Spinning in Her Grave

by Molly Macrae

She swirled around me and I sank to the floor, my arms reflexively protecting my head. But another movement caught the corner of my eye. Argyle. Poor guy. I expected to see him streak for the door and down the stairs. But he crept toward me. Toward us. By then, I felt engulfed, as though Geneva was wrapped around my head along with my arms, as though I was wearing a cold, clinging shroud. Her sobs tore at me. But Argyle nudged my knee with his forehead until I made a lap for him and when he climbed in, it went through my head that if he could lend comfort with his fur and his purrs, then I could use something softer than the shriek rising in my throat.

  Sitting there on the floor, I started to rock, too fast at first, then more slowly, and tried to remember the lullaby Geneva liked to sing. It was one of those lullabies with an oddly melancholy lilt that she’d sung to me once under other fraught circumstances. I couldn’t recapture the tune, though, so I gave up and slipped into something old I’d learned in Granny’s lap. I sang and rocked on the floor and Argyle purred and eventually Geneva calmed and quieted and finally was still. I stopped singing but continued rocking gently.

  Through a small sniffle Geneva said, “You probably should not try to become a professional singer.”

  “I was a little off-key, wasn’t I?”

  “That’s okay. Argyle liked it.” She unfurled from my head and shoulders and I experienced an odd sensation that made me think she was attempting to pat my hair into place. Then she floated over to the window seat and sat in as small a space as possible, hugging her knees. “My singing is no prettier than yours, but Mattie sings like an angel.”

  I watched and waited, but she remained calm. I chanced a question. “What made you think of Mattie today?” I was wondering if I would, or even could, disband the posse if talking about and investigating yesterday’s murder was too upsetting for her. Or would I be able to keep my involvement and any discussions away from her? But it would be impossible to keep talk out of the shop altogether. Customers would naturally bring it up and people would be curious about where it had happened. “Were you remembering Mattie because we’ve been talking about Reva Louise?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then what was it?”

  “I heard her singing last night.”

  Chapter 21

  Geneva couldn’t be shaken from her belief that she’d heard Mattie singing. Not that I tried all that hard. There wasn’t much point. She said she heard the singing only faintly and couldn’t tell where it came from. When I suggested it might have been someone listening to a radio or a recording somewhere outside, she scoffed, making a good point about hearing no announcer, no commercials, no static or skips, only the one sweet voice singing a verse over and over. I didn’t try to explain digital recordings. I did ask if she recognized the song and knew its name, but by then she was getting restless again. She said I was confusing her. She said that Mattie’s singing had confused her, too. At first she’d been delighted and excited, but then the singing scared her and she’d hidden in the safety of the cupboard that she called her room.

  “You mean you were afraid of Mattie? Didn’t you want to go find her?”

  “I didn’t know what it meant, to suddenly hear her like that.”

  I didn’t know what it meant, either, but it was time to distract Geneva. To distract us both. I wasn’t about to admit it, but somewhere in the back of my mind was a tiny worry—no, to be honest, it was more than a tiny worry; it was a fear—that somehow Geneva was right and she had heard Mattie singing. To dispel thoughts of a ghost who scared my ghost, I scooped the sleeping Argyle from my lap into my arms and stood up.

  “Do you feel up to helping me think a few things through before Ardis comes in? We probably don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be up to it?”

  Was she serious? Of course she was serious. She was sitting up straight, on the edge of the window seat, looking as though she’d been ready and waiting—with hard-won patience, possibly for hours—while I frittered our valuable time away. My mercurial mirage. It was a wonder I didn’t have a migraine.

  “I just wanted to make sure you’re feeling okay, that you’re fully recovered. I see that you are, but you were having kind of an intense few minutes there, reliving—”

  She held up a hand to stop me. “Please be aware that using a word like ‘reliving’ when speaking to someone at my stage of afterlife is insensitive. Your insensitivity does, however, remind me that we were talking about rude people.”

