“Leo?”
“I just want some air.”
He pretended to walk toward the public restrooms, but passed them and headed back out to the boiler deck instead. He sighed in a deep breath of overly warm air that smelled like river water and seagull shit, and sighed out a gust that smelled like the two drinks he’d downed during the show.
He leaned forward against the rail.
The night sky was blue and very dark against the city lights of Vicksburg, sparkling along the shore and beyond it. The mighty Mississippi slapped softly against the boat’s hull. Laughter and cheers rose up from the Bayou Lounge, where his wife was probably enjoying some filthy thoughts about a man young enough to be her grandson.
Something about that damn bird stuck in his head.
Who sees in the dark? A nonsensical message from an avian brain the size of a caper, that’s all. Not a clue. Not a sign. Just a glitch in a magic show.
He thought about it anyway. He wondered what the answer was, if there even was one.
A rousing cheer and a cheerful thunder of applause rose up from the Bayou Lounge, so the magic show was probably over. The audience was probably finishing up drinks and wandering up and out to the decks to watch the city lights and get crapped on by the occasional bird.
Wanda and the Dead Report’s crew spied him and collectively flagged him down. “Honey, where did you go? You missed the big finish.”
“I’ll pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on.”
“Great! Because we’ve got our equipment ready to rock!” Ryan Forge declared. “Let’s go back up to the texas deck and talk to a ghost.”
Caitlyn Beaumont joined them there, making sure the deck remained “employees and other authorized personnel only.” Gently, firmly, she helped clear the scene. Then she approached Ryan Forge, her eyes all big and gooey.
“If there’s anything else I can do for you, just holler!” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was offering coffee and crowd control, or a quickie in the nearest broom closet.
The camera came on, and with it, the vividly diffused spotlight. Everybody blinked until all eyes had adjusted, and then Ryan launched into his showman’s patter. “Here I have my spirit box, a device that uses radio-wave static and a word bank to allow spirits to communicate with us. We’ll start with this, and see if we can reach the spirit of this poor lounge singer, this sad, unfortunate girl … who met her end one fateful night upon this very spot.”
He held up the little box, which had the size and complexity of an old Walkman. When he pressed a button, a loud white noise fizzed forth, filling the air with the sound of a million bees. “So let’s see if Misty is with us, and if she’s willing to talk.”
Caitlyn withdrew to the nearest rail and leaned against it, just out of the camera’s sight line. She exhaled dreamily in Ryan’s direction and clutched her clipboard to her chest.
“Misty Sighs!” he called out to the deck, like he was issuing a warrant for her arrest. “You died on this spot, from what looked like an accident … but what might have been a crime that was much, much more sinister in nature. Can you tell us … were you murdered, or did you just die?”
Together they listened to the static, for three seconds, four seconds, six seconds. The hum hiccupped and a word coughed through between the stations.
Rutabaga.
Everyone jumped, even Leo. “Did … did that thing just say…?”
“Rutabaga!” Ryan announced triumphantly.
Cattle drive.
“Cattle drive!” everyone repeated, like a pep rally cheer.
“These words don’t mean anything,” Leo complained. “They’re fucking nonsense!”
“Shut up, sweetheart.”
“Oh come on, Wanda.…”
Thursday.
“Fuck a bunch of this,” he muttered, and turned away from the scene. Whether or not he’d heard a ghost talking before, this was definitely not a ghost talking now. That stupid spirit box was probably picking up ambient chatter in the Grand Saloon.
Labradoodle.
Hovering under one of the still-working lights, he spied a skinny white guy in a trucker cap, holding a can of Coke and watching the proceedings. Something about his posture, or maybe the hat, or maybe the way he spit into the soda can … it added up to redneck, whether Caitlyn Beaumont liked that word or not. And she hadn’t chased him away, so that meant he was an employee.
He approached. “Hey, are you Mickey? Mickey Payne?”
The guy looked confused. “Huh?”
“You. Mickey Payne. Yes or no?”
