The Cathville Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 2)

by Robin G. Austin

  Holt’s jaw bone is about to pop through his saggy skin. He spits his chew in my intended path for effect.

  “You enjoying your time in Cathville, Ms. Raven?”

  “Food’s good, but the police could use some training in Southern manners.”

  He lets out a deep hiss this time. I beg my brain to shut my mouth. The wolfdog is nowhere in sight and Levi’s a good twenty acres away. Holt’s eyes have been scanning the area, his own brain is working slow but hard. When he moves his big head, I see a muddy gray energy field that’s about to swallow whatever decency he has left.

  Maybelle says that reading people’s minds can drive you to the bottle or the mental ward. She says she learned that fact the hard way in her younger years. I’m sure that’s the case with Holt’s dark thoughts, but it never hurts to listen to the vibration that the chatter makes. Holt’s chatter sounds like a buzz saw fighting its way through oak. In the background, a song is skipping over and over in one spot. Something is nagging at the man, and that something is worth investigating.

  “Did you know Kylee Price?” I ask in my soothing voice usually reserved for clients.

  Holt jerks out of his chatter. The look on his face causes me to take a step back.

  “That’s none of your concern,” he snaps. “I’m giving you a warning and you better pay attention. Stay out of this investigation. It’s mine and I’ll handle it, understand? Do your devil’s work and be gone. There’s no need for you to come back to Cathville, ever. You get what I’m saying?”

  The blood in my veins is chilly and goosebumps cover my arms, but not even those things can keep me quiet. After asking in my not so calm voice if he’s threatening me, his hand moves to his gun again.

  I’m ready to bolt when his eyes jerk behind me. Seems I’ve been forgotten altogether. I turn just enough so my back’s not facing the man and see Silas on the top of the hill. He’s not peeking out from behind the trees. His boney frame is standing tall, his black eyes are staring Holt down. When I turn back, I see the wolfdog lying in the tall grasses a few yards away. Holt’s already on his way to his car.

  I go running to the hill, calling out for Silas. Mojo is behind then far ahead of me, but it doesn’t do any good. By the time I get over the hill, the man has disappeared into the woods or the ether; I’m not sure which. I wait to catch my breath and stop trembling.

  The last thing I need is trouble from a hateful cop that will cause a minute’s delay in getting out of this town, or cause me to go home in a wooden box. Seems I may have an ally who doesn’t plan on letting that happen, one whose mind has no chatter.

  From the top of the hill, I can see Levi working his grid. He looks like a robot counting his steps, studying the ground, pushing back leaves with a stick. I haven’t looked at him this way in years, and if that didn’t make me so mad, it would make me feel pretty good about now.

  “You think Lieutenant Holt found Kylee out here and she didn’t take his warning seriously?” I ask Mojo. He stares at me with those amber eyes and doesn’t say a word.

  I get back to my grid work and finish my hundred steps without a grave marker in sight. The noise in my head is driving me to distraction, so I go to where a single piece of police tape remains.

  I pull out my phone and scroll through the photos again. “Come on, Kylee. Show me what happened to you that day. Tell me what truth you took to the grave. You looked like you were having a good time with someone. Is Levi right about Roland or was it someone else? What caused you to stop laughing– other than the bullet in your back?”

  With my eyes closed, I listen and focus on Kylee’s image, which is fading from my memory. All I hear is Mojo rustling leaves. “Don’t make me keep asking,” I whisper to the woman. “I need you to tell me your truth. Here,” I say, offering up my phone, “show me what happened that day. Tell me your truth.”

  After ten minutes of listening for the woman, I check my phone; nothing but a tree and a snake. Snake as in snake oil. “Were you out here with Ollie Holt, Kylee? If I was you, I’d hate to admit it too. It’s okay to tell me though. He needs to be in prison if it was him. Otherwise, Dexter or Roland is going to be serving the man’s time.”

