"Please come in," she said and pulled the door back for us to enter. We stepped into the living room of the house. Off to our left was a dining room, and sitting at the table was a boy, about fourteen, and a man I figured was Cardiff. The gentleman stood, placing his napkin on the table, and came toward us. He was a heavyset fellow, balding on top, and had a kind of nervous spring in his step. Sch.e.l.l introduced us again and showed the ID, this time more slowly, so that Cardiff could get a good look at it.

"What can I do for you?" he said, shaking Sch.e.l.l's hand. "Always happy to be of service to the law." He reached toward me for a handshake as well, but I didn't offer my hand, only my look.

"Is there a place we can speak in private?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

His wife went back to the dinner table as Cardiff led us through the house to a small book-lined study. Once inside, he shut the door behind him and offered us seats. Sch.e.l.l and Cardiff sat in leather chairs. I remained standing, off to the side a little, but in a place where he could see me watching him. That nervous energy I'd noted earlier in the coroner's step had now manifested itself in his hands as he clasped them together, then rubbed them, then flexed his fingers, only to begin again with this unconscious ritual.

Sch.e.l.l tipped his hat back with one finger. "We're conducting a secret investigation concerning the Barnes case," he said. "You know the situation I'm referring to? The murder of Charlotte Barnes?" Cardiff nodded.

"You're to tell no one of our visit," said Sch.e.l.l.

"Certainly not, gentlemen," he said. "Mum's the word."

"You worked on this case, am I right?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"Not officially," said Cardiff.

"You didn't sign the death certificate?"

"No, I signed off on it, yes, but someone else did the autopsy."

"That seems rather unusual," said Sch.e.l.l, lifting one bushy eyebrow.

"I'm the coroner," said Cardiff. "I sign the legal paperwork in that capacity. That's it."

"Who looked at the girl?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"Well, usually I examine bodies if there's any question as to cause of death, as I'm also a licensed medical examiner."

"But you didn't handle this case?"

"No. Someone from higher up ordered a special Forensic Pathologist to come in to oversee things."

"Do you know who it was?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"Never met them," said Cardiff. "I was told to take the day off when the procedure was done. At first I'd a.s.sumed Barnes had applied his significant influence, but as it turned out, I rather think his influence was blocked by someone even more powerful."

"It's stated that the girl died of strangulation," said Sch.e.l.l.

"That's what it says," said Cardiff. "But, to tell you the truth...that's fishy."

"What do you mean, fishy?" I asked.

Cardiff glanced quickly up at me. He was now obviously sweating and wiped his brow with the heel of his palm. "I looked the girl over when she first came in," he said. "There were no marks on her throat. There was no traumatic damage done to the windpipe. None of the telltale signs of strangulation. Nothing indicated to me to look in that direction at all. Instead, she was pale, her complexion slightly yellow, as if she were both anemic and jaundiced at the same time."

"No violence?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"The only mark I saw on her was a puncture wound in the crook of the left arm." Here he laid two fingers of his right hand on the inside of his left elbow.

"What kind of puncture mark?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"Some kind of needle, large gauge. I took blood for a test, but by then the word came down to leave her be. That's when I had an inkling it might not be Barnes who was calling the shots. Still I had the blood. I waited until the pathologist issued his report. When I read that he'd determined the cause of death to be strangulation, I couldn't believe it. I mentioned to my superior that this couldn't be, and he said to me, 'Do you like your job?' Well, these days...you know the way things are. I couldn't jeopardize my job."

"So you let it slide," said Sch.e.l.l.

"Not entirely," said Cardiff. "Even if no one else seemed to care, I wanted to know what was going on. I sent the blood to the lab to be tested under another name."

"And what did you learn?"

"The strangest thing," said the coroner. "I can't be sure, because I'd have to check the internal organs, and that's impossible now, but it seemed to me that the girl was transfused. I think she died of a bad transfusion."

"Bad in what way?"

