The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

Church got the marriage annulled, and she made a proper society match with Anderson.

I blew on my coffee. “Why did you call me?”

Cate leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Anderson’s the fifth Brahmin that’s died like that in the last two months. Very embarrassing circumstances. The deaths have been swept under the carpet.”

She fished in her pocket, produced a PDA and beamed case files into mine. I glanced at the names on each document. I knew them. I dimly recalled that they’d died, but I couldn’t remember any details. I’d met three of them, liked one, but only because she didn’t like my mother.

“How did Amanda Preakness die?”

“You won’t want to look at the photos. She drowned. In her tub. In chocolate syrup.”

“What?” She’d been slender enough to make Nancy Reagan look like a sumo-wrestler. Tall and aristocratic, with a shock of white hair and a piercing stare, she could have dropped an enraged rhino with a glance. She always threw lavish parties, but never ate more than a crumb. “Not possible.”

“Not only did she drown in the syrup, but her belly was stuffed full of chocolate bars. Junk food everywhere at the scene, all washed down with cheap soda.” Cate shook her head. “Nothing to suggest anything but an accidental death. Or suicide.”

“Neither of which could be reported, so her society friends wouldn’t snigger at her passing.” I frowned. “No leads?”

“Plenty. Problem’s no investigation. I pester Prout. He hears, but doesn’t listen.”

“Which is odd since you suspect our killer is talented.”

“Has to be. And strong.”

Just being born with talent isn’t enough. Talent needs a trigger, and not many folks find that trigger. Mine’s whiskey-I discovered it when I was four by sucking drops from my old man’s shot glass after he passed out. The better the whiskey, the faster the power comes.

Once you find the trigger, you next have to learn your channel. For most folks it’s the elements: earth, air, fire, or water. A talented gardener with an earth channel is good; one who works with plants is better. Some channels are a bit more esoteric, like emotions. I even met a guy whose channel was Death.

Not really a fun guy, that one.

If there was a killer, knowing his trigger and channel would be useful. I could guess on the channel being emotional or biological, but that didn’t narrow things down much. More importantly, it really did nothing to figure out why the murders were taking place. Without a why, figuring out who was going to be tough.

I set the PDA down. “What’s in this for me?”

Cate rocked back. “Stopping a murderer isn’t enough?”

“Not like it’s my hobby. I work mopping up puke in a strip club. I know where I stand in the world. I don’t see this getting me ahead.”

“Maybe it won’t, Molloy, maybe it won’t.” Cate’s eyes half lidded and she gave me a pretty good Preakness- class glance. “Maybe it’ll stop you from sinking any lower.”

“Is that possible?”

“You’re not there yet.” Her expression hardened. “If you were I’d ask if you had an alibi for when Anderson died.”

I guess being a murderer would be a step down. Not that I minded Anderson being dead. Given the right circumstances I might even have killed him. Or, at least, let him die. A shrink would have said it because he was a surrogate for my mother, and that secretly I was wishing her dead.

There wasn’t any “secretly” about it. I knew I had to start with her, so I reluctantly left Cate. The part I was resisting was that seeing her would prove she was still alive.

I tried to look on the bright side.

Maybe she was sick, really, really sick.

And not just in the head this time.

The Anderson Estate up in Union Heights was hard to miss. Fortune 500 companies had smaller corporate headquarters. The fence surrounding it had just enough juice flowing through to stun you, then the dogs would gnaw on you for a good long time.

The gate was already open and a squad car was parked there. The officers waved me past, but it wasn’t any blue-brotherhood thing. I’d never known then when I was on the force. I’d just gotten their asses out of trouble at the strip club.

Took me two minutes to reach the front door. Would have been longer, but I cut straight across the lawn. Wilkerson, the chief-of-staff-which is how you now pronounce the word “butler”-opened the door before I’d hit the top step. “It will do no good to say the lady of the house does not wish to see you, correct?”

He didn’t even wait for me to reply before he stepped aside. He looked me up and down once. He channeled my mother’s mortification, then led the way up the grand staircase to my mother’s dressing room. He hesitated for a moment and memorized the location of every item in the room, then reluctantly departed, confident the looting would begin once the door clicked shut.

The room was my mother. Elegant, well-appointed, tasteful, and traditional. I’m sure it was all “revival” something; but I couldn’t tell what. Even though she’d made an attempt to “civilize” me in my teens, very little had stuck. I did know that if it looked old, it was very old, including some Byzantine icons in the corner with a candle glowing in front of them. In a world where even people were disposable, antiques held a certain charm.

Not so my mother.

She swept into the room wearing a dark-blue dressing gown-clearly Anderson’s-and dabbed at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. For a moment I believed she might have been crying for him, but grief I could have felt radiating out from her.

My mother doesn’t radiate emotions. She sucks them in. Like a black hole. I think that’s why her daughter is a nun in Nepal, I’m a waste of flesh, and my half-brother is the Prince of Darkness.

“There’s nothing in his will for you, Patrick.”

“Good to see you, too, mother. I hope he spent it all on himself.”

Her blue eyes tightened. “It’s in a trust, all of it, save for a few charitable donations.”

I chuckled. “That explains the tears. Hurts to still be on an allowance.”

“Yours is done, Patrick. I know he used to give you money.” She fingered the diamond-encrusted crucifix at her throat. “He was too soft-hearted.”

“He gave me money once, and it wasn’t Christian charity.” I opened my hands. “I came from the crime scene… ”

Her eyes widened. “You beast! If you breathe a word!” Tears flowed fast. “How much do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.” I shook my head. “Five people have died in the last two months, your husband included. All of them nasty. Sean Hogan, Amanda Preakness, Percival Kendall Ford, and Dorothy Kent.”

“Dottie? They said it was a botox allergy.”

“It doesn’t matter what they said, mother.”

She blinked and quickly made the sign of the cross. “Are you confessing to me, Patrick? Have you done this? Have you come for me?”

“Stop!” I balled my fists and began to mutter. Like most folks, she bought into the Vatican version of the talented. She figured I was going sacrifice her to my Satanic Master, or at least turn her into a toad.

Tempting, so tempting.

She paled and then sat hard on a daybed. “I’ll do anything you ask, Patrick. You don’t want to hurt me, your mother.”

I snorted. If she had enough presence of mind to invoke the maternal bond, she wasn’t really shocked, just scheming. “How was Anderson hooked up with the others?”

“Hogan did the trust work, damn him. Everyone else we knew socially. The Club, of course, the Opera Society. Various nonprofit boards.” She paused, her eyes sharpening. “Yes, this is all your fault.”

“My fault?”