed his spirit permanently.
‘That’s why some ghosts are kept in their place so to speak,’ Caleb went on. ‘With containment spells.’
‘To make sure they don’t come back and cause trouble.’
He nodded. ‘But it’s possible … not common, mind you, but possible … for a spell to be broken. If the timing is right. If the conditions are perfect. And if a living human can be found who’s willing to help out.’
I wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with all this, but wherever it was, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. I swallowed hard. ‘And all this has something to do with Ness’s ashes? And Dean McClure’s murder?’
‘And with all them trips ol’ Dean took to Chicago. See, he started out going there because he was interested in history and in collecting. But once he got started, he couldn’t stop. He had to keep going back. It wasn’t that he was just interested in more memorabilia or excited to see all the old gangster stomping grounds again. Ol’ Dean, he was obsessed, and according to the books Melvil found for me, it wasn’t his fault. It’s easier for a spirit to take over a mind than it is for him to take over a body and ol’ Dean had the perfect mind. Too focused on one subject and just a little weak.’
It was cold in the office, and I shivered and chafed my hands up and down my arms.
‘When a spirit has that kind of control, he can make a living person do almost anything. In this case, he wanted to end up right here.’ When Caleb tapped a finger against my desk, I jumped at the sound. ‘Right here at Garden View Cemetery.’
‘But why?’ I asked.
Caleb spread his hands. ‘Can’t say fo’sure. Won’t know fo’sure until whatever he’s planning happens and, by then, I’m thinkin’ that it’s gonna be too late. But we can pretty much guess. He took over McClure’s mind, and he made McClure bring him here, and that there bottle that was delivered to you …’ Caleb caught my gaze and held it. ‘His spirit was inside it.’
‘And escaped when the bottle was broken!’ My stomach got queasy and I pressed a hand to it. ‘So that spirit …’ Like I actually expected to see it, I looked into every shadowy corner of the room. ‘It’s on the loose?’
‘It’s lookin’ that way,’ Caleb conceded.
‘But why?’
He couldn’t see Ness. Not like I could. But he’d seen where I was looking as I conveyed what Ness had said to him, and Caleb turned that way. ‘It all started when Mr Ness here showed up.’
‘Because someone doesn’t want my ashes to be returned,’ the G-man said and when I told Caleb this, he said he was pretty certain Ness was right.
‘Like any spirit, this one needs a physical form to accomplish things in this here world,’ Caleb went on. ‘So he’s taken to slipping in and out of peoples’ bodies. People like your mom, Pepper, and your boss. Like that Wally fella you told me about.’
‘Who said he had to find Ness’s ashes!’
‘And I’m sorry to tell you, but the same applies to your friend, Quinn. That would explain why he made off with the murder weapon. He doesn’t want anyone to find out what really happened to Dean McClure.’
‘Not because he killed him,’ I insisted, my shoulders back and my chin raised even before I realized I’d moved. I had no proof that Quinn was innocent, of course. I didn’t need any. I knew this was true down deep in my bones. ‘Quinn didn’t kill anybody.’
‘But the longer the murder goes unsolved, the more time our ghost will have to find the ashes, and my guess is he’ll destroy them. Beggin’ your pardon for being so blunt, Mr Ness, but you understand. Because if Eliot Ness’s ashes are all in one place, all at one time, he can manifest himself and he’ll have his old get-up-and-go back and then our bad guy, well, he won’t stand a chance. This is his ultimate revenge. I mean, for all you done to him, Mr Ness.’
By now, my heart was pumping like a piston, and the blood whooshed through my head. In the crazy version of the universe where I existed, it all made sense.
Except …
I think it’s called grasping at straws.
I wasn’t so sure about the straws, but I knew about the grasping. I held on for all I was worth.
‘But Quinn’s fine,’ I said and pointed toward the doorway Quinn had walked out of ten minutes before. ‘You saw him. He’s fine. He’s acting regular. Normal. He didn’t call me—’
‘My sweet, yeah.’ I already knew that Caleb didn’t give a damn about my feelings, and he sure didn’t mind delivering bad news. Still, he scratched a hand along the back of his neck and his mouth screwed up into a look that might have been regret on anyone else. ‘I’m afraid that “my sweet” thing, it sealed the deal. Found that out when I was researchin’, too. See, our slippery ghost, the one who arrived in the bottle, that’s what he called his wife. My sweet. He always called her “my sweet.”’
‘And Quinn didn’t. Did you hear me when I told you that? He didn’t call me “my sweet” today.’
‘Nope, he didn’t. Which means he’s fine. For right now.’ I couldn’t tell if Caleb thought this was a good thing or not. ‘But that don’t mean it will last. What it does mean is that we need to find those ashes before he does because when he does …’ Again, he looked across the room, but he didn’t know that Ness had floated closer. He was right in front of Caleb now, and Caleb was looking right through the little effervescent cloud. ‘He’s going to destroy you, sir.’
‘Stop it!’ My nervous energy got the best of me and I popped out of my chair. ‘You’re making it sound so scary.’
‘Oh, believe me, darlin’, it is,’ Caleb told me. ‘Because if he can make your dear mother try to kill you and he can make a good cop walk off with evidence, then he can pretty much do anything he wants. And we’ve got to make sure that don’t happen.’
It didn’t take much convincing. But then, Caleb had done a pretty good job of scaring me.
I slipped on my coat and headed for the door. ‘Then the first thing we need to do is find Ness’s ashes,’ I said to no one in particular. ‘And then we need to find—’
Who?
At the door, I stopped and turned back around. ‘Who’s this ghost who’s out to cause so much trouble? How do I know what to look for if I don’t know who to look for?’
‘That’s an easy one, sugar.’ Caleb nodded toward Ness. ‘You want to tell her, sir?’
Like he didn’t even want to think about it, Eliot Ness shivered. ‘All the pieces fit. There’s only one person it can be,’ he told me. ‘Al Capone.’