something to do with the vandalism here. “Have you had any dealings with a purist group called the Straight Edge, ma’am? I’m starting to wonder if they might be involved somehow.”
Mrs. Saldana’s brow furrowed. “Most unpleasant individuals. Straight Edge claims I shouldn’t think of the unnaturals as God’s children. They came here and talked to me twice, treated Jerry like dirt.”
On the other side of the room, the lanky zombie had picked up a push broom and plodded across the hardwood floor, sweeping aside glass fragments and wood splinters. He looked up when he heard his name and let out a low growling groan at the mention of the Straight Edgers.
Now my interest was piqued. “Were they trying to scare you out of the city?” I couldn’t imagine her closing the doors and giving up on helping the needy.
Her face grew pinched. “Oh, much worse than that, Mr. Chambeaux. They gave me posters to put up here in the mission—here! —proclaiming that unnaturals should just crawl back into the dirt, or wherever they came from, and decompose. How dare they treat my patrons that way!”
“It’s the way they think, ma’am.” I liked these people less and less.
“Not just that. They expected me to join Straight Edge! They assumed that we must be on the same side because I’m human. What they asked me . . .” She swallowed hard—I could see her throat clench. “It was horrible!”
“What did they want you to do?”
“They expected me to set up a trap for my own flock—for the wretches who come in here for hope and comfort, including Jerry!” She gestured to the wall of lovely photographs of her success stories. “I refused to do it, of course. They were quite angry, but I quoted Scripture right to their faces. They weren’t even familiar with the Bible!” She snorted. “No, indeed, I don’t like them—but I pray for them. I sent them back to their little clubhouse headquarters. Did you know they’ve opened a new office, just down the street? Right here in the Quarter! You should go there and talk to them, Mr. Chambeaux. I doubt they’d even deny trashing the mission.”
“A new office?” Some detective I was! “Can you give me the address?” I wasn’t surprised the purist group had a base of operations in the Unnatural Quarter, but I’d never had any face-to-face dealings with them.
“Of course.” She wrote it down on a small notepad printed with pink flowers. “And this attack occurred the very day after I had my little tiff with them. I don’t need to be a detective to connect the dots.”
“That’s a big coincidence, Mrs. Saldana, but there’s one thing I don’t understand: Whatever caused this monster mash was definitely not human. Look at the damage! What sort of unnatural would ally itself with the Straight Edgers? No monster would want anything to do with them.”
Jerry shuffled by with his push broom, sweeping around my feet, then disposed of the dust and debris beneath the unused piano.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, Mr. Chambeaux,” Mrs. Saldana said with a solemn nod. “And so does Satan.”
CHAPTER 13
When I arrived at the Chambeaux & Deyer offices a short while later, the pig was already there.
She was an enormous white sow the size of a riding lawn mower, with large dark brown spots on her hide. Her flat upturned nose snuffled around the worn carpeting with the sound of an asthmatic vacuum cleaner, rooting under Sheyenne’s desk, snorting the edges of the room as if we kept truffles under the baseboards. Her name was Alma Wannovich.
Fortunately, we’re accustomed to unusual clients. By now we had gotten used to the big sow, as well as her equally large but currently less noticeable sister, a heavyset black-gowned witch who wore a midnight-blue scarf spangled with gold stars and crescent moons. Her wiry black hair stuck out in all directions like a panicked steel-wool pad.
“Good morning, Mavis,” I said to the witch, then to the sow, “Good morning, Alma.”
Mavis Wannovich tangled her fingers together in a gesture of desperation, though she didn’t exactly fit the traditional damsel-in-distress mold. She turned to me without waiting for Robin to explain why the two sisters had come into the offices. “Ms. Deyer just received a letter from the publisher, and they deny everything! They refuse to help at all. They claim we don’t have a case. How can they say that? Just look at Alma!”
The sow blinked her dark eyes at me, then grunted.
I did