Ghost Busting Mystery

by Daisy Pettles

  Veenie put her book down. “Way I see it, any gold ought to belong to whoever finds it. Finders keepers.”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake,” I said. “Listen to you all talking about something that don’t even exist.”

  “Could exist,” said Veenie. “If you weren’t too lazy to haul ass on out there. Dig a little.”

  “I’m not lazy,” I defended myself. “You want us to hunt for something you made up in your head. Find me proof there’s gold, and I’ll start shoveling to beat the band.”

  That shut Veenie up.

  I looked at the boys. “You two going out? Kind of late isn’t it?”

  Darnell finished his beer in one swallow. “We got a late-night gig over in Ewing at the Stumble On Inn. Now that Junior has his wheels back, we can rock it out of town.”

  Junior pumped the air with his fist. “They got speakers and mics and all. We just got to roll on in and pluck some string.”

  “Say, Veenie,” said Darnell, as he got up from the couch. “You got an eye for fashion. These capris make my booty look appetizing? I mean, for the ladies?” He looked around, trying to get an eyeful of his own ass.

  “You got a lot of ass. Like a goose. But some girls like that.”

  “They do?”

  “Sure. You got to go with what the good Lord gave you. Play up your strengths. That’s what I do.”

  “Thanks,” said Darnell. “Later, Grannies.”

  And the boys were gone.

  My cell phone had been vibrating. I flicked it on and scrolled through my messages. There was one from Kandy. She said the spirits were calling her. She was all juiced up for a second séance tomorrow night. We should pick her up at the Moon Glo around seven. The other message was from Boots. It said for me to call him. “Pronto.”

  I told Veenie about Kandy and Boots. “What do you reckon Boots wants?” I asked.

  “Didn’t say anything about me, did he?” Veenie looked worried.

  “You worried he saw your Evel Knievel impersonation on the Squealer’s website?’

  “Technically, I reckon I did break the law.”

  “Technically???”

  “The way I see it, it’s ok to break a law if you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

  “Pretty sure Boots would disagree with you on that.”

  “Bootsie is a stick-in-the-mud. Always was. Why you always sticking up for him?”

  “I do not always stick up for him, but you know as well as I do that you do not have a legal driving license, Lavinia. Some days you can’t see no better than Puddles the blind wiener dog.”

  “Yack. Yack. Yack. I see fine. Things are fuzzy in the middle, but you don’t need to see the middle of things, just the edges. I saw it on the Discovery channel. You just need to see some hints, the outline. Your brain makes up the rest of it.”

  “Well, yours certainly does.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next morning, Veenie and I puttered around in the go-kart. We got our weekly groceries at the Hoosier Feedbag. There was an amazing deal on pickled pig’s feet, which Veenie’s dad, Pappy Tuttle, loved to gnaw on. We returned Veenie’s slutty library books and paid the water bill. We stopped in at the office to let Harry know we were working on a missing dog case.

  But Harry was not around. I imagined he was out at the Moon Glo swapping spit with Kandy, so we left a note on his desk in case he came looking for us. Harry could get mighty touchy if he thought Veenie and I weren’t putting in our forty hours of senior slave labor.

  While I was scribbling the note to the boss, Veenie burst into the office, helmet askew on her head, chin strap dangling. “Move it, Ruby Jane! Think I saw Puddles!”

  Outside on the sidewalk, Veenie pointed down past the Road Kill Café. I saw something brown, fat, and furry waddling down the sidewalk. It ran into the brick wall of the café and bounced back onto the sidewalk. It waddled a few more feet and slammed into the stem of a parking meter. It bounced back and slid to the left down the alley behind Pokey’s place. It could have been a half-witted possum. Or a blind wiener dog.

  Hoping to get a hundred bucks out of it, Veenie and I loped toward Pokey’s in hot pursuit of the bouncing fur ball.

  Two of the Johnson girls, Pooter’s older sisters, were sitting on the limestone steps in front of Pokey’s. They were wearing daisy dukes and tube tops and smoking cigarettes. They sucked on bottled Cokes. Their eyeliner was so thick it looked like they were auditioning for some kind of musical—Rocky Horror, maybe. They were barefooted, leaning back on the warm limestone steps, soaking up the morning sun. Toe rings glinted on their bare feet.

