Murder Runs Deep

by K. J. Emrick

  Leah glared at him. Ashton looked down at the table, busying himself with picking up the cards. Only Natasha’s expression didn’t change.

  “Good night,” she said to Miranda again. “Do be careful out there in the dark.”

  “Yes, of course,” Miranda said, quite glad for a reason to be on her way. She’d learned quite a lot but she wanted to be able to talk to Kyle about it and with all these people listening and watching that just wasn’t going to happen. “Um. If any of you need anything, I’m just up the street.”

  “How very kind,” Leah said drily. “After disrupting our fun, why don’t you come back tomorrow night…” She paused for a moment then resumed with a small, twisted smile. “Um… actually it’s tonight now isn’t it? Why don’t you come back tonight for supper? I’m sure we’d love to get to know you under less… invasive circumstances.”

  Miranda wasn’t sure if that was an invitation or an insult, but she was going to take the opportunity that was presented to her. “I’d like that, thank you. Well. See you tonight, then.”

  “Shall we say eight o’clock?” Natasha said from behind Paul, smiling that hollow smile of hers. She was obviously trying to take control of the situation back from Leah but once again it worked into Miranda’s hands, so she wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth. “I’m sure you can find your own way out.”

  Miranda felt the sting of dismissal as she nodded her thanks, and left. She didn’t waste any time finding her way out. Someone closed the dining room door behind her, so she couldn’t hear anything else that was said.

  “Lovely bunch,” Kyle said as he floated next to her down the hallway. “Sort of remind me of the Addams Family. All we need now is that tall Frankenstein butler guy.”

  “Shush,” she whispered. “Take a quick look around the house before we leave, okay?”

  He gave her a comical salute. “Aye, aye, Captain!”

  His blueish glow disappeared through the wall to the right, but Miranda could hear his humming for several long moments afterward.

  Outside, she got into her car and started it up, intentionally taking her time with adjusting the mirrors and putting on her belt, and finding a station on the radio. It was only a few seconds later that Kyle floated into the passenger seat next to her.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked immediately. “Anything suspicious?”

  “A couple of those people live like slobs. There was a bedroom with clothes everywhere and the bathroom is in need of a serious scrub. Other than that? No.”

  “Well, maybe you should have looked harder.”

  “Ooh, that was a bit scratchy,” Kyle said to her, more amused than upset.

  “Sorry, Kyle,” Miranda sighed, putting the car into gear and turning around to head back up the driveway. “I was just a little overwhelmed by the cold response we got to the news Maisie Fraser was dead. I’m sure one of them knows something about the death. Paul Wells, most likely, although I’m leaning toward Leah being involved, truth be told.”

  “Uh-huh. I got that feeling, too.”

  Miranda shrugged as she turned onto the street, headed back toward Ragged Rest. “I was kind of hoping you would be able to find something to point to the killer right away. Sorry I snapped at you. Guess I’m just tired.”

  “But why did you agree to go back? I thought it was creepy that they even asked you.” He shivered, an odd display from someone who was nearly intangible. “I mean, what are you going to tell Jack? He’s not dumb. He’ll figure out that you didn’t just randomly get invited to dinner at the same neighbors who likely killed our victim!”

  That was true. She’d have to tell Jack… something. “I’m under no illusions, Kyle. Them asking me back was a fluke spurred by the fact each of them is trying to be the one in charge of the house. The mother, and the current wife. Seems to me Paul is caught in the middle of that. At any rate it worked in my favor. I get to go back again and snoop about at my leisure.”

  “Well, well. Quite the sneaky little dickens, aren’t you?”

  “Thank you. All I know is there’s something not right in that house and I mean to find out exactly what. Besides, it’s not as if Jack doesn’t know me, does he? I mean, this is how we got together, after all. I’m nosy by nature and I want to put things right. He loves me for that. Stop worrying.”

  Behind a yawn, she added, “I just want to get some sleep. You and I can talk more about the Wells family in the morning.”

  Chapter 7

  Unfortunately, sleep was going to have to wait.

