Steeped in Suspicion

by Eryn Scott

  Daphne said, “We’d figured as much, since you two never came around anymore.”

  The we she mentioned must’ve been the rest of the residents of Pebble Cove. Daphne hadn’t lived here back when I used to visit, but I’d bet many of the locals were the same.

  It felt odd to explain such a large part of my life as if it were simply any other story, but I didn’t have another plan.

  “When I was nine, my dad—Helen’s son—and I were in a car accident.”

  Memories of my dad bombarded me in the best way. My quiet, serious father who spent almost every waking hour hunched over his grand piano, making heart-wrenchingly beautiful music. My silly, kind father who covered my small hands with his ridiculously large ones as he taught me to play, singing each of the notes. I swallowed the lump of emotion, making it hard to breathe.

  “Dad didn’t make it,” I said, my voice breaking. “I almost didn’t either. The medics say I officially died for about a minute. They saved me.”

  Daphne gasped. “Oh my. I’m so sorry, Rosie. Helen told us her son had passed, but she didn’t talk about it a lot.”

  I gazed out the window for a moment. “Grandma took the loss of her son hard as one would expect. And so Mom and I overlooked it when she started acting a little weird. About a month after the accident, she started mentioning how she hoped Dad would visit her as a ghost. She became obsessed with spirits and ghosts and thoughts of the afterlife.”

  “Ah, I see.” Daphne smiled sadly. “So you and your mother distanced yourselves from her because you thought she was crazy. A few of the locals said that must’ve been it.”

  Gulping down a retort about how I wished they wouldn’t assume things about other people’s lives, I decided it was more important to correct the misconception.

  “No, that wasn’t it. In the accident, I broke a few bones and had to spend a lot of time at the hospital between checkups and getting casts put on, taken off, and all the rest. Mom became more tired. She quit her job as the library director at Portland State and got a job at the county library so she’d be closer to me if I needed to be picked up from school. Her patience with Grandma dwindled.” I swallowed, knowing that wasn’t the end of the unpleasantness. “A few months later, when my bones healed, my white blood cell count remained high. Where it had made sense after my accident, the doctors couldn’t see a reason for it to be that elevated any longer. So they ran some bone marrow tests and found I had childhood leukemia.”

  Asher leaned closer to me in my peripheral vision. He put his ghostly hand on mine resting on the couch cushion, and even though I couldn’t feel his touch, the gesture gave me strength. While it had been hard at first, now the story flowed like an open faucet.

  “Mom and I jumped right into the treatment plan. She told me I would beat this: I had to since I was all she had left. When we saw Grandma Helen next and broke the news to her, Mom figured it would be the harsh dose of reality she needed to move on from Dad’s death and deal with real life.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t happen?” Daphne asked.

  This time Daphne’s guess was correct. “Nope. Grandma told Mom she was making a huge mistake by putting me through the radiation therapy. She knew of a few holistic remedies she was sure would work for me instead.”

  I pretended to stare out the window, but actually I wanted to see Asher’s reaction. He cringed and shot me a sympathetic look.

  “Mom snapped,” I said. “She was tired and grieving and worried, and she told Grandma it was the last straw. We never talked to her again after that. I hadn’t even seen her name in over a decade before I got the letter from her lawyer last week.”

  I blew out a long breath.

  Daphne, eyes shining, tsked. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible mistake. One she had to deal with for the rest of her life.”

  “I wish I hadn’t let it go that long.” I pressed my lips into a line. “It’s part of the reason I came over. I wanted to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind. I feel terrible that I wasn’t here for her funeral. Do you know who put it on? Who attended? Anything you can tell me would be helpful, would help make me feel like I was there.”

  “Of course, Rosie.” Daphne wet her lips. “Let’s see … well, Althea Pine put it on for her, of course.” She tipped her head to one side as if I should know why. “And the whole town was there. In a place this small, if you don’t go to someone’s funeral, people might assume you’re the reason they’re dead.” Daphne chuckled, snorting at the end.