  I asked them if they saw a dog go down the alley.

  They looked at each other like I was talking foreign.

  Veenie stepped up. “You two got earwax, or what?”

  One of them finally spoke. “We didn’t see no dog.”

  “Really?” said Veenie. “Like thirty seconds ago, a fat, mangy, little wiener dog didn’t waddle right past you?”

  The girl’s mouths dropped open. “That was a dog?”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake,” I mumbled.

  Veenie and I took off around the corner of the alley.

  There were three dumpsters in the alley. Each was overflowing. A stack of used pallets and pizza boxes towered on each side of the dumpsters. The whole mess smelled like oil, grease, rotten food, cigarettes, and beer, with a sprinkle of urine. It was a warm day, and the trash was in the sunlight. The rubber bottom of my right canvas tennis shoe stuck to the pavement as we tried to creep toward the dumpsters.

  Veenie got excited when she saw a tail wagging between two bag wrappers marked “mystery meat” and a stack of rotten cabbages.

  “Here poochie! Here poochie! That you Puddles? Come to Auntie Veenie, Puddles.”

  The tail stopped wagging. Whatever it was, its head and front paws were stuck in a mystery meat bag. Maybe it heard Veenie. Maybe it was stuck on something inside the bag. Maybe it was busy suffocating itself. Hey, growing old ain’t for everybody.

  Veenie said maybe we should just creep up on the ass end of the thing and grab hold of the tail as tightly as we could.

  I tried to slide forward, but I was sticking to the pavement. My right foot was stuck to a wad of what looked to be melting pink bubble gum and a condom. “I’m stuck tight,” I said.

  “Oh Lord,” Veenie complained. “It’s always something with you.”

  “You go on. I’ll work on scraping my foot loose.” I leaned against the brick tavern wall and looked around for something to scrape my shoe on. I saw a crushed Bud Light can, cut almost in two, and plucked it out of the pile of trash. I did a one-legged flamingo stand and went at my shoe, trying to get the gum off without falling over and busting every other part of me.

  Veenie was half-gone into the trash pile now. The tail had disappeared into a dumpster. She was climbing up a rickety stack of pallets, giving chase. I was starting to have a bad feeling.

  The tail disappeared. Then something ran out past me so fast I almost did the splits. Whatever it was, it had a few whiskers and milky eyes. Butt mange too.

  Veenie came crashing down with the pile of pizza boxes. Luckily, she landed ass first on a rotten bag of produce. “You catch Puddles?”

  I had the gum off my shoe now. “No, but I think he’s got himself trapped,” I said.

  The little dog was bouncing back and forth between bags of trash. A puddle of what looked to be beer caught his nose. He stood there, paw-deep in the puddle. He started lapping to beat the band. He stopped only to belch and fart.

  I took a couple of steps closer to Puddles. Got down on my knees to see what the little fellow was doing. “That dog is drunk.”

  “Course he is. No accident we found him rolling in the gutter here out behind Pokey’s.”

  By this time, he’d lapped up the giant puddle of beer.

  “He likes beer?”

  “Who doesn’t? You ask me, that dog is an alkie. Only person I ever saw suck
up a puddle of beer that fast was my ex, Fergus Senior.”

  I supposed dogs could be addicts. I’d read once that elephants could get drunk on rotten jungle fruits. Then once, at a class at the ag extension, one of them college professors they carted in from Purdue to teach scientific farming techniques to hillbillies told us that the first thing mankind ever wrote down over there in Egypt, cradle of civilization, was a beer recipe. That sounded about right to me. For my part, I wasn’t about to tell Bet Beesley that her precious fur baby was a boozehound.

  “He okay?” I asked.

  “He looks awful, but I think that’s his natural look.”

  I hunkered down and inspected Puddles. He was missing some whiskers. And a lot of teeth. While I was inspecting him, he fell over on one side. He lay there on the pavement panting like a furry Bratwurst. I propped him up. He coughed and farted at the very same time. I backed up. My toes felt warm. And wet. I looked down to see a puddle of yellow. I could see now where the dog had gotten his name. I was beginning to see a couple of reasons why Pard had been so eager to let Puddles do a free Willy.

