Chapter Four: A Familiar Scent
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Last night was strange, even for Dante. Everything felt so surreal that it was beginning to increase his curiosity, if not nothing else. He had been with plenty of women, and as God as his witness (even though he was no deist), he had to admit it, he was a bit taken aback by his own lust.
Sure, the woman was beautiful, but he had been with nice looking women before. Perhaps he was associating her with an apple he could only see but dare not sink his teeth into, or say anything like, 'how about a nice cosy time in my really dirty bed?'
That would be far too daring, even for him. Dante made money off customers, not knob them good. That was where he always drew that thin line, even if he did end up sleeping with one plus forty something of his customers once upon a too many times. He even indulged himself with a good two months affair, but it turned out quite messy.
The woman had a jealous husband who ended up getting beaten at his hands when he showed up at his office with ten thugs carrying the classic pitchforks. The farm boy never showed up again. It was totally not his fault. The woman just wanted him badly after he took care of that strange, gooey demonic worm grubbing around in her farm. Who was he to refuse her?
The next day, even the storms did not stop her from carrying all that outside mud into his clean office. She cried and cried, insulted his dead mother and threw her mud-covered slipper in his face—which he easily dodged—that how insensitive and cruel he was for sending the love of her life with thirty-something broken bones straight to the hospital, along with his pudgy friends.
With her classic country accent, he honestly understood only half of that farm-girl baloney speech and the novelty of her verbose attacks, which mostly involved him fucking his dead mother by pulling her out of her grave. If only she knew how her high-pitched cries were giving him a raging hard-on . . . she always was the screaming type in bed. Unfortunately, he never saw her again . . .
Ah, good times, he thought, smiling to himself. Today was going to be another hellish day. Trish had dragged him to unknown squalid hovels that he did not know even existed only twenty blocks away from his own home stinking sweet home.
Dante stood outside on a filthy pavement of a narrow street where the air of neglect and filth from gutters pervaded. A couple of people came out of their miniature homes and tipped the garbage into the gutters. It was truly a sorry sight.
A gentle puff of bitterly cold air rippled the clothes hanging on wires, stretched between two poles in front of most houses. A woman, holding an infant in one hand, clipped a cloth on the line and checked several others. Perhaps it was laundry day.
The recent rains had stopped, but thick mist had begun to pile up. If it was not for his sharp devil eyes, he would not have been able to see beyond five feet. That was why the woman, who was only ten feet away from him, went about her business even if he was leaning against the wall of her house.
For the past few days, Dante was feeling a little tired. His body craved sleep. He did not know why but he just wanted to sleep more. Dante thought that a little more rest would fix his senses in the morning, but the wooziness was always back again the next day.
It was definitely due to lack of sleep and all that hard detective work he had put into this damn case—all thanks to Trish. She and Enzo stayed a bit too often at his place these days, playing billiards, that he was thinking of throwing that table out for good. Dante was half-human, after all, and that had its downside.
The wind hissed past his ears, bringing with it a strange scent. He turned his eyes and sniffed the air; it was reminiscent of something or someone. His ears stood up and listened to the whispers and giggles of two little girls playing with dolls three blocks away. The sound of voices rose and fell on the undulating curls of mist broken by the blasts of icy wind.
It was gone . . .
"What was that?" he asked himself, adding his whisper to the weak currents of wind. It was playing a game, rushing past him and then slowing down to a mere whisper. And whenever it halted down to a crawl, the sounds of children filled his ears again, and then they would drown under the sounds of the wind and the sensuous smell of a siren.
Dante's head was getting jumbled again. The strange lust-filled scent . . . the whole air was redolent of it. He breathed it in, closing his eyes to drown himself in its allure. It rushed through his veins like fire. It felt good. He felt good. Whatever it was, it had been here.
His head snapped up to catch the first drop of rain. Pitter-patter and the ground was dotted with countless raindrops. It started drizzling again. He wrinkled his nose to pick up the smell again, but this time, it was gone for good.
Dante shoved his hands into his black jeans' pockets. Raindrops shone on his dark brown coat and his white hair glistened in the grey light of the mist. His eyes were downcast, looking at the tiny wet bird grubbing a worm out of the ground. It shook itself, fluffing out its tiny feathers, and swished off at the sounds of heels on the porch.
"Thank you," Trish said to the woman who closed the door quickly as the wind blasted in through it.