“That’s me. Who wants to know?”
Diphthong.
Leo held out his hand, and Mickey shook it uncertainly. “Leo Storgman, of Storgman and Storgman Investigations. I’m here working for the boat’s insurance company, looking into the death of Misty Sighs. I understand you knew her?”
He blanched, then said, “Sure. Hang on.” Then he took a moment to spit a big gob of tobacco and juice into the can, apparently emptying the contents of his lip. “Sorry. They don’t like it when we smoke on board.”
“Right. Because chewing tobacco is … less disgusting.”
“What do you want, man?”
Festoon.
“I hear that Misty was avoiding you.”
“So what if she was?”
“So, she’s dead.”
“Accidentally dead,” Mickey said pointedly. “That’s what everybody says.”
“Sometimes everybody’s wrong. Did you creep her out, or what?”
“I asked her out, and she said no. I tried again. She said no again. But the third time’s the charm, right?”
“More like you can’t take a hint. The night she died, she left the Grand Saloon and you followed her.” Leo played his guess. “Where did she go?”
Mickey blushed to the brim of his hat. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t chase her down or anything, I just wanted to explain myself. I wanted to make sure she knew that I wasn’t a jerk, and she didn’t have to be afraid of me.”
“Yeah, women love that—when you follow them around, after they’ve told you to get lost. So you went after her, wanting to talk. Then what happened?”
He tossed his sloshing soda can into a trash can a couple of feet away. “I lost her up here on the texas deck. There are always a couple of lights out, okay? But she wasn’t alone—I know that for damn sure.”
Leo wasn’t sure he believed him, but he played along. “Who else was here?”
Squelch.
“She was arguing with somebody—I heard her yelling, and someone else was whispering back. Angry whispering, you know?”
“Who do you think it was?”
Mickey glanced over Leo’s shoulder, and apparently didn’t see anyone who might give a damn about anything he had to say. Still, he kept his voice down. “I think it might’ve been my boss.”
“Ms. Potts? What was she doing up there?”
“She said she was just picking up after one of the new cleaning crew guys, but when she came back down the stairs, she was acting pretty shifty. She was annoyed when she realized I’d seen her, and she acted like I was the one sneaking around. I was just looking for Misty, but by the time anybody found Misty…” He made a show of looking sad, hanging his head. “It was too late. Never gonna get that third chance.”
“That does sound suspicious. Did you say anything about seeing Ms. Potts to anybody, at the time?”
“No way, man. She’s my boss. But she’s been hanging out up there a whole lot after Misty’s death, and it’s starting to look weird. Besides, everybody said…” He looked up at the ghost-hunting crew and watched them wrestle with the spirit box. “Everybody said it was an accident. It had to be an accident.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Mickey didn’t answer the question. He only said, as he stared off past Leo at the ghost hunters on the boiler deck: “It was totally an accident.”
6.
Leo spott
ed Caitlyn at breakfast and waved her over. The bags under her eyes said she hadn’t slept terribly well, but she stood up straighter and smiled. “Good morning, Storgmans.”
“Good morning, Miss Beaumont, and I have just one last question: Did Misty leave anything on board the boat, or have you returned her personal effects back to her family?”
“I think we’ve still got a box. I meant to ship it weeks ago, but I’ve been so busy … I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Could we take a look at the contents?”
She scrunched up her mouth, like she was looking for an excuse to say no but couldn’t come up with one. “I guess that would be all right. Let me finish up here, and I’ll have it sent to your room.”
Caitlyn was as good as her word. By the time the Storgmans had finished their morning meal and returned to their cabin, a file box was sitting on the bed with a note that wished them a nice day. It also had a smiley face at the end.
“She’s cute,” Leo mused.
“Fucking adorable,” Wanda agreed somewhat less enthusiastically. “So what’s inside?”
