Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

“Or maybe they’re in the hoard,” Earl suggested.

“You mean we’ll actually have to go through that stuff?”

“You were going to have to anyway,” I reminded Steve. “Anything magical in that mess is yours, remember. And I won’t be able to spot it.”

“I didn’t know it would be an issue,” he confessed. “He sounded like the kind of guy who wouldn’t own much of anything. His sister-in-law also seems to be the sort of person who would have sold anything of worth.”

“You met her?”

“I spoke to her briefly on the phone. The sale itself went through a realtor.”

“Maybe there was a chest of treasure in the living room and the rest of the house didn’t seem worth her time.”

“I doubt it. Something’s not right about this. Look, this map case has got to be more valuable than those suits. You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be worth the time and effort to dust it off and sell it. She didn’t even try to get into the attic.”

“After everything that’s happened this week, this is what doesn’t seem right to you?” Steve shrugged.

“It might be important.”

“Maybe she was involved in his death and feels guilty,” Earl said.

“I hope not. That would be a nightmare,” Steve said.

“How so?” Cassandra asked.

“If she murdered Obadiah then she couldn’t legally inherit his estate, which leads to all kinds of questions about the sales she made. Even if we’re in the clear, the real heir could tie things up in court for years.”

“Things haven’t been going well for you this week, have they?” Earl said.

“I should have gone into stock trading,” Steve lamented. “Or drug running. It would have been less stressful.”

“Cheer up,” I said. “She might have found his dead cat collection in the fridge, and not had the stomach to try the rest of the house.”

“The fridge
is
gone,” Cassandra said.

“You think so?” Steve asked.

“Sure,” I told him. “Obadiah didn’t think she was involved. Unless she bursts into the police station to confess, there’s nothing linking her to his death.”

“An idle suspicion isn’t enough to run an investigation on,” Earl agreed. “Especially since the deceased died of natural causes over a year ago. There was an autopsy at the time so exhuming him wouldn’t give us any new information.””

“I’ve had some experience with hoarding behavior,” Cassandra said. “If he did collect dead cats there might be more in the basement. We should check it out.”

***

We did. His basement was really a storm cellar. I’d never seen one in this part of the world. You had to go outside to get into it, and the entrance was a hatch built into the ground.

“I’ll stay up here while you three investigate,” Earl said. He was smiling as he said it, but he was scanning the surrounding trees.

“Why?” Cassandra wanted to know.

“I’ve just got a bad feeling,” he said. “Y’all have fun down there. Tell me how it goes.”

Steve went down first since it was his house now. There were no dead cats or any other type of pets. Sparks traced a line of dead things in a solid line around the cellar, but white powder along the walls explained that. It seemed this house had an ant problem.

I was glad I had Sparks around to sense the dead because otherwise I would have taken one look into that cellar and climbed back out. The inside of the storm cellar looked like a car serial killer’s trophy room. Mufflers and AC units were hanging from hooks on the ceiling. There was a row of toolboxes on one wall and a long table in the middle of the room with a deconstructed engine spread out over it.

“How many obsessive hobbies can one man have?” I asked the universe in general.

“What the fuck is this?” Cassandra asked.

“It’s a Cobra, an old Cadillac, a . . .Gremlin . . .”

“Isn’t a Cobra a nice car?” She asked. “Maybe
this
stuff is worth something.” She ducked hanging car parts to investigate the back of the cellar. “There are parts from at least six different cars here.”

“This door isn’t from a Cobra. It’s one of those weird ones that flips up.” Steve said.

“That style is called gull wings,” Cassandra said.

“I’m not much of a car person,” Steve said.

“We’ll have to ask Earl if the bodies of these cars ever made an appearance,” I said. “It’s possible that someone out there would like to buy an engine for the gutted car they just bought.”

“Sure, if they want to build it themselves,” Cassandra said. “Actually, I could take a crack at it. I try to avoid working on expensive machines my life depends on, but I’ve got some experience as a mechanic.”

“Didn’t you say that was why you skipped that tour?”