  Argyle was still in my arms. I might have held him a little too tightly at that point. He kindly didn’t tell me I was either rude or insensitive, but he did decide it was time to jump down. He chose the desk as a good landing spot and promptly started a bath. I counted to ten.

  “Don’t you remember?” she asked. “Because I do quite perfectly. You were talking about the Immeasurable Tent of Wonders. You said a deputy was going to give the man, Aaron whatever-his-name-is, a ticket if he didn’t pack up and get out of town and I helped by saying how rude that deputy was. Although overstaying one’s welcome is also rude. Does that put us back on track?”

  “Nicely, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you going to contribute anything to this conversation?”

  “I’m thinking, Geneva.”

  “You should try thinking faster. All the best detectives and Western sheriffs are able to solve crimes in under an hour. Would you like to know their names?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “They know all the most likely motives, too. Would you like me to list those?”

  “No—oh, wait. That might actually be helpful.”

  “I will overlook your use of the word ‘actually.’ You sit at the desk while I dictate.” She put her hands behind her back and floated back and forth in front of the desk, head down as though studying the floor.

  I opened my notebook and clicked my pen. “Ready when you are.”

  “Right. I expect this will take quite a lot of ink. First, cattle rustling. Second, avenging a father’s death. Third . . .” She looked up. “Why aren’t you writing?”

  “Why don’t we go for a more generalized list? For instance, cattle rustling could go in a larger category called ‘greed’ and the next category can be ‘revenge.’”

  “You would rather have a summary?”

  “Short and sweet, yes.”

  “Greed, jealousy, revenge, passion, political gain, mob hit, insanity, thrill-seeking, and just plain mean. There, does that tell you why someone aimed a gun out the bathroom window of our shop and shot Reva Louise?”

  “No.” I dropped my pen in frustration.

  She stopped her floating pace or pacing float or whatever it was and hovered in front of the desk. “Short might well be sweet,” she said, “but a story is spun with details. The story is in the details.”

  Being a detail-oriented person, I liked what Geneva said about needing them, even if the way she’d said it sounded suspiciously like one of her haikus. She looked serious, though, rather than sly or smug, and Argyle didn’t chirrup his two haiku cents, so I let it go. I also tried to let go the sudden realization that I was taking poetry cues from a ghost and a cat. I might like details, but there were certain details of my reality since moving to Blue Plum that didn’t bear close inspection.

  “You’re very philosophical this morning,” I told her.

  “Thank you for noticing. Cats are philosophical by nature, I believe, and I think Argyle is rubbing off on me. In fact, we enjoyed being philosophical together while we kept watch last night.”

  I’d forgotten she was going to be my alert eyes and ears. I was surprised she remembered. “I take it there weren’t any problems?”

  “Only the philosophical one. Try as we might, we could not decide that chicken and egg problem.”

  “You mean which came first? You’re in good company, then. That’s been stumping overnight philosophers since the first chicken hatched. I was talking about problems here, though, in the shop.�
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  “So was I. When we thought about it afterward, we could not decide which came first, the breaking glass or the creeping about with flashlights.”

  • • •

  Ardis arrived as I was examining and remarking over the broken window.

  “Good Lord,” she said, “with all the noise you’re making I thought you’d severed an artery at the very least.”

  She might have exaggerated how loud my remarks were, but I meant every decibel of them. Someone had thrown a big rock through one of our windows along Depot Street. Judging by the lack of jagged shards sticking out of the frame, Geneva was right; someone had climbed through and been creeping in our store. A horrible feeling crept down my spine to think that person could have still been in the building while I was up in the study.

  Geneva pooh-poohed that notion. So did Clod. When Ardis called 911, he arrived suspiciously fast and out of uniform. Geneva took one look at his T-shirt and running shorts and turned her back with a scandalized “Eep.”

