Chapter 8
A Hinnewatchan Burial Ritual
Maria debated if she should just dash back inside. Both the stranger and Greg jumped when she burst through the door without warning.
"Sorry," she repeated. "Excuse me."
She opted to beeline for her car instead, hoping the panic she felt would ease once she got away from them. She’d only made it a block away from Town Hall when she heard Greg shout.
"Wait! Maria, hold up."
She turned around and waited by Hank's Tools for him to catch up to her.
"What, Greg? I'm cold and I want to go to bed. Can it wait?"
He bent over, elbows on his knees, and held his hand up to catch his breath. He spit a dark glob of what she assumed was dip before asking, "Why are you running?"
"Because it's dark. Someone was just murdered. And I'm cold. Why are you running to catch up with me?"
"Something weird is going on," he said.
"Yea I'd say so. Not every day we have someone dead at Dan's Diesel with their throat cut."
"And it happened two weeks after Dave."
Maybe it was because she was exhausted. Maybe it was because the entire town would walk out of Town Hall any minute, but she didn't cower in front of Dave's brother for the first time in her life. "Greg. For the last time, no one thinks it was murder except you. Now, if you have something you're not telling me or the police, you need to say it. Otherwise let’s bury Dave—," she caught herself before she could say 'so we can move on', "—so he can have some peace."
"Hell no. Things aren't adding up," he said as a couple passed by. He pulled her into the hardware store's alcove and spoke quieter. "There's stuff you don't know about Dave. And you don't need, or want, to know. But I'm not even talking about that. Something really strange happened last night."
Maria all but fell over with relief that Dave could have been caught up in something shady. She assumed this whole time Greg suspected her; it never occurred to her that someone else would want her P.O.S. husband dead. She shouldn't have been surprised. "OK. I'm listening."
"I have to ask this," he looked nervous. "Where were you last night?"
She snorted. "At my house. With my daughter and my mother. Why? Do you really think I killed the trucker?"
"What? No. But you know my ex, Tina? The one with the killer rack that works at Memorial?"
Maria had no clue and didn't want to think about anyone sleeping with Greg. But she nodded so he'd wrap this up.
"Anyway. She told me that they came in this morning and some ritualistic shit happened to Dave's body last night."
Maria stilled. She thought back to the tattered red string her grandmother Lita put on her as a child to ward off evil spirits. She'd ditched the string around the time she started wearing eyeliner and trying to straighten her hair. "What do you mean, ritualistic?"
"Someone pulled his body out of the bag in the middle of the night and there was like, herbs and black salt and stuff all over his body." He scratched at a scab on his forearm as he spoke, etching red lines over the tattoo of a skeleton screaming. "I don't really know how to ask this so I'm just gonna ask. Was it you?"
"Me?" Maria could have laughed. "No. Definitely not. Why would you think that?"
He threw his hands up. "I don't know! I just wondered with you being Mexican and all, and having your side business with the spices and shit, that you did it. Like some sort of burial thing."
She might have felt sorry for him had he not been so horrible to her over the last two years. He always seemed to rile Dave up, spouting off about a woman’s place, and accusing her and Isa of being freeloaders. He never once spoke to Isa, and she always got the creeps whenever he was around. The brothers spent more time with each other than anyone else. He had to have known Dave hit Maria, and yet he never stepped in.
This conversation and her cold nose were irritating enough without being accused of being a Satanic cult member. She paused before she replied to the idiot so she could school her emotions and not lose her temper. "I am a Mexican American, Greg. I sell teas and spices to Mama Cate's, but that does not mean I'm hanging around dead bodies at night under the moonlight doing Satanic rituals. Nor do I know of any Mexican tradition where that would be even remotely normal. So no. It wasn't me." She stopped short of calling him a moron. "Wait, is that why you were talking to that guy?"
He leaned into her face far enough that she took a step back. "You need to forget you saw me talking to him." She tried not to gag from the stench of tobacco on his rancid breath.
