“That’s a black magic thing,” she said honestly.
“Could they want it for any other reason?”
Aunt Tillie cocked her head as she considered my question. “Maybe,” she finally answered. “But I honestly don’t think so.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Whoever did this, they’re bad people.”
“You think more than one person was involved?”
“Don’t you?”
The truth was, I did. I’d felt that from the minute I saw Shane’s body. “What do I do?”
Aunt Tillie met my gaze solemnly. “Keep the ghost close, and your cousins closer. They’ll come for you at a certain point. You have to be ready.”
I smiled at her gratefully. “Next time you want to warn me, just call me on the phone. Don’t cause a scene.”
I didn’t look back as I left the room, but I heard my mom and aunts explode at Aunt Tillie as I left.
“Is that why you did this?”
Ten
On my way back to the paper, I formed a plan.
Aunt Tillie may be crazy, but she was right about one thing – Shane had to remember how he died. If he didn’t, not only could someone else fall victim to his killer, but his murder may go unsolved for good, as well.
I stopped at the guesthouse long enough to pick up my car. I didn’t want to risk getting caught without transportation again.
Aunt Tillie may be a dramatic old biddy, but she wouldn’t have warned me of impending danger if she really didn’t believe it. She didn’t mess around when it came to stuff like that.
I had to find a way to get Shane to remember.
Instead of going to Hypnotic to talk to Shane, though, I decided to return to the office and talk to Edith instead. I found her in the records room watching Dr. Oz. She looked up briefly when I entered.
“Can you believe he did an entire show about poo?”
“Poo?”
“You know, poop.”
“No, I can’t,” I said honestly. “What’s even worse is that people probably watched it.”
“I only watched because I can’t change the channel,” she said indignantly.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” I soothed.
“You better not have been,” Edith grumbled.
I didn’t know how to broach ghost things with Edith. She had never exactly been forthcoming with me. I decided I had better just do it. Otherwise, I’d keep coming up with excuses to delay it – and that would help no one.
“Edith, I have a question for you.”
“What?”
“It’s about ... it’s about being a ghost.”
Edith turned to me in surprise. “You’ve never asked me about being a ghost before.”
“I didn’t feel it was any of my business.”
“And you do now?”
“No, I still don’t,” I said hurriedly. “But the boy who died in the corn maze, he’s a ghost now. He doesn’t remember what happened to him, though.”
Edith looked surprised. “You went back to the corn maze and found him?”
I didn’t want to tell the whole embarrassing tale of my late night trek with Thistle and Clove, so I merely nodded. I figured she didn’t need to know how we found him – just that we had found him.
“What’s the last thing he remembers?” Edith seemed interested, despite herself.
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked him yet. We just found him last night.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’m going to. I just wanted to know if you had any tips to make him remember.”
“Why would I have tips?”
I bit my lower lip, lifting my eyes to Edith’s and regarding her seriously. “A lot of people think you were murdered, Edith.”
Edith pursed her lips unhappily. It was an expression I had become familiar with. “I was found at my desk. Why do people think I was murdered?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I just know a lot of people find it suspicious. You were only in your forties. It would be weird to just drop dead at your desk at that age – even in the 1960s.”
Edith turned from me and trained her gaze back at the television. I couldn’t figure out if she didn’t want to answer me or didn’t know how to answer me.
“Were you murdered, Edith?”
Edith surprised me when she shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how you died?”
“I know how I died,” she said testily.
I swallowed hard. “How did you die?”
“I was eating lunch at my desk,” she said softly. “It tasted funny.”
I wanted to ask what it tasted like, but I didn’t want to interrupt her. I was afraid if I did I would never get the answers I was looking for.
“I knew something wasn’t right about it,” she admitted. “It was too late, though. I tried to get up. I tried to reach for the phone. My hands felt numb, though. I couldn’t push away from the desk. It felt like I was drowning from inside.”
Sympathy bubbled up from inside of me. Poor Edith.
“I died right there, with my face in my spaghetti. My hair was even dripping in it.”
The lurid picture she wove almost made me laugh. I realized that wasn’t appropriate, so I screwed my face up in the most sympathetic way I could. “How long did it take you to come back as a ghost?”
Edith seemed to consider the question. “Just a few minutes, I think.”
“Did you realize you were a ghost right away?”
“No. It took me a few minutes. I kept looking down at my body. I thought I was just having an out-of-body experience,” she said. “Like you see on television. I think I hoped I was having an out-of-body experience actually.”
“When did you know for sure?”
“One of my co-workers, Debbie was her name, she found me at my desk. She tried to shake me awake. I started yelling at her that I was right here. I was standing right here. She never even looked up at me, though. That’s when I knew.”
“Do you think you were poisoned?”
Edith nodded stiffly.
“Do you know who did it?”
“No. And I don’t want to talk about that anymore,” she said forcefully.
