Ghosts are People Too

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  I stared at the back of his car as it raced away. “Lord, help him. He’s a hot mess.” I wasn’t sure if he understood what I’d said to him, if he knew Jeffrey was dead, or if he’d rushed off in a hurry in disbelief or anger. Either way, I had other things to worry about.

  Like, for example, why he thought Gen might be dead next.

  Chapter Five

  I did my due diligence on the Kentworth history, and I discovered more than I’d expected. I truly loved my job. I loved discovering information about days long gone, the people that lived before me and their stories. People hadn’t changed a whole lot. The surroundings and the things available to them might have, but people were the same. They wanted love, respect, things that made them feel complete, and many searched for those things in their community.

  Sometimes doing historical research required a lot of time and a shovel big enough to dig through the rocks of history that buried the truth, and other times the information shouted out, Over here! The information is over here!

  The Kentworth family’s history screamed bloody murder.

  At least Anna Kentworth’s history.

  The wife and mother of two was twenty-nine-years-old when she died a brutal, horrific death. Though tragic and violent, her death helped me understand her desire to be left alone.

  Town records and old newspapers were abundant in Castleberry. For such a small town in the 2000s, in the beginning of 1860, it was up and coming , filled with opportunity and wealth. The local newspaper, originally a small two pager, did a fine job of staying up and running during the war, even growing to a six-page spread because of the massive death and destruction rampant in town.

  Anna’s death came about two years before the war ended, on a beautiful, sunny fall day. It was seventy-four degrees, and from what I knew of my hometown, I suspected the leaves in various shades of decay—greens, reds, and even browns—very likely floated in the breeze to rest on the ground. But it wasn’t a happy day. Castleberry had lost six townspeople. Anna’s home was taken over by Union soldiers who pilfered through the Kentworth belongings, ate what little food they may have had, destroyed their crops and livestock, and worst of all, raped and beat the young wife and mother.

  Anna’s husband hadn’t been heard from in months, but records indicated he wasn’t likely dead at that time. Her children, however, were already deceased. Dysentery took her small boy, a three-year-old named William, along with her five-year-old daughter Annabelle.

  As if the gun fire and canons exploding weren’t enough, the children lived in fear of the men marching through Castleberry, destroying their homes, their livestock, and their innocence. I silently prayed their deaths were quick and less painful than reports of dysentery claimed.

  The last day of Anna’s life, she’d been beaten and raped by three soldiers, then thrown out of her own home like trash. Beaten and scared, she somehow gathered the strength to walk two miles to town, collapsing, battered and bloody, in front of the general store. Doctor Henry McGruder did his best to save her, but it simply wasn’t enough. She died in his office, crying for her husband William.

  I sniffled as tears dropped onto my desk. The world I lived in was by no means perfect, but it was miles better than the war zone of the Civil War.

  I prayed for Anna and her children’s souls, and dug deeper, searching for what I could find about her husband and kin.

  After another thirty minutes of research, I finally uncovered what happened to William Kentworth. He’d died in the battle of Ringgold Gap on November 27, 1863 along with nearly one thousand Confederate and Union soldiers.

  The battle, a one day event with the win going to the South, was a decision of the North after two successful battles nearby. Feeling what I assumed was confident and prepared to win, Union Major General Joseph B. Hooker moved to siege Taylor Ridge, the point in Ringgold Gap where the Western and Atlantic Railroads passed. History claimed he’d chosen that location knowing Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne had directed his men there. Whether they’d gone to rest or hide wasn’t clear, but there was no rest for the weary, and many lost their lives that day.

  Anna Kentworth didn’t know her husband’s fate, and it was quite possible she’d stayed on, along with her children, waiting for her husband’s return. Why he hadn’t, I didn’t know, but I knew someone that might.

  I picked up my cell and dialed the only person who truly understood my gift.

  “Hey, Chantilly, how’re you?”

  “Angela, hi. I’m great. Well, confused, but great. I was wondering if you have a minute to chat?”

  “Sure. I’m with my dogs at the dog park, so you’ll have to excuse the barking—theirs and mine—but shoot.”

  I laughed. “I won’t load you with the details, but I’ve got a ghost that’s pretty scary, and I’d like to help her.”

  She interrupted me. “Wow, you’re taking the bull by the horns with this psychic medium stuff. Good for you.”

  I smiled. “I don’t really have much of a choice. My best friend is the suspect of a murder investigation.”

  “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too, and it was her husband, but I know she’s innocent.”

  “I understand. I know my best friend better than I know myself, and if she were ever accused of something like that, I’d know the truth by just a look in her eyes.”

  “That’s kind of how it is for Gen and I.”

  “So, who’s the spirit? It’s not her husband because you said she’s a she.”

  “Yes, strangely, I haven’t seen the husband. You’d think he’d pop in and tell us what happened, but he hasn’t.”

  “Spirits aren’t always that willing or able to help. It could be that he’s already moved on and has no desire to return, or possibly he doesn’t remember. Often the details of their deaths are fuzzy, at least for a while.”

