Dead Waters - Anton Strout [20]
Jane turned in a huff and headed out of our space and back up the aisle toward the main bull pen. Connor got up from his desk first, grabbed his still-wet trench coat off our makeshift coatrack, and ran after her. I took longer, grabbing my own coat and gathering up my umbrella and retractable bat before heading after them. I caught up with them when I entered the café area of our cover operation and found them over by the condiment station by the curtained-off door to the theater.
Connor held up his hands. “Sorry, Jane,” he said. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m just saying that I didn’t catch a hint of anything ghostly when we were there.”
“Maybe we need to go over the place again,” I offered. “Not that I’m looking to head back out in this weather.”
A dark look crossed Connor’s face. “Dammit,” he said. “We can’t let it wait. The longer we put it off, the exponentially colder the trail will get. Whatever’s going on, we have to attend to it sooner than later.”
I looked toward the front windows of the Lovecraft Café. The storm was still pouring down sheets of rain outside. “You don’t need Jane and me for that, do you? I mean, I was kinda hoping for a little bit of warmth indoors tonight.”
“Sorry, kid,” Connor said. “Like it or not, the two of you both qualify as investigators on this case. Everybody gets to return to the scene of the crime.”
“Great,” Jane said. “I still have to write up all the paperwork on my going door to door, but I guess that will have to wait.” She looked at me, tired. “Next time, remind me to come back with less investigation-stirring data, will you?”
“Let’s get going, then,” Connor said. “The sooner we wrap this up for the Inspectre, the sooner we all get back to our regular office drudgery.”
Jane gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Awesome,” she said. “Let me go tell Director Wesker I’m heading back out and grab my coat. My boss won’t be too pleased, but then again, when is he ever?”
She gave us a quick smile before I could even agree with her, and then ran off through the black curtains that led back into the theater and our offices.
“Making us work as a couple,” I mused. “Do I get time and a half for that or something?”
Connor shook his head. “Not in this economy,” he said, pulling his coat on.
“Then it sucks to be working in this economy,” I said. “And in this weather.”
“Can’t control either,” Connor said, “but don’t sweat it, kid. You need to worry about the things you can control.”
“Thanks for covering for me back at our desks,” I said. “When she asked about what I couldn’t shake.”
Connor smiled. “No problem,” he said. “Don’t worry about that, either. The older you get, the more practiced you get at lying on the fly. You go through enough relationships and it just gets easier.”
“Such a romantic,” I said. “Well, I’ve got that to look forward to, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the future too much,” he said, turning away from me and walking off.
“Oh, no?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said, heading for the coffee counter. “Probably won’t live long enough.”
6
Professor Mason Redfield’s apartment was the way we had left it hours earlier—minus the professor’s body from the middle of his living room, of course.
“Nice to see the regular cops can still act as a cleanup crew,” Connor said.
“I prefer to think of them as our janitors,” I said, leaving the spot where the body had lain and heading off to a set of bookcases on my right.
“Tsk-tsk,” Jane said. “Now, boys, be nice. They were perfectly fine when I was roaming the halls here.”
“Of course they were,” I said, starting to look through the volumes of theater and film books stacked neatly along them. “You