When she lifted her head, she was sputtering with laughter. “Oh, that was too good. I need you around on all my séances.”

“It might help if I looked more like I was trying to contact a spirit, and less like I was trying to pick one up.” I closed my eyes and changed into a plain black T-shirt and pants. “There. Better?”

“Doesn’t matter. Believe me, I’ve tried. I could shave my head and wear sackcloth and still attract a whole lot of ghostly wrong numbers. Makes me wonder whether there’s some kind of ghost-necro porn industry down there.”

“Séance Sluts III: Naughty Necros Caught on Film.”

She grinned. “Probably. Okay, let’s try again. And this time, we’re checking ID.”

Chapter 17

17

AFTER ANOTHER FORTY MINUTES OF INDUCEMENTS, hell finally spit out Robin MacKenzie, and dumped him, sweating and shaking, on the ground. It was another fifteen minutes before he’d recovered the strength to hear our questions. Seems the hell dimension had been a bit rough on the guy. And I felt so bad about that.

For confirmation, we asked his wife’s name. From the way he snarled the answer, I knew we had Robin MacKenzie.

He could only manage to rise onto his elbows. “Is she dead?” he asked, voice hoarse from disuse. “Please tell me she’s dead.”

“She is,” I said.

His tongue slid across his cracked lips, eyes feverish.

“Did she suffer?”

“We’ll get to that,” I said. “Not very happy with the missus, are you?”

“Do you know what she did to me?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“It was her idea, all of it. Everything we did, she thought of it first. But when they caught us, she cut a deal. She told them I did it. That she was just another victim. The abused wife, forced to go along with everything I said. And they bought it. They bought it!”

“Of course they did. No one wants to believe a woman is capable of things like that.”

He pulled himself upright. “That’s it exactly! The evidence was right there, on the tapes, her laughing, egging me on.”

“You got played,” I said. “But I’m here to offer you a chance at another round. See, your wife is dead, right? But she’s not in hell.”

“What?”

“A serious injustice, I know. But you can set that right.”

“You want me to prove she did it? I can—”

“No, we’ve already established that. What we need now is more detail, to give the celestial court a better picture of the defendant, her state of mind at the time of the crimes.”

“State of mind? She was fucked-up. Crazy. Obsessed with that Scottish bitch—”

“What Scottish bitch?”

“Suzanne Simmons. She killed some kids back in the sixties.”

Now, that sounded familiar. “This Simmons. Did she have a partner?”