Ghost Busting Mystery

by Daisy Pettles

  “Nah. It was all quiet. The windows were fogged over with dew. It was pulled in under some oak trees. Why you asking?” Dickie swigged his coffee.

  Veenie filled Dickie in on Darnell. How he’d stolen the Gremlin and was wanted for skipping bail. How he’d been digging around out at the mansion.

  Dickie pushed the green seed cap back on his head. “You gals ought to send Boots up there to get Darnell. I don’t like the thought of you two messing with the likes of that fellow.”

  Veenie shrugged. “We mess with the likes of Darnell every day. Heck I was married and all messed up with something worse than Darnell. And I’m all fine and dandy now.”

  “You was younger then, Lavinia.”

  “Sweet of you to say, Dickie.”

  The smooching started in.

  I buried my head in a second piece of pie.

  Dickie laid the keys to the Impala on the table and said he had to scoot. “Promised Bud I’d help him toss some hay before the heavens part and it rains. See you gals later.”

  As soon as Dickie was gone Veenie told me she had a plan. “We need to make payroll, right?”

  “Technically, that’s Harry’s job. He’s supposed to pay us.”

  “Like I said, we need to make payroll. We wait on Harry, we’ll be eating our three squares off the free sample tables at the Costco.”

  She had a point. “What’s your plan?”

  “Darnell is worth a couple of big ones.”

  “If we get him to the Salem jail over in Washington County.”

  “His bail money would cover our next payroll.”

  “Sure would.”

  “So, I was thinking we take a drive up to the top of the knobs.”

  “The old dump?”

  Veenie nodded.

  “Darnell is a pretty big guy. Won’t we need more muscle?”

  “He’s fat. He’ll be stoned. Once we get him down, he’ll be like a penguin. He’ll never get back up on his own. I could sit on him. You could twisty-tie his hands. We could shove him into the Gremlin. Deliver him all trussed up over to the fuzz in Washington County.”

  It sounded easy enough. And maybe it would have been easy, but by the time we got to the top of the knobs, the Gremlin had vanished. We could see its tracks in the mud. Darnell had left behind some PBR beer cans and a bag of trash, but the car and the man were nowhere to be found.

  Veenie and I consoled ourselves by stopping at Ma Horton’s pie shed and sharing a blueberry crumble for brunch. We ate it right there in the Impala, the doors wide open, listening to the chickens cluck. Dewey, the rooster, was perched high up in a pawpaw tree, crowing like he was Godzilla with tail feathers. The pie was still warm, so it slid down easily. Cheered us both up a good bit.

  Veenie asked why we didn’t just live on pie.

  I said we ought to give it a try and got another pie to go from the shed, apple this time.

  We were just fixing to drive down to the office and check in with Harry—maybe he’d found us some work—when I got a text. It was from snot-nosed Pooter Johnson.

  “I know where Darnell is. Share reward?”

  I thumbed back, “Maybe. Where are you?”

  “Meet me in library parking lot.”

  I showed Veenie the screen, and she nodded. “Why not?”

  I fired up the Impala and we were at the library chawing with Pooter in no time

  Pooter hitched up his shorts. He straddled his banana seat bicycle and leaned precariously into the open window of the Impala. He was bare-chested with a bad sunburn on his shoulders and nose. He was doing his best to convince me and Veenie to give him a cash reward up front in exchange for the whereabouts of Darnell Zikes and his Gremlin.

  Veenie said “No deal, punk.”

  Pooter pushed off the Impala. He popped a wheelie in the lot, then came back and leaned onto the car again. “I thought old ladies was sweet.”

  “That is her being sweet,” I said. “Normally she has the personality of a porcupine.”

  “Look,” cried Pooter, “all I want is a hundred bucks. I watch TV. Snitches get paid. You find Darnell, and you’ll make some sweet bucks. I’m asking for a little cut. A commission. Not being greedy nor nothing, just trying to make an honest buck. You want to deal or what?”

  Boots cruised by and flipped his cherry and whooper at us but then kept right on rolling.

  Veenie said we could guarantee a C-note, but only if we caught Darnell and got our full reward.