“Yes. If I left my colleagues alone with a blown fuse, they’d stick a penny in it and congratulate themselves on a job well done, then act confused when something expensive melted.”

Steve couldn’t walk through the hubcap mobile without getting hit in the face. The house had been designed and decorated by someone closer to my height, so I was short enough to walk under it. And since I was looking for something vaguely hubcap shaped-

“Hey Steve, I think I’ve found a magical thing for you!” I said. “I was wrong about the key being a hex wrench.”

“Oh?”

I showed him the flat hexagonal piece of metal. It had shapes carved into it that were too occult to be from a car company, and it had jewels embedded in one side. There were three notches set into it that made it look like a hubcap if you were in the dark and not expecting it.

“It’s a key that can be
attached
to a giant hex wrench.”

“Awesome,” Steve said. He pulled it off the ceiling and turned it over in his hands. “You’re right, the metal is special and the markings are magical. So you couldn’t just make a copy. To open whatever this unlocks, you’d need this specific key.”

He patted me on the head. “Good job.” I slapped his hand away.

“You would have found it eventually if you didn’t get sick of cleaning and sell all this stuff as scrap.” Steve laughed.

“No way. I would have hired people to toss everything and burn the house down before I went through this crap myself.”

“What is that a key to?” Cassandra asked.

“One of the tunnels,” I said.

“That’s an inconvenient size for a key,” she said. “Did you see how the weight was pulling its hook out of the ceiling?” I started to explain the hidden tunnel to her, but I was interrupted by gunfire.

Some of the shots sounded like they were being fired directly above us, but most of them sounded far away. Earl must have been shooting at someone, and he sounded outgunned. Cassandra screamed. Steve stuffed the key inside his jacket. I searched for a place to hide. I didn’t find any. All the stuff in this room was either flush against the wall or hanging from the ceiling.

There were six shots close enough to be painfully loud, and then silence. I waited for another shot for what seemed like an eternity. I headed to the stairs. So as not to appear completely useless I grabbed a tire iron on my way up.

“What are you doing?” Cassandra whispered. She was under the work bench. I don’t know what she was thinking; anyone coming down the stairs would see her instantly.

“I’m going to ask Earl what happened,” I told her.

“What if he’s dead?”

“He isn’t. He fired the last shot.” I shoved the hatch open and emerged tire iron first. Sure enough, Earl was standing to the side, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“It was just a local group of cultists,” he said. “Don’t worry. That type rarely comes back for seconds.”

“Just a local group? How many cults do you have running around?”

“Almost as many as we have groups of fringe scientists,” he replied. “These were from the Cult of Conterminous Space. I only got seven of them. The rest scattered while I was reloading.”

“You only fired six shots.”

“I’m just that good.”

“Is that why you stayed up here?”

“Yup. There’s more cult activity up here at the cliffs than in town. They stay away from Fiona’s place, for the most part because she has booby traps, and they didn’t bother Obadiah much when he was alive, probably because he dressed like a pirate. When they heard about the sale, they must have seen an opportunity to move in.”

I could see that. If you were in a town like this and believed in the occult, a wooden-legged pirate living alone with no visible means of support added up to nothing but trouble.

“So much for making this a vacation home,” Steve said. “How can anyone live here?”

“Like I said, it isn’t so bad in town. Most of the tourists aren’t expecting to find anything, so they don’t look that hard.”

“Should we check on Fiona?” I asked. “Not all that gunfire was close by.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Earl said. “She deals with worse all the time.”

“Who’s Fiona?” Cassandra asked. “And how can you be so casual about killing this many people?”

“It was them or me, ma’am,” Earl said. “Come to think of it, it
is
near lunchtime. She might need some company.”

“We could ask her about the magic hubcap,” I said. “She’s a wizard.”

“Hey! I’m a wizard too,” Steve said.

“Yes, but you’re always saying that you just dabble. Do you even know what kind of writing it is?” Before he could answer I specified “other than ‘the magic kind.’”

“No.”

“Then it can’t hurt to ask someone else.”

