Jack checked the area around us, but I spoke before he had a chance. “It’s them, Jack. Jackie and Charles. I don’t know which one killed him, but they were at the house where both men died.”
He stared at me. “What? How do you know that?”
“Tire tracks. There were tire tracks at the scene, and I...I saw them.” A ghost boy saw them, but I couldn’t say that.
“There were a lot of tire tracks at the scene, Chantilly. You’re not making any sense.”
“Check them. You’ll see. They’re BMW tracks, I promise.” I hoped, at least. Little William hadn’t said anything related to tire tracks, he’d just pointed to them, but I had a hunch he was showing me something important, and I ran with it.
He draggedhis hand down his chin. I noticed he had a cleft when he did that, and I’d never seen it before. “Okay.” He tapped a message into his phone. “Where’s Gen?”
“At the historical society.”
JACK RUSHED OFF TO call in a be on the lookout for alert for both Jackie and Charles, and I hightailed it to the historical society to get Gen and the cash to the police station. Only my best friend wasn’t the only one there, and Olivia was nowhere in sight.
Charles Clydesdale sat with his leg crossed on the couch, right next to Gen with a gun in his hand pointed at her head. “Well, well, we meet again, Ms. Adair.”
I stood there, my legs shaking and my hands sweating, trying desperately to maintain my cool. “Charles.” I glanced at Gen. She stared at me, pleading for my help as tears fell from her eyes.
“How nice to see you, Ms. Adair. Now, perhaps you can help me convince your friend here to get me my money.” He waved the gun at her. “She seems to be a stubborn one, much like her dead husband and his loser business partner.”
I inched closer to the table near the entrance to the formal room. The best thing about a historical society museum was the old, heavy knickknacks on display. Southerners liked their stuff, whether modern day or from years ago. The current display held replicas from the movie, Gone with the Wind, and some of those replicas including candle sticks and horseshoes made of iron could sub for a weapon if need be. I moved as close to the table as possible without being obvious and kept the large candlestick in view through the corner of my eye.
“She doesn’t have the money, Charles.”
He laughed. “Of course she does, and if she doesn’t give it to me, you’ll both be dead.” He smiled at Gen. “You don’t want to be the one to blame for four people’s deaths now, do you?”
“Four?” I asked.
He made a tsk sound as he shook his head. “Poor Jackie. She thought she could help. Thought I’d give her some of the cash. Fool. She was useless, so I let her go.”
Gen stuttered. “She’s...she’s upstairs. He shot her.”
My heart raced. “Charles, you’re giving yourself away. You can’t think the cops won’t figure out who killed us. They’ll catch you. It’s only a matter of time.”
He laughed. “They can’t catch me if I’m out of the country.”
Was he right? Either way, I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep him talking. The more he talked, the more likely we were to stay alive. “Why’d you do it?”
“For the money, woman. What do you think?”
“But it’s not your money,” Gen said.
“Of course it is, now that it’s clean. It was payment for services rendered.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Women.” He said that while practically spitting through his teeth. “So stupid. Of course you don’t understand. I brought us the client before you friend’s husband here pushed me out. He found out what I was doing and tried to stop me, but then he got selfish. Took the money and hid it. I figured it out, and I confronted him. He confessed. Said he was working with the authorities to catch me, but something happened to the money. So, I killed him.”
I knew that something was Gen finding it and taking it. I shook my head. “They know then. The authorities are already onto you.”
He laughed. “You think I care?” He whipped the gun up in the air and pointed it toward me. “One shot to the gut, and you’re down. You won’t die right away, but Gen here, she’ll watch you suffer, listen to you beg for mercy, beg for me to end it all, and I’ll promise to put you out of your misery if she tells me where the money is. Simple as that. You women tend to have some weird devotion to each other.”
“Unlike men?” I could barely keep my voice from cracking. “Go ahead then, shoot me. Test that devotion. I know my friend, and I know she won’t give you that money no matter what do. You see, you don’t get what friendship is. Gen knows I’ve done everything I can to find out the truth, and we have. Jeffrey didn’t take that money. He was working to bring you down. She won’t let you get it, not knowing she lost her husband for doing the right thing.” I paused and swallowed hard. “So, go ahead, shoot me.” I was gambling on odds I couldn’t understand, but my heart knew. It knew Gen wouldn’t give up, and it knew she knew I wouldn’t want her to.
He stood and sauntered over, closing the gap between us. I stared at him, scooting even closer to the table with the candlestick. The next thing I knew, Gen screamed and bounded off the couch, grabbed a large candelabra from the table in front of her and smacked Charles over the back of the head with it. As he went down, she lost her balance and went down on top of him.
The gun slid across the floor. Charles growled, tossing Gen off his back as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees.
“Get the gun,” Gen screamed.
I grabbed the candlestick with both hands and whacked Charles across the side of the head in an underhand, one swing motion that sent him falling back to the floor. Gen jumped on top of him to hold him down, but it didn’t matter.
Charles Clydesdale wasn’t moving.
