Audrey Claire - Libby Grace 01 - How to be a Ghost

by Audrey Claire

  “Chief,” one of the officers called. I rushed over with Clark, and we discovered at the same time the wire sticking out of a grate above a file cabinet. “Might have attached to a camera.”

  Clark frowned and nodded. I gauged the angle if a camera had been placed above the file cabinet and realized it would most likely have been aimed right at the mayor.

  “Depending on the lens, it could have taken in the entire room,” the officer went on, and I gasped. Clark turned as if hearing my gasp, and I darted away.

  “Get it into evidence,” Clark said. He left the task to the other man and approached the desk to lift the disk by its edges. “I need to know what’s on here.”

  “Hold it right there.” The mayor stepped into his path. “That was on my desk, so it is my property.”

  Clark met her gaze. “Correction, mayor. This is evidence. If you want to get technical, it’s public property as is everything in here. We are public servants. Aside from that, I have a warrant to search this entire building, and anything I deem to be pertinent to my murder investigation will be examined.”

  Her lips thinned, and a vein bulged in her neck. Clark should at least try to be nice. He might have the upper hand in this investigation, but at some point it would be over, and he might find himself working as a fry cook at the local fast-food place.

  From the emotions flitting over the mayor’s face, I guessed she had the same thoughts and considered threatening him with this logic, but it had gotten her nowhere the first time.

  “If you’re going to look at it, you’ll do it right here,” she said, infusing her tone with authority.

  “That’s fine.”

  Clark’s quick agreement took the wind right out of the woman’s sails, and she deflated. A few moments were spent booting up the mayor’s computer, which would play the disk. I wanted to warn Clark. What if there was a program or some such that could destroy the mayor’s computer? The officer assisting him, who seemed to know a little about electronics, spoke up. “You want to be careful, chief. There could be a virus.”

  Clark dismissed this line of thinking, whether because he had nothing to lose personally or because he was impatient to view the disk, I didn’t know. “If he wanted to destroy the computer, he could have just loaded it and be done. He left it to be found, so we’ll watch.”

  He paused and took in the faces crowding the office.

  “Everyone out!” Clark ordered. “And shut the door.”

  Suppressed groans rose, but they obeyed. The mayor held out her hand for the disc. “Give it to me. I’ll put it in.”

  He didn’t even pretend to consider it. “If you don’t mind, mayor, I’ll handle it.”

  She bristled but relinquished her chair to him. After a bit of fumbling around and the mayor giving him clipped instructions, Clark brought up the video file in a program that would play it. He tapped the button to get the video going, and all three of us froze. I covered my mouth, eyes wide. My face burned.

  “Shut it off! Shut it off!” The mayor toppled backward and hit the floor in a dead faint. I floated over her, and Clark sat there a full ten seconds looking at her before he sprang into action and helped her to sit up.

  “Mayor, are you okay?” he called out, lightly smacking the backs of her hands. “Olivia?”

  She came to slowly, her eyes glazed, her pallor ashen. “Wha—”

  Clark hauled her to her feet and led her to a chair. He moved swiftly to close out the video program and ejected the disc while the mayor rubbed a hand over her face. I watched as Clark dropped the disc into a plastic bag and pocketed it.

  “Mayor, I’m going to get one of the men to take you home,” Clark said. She didn’t appear to have heard. Clark waited for a response, but the mayor never lifted her head, and I began to feel sorry for the woman. Anyone who had ever been in love had had their heart broken, and the mayor, even at her age, had to deal with it in this very public and humiliating way.

  Clark made sure his officer took care of the mayor, and he left the building to slip into his squad car. I joined him, taking the passenger front seat, and he sighed. “When did I come out here? I don’t remember.”

  Guilt assaulted me.

  “Never mind that. What about this?” He tugged the plastic bag from his pocket and studied the disc. Then he reached across to my seat. I had to stifle a screech when he shuffled papers around under me, reaching through my leg. I floated out of the way, but he grunted in frustration. “Not here.”