“Wait a minute,” Cassandra said. “What about these dead people? You’re a cop; you can’t just ignore them.”

Personally, I was sick and tired of crime scenes, but she was right. Earl rolled his eyes.

“In the case of cultists,” he said, “we let nature take her course. In these parts documenting the ones we gun down just calls attention to the ones we don’t, who go missing after meddling with forces they don’t understand. Besides, if the Cult of Conterminous Time finds them first, they’ll hide the bodies for us. If they’re still here when we get back, I’ll start proceedings.”

“The cult of what?” I asked.

“It used to be the Cult of Conterminous Space and Time,” Earl explained, “but they had a falling-out years ago and schismed. Now they spend most of their time attacking each other. Just avoid befriending any middle-aged cultists you meet in the woods and you’ll be able to stay out of it.”

“This town is awful,” Cassandra said.

“Did you really think an occult convergence would be sunshine and kittens?” Earl asked. “Now, get the magic doohickey and let’s get lunch.”

Fiona was interested in the magic doohickey, but she was more excited to see me.

“Of course you can all have lunch,” she said. “And then you can help me clean the attic.”

“Is anything wrong?” Earl asked.

“No, of course not.” Fiona pulled me to the side. “I can hear them,” she whispered to me as she helped me out of my jacket. “You woke them up, so help me get rid of them.”

“Sure,” I said. “But you shouldn’t be able to do that if they’re dead.”

“I told you they get stronger the more of them there are,” she said. “It took all of my self-control not just to make piles of cheese for lunch.”

There
was
a definite theme. Earl gave her a few suspicious looks as we ate toasted cheese sandwiches and cheesecake brownies.

“These markings do seem familiar,” she said when she examined the key. “Though they’re not in any book I own.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asked.

“Do they look familiar to you, Earl?” Fiona asked.

“Now that you mention it,” Earl said, leaning forward to study the key, “they look a lot like the signs in the tunnels.”

“Well that’s helpful,” Steve said. “We already know it’s for a tunnel.”

“Now we can figure out if it means anything,” Fiona said. “The signs in the tunnels do.” She turned the key around a few times. “I think it says abandon all hope.”

“Neat,” I said. “I’m glad we solved the mystery. Let’s get started on your attic so I can get out of here.”

“Get out of here?” Steve echoed. “But this is just the start.”

“No, it sounded like the end to me.”

“We have to find out
why
we should abandon hope.”

“A variety of possibilities have occurred to me,” I said. “I don’t like any of them.”

“Abner and Obadiah went down there and nothing happened to them.”

I was about to respond when a psychic cheese wasp landed on my sandwich and tried to eat it.

“Oh shit, they found another way out of the attic,” Fiona said. “Will you help me?”

“Sure,” I said. I felt a tiny bit of resistance as I fought for my sandwich, but the shade of an alien wasp was no match for me.

Steve and Cassandra followed us up to the attic while Earl remained downstairs.

“What is that?” Cassandra asked. I tried to explain without implicating myself. She still wasn’t satisfied by the time we reached the attic, but at that point it didn’t matter. There was a swarm of them now, and they headed for me as soon as the door opened.

“Why didn’t they show up the last time I was here?” I asked. I reminded myself that they were harmless and tried to resist swatting them. My resolve failed when one landed on my face. I screamed and ducked. To my relief, the cheese wasp flew away. I shielded my face with my arm to keep it from happening again.

“I tried putting up wards to keep them contained,” Fiona said. “It didn’t work for long.”

“We’d better get to work then,” The cries for cheese were a roar in my head. I could understand why the townspeople were afraid of these things.

Once she realized how much work we were going to do, Cassandra went back downstairs. Steve picked up a spatula and helped us chip away the plaster. Whenever we unearthed a body, I laid a shade to rest, and we burned the corpse. Eventually, the attic was clear of both plaster and psychic cheese wasps. Steve wiped his forehead. It left a smear. He was covered in so much plaster dust his hair looked as white as mine.

“What a mess,” he said. “I think we finally got them all.”

