A Cup of Death

by K. J. Emrick

  “Josh… did you send me that article?” It suddenly made sense, and she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. “It came to me the same night you burned your boat and disappeared. Did you send it to me?”

  He nodded, and then blinked at her like she had appeared out of smoke. “You needed to know. I knew. I always knew.”

  “Uh, Miranda?” Kyle said. “I think Bates has lost it. He’s gone all the way around the bend to the looney bin, this one has.”

  “No, no I don’t think so,” she said, knowing that Bates probably thought she was still talking to him. “Braydon Wise did something. It all comes back to the same thing, over and over. Right back to my Aunt Connie. Oh.”

  She gasped, because she was starting to understand. Bates wanted to tell her that Braydon Wise was involved in what had happened to her Aunt Connie. She took a step toward him. She needed to know the rest of it.

  His hand came out from under the hoodie, and Miranda froze in place.

  Kyle rushed forward, a ghost trying to stop the living from doing harm.

  In the same moment, the door to the bathroom flew open and Jack came flying in with the two uniformed officers right behind. Their guns were out again. “Don’t move, don’t move!” he shouted. “Josh Bates, don’t you move a muscle!”

  Bates did as he was told, standing there with his hand extended, and the object from under his hoodie held tight in his grip.

  A photograph, Miranda saw. It wasn’t a gun… it was a photograph.

  In the picture she saw a much younger Josh Bates, standing side by side with her Aunt Connie.

  Chapter 5

  The officers put Josh Bates in handcuffs and took him out. They may have inadvertently let Braydon Wise get away, but they weren’t about to risk letting Bates out of their sight. He was wanted on charges of attempted murder of a police officer, after all. Jack’s shoulder had only been grazed by the bullet, thankfully, but the intent to kill had definitely been there.

  “So what’s this, then?” Jack said to Miranda now, sitting back at their table in the diner, their plates of unfinished hamburgers and cold fries still sitting where they had left them. In his hands he had the photo that Bates had been holding.

  Miranda looked at it again. She recognized her aunt’s face from countless other photos she had seen. There were the same family features that she herself had, her aunts curly red hair, and that enigmatic smile that would have put Mona Lisa to shame. She had her arm around the man in the photo, and although there were a few decades between that time and now, it was definitely Josh Bates. He was just a teenager there. Then again, her Aunt Connie was much, much younger in the picture too.

  Why were they together? How could Constance Cleary possibly have known Josh Bates? She must have been at least ten years older than him, probably more.

  “I don’t understand it either,” Miranda said to Jack. “Of course, when Bates first came to us he said that he knew Connie. He said that it had been a long time since he saw her, but he made it sound like they were very close. I guess he didn’t lie to us about everything.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “Every devil tells the truth once in a while.”

  Kyle sighed heavily. “There he goes again with all that devil talk. When did Jack get so religious? I tell you what, if he’d ever met the real Devil he wouldn’t be using that word so lightly…”

  “Enough, Kyle,” Miranda told him. She wasn’t up for talking about devils right now, human or otherwise.

  “Just trying to help,” he pouted. “I feel bad about letting Josh Bates get the drop on you.”

  “Honestly, Kyle, you can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “She’s right,” Jack told him, looking at the empty air over Miranda’s shoulders. He almost found him, too. “Kyle, you’re a ghost, and you can do more to protect Miranda than I’ve ever really given you credit for. You do a lot for us, but you aren’t all powerful. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re only human… were human… um, whatever.” Jack smiled in Kyle’s general direction.

  Miranda looked up to see Kyle’s face when she heard that. His expression was priceless. The compliment from Jack was well deserved, but definitely unexpected. Kyle was at a sudden loss for words. If Miranda didn’t know better, she would have thought he was about to cry.

  She reached up and patted Kyle’s hand. It was a funny sort of electric humming that tingled through her fingers when they touched. To her psychic senses, he felt almost solid.

  “What’s going to happen to Bates?” she asked Jack.

  “He’s going to be held at our station for questioning. A lot of questioning. We’re going to start with questions about him breaking into Ragged Rest for those pages from your aunt’s missing person investigation. Then we’re going to ask him about what he was saying to you in the bathroom. What do you think he meant about Braydon Wise being involved?”

  “I think he meant he was involved with Connie’s disappearance,” Miranda said. “I’ve had some time to think about it and I’m sure that he meant that and not the other… oh! I’m so stupid, I forgot, I forgot!”

  She jumped up out of her chair as both Jack and Kyle asked her a dozen rapid fire questions about what she was doing. She raced to the back door. She didn’t have time to explain.

  Past the bathroom was the back door and just outside there was a metal dumpster with the plastic top, flipped open. Inside was bags of trash, and dirty paper towels and a mess that smelled more awful than anything she had ever smelled in her whole entire life.

  And somewhere in there, if Kyle was right, was a ceramic coffee cup from inside the Dinner Plate diner, dumped there by Braydon Wise.

  “Oh,” Kyle said, getting to her faster than Jack because walls meant nothing at all to a ghost. “You’re looking for the cup. For the record, I didn’t forget about it. I just figured you would get to it when you were ready.”