  I wondered what he looked for, but I figured it out when he tugged his cell phone from his pocket. Good thing he had left it in there because I hadn’t remembered it when I dressed him, and maybe if I had touched it directly, it might have broken. He searched through the apps and found a voice-recording device. Then he held the phone to his lips.

  “Found a disc with George Walsh and Miles Lucas in a…intimate activity.”

  That’s putting it mildly, I said to myself.

  “Nothing I don’t already know about,” Clark continued, “but is Miles trying to frame the mayor or someone else behind it? The mayor has a solid alibi. I have interviews with her doctor in Raleigh the night of the murder.”

  Doctor? I wondered. What kind of doctor was she seeing at night? And why all the way in Raleigh? I hadn’t gotten to her file before I ran out to check her office.

  “Looks like the video was filmed at Miles’s apartment. I will need another warrant.” He clicked off of the recording. As far as I knew Clark hadn’t been to Miles’s apartment more than once, and he knew the video was filmed there? Maybe he guessed. Yet, he had sounded certain.

  To my great relief, Clark decided the search and warrant could wait until a decent hour. Not that I felt fatigue. I had been refreshed hanging out in Clark, and being in a room full of people at the mayor’s office kept me that way, but I wanted to go home and check on Jake and Monica. After confirming Clark intended to head out at ten, I headed home, my mind swirling with all the details of this case.

  Chapter Ten

  “I want to go too,” Monica almost whined. “You’re having all the fun.”

  “This isn’t fun,” I admonished her. “This is me trying to figure out what’s happened to my body. Figuring out who killed George will lead me there, and I want it over as soon as possible.”

  “How do you know it will lead there?” Monica said, sobering me. I firmed my shoulders.

  “No choice. I have to go. I’ll fill you in later.”

  “You better,” Monica demanded. “And be careful. Don’t overdo it.”

  “I won’t.”

  I blinked in front of the police station just as Clark folded into his squad car, and I took the safer back seat this time to ride along. When another officer slung a bag into the trunk and joined the chief, I was glad I’d made my choice. Steam wafted from a couple of topped paper cups the officer held. He handed one to Clark, and Clark breathed deep at the tiny opening in the lid. I sighed, a longing coming over me to smell the coffee and to taste it.

  We headed out and were soon at Miles’s apartment complex. I wondered if Clark had told Miles he was coming and learned someone had because Miles opened the door at the first knock, and Clark dismissed the superintendent he had commandeered to gain entry.

  “Miles Lucas, we have a warrant to search your apartment,” Clark announced, holding up an official-looking sheet of paper.

  Miles didn’t even glance at it. “I don’t see why you have to look through my things. I have nothing to hide!”

  Clark paused with his gaze sweeping the living room, and he glanced at Miles. “You’re saying you were not planning to move out of Summit’s Edge, and when you informed George Walsh of the fact, he sent you this note?”

  Clark held up the sheet I had found in the mayor’s desk.

  “I-I-I…” Miles stuttered and then frowned. “I am an artist. I was offered a job as an animator in Los Angeles. This is my dream come true, and George decided he wanted to hold me in this small town so
we can be together. I told him I don’t love him and that I’m leaving.”

  “That’s when you killed him?” Clark asked, deadpan.

  “Of course not!” Miles hugged himself. Two spots of pink surfaced on his cheeks. “He said he would follow me. I wanted to start over in a new city and make new friends.”

  “You were leaving him behind,” Clark filled in. “He wanted to hold you down. You couldn’t be free with deadweight.”

  “No I couldn’t, but you make it sound bad. It wasn’t.” Miles stomped across to the couch and flounced down on it. “You don’t have anything on me. I won’t be bullied.”

  His attitude was a whole lot different from when he had almost lost it in the library. Was that because he had planted evidence against the mayor and felt confident it would turn Clark’s attention to Olivia Walsh and away from him? If so, he had to be shocked to discover the police still wanted to search his place.