  “That makes sense. The woman spirit, the one I’m asking about, she and her kids may have seen something, but when I approached them, she scared me off.”

  She laughed. “They tend to do that when they’re in defense mode, or if someone messes with their space. Grounded spirits are typically that way for a reason. Is there something you think might be keeping her here? Maybe you can help her and then she’ll help you.”

  “I did some research, and her entire family died because of the Civil War. Her death was exceptionally horrific, and the only thing I can think of is that she’s waiting for her husband. She didn’t know if he was alive or not when she died.”

  “Did you find out if he was?”

  “Yes, I did. He was, but he’s not with her. I can’t imagine what she must be feeling. Spending eternity waiting for someone that’s not coming.”

  “That’s not always the case. He may have tried, but he can’t for reasons we don’t know. And it’s possible he’s come, but she’s not seen him. If she’s stuck in a bad place—emotionally, I mean—she may not be able to see him yet.” She hollered to her dogs. “Or, he’s someplace he can’t leave.”

  “A place he can’t leave?”

  “Spirits don’t always go, you know, up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you believe in heaven?”

  My parents’ faces flashed in my mind, and I imagined them sitting together on a fluffy white cloud. Okay, so my image of heaven was similar to a child’s, but I was their kid, and it comforted me to imagine them like that. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then you have to believe in the other place, too. Everything balances, and not everyone ends up where we expect.”

  My heart sank. I knew that deep down but hearing it from someone with experience in the afterlife made it all too real. “Okay. I understand. Do you think I should go back, tell her what I know?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  I stumbled over my words, trying to sound like I wasn’t terrified, but I was. I sighed. “Yes. A lot.”

  “Let me ask you this, are you motivated to help your friend?”

  “One h
undred percent.” There was no stumbling over my words that time.

  “Then go back. I’ll ask Fran to keep you on her radar in case you need her.”

  GEN AND I HEADED OVER to the park for Austin’s lacrosse practice. Thankfully, his new best friend’s mother offered to pick him up after school. I had a love hate relationship with Austin’s sport of choice, but not because Detective Jack Levitt was his coach, though that was something that ate at my gut as of late. It was the roughness of the sport that often had me cringing and my heart racing. Austin was an attack, the position designed to shoot and score. He was good at it, but since the other team’s defense’s ultimate goal was to stop him, he was knocked around and beaten a lot, and his momma hated that.

  Sure, there were illegal moves and penalties, and the refs did a good job of catching them, but when your one hundred and twenty pound (give or take) kid goes flying through the air after a side throttle by a defenseman the size of a professional football player

  that weighs more than Buddha, and who’s probably playing below his true age group, it’s hard to keep your cool.

  I knew that from experience.

  Gen cringed every time someone smacked into my son. “Should they be hitting him like that? Isn’t that wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. It’s perfectly legal. Well, not every hit, but some.”

  She grimaced. “Oh, heaven help the boy that hurts your son. And his momma. Help her, too.”

  I laughed. “It’s been hard, keeping my cool, but Jack’s good at keeping the teams in line. I think because he’s a cop the other coaches force their kids to chill or something. At least most of the time.”

  She shrugged. “I guess he does have his advantages.”

  “Other than thinking you’re a suspect, he’s not a bad guy. Except for that whole not talking to me much thing.”

  She adjusted her bum on her seat. “These bleachers are so hard.”

  There was that word again. Bleacher. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was part of the equation, or just a random word by a random ghost. Except how would a little boy from the Civil War era know the word unless he’d heard it?

  I grabbed my phone and Googled the word, wondering if it had some meaning I wasn’t aware of, and it did. Two, in fact.

  Other than the actual seating definition and the verb to bleach, bleacher was defined in the Urban Dictionary as a racial slur. My career afforded me the opportunity to learn many words used throughout time, and I knew racial slurs and word choice during the Civil War era didn’t include bleacher.

  The second definition gave me pause. A play on the verb, bleachers were defined as money launderers. People that cleaned dirty money.

  Dirty money. I Googled that, too. Wikipedia’s definition shined a light on and almost confirmed for me what Gen and I both thought before. Jeffrey was laundering money. Dirty money went through a bleaching or cleaning process that often involved several steps, and I wondered if the deposits into the account in Gen’s name were the final step.

  Jeffrey was laundering money, I knew it, and he was the bleacher. I jumped out of my seat and screamed, “That’s it.”

  Gen stared up at me. “Honey, you okay?”

  The boys were off field for a quick water break before heading back on to practice plays.

  The few mothers at practice gawked at me, too.

  “Gen, you didn’t kill Jeffrey. Whoever wants your money did, and I think I know who that is.”

  “Of course I didn’t. Do you think it’s Harvey?”

  I dropped back to my seat. How could I begin to explain what I knew without mentioning the little boy ghost and the fact that I could see the dead?

  I bounced my leg and chose my words wisely. “Bleachers are people that clean dirty money. Money that’s been laundered. They run it through a system of deposits and withdrawals, and eventually the money gets back to them clean.”

