by Shea Meadows
“I think you’ll have three accounts,” Ricky answered. “I’m sure Moon wants you helping with this. Maybe we should let Beth Ann listen to this tape. I’m sure she’ll agree.”
Beth Ann listened to the tape with as much surprise as Ricky, emotion evident on her face. “Yeah, that was Moon, alright. I never thought I’d hear her voice again. You’re right, Ricky, we’ll check with Stan and George right away. I’m sure they’ll give us permission to put David’s agency on retainer. Moon obviously thinks it will help. We’re not going to let some low-life get away with murder.”
She turned to David. “You and your partner need to make up a contract so Stan can review it. What’s the name of the new agency?”
David smiled. “MC Investigations. I’ll talk to Brink about it and get back to you with the details. I’m still with the Patrol until June 30th, but after that, you’ll get whatever time you need.
“I’ve got contacts on the Minneapolis force as well as the Patrol, and Brink can network with the St. Paul PD, so we’ll still keep in the loop if something new comes up through official channels. But with Ricky’s connection with Moon, you guys will probably be directing the investigation.”
After a few more minutes of discussion, they went back to the lower level to rescue Emily and Phil from Chester’s grumping about the injustices of the will.
Chapter 9
It was June 25th, the day of the memorial service. Emily and Phil had left the day before, realizing they couldn’t stay away from work any longer. It was time for Ricky to start her new life in her sister’s shadow.
She stood at the podium looking out over the sea of faces, most of them people she didn’t know. Multi-colored balloons floated up to the ceiling of the Community Church meeting hall, flowers surrounded the midnight blue urn with the gold angels, stars and moons that contained her sister’s ashes. Ricky was expected to speak.
What am I supposed to say? The usual stories of our childhood? The unexpected nature of this tragic death? What I really want to tell them is that Moon is just as much alive as she was before the accident- obviously different but in some ways, very much the same. Saying nothing isn’t an option. I have to let them know.
Her eyes traveled around the room. Dad was smiling encouragingly. Beth Ann gave her a thumbs up and a nod. All the others she had meet before the service seemed to have been misplaced in her memory banks. Then her gaze settled on David Clark, sitting near the front on the aisle, long legs sticking out to the side. And next to him, floating in the air was Moon, just as real as she’d looked in their out-of- body-journeys. Ricky had to restrain herself from calling out, or rushing to her sister and urging her to the front.
Show them you’re here Moon, move things around. That’s what they expect from you.
Moon’s voice resonated with laughter inside Ricky’s mind. I can see it now on the cover of The National Tattler: “Ghostly visitation at psychic’s funeral.” No, Ricky, I’m here to observe. You’re getting more attuned; I didn’t intend for you to see me. Talk to me and let the rest of them in on the conversation.
Ricky cleared her throat. “All of you probably knew Moon much better than I did. Even though we shared time in the same womb at the same time, I lost track of my sister in recent years. My belief system was so different from hers that there was no communication on a whole range of subjects. No meeting of the minds. But now, sadly, after her physical body is no longer here, I’ve gotten to know her, and maybe understand, just the slightest bit, about who she was and what she stands for.
“Moon was about growth and expansion. Most of you know that already, but I’ve just figured it out in the last few days. When I talk to those who worked with her, they are positive she will continue to work with her organization after her death. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind of that truth. She proved to all of you, over and over again, that death is an illusion, and that though life may continue in a different form, it continues all the same.”
Ricky paused and looked out at the group. She saw nodding heads and smiles through tears. Then she noticed something: Moon had moved. She had floated to the left, making a beeline for a round man in a crumpled brown suit who’d just come in a side door of the meeting hall. As Moon got closer to the new arrival, Ricky began to see a scraggly looking spirit with long, tangled hair floating above the man, whispering in his ear. The man seemed to hear what was being said and was mumbling under his breath. Moon’s voice sounded urgently in Ricky’s mind.
Tell David to go to this man now!
But everyone will think I’m going crazy.
