by H. P. Bayne
Eva knew Dez well, and he smiled as her arms slid around his waist. “You still miss being a cop, don’t you?”
“Days like yesterday, you bet I do.” He placed the cooked eggs onto a plate, then returned the pan to the stove before turning to meet Eva’s embrace. He leaned down to kiss her, taking some solace in the softness of her lips and the aftertaste of toothpaste.
“God, you guys,” came a voice from the other side of the room. “You’re too old for that.”
Dez glanced up and chuckled as Kayleigh, their nine-year-old daughter, walked in, just out of bed and in search of something to drink. Dez pulled a cup from the cupboard as Kayleigh removed a carton of orange juice from the fridge.
“We are not too old,” Dez said.
Kayleigh rolled her eyes, but a smile plucked at her lips. “Whatever, Dad.” She filled her cup, then replaced the carton in the fridge before carrying her juice upstairs, presumably to get ready for school.
Eva returned her attention to Dez. “Are you really that bored working for Lachlan?”
“I don’t mind it most of the time,” Dez said. “But things have been slow lately. Besides, Lachlan always gives Sully and me the jobs he doesn’t want.”
“He’s the boss. That’s his prerogative.”
“I know, but still.”
Eva patted him on the chest. “I’m sure it’ll pick up soon. It always does.”
“I hope so.”
The doorbell rang just as the sound of the water running suggested Kayleigh was in the shower.
Dez glared at the front door as their dog, Pax, came bounding down the stairs, barking. “That kid always gets here a solid half-hour before Kayleigh’s ready to leave.”
Eva’s smile was a knowing one. “He wants to make sure she doesn’t leave for school without him. Face it, Dez, he’s got a crush. Our girl’s a looker.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Eva yelled to Pax to quiet before patting Dez on the chest. “They’re nine. Relax.”
“They won’t be nine forever.”
Eva gave Dez a warning look before heading for the stairs to go get dressed. “Be nice.”
“I’m always nice.”
Dez waited until his PJ-clad wife was out of sight before answering the front door. “Hi, Tristan.”
The kid took part in the usual brief, playful wrestling match with Pax. Then his eyes travelled up Dez’s body, neck craned back in an attempt to meet his eye. It was a difficult task even for many adults, Dez’s six-and-a-half feet making him stand out in a crowd. Added to his solid frame of muscle, he thought he made for a fairly imposing man—of particular benefit now that his little girl was the object of at least one crush.
Tristan, it seemed, hadn’t gotten the memo. “Hi, Mr. Braddock. Can I come in?”
Tristan always asked. As much as Dez felt called upon to play protective dad, this kid had a way of disarming him and drawing a smile from him.
“Yeah,” Dez said. “Come on in.”
Tristan took off his shoes and trailed Dez into the kitchen. “You having breakfast?”
“Yep,” Dez said. Another thing that rarely failed. Tristan almost always made it here in time for breakfast. “You eat yet?”
“Not really. I wasn’t exactly hungry yet.”
Dez nodded slowly as he eyed the kid. Sure, you weren’t hungry, he thought. You just knew the offerings would be better over here.
Tristan hefted himself onto one of the barstools at the kitchen island and watched as Dez popped the bacon he’d already fried into the microwave to warm up. There was no point waiting on Kayleigh; she’d become a finicky eater and rarely ate more than a bowl of cereal in the mornings. The bacon and eggs were for Dez and Eva—and, apparently, Tristan.
Tristan who tended to stare shyly at Dez more than talk.
“How was your weekend?” Dez asked, more to avoid the silence than because he expected an interesting answer.
“It was kind of weird.”
Dez spared the boy a glance over his shoulder in between feeding slices of bread into the toaster. “Weird, how?”
“Dad and I went fishing.”
“You guys go fishing a lot, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but it was weird this time.”
Dez resisted the eye-roll and the exact repeat of his previous question. “In what way?”
“I caught something, but it wasn’t a fish. It was a piece of cloth, but it freaked Dad out really bad. He didn’t want to stay after. I could tell.”
“Because of the piece of cloth?”
“Because of the ghost.”
That had Dez’s attention. He turned fully toward Tristan to ask the obvious next question. “What ghost?”
“The one at Dead Man’s Lake. Everyone’s heard of him.”
“Dead Man’s Lake? That’s where you were fishing?”
“Yeah. They stock it with trout as well as pike. I like trout better. You can catch pike anywhere.” Tristan leaned on the last word as if exhausted by the very idea.
“Did you see the ghost?”
“No, but Dad did. He didn’t tell me about it, but I heard him on the phone, talking to my uncle. He said he was really freaked but didn’t want to leave because I was having fun and he didn’t want to scare me. I asked him about it, but he didn’t answer me. He said he’d been imagining things or that he’d probably seen someone from one of the other shacks. But that wasn’t true. I think he really saw the ghost.”
“Huh,” Dez said.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Tristan asked.
Dez peered down at the kid, wondering how best to answer. Dez didn’t just believe in ghosts, he knew they were real. Knew firsthand.
