Haunted Air

"Take it a step further: What if those remains lead the cops to her killer and bring him to justice? Won't that be a good thing? Won't that be doing god's work too?"

Lyle wanted to ask Charlie why the hell god would let a child be murdered in the first place, but sensed his brother wavering and didn't want to blow it.

"Two days, Charlie. I bet if Jesus had a wayward brother he'd give him a couple of days if he asked for them."

Charlie shook his head as his lips twisted into a reluctant smile. "Dawg, I hear talk 'bout a silver-tongued devil, and now I see I'm related to him. A'ight. Two days and not a minute more. But this gotta be a two-way deal: Nothin' crackin' by Friday night, I'm geese and you with me. Deal?"

Lyle hesitated. Me too? He hadn't figured on that being part of the deal, but then, he couldn't go on as Ifasen without his brother. And if what had happened this morning was the start of a pattern, he wasn't sure if Ifasen had any future at all, at least in this house. So he could see no downside in agreeing to Charlie's terms.

But they were going to find Tara Portman, or what was left of her. He could feel it.

He stuck out his hand.

"Deal."

10

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gertrude cried in her booming voice as Eli stepped through the door. "You should be upstairs resting!"

She was so right. Barbed wire raked across his groin as he shuffled toward the Carrera marble sales counter. He should have stayed put, but he'd been feeling better after lunch and a nap, and so he'd given in to the urge to see his store, examine his stock, peruse the sales book. By the time he'd reached the sidewalk he realized his mistake but by then he was beyond the point of no return: Unable to face, even with Adrian's help, the prospect of turning and challenging the narrow Everest between him and his bed, he'd pushed on.

"Nonsense, Gert." He leaned heavily on his cane as he neared the counter. "I'm fine. But do you think you could bring that stool around front?"

"Of course!" Her tightly pi

She gripped one arm and Adrian the other as he eased himself back onto the seat-not sitting, merely leaning. He wiped the cold sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. The new clerk-what was his name? Kevin? Yes, Kevin-came over, feather duster in hand, and gawked at him.

"I'm so sorry about what happened," he said, and sounded as if he meant it.

But did he really?

Eli hires Kevin and a few days later Eli is stabbed. A co

Somehow he doubted it, but it never hurt to examine all possibilities.

Eli suffered through a barrage of questions from his two hirelings about the attack; Adrian gave his spiel about loss of memory, leaving Eli with the task of supplying answers. He tossed off curt, oblique responses until he'd had enough.

"I realize this is our slow season," he said, "but surely you two must have something better to do."

Both immediately buzzed off-Kevin to continue dusting the stock, Gert to continue entering new inventory into the computer. Adrian wandered away, browsing the aisles.

"How are receipts, Gert?" Eli said.

"About what you'd expect." She picked up the black ledger and extended it toward him. "As you said, it's the slow season."

August was always sluggish, and sputtered to a dead stop by Labor Day weekend when the city became a ghost town.

Eli opened the old-fashioned ledger-he preferred seeing handwritten words and numbers on paper rather than a computer screen-and sca

"The sturgeon? We sold it?"

He'd had that stuffed monstrosity sitting in the window since he'd opened the shop. He'd started to believe it would be there when he closed the place.

"I not only sold it, I got the tag price for it." Gert beamed proudly. "Can you believe it? After all these years I do believe I'm going to miss that ugly old fish."

Eli flipped back to Tuesday, the day the green clerk had been here alone, literally and figuratively minding the store.

He was almost afraid to look. To his surprise he saw a fairly long list of sales. It seemed Kevin had risen to the occasion. Maybe the boy-

Eli froze as his gaze came to rest on a line that read: Key chain-$10-Jack.

No! It's not... it can't... it's...

Gripping the counter for support, Eli levered himself off the stool and began a frantic walk-shuffle toward the rear, toward the display cabinet-his display cabinet.

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gert cried behind him. "Be careful. Whatever it is you need, I'll get it for you!"

He ignored Gert, ignored the flashes of pain strobing through his pelvis, and kept moving, leaning on his cane as he rode the desperate edge of panic, trying to stay on this side of it by telling himself that the entry was a mistake, an antique watch fob that that dolt Kevin had mistaken for a key ring.

But urging him past that edge was the memory of the oddly dressed red-haired man who had come in Sunday night and offered him ridiculous sums for a silly trinket. He hadn't given much thought to the incident, writing the man off as someone killing time and playing the dickering game: If it's for sale, find out how low it will go for; if it's not, find out what it will take to make the owner part with it.

But now... now the incident loomed large and dark in his brain.

He rounded a corner. The cabinet was in sight. The lock... he allowed himself a thin smile... the lock, the dear, dear brass padlock was still in place and snapped closed, just like always.

And the key ring, that cartoon rabbit key ring was-

Gone!

Eli sagged against the cabinet, gripping the oak frame, sweat from his palm smearing the glass as he stared at the empty spot on the second shelf.

No! He had to be dreaming! This had to be a mistake!

He grabbed the padlock and yanked on it, but it held firm.

The air seemed full of shattered glass, every breath shredding his lungs.

How? How could this be? He had the only key. Objects don't move through solid glass. So how-?

"Mr. Bellitto!" Gert's voice behind him.

"Eli!" Adrian. "What's wrong?"

And then they had him surrounded, Gert, Adrian, and the silent Kevin. Yes... Kevin, the weasely, sniveling little shit.

Eli glared at him. "You sold something out of this cabinet, didn't you?"

"What?" Kevin paled and shook his head. "No, I-"

"You did! A key ring with a rabbit! Admit it!"

"Oh, that. Yes. But it couldn't have come from here. I don't have the key."

"It did!" Eli shouted. "You know damn well it came from here! Tell me how you got it out!"

"I didn't!" He looked ready to cry. "The man brought it up to the counter. When I saw that it didn't have a price tag-"

"There!" He raised his cane and shook it in Kevin's face. He wanted to beat his head to a spongy pulp. "Right there that should have told you something! How do you sell something without a price tag? Tell me!"

"I-I-I called you at the hospital about it."

"That's a lie!" He raised the cane higher. He'd do it. He'd kill him, right here and now.

"It's true!" Kevin had tears in his eyes now. "I tried to ask you about it but you said to figure it out for myself and hung up on me."

Eli lowered the cane. Now he remembered.

"That was why you called?"

"Yes!"

Eli cursed himself for not listening.

"What did this man look like? Reddish hair, long in the back?"

Kevin shook his head. "No. He had brown hair. Brown eyes, I think. Very average looking. But he called you by your first name and said you were friends. He even left his name."