I perched on the bench directly in front of my shop and leaned back, closing my eyes to avoid looking at the white lines marking the crosswalk just a few yards away. Back in April, one of my tarot clients had met his untimely end between those two white lines, thanks to a hit-and-run driver who sped through the red light, clocking a good forty miles an hour. The image had stuck in my mind and offered up an instant replay every time I looked at the intersection.
“Yo, O’Brien, wake up!”
I knew that voice. “I’m asleep. Go away.”
“Come on, wench. It’s almost noon and you promised we’d talk.”
I opened one eye to stare at the familiar face. Yep. There stood Jimbo Warren, decked out in full leather and studs, towering over me. I didn’t see the monster he called his “Sugar” anywhere. “Where’s your chopper?”
He jerked his head toward Chiqetaw’s downtown parking lot and I could tell he wasn’t up for small talk. I still found it difficult to believe that this giant of a man and I had started out as enemies. Over the past few months, his drunken bouts had tapered off and he’d actually taken to stopping by my shop for a bag of cookies or an honest-to-goodness cup of tea.
“As I said on the phone, I need your help.”
His sober expression got me moving. I stretched, then motioned for him to follow me into the shop. As we navigated our way through the display tables, several of my customers tossed us questioning glances. I returned their looks with a gracious nod, but Jimbo added a little half-bow with a flourish, his eyes twinkling.
“Morning, ladies,” he said in an easy voice. “I trust the day’s being kind to you?”
Flustered, they tittered back a few daring responses and one of them—I think it was Elvira Birmingham—positively beamed. I forced myself to keep a straight face. Oh yeah, women loved bad boys all right; especially the prim and proper matrons of the town.
I led Jimbo to the table I kept reserved for shop personnel and offered him a seat. Jimbo eyed the chair. The delicate scrolled backs were aged with a green patina, and the smooth leather seats belied their strength. “You sure that bitty thing’s gonna hold me up?”
“It might look dainty but the framework is solid iron; it won’t bend under the weight of a sumo wrestler.” I motioned for him to sit down. “I’ll get us some lemonade and cake.” After I brought the food and drink back to the table, I settled into my own chair “So what’s going on?”
He hesitantly perched on the cushion and swigged down his lemonade. He set the glass back on the table, staring at it for a moment before speaking.
“I told you that one of my buddies has disappeared.”
I nodded. “Scar, right?”
“Yeah. Scar’s been hanging around Klickavail Valley for the past four years. Now he’s up and vanished. Nobody’s seen him for a week. He wouldn’t just wander off like this, O’Brien. I know something’s happened to him.” His lip twitched.
A biker who’d vanished spelled “road trip” to me. Or “jailbird.” “I assume you’ve talked to the police and to his other friends?”
Jimbo grunted. “Scar’s old lady hasn’t seen him since Friday—a week ago today—and that’s the last time I saw him, too. Seems Traci came into town to buy groceries. Scar told her he was going to head over to my place. When she got home, the lock on their trailer was busted and the place was trashed. Every drawer had been tossed. A real mess. I went up there and looked around. Whoever did it was searching for something and I don’t think they found it.”
“Thieves?” I asked.
“That’s just it. Nothing was missing, except Scar. As soon as Traci saw the state of their trailer, she drove over to my place, figuring Scar and I would be out fishing, but he never showed up. I followed her back to the enclave and we asked around. Clyde—he runs the joint—was the last person who talked to him. Clyde said he asked Scar if he wanted to hang out and have a beer, but Scar told him that he was heading out for my joint. Then he vanished. We went to the cops Saturday morning when he still hadn’t shown up.”
Jimbo must have been worried if he’d actually brought in the police. “What did they say?”
“You know how they feel about the bikers. They keep hoping the whole lot will just disappear, and since they can’t raid the place without a good reason, they’re not about to do anything to help find a biker gone AWOL. They were total assholes.”