"Jesus. No problem. I just assumed because he looked hispanic that you thought—"
"That's your problem and everyone else’s problem in this shitty town. You just thought wrong. Now I'm not going to say this again—forget you saw me talking to that guy."
She held her hands up, "Fine. Done. Anything else you want to accuse me of tonight?"
"No." He turned to walk away but then faced her again with his finger in her face.
"But stop pushing to bury Dave. It's weird that you're not as concerned about who killed him as I am." He walked away, leaving her in the darkened alcove.
Maria waited until she stopped shaking to walk the rest of the way to her car. Everything about the Fever brothers felt threatening. She thought she'd be done with them when she poisoned Dave’s pills, but it was like she couldn't shake them.
She needed to tell someone about this conversation with Greg. Especially if it could dig up another potential suspect and get any suspicions off her. What the hell happened last night with his body? She unlocked her car door, glancing in the back out of habit before getting in. She adjusted the rear view mirror and froze.
The man with the face tattoos, the one Greg wanted her to forget, watched her from under a gas-lit lamp post across the square.
She locked the doors right away and texted the number Shane gave her the day before.
Can we meet? Need to tell you something.
***
Shane glanced down at his phone. The Town Hall meeting about Nathan Dass' murder had turned into a group griping session about taxes and too many people. Emily read Maria's text over his shoulder and whispered, "Go. Father Time promised burgers after this so we'll meet you at the house later."
Shane nodded and slid out of his aisle and out the door, a pep in his step at the prospect of seeing Maria. He never saw her in the crowd earlier, and he’d shoved that disappointment down, reassuring himself like a twelve year old that he could swing by Mama Cate’s in the morning. Within a few moments her clunker of a car pulled up outside of Town Hall. The old deputy, Shirley, watched with a scowl as he got in Maria's car.
"Well, that was something," he said with a smile once he folded himself into her old Honda.
She took off, glancing so much in her rearview mirror that he had to ask, "What's wrong?"
"The guy from the library yesterday, remember? "
Shane remembered how she put herself between the stranger and Isa. She had tracked him the whole time with her eyes as they spoke. He nodded for her to continue.
"I think he's been following me. I’ve seen him all over this town ever since he got here, and then the library. No tourist ever goes in that library. And tonight, I ran into him and Greg arguing while everyone else was in the Town Hall."
"Look, I get that the guy is a little intimidating looking. But this is a small town—"
"I'm serious. He watched me talk to Greg after I left the meeting, and then he was lurking near a lamp post, watching me when I got into my car. That's when I texted you."
Shane swallowed the smile he wanted to grin when he realized she called him when she got scared. Murderer, he reminded himself. It didn't work.
"Hold up. What did Greg talk to you about?" Greg cornered him multiple times about Dave Fever's murder. He never outright accused Maria, but he wouldn't be surprised if he was a hair away from considering it.
"Oh, and that! That's the other thing. Greg said someone was messing with Dave's body in the morgue? Apparently someone put salt and herbs all over his body. Do you have any idea what happened?"
Oh you know... my 14-year old and I Raised your dead husband and he all but confirmed you killed him before some other creepy spirit took over his channel to warn us that there are a couple more murders in our future. He said instead, "Nope. But Chief Madison mentioned that he had to go to Memorial in our meeting, I bet that's why."
Maria pulled off onto a narrow dirt road that snaked in between corn fields. It had been a wet summer, so the cornstalks were still drying down before the harvest. She parked her car on the side of the road, sandwiched in between dry yellow stalks of corn. Without saying anything else, she turned off the car and stepped out to sit on the hood. Shane looked around, but didn't see any cars or any lights for that matter in either direction.
The smell hit him as soon as he opened his door. He'd grown up around his parents' fields, but it was the corn mazes that came to mind before anything else at the musky smell of late harvest. He joined her on the still-warm hood of her car. Maria didn't say anything, but leaned back on the windshield with her arms behind her head.