He lifted the lid and set it beside the box on the bed. “Some clothes…” He pulled out several sequined dresses that were each small enough to fit in somebody’s purse, three pairs of strappy high heels, and some tiny, lacy pajamas with bunnies on them. There were also some tank tops: one from PETA advertising that she’d rather go naked than wear fur, one from the Talladega Speedway, and one from a vegetarian restaurant called Sluggo’s. Two pairs of cutoff denim shorts that would’ve barely covered a Barbie’s behind.
“What else?”
“Some underwear and the like. A couple of sketchbooks, yeah—look at this. What was it Kitty said? Drink and draw? Check it out.” He held up a loosely drawn image of the Amazing Ravenstone. He was out on the boiler deck, entertaining a child with a simple trick involving scarves.
“It really looks like him!”
“Yeah, she had some talent.”
Down at the bottom of the box were a few artist’s pencils and erasers. There was also a pouch that held tampons, a bottle of mixed pills, and a fistful of receipts. “Anything useful in here…?” Leo refused to wear bifocals and he didn’t have his cheaters handy, so he passed some of the receipts to Wanda.
“Mostly supper from the Grand Saloon, and a lot of bottomless margaritas. I mean, a lot of them. Looks like she ate at the buffet, but not always. In the evenings, she preferred bar food. Barbecue nachos, buffalo wings, and loaded fries.”
“Buffalo wings?” He pointed at the tank tops. “From the PETA princess?”
Wanda looked over at the shirts. “Maybe those were a gift, or a thrift-store find.”
“Maybe the food was for somebody else.” He spread the receipts out across the bed and put them in chronological order. “This was the last one: several strawberry margaritas, and a couple of bacon Bloody Marys.”
“This one’s from the night she died. She couldn’t have drunk all that by herself.”
“Benny might’ve helped. We know he was around.” He pulled another receipt out of the pile. “Check it out: this one’s from Lamar’s Party Hole. The roommate said he got a job at a place called Lamar’s. This must be it.”
“‘Karaoke and the strongest drinks in town,’” Wanda read aloud from the bottom of the scrap of paper. “When’s that one dated?”
“A week before she died.”
“Huh.” She reached into the box and pulled out a single flip-flop. She turned it over in her hand and spied something on the bottom, stuck in a glob. When she brought it closer to take a better look, her nose twitched. She rubbed it, then scratched it and set the shoe aside.
“What’s that?”
“There’s some hair stuck to the bottom. It’s making my eyes water.”
“Hair, or fur?” He picked it up and inspected it for himself. There was a small clump of fur wedged in a black wad of something that might’ve once been chewing gum, or possibly tar. It was reddish, and it made him think immediately of Wild Fox’s tail. “Maybe you’re allergic to foxes.”
“Foxes?”
“Isn’t that his name? Wild Fox? The other magician.”
“I don’t think I’m allergic to foxes,” she said drolly. “I was fine during the show—”
“From all the way out in the audience,” he pointed out.
“Still. That hair could’ve come from anyplace. Where’s the other shoe?”
“Don’t see it in here, and that’s pretty much everything. What do you say we hit the shore and see if your phone can get us to Lamar’s.”
Thirty minutes later Leo and Wanda had an Uber driver with green hair, an assortment of eyes that made her face look rather spiderlike, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the greater Vicksburg area. “Been here all my life!” she informed them. “Ask me anything! Civil War? I’ll give you casualties, stats, and locales of local battlefield parks. Civic government? I’ve been on the city council, the education committee, and in parks and rec. Hit me!”
“How far away is Lamar’s?” Leo asked.
The driver lifted a finger and said, “Ah! Lamar’s Party Hole. Established 1997 as a karaoke bar, and since evolved into a full-service restaurant and bar, specializing in cuisine that could best be described as soul-food-meets-bar-food. Be sure to try the fried green tomatoes with a special house-made buffalo sauce!”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“More than five minutes, fewer than ten! It’s a popular stop for folks riding the river cruises, close enough to get off the water and back to the boat in no time flat.”