  “Can this possibly be considered an official police response,” she whispered to me, “if the officer involved is wearing so few clothes? I have never been this close to a man with such long, exposed, and hairy legs.” She held a hand up to shield her eyes in case he moved into her view.

  Clod was surveying the window frame, the glass on the floor, and the rock. “You know what’s interesting about this is that, from out on the street, you don’t realize the window is broken; it looks open. No,” he said, scratching at the T-shirt stretched across his chest, “your perp would’ve climbed out again as soon as he finished what he came for. If he came in at all.” He looked around at the innocent baskets and bins of yarn that always seemed to make him jumpy; then he squatted down for a closer look at the rock. Geneva “eeped” again and moved behind me. “This is a good-looking chunk of granite,” he said. “It might tell you a few things. One, it’s not local. Two, no one walks around with a rock the size of his own head, so where’d he pick it up?”

  “Farm and Home,” Ardis said immediately. “Landscaping materials around the back. Anyone could have helped themselves. But what I find interesting is how you’re able to determine this was a male. And what do you suppose he was after?”

  She stood closer to Clod than he probably liked, trying to see what he was seeing. He wasn’t seeing much, as far as I could tell, because he hadn’t spent enough time looking around.

  “He’s using the generic ‘he,’ Ardis.”

  “Would you like me to cite the statewide statistics on burglary arrests broken down by gender?” Clod asked.

  “No. But I would like you to do two other things. One, while you’re down there, look for evidence that will identify the person who did this. Fingerprints would be good. Blood on a sliver of glass, preferably with a lot of juicy DNA, would be great. Two, let me know when you’re finished collecting it so I can sweep up and we can open our business.”

  “She’s a trifle overwrought,” Ardis told him. “With good reason, I think you’ll have to agree. Kath, hon, why don’t you go call Ten and see if he can come fix the window? Coleridge and I will walk through the shop and see if we find any other damage or discover anything missing.”

  “Wait. Joe has a key, right?” I asked.

  Ardis nodded.

  “Okay, good.” That meant if he wanted to get in he had no reason to break in. Not that I had any hard evidence, as he would be the first to tell me, that he’d ever broken anything to get in anywhere.

  “Don’t bother calling Joe,” Clod said. “I tried all morning, finally went running without him.”

  “Oh yeah? Watch this.” I pulled my phone out, pressed buttons, and put it to my ear. “Oh, hey, Joe . . . Yeah, me, too. Thanks . . . Well, we’ve got kind of a situation at the Cat. We found a broken window . . . No, it’s okay, we’re all right. Thanks for thinking to ask . . . Ardis is going to walk through with your brother to check and we’re wondering if you can come see about the window . . . Oh, that’s great. Thanks! Bye.”

  I probably could have been smarmier if I’d tried. It’s also possible that Joe wasn’t answering his phone. I wouldn’t know; I hadn’t called him, because I saw no reason to give Clod the satisfaction of being right.

  • • •

  Clod did actually look more closely at the glass shards before he and Ardis went on their tour of inspection. He didn’t find any blood, but he put some of the more wicked-looking pieces in a paper bag to take with him and said he’d send someone over to dust the frame for fingerprints. I refrained from thanking him because I couldn’t have done so without dripping insincerity and I was trying to cut back on negative emotions.

  Geneva recovered from seeing Clod in his running gear after he left the room and she told me that whoever came in through the window hadn’t stayed long. Her sense of time wasn’t the most reliable, but she remembered hearing footsteps go up the stairs to the second floor, move along the hall, then almost immediately turn around and go back down. She said she heard nothing further. That didn’t quite jibe, because it must have been at some point after the break-in that she thought she’d heard Mattie and she’d gone to hide in her room. Rather than risk upsetting her by bringing that up, I didn’t mention Mattie or the singing. I did have more questions for her, though.

  “You heard all this? Didn’t you go look to see who came in? I thought you said that you and Argyle were going to be my eyes and ears.”