  When she was almost to the driveway of Ragged Rest she saw a woman standing by the road, frantically waving her arms in the glow of the approaching headlights. It was someone she recognized, just not anyone she wanted to talk to right now.

  “Ooh, look,” Kyle said, pointing. “There’s Deirdre Sims. You know, I didn’t remember her when you mentioned her earlier, but now I do. Who could forget a face like that?”

  “Be nice, Kyle.” He wasn’t far wrong, although it might not be kind to say it. Deirdre had a face that was… unique. Flat, with a wide nose, and fine lines like cracks around her mouth from years of smoking. In her frumpy white dress it was hard to guess her weight, but it must have been well in the range of one hundred and twenty kilograms at least.

  “Nice?” Kyle balked. “I’m always nice. Now, hold on. Why are you stopping the car? I thought you needed sleep. As your spirit guide, I prescribe sleep.”

  “Shush,” she told him, pulling over to the side of the road just in front of Deirdre. “She looks like she needs help. Besides, if I don’t stop to talk to her here then she’s just going to march right up to my front door and knock until I come out to talk to her. Might as well get it over with now.”

  Still, she didn’t get out of the car. Instead, she rolled the window down and waited for Deirdre to come over to her. “Good evening, Deirdre. Although I guess it’s almost morning now, isn’t it? We should both be in bed.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do, young lady!” was the answer to that. “I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know right now. Why did I see police officers marching up and down the beach?”

  “Oh, yes,” Kyle chuckled. “I definitely remember her now. That sort of belligerence is hard to forget.”

  Miranda couldn’t agree more, even if she didn’t have the luxury of saying so out loud like Kyle did. “Deirdre, it’s just not my place to say what’s going on. It will hit the news in the morning. You can wait until then, right?”

  “Yes, but you know all about it,” Deirdre said, obviously not wanting to wait until the morning papers.

  “It doesn’t matter if I know all about it,” Miranda said in a huff. “I don’t think Jack would appreciate it very much if his girlfriend began blabbing things about his work all around town.”

  “Oh, so Jack’s involved too, is he?” Deirdre nodded with a knowing twinkle in her eye. “Well, that just figures, doesn’t it?”

  “Wait, I never said he was involved.” Miranda felt her hackles rising the longer she talked to this woman. She should have listened to Kyle and kept driving. “Look, I’m tired, and it’s late. I can’t tell you anything. You’ll just have to listen to the news in the morning.”

  “I am absolutely tired of this,” Deirdre said, beginning to wave her arms again. “The two of you are nothing but troublemakers. There’s been no end of problems here since you moved into Moonlight Bay. This used to be such a nice, quiet town and now there’s a murder every other week! I’m surprised I haven’t been offed myself!”

  Kyle burst out laughing, rolling back and forth so that his body floated through the seats. “Offed! What does she think this is, a 1940s gangster novel? Ha!”

  Miranda studiously ignored him as he fell out of the side of the car in his hilarity and had to climb his way back in, still laughing hysterically. Her glare was focused on Deirdre. “First of all, there is not a murder here every other week. I admit, sure, there’s been a few but it�
��s not like they’re all connected to me somehow!”

  “Oh, I beg to differ with that, young woman. You’re always at the center. You’re always right there, and I think this time is no different. I think someone else has died, haven’t they!”

  Miranda took a deep breath, trying so very hard not to start shouting back at the woman. Not that Deirdre didn’t deserve it, but if she started doing that then she never would get home because Jack or one of his coworkers would be coming out to arrest her for knocking Deirdre silly.

  Giving that very pleasant image a moment to pass through her mind, Miranda shook her head and made herself stay calm. “Deirdre, please. It’s late. There’s people sleeping. If you don’t manage to wake up everyone within five kilometers of here you’ll definitely wake up your Great Aunt Isabel.”

  Deirdre waved that concern away like it was an insect that needed to be swatted out of the air. “Isabel is asleep. She’s taken her medication for the night and she won’t wake up before eight. We do this every night. I could drive a freight train through the living room and Isabel would still be asleep. Now stop avoiding my questions, please.”

