Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(78)

I stopped at the light on Garfield and Tenth. It was one of those lights that stayed red for a long time even when there was no oncoming traffic. "At least I wouldn't have to face Littleton alone after dark because I can call Andre." I pounded my hands on the steering wheel, impatient with the red light. "But if I don't find Mrs. Hanna before night, I won't find her at all." Mrs. Hanna went home at night.

I said it out loud because I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been. "Mrs. Hanna goes home at night."

There was still no traffic coming so I put my foot down, and for the first time in my adult life I ran a red light. Mrs. Hanna had lived in a little trailer park along the river, just east of the Blue Bridge and it took me five minutes and three red lights to get down to that area. I ran those lights, too.

I found her pushing her cart on the sidewalk next to the VW dealership. Parking my car on the wrong side of the street, I jumped out, biting back the urge to shout her name. Startled ghosts tend to disappear.

With that in mind I didn't say anything at all when I caught up to her. Instead I walked along beside her for a quarter of a block.

"What a nice evening," she said at last. "I do think we're due for a break in the weather."

"I hope so." I took two deep breaths. "Mrs. Hanna, pardon my rudeness, but I was wondering about that change in your usual walk."

"Of course, dear," she said absently. "How is that young man of yours?"

"That's the problem," I told her. "I think that he's run into some trouble. Could you tell me again why you came by my shop at a different time?"

"Oh, yes. Very sad. Joe told me the way I usually walk wasn't safe. Our poor Kennewick is getting to be such a big city, isn't it? Terrible when it's not safe for a woman to walk in the daytime anymore."

"Terrible," I agreed. "Who is Joe and where is it he doesn't want you walking."

She stopped her cart and smiled at me gently. "Oh, you know Joe, dear. He's been the janitor at the old Congregational church forever. He's very upset at what's happened to his building, but then who consults the janitor?"

"Where is it?" I asked.

She looked over at me with a puzzled look on her face. "Do I know you, dear? You look familiar." Before I could form a suitable reply she glanced up at the setting sun, "I'm afraid I must be going. It's not safe after dark you know."

She left me standing alone in front of the trailer court.

"Congregational church," I said sprinting for my car. I knew that none of the churches I'd written down had the word Congregational in it, but I also had a phone book I kept in the car.

There were no listings for a Congregational church in the yellow pages so I turned to the white pages and found a single listing in Paseo, which was not helpful. Mrs. Hanna's route didn't take her across the river.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Gabriel's phone number. One of his little sisters had a thing about ghosts. If her mother wasn't there, and you let her get started, she'd tell ghost stories the whole time she worked cleaning the office.

"Hi, Mercy," he answered. "What's up?"

"I need to talk to Rosalinda about some local ghost stories." I told him. "Is she there?"

There was a little pause.

"Are you having trouble with ghosts?"

"No, I need to find one."

He pulled his mouth away from the phone. "Rosalinda, come over here."

" I'm watching TV, can't Tia do it? She hasn't done anything today."

"It's not work. Mercy wants to pick your brains."

There were a few small noises as Gabriel handed over the phone.

"Hello?" Her voice was much more hesitant when she was talking to me than it had been when she was talking to her brother.

"Didn't you tell me you did a report on local ghosts for school last year."

"Yes," she said with a little more enthusiasm. "I got an A."

"I need to know if you've heard anything about the ghost of a janitor named Joe who used to work at a church." He didn't have to be a ghost, I thought. After all, I talked to Mrs. Hanna, and I wasn't a ghost. And even if he was a ghost, that didn't mean there were stories about him.

"Oh, yes. Yes." Gabriel didn't have an accent at all, but his sister's clear Spanish vowels added color to her voice as it brightened with enthusiasm. "Joe is very famous. He worked his whole life cleaning his church, until he was sixty-four, I think. One Sunday, when the priest... no they called him something else. Pastor, I think, or minister. Anyway when he came to open the church he found Joe dead in the kitchen. But he stayed there anyway. I talked to people who used to go to church there. They said that sometimes there were lights on at night when there was no one there. And doors would lock themselves. One person said they saw him on the stairway, but I'm not sure I believe that. That person just liked to tell stories."

"Where is it?" I asked her.

"Oh. Not too far from our apartment," she said. "Down on Second or Third, just a couple of blocks from Washington." Not far from the police department either. "I went over to take pictures of it. It isn't a church anymore. The church people built a new building and sold the old one to another church about twenty years ago. Then it sold to some other people who tried to run a private school. They went bankrupt, there was a divorce, and one of them, I can't remember if it was the husband or the wife, killed themselves. The church was empty the last time I went by there."