  Veenie scooped up Puddles and we ambled toward the go-kart, anxious to claim our hundred bucks.

  Bet screamed with delight when Veenie handed Puddles over to her in the kitchen. He was tinkling a stream even as the hand-off occurred, but Bet didn’t seem to mind it. She yelled for Pard to come mop up the dribble off the linoleum.

  Bet was smooching Puddles to death when she suddenly stopped. She did a double sniff of the dog’s breath. She held him out at arm’s length and studied him. “Lord. Is he drunk?” She looked at Veenie, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Found him like that,” said Veenie. “In the alley behind Pokey’s.”

  “What kind of lowlife would get a little doggie drunk?”

  “I think he ran away to get at some beer. Maybe you better send him to that Triple A.”

  Bet looked puzzled. “You mean AA?”

  “Whatever works for liquored-up dogs.”

  Bet kissed Puddles on the forehead again. She hugged him so hard he tinkled on her again. She wiped at it with a wet paper towel.

  “His bladder is getting weak,” she said. “Vet said it’s the high sugar. Lord, I sure do appreciate your finding him for me. I was afraid he was a goner.”

  Bet crossed the kitchen and pulled our fee out of the cookie jar. The jar was shaped like a giant strawberry with a fat bumble bee as the top stopper. She counted out the money patiently, one bill at a time. There were a lot of crumpled ones.

  Veenie flattened the pile of bills, rolled them around her finger, and then stuck them into her bra. “Much obliged. Call us anytime you lose anything of value. That includes Pard. We offer senior specials.”

  We said our good-byes and scooted out the back door.

  I saw Pard glowering at us out from behind the lace curtains in the kitchen as we lurched away in the go-kart. I’m pretty sure he was shooting us the double bird.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Impala was still at the Lube It Up shop getting new guts, so Harry agreed to drive us out to Dode’s farm for the séance. Unlike before, the weather was bright and clear. Just enough heat that you didn’t quite need a jacket.

  Harry pulled up to our house and laid on the horn. Kandy was in the front seat snuggled so close she could have been a tick stuck to Harry’s side. She was wearing his hat and smoking one of his cigarettes when we came out of the house.

  Kandy threw me and Veenie a handy hello as we climbed into the back of the Toyota.

  “Evening gals. You ready to chat up the dead?” She blew smoke out the window, which was rolled down and letting in a nice breeze.

  Veenie leaned up and asked Kandy if she was sure she could conjure a spirit, the weather being so nice and mild.

  “Oh sure.” She untangled from Harry, returned his hat to his head, and turned to face us in the back seat. Her hair was twisted up in a bun with long curls falling like sideburns close to her ears. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse and double silver-loop earrings. Her eye shadow was thick and sky blue, like her eyes. “Alta Iona done came to me in a dream. Promised she’d make an appearance.”

  I said, “Thought you didn’t offer guarantees.”

  “I don’t, sugar. But when the spirits right out say they’ll do something, they do it, all righty.”

  Veenie seemed impressed. “Wish living people were so conscientious.”

  “Me too,” said Kandy. “Specially men. I swear they think with their willies.”

  “Nah,” said Veenie. “Most of them don’t think at all.”

  Harry coughed an objection.

  I asked Harry if he got the hundred bucks we left on his desk.

  “Yeah. That for the dog?” He said as he headed up the winding knobs toward Dode’s farm.

  Kandy asked if we’d bought a dog. “Just love them little purse dogs. I’d have me one, but I travel too much.”

  “Nah,” Veenie said. “We found Bet Beesley’s dog. Blind wiener dog. He ran away. Found him down at Pokey’s, tying one on. Collected the reward money for Harry.”

  Harry glanced at us in the rearview. “You realize how silly that sounds, right?”

  “Silly or not, that’s what happened, right RJ?”

  “Yep.”

  Kandy seemed intrigued. “The Shades Agency finds missing pets?” She addressed her remark to Harry.

  Harry twisted his lips. He grunted. “Hell no. I mean, not really. Those two like to help out their senior pals, so I humor them.”