"I know this sounds crazy, because the girl seemed to have been otherwise healthy, but I think someone pumped blood into her that was the wrong type. All the signs are there, clotting, jaundice caused by kidney malfunction, the paleness from the lack of oxygen getting to the cells."

"What happens to a person under these circ.u.mstances?" asked Sch.e.l.l.

"Fever, pain throughout the body, in the organs. Not a pleasant way to go. The only problem with my theory," said Cardiff, "is that there should have been some indication of the other blood in her system. Her type was A positive. There seemed to be other blood there, but it had no type as far as I could determine. Admittedly, I had only one sample and one chance at a test. If I'd had another go at it, I might have been able to determine what it was."

"Ever seen anything like it before?" I asked.

"I've heard of people getting a bad transfusion. But never this," he said.

"You've been most helpful," said Sch.e.l.l as he rose from the chair. "Thanks for the information. You're sworn to secrecy about this conversation. It doesn't matter who's asking. In other words, Mr. Cardiff, do you like your job?"

Cardiff nodded vehemently and laughed, as if Sch.e.l.l had made a joke. Neither of us cracked a smile, though, and the coroner quickly regained his composure.

Once we were back in the car and on the road, Sch.e.l.l said to me, "I feel as if G.o.d, in return for my years of flimflam, is working some cosmic con on me. Now we have bad blood transfusions and a conspiracy to contradict the facts. I've never been so concerned with the Truth before in my life."

"Truth is Beauty, that's what Keats said," I told him as I worked to tear off the fake mustache. I'd already ditched the eyegla.s.ses, the overcoat, and the fedora in the backseat.

"The Truth-highly overrated," he said. "Nothing but a big pain in the a.s.s." When I was finally free of my disguise, I said to him, "And what about Isabel and me?" I'd been waiting all day for his lecture and still it hadn't come. All through the drive out to Cardiff's place, I'd waited for him to broach the subject. Now that our job was complete, I was more than ready to face him. He sighed and smiled. "Diego," he said, "you're a good person, a good son. I'm going to have to trust your judgment on this, but I think you're moving too quickly with Isabel. Sleeping together in the house?

You know that's not right. Why get so deeply involved with her at this point? Who knows where she'll wind up? She may have to go back to Mexico. She'll definitely have to leave the state. You have too much ahead of you that you have to do. I'm expecting great things."

"I thought you would be angrier," I said.

"I was put out this morning, I'll admit, but mostly I'm worried."

"Isabel thinks it's because she's Mexican," I said.

He considered this for a moment and said, "Yes, but not in the way she probably thinks. She seems like a nice girl. She's very smart, very pretty. But I don't want you falling back into that. It's too dangerous."

"Falling back into what?" I said.

"Getting lost in the past," he said.

I didn't have the heart to tell him I was considering returning to Mexico with her if she went. It wouldn't do to heap that upon him now, with all that was happening, so I bit my tongue.

"In general," he said. "you've got to watch out for women. They work a mean con."

"How?" I asked.

He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.

"What's this?"

"A list of the boxes that we have to pick up from Morgan's cabin," he said. I started to smile, but he held his hand up. "Please," he said, "spare me the indignity."

A SWEET DEAL.

It was black as a kettle in among the trees near the cabin. Sch.e.l.l had pulled off the road and hidden the car behind a natural wall of brambles some way off from number six. We stumbled through the dark, avoiding trunks and trying to steer clear of the other cabins. Somewhere high above us an owl sounded every half minute. I'd left my trench coat in the car and, wearing only my suit jacket, was freezing.

"I think this is it up here," said Sch.e.l.l as he struck a wooden match to life. The momentary flame showed us the way to the door of the place, and once we were standing in front of the small cabin, he lit another so we could check the number.

"Yeah, you found it," I said.

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the key Morgan had given him. He opened the door and we stepped inside. That dank mildew smell made me gag slightly, bringing to mind Charlotte Barnes's body in the tumbledown shack. Sch.e.l.l lit one of the candles on the desk, and the light chased the bad memory from my mind.

