Deadly Curiosities (22 page)

I shook my head. “No. But it’s very possible that he died in the rooming house, so maybe that will narrow it down.”

“I’ll see what I can do. If I can’t find anything online, maybe Anthony’s sources can help,” Teag said. He had inherited his ancient Volvo from his grandmother, and it creaked and groaned as it bounced along the crumbling roads of the abandoned Navy yard but kept on going.

“In the meantime, I’ll ask Lucinda for her assistance,” Sorren said. “The house as it stands is dangerous. That makes it Trifles and Folly’s business to contain. Perhaps she can work a spell that makes sure its malice doesn’t extend beyond the walls. Until we can get it exorcised.”

Personally, I thought a wrecking crew might be even more effective, but I held my peace. Given the fuss I’d kicked up with the ghosts, I wouldn’t imagine that they would take well to having a demolition crew on the premises. And after the demonstration we had seen, I feared the spirits that remained at Dennison’s Rooming House could be a lot more dangerous than we knew. I didn’t want to wish them on anyone.

“Kevin’s ghost came back to protect us at the end,” I said quietly. “So did Jimmy Redshoes, and other people I didn’t recognize.” I decided that I needed to see photos of the men who had been killed, determine whether they had been among our ghostly champions. “There were five young men whose ghosts looked familiar,” I said, thinking aloud. “I don’t know where I’ve seen them before, but I know I recognized them from somewhere.”

“I’m on it,” Teag said. “We’ll figure it out.”

We were silent for a few moments as Teag navigated the twisting roads as quickly as he dared. Finally, I looked down at the walking stick in my hands. My grip had shifted back to the cloth-covered portion of the cane, but the vision I had seen was still clear in my memory. “This was Alard’s?” I asked, looking at Sorren.

A shadow seemed to pass over Sorren’s face, and he looked away. “Yes,” he said quietly. “It served him well. I guessed that since you could see the memories in my ring, you could access the resonance in the walking stick.” He gave a wan smile. “It’s a powerful weapon.

“You’ll forgive me if I’m a bit overprotective,” he said, still staring out the side window of the Volvo. “I lost my friends once to a demon and its master. I’ll be damned if I’ll let that happen again.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
was beautiful, and likely to be hot, so I enjoyed the relative cool of the morning and took Baxter on a longer than usual walk, resolutely trying to push the terror of the night before from my mind. Watching Baxter romp and pounce lifted my mood, and when we returned home I was even more thrilled to find my Mini Cooper, or at least a similar Mini Cooper, parked outside looking as good if not better than before our escapade. By the time we went back inside, I knew Baxter was tired enough that he would take a long nap until I came back to feed him at lunch.

I was tired after last night, so I swung into Honeysuckle Café for a dose of caffeine. There was a line, and both Trina and Rick were pulling shots of espresso as fast as the machines would go.

“Whadaya hear, Rick?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing much.” Without my having to order, he made my favorite skinny double latte and added a dollop of sugar free vanilla.

“Good to see you out and about, Cassidy!” Drea sidled up when I left the counter, clutching her own takeout cup and a bag with a muffin. Just then, a nearby table opened up, and by mutual agreement, we decided to play hooky for a few moments.

“What’s new in the carriage tour world?” I asked.

Drea’s smile twisted. She looked around the cafe to see if any out-of-towners were close enough to hear. “I was at the Business Booster meeting last night. There’s talk about increased security, with all the deaths out by the Navy yard.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” I said, but inwardly, I worried. More cops on patrol could make it harder for us to get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

“Yes and no, Sugar,” Drea said. “In theory, the boys in blue make our fair city feel safe. Spot a few from time to time and it’s reassuring. See one on every corner and you start wondering what’s going on.”

I did know, and I hoped Drea would misunderstand my uncomfortable squirm. The police weren’t the only ones working to keep Charlestonians safe. And right now, I felt like we were letting folks down.

“Have you heard any more about the deaths?” I asked.

“Only that Jimmy Redshoes was one of the dead men,” she said, and took a long sip of her coffee.

“Oh no,” I said, hoping I sounded surprised. “What happened?”

Drea shook her head. “No one knows. They found him out by the Navy yard, that’s where he got his supplies for the do-dads he sold. There are some wholesalers over that way.”

