“Sounds like a plan to me.”
Chapter 3
“Meeting time,” Brody said mid-Wednesday morning.
Tonio cocked a dark eyebrow. “Since when do we have meetings?”
“Since we have to talk about something that will affect all of us.”
Kurt came out of his and Tonio’s room in the hayloft of the barn. “Do not tell us we’re moving somewhere else,” he said, sitting down next to Tonio on the ‘relatively’ new sofa. Sage and Mike had done as they’d promised, soon after the ghosts had moved into the barn, arriving one night with a rental truck holding the sofa, a large rug, and several decent chairs to replace the ones the ghosts had ‘borrowed,’ to use Brody’s words, from the attic of the boarding house where they used to live.
“No,” Brody replied. “I think we’re all quite happy right where we are. That said, last night, while you two were at the movies, Jon and I met a pair of newly-dead ghosts. Sage saw them at the murder site, but they disappeared before he could speak with them. Mike found out who they were, well, had been, and the four of us paid them a visit.”
“I think ‘are’ would be a better description,” Jon said, getting an eye roll from Brody.
“Are, were, whatever, they’re dead and so new they can’t do anything for themselves other than move around.”
“I remember what that was like,” Tonio said, getting a nod from the others. “You wonder how you’re going to survive until you can go to wherever you’re supposed to end up.”
“Exactly,” Brody agreed.
“Why do I think you’re going to suggest they move in here?” Kurt asked.
“Because I am?” Brody replied. “It not as if we don’t have the room, if we’re clever about it.”
“Both the storage rooms up here are taken,” Tonio pointed out.
“True, but with a bit of work we could add a third room over there using curtains.” Brody gestured to the far corner of the loft which now held their table and chairs. “It’s far enough back, and dark enough since the light from the window doesn’t reach the area, that no one could see it from the ground. Not that we get any visitors willing to do more than peek in the windows, since we barricaded the side door.”
“Let’s hope we never do,” Jon said, crossing his fingers.
“What are these guys like?” Tonio asked.
Brody replied, “They’re authors, in their mid-thirties, I’d say, and in a committed relationship. They’ve got a nice house, which says something for them.”
Kurt snorted. “Yeah, like moving here would be a real step down.”
Jon tapped his fingers together. “Maybe, but they can’t stay where they are. All they want from the house, according to them, is their laptops and some of their books.”
“Books?” Tonio’s face lit up. “One point in their favor. Did you already suggest they move here?”
“Nope,” Brody replied. “We won’t until we get everyone’s approval. Another thing, we wouldn’t have to scrounge a bed for them, considering they have a houseful of furniture. I’m sure Sage and Mike would be will to rent a truck again to move it out here.”
“Names, please,” Kurt said.
Tonio grinned. “I’m Tonio, that’s Brody, and—” he pointed, “—he’s Jon.”
Kurt smacked Tonio’s hand. “This is not what I meant and you know it.”
“Children,” Brody growled. “They’re Van Acker and Gene Norton. They write under the pseudonym V.G. Ackton.”
“Hey, I’ve read a couple of their mysteries. They’re not bad,” Kurt said.
“Can we meet them before we decide?” Tonio asked.
“Of course. How about now?”
“That works.”
“Then follow us.”
A few minutes later, the quartet was standing in the middle of Van and Gene’s living room. Since neither of them was there, Brody called out to let them know they had company.
Van came down the stairs with Gene right behind him. They paused at the bottom, looking bemused. “Why are you here?” Van asked.
“Tonio and Kurt—” Brody pointed to each of them, “—wanted to meet you.”
“This is a nice place,” Tonio said, looking around. “Or what I can see of it is.”
“We like it,” Gene replied. “Unfortunately we won’t be here much longer.”
“How long have you lived here?”
Gene glanced at Van. “Ten years?”
“Eleven, but who’s counting.”
“Obviously you are.” Gene smiled at him then said, “We bought the house soon after our first book hit the market. We were taking a chance, since there’s a difference between being a one-hit wonder and writing enough in the series to keep readers interested and buying them. We didn’t give up our day jobs until we were certain that would happen. Now…” He sighed, shaking his head.
“Can you, no, would you show us around?” Kurt asked.
“Sure.”
Van and Gene took them through the house and out to the back yard. The yard had flower and vegetable beds, and an expanse of well-kept lawn.
“I hope whoever buys the place will keep the garden up, because knowing our families, the house will be on the market as soon as our wills are probated,” Van said. “We put a lot of work into it, and the house.”
“We can tell,” Jon replied.
“What are you going to do now?” Kurt asked once they were back inside.
Van shrugged. “Like we told Brody and Jon last night, find a vacant building, I guess.”
Brody moved his gaze from Jon to Tonio to Kurt, getting nods from each of them. Then he said, “How would you feel about a not so vacant barn and a few roommates to share it with?”
“I don’t know,” Gene replied. “Can we see it, first?”
“Of course.”
“How will we get there? Sage said you all can fly but I don’t think I can.”
Brody replied, “All ghosts can. It’s part of what we are. You just have to believe.”