  The wind blows the sweetness of wild flowers and the rustic scent of moss spores across my face. Without my smudge stick, the mosquitoes get the best of me and I give up to go find Levi. He’s already heading my way. His wavy black hair is blowing in the breeze and he’s grinning from ear to ear, the way he always does. My stomach does somersaults and I shake my head to get some sense back into it.

  When I look at my phone, I see I have a message. I’ve been preserving the battery in case my jeep takes off without me again. I look at the caller’s number on the screen. Not that I’ve memorized it, but it’s not one I’ve forgotten either.

  “Hey, Jack,” Levi says. “Let’s go check the place Dexter saw the mist then we can walk the rest of the property together. I’m getting lonely doing it by myself.”

  I turn back to my phone, consider deleting the message, then shut the thing off. I swear Mojo gives me a dirty look.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  §

  We finish walking the area where Dexter saw his echo mystic and are no better off than before. Levi’s been complaining for the last half hour and he’s right: we could walk over Morowa’s resting place a dozen times and not know it. He’s also right that I’ve let things get too personal.

  The thought of a slab of commercial enterprise poured over Morowa’s place of rest hurts me to my core. Levi’s argument that it happens all the time is a waste of good silence.

  It’s almost dark and he talks me into going to the Waffle Griddle for dinner. Between Holt and Silas and my phone message, I’m too distracted to concentrate anyway. Even Lodell’s words are nagging at me. In my profession, I need to stay levelheaded and detached. With these men, especially Levi, clouding my mind those qualities are eluding me.

  Levi’s volatile mind has always been an issue between us– passion, he calls it. He has a horse’s spirit– one that’s tame and wild, tranquil and turbulent, cautious and carefree. I’m not in the right state of mind when I’m with him, or when I’m not.

  As we get close to the trailer, I see the paper rolled up and slid through the door handle. Mr. PI doesn’t notice because he’s busy spending ten times the money he’s getting from this job, which so far is zero. In his mind, he has a license, state of the art investigation equipment, an office, and an assistant.

  “Another visitor,” I say.

  “You shouldn’t have given that poppet to the police,” Levi says. He grabs the note and unrolls it while telling me an original Ozark poppet could go for a hundred bucks on eBay and one with a curse could be worth two hundred, maybe five.

  “Why would someone buy a curse when they could come to Cathville and get one for free?”

  “It’s the novelty of it. People will buy anything that’s one of a kind.”

  “What’s the note say?” I ask.

  “Hard to tell. Looks like it was written by a two year old. By coluber indadu mid-nit.”

  “Doesn’t sound like something the backwoods boys could come up with.”

  Levi nods, still staring at the note.

  I haven’t told him about my run-ins with Holt or the man’s deadly threats. I’m also not letting on that this note is turning my stomach in knots, something not even the poppet managed to do.

  We go inside the trailer and Levi searches online for coluber indadu. I take the note, getting my fingerprints all over it. It smells sweet and peppery. I hold it on my palm and ask the writer to make his or her presence known. The energy is calm and strong and something else, something which I can’t find a name for. I’m getting lightheaded and think I feel the note floating out of my hand. I slap my palms together before opening my eyes.

  “Says it’s a kind of snake. There are a bunch of them, all colors. Long and creepy. I hate snakes. When I was a kid, I almost died from a rattlesnake bite.�
��

  “You’ve told me that story a hundred times.”

  “Yeah, well it was traumatizing, and I’m lucky it didn’t kill me. Just saying. I guess this is a covert message. Mid-nit for midnight, I guess. It’s a little Romeo and Juliet-esque. Anyone you know who would be wanting a midnight rendezvous with you?”

  “Let me see the snakes.” Levi turns my laptop and I scroll through the images. “That’s the one,” I yell. “That’s exactly like the snake in the photo Dexter sent me with the woman in it.”

  “Sure looks like the snake on that tree. Who would know what snake was in the photo? Dexter. No reason for him to have someone leave you a note unless you two have something going on I don’t know about.”

  “Spare me.”

  Levi laughs. “Kylee. Too late for her unless she’s delivering it from the grave.”

