by Terri Reid
“Oh, don’t even joke about that,” Mary said, unconsciously rubbing her back.
Bradley walked over to her, placed a kiss on her forehead and turned her towards the living room. “Go upstairs and put your feet up,” he said. “I’ll clean this up and join you in a few minutes. Okay?”
She smiled back at him. “Okay,” she said. “And thank you.”
She crossed the living room and started up the stairs. Then she stopped and listened. “Bradley?” she called.
“Yes?” he called back.
“Did you say something?”
“No,” he replied. “Why?”
She shook her head. “I could swear I just heard someone laugh,” she said, a slight shiver running up her spine.
“It was probably the broom across the tile floor and the glass shards,” he suggested.
She took a deep breath and nodded. “That makes sense,” she replied, nodding. “Okay, I’ll see you upstairs.”
Chapter Ten
Walking down the upstairs hallway, Mary jumped when Mike appeared next to her.
“Sorry,” he immediately apologized. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She shook her head. “No, not your fault,” she said. “I’m just a little jumpy tonight.”
He hovered next to her and nodded. “Yeah, about that,” he said.
She recognized the tone in his voice. “Mike, what’s going on?”
“Well, the reason you needed to go to the reunion tonight wasn’t quite what I thought,” he admitted.
She sat down on a window seat in the hall and looked up at him. “What did you think?”
“I thought Bradley needed to finish something,” he said. “A little closure after Jeannine’s death.”
“But that wasn’t it, was it?” she asked.
Suddenly her bedroom door flew open with a powerful crash. “What the...?” she exclaimed.
Mike nodded. “Yeah, well see, that’s the problem,” he said with a sigh. “You brought someone home with you tonight.”
“What?”
“And it looks like she’s not real happy about your relationship with Bradley,” he said.
“I have a jealous ghost in my house?” Mary asked, astonished.
Mike shook his head apologetically. “No, sweetheart,” he said. “You have a jealous poltergeist in your home.”
As if on cue, the drawers in Mary’s dresser opened, and her clothing started flying across the room. Mary turned back to Mike. “Really?” she asked. “Like I need this now?”
“I’m really sorry, Mary,” he replied. “I don’t know if it helps, but there is a reason for this.”
Sighing, she watched as the blankets on her bed were lifted up and strewn across the room. “So, obviously poltergeists don’t play by the same rules as your regular, run-of-the-mill ghosts,” she said, “or she wouldn’t be in my bedroom.”
Mike shrugged. “Think of her as an angry teenager,” he said, “with an attitude…who’s got PMS.”
“Crap!” Mary replied and pushed herself up to standing. “Okay, well, maybe we start with some tough love.”
She walked into the center of her bedroom and immediately was hit in the face by a pair of her own underwear. And this time she was sure of it. She heard a giggle, and then suddenly the entire room was filling with swirling clothing.
“Okay,” Mary said, batting the clothes away as they flew towards her. “It’s obvious that you have a problem, and I’m willing to be reasonable. But throwing my clothes around the room is not going to help.”
The giggle was louder, and the clothes swirled even faster. Mary couldn’t move fast enough to bat them away, and in a few moments, her face was covered with several layers of clothing. She pulled at the layers to catch her breath. “Stop…” she tried to call out, but was inundated with more clothes.
“Mary, get out of there,” Mike called.
She tried to move, but clothing wrapped around her legs, pinning her in place. “I…can’t…” she yelled, ripping the fabric away so she could breathe. “Get…”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Bradley yelled from the doorway, and immediately all the clothing dropped to the floor.
Mary took a slow, shuddering breath, kicked the clothes away from her legs and turned towards him. Suddenly, the ghost Mary had seen standing next to Rick appeared next to Bradley.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered sadly, translucent tears flowing down her cheek. And then she faded away.
Bradley turned to Mary. “What just happened?” he asked.
“I think I just met one of your former girlfriends,” she said, pulling a pair of underwear from out of her neckline. “And I don’t think she was very happy to meet me.”
Chapter Eleven
“A blonde with a beehive hairstyle?” Bradley asked, shaking his head as he, Mary and Mike talked about the ghost a little while later. “I don’t know. Maybe she was in the high school play, or maybe she died on Halloween? I really don’t remember her.”
Pulling a t-shirt off the bedpost and folding it, Mary sighed. “Poor thing,” she said. “She obviously remembers you and is still in love.”
“Poor thing?” Bradley asked, his voice rising in anger, pulling a pair of slacks from the ceiling fan. “She nearly suffocated you with your own clothes, and you think she’s a poor thing?”
“Well, a very jealous and slightly psychotic poor thing,” Mary amended with a shrug, placing her shirt back in a drawer.
“Actually, poltergeists are all about emotion and drama,” Mike explained. “There have been studies that often link poltergeist activity to teenage girls who are filled with emotional, um, exhilaration. Yeah, that’s a good word, exhilaration.”
“Wait. What? Teenaged girls filled with emotional exhilaration?” Bradley asked. “Is that normal?”
Mary and Mike looked at each other, smiled, and then looked at Bradley. “Yes,” they answered together.