I held up my hands in submission. “We won’t talk about it anymore,” I promised.
Edith nodded mutely. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Will you come with me to Hypnotic? Talk to Shane?”
Edith seemed to consider the question seriously. She didn’t look convinced, though. “I don’t ever leave the office,” she said finally.
“I know. The store is just down the road, though. We can walk there together and then you can come right back to the office.”
Edith still didn’t look convinced.
“You would be my hero if you could get him to talk.” Manipulative, I know. I didn’t know what else to do, though.
Edith steeled her shoulders and turned to me. “I’ll go,” she said.
I smiled to myself. Edith may be a pain in the ass – but she did always try to do the right thing. As we left the office to walk down the street, I couldn’t help but notice how nervous she looked. I found it surreal that a ghost was scared to walk down the streets of Hemlock Cove – but I didn’t want to scare her off so I kept my thoughts to myself.
Even though she was initially nervous, I saw that Edith had relaxed a few minutes into our short journey.
“I can’t believe they’ve turned this place into a tourist trap.”
“I don’t think they had a lot of choice,” I admitted. “It was either a tourist trap or let the town die. There was no other way to sustain it – especially since there was no manufacturing base anymore.”
“Still,” Edith paused and looked in the window of Mrs. Little’s unicorn store. “It’s so tacky.”
I opened my mouth to answer her, but saw Mrs. Little staring at me suspiciously from inside of her store. I knew I couldn’t explain
talking to thin air in front of her business, so I quickly shut my mouth.
“Is that Margaret Riddle?” Edith asked.
I shifted so Mrs. Little couldn’t see my mouth before I answered. “I think Riddle was her maiden name. Now she’s Margaret Little.”
“Did she marry John Little?”
“Yeah.”
“I used to have a crush on him,” Edith admitted. “How did he turn out?”
“I think he died – like a decade ago,” I answered.
Edith didn’t look happy with the news, but she continued to follow me down the street, kibitzing about the tacky businesses as she went.
“The bakery is still the same. That’s good.”
A few minutes later: “Why is all that horrible stuff in the front window of the hardware store?”
I let her keep up her own running commentary. I didn’t get the feeling she wanted my input anyway.
When we got to Hypnotic, I held the door open until Edith entered. I could tell she was really disgusted by Thistle and Clove’s store. “This is a hocus pocus shop,” she hissed.
“It’s not hocus pocus,” I argued. “It’s just a nature store ... essentially.”
“They’re threatening to curse people,” she shot back.
“That’s just a joke.” Or, at least I hoped it was.
Thistle and Clove were busy behind the counter when we entered. They looked up expectantly. They didn’t seem surprised to see me.
“Who were you talking to?” Clove asked.
“Edith,” I said tightly. I was hoping they wouldn’t scare her off by asking too many questions.
“Edith from the paper?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, Edith,” Clove said breezily. She was apparently over her discomfort of being around ghosts.
“She looks just like Tillie,” Edith said distrustfully.
“She looks just like her mother,” I corrected Edith.
“She’s Marnie’s girl?”
“You knew Marnie?” I was essentially just trying to keep her talking at this point. I didn’t want her to clam up.
“I knew them all.”
I glanced around the store quickly, but I didn’t see Shane. “Where is Shane?”
“He’s in the backroom,” Thistle said through gritted teeth. “He doesn’t believe we don’t smoke the herbs back there.”
I smiled despite myself. I often wondered that, too.
Edith had turned her attention to Thistle. “Her hair is blue.”
“Yes.”
“She must be Twila’s.”
“Yes, she is Twila’s.”
“What is she saying?” Thistle asked suspiciously.
“She said you look like your mom.”
“Did she mean it as an insult?”
“I don’t think so.” Probably, though.
“Go get Shane,” I told Clove.
“Do I have to? He’s been driving us crazy all morning.”
“Just do it.”
Clove grumbled as she disappeared behind the curtain. I could hear her talking for a few minutes and then she came back out into the main area of the store. “He’ll be here in a minute,” she said.
“What’s he doing?”
“I told him you brought another ghost to talk to him and he’s scared.”
“He’s a ghost,” I protested.
“You tell him that! I’m not your go-between,” she grumbled.
I threw myself on the couch to wait. I watched as Edith walked around the store. “I knew your family was into some hinky stuff, but this is ridiculous.”
“We’re not hinky,” Thistle said testily.
“You can hear her?”
“I can now. I think if you’re talking to them in our presence, eventually we can hear them. I have no idea why.”
I didn’t either. “We’ll ask the aunts later,” I suggested.
Shane was peeking his head out from the curtain. He smiled at me, but frowned when he caught sight of Edith.
“She doesn’t look like a ghost,” he said.
“Neither do you,” I assured him.
Shane took a step out into the room. He didn’t make a move toward Edith, though. She turned and regarded him distastefully. “Are you a hobo?”
