“Him, I know. He does R and B and rap.”
“He tops the charts in both,” Newman said.
“You can’t turn on a radio without hearing some of his stuff,” I said.
“Angela wrote a lot of his biggest hits, and she continued to write for him and other chart-topping singers even after she married Ray and moved here.”
“What is one of the world’s top models and a singer, songwriter, and actress doing living in Hanuman, Michigan?” I asked.
Newman chuckled. “I know, right? But Ray and she met in New York or LA at some party that friends had dragged him to while he was traveling for business. He was twice divorced and, according to the local gossip, had vowed never to marry again, but once he met Angela, all that changed.”
“I remember this. It was in all the tabloids in the supermarket and on the celebrity gossip shows. My stepmother loved those kinds of shows. I was still trapped at home with her in charge of the remote. ‘Backwoods Millionaire Marries Supermodel.’ Wasn’t that one of the headlines?”
“Yes. The headlines called Ray a recluse, which he wasn’t from all accounts, but they painted him as backwoodsy and primitive as they could.”
“Didn’t they use photos of him on hunting trips?”
“Yeah, they made it sound like Angela was marrying Grizzly Adams,” N
ewman said.
“Do you know how she died?” I asked.
“Don’t you? It made world headlines.”
I shook my head.
“‘Famous Model Mauled to Death by Leopard on African Safari with Her Family’ was one of the news stories,” he said.
“And it turned out to be a wereleopard, because one of the kids popped for the disease,” I said.
“I thought you’d remember it for that at least.”
“I was still in college getting a degree in preternatural biology when it happened. It was the talk of our department, especially for those of us wanting to be field biologists with a specialty in the supernatural.”
“I never knew that you ever wanted a career outside of law enforcement.”
“If I hadn’t had the psychic ability to raise the dead as zombies, I’d have probably gone for at least my master’s and been living out in the wilderness somewhere, studying trolls or helping track invasive foreign species like gargoyles.”
“Why did raising zombies stop you from being a biologist?”
“A man named Bert Vaughn had started up a company called Animators Inc., where ‘The living raise the dead for a killing’ was the motto at the time. He found out my abilities and offered me a lot more money than any summer job I could find that year. I needed to earn money to help put myself through grad school, and I was also meeting postgrads with their master’s degrees working for five dollars an hour, feeding seals at SeaWorld. It made me realize I’d need at least a doctorate, and that takes money.”
“So your summer job turned into your career,” he said.
I nodded.
“You ever think of going back?”
“No, not really. I miss camping and the outdoors though. I haven’t been bird-watching in so long, my binoculars are outdated.”
“Jean-Claude much of a bird-watcher?”
“No. Even if he wasn’t a vampire, his idea of roughing it is a hotel that doesn’t offer turn-down service.”
“Haley does like those little chocolates they put on your pillow, but I’m glad she loves the outdoors more.”
“I tried to find someone to go hiking and camping with me. He has his master’s in preternatural biology, and he’s even a bird-watcher.”