“It’s pretty easy, actually,” Tonio said as he floated up to the ceiling. “Come on, give it a shot.”
“Think it and it’ll happen,” Brody told them.
Van managed it first, grinning when he joined Tonio.
It took Gene a couple of minutes more before he was up there, too. “This is fine,” he said as he came down, “but that was only a few feet. We’ll be going miles.”
“The same theory applies,” Jon said. “Believe. We promise we’re not going to let you fall. Not that anything would happen if you did, all things considered.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Van replied, taking Gene’s hand. “Straight up?”
“I guess if we can walk through walls we can fly through ceilings.”
Moments later six ghosts, unseen by anyone on the ground, were flying out of the city to the barn.
* * * *
“It’s not a palace,” said Van as he looked around the hayloft. “Still, you’ve made it livable, which is what counts. It’s a good thing ghosts don’t eat. There’s no room for a kitchen.”
“Is that damned with faint praise?” Kurt whispered to Tonio.
“Or something close,” Tonio replied.
“We were thinking, if you’re interested, that we can curtain off that corner—” Brody pointed to it, “—to serve as another bedroom.”
Gene nodded as he turned slowly to take in the whole area. “Why just up here?” he asked.
“We don’t get many people coming around,” Brody said. “But those who wander into the area will sometimes peer through the windows to see what’s in here. It’s why we left all the junk down there the way it is. There’s nothing anyone would want to fight the rats and vermin to get their hands on.”
“There’s rats?” Gene looked horrified.
“No.” Jon laughed. “But your average person looking at the mess would probably think the barn’s full of them.”
“So would this average ghost,” Van muttered. �
�Do you get Wi-Fi here?”
“Unfortunately not, but we do get cell phone reception,” Brody told him. “Before you ask, there’s no electricity, either.”
“What do you do for lights?”
“The sun, during the day. Candles at night.”
Van frowned. “Aren’t you afraid they might tip over and cause a fire? And what if someone sees light through the window?”
“We use those big, fat ones,” Jon replied. “We also have a blanket we hang over the rod above the window once it gets dark.”
“We’ve got a few dozen candles at home, with candleholders,” Gene said. “We picked them up after that prolonged power outage a few years ago. Of course, since then, the longest the power goes out is an hour at the most, so I don’t think we’ve used up more than two of them.”
“If we decide to take you up on your offer,” Van said, “How do we get our stuff out here?”
“Like your bed?” Brody asked.
“Yes. And maybe a dresser to store things and bookshelves for the books we want to keep.”
“Presuming we can figure out where to put everything, we’ll get Mike and Sage to rent a truck. That’s what they did when we brought over what furniture we had at our old place.”
“Forget the dresser, bring two bookshelves and fill them,” Jon said.
Van laughed. “I take it you’re a reader.”
“I think we all are, and given that there’s not all that much to do here, having a lot to read would be great.”
Gene looked at Van then asked, “Could we have a few minutes to talk this over?”
“Of course,” Brody replied. “Guys, let’s go see if we can find that deer Tonio saw yesterday.”
“I did? Oh, yeah, I did. He was out back.”
Gene chuckled. “You’re not good liars, either of you.”
“Whatever works,” Brody said before the four of them vanished.
“So what do you think?” Gene asked when they were gone.
“It has a sort of rustic charm.”
“I’d say that’s an understatement. Still, it’s got to be better than some attic or abandoned building, right?”
“True. And we’d have someone to talk to. I’m not happy about there being no Wi-Fi, though.”
“Come on, Van, why would we need it, now? It’s not as if we can write more books. We’re dead, in case you haven’t noticed. Posthumous books would only work if they were written before our deaths and someone found the manuscripts.”
Van scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You have a point, unfortunately. I’m going to go crazy if I can’t write. You know that.”
“We’ll figure something out, like using our phones, once we can manipulate things. At least they’re top of the line so we can write on them.”
“How will we pay the new contract fees so we can do that when the present ones run out?”
“Mike’s paying for Brody’s, so maybe we can inveigle him into paying for ours as well?”
“Come on, Gene. Would you do that if you were him?”
Gene sighed. “Probably not. I guess we’ll have to write the old fashioned way, with pen and paper.” He smiled, hugging Van. “You have to admit doing it that way will fit the ambiance.”
“No kidding. So, we’re going to take them up on their offer?”
“If you’re okay with it.”
Van hesitated. “Maybe we should wait until Mike finds out who killed us? If he does, you know we’ll move on. It’s what ghosts do.”
“True, I suppose, although Brody and the others are still here, in spite of Mike’s proving who killed everyone but Jon. That’s beside the point, anyway. You know that his figuring out who shot us is going to be a crap shoot. It’s not like we’ve got dozens of enemies who wanted us dead. Sure, it could have been someone we wrote about. Or one of the suspects we were going to interview in the Blue Car murder. But proving it?” Gene shrugged.