  Pooter hemmed and hawed. “How you gonna bring in a big fellow like that?”

  “We got our ways. Besides, his brain’s not all that big. He’s ass, mostly.”

  “Shake on it?” Pooter thrust his dirty little hand into the Chevy’s window and reached across the front seat toward Veenie.

  Veenie gave him a high five.

  Ten minutes later, we were out by the river at the turnoff to the Moon Glo Motor Lodge. We’d thrown Pooter’s bike in the trunk and given him a ride out.

  “There he is,” Pooter said. “Just like I said.” Pooter pointed straight ahead toward the covered bridge.

  The purple top of the Gremlin was visible in the weeds, not far from the Moon Glo’s front office. The dimwit had parked in almost the exact same spot as before. The hatchback was down. The tent gone. The front driver’s door, which faced away from us, was open. It looked like someone was hanging out the door smoking, maybe getting some fresh air in the car. Smoke curled above the door.

  Veenie and I eyed each other as Pooter spun away on his bike. “Later, grannies,” he yelled, not waiting around to offer assistance.

  “I’ll take the passenger’s side,” I said.

  Veenie grabbed her BB pistol out of the glove compartment and stuck it in the waistband of her capris. “Let’s roll, Louise.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Darnell didn’t look surprised to see us. He sat in the driver’s bucket seat with his chubby legs dangling out the door. He was barefoot. He had on a wife beater T-shirt and some pale blue boxers. His pigtails were coming unraveled. He was toking on a doobie. He squinted when Veenie demanded he put up his hands.

  “Can’t,” he explained. “Gotta finish this doobie. Want some? Sweet stuff. Dream potion number nine.” He held it out to Veenie.

  She poked him under the right eye with the barrel tip of the BB gun.

  “Ouch! Just so you know, that hurt, Granny.”

  “Sit still or I’ll shoot your eyes out.”

  I could see Junior’s Fender guitar and a pile of mics and drums in the back seat of the Gremlim. That did not surprise me. What did surprise me was what erupted out of the pile of dirty blankets next to the musical paraphernalia.

  Kandy Huggins.

  “Oh shit!” said Kandy, and she dove back under the covers.

  Veenie said, “We came to get Junior’s stuff.”

  “Oh man, is that his stuff?” Darnell looked over his shoulder. His forehead was lined with wrinkles. “Oh shit, didn’t mean to take his stuff. I guess I was stoned. You can have anything you like. Take anything. We’ll call it square.”

  Veenie kept the gun pressed to the bottom socket of his right eye. “You stole this car too.”

  “Oh man, did I? You know, I think I got a problem. I think I might be an addict. I’ve been having these blackouts. You know, I was an abused kid. It was awful. So awful I got to drink and do drugs just to keep from killing myself some days. I’m not as happy go lucky as I look, you know.”

  Veenie said, “Tell it to your parole officer.”

  “Oh man, come on! You’re not taking me in, are you? Me and you are friends. Can’t you just take Junior’s stuff and look the other way? I was on my way out of town. I’ll be gone soon as you get your stuff. You’ll never see me again. Why make a fuss?”

  Kandy peeked out of the covers. “Come on gals, we were just leaving town. Weren’t nobody hurt. Everybody had fun.”

  I told Kandy we knew about her arrest warrant for running scams over in Missouri.
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  “Oh Jesus,” she said. “I’m an entertainer. That’s all. People used to love being entertained. I never hurt nobody. Me and Darnell, we’re a team.”

  “A team?”

  Darnell took another toke. “She’s my wife.”

  “Ex-wife!” Kandy screeched. “Ex!”

  “You two were in this ghost swindle together?”

  Darnell objected. “I never invited her to come down here with me.”

  Kandy rolled her eyes. “Like I was going to let you get your hands on that gold and not give me my fair share. He owes me ten years of alimony, you know.”

  Somehow that did not surprise me.

  Kandy yacked on. “He’d been going on about his big family jewels ever since I met him in the carnival down in Kentucky. Yack. Yack. Yack. How his great-great-granddad was a big old train and bank robber. How someday he was going to find the loot and we’d be rich.”

  I asked Darnell how he knew he was related to Alta Iona.

