by Dakota Kahn
Nope. She was going for a gun, which she trained right on me. Aw, heck.
“Close that folder. Put down that phone. Good, now put your hands where I can see them.”
I set my phone down carefully, then closed the folder, glancing down at the gallows. Then I put my hands right on the back of the chair, and looked her in the eye.
“You know just how to push Xena’s buttons, huh?” I said. “Been doing it since you were kids.”
“She’s a pushover. Beautiful and kinda stupid and everybody loves her. Or they did. I’m hoping your equally stupid boyfriend just shoots her so we’re spared the trial. He’s going to have his own tragedy to deal with, too,” she said, cocking the gun.
“You think you can just shoot me in town hall and nobody’s going to find out?” I said. “Someone can walk through that door at any minute.”
That was Blake’s cue, but he didn’t take it. Nobody walked in any door, and Claire stepped closer.
“Right now it’ll be self defense. Angry that we got her ugly little drunk killed, Kate Becker lashed out and I defended myself.”
“Thin stuff,” I said.
“In a town whose entire police force doesn’t seem to like you much, whose city council has been trying to get you to shut the hell up all weekend? Maybe it’ll fly, maybe it won’t. I think on my feet.”
Closer, closer.
“So tell me. Did Larry kill James, and then you brought in Rip to frame him? Or was the whole elaborate scheme set up in advance?” I said.
“Plans inside plans. Two or three of them fell through. Larry wasn’t supposed to hit him over the head. It was supposed to be an accident playing with his stupid gallows. But when that didn’t work out, I used what fate had handed us in that drunk’s attack on my husband, and here we are.”
“But why? Did you hate him so much?” I asked, trying to look sad for a man I didn’t much care for, myself.
But this woman, ugh. She just shrugged.
“I’d had enough of him. So… away he went. And now away Xena goes, and after a suitable period Larry and I can be together.”
“Ugh,” I said, feeling like I was looking at a big ‘ol pile of slugs in a person suit. “So you’re a horrible person doing horrible things. Why’d you bring it to my town?”
“Oh, gee, why did I do these things in an underachieving, undereducated podunk? See, that’s why you’re here and not in a city, because you’re too stupid to not be here.”
“This place is full of great people. Like Blake, who’ll figure out what you did.”
She scoffed, and stepped a little closer.
“And Chief Drupal, who’s shrewd, but not corrupt. Or Tyler Zane.”
That stopped her. “Tyler Zane?”
“Yeah, Tyler Zane. Does security at the big hotel. And he showed me this cool app that can broadcast video from your phone onto closed circuit TV monitors. He set it all up.”
She started to say, “Wh—” Then her eyes got big and wide. She looked down at my phone, saw herself looking back from the video image.
Then she looked back up, seething, raised her gun…
Then gasped. She raised her gun up, shouted, shot.
I fell down, clutching at wherever I might have been wounded… it was nowhere. I heard her drop her gun, and scream, “No! No!”
Then she ran. I looked up, and saw what she was screaming at.
It was just who I saw in the saloon, and ran after and almost got myself killed because of.
There, maybe a little shiny, definitely see-through, but 100% real-looking to me, was James Wendover’s ghost, standing in front of the back door, which now had three bullet holes in it.
I blinked, and he disappeared. The door opened, and Lawrence Greene was on the other side. He looked in the room, blinked with his mouth open, then fell down, shot to death.
“No,” Mrs. Wendover said, shaking her head. “No, no,” like she was denying the bullets that came from her gun, or the vision of her late husband that had appeared in the door… just in time to make her aim it at the accomplice in his own murder, condemning them both.
I would have stood up and said so, at the time, but the lady still had a gun and was waving it around, and I’m not quite that stupid. A door behind her opened, and both detective Liz Schwille and Deputy Woody Woodman were there, weapons out, serious expressions on their faces.
“Drop it right now, Mrs. Wendover.”
For a second, I though she wouldn’t. I thought she was going to take this whole horrible thing to the grimmest, most violent conclusion possible. But then, with a cry of grief so deep that it could only have been for herself (this woman couldn’t even muster a fake cry for the husband she murdered) she collapsed in a pile on the floor, wailing.
Blake arrived after the ambulances. He’d caught the running Mrs. Greene, and looked a lot worse for wear for having done so - bloody nose, torn shirt. The lady did not give up easily. And because my Blake is a gentleman, the instant he understood the situation he took the cuffs off her without hesitation. She was scuffed, and though she still had the frantic look in her eyes, she wasn’t screaming or clawing at anyone anymore. She watched a gurney wheel off her dead husband without making so much as a sound.
She had a lot to think about, of course, but where her thoughts were leading, she kept completely to herself.
Chapter 21
So, other than that, how was my weekend?
