by K. J. Emrick
Even after death.
I usually found her in my rooms when I needed her. Just a quick look, and then Kevin and me could be off.
My son didn’t press me too much. I’m his mother, after all. So he waited for me while I went up to the third floor and pulled the door closed behind me in my rooms. The place seemed quieter than usual, if that makes any sense. Like a cinema before the movie starts.
“Jess?” I called out. There wasn’t any answer. I tried not to be too disappointed. It’s not like sending a text message. Not like looking her up on Facebook. So she wasn’t here.
But then a voice with no sound and no words called back to me.
I shuddered. It was involuntary, and very intimate. Something was close to me. No... not something.
Someone.
Not Jess. I knew how it felt when she was around. Like we were kicking it back in her apartment in University. This was something more familiar than that. The sensation of someone touching my shoulder, down my arm, along my skin...
I gasped. “Richard.”
When I turned to look, there he was. Fuzzy and out of focus and close enough to hold my hand.
“Remember me...”
I reached for him, and he disappeared away from me into nothing.
I should cry. There should be tears falling down my face, hot and wet. I didn’t cry, though. As crazy as it was, I wasn’t sad.
Whatever reason Richard had for running away from me, he was back now. He loved me enough to find me in his death. To reach out to me, and ask me to remember.
And then he just faded away.
It was like he couldn’t quite make it across from the other side yet. Like he was trying his hardest to get to me, and each time he reached out he got just a little bit closer before slipping back away from me again.
I rolled my eyes at how crazy my life had become. Being able to say things like my dead husband was reaching out to me from the other side with a straight face. Good on ya, Dell.
Of course, there was that whole charged-with-murder thing, too. That was a real lark in itself.
If time really does move on why can’t it just do it already?
Time to get back to Kevin. We needed to find some proof of Cutter’s cover up and then prove my innocence. Someone in Lakeshore had murdered—
—Officer Jason Bostwick.
He stood between me and the door. Or, his ghost did, I mean. He was right there, clear as day, and I swear I was going to have to start a friends and spirits plan for the Inn if I kept having all these ghosts show up uninvited.
My hand gripped the unicorn necklace, but I didn’t jump in my shoes or scream. Not this time. Guess I’m getting used to seeing the dead show up in my bedroom.
Right. My crazy life.
Bostwick was shaking, his fuzzy spectral presence actually vibrating like he was scared, and he kept trying to say something to me but every time he opened his mouth he gagged. Something was stopping him from talking.
“What is it?” I asked him. “Can you... I don’t know, use sign language or something?”
He held his hands out, and for a moment I thought he was actually going to sign for me. Instead, he gripped one of the buttons on the cuff of his sleeve. I’d seen them before, when he was here eating in our kitchen, and I remembered that odd lion design. There was something else in it, though. Something that shone now with an ethereal, unreal light. Letters.
Initials. JB. Jason Bostwick’s initials.
Those buttons weren’t off the rack. They were custom made. Unique. Engraved with his initials. Something that only Jason Bostwick would have.
“I’m sure those were special to you when you were alive,” I tried, not even remotely sure what I should say to him. This should be easier. There should be some kind of manual. “Are they a family heirloom? Is that it? Do you need someone to contact your family for you?”
He pulled at his sleeve a few more times, then began to fade out. He disappeared a bit at a time. The last part of him that I saw, was that button on his cuff. A prancing lion. His initials.
Somehow, that was important.
Of course, just like everything a ghost has ever told me, it was left for me to figure out why it was important.
Or what it had to do with me and my crazy life.
***
“Are you going to tell Cutter you’re in town?”
Kevin made a rude noise from the back of his throat. “As if. Last thing I want to do this Christmas is waste even a minute of it on that tosser. I get within three feet of that ratbag and I’ll drive my fist down his throat. Arresting you for murder. Ya know he only did that because I wasn’t ‘round. He never woulda dared if I was still here.”
“You’re here now.”
“Too right.”
My big, tough protector. I loved my son. He was so upset now that his accent was getting thicker, like it always did. Just like his father. When I told him... it was going to break his heart to know his father was dead. I didn’t even know how to begin that conversation.
I’d have to figure it out. Sooner, not later.
After he helped clear my name.
We were walking down the street to the Thirsty Roo. No sense driving the car just that little bit. Save the environment, and all that. Plus I liked walking the streets of Lakeshore at Christmastime. We might not have the white blankets of snow on the ground like the United States or Canada did but we were never lacking in Christmas cheer.
The stores were decked out with green garland and multicolored blinking lights in their windows. A lot of the houses, too. Most of the tourists were gone now, just like most of the guests at my Inn, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. Mabel Quinn had even used some of that white spray to make fake snow on the inside of the display window of her book store.
People we passed, people who lived in this town with us, waved and greeted us and more than a few took the time to shake Kevin’s hand or ask how he was doing. None of them said anything to me about the murder charge but I caught the backwards glances over their shoulders as they walked away. This was what Cutter wanted. He wanted to breed suspicion between me and everyone else. He was doing a good job of it. Whatever his game was, I was a key player in it, and I definitely did not like that.
