Secrets and High Spirits: Secrets, Book 4 (10 page)

Ch
apter Eight

De
spite having spent a busy Friday night at work, Teag woke up relatively early on Saturday and decided to ride over to Hollywood. Even if their place was still shut down as a crime scene, he could take a few pictures of the front for comparison to the old photos. He had an idea for recreating the old façade.

He first took photos of the front of the building—he had to stand in the middle of the street to get it all in. Next he circled around to the back, not so much to take pictures—there was no point—but to check if the police had left a mess.

To his relief, aside from the officious piece of paper stuck on the door, everything seemed in order. He peeked into the Dumpster but saw only construction debris. However, as he peered closer at the crime scene seal on the door, he made a troubling discovery: a razor-thin cut ran through it top to bottom. A big what-the-fuck. He tried the door, but it was locked.

It must’ve been kids or vandals, he told himself—best if he left it alone. He was halfway down the alley before he turned around. He couldn’t leave it alone. If he did, it would bug him for the rest of the day. What if a lock-picking squatter moved in? What if…

He unlocked the door, pushed it open and stood there staring into the gloom. Nothing. He found the extension cord by the door and plugged it in. Light flooded the empty room. He tiptoed inside and to the door leading to the kitchen. It was empty as well.

The sander and tools sat under the stairs, apparently undisturbed. He lifted a hammer out of the pile and gingerly picked his way up the stairs. His heart decided to move into his throat, inconveniently blocking the path of oxygen into his lungs.

His first glimpse revealed nothing more out of the ordinary than a couple of sheets of missing subfloor—the crime scene people must’ve taken them. With a white-knuckled grip on the hammer, he looked into every room, but they were all empty. He exhaled, dizzy with relief.

A second, more thorough survey of upstairs revealed nothing new. Same thing downstairs, except for a few drops of candle wax in the middle of the room. He almost missed them—it was only by accident he glimpsed down as he walked past. Initially, he thought the red splotches were oil or blood. Only when he crouched down for a closer look did he identify them for what they were.

How strange
, he thought, touching the tip of his finger to one blob. He scraped it up with his nail—yes, definitely wax. He didn’t like the idea of anyone burning candles in there. Maybe it wasn’t a candle, but then what? Did CSI use melted wax for anything? He scoffed at the idea. Yeah, maybe in the Victorian times.

Now that he was at ground level, he noticed another oddity: the blue tape holding the edge of the paper down was double-layered. Working the top layer loose, he realized the brown paper covering the floor had two layers too. One more point to Bruce for thoroughness, he thought, pushing himself up.

Due to an awkward squatting pose, one of his legs had fallen asleep, and a squadron of gung-ho ants invaded his calf. As he stumbled, the toe of his shoe caught in the paper, ripping it. Teag stomped and cursed, then went still, noticing the drawing at his feet.

“For fuckness sake,” he muttered under his breath as he grabbed the torn edge and yanked. “Whatta flying monkey fuck?”

“Hav
e you drawn a fucking pentagram on the floor?” Teag’s question prodded at Bruce through the phone.

Bruce cast his mind around for a clue, but found none. “Did I what where?”

“Pentagram—a five-pointed star.” Teag’s voice audibly strained under the pressure not to snap.

“I know what a pentagram is,” Bruce said calmly. “What are you talking about?”

There was a pause before Teag said, less accusingly this time, “You better get here.”

“To the Blue Parrot?”

“Yup.”

“Will be there in ten.”

Less than a quarter hour later, Bruce stood next to Teag, in the middle of their bar, staring at a red crayon drawing of a five-pointed star inside a circle, inside a ring of unfamiliar markings. “That’s…unexpected,” he said.

“So you really didn’t do this?” Teag asked, probably hoping Bruce would fess up. Bruce couldn’t blame him.

“Not unless I have multiple personalities, and I think someone would’ve noticed by now if I did.” Bruce studied the sight at his feet. “By the way, I only put down one layer of construction paper.”

“You mean to tell me that somebody broke in, performed a satanic ritual, neatly covered it up, and left, locking the door behind himself?”

“Apparently.”

“You think the witchy woman Dylan and the others hired did it?”

“Why would she?”

Teag flapped his arms in loud frustration. “I dunno. Why do crazy people do crazy things? All this weird shit started after her showing up. Maybe the dead guy was a ritual sacrifice to the Aztec god of rain. I dunno.”