“I can’t believe they’d just ignore the fact that he was missing.” I knew several of the officers, including my best friend Murray who had made detective earlier in the year. The Chiqetaw police were usually responsive to the public.
“Oh, they took a report all right, but then that paunchy old dude—what’s his name? He’s the head of detectives?”
“Coughlan?”
“Yeah, thanks. Coughlan, that’s it. He took one look at the report and passed it off. He said that Scar was probably off on some road trip. Traci told them about the trailer, but they ignored it. Just said that they’d ask around at the bars. Real big freakin’ help, huh?”
Jimbo scratched his chin, his beard still braided in the long cornrows that I’d suggested. The first day he’d showed up with them, I realized that I had no business offering fashion tips to bikers, but he seemed to like them so I refrained from commenting other than to murmur an “Oh yes, how nice.”
“Coughlan, huh? That figures.” The officers I knew took complaints seriously, checking things out as much as their constrained budget and limited force allowed, but Coughlan was another matter. Murray’s supervisor, he’d made her life miserable ever since she got a promotion to his unit. They’d managed to achieve a truce, but I didn’t expect it to last.
He shook his head. “Remember, we’re talking about the Klickavail Valley bikers. The cops suspect all sorts of trouble out there, most of it the product of their overactive imaginations. Since the enclave is housed on private property and the boys have permission to live there, and since there’s no proof that anything illegal is actually going down, the cops ignore the place, hoping the group will get bored and leave. They’re not gonna help any more than they’re forced to. Anyway, so Scar’s vanished and Traci’s freakin’.”
“They have a fight, maybe?”
“Nope, no way. She’s pregnant and they’re happy as a pair of lovebugs. Kid’s due to pop in about a month. I told the cops Scar would never run out on his old lady. All he can talk about lately is having the kid and settling down. He wants two or three more, after this one.” Jimbo shrugged, but I thought I glimpsed the ghost of a smile behind his worry.
Curious. I’d have thought that anybody living in the biker’s enclave out there would want to remain free, unattached. “What about you? Have you ever considered getting married?” The question slipped out before I could stop myself.
Jimbo picked at the crumbs of his cake. “Me? Nah… I mean, it just ain’t the life for a woman. Hell, you know me. I spend most of my time in the woods. What would I do with a wife and kids? I got my land and my house and that’s enough. Heck, I was here before most of those guys even knew the valley existed. I’m about as settled as I’m ever gonna get.”
Jimbo’s home, from what I had seen, had been built one room at a time; he just kept adding on as he needed to and it resembled a sprawling shack more than a house, but I wasn’t going to nitpick over subtleties.
He continued. “But after years on the road, some of the boys need to settle down, plant some roots. Don’t mean they get kicked out of the gang, they just keep the home fires burning for the rest. Anyway, so you see, Scar wouldn’t leave Traci, and he sure as hell wouldn’t run off without his new Harley. He just bought that baby and she cost him over thirty grand.”
“Thirty grand? For a bike?”
“Hey, it’s a customized Screamin’ Eagle Electra Glide. They don’t come cheap.”
I didn’t ask how Scar had managed to get his hands on thirty thousand dollars; the less I knew about the financial dealin
gs of Jimbo’s friends, the better. But something about the situation intrigued me. I’d shed a lot of my stereotypes over the past few months. If Jimbo was right about his friend, then Scar wouldn’t have up and taken off without letting somebody know. On the other hand, could the man still have a wild streak that Jimbo had overlooked?
“Has anything else happened that strikes you as suspicious?”
He glanced around to see if anybody was eavesdropping. God knows, somebody probably was. I loved my customers but a select handful were firmly ensconced in the busybody boot camp. My tearoom had become a hotspot for the tea-and-crumpet set to pick up a little gossip along with their daily “cuppa.” Whenever I had a few moments, I joined them, doing my best to keep tabs on local rumors and squash anything I knew to be wrong.
“My chickens have been disappearing. Last week, something tore up my fence—that’s pure barbed wire, babe, and ain’t much fun to tangle with.”
