by Etta Faire
“Carbon? That’s a horrible name. You mean like a carbon copy?”
“More like the element,” he said, shrugging awkwardly. “I’m going to night school. Chemistry.”
“Awww, you’d be a great chemistry teacher. If I had a chemistry teacher who also did magic tricks in high school, I might’ve learned something.”
Once again, I heard Nancy laugh loudly at the table behind us like she was listening in. “Doubtful,” she said, coughing.
Gerald petted the dog while Agnes snuggled with him. “I never thought about teaching, but that definitely sounds interesting. Doesn’t it, Carbon?”
“I still don’t get the name,” she said.
He leaned into Agnes so closely I could smell barbecue meatballs on his breath. “When you think about it, we’re all just pieces of carbon-based matter walking around the earth. Right?”
She nodded. “Or people. I’ve heard we’re people.”
“People, it is,” he said, taking his puppy back. “You’re right. Carbon is a weird name. I should name him People.”
“Don’t do that to a dog. Next thing you know you’ll be changing his name to a symbol, like Prince,” she said.
He put the puppy into his bucket and watched as it bit the side. “People, you don’t have to eat everything…” he said loud enough for Agnes to hear.
Agnes giggled and turned back around, realizing at the last second Hank was so close to her she accidentally brushed herself against him. I kind of guessed that’s what the sleaze-ball had in mind. “Oh-em-gee, Hank. Please don’t do that. You scared me.”
“You were supposed to meet me in my office,” he said. He was swaying now, a bottle of champagne in his hand.
“I got hungry and thirsty,” she replied, pointing toward her drink at the potluck table where Nancy was still standing. Nancy shook her head disapprovingly at Agnes and Hank, then turned and left.
Hank drunk-sashayed over to the table, swiped Agnes’s drink and added champagne to it. He handed it to Agnes, leaned down so he was level with her face, then tried to kiss her again. She dodged it this time.
“You know what we should do?” he said.
“Drink some coffee and go home to our wives?” she replied, backing away.
“Oh Aggie. Please don’t be that way.” He pulled her over to the doorway again. “You know what they say about mistletoe? It makes you tell Michael you can’t live with him because you are in love with a much more attractive man.” He pressed a finger along her nose and cheek as he mispronounced each slurred syllable.
“How did you know Michael asked me to live with him?” Agnes asked.
He pulled the mistletoe from off the doorway and held it over their heads. “A lucky guess.” He kissed her cheek. “Plus, he was telling everyone. The boy is crazy about you, and I emphasize the word crazy. I’m going to sign the divorce papers tonight, as soon as I get home, so you no longer have to be bothered by that crazy guy anymore.”
“You say a lot of things when you’re drunk.”
“This time I mean it. Helen and I really did talk about divorce. We’re waiting until after the holidays because of family and parties and families and, you know, all that crap you have to pretend you care so damn much about you can’t stop smiling. It’s all fake.” He plopped the mistletoe into her drink then sauntered off, and she pulled it out and giggled. Then took a couple of huge gulps, telling herself there was no way she was making a decision tonight. She grimaced like usual.
But this time, the drink burned her throat, and she coughed. She took another couple gulps to swallow the last one down.
She talked to me in her head. “This must be the poison.”
“Probably,” I said. “And Hank just added something. We both saw that.”
Agnes set the cup down and moved back to the potluck, picking up the plate of pot roast she’d already set along the table. She took a bite, but when she went to swallow it, she couldn’t get it down. Coughing, she spit it out. Her stomach rumbled and churned. And her head felt numb. She grabbed at the table to steady herself, knocking and spilling plates and drinks onto the floor as she did. She ran from the room, bumping right into a man dressed as Santa who was leaning over a counter with a phone up to his ear, twirling a finger through its curly cord.
“Whoa, ho, ho. Someone’s in a hurry…”
Agnes could barely see. It felt a lot like we’d flown right past drunk and gone straight into “room spinning out of control” mode. She staggered down the hall. The feeling of relief spilled over her when she finally pushed open the door to the women’s room.
Nancy was in the bathroom, primping at the mirror. “You okay?” she asked, with almost a smirk.
Agnes could barely shake her head “no” as she turned toward the stalls, giving a weakened shove to open one of the doors. She practically collapsed onto the toilet.
Over the sounds of Agnes in the bathroom, Nancy yelled. “Do you need help?”
“Yes,” Agnes managed to cough out. “Please help. I think I’m dying.”
I knew from other channelings that I could separate my own senses from Agnes’s. She was sick and out of control, but the other part of us, the me-part, wasn’t.
Nancy mumbled something and I focused in on it. “Drunken slut.” Her voice faded out and I could tell she’d left the restroom.
“I don’t need to see the rest,” I said, unsure if Agnes had heard the woman. “We know the poison came from that drink. The one Michael originally got you when he was angry. The one Hank just added stuff to, and the one Nancy was standing by when you were distracted by the magic trick and the puppy.”
“Back to square one,” she said in our head as our breathing slowed and spasms quickly replaced the feelings of nausea and diarrhea.
