Whoo-boy. That spelled trouble. “Well, let’s hope they find a solution soon,” I said, trying to sound disinterested. “I’m sure people are looking into it.” People that included Sorren, Teag, and me.
I WAS PLEASANTLY surprised to find the shop busy when I got back. Teag flashed me a grateful grin to welcome me, and I went behind the counter, happy to see customers shopping and buying. I pushed my worries aside for the next few hours, glad I’d gotten a jolt of energy from my latte.
The afternoon was almost gone by the time the last of the influx finally left, laden with packages.
Between the sales I’d made and what I’d seen Teag close, it was going to be a very good day, which was welcome after how slow it had been.
Just wait until word of a serial killer gets out if you want to see slow, a little voice nagged in my head, but I resolutely ignored it.
“How was the Charleston City Market?” Teag asked with a knowing glance. I sighed. He knows me too well. “Who says I went to the Market?” I bluffed.
Teag cocked his head and rolled his eyes. “I know what your errands are like. They include a stroll through the Charleston City Market and a visit to Honeysuckle Café.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said with a sigh. I had bolstered my morning latte with several cups of coffee from the coffee maker in the back room, but the last of my cup was cold. “I did pick up some info, so it almost counts as work.”
I filled Teag in on what I’d heard from Rick, and then told him about Hat Man and Mrs. Teller. Then I pulled the bottle with the kufwa dust and clay dirt in it and held it up. “I don’t know if Sorren and his friends can make anything out of this, but Mrs. Teller thought we could jinx him at least.”
“I’m more interested in what you saw when you touched him,” Teag said with a pointed glance.
I had been avoiding thinking about that. “Nothing good,” I replied, sipping the last of my now-cold latte. “Not right,” I said slowly, trying to wrap words around the images in my mind. “Polluted. Foul. Not really dead but… putrefying on the inside, if that makes any sense.”
“Have you ever gotten a read from Sorren? How did it compare since Sorren is, well, dead.”
Undead. “I’ve only had a couple of glimpses of Sorren, and it’s not the same at all. He doesn’t feel dead, not like a real dead person,” I said, feeling like the English language was not built for this. “He feels ancient, sad. I get bits of stories jumbled together.” I shook my head. “Moran was more like rotting meat.”
“Yuck,” Teag said with a grimace. “I’ve got Anthony doing some digging and he promised to call when he wraps up work.” He gave a nervous grin. “And I’m flexing my Weaver talents to see what I can shake loose from the Internet.”
I nodded. “And whenever Sorren surfaces, we’ve got some news for him that he isn’t going to like.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally closed up for the night. Teag walked me to the bank to make the deposit. At first glance, he may look like a skateboarder, but I knew he had just won a national competition in Capoeira, a Brazilian style of fighting, after already mastering several other mixed martial arts. He’d competed at the international tournament level for Eskrima, a weapons-based Filipino fighting style, and he was also an instructor in several forms, which is where we met. Teag was my instructor before he became my assistant manager.
Teag told me once that he had been bullied in school for being gay and decided he wasn’t going to take another thrashing. I was sorry for his reason to want self-defense skills, but knowing how to defend himself was one more way he seemed perfect for the job.
Teag said Anthony would join us for dinner, so we headed over to Viva Venice, the best little Italian restaurant this side of Broad Street. I waved at Fioretto, the owner, and pointed toward the back. He nodded, and motioned for one of his servers to escort us to the rear-most table, where we could speak without interruption.
“How are some of my favorite customers?” Fioretto asked, stopping by the table. He was a short, wiry man with bright eyes and a thick head of dark hair.
“In the mood for some good food,” I replied.
Fioretto beamed. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Do you want the usual?”
Teag and I both nodded, and let Fioretto know that Anthony would be joining us.Knowing Anthony could be late, Teag and I dove into our food, and held off discussion until Anthony joined us so we didn’t have to repeat ourselves. Fioretto’s food was so good I could even approve of Teag’s favorite, a pizza with anchovies, sweet peppers, and capers.
“What did I miss?” Anthony said, sliding into the seat next to Teag, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He set his jacket and tie aside, but it was clear from his slightly rumpled shirt and creased slacks that he had just come from a long day at the office.
“Nothing but the view of us stuffing our faces,” I replied, dabbing a bit of sauce from my lips. “We pre ordered for you.” “Same old, same old,” Anthony joked, and Teag gave him a friendly poke in the ribs.
Fioretto must have spotted Anthony, because his food came out at the same time the server refreshed our sodas. While he ate, Teag and I made small talk, mostly about the horde of shoppers who descended on Trifles and Folly with their credit cards at the ready. Anthony wasn’t in retail, but he certainly understood the benefit of having a lot of clients, so he nodded at the appropriate places while he polished off his food.
When the plates were cleared, the server brought us all cups of Fioretto’s excellent Venetian coffee along with the light, crispy lemon cookies that were a house specialty.
I drew a deep breath, and launched into a recount of what had transpired at the Charleston City Market with Mrs. Teller. I finished with the news Rick had shared at the café.
On that note, Teag and I both looked expectantly at Anthony. He adjusted his collar, a mannerism I learned long ago meant that he was trying to decide how much he could share of what he knew.
“If I didn’t think that your haunted objects might help solve the murders, I wouldn’t tell you anything,”
he said, with an affectionate glower that was meant to be stern. “It’s an ongoing police investigation, so you can’t blab anything I share.”
Teag rolled his eyes. “We don’t blab.”
I held up my hands, palms out. “Absolute blab-free zone.”
Anthony sighed and shook his head. “Okay, here’s the scoop. The cops found another body by the old Navy yard. Dead, no sign of theft.”
“Natural causes?” I speculated. “Heart attack?”
Anthony shook his head. “Definitely not natural causes. Body was ripped apart. Pretty savage. They’re still trying to figure out what it would take to be able to do that in an alley.” He made a face. “Think ‘mauled by a pack of hungry tigers’ and that still doesn’t do it justice.” “Could they even identify who he was?” I asked.
Anthony nodded. “His wallet was nearby. Empty, but I don’t think he had anything in it to start with.
Like the other dead men, he had a record of petty crime: looting, theft, illegal betting, that sort of thing.
They think he owed the wrong people money.”
Teag frowned. “Did the dead man put up a fight? Any evidence of the attacker? DNA, hair, clothing, blood, footprints, anything?”
Anthony shook his head. “Not that they’ve been able to identify yet. That’s what’s started the rumors about monsters and black magic. It just doesn’t add up.”
Teag and I exchanged a glance. “It doesn’t – unless there’s some bad magic going on,” I replied. That was Sorren’s area of expertise, and I was antsy to find out what he had learned from his sources.