The moon wasn't full yet but it was a cloudless night, and bright enough that he could see her face and the small puffs her breath made in the cooling air. He leaned back as well, hands stuffed inside his pullover. He was content to just lie next to her, even if she never explained why they were here.
She spoke after a quiet minute. "I used to come out here when Dave was particularly nasty. I'd send Isa to my neighbors' house so she wouldn't see it, and on the worst nights they’d let her spend the night without me having to ask. If the shouting was loud enough, they'd text and say Isa was having so much fun that they wanted to know if she could stay. Offered a bed for me as well." Maria laughed, but he realized it lacked its normal punch. She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, so he kept his gaze on the stars above. She continued, "It's Cindy and Eveline. Know them? They used to own the diner before they sold it last year."
"Oh I know them," Shane smiled. "Do they still keep a pack of French bulldogs with them at all times?"
"Yes!" Maria exclaimed, and he was grateful at the laugh returning to her voice. "They're always dressing them up in ridiculous outfits. It's why Isa wants to learn to sew... so she can give Puddles and Pickles new sweaters."
He angled his head so he could watch her profile as he spoke. "Cindy was my mom's good friend. They used to pair up in Bridge and just crow whenever they won. I thought Cindy and Eveline might break up after one particular drawn-out game."
Her full lips quirked up on one side. "I can see that. They're competitive as hell with each other. But loyal to the bone." She quieted for a few moments, and Shane relaxed further despite the windshield wiper digging into his back.
When she spoke again, it was quieter. "I felt safe here. Like I could come hide among the corn and under the moon, and he'd never find me."
"He's never going to find you now," Shane said, shifting his body a touch closer. "That stage, that part of your life. It's over. Don't let him haunt you."
"What haunts you?" Maria asked after a moment.
He thought back to LA and the scratchy bag over his head earlier that year. The blinding light that swung above him when the bag came off, like a D-list Godfather. And he thought of the men in the shadows watching him, the lone light coming from the red tip of someone's cigarette. Maria nudged him with her shoulder, and he answered with more truth than he admitted to himself, "Bad men. The living ones. You'd think with all the dead people around me—the cold cases I mean— you'd assume it was the corpses that were the worst part of my job. But it never is."
"I guess it's a good thing you're really good at what you do then, right?" She asked.
He'd never felt like more of a fraud.
Yes, he did some good. He did some good to cases that were meticulously researched and ones he knew he could get an answer out of the victim. Sometimes they only took cases where the cops already had the proof, but the story of it would sell so they crowbarred their way into it. What about the other hundreds of cases we've turned down?
"It's a lot of show business," he said. "The real good comes from people like Chief Madison. He's kind of a jerk, but he is running a tight ship. And he cares. Probably too much."
"Levi's a good man. A lot of people just see the clipped answers and zero smiles, but he's definitely one of the good ones."
Shane wondered then if there was anything between the two of them. On one hand, if Madison loved Maria, she wouldn't be on the suspect list for very long. He ignored the sting of jealousy he felt on the other hand. You don't even know her. And you're not staying here.
He asked, " Is there anyone in your past that would want to hurt you? A reason why the guy with the tattoos could be following you?"
"No," Maria shook her head side to side. "I dated a lot of jerks in California, but they were losers. Not guys that would want to come looking for me. Most are probably where I left them... high on a couch somewhere."
"What about Isa's dad?"
She laughed. "No. The only good thing that guy ever did was move back to Venezuela. He was gone months before Isa was even born, and we've had zero contact since the day I told him I was pregnant."
"I never understood men like that. Emily, in all her pre-teen angst, is literally half of me. And I'm amazing enough that I'd love to see another version of me play out."
Maria barked her laugh then, and sat up fully to face him. "What about her mom? Where is she?"