“But don’t worry, sweetheart,” Mary said. “We have at least four years until Clarissa becomes a teenager.”
Bradley sighed softly. “Okay, so what are our next steps for dealing with our current teenage dilemma?”
“We need to figure out who she is,” Mary said. “And hopefully her name will ring a bell.” She walked across the room to pick up her laptop that was laying on the dresser. “Maybe there are some photos online,” she suggested over her shoulder. She turned and reached for the laptop, but it slid across the dresser surface.
“Oh, no,” she cried. “Not my laptop.”
She tried to dive for it but wasn’t fast enough. The laptop careened off the dresser into the wall, cracking on impact. Mary exhaled angrily. “I can’t believe she did that.”
Clattering behind her had Mary turning to see one of the bedside lamps being lifted off the nightstand and hung precariously in the air. She looked helplessly in Bradley’s direction, and he nodded and walked over towards the nightstand.
“Hey,” he said calmly. “I would really like to see you, if that’s possible. I know it’s been a long time.”
The lamp slowly lowered to the nightstand, and the ghost appeared in the room. “She’s here,” Mary said. “Standing right in front of you.”
“Hi,” Bradley said. “In order to see you, I have to have Mary touch my arm.” He shrugged. “Don’t know why that works, it just does. Is it okay for Mary to come over here and touch my arm?”
The girl scowled in Mary’s direction for a moment, but finally nodded.
“She said yes,” Mary explained, slowly coming across the room. “But she’s not too happy about it.”
Mary touched Bradley’s arm, and he could see the teenager standing in front of him. His anger faded as he looked at the young woman who was equally defiant and sorrowful. Her eyes were burning with unshed tears, and she was having a hard time meeting his eyes.
“You’re very lovely,” he said and was amazed to see a light blush appear on her translucent skin. “I don’t…”
Mary squeezed his arm and, when he turned to look at her, shook her head. “Ixnay on the orgotfay,” she said, looking at him meaningfully.
“What?” Bradley asked, shaking his head. “What’s that?”
Mary rolled her eyes and repeated her comment slowly. “Ixnay on the orgotfay.”
Bradley shook his head once more. “Sorry?”
“She said that you shouldn’t tell me that you forgot me,” the ghost inserted, glaring at Mary. “I speak pig Latin.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I didn’t mean…”
“He didn’t forget me,” the ghost yelled, and a cold wind started whipping through the bedroom. “He wouldn’t forget me. He loved me.”
The lamps on the nightstand shook, and the blinds rattled. “You’re just jealous,” the ghost continued. “You’re jealous because you’re fat. Fat and ugly.”
The wind increased, and the bathroom door slammed shut. “You can’t have him,” she screamed, and the bedroom door crashed against its frame.
The ghost disappeared, and the wind left with her.
Bradley turned to Mary. “I guess I don’t know pig Latin,” he admitted.
“Sorry,” she replied. “I thought everyone knew pig Latin.”
Bradley looked over his shoulder at the empty spot where the ghost had just stood. “Well, obviously I had a deprived childhood,” he said with a smile, walking towards her. “And, by the way, you’re not fat, and you’re the furthest thing from ugly anyone could be.”
He hugged her, and she melted into his arms. “Do you think she’s gone for the night?” she asked.
He glanced around the room. “Well, it’s quiet for now.”
Mike glided over next to them. “I had no idea this would happen,” he said. “I can make her go away if you’d like.”
Mary looked over at him. “But if you did that, she wouldn’t be able to return, right?” she asked. “She would never have her problem solved.”
Nodding, Mike glanced around the room. “Yeah, but this is bordering on being dangerous,” he said. “And you have to weigh your desire to help with the potential danger posed to your family.”
“We don’t have to decide tonight, do we?” she asked.
“No, you don’t,” Mike said, shaking his head with a gentle smile. “You really are too much of a softie.”
“She just looked so sad,” she replied. “And kind of lost.”
“And slightly psycho,” Bradley added. “But, I’m willing to give it a couple of days. As long as she doesn’t threaten your safety.”
Mary smiled up at him. “Okay, deal,” she said.
Bradley bent down and kissed Mary. “I’m serious about the threat thing,” he murmured.
“I know,” she said, sighing softly and kissing him deeply. Then she stepped back. “That’s why I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”
“What?” Bradley exclaimed.
“Well, if her anger is egged on by jealousy, I need to keep you at a distance for a little while,” she explained.
“But…” Bradley stammered. “But we were going to….” He looked over at Mike who was grinning at him and sighed. “We were going to dance.”
“You owe me a…,” she bit her lower lip lightly and smiled up at Bradley. “A dance. A whole night of dancing, as soon as this issue is solved.”
He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her, with all the longing he was feeling. They heard shattering in the kitchen, and Bradley sighed, placing his forehead against hers. “Let’s make this case top priority,” he pleaded.
She sighed and nodded. “I agree.”
Chapter Twelve
No sooner had Mary laid her head on the pillow in the guest room than she heard a commotion coming from inside the closet.
“We shouldn’t be here,” a slightly familiar female voice said.
“What? The rules said that we couldn’t go into her bedroom,” a male voice replied. “This isn’t her bedroom. It’s the guest room.”