The driver was right, and Leo was glad to be out of the vehicle when they pulled up to a tall, narrow building with a big neon sign that featured an anthropomorphic shrimp that was holding a fishing pole. “Have a great time!” the driver called as she drove away, tires squealing in the gravel.
Wanda waved her off, and Leo climbed the short front steps to the door. It opened with the chime of a small gold bell.
Inside, the place was too nice to call a dive bar, and too ratty to mistake for a chain. Fishing nets were strung from corner to corner, and the occasional ship’s wheel hung on the bits of wall that weren’t occupied by signed photos of minor celebrities and karaoke stars alike. It smelled like fried corn bread, grease, and beer.
They were a little early for lunch, but the hostess offered to seat them.
“No thanks,” Leo told her. “We’re actually looking for someone: a guy named Benny Criggs. Heard he works here.”
She summoned him from the kitchen, from whence he brought a plastic tub. The hostess pointed out Leo and Wanda and ushered him toward them.
Benny put down the tub. “Hi. Um, I’m Benny?”
Leo was about to ask if he was sure, when Wanda held out her hand and quickly said, “Hello, darling. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Wanda Storgman and this is my husband, Leo. We’re doing a bit of investigation for the insurance company that holds a riverboat called the Natchez.”
He took her hand and shook it, then scratched at the back of his neck. “Um … I don’t work on the Natchez anymore. I work here, as a barback. And I bus tables. That kind of thing.”
Leo nodded and pulled out his Moleskine. He clicked his pen into the ready position. “But you used to work there. You left when Misty Sighs died, last time the boat passed through here.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said fast. “That was an accident, everybody said so.”
“Yeah, everybody says so. But we’re covering our bases. The night Misty died, you were with her in the Bayou Lounge, while Caitlyn gave her the third degree about being a shitty employee.”
He swallowed. “That sounds right.”
“Did you follow her, when she left?”
“Yes,” he said cautiously. “But only because that guy Mickey Lee was watching her all weird-like. I was trying to look out for her.”
“Where did she go?”
“Up to the texas deck. It was dark, though. I lost her. I think Mickey lost her, too. I ran into him, coming back down the other way. He bumped into me, really hard, and told me to fuck off.”
Wanda nodded sympathetically. “Leo already talked to him. He didn’t mention seeing you, but he mentioned JoHanna Potts. He also heard Misty yelling at someone.”
His mouth twisted in confusion. “I saw Ms. Potts, that’s true. And I did hear Misty talking. I wouldn’t say she was yelling, but she sounded drunk and annoyed. Ms. Potts, though … she came out of one of the cargo doors, right before the spot where the light was out. I could barely see her, and I don’t think she saw me.”
“What was she doing up there?”
“Batting clean-up for her nephew. She’d gotten him hired, and he wasn’t doing the world’s best job, or that’s how I heard it. It’s not the kind of place she usually had any business, but…” He shrugged weakly. “Mickey didn’t have any business up there, either. Neither did I.” Benny opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, then stopped himself.
Wanda saw him pause, and gently urged him to continue. “What is it, darling? Is there something you’d like to tell us?”
He looked nervously at Leo, then back to Wanda. “I’m … I’m not in any trouble, am I? You’re not police?”
“Did you do something wrong?” Leo asked him.
Wanda overrode him. “No, nothing like that. We aren’t cops, and you’re not in trouble.”
“What if I did something that was … a little wrong? I didn’t hurt anybody,” he said before anyone could ask. “I just…” His voice fell to a whisper. “I found Misty’s body, okay? I tripped over her, in the dark. I slipped in her blood, and I…” He gulped dryly. “I freaked out! I hollered for help, but I knew she was dead. There was so much blood. I couldn’t see it all, but it was all over me, and I had this moment, you know? I was on my hands and knees on the deck and I found her sweater. She was holding it in her left hand, so I picked it up, and I … I kept it.”
“You kept it?” Leo stopped writing.
“She must have been carrying it. I panicked, see? I wanted something that belonged to her. God, you must think I’m pathetic.”