“What’s a hobo?”
“A vagrant. A tramp.”
“I’m not a tramp!”
“You’re dressed like a hobo,” Edith said. “Your pants are too big and that jacket looks like it belongs in a dumpster.”
Shane looked down at his coat in confusion. “It’s just a hoodie.”
“That’s just how people dress today,” I interrupted. I didn’t want the conversation to devolve any further.
“Well, it’s stupid,” Edith said.
I turned back to Shane. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Shane looked confused again. I had a feeling he looked that way a lot in life. “I was in the backroom.”
“I mean before you died.”
“Oh,” Shane furrowed his brow in concentration. “I was at the mall.”
“What were you doing?”
“Shopping. I bought some new shoes.”
“Those shoes?” I pointed to his gray Converse.
“No. They were black.”
“Black Converse?”
“Yeah.”
Well, that at least was something. If we found the shoes, maybe we would find the killer.
“Did you leave the mall?”
“Yeah. I was out in the parking lot, loading stuff in my car,” he said.
“Then what?”
Shane thought hard before shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
“Did someone come up behind you?”
“I told you, I don’t know.” He was getting snippy now.
Edith stared him down for a few minutes. “I think he doesn’t want to remember,” she said.
She was probably right. I couldn’t force him to remember, though. “He will when he’s ready,” I said finally.
“I hope so,” Shane said. “I want to know who killed me so I can haunt them.”
“You want to haunt everyone,” Clove grumbled.
“Hey! If I’m going to be a ghost I might as well have some fun with it.”
You really couldn’t argue with that.
Eleven
I spent the rest of the afternoon at Hypnotic quizzing Shane about his final day. My questions increasingly irritated him, so I convinced Thistle to start asking them for me. As much as Shane didn’t want to answer the questions, he did want to please Thistle. I figured I might as well use his crush to my advantage.
Despite steady hours of questioning, though, we didn’t learn anything else of any interest. Until he remembered on his own, we were at a standstill.
Edith lost interest in the conversation pretty early on and decided to leave.
“Are you going back to the newspaper?”
“No,” she said.
That surprised me.
“I’m going to take a look around town.”
Now that she had gotten the courage to leave the office, I wondered if she would ever go back. The world had just grown exponentially for her.
“Well, have fun.”
“I don’t have fun, missy,” she chastised me. “I just want to see if anyone I know is still around.”
“Aunt Tillie is out at the inn,” Thistle offered evilly.
“Why would I want to see her?” Edith looked insulted.
“She can see ghosts, too. You could irritate the crap out of her.”
Edith looked intrigued by the prospect. After she left, I turned on Thistle. “I’m telling Aunt Tillie you’re the one who sent her.”
“I’ll tell her it was you – and she’ll believe me. She thinks you’re out to get her anyway.”
I told Clove and Thistle about my visit out to the inn earlier in the afternoon. They both seemed surprised by my story.
“So, you’re saying that she faked a ‘fr
eak out’ just to get you out to the inn?” Clove looked like she didn’t believe me.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Thistle offered. “She cares. She just doesn’t want us to know that she cares.”
“Still,” Clove sniffed. “That seems like a lot of wasted energy.”
“You know she likes to irritate our moms. It was probably her afternoon entertainment.”
I decided to stay at the store and help Clove and Thistle bag herbs and stock their shelves. The weekend was coming up, and like any other weekend in Hemlock Cove in the fall, the store would be slammed.
At about 3 p.m., the store phone rang. Thistle answered it. I could tell by the shift in her body language, though, that she wasn’t happy to hear the voice on the other end. “We just had dinner out there the other night,” she complained.
Crap.
Clove and I both stopped what we were doing to listen to Thistle’s end of the conversation.
“No, I’m not saying that I don’t want to see you,” Thistle argued. “We were just out there, though.”
Thistle was quiet as she listened for a few moments. I figured it was her mom. Thistle only got twitchy when she was talking to her own mother. We all found our aunts more entertaining than our own mothers. I think that’s just a biological rule or something.
“No, there’s no rule that you can only see your mother once a week.”
Thistle was rolling her eyes.
“Yes, I know you won’t be here forever.”
Thistle glared at Clove and I openly when she caught us smiling at her.
“Yes, Clove and Bay are here right now, as a matter of fact. They already know and they can’t wait for dinner.”
Clove and I weren’t smiling anymore.
“Yes, we’ll be there at seven sharp,” Thistle grumbled. “I said yes!”
Clove shot a look in my direction. There was no way out of this for us either.
“I’m not crabby! Why do you always think that?”
Clove moved around the counter and stood beside me. “Why do you think they want to have another dinner so soon?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t like it, though. It means they’re up to something.”
“They’re always up to something,” Clove countered.
“Then they’re up to something especially irritating,” I suggested.
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