Category: Books

This wants to be more than 3K, but I shall be firm. For now.

At least we had one clue: the identity of our murder victim. “You came damned close, Sunshine,” Marsh told me as he pulled a sloppy folder out of his filing cabinet. “The dear departed was one David Shane. You can probably guess that he was known to the police.”

“If not quite by name,” I observed while opening the file. “Ah. He had an alias.” My eyebrows raised. “Many, many aliases.”

“He was in the sort of business where he’d need a few. Ghostlegger. You familiar with them, Lieutenant?”

“A bit,” Curwin admitted. “We’d get the odd addict from far foreign, looking for their fix of spookweed. Tobacco mixed with ghost-stuff, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Not souls, although ectohuffers would smoke them too, if only the perverts could. Strip a ghost of its old memories, mix the stuff up with whatever street-sweeping baccy’s around, and smoke somebody else’s life away. Hell of a high, I’ve heard the poor bastards say.” Marsh’s frown showed teeth. “Even more of a low, when you haven’t gotten any for a bit.”

I gotta figure out some things on this one, and right quick.

Lieutenant Curwin asked about the most obvious possibility first: “Was the murderer covering his tracks? Trying to keep you from sniffing out his identity?” He also seemed interested in my work in general, which I do like to see in a man.

“If he did, ‘twould be hideous overkill,” I replied, still trying to find any trace of death-residue that might be read holographically (more Old American, I’m afraid). “Even if I could reconstruct a spirit that existed in this space at the time of the murder, it could only give me a surface idea of who attacked the victim. The murderer would have to be of extremely high rank to justify the magical energy it would take to wipe a site this clean.”

“How high rank?” asked Marsh.

“Let me put it this way, Horace: if I was seriously considering this possibility, I would be asking you if the President had an alibi.” I smiled. “Although I can’t imagine what motive your grand-uncle might have.”

I thought I’d maybe do this up as a 3K word one for this week.

“You can shut off the ghost-warmers, lads,” I told the assemblage of policemen and workers knotted up near a tarpaulin-covered body. “There’s not a one of them within a block of this place. Hullo, Horace.”

“Hullo, Sunshine,” needle-grinned Horace Marsh (yes, one of those Marshes). “Sorry to drag you down tonight. There’s horrible coffee.”

“That would imply that you might ever have good coffee,” I retorted as I poured myself a cup. “All the angels, but you brew a wretched cup. I wish I knew how you manage it.”

“I start out by hating the beans. After that, I improvise.” Horace visibly grew serious. “This is a bad one, Mistress Dexter. We suspect Dominion activity.”