  Her words didn’t hit me as funny, however. I glanced over at Asher, who studied the giggling woman.

  “So the entire town?” I asked.

  That had to be upwards of three hundred people if the sign on the way into town was correct.

  Daphne wrinkled her nose. “Well, Carl didn’t show, obviously. But everyone else was there.”

  My blood pounded in my ears as I put Daphne’s last two statements together. If you don’t go, people might assume you’re the reason they’re dead and Carl didn’t show.

  “Ask who was in the back of the room,” Asher said.

  It made me jump, but I remembered how much he’d been talking in the teahouse when Daphne was there, without her hearing.

  “Can you tell me about where people sat? Like, who was right up front, and who was in back?” I fiddled with a ring on my thumb as I focused on Daphne.

  “Well, I was up front with Althea, so I didn’t see much of the back, but the only person I’m sure was back there was Sam Hoff—sorry, I guess it’s officially Mayor Hoff now.”

  Having had the not-so-pleasurable experience of meeting him already, I kept my thoughts about him to myself.

  Daphne took my silence as confusion. “He’s the new mayor as of last week. Your grandma Helen led the opposition to his campaign.”

  Ah. Now the political signs and his reaction to them made more sense. “She didn’t like him?”

  Daphne chuckled. “She didn’t want any person to be mayor.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Our Mayor Meow passed away, and she headed up the ‘Keep Our Mayor Furry’ campaign.”

  “Mayor Meow?” I felt like I was just repeating what Daphne said.

  “Until a few weeks ago, Pebble Cove’s mayor was a cat.”

  I blinked. My grandmother had been murdered, a body washed up on the shore, and now I learn their mayor was a cat? What kind of place was this?

  Whatever it was, I would get to the bottom of my grandma’s death. Telling our story again made me realize that while we may not have gotten a chance for closure, I could at least do this one last thing for Grandma.

  7

  Asher and I left Daphne’s house an hour later.

  She filled us in on the whole mayor saga—how it had been a close run between Meow and Jack the golden retriever about a decade earlier, but Meow had won by a whisker.

  Yes, she said whisker.

  A large contingent of the town loved the figurehead-type mayor, felt it placed more power with the council rather than one person. Especially for such a small town, they didn’t need a mayor for much anyway. According to Daphne, the idea of keeping a four-legged figurehead gained popularity at the end. But Grandma Helen had been the real fire behind the opposition, and it fizzled with her death. They had sworn in Mayor Hoff shortly after.

  “So we have a grumpy, disgruntled neighbor who hated my grandma, and a politically motivated candidate who wanted her out of the way,” I recapped with Asher as we walked home.

  He ran his thumbs along the inside of his suspenders. “Told you Daphne would give us some leads.” He glanced over at me. “It was brave of you to tell the story about your family, to explain what you went through.”

  I pulled at the hem of my sweatshirt. “It is what it is. I’ve learned long ago that I can’t change the past.”

  “So what does your mom think about you being here? After hearing your story, I imagine she is rather unhappy with the situation,” he said.

  “S
he’s not crazy about it. She’s texted me a bunch and wants me to sell.” I noticed his face wrinkle in concern. “Oh, sorry. Um, texting is this thing we do where we send messages over our phones. Did you even have phones in your day?”

  Asher laughed. “Don’t worry. I may be dead, but I know what cars, computers, phones, and texts are.”

  I smiled. “Oh, good.”

  We approached the tea shop’s stone steps.

  “I think that might be why you can see me,” Asher said.

  “Technology?” I asked, confused.

  “No,” he said with a chuckle. “Your story. You technically died. You passed over to the other side in the crash. Then you were confronted with death again with your leukemia diagnosis. I spent a lot of time by myself back in those days, but I remember seeing you here once or twice as a child, and you didn’t act like you could see me then, before your accident.”

  That made sense. I mean, technically it made as much sense as if someone told me unicorns used magic to live as horses in disguise, but I was talking to a ghost, so nothing seemed out of the question anymore.