  Her ‘please’ sounded more like a curse word. Miranda had already taken her fill of this. “Well, I daresay I would be sleeping too, if it wasn’t for you. So. Let me tell you this much, and that’s all I’m going to say. There was a dead body on the beach tonight. The police are looking into it. I’m going to go home now. Goodnight.”

  That actually seemed to calm Deirdre down quite a bit. Miranda had finally decided she’d better tell her something or this night was never going to end. It’s not like she was giving away the finer details after all and by morning, everyone would know about the dead woman anyway.

  She started to roll her window up when Deirdre patted a finger to her lips and said, “I wonder if that has anything to do with the man I saw on the beach earlier.”

  Miranda gaped at her. “What man?”

  Deirdre looked down at her with a very smug smile. “Oh, but we’re not supposed to discuss this, remember? It’s all police business and such. I’m sure that boyfriend of yours will be over to see me. I’ll tell it to him.”

  She turned, like she was going to walk away, and then stopped. She was very obviously waiting for Miranda to say something more.

  Kyle’s fit of laughter had passed. “Oh, just tell her something, Miranda. I want to hear what she has to say, too.”

  “Fine,” Miranda said to both of them. Deirdre turned back, folding her hands and leaning in toward the window almost sweetly. “A man came running up from the beach to Ragged Rest earlier to say he’d found the body. He said he needed to use our phone to call the police. He’s a tour boat cabin and he said he saw the body from the water. He’s a little overweight, fair complexion, maybe in his mid-fifties. Checkered shirt. Khakis. Is that who you saw?”

  Deirdre seemed to consider that. “The man I saw was walking up and down the shoreline for nearly an hour. It was just getting dark at the time so I couldn’t see his face, or his hair color or anything. But, yes, he was wearing that shirt and those pants. It must be the same man.”

  Just getting dark? The movie Jack and she had seen was over with after sunset. That would mean Josh Bates had been down on the shore for some time, waiting for… what?

  “Deirdre, this is important,” she stressed. “The man’s name is Josh Bates. A tour boat captain. Do you know him?”

  “No, I don’t know anyone named Bates. So, that’s the story, is it?” Deirdre hummed to herself, obviously pleased that she had squeezed the information out of Miranda. “There. Do you see what happens when you act like a real neighbor? Things go so much better for everyone.”

  Miranda ground her teeth rather than respond, not wanting to lose the fragile peace she’d just brokered with Deirdre. She might need more information later and she’d rather leave on good terms in case that happened.

  Kyle, of course, didn’t have that problem.

  “This woman is rotten to the core,” he said in Miranda’s ear. “I’ll bet if we could see inside her soul it’d be all black and icky and full of cobwebs.”

  Miranda choked back the laughter that bubbled up inside, turning it into a cough behind her upheld fist.

  “You’d better get yourself to bed,” Deirdre said to her in mock sympathy. “You look absolutely beat.”

  With that, she trundled off in the direction of her own house, leaving Miranda feeling completely drained.

  Kyle phbbted after her, his tongue stuck out and ghostly spittle flying everywhere. “May God save us from the likes of Deirdre Sims.”

  “Yes, and Amen to that,” Miranda agreed. “She did give us some very important information though.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like her.”

  “No. It most certainly does not.”

  The moment they were back inside Ragged Rest with the door closed and locked, Butter came hurtling through the kitchen into the hallway, his tail wagging furiously as he greeted Miranda, bouncing from foot to foot. He even looked at Kyle as if he was pleased to see him.

  “You’ve been a good boy, haven’t you?” Miranda said, crouching down to scrunch both of his furry ears in her hands. “Even if you have no idea what time it is. Don’t you be keeping me awake now! I need some sleep. I won’t go out and leave you again tonight, I promise.” And with that, she dropped a big kiss on the top of his golden head.

  “Want to wait till morning to talk this mystery over?” Kyle offered. “I mean I don’t need to sleep, but you do.”

