Selected Short Stories Featuring Ghost Dust Read online

then that points to a woman, but I’d be surprised if it was that sloppy. Everything else is considered and careful. No hair, no blood. The killer took their time, cleaned up just what they needed to without leaving anything telling. The door was left open on purpose. Somebody wanted us to find the body sooner rather than later.” I paused. “What do we know about the witness? She have an alibi?”

  “Said she was warming up for the gym, alone, in her apartment.”

  “So effectively no. It’s probably time to talk to her. At least one of you has to stay and secure the scene until the ME drags his sorry ass here. Flip a coin for all I care.”

  The last uniform is standing in the hallway upstairs. He’s young, hasn’t shed the baby fat from his face, and he's green enough that he looks nervous being here. He’s had her keep the apartment door open, but didn’t want to stay inside.

  I walk into her apartment and immediately understand why. Witness is a looker, even dressed-down in an old sweatsuit with bands on her wrists that remind me of the 80s. She looks up at me, and her eyes flick nervously from me to the uniform, and I realize I’m not in dress blues and just barged into her place like I live here. “Homicide detective,” I say, and reach for my badge.

  “Oh,” she says, flat affect.

  “You and your friend always exercise late at night like this?”

  “I got talked into a membership at a 24 hour gym, and- no. We’ve only gone twice. It was going to be our routine.”

  “Mind if I see your driver’s license?”

  “So long as you don’t look at my weight. Or birth date.” I chuckle as she hands it to me; I like clever women. It’s a little odd to have a potential murder suspect flirt with you, but it beats outright hostility any day.

  “What if it’s pertinent to the investigation?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “How could it be?”

  “Well, you said you’ve only started using your gym membership. This ID isn’t that old, so the weight should still be about right- unless you embellished the truth. Knowing whether you embroider facts is important to know, Lisbeth.”

  “Actually, I said Claire and I had only started going nights. I’ve been working out on and off for a couple months.” She shot me a knowing look, though I couldn’t tell if she knew she looked good, or knew most men would be afraid to say anything to the contrary.

  “Hmm.” I said, and stared at her ID, putting it so close to my eye that the image went blurry. Then I walked slowly over to her, staring.

  “Are you trying to tell if I’m lying?”

  “No; microexpressions are too quick to detect with the human eye. I’m just trying to make you nervous.”

  “Doesn’t telling me that defeat the purpose?”

  “No. Just keeps you on your toes.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Hours ago. I passed out in the interim. I think I slept it off. Why? Am I swaying?”

  “No, I just smelled it.”

  I stop and sniff my shoulder. “Ah. Apparently my jacket has also been drinking- but I assure you he is sober enough for detective work.” She's beginning to droop noticeably. “It must be three, four in the morning. Even for a night owl that’s getting to be late.”

  “I could use a cup of coffee.”

  I look to the uniform still in the hall. “You can head out. I don’t think she’s going to make a break for it.” He nods and trots off down the hall. “Grab a coat,” I tell her.

  We walk down the steps. I take her purposely down past Claire’s; it has less effect than I’d hoped, since she was chattering about something, and it wasn’t until I stopped in and nod at the ME who’d finally arrived that she realized where we were, and went silent and white.

  But since she was distracted it doesn’t tell me much; she was trying not to think about it, yeah, but both a murderer and somebody who discovers a dead body would want to avoid the topic.

  Lucinda’s is open, of course; Lucinda’s is always open, and Lucinda herself is propping up a wall by the register- though she barely registers it when we push open the door.

  We sit in a booth far enough away to have some privacy (though Lucinda, like a lizard sunbathing on a rock, rarely conveys anything approaching consciousness). Lisbeth paws nervously at a menu, until I speak. “I’d stay away from the coffee. Try one of the flavored Cokes, if you need the caffeine.”

  “Flavored Cokes?”

  “They just squirt a little of the Italian soda mix into a Coke, but since the Coke machine and the mix are all out here at the bar, you know she isn’t putting anything horrible or personal into it- barring her doctoring the glasses beforehand. I don’t even want to think about that level of premeditation.”

  “You’re a strange guy.”

