"What kind of connections?" he asked, his brows knitting in suspicion.
"The, um, noncorporeal kind. I'll ask around."
He stared again, then snapped out of it and looked at my hand. "You know, you can put that down now."
I looked at the poker I still held. The one I'd climbed to the attic with. "Oh, right. Sorry." After I laid it on the floor beside me, I said, "Look, Erin and I don't exactly … get along. If you could, maybe, not mention that I broke and entered?"
"Don't worry about her. She's a pussycat."
To him, maybe. She wanted to kill me with a tire iron.
"How did you get in here, anyway?"
I fished the keys out of my pocket. "I stole them from her purse."
"Nice."
"Okay, I'm going to do some research, check with my connections, and I'll get back with you the minute I know something."
I drove back to the café. Reyes was gone, but he'd left the posole unattended. Crazy man.
I scooped up a bowl and went to kick Dixie off her computer.
"I'm playing online strip poker," she said, pretending to be annoyed.
Knowing better, I scooted her out of her chair with my butt.
"Fine. I have to get home anyway."
"I know."
"Oh, yeah? How?"
"That special ringtone you use anytime you get a text from your secret lover? It dinged three minutes ago."
She gawked at me for the better part of a minute, then gave in and let excitement shimmy through her.
"Oh, by the way, your ex-father-in-law is taking pictures of me in my underwear."
"Really? He's good. You should get some nudes while you're at it, too."
"Will do. Have fun." I waved her off and brought up Google.
Before I went into the whole poltergeist thing, I decided to check up on the name Headless Henry gave me: Tamala Dreyer.
The search garnered dozens of hits about a girl who died under suspicious circumstances. Her death was eventually ruled a suicide, but her friends and family disagreed and openly accused her high school sweetheart, who they claimed was stalking her after a messy breakup, of killing her. One article showed a picture of the grieving family. In the background was Henry.
The article listed him as a second cousin. He protested the loudest, swearing she was killed by the stalker. And then he named him. Called him out. Challenged him.
"I have nothing to hide, and I will not be quieted by an incompetent police force."
Ouch. That couldn't have helped their cause.
"Tamala was killed by Ian Jeffries."
Wow. The guy had balls. I wondered what he could have done with his life if it hadn't ended so young. I soon found myself searching every inch of the Internet for information on Mr. Ian Jeffries. A couple of years later, there was another suspicious suicide of a woman he'd claimed to be dating. When Henry heard Ian was a person of interest but nothing ever came of it, he protested again, and the proverbial shit hit the fan.
I read further. A close friend of the deceased says the woman never said yes to Officer Jeffries's proposal. "He wouldn't take no for an answer." Ian was claiming to be the fiancé of the woman, but her family denied that vehemently.
And the million-dollar question? Was Henry's death really just a freak accident?
And the ten-million-dollar question? Was Ian planning a similar fate for me?
I looked at all the facts. Ian had been a person of interest in the suicide deaths of two women. I was a woman. He had access to my house. He knew my routine and the fact that I had no phone. No way to call for help. Time to change the locks and get a stupid phone once and for all. I just hadn't really needed one since I knew no one on the planet when I woke up.
I called my landlord immediately, told him someone was breaking into my house, and asked for a complete lock change. He grumbled a little but said he could get to it in a couple of days. So as long as I didn't become suicidal over the next two days, all should be right with the world. I could borrow Mable's car tomorrow and see about getting a phone. Hopefully tips would rock.
I remembered the hundred-dollar bill. No way was I spending that. Surely I'd earn enough for a cheap TracFone, if nothing else.
That settled, I opened a new Google and searched poltergeists, to no avail. Actually, to too much avail. There were hundreds of thousands of hits, and the more I read, the more convinced I became that I was crazy. I was just seeing things.
But wait! There's more!
Billy saw her, too.
Okay. I felt better. From what I gathered, poltergeists were the entities believed to be responsible for physical disturbances, like moved objects and loud noises. But I couldn't find anything about a poltergeist that actually killed people. Nothing legitimate. There was tons of fiction, but I needed real answers.