  “I don’t get it. Clean?”

  “Clean in the sense that it’s not traceable as the money that was originally laundered. I think Jeffrey was in the final leg of cleaning that money, and that’s why it was in your account. Someone came after him for it, but they couldn’t find it, so they killed him. And the person that killed him either knows you know where the money is, or thinks you do.”

  Her whole body stiffened. “And you think you know who it is?”

  I nodded slowly. “Harvey Barrington.”

  She stared at me for a moment and then laughed. She waved me off with her hand. “Harvey is all talk and no action. I told you that.”

  I tapped my foot on the bleacher bottom again. “Then why is he in town?”

  She flicked her eyes at me. “He’s in town?”

  I nodded. “He came to the office looking for Jeffrey and you earlier. I told him Jeffrey was dead, and I said you weren’t there. He didn’t believe me.” I pressed my lips together and recalled his reaction to my telling him Jeffrey had died. “He seemed surprised about Jeffrey, but it could have been an act. He said he knew you were here, and he knew Jeffrey had come looking for you.”

  “I...I don’t understand. How would he...how could he...does he know I have the money?”

  “I’m not sure. An assumption, maybe? Or maybe Jeffrey told him?” I stared over at Jack on the other side of the field. “But I think we need to tell Jack what’s going on.”

  After practice I rushed Austin off to the car to turn it on, load his things, and guzzle down a bottle of electrolytes to replenish his dehydrated body. I wanted to talk to Jack, and I didn’t want my son to hear any of it. “Gen, I’d like to talk to Jack alone. Would you mind?” I tilted my head toward the parking lot. “Just hang with Austin for a few minutes?”

  She saluted me and headed to the car. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I did my best imitation of a woman not at all uncomfortable approaching an attractive man that basically wanted nothing to do with her and considered her friend the main suspect in a murder, keeping my shoulders back, my head held high, and a smile stretched across my face as I walked toward my once friend.

  He smiled as I approached. We walked to the side, putting distance and privacy between us and the kids left hanging around. “I’ve got some good news,” he said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You caught Jeffrey’s killer?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet, but I can safely say your friend likely isn’t a murderer.”

  “The clothes came back clean, didn’t they?”

  He nodded. “As you said they would.”

  “I told you she didn’t kill her husband.”

  He tossed a ball into the bucket. “That you did.”

  I picked up another one and tossed it too, but I missed. Jack grabbed it as it rolled away. “Did you read through the emails?”

  “Some. I’ve got someone working on the rest of them.”

  “Harvey Barrington came looking for Jeffrey and Gen today. I told him Jeffrey had been murdered, and though he seemed shocked, I’m not sure he wasn’t lying.”

  “Why do you think he was lying?”

  “Emails aside, Gen said he and Jeffrey had had issues, and he kind of confirmed that when I saw him.”

  “He confirmed there was problems with the business?”

  “No, not the business. He said he needed the money and that Gen had better watch out because she could be next.”

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Does Gen have the money?”

  “No, of course not.” I lied. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t want my friend arrested in some laundering scheme she wasn’t involved in because her husband was a thief and had taken their money for it. Even though I didn’t understand it all, I wanted to protect my friend.

  “What happened next?”

  “Nothing. He just left.”

  “Do you know where he was going?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t say.”

  He gathered up the practice cones and put them next to the bucket of balls. “Did you get a look at his car?
”

  I nodded. “Black Mercedes convertible. Maybe five years old?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “My father loved those cars. Always wanted one.”

  He smiled. “Did you get his plate number?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that, but maybe Gen knows it?”

  “We’ll get it. We can keep an eye on him that way.”

  “Do you know what a bleacher is?”

  He pointed to the bleachers across the field. “Those or the money laundering kind?”

  I nodded. “I think that’s what Jeffrey was, but he decided to keep the money for himself.”

  “It’s probable. We can’t investigate the money laundering claim, but we can investigate the murder. If that leads us to the scheme, we’ll give that information over to the feds, but we’ll still prosecute the killer for murder.”

  “Harvey said he wanted the money.”

  “Because he’s involved.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Give me a minute.” He stepped away, talked to someone briefly, and then returned to me. “I’ve got someone looking for him now.”

  “I’m worried about Gen.”

  He glanced at the bleachers. “Where is she?”

  I stared at Jack. “At the car with Austin.” I realized then I just put my best friend and only child in danger. “I’ve got to go.” I bolted away as he gathered up the cones and bucket and trailed closely behind me, passing me not even a quarter of the way toward the parking lot. That military training did him good.

  I was out of breath from the quick jog, which was only a tenth of a mile, if even. “You guys okay?”

  Gen and Austin were battling with his lacrosse sticks like they were swords. She jabbed her stick—his extra practice one–at his stomach.

  He raised his left arm and returned the favor by jabbing his into her leg with his right arm. “Got you!”

  Jack smiled. “Nice move there, buddy.”

  Austin smiled back as he leaned his stick against the car. “Thanks, Coach.”