If Santa was good to me this year he’d bring me Cutter’s head in a box. Or at least his letter of resignation, signed in triplicate and sealed with a kiss.
The Thirsty Roo had been open for a bit by the time we got there. We could hear the noise and music from inside as people celebrated the holidays by drinking maybe a bit more than they usually did. Hard to tell sometimes how much people usually drink. A few cars rolled slowly past on the street, and I had the feeling they were looking for a parking space in the crowded section of street near the bar.
“Well,” Kevin remarked. “I see business here is as good as ever.”
“You haven’t been gone that long,” I reminded him. “The fountain in the town still isn’t working right either, in case you were wondering.”
“Haven’t they tried to fix that for thirty years? Something like that?”
“Longer. You want to try fixing it?”
“No, thanks. I’ll settle for fixing this mess Cutter’s put ya in. So Alfonse is really renting rooms out above this place now?”
We both looked up at the windows in the top floor of the building. They were all dark. “Yes. If he can keep any more of his tenants from being murdered, he might do a good turn with it. The rooms aren’t four star but they’re clean, I guess. Who wouldn’t want to rent a room right above a bar?”
A loud shout rose up from the people inside to emphasize my point. I couldn’t see much past the western-style swinging doors, but I had to believe whatever sport was on the televisions had everyone worked up. Aussies take their sports seriously.
“So the rooms are around back?” Kevin asked me.
“Sure, but shouldn’t we get Alfonse? He’ll need to let us up there. The locked doors, remember
?”
My son put a finger beside his nose, and then winked at me, before stepping into the little alleyway that led behind the Thirsty Roo.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, but he didn’t stop to explain it, and I had no choice but to follow him.
Nothing behind the bar had changed. Garbage everywhere, broken bottles, and stuff I’d like not to think about. Kevin was over by the trash bins, poking at things with the tip of his finger.
“What are you doing?” I asked him. “You’re gonna need a gallon of hand sanitizer after touching that!”
“You said there was no evidence of the murder up in the room, right? No blood?”
“Sure, but we’re gonna look again, you and me, and maybe we’ll find something Cutter’s men missed.”
Kevin snorted. “Hard to believe that.”
He fished out an empty rectangular box. It was white, and grimy, and had a picture of that muscular bald guy in his white t-shirt. Mister Clean Magic Eraser.
“There’s a few of these boxes in here.” He tossed the box back in, after taking a picture of it with his mobile phone. “They’re all empty. One way to get blood out of a carpet is to use a steam cleaner. But I’ve seen Magic Erasers do it. Takes a little more elbow grease but it works just as well.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t believe it was that easy. I remembered something Alfonse had said. He’d said people had been dumping trash in his bins back here. In fact, if I remembered correctly, he said he never used Magic Erasers. Yet here they were, the perfect thing to get blood out of carpets.
“So there’s one thing Cutter missed.” Kevin slapped his palms together to brush them off. “Let’s go find out what else his boy Bruce Kay skipped over.”
Bruce Kay. Senior Sergeant Cutter’s right hand man. If Alfonse didn’t kill Bostwick, and I didn’t kill Bostwick, then Bruce Kay was the most likely suspect.
Kevin was already heading up the wooden stairs to the locked door that led to the apartments. At the door he stopped and bent down to the lock.
“It’s like I told you,” I said, leaning over his shoulder to look at the door with him. “There’s no signs of forced entry. Whoever killed Bostwick must’ve had a key.”
“Which was what made you think it was Alfonse Calico.” Kevin ran a finger along the seam of the frame. “He’s the only one has the key?”
“Well, sure.” That’s exactly what had made me suspect Calico. That, and the motive he had. That whole secret love child thing. But, since I talked to him...
Kevin stood up. “You’re not thinking it was him anymore, right?”
“No,” I had to admit I didn’t. It just didn’t feel right.
“Good. Because... let me try something.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans for something. What he came out with was a zippered leather pouch.
When he opened it I could see several shaped picks and thin pieces of metal. “That’s a lock pick set?”
“Yup. Amazing the things I’ve learned now I’m with a real police force. I carry this thing around with me everywhere I go so’s I can practice with it.”
“You learned this with the Federal police? Isn’t this more like something you learn when you’re a criminal?” I teased.
“Well, maybe so. All I know is we used this to get into a guy’s apartment up in Hobart. Said he was gonna kill himself and his three year old son. If we hadn’t gotten inside when we did he would’ve done it, too. The officer I was shadowing used a kit just like this one and jimmied the lock. Everybody lived.”
I’ve always been proud of my kid. Helping people. Risking his life to do it, too. He was a police officer for all the right reasons. Unlike certain senior sergeant’s here in Lakeshore.
He bent down, and pointed at the keyhole in the lock. “See these tiny scratches? They’re not just from using a key. It’s easy to see, when ya know what to look for. Somebody did exactly what I’m about to do.”
The noises from the pub floated up to us as Kevin set to work. Selecting out two of the slender rods, he slid them into the lock together, and worked them back and forth until—
Snick.
