“I guess.”
“Is that an affirmative, soldier?” The chief pressed him.
Scott Evans stood a bit taller. “Yes, sir!”
“Good man.” The chief nodded in approval. “All right, then. Carry on.”
Feeling bad for Dawn, I sat with her while her husband repeated his story and Patty took down the details. “I take it you’re not from here?” I said to her.
“No’m.” She gave me a tired smile. “Is it that obvious?”
“Kind of, yeah,” I admitted. “Where are you from originally?”
“Alabama,” Dawn murmured, tears filling her eyes. She sniffled and knuckled her eyes. “Ah’m sorry. It’s just that this is so hard. Ah love Scott, ah do, but this is so goddamn hard. His family tries to help as best they can, but . . .” A stifled sob escaped her, and she clenched her teeth on another.
“Hey, hey!” I put my arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but . . . just breathe, okay?”
Dawn swallowed and nodded. “Thank yuh.”
I found a tissue in my messenger bag and handed it to her. “So how did you end up here in Pemkowet?”
She blew her nose. “We met in Iraq,” she said, pronouncing it “eye-rack.” “Same ole story. Girl meets boy, falls in love and gits married, moves to his hometown.”
“You served in Iraq?”
Dawn gave me a sidelong look. “Yes, ma’am. U.S. Army, maintenance and repair personnel. Ah drive a mean Humvee.”
“I’m impressed,” I said.
“Yuh mean surprised?” she asked wearily.
I was beginning to regret my initial assessment of Dawn Evans as “skinny, bleached-blond chick.” Okay, I stand by the hair—it was pretty bad—but there was a lot more going on here. God knows, I knew what it was like to be underestimated because of my looks and age, and the thick Southern accent probably wasn’t doing her any favors in these parts. “Look.” I lowered my voice. “You’re probably right about this whole thing. I mean, you know Scott. You know what he’s been through. I don’t. I can’t even begin to imagine what you guys have seen and done and how you’re coping with it. But just to be on the safe side, it wouldn’t hurt to sprinkle your bed with holy water. And, um, hang some cold iron over your front door. An old horseshoe or something. It keeps away the fey.”
She knit her brows. “Yuh think—”
“I just think it’s worth taking the precaution,” I said. “I’m going to look into it. And if it happens again . . . call me. Oh, I’m Daisy, by the way. Daisy Johanssen.”
“Ah know who yuh are,” Dawn said, fishing for her phone so we could trade numbers. “Yer the ghostbuster. Ah seen yuh on YouTube.”
I winced. “Right.”
“Ah ’preciate it,” she said to me, direct and forthright. “And ah’d ’preciate if you didn’t say nothin’ to Scott ’lessen yer sure. He’s got enough bad thoughts in his head. He don’t need no one else puttin’ none there.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
Dawn reached out to grasp my hand and squeeze it. “Thank yuh.”
“Anytime.” I returned her squeeze. “Seriously. Even if you just need to talk . . . call me.”
Seeing Scott approaching, she stood. “Ah will.”
Call me crazy, but I just don’t get the whole concept of a war of choice. I mean, war’s awful, right? I guess at some point there’s a choice involved in everything, but when it comes to war, it seems to me it should be the absolute last resort. And it’s a choice that should only be made for majorly compelling reasons, like defending your loved ones, or at least a grand humanitarian cause, not some trumped-up excuse to carry out a political agenda that turns out to be totally ill-conceived.
But hey, that’s just the opinion of one lone hell-spawn. Humanity’s been waging war against itself since the dawn of recorded history, so maybe I’m missing something. All I know is I’m glad it’s a choice I’d never had to make.
Anyway.
I put in a couple of hours filing, then used the department’s laptop and secure connection to covertly check the Pemkowet Ledger, which is the name of the top secret online database that Lee created for me. Covertly, because Chief Bryant was a little touchy on the subject of my refusal to allow anyone else in the department access to the ledger.
I felt a little guilty about that, but not enough to change my mind. For one thing, the eldritch code requires that I respect the privacy of members of the community, and as Hel’s liaison, I had to honor it. For another, it turns out that the ledger was a valuable tool in terms of negotiating with the community. The eldritch have a healthy regard for the notion of favors and debts owed, and I’d realized that I could use my ledger to influence individual members who were eager to rack up favor points or have past transgressions erased.
The Pemkowet Ledger was a work in progress—I was still inputting data from the past few years—but I did several keyword searches to see if they turned up any cases I’d forgotten that involved a scary old lady sitting on someone’s chest or attempting to throttle them in their sleep.
No dice.
I checked the Vault and the Penalty Box, which aggregated favors and transgressions. Nothing useful there, either, but one entry in the Vault gave me a pang.