Because I can’t tell you the rest of what happened that night. It was a blur. Adrenalin and terror and the accumulation of hospital trips and tension and sadness kind of turned me into a big ball of emotions. I didn’t bawl in public or run off screaming, but… I’m probably happier not remembering.
Even if it means not seeing the look of Liz Schwille’s face when she found out I out-detectived her. Ha!
Because it also means not having to see Xena Greene go through what happened to her, from the betrayal, to being chased by the cops to her husband (however loathsome) being shot. And having to face raising a kid on her own.
And I saw, briefly, that private investigator again. He waved at me from across the room, then disappeared. I think I saw Adriana Feather go with him. Whatever that meant, I’d have to puzzle it out later.
That was a rollercoaster that night, but looking back at it, all I remember completely, distinctly, after seeing that ghost fade away, and Lawrence Greene fall through the door…
Is I got a phone call.
“Did you figure it out?” the quiet voice said on the phone. I hadn’t looked at who it was when I picked it up, like a zombie. Heck, I think I picked it up to throw the phone away, but instead I answered it and took the call.
So I recognized, immediately, the deep dark voice of The Landowner.
“Figure what out?” I said, cagey, even a little frightened.
“Who killed James Wendover?” he said, sonorous, a little pretentious sounding.
“It was his wife and her lover, the horrible Lawrence Greene. The gallows James Wendover designed was made to go up and down. They conked him on the head, lowered the arm, tied him to it… and I want to quit talking about it, I feel sick.”
“So it was both of them? At once? That’s not a very good answer,” the Landowner said.
“Well, a lot of times things don’t have good answers. And I don’t much care, because Rip Chiaki was killed by these people just as much as James Wendover, and no one else cares. So I want to sit at home and be sad about that.”
He laughed his creepy rattling laugh at what I said.
I didn’t have the energy to tell him off. I just said, “Goodbye,” and moved to hang up.
“No, Miss Becker. You misunderstand me. I’m not a sentimental man, and I was not moved by what you said - do not mistake me. It’s just exactly what Rip said.”
Suddenly, Rip Chiaki’s voice was on the phone, playing like a recording.
“Eh, none of them give a damn abouts me anyhow. Except that lawyer girly. Hated throwing her off l
ike that, but didn’t want nobody to think she helped me get out. She don’t deserve no trouble on my account.”
“What in the world—” I started, but the Landowner was back on again.
“Just as you did not give up on the man just because he happened to be dead, nor do I quit listening or talking to my own clients, just because they’ve given up the whole being alive thing. Miss Becker, I retain your services. You keep your own office, I need a low-key operative in town. You see, we both care about Crestgold, and Whispering Pines. And will work to see that it is kept in the best hands possible. There’s many threats facing our town, which needs to be able to thrive. Threats from outside, threats from within. Threats from your world, and from mine. I need an invisible hand that does not follow me for money, but of her own conscience. Congratulations, Kate Becker.”
I didn’t have a single foggiest notion of what the heck this weirdo was saying.
“Your world?” I said.
He laughed again, an empty and mirthless sound.
“A world that will seem very strange to you, do not doubt. A world where you might see things you don’t understand, just like you did tonight, with that vision of James Wendover. I helped with that, and no, you don’t get to know how. Despite the strangeness, you’ve found your own two feet, Miss Becker, and stood on them proudly. Do not doubt that our work together will pull the rug out from under them again and again. Be prepared. Be clever. And keep your eyes open.”
Then he was gone.
A car drove up just at that moment, and my first thought was to get my pepper spray from my purse. Before I could find it, Matador rushed the front door and pecked at it, quacking mercilessly.
That was a sure sign Blake was coming in.
I opened the door, and we kind of collapsed on each other.
“I haven’t slept for 40 hours,” he said, his voice husky and harsh.
“I almost got shot,” I said.
“You win,” he said, and kissed me.
Somehow, we both got enough energy to make a midnight dinner. I broiled some steaks, he boiled some corn (about the limit of his abilities.) Matador watched us from the floor, watching skeptically to make sure no fowl were involved in our meal.
I smiled as I watched the steak turn from red to brown, smelled it cooking. It was a living, loving, human kind of smell, two people making food for one another. It gave me the courage to face this other… place. This world, the Landowner’s world where, it seemed, I was going to spend a lot of time and energy.
“Hey,” I said, as we sat down to dinner, together. “I got a new client. I think everything’s going to be okay.”
And just as I said that, I thought, whoops. Did it again.
The End
Thanks for reading Kate & Blake vs. The Ghost Town. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend, and deeply appreciated. Thanks,
Dakota
About the Author
Dakota Kahn lives and writes on the Central Coast of California, assisted by a large record collection and a meddlesome cat.
Other Works
Kate & Blake vs The Cat Heir
Kate & Blake vs The Billionaires
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My web site:
dkcozy.blogspot.com