No way to avoid it when your brother possessed the unusual skill of seeing the spirits of homicide victims.
Sullivan “Sully” Gray stretched out on the unmade sofa bed and unfolded Emily Crichton’s paper to scan the section of the front page beneath the fold.
She always read her paper first thing, insisting on waking shortly before five so she had her coffee on by the time the newspaper dropped outside her apartment door. Many mornings, by the time Sully woke up, Emily had finished with it and had slipped it beneath his door for him to read.
Given the rough path of his life, there was comfort to be had in normalcy, in being able to sit down to do the morning crossword while, on the other side of the small bachelor suite, the coffee machine dripped out the morning supply.
Late winter and the sun seemed a bit sluggish today, so Sully held the paper closer to the lamp to scan the headlines.
Protest impedes Dead Man’s Lake development
The past few years hadn’t been conducive to staying up to date with the news, so the headline had Sully scanning the article for information on the proposed development. Dead Man’s Lake had been one of his dad’s favourite summer fishing spots. There was one small bay in particular Flynn Braddock had enjoyed dropping the anchor, one he had self-dubbed Trout Haven. Sully could still picture Flynn, grinning widely as he urged Dez or Sully to take his photo so Mara could see him holding his latest catch.
The memory put a smile on Sully’s face—one the article quickly wiped away. A company called Bright Sands was looking to develop a large section of the lakefront for use as a resort community. It had been petitioning the government—the current land holder—to grant the purchase, but had run up against roadblocks in the form of protesters. Not everyone, it seemed, was eager to see a large swath of forest removed and a bunch of lakeside mansions erected in their place.
Sully fully understood their opposition.
He was interrupted mid-grumble by his cellphone, ringing from its spot on the end table. He reached over to snag it from its charging cable and recognized Dez’s number on the display.
“Did you read the paper this morning?” Sully asked by way of greeting.
“No. Why?”
“The proposed Dead Man’s Lake development.”
“
Oh, that. Didn’t you hear about it before?”
“I don’t stay in the loop as much as I should, I guess.” It was true. Filled as his life was with tragedy and pain, many days he avoided the news altogether. Sometimes, all he’d do was scan the paper’s headlines. Other times, he’d flip right to the puzzles and comics, then dump the paper in the recycling bin.
“Well, it’s been an ongoing battle,” Dez said. “So far, the development company’s grabbing the short straw. It’s an election year and there’s enough opposition to the proposal to keep the government dancing around that one. I think they want the money. They just don’t want to lose control in the process.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of public consultation process over things like this?”
“Not really. I mean, it’s government land but it’s not a park or anything. They can sell off Crown land as long as no one’s renting it or holds some other sort of rights. But so far, people have been pretty vocal about not wanting development there. There have been a lot of calls for a public consultation process, so fingers crossed.”
“Yeah, fingers crossed.” It occurred to Sully Dez had likely called for a reason. “So what’s up? Lachlan didn’t cancel out on his share of surveillance duty this morning, did he?”
“No, nothing like that. Something else kind of interesting came up, and I wondered whether it might be our kind of problem.”
“I hate to ask.”
Dez provided the info anyway. “One of Kayleigh’s friends came over this morning. He said his dad saw a ghost while they were ice fishing at Dead Man’s Lake this weekend. He thinks it’s the ghost.”
“The Ice Man?” Sully asked. “I didn’t think there was anything to that. Just a lot of tall tales.”
“Apparently it’s a little more than that,” Dez said. “I know the kid’s dad. They live down the block. He’s a solid guy, not prone to making things up. But there’s something else too. Tristan told me he caught something that really freaked his dad out: a piece of fabric. It got me thinking. What if this Ice Man story’s true? What if what Tristan caught is evidence the ghost is real and his body’s in that water somewhere?”
Sully smiled knowingly into his phone. “You’re hoping to get out of the surveillance gig, aren’t you?”
“Shut up. I’m serious.”
“Since when have you ever purposefully tried to involve yourself in an investigation involving a ghost?”
“Since now. Look, Lachlan’s got surveillance covered until after lunch. I’m going to head over to Adam’s right away and ask him about what he saw. If it pans out, I thought maybe you and I could swing by Dead Man’s Lake, check it out.”
“You really are serious,” Sully said. “Okay. Do you want me to come over and go with you to talk to Adam?”
“Nah. Knowing him, he’ll have a hard enough time admitting it to me. If another guy’s around, he’ll probably deny everything.”
“I hear you. Give me a call if you decide to head to the lake.”
Dez disconnected, leaving Sully to stew over the article’s contents. Reading down further, he read a quote from Bright Sands CEO, Clive Josprey, going on about the fact the development would bring many needed jobs to the area, both temporary and permanent. He had envisioned not just homes but an entire community. There would be stores, a gas station, a marina and restaurants. Some tourism-based businesses had also expressed interest, from a company specializing in speedboat tours and pontoon boat rentals to another wanting to set up an outdoor adventure park complete with zip line.
The idea of it made Sully’s stomach turn.