"Ugh. Leslie is apparently an Influencer now after years of trying to make it as a self-proclaimed fashion icon. She liked the red carpet and the parties and that was all great when I did, too. But then we had Emily, and leaving her night after night felt gross. By the time Emily was four, I'd already moved out. She didn't even fight me for full custody."
"Is she in Emily's life at all?"
"Only in phases when she remembers she's a mother. She would ask to scoop Emily up to take her shopping, and I let her go thinking Emily needed that one-on-one time. And she did at first. God, it was like Emily was on cloud nine when she would get that phone call. But then something would come up, and Leslie would bail at the last minute, and it just crushed her."
"That's terrible," Maria said, rubbing her hands together and blowing some warmth into them.
"It was soul-crushing to watch. I'd do anything to make it better, and tried to keep her away from Leslie, but Emily pushed back so hard. She was mad at me, mad at her mother, mad at the world. She started to act up in school, ditched her friends, whole nine yards."
Maria asked, "Are you closer now?"
"A lot. She still pushes back on almost everything, and sometimes I feel like she's the parent. But she's a smart kid and got her act together before it took her too far down the wrong path. Now when Leslie calls she'll pick up just to hang up on her."
"Good for her. She seems like a sweet kid with Isa."
Shane felt guilty for the fact that Emily was not above using Isa to snoop. He was about to ask something else when Maria beat him to it. "Shane, did you really come here just for Dave's case?"
He shook his head and answered honestly, not quite dwelling on why he wanted to tell her the full story. "No. Emily and I needed a change of scenery. Dave was a weird coincidence that my agent and producer jumped on as soon as he heard."
She nodded without saying anything, but seemed to withdraw at that reminder. "Will you do me a favor?'
His answer was immediate, "Anything."
She climbed off her car and wiped her hands on her jeans. "Can you look into that guy with the face tats? Also Greg got cagey earlier and said a few things that made me think the two of them were doing something shady together. I know you're probably not allowed to tell me anything and I shouldn't—"
"I don't care about that. I'll let you know anything I find out."
She smiled then, and turned away from him as if to hide it. She craned her neck back, rubbing her hand over her collar bone as she looked at the sky above. Shane had the overwhelming urge to haul her back against the hood of the car when she said, "Looks like we could have a Moon Dog soon."
He froze, the Polgergist-Dave's warning clanging between his ears. Two more deaths to come before the darkened moon meets the canine. "What did you say?"
She already had her car door open and looked at him with her head cocked as he stood there rooted to the spot. "About the Moon Dog?"
"Yeah, what is that?"
She shrugged and waved her hand in the air as if his heart wasn't about to fall out of his chest. "I think it's actually called a parselene, but my grandmother Lita always called it a Moon Dog. It's when it looks like there are two bright spots—or eyes—on either side of the moon."
He hurried to the passenger side and got in. "And when does that happen?"
"It's rare, but if we have a clear sky and the clouds are wispy it can happen. Why?"
He couldn’t hear over his own heartbeat. It's not exact, he tried to reassure himself. The voice didn't say "murder" and "darkened moon meets the canine" could mean something else. But each thought circled back to his panic that another murder, one closer to home, would occur.
No spirit ever hacked someone else's channel like it did during Dave's Raising. Neither he nor his dad ever heard his mother speak of anything similar. And out of the hundred or so dead he'd personally Raised in his life, no spirit ever felt something strong enough to hijack another's Raising to give a warning. Was it to warn me about my family? Or did it hijack Dave because it thought I could stop it?
He ran his hands over his clean shaven face. "So is this like a full moon when it's a Moon Dog, or a waxing whatever?"
Maria turned the car when he pointed to his dad's road and said, "Usually. If it's not a full moon, it's just after."
"Do you know when the next full moon is?"
She shrugged, "No clue. Google will, though."
"Right." he said, not hearing much else as he got lost in his own thoughts. Find out when the next full moon is. Figure out who this guy is that's potentially stalking Maria. And stop a murder of someone you may care about that may or may not happen by a perpetrator you may or may not know.
Great.