  “Half is better than nothing, don’t you think? We were your ears. But the breaking glass upset Argyle and he did not want to come with me to be your eyes. I did the friendly and caring thing by staying to comfort him.”

  “But I thought you said you saw a flashlight.”

  “One of the things I like about you is that you think a lot. That is something we have in common. Here is what I think. I think I must have assumed there was a flashlight because that would be the best way to sneak around in a dark building. Do you own a good flashlight? Because we can use it if you and I ever go out as a sneaking team.”

  My friend the ghost; poster child for the unreliable witness.

  • • •

  Ardis’ walk-through with Clod didn’t take long. They found no other damage. Nothing obvious was missing. Except for the smashed window and the rock, one might not believe anything had happened. Except for the ghost, whom no one else knew existed, one might conclude that no one had climbed through the window and up the stairs. And if one were Clod, that was exactly what one did conclude.

  “What about the jagged shards of glass left in the window frame?” I asked.

  “You swept up all the glass, right? What’s your point?”

  “That is my point. I swept up the glass. You said it yourself; the window looks open. There was no glass left in the frame. That’s because someone removed the jagged shards so as not to get cut when climbing through the window before walking upstairs.” I probably shouldn’t have added the part about the stairs.

  Clod looked at the window. He looked at the stairs. He looked at me. He held up the bag he’d put some of the shards in. “I’ll ask the lab to run these for fingerprints, DNA, RNA, curare, explosives, and dust from a passing asteroid. If you think of any other tests that might be helpful, give me a call.” He looked pleased with his sarcasm, but then he turned thoughtful. “Upstairs, huh? As I said, give me a call.”

  Ardis let him out the front door and relocked it. Then she demonstrated her own love of sarcasm by dusting her hands. “And that’s what he thinks about that. Tempest in a teapot. And he completely missed your reference to the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, so I don’t hold out much hope that he’d get it if you tell him about the ‘Curious Incident of the Ham Actor in the Weaver’s Cat,’ either. Never mind, hon. Come on; time’s a-wastin’. Tell me how the investigation is going.”

  “In a nutshell out on a limb, J. Scott Prescott is the number-one suspect. That is, if we could pin a motive on him and figure out how he had the opportunity. But he’s
sneaky and somehow he and Reva Louise are connected. After leaving your place last night, I came and sat on the porch here. And he just happened to walk by. Planning to snoop, is what I think, and I think he threw the rock through the window. Except no motive. No proof.”

  “That’s a big nutshell. You didn’t tell Cole you think Prescott threw the rock.”

  “It’s a pretty flimsy limb. Let me run up and get my notebook. Meet you in the kitchen.”

  Geneva floated up to the attic with me, complaining the whole way about Ardis. She’d never really warmed up to Ardis. She would watch her and often followed her around, but I got the feeling Geneva was jealous of her, of her position in the shop, and of her friendship with me. It was too bad and I wished there was something I could do about it. I was pretty sure Ardis would be delighted to know a ghost and to call that ghost her friend. But Geneva received the eternal cold shoulder from her, and that had to be tough.

  “You were going to go over things with me before she arrived,” Geneva said. “I think my contributions to the investigation will be more important than hers. Why don’t we make her wait in the kitchen while I contribute now?”

  “Because that would be rude. Besides, three heads are better than one. You can sit next to me and read my notes and make suggestions.” That was taking a chance. “Also, I’m going to need you to watch the shop again tonight.”

  “Are you expecting skulduggery?”

  I doubted it. “It’s possible.” Argyle had helped himself to a nap on the notebook I’d left open on the desk. I carefully and successfully extracted the notebook with only a minor flicking of cat ears and tail.

  “What if Mattie comes back?” Geneva asked.

  “Did you hear her any more last night, after you went to your room? Or have you heard her at all today?”

  She shook her head.

  “If you’re worried, you can come home with me.”

  She wavered—literally and figuratively. Then she floated over to hover in front of me. “No. You are counting on me and I will not let you down.”