It felt like every single cell had been ignited.
Chapter 7
Over the Fieldwork we go
Jackson hovered about two inches from my face as I ran searches on my computer the next day. Even though he claimed he wasn’t going to help with this case because he didn’t believe in pro bono work, we both knew he wanted to be a part of it.
Plus, we also both knew his real aversion was to work itself. Pampered and entitled even in the afterlife.
I told him all about the channeling, from the coworker who seemed to hate Agnes and relished seeing her in the bathroom sick, to the drunken dance with the scumbag under the mistletoe. I also told him all about the drink that I was guessing was the poison.
And, of course, I included all my thoughts on the two men in Agnes’s life.
“Horrible. Just horrible. Hank, the bushy mustached guy thought he was God’s gift to sexual assault. And the other one, Michael, was an unstable, controlling jerk who basically ordered Agnes to move in with him. And when she didn’t jump at the chance, he turned into Norman Bates.”
“Sorry. Sounds like your made-for-TV movie isn’t going to have the sappy ending you were hoping for.”
“And to make matters even less like the Hallmark channel, Hank was married.”
He put his hand up to his mouth, pretending to be shocked. I should’ve known the man who cheated on me while we were married was not going to care about that one.
“But Agnes was under the assumption they were separated,” I added.
“Sure. People tell themselves what they want to hear.”
“Said the most delusional man on the planet.”
As we talked, I looked up mistletoe. I had heard that was poisonous, and Hank had plopped it right into Agnes’s champagne.
But as it turns out, mistletoe isn’t poisonous. Only if you eat a ton of the berries and leaves of the European version. I didn’t think she’d eaten anything off of it. And it had probably been American, seeing how there was no need to import the stuff to Wisconsin.
Hank had also poured something else in there that could easily have been jewelry cleaner.
In the afternoon light streaming into my dining room, I could almost make out my ex-h
usband’s gray blue eyes, something I hadn’t seen in a long time, as we both scanned the articles I’d brought up from my library searches.
According to one, Environmental Health Specialists collected food samples that night from the various potluck dishes, including the champagne, the eggnog, the coffee, and the water. But nothing came back with anything suspicious. And about thirty people in the office also ate and drank those exact things and didn’t get sick, so this had to be intentional. And Agnes had to be the intended victim.
“So you can’t eliminate any suspects yet?” Jackson asked.
I scribbled into my notebook as I talked. “On the contrary. My suspect list is growing. It now includes a coworker jealous of Agnes’s bonus check, a janitor, and a puppy.”
“I know you love corny Christmas movies, but really? A puppy?”
“Okay, the puppy’s not really a suspect. He was part of a magic trick the janitor did.” I tapped my fingers mindlessly along the table. “But the more I think about it, that janitor did seem to have a thing for Agnes. The way he laughed at her jokes, and tried to impress her with his magic trick.”
“Obviously, a psycho…”
I ignored him and went on. “He might’ve felt he wasn’t good enough for her, or maybe he thought she felt she was too good for him. So he killed her because she rejected him, or he perceived that she’d rejected him. Here’s his full name,” I said, pointing to one of the articles on my table. I read it out loud. “Gerald Klinger, the custodian at Dreamstreet, said he was surprised to hear Dunkle had been poisoned. She didn’t seem sick the entire party.”
“You’re really reaching with that suspect,” my ex said.
“Maybe. But I can’t rule out anyone. He seemed like a nice guy, but so did you once. And he did have a motive.”
“That you just now pulled from thin air like a magic trick,” he began. “Plus, Carly Doll, I’m pretty sure if people could be arrested on motive alone, the whole town would have been jailed for my murder.”
“Good point. And I would’ve been first in line.”
I quickly opened a new tab on my browser, went straight to Facebook, and typed in names until I’d found everyone.
I knew I wouldn’t see Agnes for at least another day. Channeling always drained ghosts of their energy for a while afterwards. But that gave me time to run a little research before I saw her next.
“I’m going to see what our suspects are up to today. And contact them.”
“Oh goody. More work.”
Chapter 8
A Ghost of a Christmas Present
It was pretty easy to find all four suspects on Facebook. Michael almost looked the same, except I could tell he was graying around his temples as he smiled in a photo with his wife and two teenage kids on a lake.
He lived in Indiana now. Hank lived up in the Northern part of Wisconsin. Gerald was a teacher at Landover High. And Nancy was a VP at Dreamstreet.
I instant-messaged all of them with the same note:
My name is Carly Taylor. I’m an investigator with the Taylor and Bowman Investigation Agency. I was hired to reopen the case of Agnes Dundle. Your name came up while reviewing my files. I have some questions I’d like to go over with you, if you don’t mind. Please contact me as soon as possible.
I followed it with my contact information, figuring innocent people would call me back.
Jackson shook his head. “I see you gave yourself top billing. The Taylor and Bowman Investigation Agency. All of it lies. And I thought you were the good cop at the agency.”
“It’s not a lie. I am a detective. They don’t have to know I’ve been hired by the deceased.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “Or that you don’t really have files. I can see why you lied.”