  “Maybe. And it sounds like Grandma Helen had the sight in a way since she talked about my dad coming to visit her,” I suggested. “But she couldn’t see you?” I asked, stopping in front of the door.

  Asher shook his head. “There were times I thought she could. She might’ve been able to sense me. But most people can only see the ghosts of people who they knew and loved in life. The only time she talked to me was that single instance when her spirit left her body, so she was technically seeing me as another spirit. The fact that you can see me and we never knew each other, tells me you definitely have the sight, that you could see more ghosts.”

  This statement made my mouth drop open. “More ghosts.” I’d been so busy grappling with the existence of Asher that I hadn’t even considered other ghosts. “If I didn’t know you were a ghost until trying to touch you, I wonder how many others I’ve encountered in my life.” The thought made me shiver.

  I suppose I’d rather encounter a thousand ghosts than another dead body though. The memory of the man, lying lifeless in the water wasn’t a mental image I would never forget.

  I shivered again.

  I needed some space from the beach, Grandma’s house, all of it. So instead of moving to unlock the front door of her house, I stepped back.

  “Actually, I think I might make a trip into town. If I’m going be here for a few days, I should have more than pizza and old cookies to eat.

  Asher stuck his hands in his tweed pockets. A hank of his dark hair fell forward into his face, and I marveled at how real he seemed. Now back at the house, he was vibrant, as real as my hand in front of my face.

  “You want to come with?” I asked.

  He picked up his head, and his eyes sparkled with interest. “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “You can tell me all about this weird little town. I should know if we’re gonna figure out what happened to Grandma Helen. Plus I would like the company.” I swallowed, unsure if I’d ever said those words to anyone but my mother in my life.

  “Sure. Let’s go.”

  We turned back to my car. He paused at the passenger door.

  Asher’s smile fell at the corners. “How about I meet you there?” he asked, his gaze flicking toward the road.

  “Okay,” I said, about to ask some follow-up questions when he disappeared. A shiver wound down my spine, and I climbed into my car. He might be aware of cars, but he obviously wasn’t comfortable with them. The foreboding feeling loosened its grip on me as I drove. The trip to town was all of five minutes, and breathtaking in a way I hadn’t remembered.

  Pebble Cove was an idyllic little town situated in a horseshoe shape around the cove. Grandma’s teahouse—along with the dozen or so other residents who lived on the ocean side of the Misty Drive loop—might’ve had the unadulterated crashing waves and coastal winds, but the houses facing the cove had shimmering blue waters that lapped at rocky shores. The only factors tying them together into a cohesive town were the Victorian-style houses and the saltwater scent tinting the air.

  I maneuvered my little hatchback around a corner and onto Cove Drive, the main thoroughfare in downtown. Though it was a coastal town, Pebble Cove didn’t have hoards of tourists flocking to its streets and beaches. Any restaurants or stores downtown catered to the local fishermen and their families. It didn’t hurt that it was tucked away, far from the iconic Highway 101.

  The road flattened out, and I drove through the main part of the town. The white spire of the Victorian church poked up above the rooftops of the businesses and homes. Giant oaks lined the street like beautiful bullies, forcing the townspeople to build around their gnarled trunks while giving their stretching branches a wide berth.

  I parked in the local free lot next to the marina, which was more crowded than I’d expected on a random Thursday evening. The sounds of seagulls mixed with the twitter of songbirds from the large oaks when I stepped out of the car. The lazy lapping of the tide moving in and out of the cove replaced the sound of crashing of waves at Grandma’s house. And whereas stone and sand surrounded Grandma’s beach house, her well-kept garden, the only surviving green in sight, plant life flourished in the protected cove.

  Asher leaned against one of the large oaks as I got out of my car. As he’d been in Daphne’s house, he was much more ghostly here in town. And while I could technically see through his body now, it didn’t change the magnetism of his smile as I approached.

  “So this town was all here when you were alive?” I asked as I walked over to him.