  “Have you seen this disc before?” Clark asked.

  By now Miles sulked and hardly gave the disc a glance. “No.”

  “You didn’t record yourself and George Walsh…uh…”

  Miles’s eyes bugged, and he flushed. “Of course not! Next thing you know he would have used that against me—or as a consolation prize after I was gone.” Miles half grinned and preened. Clark scowled at him.

  “Wait.” Miles sat up straight. “You’re not saying that disc has…”

  Clark ignored him and strolled from the room. I looked at Miles with Clark’s back turned, and the familiar expression of worry transformed the young man’s face. So he wasn’t as confident as he appeared. Thin shaped brows creased over narrowed eyes, and he chewed his bottom lip. I assumed he stared at nothing until I looked closer and noted how his gaze darted about the cluttered room. Miles searched for what might pin the murder on him. I had come across Miles’s folder in Clark’s office. He had no alibi, and he might have just filled in the blanks for motive with his own mouth.

  Clark’s voice reached me from the bedroom, and I hurried down the hall. Clark and his officer stood at Miles’s open closet door. More disorder in the way of clothes and shoes spilled from the interior, but that wasn’t all. Clark or his partner had taken down a box crammed full with discs similar to the one found at the mayor’s office. There must have been hundreds of them, all labeled.

  I floated down to take a closer look and trembled at seeing my name, Clark’s name, Isabelle’s, Monica’s, and many others. Next to the names were what I recognized without even a pause as house numbers. The discs corresponding to Gatsky’s did not include a number, but there were fewer than what was available with people’s houses, which surprised me. One would think more went on at a restaurant. Then I thought maybe the voyeur was interested in private matters behind closed doors.

  Sick and horrified, I drifted to Clark’s side. He gave his officer a clipped order, and the man disappeared from the bedroom. Miles shouted something I couldn’t distinguish, and I a glass shattered on the floor. I thought Clark would charge out and make sure everything was okay, but he stood where he was, scanning the walls. The vents in Miles’s room were overhead in the ceiling, rather than on the wall. Clark shined a flashlight into the interior but seemed satisfied nothing had been hidden there.

  I followed him around the room at first and then grew bored with it. I started to go back to the box of discs when I felt a sort of resonance of power to my right, but there was only bare wall. I stuck my head through to the other side and found the bathroom, nothing more.

  Clark grunted in frustration. I felt the same. I raised a hand, palm out and ran it over the wall like I was a ghostly metal detector. I got no response and started feeling foolish. Then the power surfaced a second time. My hand hovered above a hook screwed into the wall. Jake had squeezed more than a few jackets on them.

  I drifted away from the hooks and glanced at Clark. How to tell him to look here? Blowing out the lights would be too much of a risk and might disable the camera. I had an idea. I solidified my fingers and unhooked one of the jackets to let it fall to the floor. Just as I had hoped, Clark heard and strode over to investigate. He picked up the jacket and checked the floor then was about to hang it up again, but his gaze snagged on the hook.

  Good job, Clark! I gave him a silent cheer.

  Plastic gloves appeared from Clark’s pocket, and he snapped them into place. With ginger touches, he detached the hook from the wall to find a tiny camera behind it, and if I was not mistaken, it continued to record. “Bingo,” he whispered.

  If disorder reigned in the closet, the bedroom put it to shame after Clark tore it apart. He apparently didn’t find what he looked for, but he straightened and shouted for the other officer to bring Miles in. Just as shaken as I felt, Miles haunted his bedroom doorway, eyes big in a pale face. He rung his hands, and Clark pointed to the box of discs.

  “Do you want to explain that?” Clark asked.

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Clark held up the tiny camera. “What about this? I found it in the hook there.” Clark pointed with his chin. “Where’s the receiver, Mr. Lucas?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s not mine! Why would I hide a camera in my room?”