“I hope so,” Fiona said. “No offense, Jaspar, but from now on I’m not letting necromancers into my attic.”

“Oh no,” I said, clutching my chest. Plaster dust puffed away in a cloud. “I’m heartbroken.” Steve snorted.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“No,” I admitted. “In the last week I’ve been exposed to far more crypto-biology than I’m comfortable with.”

“You can still visit my kitchen,” Fiona said. How generous of her. “I think Gregory likes you.”

***

Back downstairs, Cassandra and Earl were having an argument. Whatever it was about, they stopped talking when they saw us. As I descended the stairs, Gregory scuttled from behind Earl and climbed on to my shoe.

“There you go,” Earl said. “He’s smart enough.”

“Please. Every time he begs Jaspar feeds him.” Sparks emerged from my jacket to stare at Gregory. The squid stared up at me and turned bright red. Then he started climbing my leg.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“That land squid is incredible,” Cassandra said. “I was just telling Earl that he’d make a great subject for a nature documentary.”

“That wasn’t the only thing you said,” Earl shot back. Gregory was trying to squirm into the pocket Sparks had vacated. I was glad my coat was oversized. He was a lot wigglier than the specter.

“I’m leaving soon,” I told him, “so don’t get too comfortable in there.”

Cassandra was scowling at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Are you always good with animals?”

“No, just aliens. So what do we do now?” I was addressing everyone, but Cassandra was the one who answered.

“I need to get one of those maps and recheck my readings. When I get the machine assembled, we can go to Bishop’s Corner and find out what happened to the first group.”

“You mean a team like the one that vanished?” Fiona asked. “What makes you think your machine will work better a second time?”

“This time I’ll have it working,” Cassandra said, “and we’ll go in daylight.”

“Daylight doesn’t make that place safer,” I warned her. “I almost got stabbed there right before lunch.”

“You’ve been there?” She said. “Then you can be on my team.”

“Oh no,” I told her. “I don’t meddle with the occult for free.”

“How is your machine going to help if it only detects magic rocks?” Steve asked.

“I’ll figure that out once I get the readings,” she said.

“These aren’t the kind of things you can confront and walk away from,” Fiona said. “The people who were killed in that video were also on a fact-finding mission.”

“And one of them got away to post the video,” Cassandra said.

“Very few people are willing to join a group with a seventy-five percent fatality rate,” I pointed out. “I’m not one of those people.” Cassandra glared at me.

“Why not? With power comes responsibility, you should feel responsible enough to help me. Or are you a fake psychic?” I noticed she didn’t say I had great power.

“You aren’t exactly tugging at my heartstrings,” I said. “And I notice you aren’t trying to guilt the police officer or the wizard into wandering into the woods.” I turned to Steve. “Could you take me back to the hotel?”

“Sure.”

***

Jeremiah was back at the front desk when I arrived. I was tired, dirty, and hungry, but he wanted to talk.

“Did you find anything new?” He asked.

“Yes, we think we found the key, and a bunch of fancy car parts.”

“Does this mean more people are going to be walking across my land?”

“I guess,” I said. “I think Steve would ask first, but I’m not so sure about the psychic rock researcher.” He frowned.

“That’s all I needed to know,” he said after a moment. “Do you have plans this evening?”

“I was going to eat at the diner then go to bed.”

“Would you consider eating here instead? My brother is coming over, and he wants to meet you.”

“He’s the mayor, right?”

“Yes. He also owns the self-service laundry.”

“Do you know why he wants to meet me?”

“I assume it has something to do with either the chupacabras or the tunnel,” Jeremiah said. “If it makes you feel any better, he might be the most normal member of our family.”

It’s hard to judge the age of a Whateley, but I would not have guessed that Mordecai and Jeremiah were brothers. Mordecai seemed much younger, but not quite as young as Zebulon Akeley, who was also at dinner.