He turned the knob, and the door inched open.
I was impressed. “So, in other words, no key required.”
“Not if you know how to do this.”
“Could somebody have used a credit card? Like they do in the movies?”
“Uh, no. That’s movie nonsense. If the lock’s flimsy enough to get opened by a credit card, then all ya have to do is shove it hard with your shoulder.” He stood up and slid the picks back into place but didn’t close the set. We had one more door to get through, after all. “Of course, this doesn’t mean that Bostwick didn’t invite his killer in. It’s just one theory to add into the mix.”
“We have theories?” I asked him as we went inside.
“Sure do. Now if we could just get some proof to back them up, we’d be in fine shape.”
“Then let’s go find some proof.”
I showed him which apartment Bostwick had been renting and he did his magic trick again, opening the door in just a few minutes. In the movies they always make it look so easy. But Kevin was right. Real life is different.
When we were inside I found the light switch and flicked it on. The place looked exactly like it had before. Empty. Tidy, and almost too clean. There was the tiny bed and the rest of the furniture, and nothing else.
“So they even went to the trouble of packaging everything up from the room,” Kevin thought out loud. “Gotta tell ya, Mom. This one’s got me stumped.”
“A man was murdered,” I said. “Let’s focus on that for now. The rest of it’ll fall in line.”
“The rest of it. Like my mom being arrested for murder,” he said sourly, as he opened the few drawers in the chest, each one more empty than the last.
“I can’t worry about Cutter’s grudge against our family right now,” I said, finding that I actually meant every word of it.
How bizarre.
He stopped searching to look over my way. “You would’ve made a great police officer, Mom. You’re in it up to your neck and you still want to focus on solving the crime. I can see where I get it from.”
“Maybe a little from your dad, too,” I offered, hoping to inch my way toward that subject.
“Wouldn’t know,” he said, turning back to look under the chest of drawers this time. “Maybe if he ever comes home, I’ll ask him then.”
I opened my mouth to say it, right there, then shut it again. I still wasn’t ready to pass this secret on to him. I just couldn’t make myself do it. Not yet.
For now, Richard’s ghost would be my secret alone.
“Look under the bed?” he suggested.
I thought that sounded really cliché, but then again it wasn’t like I had a better idea. So, I got down on the floor to look under the bed. It would help if we knew what we were looking for. All I had was a strong hope that we’d find something here to help solve this mystery and put a name to Bostwick’s killer.
Kevin went to check in the bathroom. Down on my belly I took out my mobile to turn on the torch app. Not much more to see down here than there had been in the rest of the room. Just a haven for wild dust bunnies, but I couldn’t see anything else.
Turning off the light from the phone’s little lens, I wriggled out from under the bed. As I did, I felt a cold tingle at the back of my neck.
I knew who I was going to see when I looked up again.
Bostwick’s ghost stood there, at the foot of the bed, still tugging at the sleeve of his coat. He was still trying to say something to me, and still gagging with every attempt. It was like I could sense him this time. Like I knew he was there before I saw him, like when I knew a phone call would be from a spirit’s voice instead of a living person. Guess I’m getting better at this whole ghosts and spirits thing.
Then Bostwick pointed down at the floor, under the bed, and vanished.
Somehow, seeing a ghost jus
t not there, in the blink of an eye, was more disturbing than having them pop into the room with me in the first place.
Under the bed. That’s where Bostwick had just told me to look. Bostwick still wanted me to look under the bed, but what could I have possibly missed in such a tiny space?
I checked to see, and Kevin was still in the bathroom, taking the back of the toilet tank off to look inside. Better him than me I thought, as I slid back under the bed again.
This time I looked closer. In the light of my mobile I searched as hard as I could. Dust, and bare floorboards. What was this man’s ghost so upset about? Was he worried that they’d ding his credit for a cleaning charge?
I shifted over a bit to look behind the bedposts. Which was where I saw it.
Of course. I should have known.
I reached out for it, clasping it between my thumb and finger. Such a small thing. No wonder I missed it when I was here with James. No wonder Bostwick’s killer missed it.
It was a button off Bostwick’s sleeve. The prancing lion. His initials. No mistaking it for anything other than what it was.
Proof.
“Kevin, come look at this!”
He finished rinsing his hands off in the sink—which I was grateful for, considering where he was just looking—and scrubbed them dry on his pants. “What is it?”
“It’s from the suitcoat Jason Bostwick was wearing. I remember seeing these buttons on his sleeve.”
Kevin took it from me and looked at it closer. “Okay. This is good. This is really good, Mom.”
“So what do we do with it?”
“Well. That’s a good question. Unfortunately, the answer is not very much.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “Kevin, we came here to find proof, and we found it. Are you telling me we can’t do anything at all with it?”
“Well, I didn’t say that.” He went back into the bathroom and took a length of toilet paper off the roll, using it to wrap the button up, nice and safe. “It’s evidence Bostwick was here, sure enough. Doesn’t do us much good without something we can match to a suspect.”