  “Why would anybody?” Clark said. “Miles Lucas, you are under arrest for the murder of George Walsh. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

  “I don’t understand this,” Jake shouted as the officer whipped him around and slapped handcuffs on his wrists. “I’ve done nothing wrong. You have to believe me.”

  “…If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you,” Clark continued. “Do you understand the rights as I have just explained them to you?”

  “No!” Miles sobbed.

  I moved up behind Clark and laid my hands on his shoulders. How can you conclude he’s the killer, Clark? I don’t believe it. Something doesn’t feel right. I could say none of this out loud, and when Clark hitched his shoulders, I backed off, watching as he tucked the box of discs beneath an arm and left the room.

  * * * *

  Scandal in Summit’s Edge!

  This time I did read the news report Luis had written—over Monica’s shoulder as she took a break at the restaurant. She read every word out loud anyway, making comments as if to herself, but she knew I was there. I loved how she talked to me the same way as we had when I had my body. Monica never missed a step. She kept on going as my best friend and confidant.

  “It’s got to be one of the officers,” Monica surmised, and her face brightened. “Or wait, what if it’s the chief himself?” She giggled. “He seems like a man who takes the law seriously and wouldn’t even steal a sticky pad from the office, but I bet it’s all a front.”

  I scowled at her although she couldn’t see me and glanced around to see if anyone was nearby. “Are you accusing Clark Givens of murder, Monica?”

  She blinked at me. “No, of course not. Well… I’m not going to write anyone off, but I meant, what if Clark was the one leaking info to everyone. He might have a thing for spreading gossip. Everyone has a vice.”

  “Clark would never do that!”

  A slow grin spread over her face. “Oh? You’re starting to like him now that you’ve been tailing him everywhere.”

  I sputtered. “It’s not like that.”

  She made a noise of disbelief. “Ian will be jealous. I can’t believe my girl Libby’s playing two men and not even alive.”

  “I am not ‘playing’ two men,” I said, sounding high and mighty in my own ears. “I am not interested in a relationship with either of them.”

  “Okay.”

  She sounded unconvinced.

  “Are you talking to yourself?” Sadie entered the restaurant and shut the door behind her.

  I groaned loud enough for Monica to hear me but not enough for Sadie to. “That’s my cue,” I whispered to her. “I’m going over to the station to see
how the police are dealing with the newsbreak.”

  “You do that,” Monica said under her breath, amused.

  While my annoying friend chatted with Sadie, I made my escape and blinked into the police station. My mouth dropped open at the madhouse it was. Citizens packed the small reception area, all shouting to be heard at the same time. The officer on duty stood behind his desk with hands raised and waved them up and down in an attempt to control the crowd.

  “Everyone, please, one at a time. I can’t hear any of you if you shout at me.”

  Sylvia Campbell, my old boss, was the first to speak when the noise ebbed. She slammed a small electronic device on the desk and pointed at it while she sneered at the officer. “I found that in sunroom! Someone has been spying on me, and I want to know what the police are doing to find and arrest that person!”

  A man in the crowd spoke up, waving a similar device in his hand. “This was in my living room. Nothing goes on in there except me in my underwear watching the game. Who is the Peeping Tom, and what is the chief going to do?”

  “Well I heard they arrested Miles Lucas,” another person said. “Maybe he had something to do with it.”

  The shouting rose to a crescendo until a slamming door swung everyone’s attention to Clark exiting his office. He walked to the officer’s desk and frowned at the pile of tiny cameras. “I specifically instructed that you all let the police come out to retrieve the cameras and to keep your hands off them. How am I supposed to lift a fingerprint when you touch all over the evidence?”

  No one seemed to care about Clark’s trials. They wanted an arrest now or for him to confirm Miles was guilty to set their minds at ease. Clark refused to do so. The front door opened, and still another citizen of Summit’s Edge entered. I recognized one of the employees from the local bank. He squeezed through the crowd and placed a baggie on the desk with a camera inside. I clutched my hands together, hoping with this maybe Clark could get a print, but the man’s next words sent a chill racing down my spine.