Bruce scratched his head. This wasn’t looking good. “We should call Detective Lipkin.”

Detective Lipkin came, looked, and was mildly intrigued. “Is it possible one of your friends drew the sign as a prank?”

Teag considered the suggestion. “Not as a prank, but they might do something like this if they thought it was helpful or something. I’ll eat that rented sander I should’ve returned already if any of them can pick anything more challenging than their noses. Definitely not a dead bolt. Not even Dylan.”

“You didn’t give any of them a key?”

“I told you last time: no.”

“And neither of you let your keys out of your possession while working together?”

Bruce cleared his throat. “I usually put my key chain with the tools in the morning. Too bulky,” he added explanatorily toward Teag.

Teag didn’t want to think about it, but he had to admit, the Boys were nutty enough to pull off something harebrained like this. He should’ve known better and called Dylan instead of the police.

Speaking of which, Detective Lipkin whipped out his notepad. “Do you have an address for this Mme. Layla?”

Teag shook his head. “No. But I’m sure Dylan, Olly and Jem all do.” He glared at the pentagram. “If they did this, I’m gonna wring their necks.”

“Please don’t,” Lipkin said with professional aplomb. “As an officer of the law, I can’t condone premeditated homicide.”

Bruce joined the conversation. “I wonder if it has anything to do with the old stuff.”

“What old stuff?” the detective asked in return.

So Bruce recounted his meeting with Cecil Goodchild and the stories he’d gathered from the old guy. “You think what happened back then has anything to do with what’s happening now?” he asked as he finished.

Lipkin’s lips curled into a wry smile. “Yes, mysterious bar owners, ghosts, buried bodies and treasures, satanic rituals—we get those all the time.”

Bruce didn’t seem bothered by the sarcasm. “So then what do you think is going on?”

“I aim to find out. Unfortunately for you, it means you won’t be allowed to enter the premises for a while longer.”

Teag stifled a groan. “How long?”

“Depends on what we find. I’ll let you know.” Lipkin shoved his notepad back into his pocket. “By the way, when was the last time you saw Leo Henderson?”

“Not since Thursday. Why?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Wherever he normally is, I suppose. At work or at home? Why?”

“Nothing.”

The next several days passed without fresh corpses or signs of satanic rituals turning up at the Blue Parrot. Teag stopped by every night to and from work, just to make sure. Bruce did the same in the mornings and reported to Teag via text. What Bruce did with the rest of his day, Teag didn’t know. He thought of asking, but didn’t.

Their lunch meeting—not a date—had left Teag in a state of discombobulation. When he thought about it, Bruce tended to have this effect on him. The lunch with Bruce begged comparison with the dinner with Leo, especially because of the choice of restaurants. Although the actual food couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Like the men themselves.

And yet, sensible, mild-mannered Leo had managed to completely ruin Teag’s good mood and leave him hungry and irate in a chintzy shopping mall at the end of a supposedly romantic dinner date. Meanwhile, Bruce, who was all wrong, had dragged him to a hole-in-the-wall place in a decidedly unglamorous part of town, only to reinforce his love of Thai food. Furthermore, Bruce had succeeded in turning his shitty mood into cautious optimism.

Finding Cecil Goodchild had been pure genius. Teag said as much when they met at Starbucks in Eagle Rock on Tuesday.

Bruce seemed inordinately pleased with the praise. He’d brought along one of the enlarged framed photos of Cecil and handed it to Teag to see. “My friend Ivy did it—she’s a graphic designer,” he said, a smile and the morning sun casting his face in a warm glow. He had a friendly, open face—no wonder people took to him so easily. “I only asked her to enlarge and print, but as usual, she couldn’t stop there. She also cleaned up the worst of the dust and scratches, gave the photos a sepia tone, and printed them out on some fancy archival paper with archival ink. They’re supposed to last for a long time. I hope you like the sepia. If not, I’ll ask her to go back to the original gray.”

Teag held the picture out and studied it in minute detail. Bruce’s friend Ivy had done an amazing job polishing the cool little picture of three men and a goat into something grand. “This is perfect. We should hang it right next to the bar. The frame’s just right too—will go with the decor,” he added with all honesty. The wooden frame had clean, classy lines, with just enough flourish added to evoke old times.

Bruce beamed brighter. “That’s what I thought.”

