I opened my mouth to ask her how she'd known what Jimenez had done-though I thought I knew-but was cut off by a shriek of eldritch wind.
"Don't dare!"
"Dare what? To tell the truth?" Maria-Luz screamed, turning to the latest arrival.
This skeleton ghost was dressed in a suit-possibly the one he'd died in-much like Banda's suit. I guessed this must be Jimenez since he'd come when named, and he was royally pissed about it.
"Liar!" she shouted, smacking him across his grinning, naked jaw with her bone-claw hand. "Leon Arbildo was not my father. That's why you followed me. That's why you spied on me and my real father. You said you were looking for him, but you weren't. You tried to hide him from me-you tried to take him from me when I was still a child. That's why you wrecked the boat, why you killed all those people. To get rid of my father!" So she had known about Jimenez, about Arbildo's sinking of the boat, and about the graves Jimenez had not reported to her. No wonder she'd been mad when he died.
"You don't know the truth, Luzita. The
Still more ghosts flooded toward our little huddle of misery, perhaps a dozen, all drenched in seawater. I spotted Ernesto Santara, but he didn't look at me. He kept his empty gaze on the ghost of Jimenez. He was no longer a pleasant haunt, but an angry one. The drowned crew moved toward the dead lawyer and Iko stalked along with them, hackles raised, teeth bared.
"My dog!" Maria luiz screamed at me. "Give me my dog!" I held up the bundle of hair and pot shards. "This?" I asked.
Maria-Luz lunged at me. Mickey leapt to his feet but I'd already pulled a bit of the Grey between us and the furious woman's shade recoiled with a screech.
"Mickey, keep her back," I said, in the calmest voice I could muster.
"Me? How?"
"Just like you kept Senora Acoa from dying. Just put out your hands and send that feeling toward Maria-Luz."
Jimenez was backing away, starting to fade, but I grabbed him, sinking my fingers into the stinging electrical fire of his ghostly form.
"No, no. You have to face the music, Counselor," I said.
Mickey was talking as fast as he could, crooning, and holding his hands between himself and Maria-Luz. The gold strings spun out from his fingertips, stroking over her, making her more solid, more alive-seeming. She began to cry.
Jimenez struggled in my grip. "Let me
I waved the bundle of Iko's figurine at him. "You want me to give this to her? You dodged this bullet before, but I can make sure it hits you this time." I was guessing, but I knew Maria-Luz had not meant any comfort for Jimenez when she'd tried to have Iko sent to him before. Iko jumped and snapped at him, snarling.
Jimenez froze and the crew gathered tight around him. I let him go so they could hold him prisoner themselves. They muttered to him and the sound raised the hair on my arms.
Mickey shot me a panicked look over his shoulder and I stepped closer to him. Maria-Luz was still standing in front of him, looking almost solid, while Hector hovered just behind her, clucking and making the soothing noises people murmur to upset children.
"It's all right, Mickey. You can stop." "But-I-what-?" "Ask Tio Munoz."
Mickey jerked his gaze back and forth, searching for the bogeyman. We were creating a ruckus. The other partiers in the cemetery were beginning to look our way with curiosity.
I sat down on my stool and tried to act like there was nothing at all strange at our feast of souls. I bobbed my head and let my feet tap in time with the brass and strings of the mariachis nearby. I motioned to Maria-Luz, who wafted closer. Jimenez was still petrified in the circle of dead sailors.
"All right," I started. "You tried to give the dog to Jimenez before, then you decided to give it to Hector, and then you gave it to me to give to Hector. Why?"
She hung her head. "At first, I was angry. Iko never liked those lawyers-"
"A good judge of character," Hector injected. "Iko was all I had after Papa-went away. And when Iko died, that was all I knew how to do, all I could think of to keep him for a little longer-to take me to Mictlan someday."