She made her way to Dante still standing where she left him an hour ago. Now, however, he did not look so happy.
Trish stopped by an abandoned child's cart moving slowly forward with the wind. She gave a vehement shake to the yellow hair she had finally decided to scrape back with a decent, but stylish black band. She really was such a desperate fashion victim. The chase for the modern high-fashion life had not been kind to her demonic sensibilities or what was left of them after the influence of the dreaded late-night television. God, his life was too hard . . .
"That took a while," she sighed out, scraping her boots on the rough cement.
Dante pushed his hair back and shook his wet hand. "Really?" he asked, looking at the house just in front of him. "Did you finally learn to bake cheery-pies?"
"It wasn't easy to get information. She thought I was some weirdo who wanted to snatch her kids away," she explained and looked at his sarcastic expression that seemed to have frozen on his face due to cold weather.
"I wonder why," Dante threw a quick reply, eyeing her from head to toe. She just refused to leave her so-called modern look back at that neighbourhood.
She stared back at him with a stern expression and tightened her face in annoyance. "Why do you always have to act like this, Dante? I think this is your case too."
He pushed himself off the wall scratched at countless places with chalk drawings and E plus L love-hearts. "I've been standing here, freezing my butt off, for the past hour," he said and gave a wide sarcastic wave of his hand. "This better be oh-so-worth-it—otherwise, you are off this case. This is something I know for sure." He prodded his finger into his own chest a little dramatically to make a point.
Trish, squinting through the mist in the air, settled her gaze on his tired grey eyes and the light circles under them. "The woman we're supposed to meet lives a couple of blocks away. Come on," she said and patted him on his back.
"Thank god—or I was hoping for the worst . . . like a guide to Enzo's super-mini condoms or his questionable pink thong collection," Dante said, walking beside Trish through the heavy fog on the road.
The wind blew his coat and hair back, trying to push him away but he held his ground, walking at a calm pace. In the wind's eye, he cocked and wriggled his ears. Two little girls were still playing outside their house . . . with dolls.
The kids are still outside? he thought, seeing not a soul outside in the merciless cold.
"Emma, that's mine," one girl said timidly.
"Forget it," the other little girl said in a wounded voice that Dante assumed was Emma. "You always get everything, Salome." The voice rang in his ears; it was bitter and full of something else, but it was hard for him to exactly make out the emotion behind the intensity.
Then it was silence again. The wind roared in his ears once more, picking up speed. The girls' voices got carried over the wind and came to his ears. One of them was crying.
"You're mean, Emma." Salome sobbed and sniffed, throwing something down that splashed into the water. "I'm going to tell mom," she said, and what followed were sounds of tiny steps sloshing through the layer of water on the broken ground.
Emma giggled a little, and after a heavy intake of breath, spoke again, "I hate you, and someday everything you have will be mine." She dabbled something in water and started humming a song. The rain had stopped.
Then the voices passed into silence. He cocked his ears and moved his eyes around. It was strange—he could see no one. Even the humming sound was gone. He took in the freezing air, lending an impatient ear to any sound, but it was silence and only wind.
"There's the house." Trish pointed at the last house standing at the edge of the road. "Have you been sleeping properly?" she asked, filling the gap of silence in the air.
Dante whiffed the air and sensed just a little of that scent. "I think so," he said after few moments. "Why?"
"Nothing, it's just," she paused, halting her steps in front of the house that looked far more decent than the rest of the neighbourhood, "what's with the circles under your eyes?"
He screwed his head around and swept his gaze over the empty streets. He turned his eyes again but saw nothing. The girls . . . they should've been here! he thought, getting a strange unsettling feeling. There was no water under the long shed, not even any toys. And that girl Emma, who was humming only a second ago, was not even there. It was as if she had just . . . disappeared.
"Dante?" Trish's voice stopped his coming thoughts. "Are you a'right?"
Dante returned his attention back to Trish. "Long hours of billiards at night can do this to any man. Even I've got a need for beauty sleep," he said and crossed the muddy grass for the dry-porch where a large brown mat lay at the foot of two steps.
She sighed and followed him. Tiny raindrops from the roof drummed on the thick shed overhead. She knocked on the door and wiped her black heels on the mat. She stood straight, waiting for someone to open the door. Next to her, Dante masked the 'disappearance' surprise by staring down at the dirty mat. It looked filthy, smeared all over with heavy mud from the small garden in front.