  “Did one of them spit tests. Mailed it in online. They tell you if you’re related to anyone famous. Thought it might come in handy, knowing some relatives I could stay with when I was down and out. Thought I might even find some wealthy kin and show up asking for some cousin money and consideration. Alta Iona came up on my mama’s side, along with an old news story on the missing gold. Did some digging in the library. Found more details about the gold at the Wyatt mansion. Used the story mostly to impress the ladies.”

  Kandy made a funny sound. “What? You think he lured me in with his charm?”

  Darnell shrugged that off. “Anyway, Kandy said we could run the ghost racket. See what the neighbors knew. Get in on the inside track. I decided to come on up this way. When you ladies got involved and I saw that piece in the Squealer on the skeleton, I called Kandy to come up, get on the inside with you gals. Get everybody’s confidence so I could get on with digging around for the gold.”

  Veenie eyed Kandy. “That why you were smooching up Harry?”

  “That and the fact he’s kind of cute. Like a baby otter with that itty-bitty moustache of his.”

  Veenie and I both winced.

  Darnell finished his doobie and flicked it off into the weeds. “You’re gonna let us go, right?”

  “Wrong,” said Veenie. “There are warrants for the both of you. I figure we can trade you two in for enough cash to keep us in Twinkies until Christmas.”

  Kandy said, “I am not going to the slammer. You know what that would do to my hair?”

  Right now her hay pile of hair was full of rats’ nests. I imagined prison could only improve it.

  Out of curiosity, I asked if they ever found any gold.

  Kandy snorted. “Heck no! We did a lot of digging. All we ever got was blisters. I was hanging around trying to make a little cash for the road doing ghost shows for Dode. At least he had some cash.”

  “Whatever made you think there was gold in the apple orchard?”

  “Ask the genius there.” Kandy pointed to Darnell.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Darnell asked Veenie to lower the BB gun.

  She did—reluctantly.

  He reached over and pulled his fat biker’s wallet out of the console. He unfolded a piece of paper. It looked like an old plate ripped out of a book. “When Alta Iona left my great-great-granny, Myrtle Mae, at the orphanage, all she left with her was this here page out of a bible.”

  Veenie and I studied the page. It looked to be a scene from some old painting. A curly-haired maiden in long flowing robes had her arms sprawled out wide. She held an apple tree branch with three fat, ripe apples that glinted like gold. Under the picture someone had written in ink, “Under the three apples, not on the tree. On the word of God, that’s where the gold will be.” The initials AIW were scribbled under the inscription.

  Darnell sniveled. “I reckoned Alta Iona wrote this—AIW, see?—and that it meant she’d hidden Jedidiah’s stolen gold in the apple orchard. I reckoned she hoped whoever got the baby would understand the message. Get the gold so little Myrtle Mae would be taken care of right nice.”

  Kandy snorted. “I told him that story he made up in his head about golden apples was far-fetched.”

  “Hey! A guy can dream.”

  “I wish you would. Go for it. For heaven’s sake, you steal a car—a felony, I might add—and do you steal a Caddy or something hot and sexy like what rich people would drive? Oh no, you steal a Gremlin. A’73 purple Gremlin, for the love of God Almighty.”

  Darnell’s face fell a little. “I think it’s cute.”

  Veenie shook her BB gun. “If you two are done bellyaching, we’re taking you in. Move it. Over to the Chevy.”

  Darnell shuffled out of the Gremlin. He looked down at his bare, chubby legs “I need some pants,” he said. “Kandy!” he called to the back seat. “Throw me them pants over by the cooler.”

  Kandy dove down. When she popped back up, her hands were no longer empty. They didn’t hold pants either. She was gripping a sawed-off shotgun. And not an air pistol either. “Sorry, gals,” she said. “Kandy Huggins is not going to the big house. Not even for one itty-bitty night. Hand over your pistol and your cell phones.”

  Veenie and I complied.

  Kandy ordered Darnell to get some rope out of the Gremlin. He tied us up sitting on the ground, back-to-back. Then he hog-tied our ankles. Kandy fished the Chevy keys out of my front pocket. The pair took off in the Impala, headed south toward the state line.