I leaned against the wall and slid slowly to the ground, tears streaming down my face, my breathing quick and short.
I grabbed my phone from my purse and dialed 9-1-1, then I moved over to Charles Clydesdale and sat on his legs, doing my part to help keep the maniac from getting away.
Minutes later the front door opened. Gen flung herself to the gun and grabbed it. With hands shaking uncontrollably, she tried to hold the gun up to whomever it was entering, but she couldn’t she set it down and cried.
“Chantilly? Gen?” Jack rushed in, saw us lying there in a heap, drew his gun and held it toward us. “You two okay?”
We both nodded.
He kicked Charles lightly on the shoulder.
“He’s bleeding pretty bad, but he’s still breathing,” I said. I’d watched his chest slowly move up and down.
Jack helped Gen up, but I waved him off.
“I’m okay, but Jackie’s upstairs. She’s dead. He shot her.”
He nodded. “I’ll have someone go up there.”
“Olivia.” I panicked. “Gen, where’s Olivia?” Everything was fuzzy. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, and I panicked, worried Charles had done something to Olivia too. “Is she dead?”
Gen fell back into the couch and laughed. “She’s at Dollar General.”
A TEAM OF FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS dressed in black suits with white shirts and various dark colored ties met Gen and I at the police station late the next day. Gen held onto the portable safe containing the money she’d withdrawn days earlier.
Jack stuck by our sides, but there was nothing he could do to convince the men that some of the money, the money removed from Gen’s family accounts, was rightfully hers. They promised their team of forensic accountants would dig deep into the situation, and she’d be kept informed of the situation.
“It’s okay,” she told me privately. “It’s going to be okay.”
I tried to speak with Jack privately, to thank him, but we never had a minute alone. I hoped it wasn’t intentional on his part.
The good news was Gen had a trust that would keep her settled and if she managed it wisely, comfortable for the r
est of her life. The bad news was Gen never quite understood the concept of pinching pennies.
We arrived back at the historical society after a long, exhausting day filled with questions and very few answers. With just a few hours until lacrosse practice, we both needed some calm. When we entered, I glanced into the parlor where Charles nearly killed the two of us.
Everything was different. The room, just a day earlier a homage to Gone with the Wind, now showcased the town’s beginnings and the founding father, Andrew Castleberry once again.
“Olivia?”
She stepped into the hallway from the kitchen and jogged over when she saw me. She wrapped her arms around me and cried. “Oh, Chantilly. I was so worried. I’m so glad you two are okay.”
The front door to the museum opened, and Del and Thelma walked in.
“You like it?” Del asked.
I smiled. “Did you all do this?”
Olivia clapped her hands in excitement. “We sure did. We didn’t want y’all to come back here and be reminded of what that awful man did to you.”
Thelma held up her arms and flexed her biceps. They were small, but mighty. “She asked us to help. We may be wrinkled, but we can still get down and dirty when we have to.”
Gen giggled.
Del shook her head and laughed. “That don’t mean what you think it does, you crazy old biddie.”
“I really appreciate this.” I winked at Thelma. “Now, we’ve got a tour and a party to finish planning. You ladies think you can get down and dirty and help us with that, too?”
We finished the final plans in just an hour and were all set for the opening party and pre-tour tour of the haunted historical society. None of us could wait for the event of the year, as Gen called it. And we all needed to get out and have some fun.
GEN AND I FELT LIKE celebrities at lacrosse practice that night. Parents sat near us, first whispering and staring, then finally asking us for the gruesome details, but Gen and I both brushed them off, giving them as little information as possible. The last thing we wanted to do was talk about it all over again. Besides, we’d been told to keep the details as brief anyway. Charles Clydesdale would be tried in a local court for the murders, and a jury would eventually be selected from people in the county. No one wanted us to alter the possible outcome.
I’d asked Gen to drive to the field separately. I’d wanted her to bring Austin home so I could try and catch Jack alone. It was time we had an honest talk.
Several months ago, I’d been a minor suspect in Bobby’s murder, but the actual killer was someone no one expected, and I was ultimately the one that figured it out. The tension between us had been thick and awkward ever since, and though he’d talked to me more over the past few weeks than he had in months, it was mostly professional, and I missed the friendship we’d rekindled before everything happened. It was time I told him that.
I gathered a bunch of lacrosse balls and dropped them into the bucket one by one as Jack collected the practice cones.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He glanced up at me from his squatted position. “For what?”
I lugged the bucket over and set it down beside him. It was heavier than I thought. “Honestly, I don’t know. For whatever I did to make you give me the cold shoulder like you have, I guess.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that called ghosting now?”
I smiled. “I’m not sure. I’m still getting the LOL’s and OMG’s figured out.”
He nodded. “You know there’s a list of those online? I had to review it when I started coaching. Kids don’t just text them, they use them like they’re words.” He shook his head then. “I don’t get it.”
“Jack.”
He caught my eye. “Chantilly, it’s not you. It’s me.”
I dropped my head and laughed. “I honestly didn’t think I’d ever hear that again.”
