Chapter Fourteen
Sheyenne’s brother graced us with another visit. My excitement was immeasurable, because devices had not yet been invented to detect such minute amounts.
Travis had found lodgings, or at least found somebody to let him use a shower; he was freshly washed, his hair still wet and slicked back, his cheeks smooth from a close shave. Even I could smell the liberal amount of cologne he had applied. Robin, who did not have a deadened sense of smell like mine, wrinkled her nose, but tried to be pleasant.
Travis had brought doughnuts as a gesture of goodwill, but Sheyenne wasn’t impressed. “I’d rather you paid back the money you stole from me. What am I going to do with doughnuts? I’m a ghost.”
He turned to Robin and me, grinning. “I thought maybe your office mates would enjoy them.”
“I can’t taste much anymore,” I said.
“Too much fat and processed sugar,” Robin said.
Travis took a jelly doughnut for himself and enjoyed the treat, making a powdery mess everywhere.
Sheyenne busied herself brewing a fresh pot of coffee, using a new urn that Robin had picked up from a normal thrift store, since my negotiations with the gremlin pawnbroker had been unsuccessful.
“Remember when we used to go out for Halloween, sis?” Travis was good at that charming-and-disarming thing, but Sheyenne had obviously had a lifetime of seeing it all before. “How about when you were in eighth grade, the last year we went trick-or-treating together? I dressed up as a hobo, rubbed coffee grounds all over my face, took some old clothes, and you … you were an Arabian princess right?”
“That year I was a witch,” she said. The coffee started brewing. Her voice was wistful. “Pointy hat and all, and a magic wand with a star on the end.” She caught herself and her voice grew hard again. “We were just kids, of course. So innocent. In fact, the whole world was innocent.” As if against her better judgement, Sheyenne gave a wan smile and offered a memory of her own. “Remember when you were about the get beaten up in the fifth grade?”
Travis frowned. “I was always getting beaten up in fifth grade.”
“Not when I was around. I took care of it, and I took care of you. I remember two bullies said you had stolen someone’s lunch money, and they threatened to beat it out of you, said they would shake you upside down until the money fell out of your underwear.”
“Yeah,” Travis said, “then you came in like hell on wheels and saved my ass.”
“I was so mad at them for accusing my brother of stealing!” Now she stopped, and a contemplative expression crossed her face. “Did you take that kid’s lunch money?”
He seemed embarrassed. “What does it matter now? Look how much has changed. The last time we were together and really close was at Mom and Dad’s funeral. I was younger than you, didn’t understand the seriousness of what was going on—I knew they were dead, but didn’t realize all the other things that were going to change. You did, though—you knew how important it was, and you promised me that we had to stick together, that we would take care of each other. You said it was going to be all right!”
“Then I guess I lied,” Sheyenne said. “That makes us even … oh, wait, you lied more than once.”
“I’m still your brother, and families should stick together. It’s just you and me with Mom and Dad are gone.”
Sheyenne hovered before him, beautiful and translucent. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m gone too.”
Travis’s eyes had that puppy-dog look. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”
Sheyenne laughed, a bitter glissando. “You were never there for me.”
“I’m here now,” he said, avoiding the money question. “I’d make amends if I could, you know that.”
“Do I?”
“I was wondering if … all those family keepsakes, the photos and whatever else …”
I saw all the anger go out of her, replaced by chuckling disappointment. “Now it all makes sense. You tracked me down to see if there’s any inheritance.”
“No, no! But I really don’t have any photos of Mom or Dad, or you. No keepsakes, mementos. I’ve lost everything over the years. You know what a scatterbrain I am.”
“I know what a con man you are.”
“I thought you said you were going to bury the hatchet, sis.”
“Yes, but I didn’t say where.”
As I awkwardly eavesdropped, I thought of the sour resentment Missy Goodfellow had shown toward her philanthropist brother, and I hoped that Sheyenne’s relationship with Travis hadn’t degenerated so far. Sheyenne flitted back and forth, a restless ghost; the two of them had a far too complicated relationship to fit into simple pigeonholes. Finally, she grumbled, “Well, I don’t have much, just a few boxes in storage. I’ve got a few student loans I could leave to you, though.”
Travis let out a lame but hopeful chuckle. Sheyenne turned to me. “Beaux, would you come along with us to the storage unit? I’m not sure I want to do this alone.”
“I’ll be there for you, Spooky.” I pointedly repeated what her brother had said. The difference was, Sheyenne believed me.
Chambeaux & Deyer kept a small unit in the Final Repose Storage Complex. We stored old case files there, bankers’ boxes filled with client records, solved crimes, incriminating photographs, interview transcriptions, expired coupons.
After Sheyenne’s death, I’d gone to her apartment to retrieve her remaining possessions. At the time, I stored everything even though she had no close relatives. (An understatement, I now realized.) I had been able to put everything she owned into three boxes—a depressingly small encapsulation of an entire life.
