Free The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told by Martin H. Greenberg

it. “Looks like he unscrewed it from the wall, shifted it so he could watch himself. Auto-erotic asphyxiation?”
    She nodded. “Suffocating as you climax is supposed to take the orgasm off the charts. You pass out, you can strangle to death.”
    â€œNot my idea of fun.”
    â€œThere go my plans for the rest of our afternoon.” She flicked a finger at Anderson. “Take another look .”
    I caught her emphasis and breathed in. I closed my eyes for a second, then reopened them. I peered at him through magic. He was a silhouette, all black and drippy. Corpses tend to look like that. I’d seen it before.
    â€œSomething special I’m supposed to see?” I faced her as I asked the question, and magic rendered her in shades of red gold, much like her hair. It put color into everything, save for that Twinkie. It was neither alive nor dead.
    Cate shook her head. “Something, I hoped. Anything.”
    I waited for her to expand on her comment, but she never got a chance.
    Detective Inspector Winston Prout charged into the room and thrust a finger into my chest. “What the hell are you doing here, Molloy?”
    â€œI invited him, Prout.”
    I smiled. “Coffee date.”
    He glared at the both of us, about a heartbeat from arresting us for indecent urges. He was one of those skinny guys who’d look better as a corpse. He wouldn’t have to keep his parts all puckered and pinched tight. He habitually dressed in white from head to toe, and had exchanged his skimmer for a fedora after his recent promotion to Inspector.
    â€œCivilians aren’t allowed in a crime scene, Molloy.”
    â€œMy prints, my DNA are on record. I haven’t touched anything.”
    â€œIf you don’t have a connection to this case, get the hell out of here.”
    I hesitated just a second too long.
    He raised an eyebrow. “You connected?”
    â€œMaybe.” I shrugged. “A little.”
    â€œSpill it.”
    â€œYour vic?” I nodded toward the man in the closet. “He’s married to my mother.”

    That little revelation had Prout’s eyes bugging out the way Anderson’s must have at the end. I’d have enjoyed poking them back into his face, but he got control of himself pretty quickly. He was torn between wanting to arrest me right that second and fear that I’d already set a trap for him. He’d wanted a piece of me since before his stint in the Internal Affairs division. He saw it as a divine mission and getting me tossed from the force for bribery hadn’t been enough.
    He punted the two of us, leaving a tech team to do the crime scene. Cate and I retreated through a hallway where painters were trying to cover years of grim in a jaunty yellow, and to a nearby coffee joint. We ordered in java-jerkese, then sat on the patio amid lunchbunnies catching a post-Pilates, pre-spa jolt.
    â€œYou didn’t know about Anderson, did you?”
    Cate shook her head. “Should I say I’m sorry for your loss?”
    â€œIf it will make you feel better.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œDon’t be. He was a shit. He and my mother were very Christian, which meant they were usually anti-me.”
    Cate understood. Prejudice against those who are magically gifted isn’t uncommon, especially with Fundies. It’s that “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” thing. Having a talented child is as bad as having a gay kid was late last century. My mom had compounded things by being the society girl who ran off with a working man—my father—then getting pregnant and actually delivering the child. My having talent was the last straw. She ditched my father, the Church got the marriage annulled, and she made a proper society match with Anderson.
    I blew on my coffee. “Why did you call me?”
    Cate leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Anderson’s the fifth Brahmin that’s