  Asher nodded. “My parents were some of the original founders in the late 1880s.” He chuckled. “Honestly, it hasn’t grown much since then. Updated, sure, but it’s remained pretty small. The locals fought about whether or not to cater to tourism but stayed a fishing village instead.”

  I remembered Grandma talking about that. I’d never met my great-grandpa Richard, but Grandma talked about him often, smiling over at the large picture she had hanging on the wall in the hallway. The black and white picture had shown a smiling man on a fishing boat, looking as if the sea air and salty waves were akin to a life force.

  Asher waved a transparent hand in front of me. “Lost you there for a second,” he said.

  “Sorry, thinking about my grandma again.”

  He ran the heel of his hand along his jawline. “No need to apologize. You know, I spent quite a lot of time around her … if you ever want me to tell you stories.” His eyebrows lifted with the offer.

  “Thank you.” Warmth spread through my chest. I definitely wasn’t ready for that, but it was nice to have the option.

  I started walking toward the businesses, my stomach reminding me once more of my lack of a proper meal in so many hours. As we walked, I spotted a large tabby cat strutting down the sidewalk, straight for me.

  “Well, hello. Don’t you just look like you run the place?” Bending down, I held my hand out to pet him.

  “That’s because he does, or used to. That is Mayor Meow, well, his ghost.” Asher stepped up beside me as the former cat mayor jumped up to headbutt my hand. His head drifted right through my hand, leaving behind it a chill.

  “This is the mayor?” I asked, pulling my hand back.

  Like Asher had back at the house, Meow appeared as solid and alive as any cat I’d ever seen.

  A couple walked by, and I stood up straight, aware that I was talking to a ghost about a cat ghost, and of our group, I was the only visible one. Chief Clemenson already found me suspicious. I didn’t need the whole town thinking I was a wacko, especially not if I had to stick around for a little while.

  Former Mayor Meow blinked up at me, his emerald eyes glinting in the sun. He looked far less surprised that I could see him than Asher had. Though, to be fair, he’d been dead a much shorter span of time.

  Something Asher had said earlier clicked into my brain and I gasped.

  “Wait, you said a soul only
sticks around if it has unfinished business, if it’s in turmoil.” My forehead creased as I turned to Asher, checking that no one else was in earshot to hear me talking to myself. “Did someone murder Mayor Meow?” I whispered.

  Asher’s shoulders relaxed. “No, from what I heard, the little guy was twenty. He died of old age. Cats are different though. Their souls are much … slipperier. They can slink around a lot easier than humans. I’m guessing this guy doesn’t want to stop living his glory days.”

  The cat regarded Asher and sniffed. He swished his tail and then walked away with the same amount of sass he had on his approach.

  Smiling as the cat left, I turned to Asher. “I think you just got the cat equivalent of a bad word,” I said as a woman walked by, glaring at me like I was full-on crazy.

  In any other circumstance, I would agree with her worries about me. But Asher and Meow were so real to me I couldn’t help it. I tried to save the situation and softened my expression, but the woman had already walked away from me.

  Great. I’d spent my childhood being the girl everyone pitied only to grow into the woman they all thought was crazy.

  I turned toward the grocery store. Calling it a grocery store was generous. Did it have edible food? Yes. Did Wallace, the owner, change up the items he stocked based on what local farms and artisans were selling? Absolutely. At least, that was how it had worked when I was younger.

  The Cove Grocer appeared just the same as it had in my memory. Well, except the words "and Law Services" that had been added next to the original sign. Other than that, it felt like stepping back in time. The addition to the sign wasn’t really a surprise either since Wallace had been the one to send me the letter a week earlier as my grandmother’s lawyer.

  Pushing through the door, a loud jangle of bells announced our arrival—well, my arrival. Asher walked next to me as if everything were normal, but the fact that I could see through him to the oddly stocked shelves reminded me he could’ve passed through the door without opening it.

  All eyes turned to us—er—me.

  “Oh! What a treat,” a woman said as she stepped out from behind a display rack that held fresh fruit and a few handmade pies.