  “You’re missing the obvious.”

  “Calm down, I’m getting there. The real killer,” Levi does an air drum roll, “who knows I’m mere hours away from unveiling his deadly sin.”

  He lies down on the bed and stares at the tufted ceiling. “Here’s what happened: Roland followed Kylee out here that day knowing she was cheating on him. He waited until Dexter left and shot her in the back.” Levi rolls over and sits up.

  “Naw, it was probably the insurance policy he wanted to cash in on. Money is every man’s downfall. I don’t know. From what little I remember, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Except for the part where he tried to kill me with the tea. Now he’s coming back to finish the job. Did you ever find a picture of Kylee?”

  “No, but I had Dexter describe her to me, and he pretty much confirmed it was her by her attributes. Why can’t I find any pictures of her? Don’t you think that’s odd? But this here is the snake all right. Same color and rings from one end to the other. Did you see any photos of Kylee in Roland’s house?”

  “I wasn’t coherent long enough to say if I did or didn’t. Wait, this could be from a witness who’s afraid to come forward. Someone who wants to clear his conscience. Maybe one of those kids.”

  “I’d be happier if that witness turns out to be Silas Turley.”

  “Stickman? I better find out if Roland’s been arrested yet. I’m calling Emma.” Levi goes outside and I can hear him laughing and talking like he has a new best friend.

  I press my back to the tufted vinyl wall and hold the note between my palms so it can’t try to get away again. I picture Silas in my mind and ask him if he’s the one who left the note. Come on, Silas. I know you can hear me. Give me some kind of sign.

  “Getting anything?” Levi says. I jump and drop the note.

  “Just a heart attack. Don’t sneak up on me like that. Let’s get going. I want to get back in time to clear my head of Waffle Griddle grease and noise.”

  “So you’re planning on meeting whoever wrote this note at midnight. By the tree. Where a killer. Shot a woman in the back.”

  “Is that seriously a question? This is the first break I’ve had. Someone actually knows about the snake on the tree, and if not the killer, I think that someone is Silas Turley– the man who can help me contact Morowa.”

  “What would be the man’s point? If he wanted to talk to you, he’s had plenty of opportunities. It’s not like you’re playing hard to get.”

  “That’s true. I’d sure like to talk to him. But whoever it is, I can’t ignore a chance to meet the person.”

  Levi looks like he’s mulling things over. “The note could be for me. You ever think of that? Either way, we should have the police handle it. We’ll call them when we get to the diner. Let one of them show up at the murder scene at mid-nit.”

  “That’s so not a good idea,” I say, getting into the jeep.

  We ride in silence to the Waffle Griddle. I’ve got the note pressed between my palms, willing it to turn over its secrets. My arteries are clogged, my nerves are raw, and my mind is scrambled.

  “Well?” Levi asks, after he parks the jeep.

  “Nothing that makes any sense. I’ve got too many thoughts flying around. I saw a bottle of whiskey and stick pins. Strange. I’ll go out there as soon as we get back and see if I can calm myself down.”

  The Waffle Griddle is as busy as ever. We find a booth and I order the healthiest thing on the menu: crawfish and pasta.

  “I can tell you’re not telling me something, Jack. You aren’t the only one who’s psychic. I can read your moods, so spill it.”

  Just when I’m about to tell him about Holt against some nagging feeling not to, my phone rings. It’s Jessica Juniper. I explain who I am, and tell her that my dog wandered off and I found him at Lodell’s place. Anything more might have her ending our conversation before it gets going.

  After I confirm that Lodell is doing fine, she says she has no idea if any of her relatives, including Morowa, are buried out on the supermall property. She regrets if that has anything to do with the delay in building the place since there’s nowhere decent to shop in a thousand square miles.

  I ask her if she has any other relatives who might know something about Morowa. She tells me those stories about the woman are a bunch of folktales and that I shouldn’t believe anything I hear. Lodell, she says, gets confused about things because of all those weird plants in the woods that he uses. She tells me he has a bunch of stories about the woman that sometimes contradict themselves.