  She didn’t bother trying to argue that, because she knew the events in the bathroom with Josh Bates had in fact made him forget about the cup, no matter what he said. Instead, she immediately began to dig through the mountain of paper towels in the trash, leaning in from her waist. She used some of the crumpled white towels to push aside the nastier slop.

  Jack came out, stopping abruptly as he saw her. “Miranda, what in the world are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for that cup. You know, the one that Braydon Wise snuck out? Kyle said it’s in here. Where is it, Kyle?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m a ghost, Miranda, not some kind of superhero. I don’t have x-ray vision or anything.”

  Miranda wrinkled her nose. “Well, this is disgusting. How many paper towels get used in this place?”

  Jack leaned over the side next to her, picking through unidentifiable bits of stuff and pushing aside garbage bags. “Just be glad people are washing their hands in there, Miranda. Ah. Here we go.”

  He came up with the cup in his hand, held gingerly by the handle between his thumb and forefinger. Miranda pushed herself out of the dumpster as fast as she could, happy to be away from the garbage. She had a feeling that she was going to have to take two or three showers to get the smell off.

  “You’re sure it’s the same cup?” she asked Jack. “I don’t want to have to go dumpster diving again.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the cup,” Jack observed. “No cracks, no chips. Just the coffee residue inside. I doubt that even this place is in the habit of throwing away perfectly good cups. Hello…”

  “What? What is it?”

  “There’s something else stuck to the bottom. Some sort of pad or medicine patch or something. You know, like they have for smokers? The nicotine patch?”

  Miranda looked into the cup, and sure enough there was what looked like a piece of cloth down there, stuck to the bottom, stained brown from the coffee and no doubt mixed with the muck at the bottom of the dumpster.

  She was confused. “So you think Braydon is a smoker? He puts his patches in his coffee
to dilute the medicine, maybe?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. I don’t think it’s nicotine. That was just an example. Nobody drinks that stuff, even diluted by coffee. No, I think this is something else. I think it might be—”

  “Poison!” Kyle guessed, just as Jack was saying the same exact word.

  “Poison.” Jack shrugged and started back toward the diner. “I think we just found our murder weapon.”

  “You think this is what killed Leon?”

  “Quite possibly, he agreed. “We can’t be sure that Leon wasn’t here before he headed to your place. We need to get this into an evidence bag. That photo, too. This case is getting more and more complicated.”

  “I think it’s been getting complicated right along,” Miranda said, running her hands through her long red hair. They were inside again now. She took a seat, feeling like her legs weren’t going to hold her up. “It’s like, everything that has happened since I moved here to Moonlight Bay has been leading up to uncovering the mystery of Aunt Connie’s disappearance, you know? Everything.”

  “Including meeting me?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

  She leaned in close to where he stood next to her, taking his hand and holding it against her face. “Especially meeting you. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t have you in my life.”

  He leaned down, and kissed her lips, and just like always happened when he did that Miranda got the feeling that everything would be all right with the world as long as he was here.

  “I love you, Jack.”

  “Me too,” he said back to her.

  “You two are adorable,” Kyle told them both, “but we need to remember Leon Peniston is dead, and Braydon Wise might have killed him. Or even maybe killed…”

  He didn’t say it, but Miranda shot him a harsh look just the same. Her Aunt Connie, was who he meant. Braydon might have killed her, all those years ago, and that was why she was missing.

  It was a horrible thought, but there it was.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Kyle said defensively. “You know you were thinking it, too.”

  She had been, actually. She’d been thinking that all of this added up to murder. A murder that they might never be able to solve because of how long ago it happened. Her aunt might not just be missing. She might be dead.

  Sadly, she took a deep breath. “We should get going, Jack. Do you think Janice Peniston went back to her motel room?”

  “The Slumber Way Motel,” Jack said, obviously thinking along the same lines. “Yes. Braydon said he was going to take her home but if Janice and Leon don’t live in Moonlight Bay then he must have meant the motel. Okay. Can you drive Miranda? Unless Kyle wants to?”

  Kyle crossed his arms over his chest. “Very funny.”

  At the front door Miranda stopped and looked back into the diner. “What do we do about this place? If the cook and the waitress and whoever else was here doesn’t come back, can we just leave it unlocked like this?”

  “If they don’t come back, I figure that’s on them. We’ll throw the locks and after that, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Isn’t it odd?” she asked. “Why would they just run away like that and not come back?”

  “Yes, I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know why, but it sure sounds fishy to me. We’ll have to come back and look into this place when we’re not up to our eyeballs in other mysteries.”

  That sounded like a plan to her. Miranda wasn’t sure she could take any more unanswered questions in her life. She had enough of them as it was.

  The drive from the diner to the motel only took five minutes or so. Jack and Miranda were in the front, Kyle tucked away in the far backseat of the van. Jack spent the time on his mobile talking to one of the officers at his station while Miranda drove, filling them in on what they had found at the diner. It was late, and there was no way to get the cup to a lab to be analyzed tonight anyway, so he made arrangements to bring it in the morning.

  He didn’t mention the photograph.

  “What about the picture?” Miranda asked him when he hung up the phone. “Aren’t you going to put that into evidence too?”