“Pleased to meet you,” Mordecai said when we were introduced. He was wearing a turtleneck and a flannel shirt. I could now understand why Fiona compared him to his cousin rather than his brother. Not only was his hair closer in length to Zebulon’s, he’d bleached it and let it grow out so that several inches of dark roots were showing. He was easily the most disreputable looking Whateley I’d met so far. I momentarily wondered how he’d been elected mayor before I remembered that his opponent had been Abner Whateley, the most despised man in town.

“Pleased to meet you too,” I said. His mouth twitched into a smile when he looked at me.

“It’s nice to see Obadiah’s clothes being put to good use,” he said.

“What can I say? I’ve always wanted to dress like a pirate captain.”

“Never mind all that, let’s eat,” Mrs. Whateley said.

“Yeah, it smells great,” Zebulon said. “Hey, Jaspar.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“I heard about today,” he went on. “And last night. Someone’s really got it in for you, so why haven’t you left town?”

“They’re harassing me because of Steve,” I told him. “Once he gets his problems sorted out I’ll be in the clear. He seems to think he needs me around for that.”

“It’s causing a stir at school,” Theresa said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve had so many cultists around.”

“No,” Mordecai corrected her, “they’re always around; we just haven’t employed frontier justice on them before.”

“Earl’s really getting a kick out of this isn’t he?” Zebulon said.

“He does seem more cheerful than he was a week ago,” Mrs. Whateley said.

“Yes, it turns out that no one contacted the FBI after all. With no one but the sheriff to reign him in he’s been getting excitable.” Mordecai frowned at his plate. “At some point one of these fools is going to have a family that still cares enough to come looking for them.”

It occurred to me that normal is very relative. Mordecai was too cavalier about the body count for my tastes.

“What are you going to do when that happens?” I asked. He sighed.

“It’s not like things could get worse for us,” he said. “I know some people are worried about tourism, but we’ve already got hundreds of tourists. I suppose state or federal law enforcement could get involved. They’ve already had their chance, and we’ve had no response. What I’m worried about right now is the reenactment.”

“What about it?” Jeremiah asked.

“It’s very close to Bishop’s Corner.”

“That’s the whole point.”

“I know. It just seems like a bad time.”

“We can’t change the time,” Mrs. Whateley said. “It’s a tradition for a reason.” I wondered what that reason might be. I didn’t ask. I was learning that indifference was the safest path to take in this town.

“We need to find that tunnel and make sure it’s sealed before the reenactment,” Mordecai said. I sighed.

“I know where it is.”

“And
that
would be why people are after you,” Zebulon said. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“I got the location from a ghost. That usually doesn’t go over well.”

“We’re different here,” Mordecai said. “Is it sealed up?”

“I’m not sure about that part. We found the key today.”

“So you have it?”

“No,” Mordecai muttered something under his breath.

“You weren’t going to go out there alone at night anyway,” Jeremiah said sharply.

“I wasn’t going to go alone,” Mordecai protested.

“You’re not taking Zebulon or Mr. Windisle out there either,” Mrs. Whateley said. “You don’t know what’s in there. It could be more of those vegetable monsters.”

“Radish monsters,” Theresa corrected her mother.

“It could be the source of the chupacabras,” Mordecai agreed, “and it’s too close to Bishop’s Corner to be left alone.”

“Then why don’t you go tomorrow?” Jeremiah suggested. “Everyone will be putting the wall together, so there will be lots of people around to help.”

“That’s a good idea,” Zebulon said. “Earl’s going to be there anyway, and so will Fiona and Cici.”

“Will you show us the entrance, Mr. Windisle?” Mordecai asked. I was tempted to say no. I had no evidence he was any better than the cultists, or that these identical cousins weren’t part of a cult of their own, for that matter. He was the mayor, however. Presumably that meant a majority of the people in this town trusted him at least as far as they could throw him. It was their town, and I was sick of being followed. Maybe if everyone knew where the secret tunnel was, I could go back to being ignored.

“Sure,” I said.

Before calling it a day I had one more thing to do. According to the directory in my room, there was a library somewhere in this hotel, and I had some things to look up. I wasn’t sure if they would have a book on local geology, but surely they had a dictionary. I wanted to know what the Interstitial Institute of Cryptogeography was all about.