But Travis was her brother, and I supposed the family mementos would mean something to him. If Sheyenne was willing to give them to her brother, it was none of my business. Their relationship was more twisted and complex than most of my cases.
In its agreement, the Final Repose Storage Complex had a long list of prohibited items, most prominently “No Storing of Bodies Allowed.” Some of the undead had trouble paying the rent for a larger place in the Quarter, so they might be tempted by the cheaper lodgings of a storage unit.
There were also restrictions against cursed artifacts without proper safety interlocks, and any hazardous objects connected to black magic and necromancy. There had been a recent accident in a different storage complex—an ancient flesh-eating plague was released when a scurrying rat knocked over a clay Sumerian urn. Afterward, the local authorities cracked down and imposed strict regulations on potentially dangerous items placed in storage.
Previously, we had been allowed to access our unit whenever we liked, now each tenant had to sign in at the front office, and the manager was authorized to (was in fact required to) inspect and maintain a list of specific items stored there. Since Chambeaux & Deyer investigations merely kept boxes of customer and case files, we were probably the most boring tenant in the complex.
As we drove to the Final Repose, Travis was sunny and smiling, chattering away with childhood reminiscences. Sheyenne allowed herself to participate, gradually warming up to her fond nostalgia.
We arrived at the front office, which according to a handwritten sign on the door was “Under New Management.” When we entered the cramped office, I was surprised to see that the new manager was the disgraced former necromancer, Maximilian Grubb. He smiled automatically at Sheyenne and Travis, hoping for new business, then recognized me and recoiled in alarm. “Now what have I done? Are you trying to ruin me again? I don’t have any golems working here—this is just me!”
His frantic reaction raised my suspicions, so I pressed him. (I couldn’t help it; an occupational hazard.) “And have you filed all the proper paperwork? Publicly disseminated a list of every unusual and possibly dangerous item kept in these units?”
“I th-hink so,” Max stammered. He was pale, and the third eye drawn on his forehead seemed cruder than before. A digest-sized booklet of Sudoku puzzles sat on his little desk. “What else do I need to do? I’m t-trying to run everything right. I’ve gone straight.”
“Did you file a specific permit for each type of item?” I asked, making up the requirement out of thin air. “If something goes wrong, the authorities need to know whom to blame.”
“I’ll do that, right away, I promise!”
“That isn’t why we’re here, Beaux,” Sheyenne said, and I realized she must be anxious to be done with this obligation. “We need to get into our storage unit.”
“Oh, you’re tenants!” Maximus Max said. “I only recently acquired this business as an investment. I’m still getting to know my long-time customers.”
Sheyenne’s brother thrust his hand forward. “Travis Carey, pleased to meet you!” I was afraid they were birds of a feather.
“You won’t be seeing Mr. Carey again,” I said. “We’re here to access our things.” I signed on the clipboard and marked down our unit’s number, then added an edge in my voice. “But we’ll be watching closely to make sure you follow all rules and regulations.”
“I plan on it, Mr. Chambeaux. I’ve turned over a new leaf, I promise!”
Leaving a flustered Max in his office, we went to our unit. I fished the key from the pocket of my sport jacket, opened the padlock, and rolled up the metal door. Inside, the cement-floored unit was dusty, with plenty of cobwebs and spiders (at no extra charge). A black-and-yellow salamander scuttled in its drunken waddling gait along the floor and ducked through a hole into the adjacent unit.
Sheyenne’s possessions were on a separate shelf from the case files. Travis and I pulled the three boxes into the middle of the unit and lifted off the covers. I stood back while Sheyenne and her brother picked through her clothes and found family documents, old letters from her parents, and a scrapbook full of photos of Sheyenne as a little girl, shots of her mom and dad, family vacations they had taken together. Travis was in a few of them, but not many.
“This is … all?” Travis said.
“All that remains.” Sheyenne picked up a photo of the two of them dressed up for Halloween.
It was a somber time, but Travis could not hide his interest in two gold necklaces, an antique cameo pendant, a few rings—the extent of her mother’s remaining jewelry. Travis picked up the necklaces. “This could really help me out, sis. I’ve run up a few gambling debts.”
“Big surprise.” Sheyenne sounded more disappointed than angry. “Take them. Do whatever you want. I don’t need them anymore.”
Travis brightened inappropriately. “You’re the best sister in the world!”
“Yes, I am. I wish you’d figured that out earlier.”
With a rapid gesture of a man accustomed to magic tricks, Travis pocketed the jewelry, after which he no longer seemed interested in the scrapbooks or photos. “Why don’t we just leave the rest of it here? Since I don’t have a permanent place to stay, better to keep the family photos in storage for safekeeping.”