  “Yes, please.” Another yawn took her. “If I hadn’t been tired before getting ambushed on the way here by Deirdre, I certainly would be now.”

  “So, I take it that dear Deirdre doesn’t particularly like you, then?”

  “No, not particularly.” Miranda chuckled as she went up the stairs to her bedroom. “I used to think it was because I was a new neighbor, but now I know she just hates everyone like that.”

  “Seems an exhausting way to live one’s life.” Kyle had floated into the bedroom with her, and now Miranda stood awkwardly in the middle of the floor, not able to disrobe even though she knew Kyle well enough not to have any sort of false modesty with him. Plus, he wasn’t into girls that way.

  And, of course, he was dead. So there was that.

  Butter sniffed into the room, and then yawned widely himself, padding away to find a good place to sleep for the rest of the night. Kyle, however, didn’t take the hint.

  “Um, Kyle? Could you maybe come back, you know, in the morning?”

  “Oh. Uh, sure. Sorry. Guess I forgot. Things are different on the other side. We don’t sleep. Or worry about taking off our clothes. And stuff.”

  “Okay, well as fascinating as that is, we do worry about those things here in the land of the living. So, come back when it’s daylight and I’m decently dressed and rested again.”

  He nodded, and looked away, and hesitated still. “I… missed you, Miranda. I can’t tell you how much I missed you.”

  “You don’t have to,” she told him. “Because I missed you the same.”

  She laid a hand on him, and this time there was no doubt that she actually felt him. He was stronger now than he’d been before. He was still her best friend though. That would never change.

  “I love you, Kyle,” she said, meaning it sincerely.

  “Yeah. Me too.” He choked back a breath, wiping at his eyes as if he was going to shed real tears. “Miranda?”

  “Yes, Kyle?”

  “I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you or Jack.”

  “Because you’re my spirit guide?” she joked.

  “Because,” he said, in all seriousness, “you mean that much to me.”

  She wanted to hug him. She wanted to shake him until he remembered what it was that brought him back to Earth as her de facto protector. She wanted to sit down on the couch with him and a big bowl of popcorn and watch sappy movies until they both cried.

  Most of all,
she just wanted him to never leave again.

  “Be here in the morning, okay?” she said, waving him out of her bedroom. “I’ll see you then. Just… be here.”

  “Count on it,” he said, before drifting through her bedroom door.

  Chapter 8

  Miranda watched the steam rising from the full cup of coffee on her desk. She had risen early in the morning, despite her lack of sleep. She woke up more than once during the night wondering about the strange events of the evening. Jack had never joined her. She supposed he’d gone back to his own place so he wouldn’t disturb her.

  Truth be told, she would have much rather had him crawl into bed with her and snuggle her up. She might have slept better if he did.

  Thoughts of the mystery she found herself being sucked into had plagued her dreams, creating weird scenarios where she was the one to find the body, or she was the one sitting at the table with the Wells family playing Gin Rummy, or where she was floating above everything as if she too was a ghost.

  Sometimes her dreams had very important meanings. It was part of her psychic gifts. She doubted that the last one, about her being a ghost, had any bearing on events that would transpire in the near future. If she ever had a dream heralding her own death, she would hope that it would be a lot more specific than that. You will die tomorrow at eight in the morning. Please dress appropriately.

  She laughed at herself, hoping that it really would be that easy when her time came.

  The thing of it was that there was just so much going on with all of this that she didn’t even know where to begin picking it apart. She needed to talk to someone about it. Kyle hadn’t shown back up yet to act as a sounding board for her, and the text messages she’d sent to Jack had gone unanswered. He was probably still asleep, considering how long he must have been up last night at the scene.

  That left her to puzzle through things on her own.

  Then, of course, there was Josh Bates, who seemed to know more about her than she was comfortable with. Deirdre had seen him walking back and forth on the beach before she and Jack had returned. That seemed to make what he’d said about running up to Ragged Rest as soon as he’d seen Maisie’s body a lie. Was his breathless, frantic act only that… an act? She wondered if the police had interviewed him more thoroughly as yet.