  “I’ve even heard him call her Sara Jane, and I don’t know of anyone hanging in our family tree by that name.”

  Sara Jane Pritchard. I knew it.

  “How about Silas Turley? I understand he’s also a relative of yours.” There’s a long pause. I can still hear Jessica breathing, and I sense she’s weighing her words and not wanting to say any of them.

  When the silence gets too awkward, I say, “I think he may have left me a note to meet him to talk—

  “He didn’t,” she snaps.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Silas can’t read or write and doesn’t associate with anyone who can. The man’s inhospitable even with his own kin. That’s just not right, don’t you think?”

  “Is he your cousin? An uncle?”

  “I won’t claim the man as either, and don’t you be spreading rumors about him and me. Do yourself a favor and stay away from him, otherwise he’ll do the devil’s bidding on you.”

  “You mean he practices black magic?”

  “Don’t need to practice none. He’s way past that. The man’s a yarb doctor who’s signed up with the devil himself. He can cure you same as kill you. He doesn’t care which, but the odds are against you. If you have more than a rock for a brain, you’ll leave the man alone.”

  Chapter Thirty Three

  §

  Levi ordered pulled pork nachos with jalapenos, red hot chili without beans, and cornbread with bacon bits. He gets a wink from the waitress, a girl who looks seriously underage, and I nearly get my crawfish and pasta in my lap.

  I admit his dinner smells delicious, but doubt the man’s stomach will last him past his forties if he doesn’t stop, according to him, “making up for having to eat that prison food.”

  As I was about to disconnect from our call, Jessica said she’d really appreciate it if I’d tell the supermall owners to put in a wet seal store. I was wondering and worrying about what kind of activity went on in a wet seal store when she said she would like die for the pink fur jacket she saw on their website, but needed to try it on first because some shades of pink just don’t look right on her. “So could I, would I, pretty please?” I agreed to pass the information on to Dexter.

  “What’s a yarb doctor?” Levi asks, after I repeat my conversation with Jessica.

  “It’s a root and herb doctor. Sounds like Silas might be leaning towards the dark side of healing though.”

  “Makes potions, huh. Another reason not to be going out there tonight. What’s the point anyway? You really think the man’s going to show you where Morowa’s buried and help you dig her up? Make h
er dance in the moonlight for you?”

  Levi leans across the table and gives me his best poker face. “Listen Jack, nobody has any reason to meet you where Kylee was murdered unless they plan on murdering you too. Maybelle and Arthur will skin me alive if I bring you home in a coffin. This is a police matter.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  He leans back and shakes his head. “You’re looking for trouble and knowing you, you’re going to find it.”

  “I’d be more than happy to forget about the unfortunate thing that happened to Kylee. The woman has stopped communicating with me. It’d be nice if she did, but it looks like I’m going to have to deal with the living on this one.”

  I know for certain that Kylee came to me that first night. I saw what I saw and I know it was her. That first night, Dexter still hadn’t been arrested. We get here and he’s in jail and other than her residual energy, it appears Kylee’s moved on. It’s not unusual for murder victims to hang around until their killers are caught before crossing over.

  I really hope it’s Silas I’ll be meeting. I’m fearing it won’t now that Levi’s filling my head with thoughts of Ollie Holt, who had time enough after our last talk to leave the note.

  “It concerns me that nobody knows a thing about why the woman went out there,” I say. “I thought about asking Dexter if Kylee was there the day he took the photos but didn’t want to get into his personal affairs. I’m taking what Lodell said of the two women’s truth seriously. I think there’s a connection.”

  “None of that matters anymore. Emma told me Dexter has a hearing in front of the judge tomorrow. She plans on getting him released on bail. There’s a hold up on arresting Roland. Turns out his brother-in-law is the one handling the case and they have to do some damage control. After that, she says the charges against Dexter should get dismissed.”

  “Holt?” I yell, and get some attention from the other diners.