“Will there be a memorial service?” I asked. I didn’t know anyone who disliked Jimmy. “Nothing official, but some of us down around the Charleston City Market plan to raise a glass in his honor down at Nicky’s tonight.” Nicky’s Bar was a locals’ joint, a little too far off the tourist maps to get the out-of towners. It was a favorite among the younger King Street and Charleston City Market area business folks.

“Count me in,” I said. If Sorren intended to check out the other two sites Teag and I had scouted – and I’m sure he did – I figured I deserved a night off to recuperate. And with the crowd that usually gathered at Nicky’s, I was bound to hear something interesting, maybe even something related to the deaths.

“Bring Teag, if he wants to come,” Drea said. “Are he and Anthony still an item?”

I grinned. “Yep. It’s over a year now. Looking good.”

Drea glanced at her watch. “Yikes! We’d better go. I meant to be a little late, but now I’m
late
.”

My muffin was gone, but I hadn’t quite finished my latte, so I scooped up the empty paper bag, slam dunked it into the garbage, and retrieved my drink. “I’ll see you tonight,” I promised, giving a wave as I headed off in the opposite direction.

I got to Trifles and Folly a few minutes before we were set to open at nine, just a couple of steps ahead of Teag. He looked a little flushed and I bet he had ridden his bike faster than normal.

“You’ll never guess what I heard,” Teag said breathlessly as I turned the key in the lock and went to disarm the security system.

“Jimmy Redshoes
was
the one they found dead in the Navy Yard,” I said.

“How’d you find out so fast?” he asked. “Anthony only heard when he got into the office this morning.

And it was what we suspected with the button and all but…”

I waggled my nearly empty cup of coffee. “Drea.”

“Figures,” he said. “Just once, I’d like to be first with the scoop.”

I chuckled. “You get your share of heard-it-here-first moments.”

“It’s so sad about Jimmy. Not that it wasn’t for the other victims. But he hits a lot closer to home. I never paid a lot of attention to the trinkets that Jimmy sold. He was just part of the scenery.”

Now that I thought about it, Jimmy Redshoes sold odd, and unusual pieces, the kind that might have been looted from someplace.
He always spun such fantastic tales about their history to get you to buy
, I thought.
His stories were too outlandish to be true, but they always made me laugh.
Now he was dead, and if I had a chance to make his killer pay, I would.

I headed for the back room to make a pot of coffee. The latte helped, but I was still feeling the effects of last night. Part of it was the crash after a mortal terror adrenaline rush. But the majority had to do with the cost of using my psychic gift in a major way. Drawing on that supernatural energy was exhausting, another reason I wanted time to recharge before heading back to the warehouse district.

“Speaking of which...” Teag said, following me to make a cup of tea in the hot pot. “I did a little poking around online. Look what I found out about unlucky Kevin.”

He spread out several pages he had printed out on the counter. Right away, I recognized the photos of Kevin in two different online newspaper stories.

“Kevin Harvey – the guy whose button you found at the Dennison house, was a hustler who seemed to dream of going straight. He had a pushcart down in the park for a while, and he had even done a regular table at some of the local flea markets.”

“What went wrong?”

Teag stirred some sugar into his coffee. “Kevin got busted for selling stolen goods. He managed to stay out of jail, but from what the article says, it ruined him.”

“Anything else?”

“Kevin’s murder was one of the things that helped finally shut down the boarding house for good. But get this,” Teag added. “He’s counted as one of the unsolved Navy yard killings.”

“They’re doing an impromptu gathering at Nicky’s in lieu of a service for Jimmy. I think I’ll go and see what I can learn. You still meeting Anthony tonight?”

“Yeah, hopefully it will be a ‘non-eventful’ evening so we can focus on a little romance.” Teag laughed.

I hoped so, too. It had been a little too eventful around here lately.

I
WASN
’
T SURPRISED
to find Sorren waiting for me when I got home from the service for Jimmy Redshoes.

My first clue that he was present came when Baxter didn’t yip himself silly when I came in the door. I had left a light on in the kitchen, and it was enough to see Sorren sitting on my couch with Baxter happily perched on his lap. Baxter looked bemused and glazed, and I knew Sorren had glamored the pup again.