He laughed too. “I don’t mean it the way it sounds.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve got a job I love. I coach a great group of boys. Things are good.” He grabbed a ball and tossed it into the bucket. “I’m happy. I was happy.” He sat on the practice bleachers. I sat next to him. “And then you come back to town.”
“And what? Made you unhappy?”
He placed his hand on my knee. “No. Just the opposite. Listen, I’m not good at this kind of thing, sharing my feelings, I guess. But you made me realize I was missing something. Something I didn’t even know I wanted.”
I nudged my shoulder into his. “You might have mentioned your thoughts on relationships and desire not to have anything serious.”
“You might have agreed.”
“I did.”
“But it’s different with you. You’re easy to talk to. I can be myself around you. I let my tough cop guard down.”
“Tough cop?” I shifted my head around, pretending to search the field. “Where?”
He smiled. “Funny. I don’t know how to handle what happens when I’m with you.”
“So, you avoid me?”
He shrugged. “Not intentionally.”
“Sure feels like it.”
He sighed. “It scared me, seeing you at the historical society the other day. You could have been killed. I should have gone straight there, but I didn’t. I put out that stupid BOLO instead.” He removed his black and blue baseball cap and rubbed the top of his head. “When you’re around, I don’t think clearly. I can’t be off my guard like that. It’s not professional, and it doesn’t keep people safe. People like you.”
“So, what are you saying?”
He angled his body toward my and held my hands. “I’m saying this is new to me, and I need to figure out how to handle it. I’m a Marine. Marine’s protect and serve. They don’t lose focus, and neither do detectives. I have to figure out how to, I don’t know, how to balance this.”
If I’d heard what I thought I did, Jack Levitt just told me, in a roundabout way, he had feelings for me. My stomach flipped. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. We were rekindling our friendship, and I miss that.”
“We weren’t just rekindling a friendship. We were rekindling something that’s always been lingering between us.”
I blushed. “Maybe.”
“I need a little time to work through this.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I guess I need a little time to figure that out, too.” He exhaled. “But for now, I’m hungry. You feel like pizza?”
I smiled. “I always feel like pizza. Let me tell Gen where to meet us.”
“How ‘bout you tell her to grab something from a drive-thru, and you’ll meet her at home later?”
Chapter Nine
Del admired the rows of lilies in glass containers lining the small walkway to Castleberry’s arboretum. “These are perfect.”
“Thank you. I picked them myself,” I said.
Gen stood beside me and pointed to her chest. “Honey, you did not just fib like that. I did it. Chantilly couldn’t pull this off if her life depended on it.”
I laughed because she was right. The last big party I’d thrown was my wedding, and since I ended up divorced twenty years later, I’m not sure that should count as a success. Though I got a wonderful son out of it, so it couldn’t have been that bad. I held up my left foot, showing off my new cream colored sandals with the three-inch heels. They were very Gen like, and she’d actually helped me pick them out. I preferred lower heels or flats, but it was a night meant to be celebrated, for a lot of reasons. “I think these were a mistake.”
Del admired them. “I think they’re cute.”
“Me, too,” Thelma said. “I have a dress they’d be perfect with.”
We stared at her tiny feet.
“You’d trip over yourself in those things. Chantilly’s got monster feet compared to yours,” Del said.
“I resent that,” I said.
Thelma shook her head. “Oh, you shouldn’t. My great uncle on my momma’s side,
Uncle Ollie, he was a Captain in the Army. He lost a foot in the war and half the other one was blown off, too. Poor man couldn’t wear a regular shoe on a half foot, so he had to wear women’s open toed sandals instead. Back then nobody dressed like the other sex, and Great Uncle Ollie had to wear a wig so nobody knew it was him.
Del tilted her head. “Runs in the family, the wig thing.”
I gently elbowed her arm. She smirked.
“Excuse me, but it’s almost time,” Olivia said. “The sun’s just about set, and we’re ready to start the event.”
I rubbed my hands together and smiled at the crowd of people waiting for me to speak. “Then let’s get this party started.”
I walked up to the podium and glanced at Ellie Habersham as she begged long dead local townspeople to hang that Union shoulder one more time. “Good evening, Castleberry.” I shifted toward the ghost and held my palm up toward her. “Say hello to the ghost of Ellie Habersham. She’s our first stop on Castleberry’s historical haunted tour.”
The End
Stay tuned for the next
Chantilly Adair Psychic Medium Cozy Mystery
Praying For Peace
Coming in September 2019
Read on for Chapter One of
Deal Gone Dead
A Lily Sprayberry Realtor Cozy Mystery
Deal Gone Dead
A Lily Sprayberry Realtor Cozy Mystery
Chapter One
Myrtle Mae Redbecker said she loved to cook with her cast iron skillet so, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was her plan the day someone decided to whack her over the head with it.
I found my elderly client lying on her old, worn linoleum kitchen floor at ten o’clock Monday morning, the exact time of our regularly scheduled weekly coffee appointment.
Ghosts are People Too Page 11