He scrolled through his contacts, then tapped on the number he had for Paul Dunsmore. The son of former business magnates, Paul had liquified his assets before scandal surrounding his family’s illegal doings broke Dunsmore Developments wide open. With shareholders—those who weren’t tied up in the same scandal—fighting over the scraps of the company, Paul had taken his own sizeable portion and put it into helping the community. He was the driving force behind a handful of shelters as well as The Hub, an inner city community centre that acted as both soup kitchen and program space. Most recently, Paul had turned his attention to helping to fund a program intended to aid those trying to exit gang life.
Paul answered on the second ring. “Sully!” he exclaimed.
Sully grinned at the joy in the man’s voice. “How are you, Paul?”
“Never better. I haven’t felt more productive in my entire life.”
“Getting out from under the thumb of your family was a good way to go, huh?”
“You said it. I mean, I’ve always tried to do the things I’m doing. It’s just the first time I’m not faced with constant criticism from my family. They’re playing it very low key these days, staying out of the public eye as much as possible.” He laughed. “My father might actually come to me someday for advice.”
“That he might,” Sully said. “Hey, I was wondering. Have you been following this Dead Man’s Lake development they’ve been talking about in the news?”
“I have. It’s a shame, if you ask me. We’re lucky to live in an area with so much pristine natural beauty. The first thing people like Josprey want to do is tear into it and tame it for human use. We just can’t have anything nice, can we?”
“What are the chances of stopping someone like him?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. It’s government land, and the last thing politicians want to do is piss off voters, especially during an election year. A couple of media outlets have done polls and they point overwhelmingly to an opposition to development at the lake. And the protest groups have grown quite a bit over the past year as Josprey and his minions have been trying to dig in their claws. Last protest about the proposed development had something like twelve hundred people present. That’s a pretty sizeable number to show up for a protest over a proposed land sale.
“That said, sometimes money speaks louder than words. The government wants votes, but the state of the economy at the moment isn’t great either. They’d definitely love the money that would come with a deal like this. Short-term pain could be long-term gain if those dollars are transferred into programs of benefit to large segments of society. It’s all in the spin, you know.”
“I didn’t think of that. Maybe they’ll agree to have public consultation on this.”
“Maybe. Josprey won’t be happy. There’s a man who doesn’t like to be questioned. Personable enough fellow on the surface, but he likes things his way. I can’t imagine he’s very happy with the audacity of the protest groups putting a damper on his plans. But then, I guess you could say the same for most people in big business. When you’ve made plans to invest millions, you want things to go as smoothly as possible to maximize that investment. Hiccups in the plan can be far more than an inconvenience.”
“Makes me even more grateful for the protestors.”
Paul paused, and Sully could sense the question before it came.
“I’m curious,” Paul said. “I know you and your brother go camping sometimes. Is that why you’re so interested in the outcome at the lake?”
“Sort of.” Sully glanced over to the kitchen as the coffee machine finished perking. He put the phone on speaker as he headed over and pulled a washed mug from the drying rack by the sink. “Dad, Dez and I used to go fishing there. It was Dad’s favourite spot if he just wanted a quick day out on the lake. I have a lot of good memories there.”
“And it makes it harder when those memories are about a person you can’t make new memories with. I get it.”
Sully poured out the coffee, then mopped up a small spill before carrying the mug carefully to the kitchen table. “That’s a big part of it, I guess. A lot of the changes in my life over the past few years have been bad ones. I guess I’ve got to the point where I just don’t trust change.”
“You’re an old man in a young man’s body, my friend.”
Sully took a cautious sip of coffee before deciding he’d hav
e to wait for the heat to settle. “I’ve kind of always been an old man.”
“Gift like you’ve got, I don’t doubt it. Tell you what, I’ll keep my ear to the ground on this proposed deal, see what shakes out. In the meantime, try not to worry about it. I’ve figured out the key to living my best life is to throw my energy and money into the things I can fix. Some things are out of our control, Sully. Once you learn to identify those things, the next step is teaching yourself how to let them go.”
“Maybe that’s my problem,” Sully said. “My entire life has been filled with ghosts. When it comes to letting things go, they set really bad examples.”
Afterword
Thanks so much for reading. I am continuing to work on the next Dez and Sully books, and would be pleased to keep you updated on future projects and release dates if you would like to join my mailing list. As an added bonus, a growing anthology of short stories, entitled Haunted: The Ghosts of Sullivan Gray, is available as a gift to subscribers. Visit my website at hpbayne.com to sign up and grab the current version of Haunted.
The books in The Braddock & Gray Case Files are intended as standalone books, so they can be read independently of each other and from the preceding The Sullivan Gray Series. Braddock & Gray follows the events of Sullivan Gray, so those who have read the previous series will find a few cookies scattered here and there. I will include links below to the books in The Sullivan Gray Series should you wish to check them out (if you haven’t already, of course).
The books in The Sullivan Gray Series can also be read as standalones to some extent, each containing a plot that wraps itself up by book’s end. But there is a deeper plot that threads throughout the seven novels, so for that reason, I always suggest they’re best read in the following order (click the titles to check them out on Amazon):
Black Candle
Harbinger