“Cougar? Bear maybe? This is the time of year when they pack on the weight for winter, so they’ll be out and about.” Chiqetaw was nestled out in the boonies off Highway 9, about fifteen miles southeast from Bellingham. Quite a few wild animals wandered in from the woods to the outskirts of town, especially out near Miner’s Lake and up on Jumping Jack Ridge.
Jimbo shook his head. “I don’t think so. Whatever did it trampled my carrot patch and got into the corn. I found footprints in the dirt, and O’Brien, they weren’t made by any four-legged animal. They were big and barefoot. Bigger than my feet.” Jimbo stretched out his leg. Yep, his boot was mighty big, at that.
He leaned in closer. “My guess is that something’s tromping around Miner’s Lake, something dangerous. A few of the guys in Klickavail Valley told me that they’ve come up short on stuff lately. Food… blankets… stuff like that. Terry-T said his sleeping bag disappeared off the clothesline a couple weeks ago. And they’ve been hearing strange things in the woods out there, too. Noises, and seeing shadows that shouldn’t be there.”
A tingle pulsed in the back of my neck and it felt as if I stood poised on the edge of a cliff. “You said you thought Scar is dead. Why?”
He sighed. “I can’t prove that he’s dead, but I got one of those awful feelings in my gut that I ain’t ever gonna see him again. This week I’ve had a couple dreams about him calling my name, but in them, I could never find out where he was. And then last night, I had another dream, and he was there, and he was all bloody and holding out his hands. Scared me shitless.”
“So you want me to go ghost-hunting.”
“Yeah,” he said with a bob of his head. “Come out to Miner’s Lake and take a look around. You can see these things better than me.”
I took a deep breath. The situation didn’t sound good, that was for sure. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
“What I was thinking was, seeing as how you’re a hoodoo woman like my Granny, maybe if he’s dead, his ha’nt is hanging around and you might be able to see him or hear him.”
I leaned back in my chair, contemplating the situation. Over the past few months, Jimbo and I’d had several talks about his grandma, who practiced some sort of folk magic down in the bayous of Louisiana. Jimbo firmly believed in the supernatural, he’d had several interesting experiences as a kid, then again when helping me rescue my son. And apparently, I was the only one he could talk to about the paranormal without being labeled a wacko.
I took a long swallow of my lemonade. Chances were good that Scar had just dropped out of sight for a while, but Jimbo had tweaked my curiosity. If it would set his mind at ease, I’d do it. And as he’d said, I owed him one.
“All right. How about Sunday? I can’t promise results, but I’ll give it a try. Do you mind if I bring my friend Murray?”
He hesitated for a second, then shrugged. “What the hell, it ain’t like this is top secret. Why don’t you bring some chips and beer, and I’ll fry us up a chicken, fresh from the henhouse.”
It was my turn to pause. “Fry a chicken? You can cook?”
Jimbo smirked. “Hey babe, I ain’t just good looking, you know. My Granny taught me how to pluck a hen and skin a possum, and fry up catfish fresh from the lake. Hell, you think I could do the work I do if I lived on baloney sandwiches?”
We had more in common than I’d thought. Since my mother had worked in my father’s business, I’d learned most of my skills from my Nanna, too, though I’d never once had to face skinning a possum. I shuddered, grateful for small favors.
He pushed back his chair and winked at me as he stood up. “I’ll hide anything your cop-friend shouldn’t see.”
Oh yeah, that made me feel better. I cleared my throat. “Sounds like a plan.” He stood up, but paused when I rested my hand on his. “Jimbo, what do you really think happened to Scar? You said you think something’s prowling in the woods out there. Are you hiding something from me?”
He paused, his expression guarded. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”
I stared at him. “You do realize who you’re talking to, don’t you?”
He rubbed his hands together. “You know, those woods have a lot of secrets. There’s some crazy-assed shit going on out there; always has been, always will. Rumors and stories float around. I laughed most of them off until lately. About two… maybe three weeks back, I start getting the feeling that I’m being watched every time I’m out there. I tell you, those woods are alive, and they seem agitated.”
