“Oh, great. I hope you take credit cards.” She walked all the way to the front of the church and around the pulpit. “Shit.”
I jolted off my pew and long-legged it up the aisle. “What? She dead?”
“No.” Joanne slumped against the pulpit. “There’s nobody here. I really thought she would be.”
“Hah. I won’t ask for a tip, just for the satisfaction of bein’ right.”
“Gee, thanks.” She shoved off the pulpit and stomped circles around the altar, then leaned on it. “Shit. I really thought she’d be here. Churches are supposed to be sanctuary, or something, you know?”
“About a million centuries ago.”
She gave me a dirty look. “Like when you were a kid, you mean.” She thumped the altar in emphasis.
It slipped.
Joanne jumped off like the damned thing had bitten her. I grabbed the pulpit so I wouldn’t grab my chest like some wheezy old guy, and we both stared at the open crack where the lid had moved. “…do you believe in vampires, Gary?”
“God damn it, I was tryin’ real hard not to think that way.”
Her eyes were big as saucers. “Kind of fits, though, doesn’t it? Scary church with a crypt, the living dead ris—”
“The sun already rose,” I said firmly. “No vampires after dawn, right?”
“There’s no such thing as vampires.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. She sure as hell wasn’t convincing me. “Well?” I demanded. “Are you gonna look in it?”
“Yeah.”
I waited a minute. She kept standin’ there. “When?”
“As soon as I get up the nerve.”
I edged her way and prodded her in the back. She inched forward, feet squeaking against the floor. Had to be wearing rubber-soled boots to make that sound. I looked down. She was, and they were providing plenty of resistance, so I gave her a little more shove.
She glared at me. “You’re a big strong man. Aren’t you supposed to be plunging into danger before me?”
“I’m forty-seven years older than you, lady, and you’re almost my height and in my weight class. And it’s your vampire.”
That put the kibosh on her goin’ anywhere. She turned back to me, all pink-cheeked with offense. “I am not in your weight class!”
Dames, I swear. “How much do you weigh?”
“Isn’t it rude to ask a woman how much she weighs?”
“Nah, it’s rude to ask how old she is, and I already know. G’wan, look in the coffin.”
“Oh. Damn.” She took a half-step toward it, mumbling, “I weigh one seventy two,” like if we talked about her weight she didn’t have to think about vampires.
“No kidding?”
“I’m almost six feet tall. What’d you expect, that I weighed a hundred and thirty? I’d be a stick figure.” She peeked in the coffin’s tiny gap, then shivered. “Give me a hand with this.”
I crept forward, muttering, “I outweigh you by about sixty pounds, doll,” ‘cause it turned out she was right, talkin’ about weight was better than thinkin’ about vampires.
“That’s why you’re a linebacker and I’m not. Push on three. One two three!”
Forget linebackers and weight classes, the shove we provided coulda come from a superhero. The lid shot off the box and crashed to the hardwood floor with a bang that shook the rafters. Joanne lost her balance and fell into the damned crypt.
She landed on another crazy lady tryin’ ta get out.
Rabbit Tricks
“Rabbit Tricks” takes place shortly after COYOTE DREAMS (Book Three of the Walker Papers).
Allison Hampton made me want to weep in despair.
Nothing in my entire life had prepared me to look as put-together and attractive as she had every time I’d met her. Her thick blonde hair was wrapped in a twist, keeping its weight and heat away from her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless pearlescent shell blouse and above-the-knee slacks-weight shorts that showed off tanned legs and low-heeled strappy sandals that looked both attractive and comfortable.
I looked at my feet. The hem of my jeans rode low over a pair of open-toed black clogs that added a couple of inches to my already considerable height. They were comfy, but they were not sexy. The jeans were new, and low-cut enough that I needed the belt that had come with them, and my green knit tank-top had seemed quite sufficient to an off-duty tour of the police station five minutes earlier, when Allison hadn’t yet arrived. She was wearing dangly gold earrings. My ears weren’t even pierced. I was wondering if 93 degree heat was sufficient to excuse me for melting into a sad greasy puddle of comparative unattractiveness when a little girl rocketed from Allison’s mini-van and launched herself at me.
“Ossifer Walker! Ossifer OFFICER Walker! Guess what guess what guess WHAT!”
I caught her, grunted, and staggered back, trying not to laugh at her enthusiasm and her mother’s dismay. “Hey, Ashley. What?” At least Ashley wasn’t dressed to the nines. Then again, she was six. Blue jeans and a pink t-shirt suited her just fine.
“Today is MY BIRTHDAY!”
“You’re kidding.” I rolled my jaw, trying to get hearing back into my ear, and blinked toward Allison, who nodded ruefully. “Seriously? You’re spending your birthday getting a tour of the police station? Well, happy birthday!”
“Inside voice, Ash,” Allison said hastily. We weren’t inside, but my eardrums were grateful for the comparative modulation of the little girl’s voice.
“It’s what I wanted! I’m going to be a police ossiofficer when I grow up. Just like you!” Ashley wriggled all over, rather like a puppy, and slid down my hip. I clutched at her, but apparently down was what she was after, and a couple of seconds later she tore up the precinct building stairs to stand by the doors, all straight and proud.
I turned to Allison. “Don’t take this wrong, but you have a sort of peculiar kid.”
Allison laughed. “She’s convinced policemen are superheroes ever since you got us that ambulance. This is by far the longest she’s ever wanted to be one particular thing when she grows up.”
“I kind of hope she doesn’t outgrow it for a while. She’s cute.” We let Ashley open the door for us, and I guided them through the building to my boss’s office.
Captain Michael Morrison got to his feet with a much more genuine smile than I was used to seeing when I entered his personal space. He always looked good at work—okay, I could have stopped that sentence after ‘good’ and it would still be accurate—but I’d warned him I was bringing the Hamptons in for their tour today, and the captain had gone to a little extra trouble to look sharp. His silvering hair had had been trimmed, and he hadn’t yet abandoned the suit jacket that usually landed on a coat rack or the back of his chair by mid-morning. Allison Hampton’s smile went a bit softer and more inviting than I liked, and I bit my tongue hard. Pretty women finding Morrison attractive was none of my business, even if it made me want to break a strap on those expensive sandals of hers.
“Ashley.” Morrison offered first the little girl, then Allison, a hand to shake. “Mrs. Hampton.”
“Ms, actually,” Allison said pleasantly.
“Ms,” Morrison said equally pleasantly, and I reminded myself that this was not a good time to suggest they could get a room. God forbid they should actually do it, for one. Morrison came around his desk to lean on it and look down at Ashley thoughtfully. “Seems to me I said something about a case for you to work on, didn’t I.”
Ashley did the puppy wriggle again, nodding until her hair shimmied like a scarecrow in the wind. “One all for me!”