  “I’m a creature of habit, and unfortunately a student of human nature. You see the way she looked at me when we walked in? It’s rare to see that kind of unmitigated hate in civilized society- especially in a service industry. But she doesn’t hate me, personally. She hates everyone. She hates the night shift, but she’s been through a half dozen shift workers who robbed her stupid, so she has to work the night shift on her own.”

  “Why not just stay closed at night?”

  “Money’s too good- not that the money’s that great. She couldn’t afford to keep the café open without it. But because of that she’s resentful. Which is why most of the food on the nightshift is questionable.”

  “So why did you bring me here, then?”

  “You’re a witness. I can explain getting you coffee, but not going out for a pizza. If this were a date we’d have hopped in a cab and tried to find another place that’s open as a pretense, so at least when we ended up here it was a last resort. But I’ve worked enough nights to tell you Lucinda’s is the only place open. That’s the reason her nights are profitable; cops, mill workers, anybody on graveyard ends up here, eating her rancid rhubarb pie. Don’t make that face, it wasn’t a euphemism. That shriveled up husk of domestic terrorism in the glass dish at the end of the bar, that’s rhubarb pie, exactly as Satan taught her to bake it.”

  “But… it’s black.”

  “Exactly.”

  As if for the first time, Lucinda realizes we’ve come in and sat down, and waddles over to us. “This one’s a lousy tipper, sweetheart,” she says around a cigarette I hadn’t seen on our way in.

  “She’s a lousy server,” I retort; I still have no idea if Lucinda enjoys our banter or not.

  “I think I’ll just have a cherry Coke for now.”

  “Coffee.” Lucinda glares at me, and I think maybe she’s somehow taken my order as a personal insult, before she turns and walks away.

  “I thought you said stay away from the coffee.”

  “I grew up with brothers; it afforded me all sorts of urine-related immunities.” She smiles, then realizes it and blushes; things were getting too personal. “Your driver’s license says ‘Lisbeth.’”

  “My mom used to call me ‘Libby’ and it stuck until college when a couple of frat asses started calling me ‘Lesby.’ I’m not a lesbian; I dated a few girls in college- but men, too. Anyway, nobody calls me Lisbeth anymore. You can call me Betty.”

  “Well, Betty, when you call me you can call me Al.” She smiles at that, which is nice; given how much younger she is I wasn’t sure she’d have ever heard that song.

  “I like that. I’ve always liked ‘Al,’ since at least seeing Aladdin when I was really little- the animated Disney one. I used to run home from school instead of taking the bus so I could catch the show.”

  “Wait, they made a TV show?” Now I really felt old.

  “Yeah, it was part of the Disney Afternoon block. I watched entirely too many cartoons as a kid.” She sighs, and for the first time since we passed Claire's apartment, her guard slips. She doesn’t look back at me, just stares out the window behind me.

  Lucinda smacks Betty’s cherry Coke down on the table hard enough I’m su
rprised the glass doesn’t break. “Coffee’ll be a while,” she sneers, and saunters back off in the direction of the register before I can tell her I wasn’t in any particular hurry. Betty tries to ignore the hostility in the air as she sips at her Coke.

  “What kind of relationship did you have with Claire?” She almost sucks Coke into her lungs. “See, you being bisexual, you volunteered that; I think you wanted to tell me. Were the two of you lovers?”

  She swallows. “Not exactly. I think it was complicated. There was certainly some attraction, but we hadn’t really decided how to proceed with it. I’m not sure if it’s more honest to say we were just friends, or not yet.”

  “How’d you feel about that ambiguity?”

  “I don’t dislike ambiguity. I think lovers are friends, and some friends are lovers we haven’t decided to love yet. I think the bum rush into romance can spoil a friendship that never should have been love, but then again,” she leans across the table and stares at me, and for a moment I feel like a steak on a platter in front of a starving woman, “there are just some people you never wanted to just be friends with.”

  I swallow, trying not to pay attention to the way her leaning presses her cleavage out of her gym clothes. “In my experience that decision is never entirely mutual. So who was holding back- you, or her?”

  “I suppose she was, more than me. I wasn’t hurrying into her bed, but there was a night last week. We’d just seen that Gyllenhaal movie at the second run theater, and I walked her to her door and tried to kiss her