Landis has only been to Grace’s apartment a handful of times, but he knows the complex it’s in, and it’s not far from the diner. It feels like more of a trek than it really is, in the humidity, and he’s sweating by the time he’s walked about three blocks. Mal follows closely behind him, bobbing wryly in the air.
“So what’s the new case, boy detective?”
“Grace says someone’s killing ghosts,” Landis mutters. He wipes the sweat from his face with one hand, and flicks it towards the pavement. “She wants me to help look into it. You don’t have to come if you don’t want.”
Mal snorts. “What, and miss you Encyclopedia Brown-ing around town? Nothing could possibly entertain me more.”
Landis doesn’t have a good comeback. Mal is better at those, anyway. Landis has always had a hard time figuring out if Mal is trying to be mean or funny - usually he settles for thinking somewhere in between, but it’s skewed towards the meaner end since Mal died. Not that it’s a shock or anything. If he was murdered by one of his closest friends, Landis thinks he’d probably be pretty mean, too. It’s just hard to understand why Mal hangs around him so often. The rest of Paper Museum never seems to lack for places to go and things to see around town, but Mal sticks to Landis like glue, more often than not. And whenever Landis asks why, he gets the same flippant answer: that Mal’s making sure he doesn’t go off and kill anyone else. After almost two and a half years, it’s lost its sting.
“Well, if someone really is killing ghosts, you should be careful,” he tells Mal, cupping a hand over his eyes to keep out the afternoon sun while he looks for Grace’s building. He thinks it’s the one about a block to the east of the corner he’s standing on, but there’s no way to tell for certain.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mal says, as they cross the street. “Don’t worry, I already let one murderer get the jump on me. It won’t happen again.”
Landis grimaces, but still doesn’t reply with anything snappy. He stops in front of the building he thinks Grace lives in, scans the intercom next to the front doors, and presses the button of the apartment number he only vaguely recalls. As soon as he does it, he regrets not calling her on the phone first to make sure he’s in the right place, pressing the right button, but even as he’s thinking that, the doors buzz and unlock.
Someone’s looking out for me today, he thinks. Almost reflexively, he glances back over his shoulder as he goes through the door, looking for any sign of the strange man from the diner. Nothing. A crow hops around on the sidewalk across the street, surrounded by a gaggle of pigeons picking crumbs and trash off the pavement. Landis watches the birds for a moment before shutting the door and heading through the lobby.
Grace is waiting for him with her door open - it’s a good thing, too, because Landis isn’t sure he could have found her apartment otherwise. Her building is a lot larger and more expensive-looking than the one where he lives with Austin and Otter, with maze-like hallways and huge elevators. Landis feels a little out of place here in his sweaty diner uniform.
“Hey! That was fast,” Grace says, waving him inside. The fact that she looks happy to see him makes Landis feel instantly a little better. “Have you eaten lunch? Do you want something to drink?”
Landis forces a smile. “Uh, just water is fine.”
Grace smiles back and bustles off into her kitchen, leaving Landis to stand awkwardly in the living room, glancing down at the plush carpet, wondering if he should take his shoes off or not.
“The bar for people you’re willing to be seen with in public has really dropped, huh,” Mal says snidely.
“Grace is -” Landis starts indignantly, then looks up and jumps a little as he realizes that Mal wasn’t talking about Grace.
There’s a fourth person in the apartment, a tall woman sitting on the couch across the room. Her outfit is so bright that Landis has to blink a few times for his eyes to get adjusted to it. It’s a garish, pink-and-purple workout uniform that looks like it’s been yanked from a bad 80s movie. Actually, everything about the woman looks like it was yanked from an 80s movie, from her teased, bleached blond ponytail to her headband and legwarmers. She smiles as she notices Landis and Mal noticing her, and twitches her fingers at them in a tiny wave.
“Hi.”
Landis tries to say something, but swallows his words. Is she serious?
“This is the ghost I told you about,” Grace says helpfully. She steps through the archway that separates the kitchen and living room, crossing the carpet to hand Landis his glass of water. “Her name’s Amber. Amber, this is Landis, and, uh,” she squints a little in Mal’s direction like she’s trying to read fine print. “Malcolm, right? I’m sorry, I still have trouble telling all of you apart.”
“Mal is fine,” Mal says, surprisingly subdued. Landis had expected him to at least snap at her. Maybe he’s just pleased that she recognized him, or that more people who aren’t Landis or Austin can see him at all.
“Nice to meet you,” Amber says. Looking at her a little closer, Landis can see that she’s not actually sitting on the couch, but hovering a fraction of an inch above the surface of the cushions.
“So you’re the one who came to Grace about these, uh, ghost murders?” he asks her.
Amber nods, dropping her smile. “I figured it would blow over if I just rode it out, you know? Only, people are still disappearing, and, like, soon there won’t be any of us left. So I thought it was time to get you guys involved. Humans, I mean.”
“I’m not sure what we can do that you can’t,” Landis says. “I mean, aren’t we actually a lot more limited?”
“I guess as far as breaking into places goes.” Amber shrugs. “But you guys can do research that we can’t. I break a sweat pressing two keys on the library computer. It’s not very, uh, what’s the word -”
“Conducive?” Mal supplies. Amber grins again, bigger this time.
“Yeah! Conducive to detective work. You know?”
“Point taken,” Landis says, and decides to shut up and drink his water.
“But where do we even start with this?” Grace asks. “We know ghosts are going missing, but Amber, you’re our only real lead, and you haven’t actually seen the person who’s killing them. Right?”
Landis thinks of the man at the diner, and wonders if he should say something. But what can you actually prove about that guy? All he does is stand out on the sidewalk. And that’s not a crime, really. He’s never tried to talk to you, or touch you, or anything. You don’t even know if he’s a human, or a ghost, or something else.
Amber jumps up from the couch abruptly, launching herself in the air next to Mal. “I know! Let’s go to Abellona’s!”
“Abellona’s?” Landis lowers the glass from his face. “What’s that?”
“You mean the psychic place on Main Street?” Grace asks. Her eyebrows are raised - she’s clearly heard of this place before.
“Yeah! She knows every ghost in Antlers, probably,” Amber says. “She does séances and stuff all the time. A lot of people who can’t see spirits think she’s faking, but she’s for real. She did a whole thing for my brother and sister when they came and wanted to talk to me a couple years ago, and it was really great. I bet she could tell us what’s going on!”
“Or at least help us find suspects,” Grace adds thoughtfully. “Okay, I’m in. Let’s go to Abellona’s.”
She looks at Landis and Mal, as does Amber. Landis finishes his glass of water, sets it on Grace’s coffee table, and looks back at the two women. He’s never heard of a psychic in town before, but maybe it is worth checking out, if not only to meet someone else who can talk to spirits. There’s a nice solidarity there. And this Abellona person might be good to work with in the future. Maybe she could even help Austin out with his actual police work.
“Sounds good,” he agrees. Mal doesn’t say anything, but follows behind the group on their way out the door, his face carefully neutral.
i’m sure this is gonna go great!