  “It’s from a different investigation,” he pointed out. “It’s got nothing to do with the dead man on your doorstep.”

  “Unless it does,” she said. “It’s all connected, you know.”

  “I do. I’m just not sure how. Let’s keep that photo between you and me until we have a better idea of what’s going on.”

  “I agree,” Kyle said, putting in his two cents worth. “No sense borrowing trouble. I have to wonder, though…”

  Miranda looked in the rearview mirror but wasn’t able to see him that way. Kyle floated up and hovered over the front seat so that she was able to talk to him. “What? Are you wondering about our neighbor’s new boarder? Jimmy Jones seems like a nice man, Kyle.”

  That caught Jack’s attention. “Oh, does he now? Was that your opinion or Kyle’s?”

  “Mine,” she said, making sure to choose her words carefully. “I mean, I didn’t talk to him for very long but he, um, really likes my books.”

  “Hmm,” was Jack’s comment. “Does he really, now?”

  “Jack, stop it,” Miranda said, feeling her cheeks starting to turn red. “He’s just the guy next door, and he wants to learn to be a writer, and he thought maybe I could help him.”

  “The guy next door,” he repeated back to her. “Those are the guys you’re supposed to look out for.”

  She rolled her eyes, not sure if he was seriously acting jealous or if he was just trying to lighten the mood with a little humor. “Anyway. Is that what you were thinking about, Kyle?”

  “Jimmy Jones?” he asked her, his voice humming through the space between the living and the dead. “Of course not. He’s so not my type. Too… academic.”

  “Kyle! That is not what I was talking about and you know it.” She sighed and squeezed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. “Let’s start over. Kyle, what did you just say you were wondering about?”

  “Oh, that. Right. Well, I was wondering about the photo that Josh Bates had.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because. How many people were there when the photo was taken?”

  “Two,” Miranda answered right away. To Jack, she said, “Kyle is wondering about the picture. There were two people there at the time, Kyle. My aunt, and Josh Bates.”

  “And,” Kyle said, “the person taking the picture.”

  “Oh, dear God, you’re right!” She hadn’t even thought of it. There were actually three people there when the photo was taken. “Three people, including the one who took the photo,” she repeated for Jack. “What does that mean?”

  Kyle shrugged now. “I don’t have any idea. I just thought it was odd.”

  “He thinks it was odd,” she told Jack. “That was his big revelation.”

  Jack smirked. “Well, he is your spirit guide. Full of useful wisdom and guidance.”

  “Oh,” Kyle said, “he’s a funny guy today, isn’t he?”

  They were just pulling into the motel carpark. The Slumber Way Motel was a long single-story building of eight units. The doors were painted red and the rest of it was blue. It was an ugly color scheme, but Miranda was sure that people didn’t stop here for the ambience. They came here because it was cheap.

  “Which door is it?” Miranda asked as she shut off the engine.

  Jack scanned the long row of rooms. “I have no idea. I suppose we could try each door, one by one? Or, if we had someone who could sneak into each place, and find out which room Janice might be in, and then come back and tell us…?”

  “I’m on it,” Kyle said. “I’m really starting to get used to this role of peeping Tom you guys have me doing.”

  Miranda watched him go, laughing softly at her friend’s dramatic episode. “He’s on his way,” she told Jack. Seriously, she knew that Kyle loved doing this. He loved being in the thick of the action in a way tha
t he never had been when he was alive.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said abruptly.

  “Hmm. For what?”

  “All of this stuff being dragged up about your aunt. It has to be hard.”

  Miranda loved him for even thinking of that. “Honestly, Jack, I’m all right. I mean, Aunt Connie hasn’t even really been a part of my life. Not for a long time anyway, back when I was a young girl, and I barely remember her now. She’s been gone all this time. There’s no reason for me to grieve.”

  He took her hand in his. “I understand.”

  They were leaning into each other for a kiss, when Kyle came flying through the windshield, straight through them, and into the backseat again. Miranda jumped backward, startled by his sudden appearance.

  Jack reached out to catch her, as if she was falling. “What’s the matter?”

  “Kyle’s back,” she grumbled, turning around to stare at him. “What in the world got into you?”

  “She’s in there,” Kyle said, acting as if he was out of breath even though he had no need to breathe. “Janice. She’s in there. But she’s not alone. You guys need to go. Right now. They’re in there. Together.”

  “Slow down, Kyle! Who’s in there with Janice?”

  “Braydon Wise,” he said. “Braydon is in there!”

  Chapter 6

  Not for the first time, Miranda wished she could do ghost stuff like Kyle.

  She and Jack were inching along the side of the motel, making their way to the room Kyle had pointed out. They had to duck under the windows as they went to keep from being seen. It seemed like forever before they were standing next to the window of room number six.

  Shadows moved behind the curtains there. Leaning in close, they could hear voices from inside. The walls here at the Slumber Way were thin as cardboard. Soundproofing wasn’t something you got for forty dollars a night.

  “Oh, come on,” the voice said, “time is not our friend here.”

  That was Braydon Wise. The woman with him, was definitely Janice Peniston.