“Dare I ask how you know this Ivy? Ren Faire buff or Glitter Lounge regular?” Teag asked in a rare spirit of playfulness. The morning was too beautiful, even for him, to be serious.

“Neither. We went to high school together. She introduced me to LARPing.”

“Larping?” Teag asked, mystified. He was starting to get used to this feeling around Bruce.

“Live Action Role Playing.”

Teag grinned. Bruce seemed to be a little boy in a big man’s body. “That’s when you dress up in costumes and pretend to be wizards and barbarians?”

“Yup.” Bruce nodded and smiled unabashed. “Complete nerd-o-rama.”

“Well, it all makes sense now. I mean the Ren Faire and the tattoos, and the pirate thing. So is Ivy playing a queen or a barmaid?”

“Neither. Our paths parted after high school when she got into college and cosplay. But we’ve kept in touch. She goes to Burning Man every year, and tries to persuade me to go with her, but I’m not a fan of heat, sand and camping, even while naked.” Bruce was full of surprises.

Teag wondered what other secrets his partner had. “I would’ve figured you exactly for the kinda person who goes to Burning Man.”

“Looks can be deceiving.” Bruce’s tone barely strayed from neutral, but his gaze burned with the intensity of a solar flare.

Suddenly hot all over, Teag looked away. It didn’t help—the memory of Bruce on his knees leapt at Teag like a mugger from a dark alley.

Teag cleared his throat and stared at his latte. “Clearly.” After a seeming eternity of charged silence, he managed to shore up enough of his wits to change the subject. “So I’ll be going over to see how Rich is doing putting the bar together, and to talk to him about some other stuff.” He looked in the general direction of Bruce’s face while he said this.

“I can drive you,” Bruce offered.

“I’m heading straight to work afterwards.”

“How about this? We put your moped in the back of my truck, drive to North Hollywood to see Rich, and afterwards I drop you off at work?”

Teag’s mind screamed
Nooooooo!
“Okay,” his lips uttered glibly.
Idiot
, his mind commented. Well, at least Bruce didn’t offer to pick him up after work. That would’ve been presumptuous, and Teag wasn’t disappointed at all.

Bruce had fully expected his offer to be struck down, so Teag’s easy consent more than pleased him. Fortunately, he had all the fasteners and things necessary to secure the Vespa in the truck bed. He wanted to say something about how dangerous those things were, but wisely kept his trap shut on the subject. “Have you found out if our Back-Alley Boys were behind the mysteriously mystical drawing in the bar?” he asked instead.

Teag pulled a face. “Dylan swore it wasn’t any of them, and I want to believe him.”

“But you don’t quite.” Bruce hazarded a guess based on Teag’s expression.

“You’ve met them.”

“I like the Boys—they’re a lively bunch,” Bruce said, and meant it. He enjoyed having them around, even if they got underfoot at times.

“I do too, but…” Teag’s upward-turned palms conveyed doubt, suspicion, uncertainty—he had expressive hands, Bruce noted as Teag went on to elaborate. “Imagine that you had a family of raccoons living under the porch, and then stuff started disappearing from the backyard. You’d suspect the little buggers, wouldn’t you?”

The humorous image of rascally raccoons fit the boys quite snugly, but Bruce remembered something he hadn’t thought of for ages. “I would, but I could be wrong. When I was a kid, we had a cat, Fluffy, who was a true cat burglar. She stole from the neighbors’ yards anything she could carry—paintbrushes, gardening gloves, underwear, the odd sock, kids’ toys, you name it.”

“You’re kidding me.” Teag was scanning Bruce through narrowed eyes, like a man suspecting his chain was being yanked.

Bruce placed his hand over his heart. “Dead serious. It came to a point where every other Sunday, my mother went around the neighborhood with a box of the loot and a plate of cookies—to placate the victims. After a while, the neighbors came straight to us whenever something went missing.”

“Crazy,” Teag said with an amused shake of his head.

It was nice just to have a normal conversation not about the bar and business. The electricity crackled between them, like a carful of static charge. Physical contact would’ve been hazardous, but Bruce kept his hands—and other body parts—to himself. Good things came to those who waited.

Through the rest of the trip to Burbank, they talked about Leo—briefly—who hadn’t been returning Teag’s calls. Teag was somewhat concerned. Bruce wasn’t.