“Frasier, if she’s sleeping in it, it’s her bedroom,” the woman replied.
Groaning softly, Mary rolled herself out of bed and padded over to the closet. As she put her hand on the doorknob she heard, “Listen Shirley, if you want to get something done these days, you’ve got to get in people’s faces…”
Mary opened the closet door and sighed. “Okay, you’re in my face now,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Look!” Shirley whispered loudly to her husband. “She’s pregnant. She needs her sleep.”
Frasier stared at Mary’s abdomen for a moment and then looked up and met her eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” he stammered. “Really. Go back to bed. We can talk another time.”
Shaking her head, Mary pushed the door open widely and stepped back. “No, come in,” she said. “It’s been a crazy night, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep anyway.”
“Chamomile tea,” Shirley said. “It helped me through each one of my pregnancies.”
“She only had two,” Frasier said.
“Only?” Shirley asked, her eyebrows raised in anger. “Only? And how many times have you carried a human being around in your body for nine months and then pushed it out through a tiny hole that’s stretched out to be the size of a grapefruit?”
“Ouch,” Mary said. “Way too much information.”
Shirley turned to Mary. “Sorry,” she apologized. “He just gets to me sometimes.”
Frasier shrugged. “Yeah, a lot of sometimes since we’ve been dead.”
Mary studied the two people standing in front of her. Overall they looked good, for dead people, but both of their necks were at slightly odd angles. “How did you die?” she asked.
“We drove off the side of a hill. The car crashed and rolled,” Frasier explained, reaching up and rubbing his neck. “I think I broke my neck on impact.”
Shirley nodded. “Yeah, we hit pretty hard,” she said. “I remember the crash and then flying backwards.” She paused, closed her eyes for a moment, and shuddered. “I think I must have died after the impact, too.”
“Normally I don’t do car accidents,” Mary said.
“Well, it wasn’t a normal car accident,” Frasier said. “My brake lines were cut.”
Shirley rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that,” she said. “It could have been bad brakes. You don’t know someone killed us.”
“If no one tried to kill us, why are we still here?” Frasier asked. “Like that angel guy, Mike, said. We got unfinished business. Bad brakes ain’t unfinished business.”
So, Mary thought, Mike had already talked to them about unfinished business. She wondered why Shirley was trying to find another reason.
“Who do you think killed you?” Mary asked Frasier.
“I don’t think. I know,” Frasier replied sadly. “My son, Eddie.”
“Your son?” Mary asked, surprised. “How do you know your son did this?”
“He doesn’t know,” Shirley inserted, her voice breaking. “We can’t be sure.”
Frasier sighed and turned to his wife. “We can’t keep protecting him,” he said gently. “We’ve protected him for too long. That’s why he was able to do what he did.”
Mary saw the anguish in both of their faces. “Why don’t we start with the facts, and then we can go from there, okay?” she asked.
Shirley nodded. “Okay, we went to Eddie’s house because he invited us for dinner,” she said.
“But it wasn’t dinner,” Frasier added. “He was in trouble and needed money. Again.”
“In trouble?” Mary asked.
“Oh, not that way,” Shirley said. “He wasn’t into anything nefarious—”
“Except murder,” Frasier interrupted.
“We don’t know he did this,” Shirley argued.
“Okay, we go to his house. He asks for money. We say no. He gets angry with us and walks out of the house. Half hour later, we’re on the road with no brakes,” Frasier said bal
dly. “Maybe it was a momentary lapse. Maybe he regretted it later. But, that doesn’t change things for us. We’re still dead.”
“Do you have any evidence linking him to your murder?” Mary asked.
Frasier shook his head. “No, they just figured I fell asleep at the wheel,” he said with disgust. “Like I would risk my sweetheart’s life and drive drowsy. They didn’t even bother checking the car.”
Mary nodded and then tried to stifle a yawn. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said.
“No, we’re the ones who should be sorry,” Shirley replied. “You need your sleep. We can wait.”
“Well, tomorrow is Sunday, so most of the places I need to check won’t be open until Monday morning,” she said. “My computer had a slight mishap this evening, but I’ll ask my husband to start checking into some things, okay?”
“Thank you,” Frasier said. “If you have any questions…”
Shirley smiled sadly. “We’ll just be hanging around, waiting.”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I have any information,” Mary said. “And you might want to think about anyone else who could be a suspect. Just in case Whitman is cleared.”
“That would be nice,” Frasier admitted. “And we’ll start thinking about it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mary was surprised that the sun was fairly high in the sky when she woke up the next morning. Turning to the bedside clock, she gasped in surprise when she saw that it was after nine. “Good grief,” she muttered, leveraging herself out of bed. “Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”
She opened the guest room door and turned when she heard footsteps on the stairs.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” Bradley said as he carried a mug of tea in her direction. “I was just coming up to see you.”
“I can’t believe I slept this long,” she replied.
“Well, I’ve heard that fighting a poltergeist when you’re seven months pregnant can be exhausting,” he said, bending down and kissing her. “And I would have let you sleep even longer, but I just got a call from Rosie. They’re coming over in about an hour, and they’re bringing a friend.”