My psychic alarm clock began to ring. “So what do you think happened?”
He sighed, then jammed on his helmet and pulled on a pair of leather gloves. “I think the Klakatat Monster killed him and dragged him off somewhere. That’s what I think.” And with that, he saluted me and strode toward the door.
Klakatat monster? What the heck was that?
With visions of beasts and bogies dancing in my head, I glanced over to where Margaret sat, ostensibly reading her book. I could see her peeking over the top, her face a question mark. I leaned down next to her and gave her a gentle hug. “Jimbo’s just a friend in need of a little help.”
“Friend, indeed,” she said. She shook her head, but looked relieved. “He’s wearing enough leather to build himself a cow.” I poured her another glass of iced tea, then got back to work.
Chapter 2
MURRAY WIPED THE dirt off her face and took a long drink from her water bottle before bending back over the tangle of bramble creepers and clover. I’d enlisted her help to thin out my overgrown, weed-infested flower beds in the backyard. Earlier that spring I’d planned on planting a kitchen garden, but during my last adventure I’d bonded with nature a little more than I had intended. The experience turned me off from anything having to do with mucking around in the dirt.
By the time I’d managed to shake off the memories of being encrusted from head to toe with forest mulch while welting up from a nasty patch of stinging nettles, it was too late to start any seedlings. Now though, I was determined to get the beds ready and then, in a month—or whenever my neighbor Horvald Ledbetter told me to—I’d plant a bevy of spring bulbs for next year. Tulip lovers of the world unite!
My knees pressed into the soft dirt as I stabbed a particularly tenacious dandelion with my trowel. “Sheesh, these things don’t want to give up!” I finally edged the tip of the garden tool under the root and pried until I’d dislodged the tuberous plant enough to yank the whole thing out.
Frustrated, I tossed the trowel aside. “Time for a break.” Leaning back onto the warm, soft grass, I stared at the clouds that wandered across the evening sky. There went a sinuous sea monster, and there, a griffin. Thoughts of sea creatures and legendary beasties brought me back to my conversation with Jimbo.
“Mur, have you heard of the Klakatat Monster?” I glanced over to where she lay, sprawled out on her stomach, face down in the grass. I leaned over and poked her gently in the side. “Hey, you awake?”
She grunted. Anna Murray was my best friend. One of two,
actually. We’d known each other since high school and had been roommates during our college years. A detective with the Chiqetaw Police, she was carving a niche for herself in a department headed by a man who didn’t particularly welcome Native Americans or women.
Actually, I had a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered what ethnicity she was. Mur was a warrior by nature, who looked like a cross between a sturdy Amazon and an Indian princess. Stronger, faster, and smarter than most of the men on the force, her competence and stern beauty rattled a handful of the detectives with whom she now worked. Luckily, she still had stalwart friends among the patrol officers, including the chief of police; friends who would do anything for her.
She sat up and gracefully folded her legs into the lotus position. Just looking at her made my joints ache, though I had to admit, I envied her flexibility and good health. Lately it seemed like I was always catching the sniffles or something and I had the sneaking suspicion it had everything to do with my intake of gooey treats, my lack of self-discipline when it came to exercise, and the amount of caffeine I happily imbibed.
“How do you do that? I don’t understand how the heck you twist yourself into those positions.” I tried to mimic her, failing miserably.
“They’re called asanas.” She grinned at me. “I keep asking you to come to yoga class with me. It’s fun, and good for you.”
I considered the idea. I hated the thought of going to the YMCA, which was the only gym left in town since my other best friend—Harlow—had closed the doors to her spa. I’d taken a self-defense course and felt confident that I could protect myself in an emergency, but the fact was that I’d turned into a sloth, spending most of my free time lounging around with Joe. I had no problem with my curves, but the only exercise I got lately was sex. I wasn’t complaining, but the truth was that the mattress mambo couldn’t replace a good set of weights or a treadmill.