Small footsteps on the other side of the door drew near them. After a second, a little girl around twelve opened the door. She stuck her head out and hid the rest of herself behind the door.
"Can I help you?" she asked timidly, her eyes fixed on Dante's stoic face.
"We're here to see your mother," Trish explained and mellowed down her stern voice.
The girl snapped the door shut and ran off inside. Moments later, slightly heavy footsteps pounded on the other side. A lovely woman opened the door and looked at them both with a surprised look on her face.
"Yes?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
"I'm Trish and this is Dante," Trish said and pointed her hand at Dante, "we are here—"
"You are Dante?" she almost exclaimed, cutting off Trish. "Please, come in." She gestured and opened the door wide enough for them to enter.
Trish, taken aback, cracked an awkward smile and walked behind Dante inside the house. The inside looked much wider and comfortable. A beautiful dark brown carpet covered the floor from wall to wall. A large four-seat sofa sat near the tall lamp that was turned on to brighten the room.
The girl, at the sight of Dante, quickly gathered her dolls and ran upstairs. Dante found her attitude odd and slightly funny. He plonked down on the sofa and grabbed a magazine from the front table.
"Please, make yourselves comfortable. I'll be right back," the woman said and left them alone to go to the kitchen.
Trish took a long intake of breath. The room was saturated with the smell of strawberry pies. She looked around the room, settling her gaze on the small pricey knick-knacks sitting on small tables and racks on the walls.
She turned her head and created a dissatisfied look on her face at Dante's lack of interest. "At least pretend to be interested," she said and sat down next to Dante who was riffling through the pages, looking quite bored.
He sighed behind the open magazine. "There's nothing much to get all excited about. By the way, the post-mortem reports are a dead-end. So why are we here again? I'm sure you didn't drag me here to meet the lovely mom of the house."
She crossed her legs and leant back into the sofa. "She wanted to give us her cousin's diary."
He closed the magazine and placed it back on the table. "That's all?" he asked, quirking his brow at the girl staring down at him from behind the wall. "I think that kid thinks I'm hideous looking—thanks to you."
"Don't worry, I won't interrupt your beauty sleep from tomorrow," Trish said, her voice quite harsh and sarcastic.
"You know, it's weird when the man of the house is the pretty one," Dante said, holding back his chuckles.
"Are you calling me ugly?" She asked, looking stunned and taken back.
"Not really, I just think you're not pretty enough," he teased and wore a wisp of a cheeky smile on his face.
She narrowed her angry eyes. "You're so narcissistic."
"Whatever," he threw a quick, ready-made answer at her.
Trish ground her teeth in anger. She hated it when females of all sizes made it obvious that Dante was the good looking one.
"Here it is," the woman said and appeared from the kitchen, holding a small black book in her hand. "I didn't give this to the police, hoping that you might find something useful in it." She handed the dairy to Dante.
"Did someone else live here before you," he asked suddenly, surprising Trish who looked at him curiously.
"Yes, there was a family," she broke off, thinking, "yes, I think they had two daughters. They left this home about fifteen years ago. Why do you ask?"
"No, it's nothing important," Dante said and stood up. "I'll let you know if I find anything."
The woman smiled and led them back to the door. A sudden outside chill filled the space as soon as they stepped out. The temperature had probably dropped below zero. The thin drizzle felt very cold on his face when he stepped out under the open sky.
He stopped suddenly and turned his eyes to the space between the two houses. It was dry and covered with a large shed. He walked to it, sensing a strange aroma creep into his nostrils.
"Dante?" Trish said from behind him.
Dante paused in his steps and looked down at the broken cement. A small doll's head was poking out of the ground. He knelt down and pulled it out. It was as if something exploded. A large wave of scents scattered into the air. He turned the tattered doll around in his hand. It looked very old. A child would never have been able to pull it out.
That . . . thing—it's been here, too? he gave a confused thought and tried hard to separate a myriad of familiar scents that saturated the air.
Trish stopped about five feet behind him, raising her hand above her head to shelter herself from the rain. "What is it?" she asked and tried to get a good look at the thing he held in his hand.
Dante shoved the doll into his pocket. "Nothing. Let's go," he said and took quick steps out of the garden. Trish, still unconvinced, did not press him further and followed . . .
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