“You know, that can’t be good for Baxter, scrambling his little circuits like that,” I chided. “You’re going to give him brain damage.”

Sorren chuckled, and stroked Baxter’s silky fur. “I assure you, all I’ve done is given him the equivalent of a mild sedative. It causes no ill effects.”

It certainly beat having Baxter bark until he was hoarse. “Cassidy, I hope you know by now that I would not harm you,” Sorren said. “I’m well aware of how fond you are of the dog. And if it makes you feel better, one of my patrons in Belgium had a very similar little dog, and we got on together quite well.”

No surprise, if you glamored him every time you saw the pup,
I thought, but said nothing. Baxter certainly didn’t look any worse for the wear.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked. Maybe I should be freaked out about finding an immortal vampire waiting in my house, but it didn’t seem any stranger than meeting him elsewhere, and Sorren didn’t like to be seen places he was likely to be remembered.

“Just a few minutes,” Sorren said. “Do you have any news?”

I caught him up on Teag’s research about the man I had seen in my vision at the Dennison house, and the confirmation about Jimmy Redshoes. Sorren listened intently.

“There was something else,” I added. “When I was leaving Nicky’s Bar, I spotted a photo on the wall.

Five young men in front of their ship, the
Privateer
, anchored down at the Battery.”

I met his eyes. “The
Privateer
was a salvage ship. Teag showed me a picture of the ship and its crew.

And I saw those same men among the ghosts that protected us at the Dennison house.”

Sorren nodded as thought over what I had just said. “Very good. I think there’s a link between all the deaths, the haunted objects, and that salvage team. We just haven’t found all the connecting pieces,” he said.

“Did your source turn up anything?” I asked.

Sorren set Baxter gently on the ground. Baxter ambled over to me and scratched at my leg to be picked up. He licked me once, then settled down and went to sleep.

“Yes, but in the negative,” Sorren replied. “No one’s seen Corban Moran in decades. That’s why I thought I had killed him. But apparently, he survived, and he’s been in hiding. If we can find out what he’s been doing, we should be able to figure out why he’s surfaced here in Charleston, with a demon to do his bidding.”

“Do you think the salvage team that disappeared has something to do with Moran?” I asked. “And with the sunken pirate ship?’ Sorren nodded. “Almost certainly there’s a connection, and we need to find it soon.”

“Did you find out anything else?”

“Moran’s not the first to raise a demon in Charleston. There have been several, including Jeremiah Abernathy.”

“Who?” I asked, searching my memory. The name sounded familiar, in a very bad sort of way.

“It was one of the cases the Alliance handled many years ago. Abernathy was a corrupt judge who profited from the pirates he hanged, whose loot he seized for his own,” Sorren replied. “Abernathy was rumored to have made a deal with the Devil, though I doubt it was with more than a minor demon. He had gone to the rum islands, and made a pact with the dark magic there for wealth and power. But something went wrong.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“No one knows for certain, but Abernathy’s luck had a sudden turn for the worse,” Sorren replied.

“Can’t say I minded. He was a foul creature, and deserved the end he got. We had to do some serious clean up after his dealings soured.” He paused. “But now, after Mrs. Morrissey’s comment about Abernathy doing business with the unlucky Captain Harrison, I’m beginning to wonder if he has something to do with what’s going on now.”

“Harrison’s return from Barbados and the loss of the
Lady Jane
coincide rather neatly with Abernathy’s run of bad luck,” Sorren added. “We thought we had removed any tainted objects… perhaps there was something we didn’t know about.”

I frowned. “You think Harrison’s pirate loot ended up with Abernathy, and that it was intended for him all along?”

Sorren nodded. “That’s exactly what I think. And now, all these years later, a salvage team has disappeared diving for an old wreck. Right before Corban Moran shows up and men start dying.”

“Abernathy’s demon,” I murmured. I looked up and met Sorren’s gaze. “If something aboard the pirate ship would have given Abernathy control of a demon, and that item was lost in the shipwreck, then why didn’t the demon get loose and destroy the city?”

Sorren gave me a look. “Check your dates. You’ll find that right after Abernathy died, Charleston was struck with one of its worst Yellow Fever outbreaks. At least, that’s what they called it at the time.”