* * * *
If Mike had heard what Gene was saying, he would have agreed with him. He’d gotten the file for the Blue Car murder from the cold case files and was reading through it early Wednesday afternoon, making notes on names and information about everyone involved. One of the suspects in Irene’s murder was her ex-boyfriend, Jim Oliver, who had been harassing her and hanging around her house during the week prior to her death. Another, Dave Adams, was the father of her year-old son. He had been fighting for shared custody of the boy. Lee Ridley was the man in a blue car that had stopped to look into the victim’s car right after it had hit the tree. A witness had gotten enough of his license plate that the police were able to track him down. According to him, he wanted to see if the driver needed help. When he saw the bullet hole in her head, he panicked and took off.
Both exes claimed they were at work when Irene was shot, one at the garage where he was a mechanic, the other at the motel where he was a maintenance man. According to the detective’s report, employees at both locations said they’d seen the men, although they wouldn’t swear to the exact times. The man in the car claimed he didn’t know the girl, even though he lived only two blocks from her home, and the detective couldn’t prove otherwise.
“If it was one of them, and they were afraid Van and Gene might have learned something that could prove they killed her…” Mike said under his breath when he finished.
He read through the file Van and Gene had made and saw that they had set up interviews with Mr. Oliver and Mr. Ridley. According to their notes, Dave Adams was supposed to be living in Florida with his now twelve-year-old son, or so Mrs. Gibbs, Irene’s mother, had told them, although they had been unable reach him by phone or email to confirm that.
Guess it’s time to get off my ass and talk to the two who are here in town and see what they were doing last night.
* * * *
“What did you decide?” Brody asked when he and the others rejoined Van and Gene in the loft.
Van replied, “Common sense says we wait it out and see if Mike can find the man who killed us. There’s no sense moving in here if he does.”
“But,” Gene said before Brody could respond, “we’re not always sensible. Even if he does find our killer, it could take time. Hanging around our place, watching our families divvy up our things to keep or get rid of, then putting up with some realtor showing the house to a dozen people who might want to buy it?” He shook his head. “We’d be better off here, even if it’s only for a few weeks.”
“Besides,” Van added with a brief smile, “When that does happen, we’ll be leaving you with a decent library, which will make Jon happy.”
Brody laughed. “I gather that’s your way of saying we should arrange for Sage and Mike to rent a truck.”
“Yeah,” Gene replied.
“Let’s make a list of what you want so I can send it to Sage.”
“We can’t be there?” Van asked.
“Duh. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That happens a lot with him,” Jon said, darting away when Brody took a playful swing at him.
Brody called Sage, since he could hear him, unlike Mike who needed to be texted for them to communicate. They set it up for late that night, barring Mike being called out on a case that would keep him busy well into the morning. “We want to do it after the neighbors have gone to bed,” Brody explained when he hung up. “We don’t want them wondering what’s going on and calling the cops.”
“We could get things started earlier, if you guys have extra curtains or bedspreads,” Tonio suggested.
“How would you get them without the neighbors seeing?” Gene asked.
“We could fly over to pick them up,” Brody told him. “As soon as it’s dark.”
“Otherwise, people will think they’re seeing strange aliens, since they’d be floating several yards overhead,” Kurt said, grinning. “Still, it would be better to bring them with the other stuff so add them to the list.”
“We have a list?” Tonio asked with a laugh, grinning when Kurt flipped him off.
“Kids.” Jon shook his head. “We need a long pole,” he said before floating down the barn floor.
Brody joined him and after some digging through the junk cluttering the area they found exactly what they needed, an extension ladder that was missing most of its rungs. By the time they got it up to the loft, Tonio and Kurt had moved the table and chairs from the corner that would be Van and Gene’s room. It took some debate and wrestling, but they finally got the ladder into place, extending it so it reached the ceiling. Brody went hunting again and found some bailing wire serve as makeshift curtain rods.
“Done, and done,” he said when they finished. “Mike can bring his tool kit and nail the top and feet into place.”
* * * *
Mike’s first stop when he left the station house was at the garage where Jim Oliver worked.
“Mr. Oliver,” he said when he found the man working on an older Ford. “I’m Detective Harris. I’d like to have a few words with you.”
Oliver nodded, muttering, “If this is about Irene’s murder, I had nothing to do with it. I had an alibi.”
“I’m aware of that,” Mike replied. “At the moment I need to know where you were last night.”
“Huh? Why?”
“I’m investigating another murder and one of the witnesses said they saw the car that was involved. They got part of the license plate number and it matches the one on your car,” he lied.
“Humph. And probably twenty other cars, too.”
“True, and I’m going to be talking with their owners as well.”
Oliver looked as if he wanted to tell Mike to get lost. Then, with a shrug, he said, “I was home alone, getting ready for bed after watching a movie on TV.”
Since Mike hadn’t told him what the time frame was he was interested in, Oliver’s reply definitely set off his radar, although he didn’t say anything. He knew it was possible Oliver had heard about the murder on TV or in the newspaper, or would say he had if Mike called him on it. He did ask what movie. Oliver said he’d missed the opening so he didn’t know the title, but it was some action one. Again, if he was lying, it was a good cover-up. When he asked about the man’s car, Oliver told him it was an older dark blue sedan, then took him out to the lot in back of the shop to look at it.
A Haunting of Ghosts Page 3