"Can you imagine living here?" I said to him, my breath coming as steam in the cold.

"Better yet," he said, "how about hearing someone prowling around outside and having to climb into a hole under the floorboards?"

"She's resourceful, I'll give you that. But she's also..." I was trying to think of a way to describe her eccentric nature without being derogatory.

"...a loon?" said Sch.e.l.l and laughed quietly.

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I think she's very nice, but the singing..." I shook my head.

"My favorite part is the singing," said Sch.e.l.l. "You have that slip of paper?" I handed him the list. He looked it over and shook his head. "Box with tartan jumper," he said. "What in Christ's name is that?"

I shrugged.

"I'm not going through all of this cargo," he said. "We'll take four boxes, two trips to the car, and then we're giving this place the air."

I grabbed a box and so did he and we headed out. On the return trip it was easier to find the cabin with the candle glowing in the window. Sch.e.l.l had had the trip to the car and back to reconsider his position on the clothes. Once inside the cabin, he took the list out of his pocket and lifted the candle off the desk to get a better look at it.

"Okay, maybe we can actually find some of this stuff," he said. I walked over to where the boxes were stacked and waited. Eventually, he said, "Here's one that sounds simple enough-box with black dress."

I went to work, moving boxes off the stack onto the floor, reaching in and flipping the folded clothes back to look. I was going to tell him to bring the candle closer when I heard something outside. Sch.e.l.l looked up from the list and turned his head. I froze. A second later, the door, which was unlatched, began to open. The first thing I saw was the muzzle of a gun. An instant later, I could see it was a machine gun. The man who held it, dressed in a black suit, yelled, "Don't move." Before the gunman could get completely into the cabin, Sch.e.l.l jumped to the side and kicked the door as hard as he could. It caught the stranger in the side, and he went down, the weapon flying from his grasp. Sch.e.l.l wasted no time and kicked the fallen man in the face. At the same time, another fellow was forcing his way in, pushing the door against his partner's body. He managed to get halfway in and began to raise the pistol in his right hand. Sch.e.l.l reached into his suit jacket pocket, took out a handful of something, and threw it in the air. Flash powder. The intruder was about to pull the trigger when Sch.e.l.l tossed the candle into the miasma of powder floating in the air. There was a dull bang and a bright explosion. The second man reeled backward, his gun going off, and the slug hit the ceiling.

"Now," Sch.e.l.l yelled to me, and I leapt across the narrow cabin and followed him out the door. As I pa.s.sed the machine gunner on the floor, who was scrabbling to his knees, I kicked him again, this time in the ribs. Outside, the other fellow, temporarily blinded by the flash, was furiously rubbing his eyes. He heard us running past him and he squeezed off two shots that went high above our heads. We ran out, around, and behind the cabin, sprinting full tilt.

We'd run for about a minute, luckily not slamming into a tree or tripping on a branch, when something hit me from behind, and I went down. It was Sch.e.l.l who'd knocked me over. "Cover your head," he whispered. And then it came, a storm of machine-gun fire, chewing up the landscape all around us. Bark splintered off the trees and dirt and stones kicked up to the right of us. By the time the barrage ended, I was dazed and shaking. Sch.e.l.l got up, shoved his arms beneath mine, and lifted me. He offered no verbal command, but I instinctively began running. I couldn't see a thing. Branches were whipping my face, and I tripped and caught myself from falling more than once. We'd gone another twenty yards when we heard the machine gun come to life again. I didn't need Sch.e.l.l to tackle me. We hit the ground, and this time the gunman's aim was even farther to our right. When he stopped firing, in the accentuated silence that followed, I could hear distant footsteps on the fallen leaves, drawing closer.