  Veenie poked her head up. “Harry’s just embarrassed. He thinks he’s Magnum, PI. Too proud to be seen rounding up drunk dogs. Makes us old ladies do all the work.”

  “Not true,” protested Harry. “Stop telling people that. You’ll have social services on me for elder abuse. People take shit like that serious these days.”

  “Yeah,” Veenie said. “Not like the good old days when you could pistol-whip grandma and leave her to rot in the cellar like a sack of taters.”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake,” said Harry. “No one has ever pistol-whipped you, Lavinia. I’ve seen you knocking people in the head with the butt of that BB gun.”

  “I’m old. I got to protect myself. My bones are like Jell-O. Thinking of getting me one of those stun guns.”

  “No,” said Harry. “Absolutely not.”

  “Who asked you?”

  Thankfully, we pulled into Dode’s yard, and they both shut up. In fact, we were all a little speechless. We weren’t the only ones parked in Dode’s yard. The Pawpaw County Sheriff’s car was backed in, front end out, tucked close to the porch. Dode was sitting on the porch in his customary rocker. Devon Hattabaugh, the junior law officer, was sitting next to him.

  “Uh-oh,” said Veenie.

  “Oh shit,” said Harry.

  Kandy just slid out of the car, trounced up to the porch, and started introducing herself to Devon.

  By the time we all got on the porch, Kandy was sitting next to Devon, reading his palm. Devon wore his beret. His muttonchop whiskers had been shaved down close to his face. His aviator sunglasses were clipped to the V pocket of his shirt. He seemed enchanted.

  Kandy explained to Devon that he had a generous heart and would have many lovers. She stroked a couple spots on his palm then flashed some Chiclet teeth at him.

  Devon nodded. “I always thought so. I mean, about the heart. I went into law enforcement because there was a major for that at the community college, and my mama was in favor of having an officer in the family. But if I’d had my druthers I would have studied philosophy. I like to think about things. I’m kind of deep inside.”

  “I bet you write poetry.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  Kandy traced a place under Devon’s ring finger. “See that itty-bitty line?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That tells me you are an artist. And lookie here, that says you’re going to be famous.”

  Devon
beamed. “I was mentioned twice in the Hoosier Squealer this month. Got my picture in the sheriff’s association newsletter too. Recruit of the month in Pawpaw County.”

  Veenie leaned over and whispered to me, “Weren’t he the only recruit?”

  “Still counts.”

  Kandy laid it on thicker. She slapped it on with a cement trowel. “This here line is all about you being a hero. Some men got no line here at all.” She glanced up at Harry. “But you got a double-chained line.”

  “That good?”

  “Heck yeah. The best. A double chain is like hero stuff.”

  Devon’s eyes were bright as stars now. “Like Batman?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” Kandy let go of Devon’s hand and shook out her hair. She adjusted her hoop ear rings. She asked Devon if he was coming to the séance.

  He squirmed a little.

  I told him he was sure enough invited. “Last time we saw a ghost.”

  He looked me dead in the eye. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  Kandy objected. “Why, Devon, there is so such a thing as ghosts. And we all seen this one, didn’t we?” She looked at Dode, who was bobbing his head so fast it looked like it might roll off.

  Devon stood up and stretched his legs. He walked around the porch, his hands clutched to his gun belt. “Can’t let you have that séance. Sheriff Gibson sent me out here personally to make sure there’s no more trespassing. That mansion and all that land is part of a crime scene. You can’t be messing with that.”

  Kandy stood up next to Devon and put her hands on his shoulders. In heels, she was a bit taller than him. In terms of manipulating men, she was a giant next to him.

  His shoulders fell and relaxed a bit.

  “Sugar, we got to let that ghost talk. She can’t get no peace until she tells us who killed her. What if this was your mama? You wouldn’t want to keep an innocent soul from getting on to heaven, would you?”

  Devon looked uncertain. “Hang it,” he said. “It ain’t me. This is my job. I swore to uphold the law. If I don’t uphold the law, Sheriff Gibson is bound to get mad. And he’s ugly and mighty mean when he’s mad.”