“I’ll tell them the truth if they ask.”
Gerald called me within twenty minutes, making him the most suspicious of the bunch, a little too eager to participate in my opinion. I saw from his Facebook profile that he was divorced now and still sporting the same “business in the front, party in the back” mullet, except it was mostly baldness in the front now, a half-mullet.
I put the phone on speaker so my ex could hear too then plopped down on my couch. “Like I said, I’m investigating the death of Agnes Dundle. Do you remember the night she died?”
“Of course,” he replied, his voice echoing out from my landline. “But I don’t remember much. I didn’t even know she was ill. When I saw her, she was fine. Next thing I knew, I heard she was in the hospital.”
“And the last time you saw her was when you were performing a magic trick with the puppy you were thinking about naming People?”
“That dog was sure crazy, especially as a puppy. Never do magic with a dog, is what I learned. People chewed everything. My fake finger. My trick deck of cards…”
There was a long pause. “Wait? How did you know that? I did have a dog, and I did name him People. I figured I kind of had to name him that after Agnes suggested it the night she died. Very few people know that. Poor guy passed away about 13 years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, as if I’d known the dog myself, which I kind of had.
“Are you an investigator? Or the police?” he asked. “How do you know this kind of information? Especially the name of the puppy and the magic stuff?”
“I’m actually a medium.”
I got exactly the silence I was expecting. My facial tic started acting up, and I could tell I was losing my confidence. Why had I said that?
No one ever took mediums seriously, including ghosts. Jackson laughed by my side. I made a mental note to leave my profession out of future conversations.
I tugged on the loose string along the hem of my skinny jeans and willed some confidence back into my voice. “Yes, I am a medium, and Agnes contacted me. She told me about People, your maltese. She said you were originally going to name him Carbon.” I was rambling now, but I couldn’t stop myself.
He laughed. “Really? I don’t remember that.”
And now, I was losing him.
“I know it’s strange. But it’s real. Agnes has hired me to figure out her murder. So I need you to think. When you were doing the magic trick, did you notice anything weird going on behind Agnes? Maybe with her drink? We’re pretty sure she was poisoned that way.”
He cut me off. “Wait a minute. Did you just say Agnes hired you? And that you consult with ghosts to try to figure out their murders?”
Why had I admitted that too? “Yes. She’s my client,” I said, voice cracking.
After another long pause, he finally spoke. “It was very nice to meet you. What did you say your name was again?”
“Carly,” I replied, twisting one of my blonde curls around my pinkie, a habit I must’ve picked up from Agnes. I could tell where this was heading.
“Yes, very nice to meet you, Carly, but I’m just going to be honest. I don’t really believe in any of this. I’m a scientist. I only believe in the logical. The things that have been proven to be real and true.”
I didn’t say anything even though every part of me wanted to tell him all about my master’s degree in English, and how I did not need him to man-splain logic to me.
“I’ve got to get going. It was good to reminisce about Agnes, though. I miss her. She’s the reason I’m a teacher now. She suggested it.”
I felt my face growing red as a Christmas sweater. “If I’m some sort of a crackpot or something, then how could I have known about Carbon and People… and how your magic trick didn’t work that day?”
He hesitated before answering. “You know you’re right. I’d forgotten that. I’d really wanted that trick to work because I was trying to impress the cute girl with my cute new puppy. But for some reason, it flopped. Lost in the pyrotechnics, I guess.”
“Tell me what was supposed to happen?” While he talked, I darted across the room with my phone, throwing open the credenza to find the pen and paper I should already have been ready with. I jotted thing
s down as fast as I could before my skeptic hung up on me.
“I’m not sure. If I remember right, I believe I had some sort of trick pail rigged so I could push the puppy from the false bottom into it from my work overalls. Of course, while all this was happening, I distracted my audience with a little pyrotechnic hand display.”
“When your fingers lit up,” I said, scribbling into my notepad.
“Yes. Yes. Flash cotton was my new favorite device. A chunk of it with some flash paper and a discreet lighter, and I had the world mesmerized. It’s how I keep my students mesmerized now. That, and easy tests.”
“Oh-kay,” I said, trying to follow along. “There might have been another trick going on in the background while you were mesmerizing your audience that day.”
“You think the trick was when someone poisoned Agnes?”
“Exactly.”
“Sorry, but I never saw anything.”
Hank sounded older than I thought he would, and a lot more sober. I was just getting ready to leave for my shift at the Purple Pony when he called.
I put him on speakerphone and turned my recorder on this time.
His voice had that shaky quality people sometimes got when they hit a certain age. I quickly brought up his Facebook profile on my laptop so I could picture the man again. He was almost completely gray now and he’d ditched the bushy mustache, thank God. He was still thick around the middle, and still with his wife. They’d just celebrated 35 years of marriage.
“Congratulations on your anniversary,” I said in such a way, I was sure he would know where this was heading.
He didn’t. “Thanks,” he said. “People ask me all time. They say, ‘Hank, what’s the secret to a long marriage?’ I tell ‘em. ‘It’s easy. Don’t get divorced.’” He laughed at his own joke.