A voice called then, not from behind us but off to our right. "Hurry, they're coming," it said, and a few seconds later, "This way," from even farther off in that direction. As the machine gun blared again, I realized the voice had been Sch.e.l.l's; he'd projected it in an attempt to confuse our pursuers, a cla.s.sic seance technique. The shooting stopped, and we heard the men pa.s.s only ten yards from where we lay, heading in the direction of Sch.e.l.l's projected voice. Two or three minutes pa.s.sed, and we heard the machine gun spray again, but this time at a good distance. The smell of gunpowder was everywhere. Sch.e.l.l tapped my shoulder, and we got to our feet. He whispered, "Don't run." We moved in the direction of our parked car, cautiously pacing, trying not to make a sound. A single shot from a pistol rang out in the distance, and I imagined a dead racc.o.o.n or deer. Wandering through the dark was like a nightmare, and it was only by blind luck that we found the Cord.

Once we were in the car, he said to me, "The minute I start this up, they're going to come running, so stay down." Then the engine turned over and it sounded louder to me than ever before. Without turning on the headlamps he backed out of the hiding place behind the undergrowth, whipped the wheel to turn the car around, and hit the gas pedal. We made the turn onto the road so sharply, I thought the car was going to tip over.

A few yards down on the left-hand side of the road, we saw their car. Sch.e.l.l stopped. He reached down somewhere near his shoe and came up with a switchblade. Pressing a tiny latch on the side, a long thin blade snapped out. "You've got to hurry," he said. "Slash a tire." I grabbed the knife, jumped out of the Cord, and was beside their car in an instant. I plunged the blade into their right front tire, and the air came hissing out. Sch.e.l.l hit the gas the moment I jumped back into our car, and we took off so quickly the tires squealed.

A shudder ran through me as I handed the knife back to Sch.e.l.l. He folded and locked the blade against his thigh and said, "How I almost died for a tartan jumper," as he finally switched on the headlamps.

"So far I've been chased on the beach, beaten up by that thing at Parks's place, and now shot at with a Thompson," I said. "And we're not even getting paid for this."

"It's a sweet deal, for sure," he said.

"Who do you think those characters were?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "This thing is so...I can't even think of the right word for it. It makes me wonder if the girl in the gla.s.s, who started it all, wasn't actually a real ghost."

"The ghost girl's the easiest part to believe," I said.

When we arrived home, we found Antony in the living room, entertaining Isabel and Morgan with tales of the traveling carnival life. There was a haze of cigarette smoke in the air and a bottle of whiskey on the table.

I slouched down on the couch next to Isabel, and Sch.e.l.l took off his trench coat and jacket, tossing them on a chair in the corner.

"How was the coroner?" asked Antony.

Sch.e.l.l didn't answer but went into the kitchen.

"Kid?" he asked.

I waved my hand to put off the question, leaned over, and took one of his cigarettes from the pack on the table. He looked as if he was going to say something, but I suppose from my expression, he knew I needed it. Instead he silently pa.s.sed me the lighter. Sch.e.l.l returned from the kitchen with a tumbler and proceeded to pour himself a tall drink from the whiskey bottle. Before even finding a seat, he swallowed a quarter of it in one long gulp.

"Did you get the paisley wrap?" asked Morgan.

Sch.e.l.l took a seat across from her. "I don't know if we got the paisley wrap or the tartan jumper," he said. "We did very nearly get an a.s.s full of machine-gun lead, though."

"At the coroner's?" asked Antony.

"No," I said, "out in the woods, at the cabin."

"Oh, no," said Morgan.

Sch.e.l.l nodded, and in between sips of whiskey, he related what had happened at both of the stops we'd made that evening.

"Sorry I wasn't with you," said Antony.

"That makes two of us," said Sch.e.l.l. He looked over at Morgan. "Those people you were mixed up with in the city that you told me about this afternoon, could this have been them?"

"I don't know," she said. "What did they look like?"

"Two guys in dark suits, hats, with itchy trigger fingers. We didn't stay around long enough to see their faces."