  “On the bright side,” I said, as I leaned back into Veenie. “We did get Junior’s guitar back. And we got the Gremlin. Bet there’s a reward for that Gremlin.” I nodded toward the car. “Also, the Impala is low on gas. They probably won’t make it to the state line.”

  It was almost dark when Boots slid into the sand next to us.

  He mashed on his hat and moseyed on over to us. “Well, well,” he said, trying his darnedest not to crack a grin. “You gals need a ride home, do you?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Harry was happy to have his stereo and big screen TV back in his apartment. Also, his bottle of good Kentucky bourbon. All the stuff Kandy had stolen from him had been stuffed in the Gremlin. He had it all back now.

  “I knew that Kandy was putting me on,” Harry said. He leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, then took a shot of bourbon. He loosened his tie, then took another shot of bourbon.

  “Yeah,” said Veenie. “You sure was on top of that one.”

  Darnell and Kandy had listed all Harry’s stuff on Craigslist, but none of it had moved. I could kind of see why. The whiskey was top shelf, but the rest of the stuff looked like Harry had gotten it at a fire sale at the Big Lots.

  Veenie said that was because Harry had gotten it at a fire sale at the Big Lots.

  We were all moping around the office. We were pretty much back to where we started. Dead broke. No new cases. The guy who owned the Gremlin didn’t even want the car back. Said we could keep it as a finder’s fee. Dickie said he could fix it up, probably sell it for us for a cool thousand over at Sammy Spray’s All-American Auto Lot. I couldn’t think of anything more all-American than a Gremlin. Some hipster was bound to buy it. Everything vintage was hot these days. Everybody wanted the seventies back. Everybody but we oldsters who survived it the first time around. I was in no hurry to bring back the seventies. Pantyhose were big back then. Being tall and lanky, I stumbled around for an entire decade with my crotch down around my knees.

  Junior had his band equipment back. I reckoned that was good. It would have been tragic if the Lip Lizards had not been able to pluck and twang at Pokey’s anymore. We were able to tell Pokey that Darnell was the one who had been stealing the mystery meat and beer from the back room. Not that it helped, but it did get Pokey to put a new lock on the back alley window, and it did earn us free mystery meat sandwiches for the rest of our lives, which as far as Veenie was concerned was better than cash money.

  We
didn’t get much else out of the whole escapade. All we had in the end was the page Darnell’s had ripped from some book, three golden apples on it. “What do you reckon this means?” I asked Veenie.

  She shrugged and read the inscription out loud. “Under the three apples, not on the tree. On the word of God, that’s where the gold will be.”

  Harry took a look. “Looks like one of those pages they used to put in family bibles. My great aunt had one of those big old family bibles. Had the family tree in the middle. Some fancy pages to record births and deaths. Some of the Bible stories were illustrated like this. People couldn’t read much back in the day, so books had a lot of these pictures. Don’t imagine it means anything. Just some tall tale.”

  “I dunno,” said Veenie. “Alta Iona was a new mama. Probably loved that baby something fierce. Probably hated that old Jedidiah just as much.”

  I studied the illustration. “Must be a story behind this. Maybe Queet over at the library would recognize the picture as some sort of ancient art or as a picture from a Bible story.”

  I asked Harry if he had any work for us.

  “Nah.” He’d almost drained his bottle of bourbon.

  “Mind if we kick off early?”

  “As long as you don’t expect to be paid for the day. I’m not paying for lollygagging.”

  With the Impala stolen, Veenie and I were back to go-karting. “Come on,” I said to Veenie. “Let’s go see Queet at the library, get you some more old lady smut to read.”

  • • •

  Queet was delighted to see us. She was crawling around in the fiction department, re-shelving. She got up and swept the wavy hair out of her eyes. “Heard your old Impala got stolen.”

  “Figure they’ll find it eventually. Not likely Kandy and Darnell will outrun the law in that car. It runs fine and dandy until you hit sixty. Then it trembles like Moses meeting his maker.”

  “So the whole ghost thing out at the Wyatt mansion, that was all fake?”

  “Pretty much. It was Darnell and his ex-wife, that medium we hired, digging around for Jedidiah’s gold.”