Would you rather be thought crazy or give up your body and join me. That guy has a gun!
No more persuasion was needed. “Detective Clark, go to the man at the door,” Ricky said as she started walking towards him herself.
No Ricky, duck behind the podium. Moon screamed in her mind.
Ricky could feel heat around her and a strong, unseen force pushing her to the ground.
“David, get the guy in the brown suit,” she screamed, as David bounded over, pushing past people to intercept the stranger.
Just then, the haunted man reached into his jacket for his weapon, and David jumped him and dislodged a small but deadly revolver from his hand then the gun clattered to the floor.
Ricky could see Moon arguing with the scraggly ghost, and then watched as Moon zapped the spirit with what looked like a crystal, and the being disappeared.
The brown-suited man sat cowering on the floor on his knees, several of Moon’s friends holding on as David went outside to bring in the police who had been acting as crowd control. George and Stan rushed up to Ricky and helped her from the floor.
The memorial suddenly threatened to degrade into chaos. News crews had a whole new story for the six o’clock broadcast. Some of Moon’s followers turned the would-be-terrorist over to the two police officers who’d come back into the hall with David.
Ricky sat in the chair behind the podium, legs shaking, Moon floating over her, while George took over the lectern and brought back some semblance of order. A musician came up to perform and everyone did their best to go on with the program that had been planned, as reporters did on-the-spot interviews outside on the lawn.
Ricky carried on a conversation with her sister as the ceremony progressed.
Moon, I don’t understand. Did you know that man?
Yes, Charlie Fell, relative of a woman whose ghost I cleared. She’d made a will excluding Charlie, and he’d changed it. She clued me in on his tricks and told me how to expose him. He never forgave me.
There was a ghost connected to him. I saw the cord and the spirit cloud, just like at Peggy’s house.
Yea, he was bitter before but not crazy enough to come after me in a public place. The spirit was linked to him to stir him up. The spirit was telling Charlie I wasn’t really dead, that you were me pretending to be my sister. He would have killed you thinking he was killing me and getting his revenge.
But who sent him? Who is doing the linking? The same being that linked Cillia to Peggy?
Yes, I call him the Soul Stealer. I’m not sure if he’s in a body or not. I’ve been trying to track him for the last two years. He’s the one who blinded me, so I’d crash. I will admit he warned me before he did it. Gave me a year to cooperate with his plan. Obviously, I refused.
Moon, am I in danger? Are there going to be more people like Charlie Fell coming after me? Why didn’t the police spot him before he came in?
There was silence for a moment before Moon answered. This isn’t the right place to talk about this. The danger has passed for today. If there are any other instigating spirits hanging around, I’ll warn you and you can alert David. Consider hiring a body guard when you’re out in public until David is officially your employee.
Ricky felt her throat tighten and her heart beat quicken. What have you gotten me into Moon? This thing is way too complicated for me to handle.
Moon’s voice was soothing in her min
d, reminding Ricky of how their mother spoke to them when they were children. I know the whole thing is freaky, but believe me, it’s not just my battle. We’re fighting for a whole lot more. Sorry to say, you’d be involved even if you were in Chicago, but there would be no one with the right skills there to protect you. Let’s just enjoy my going away party, okay? We’ll talk more later on. It’s so much easier to show you rather than trying to explain.
Okay, the speakers are almost done. You missed all the great stuff they probably said about you. Ricky felt a smile spreading across her face, in spite of her fear.
That’s the neat thing about the group I hang around with. They said the same neat things to my face while I still had a face to talk to.
The memorial ended with more songs and a short video of Moon speaking to her students. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, but most of them continued to smile through their tears.
Following the service, they rearranged the folding chairs around long tables which were brought out from the storage room. A serving window opened at the side of the meeting room, behind which several men and women had been laboring during the memorial service. Food was set up on the long counter in front of the serving space and a multitude of breads, hot dishes, cold cuts, sweets, and beverages were spread out for everyone to enjoy.
There was a lot more laughing than was usual at a wake. People told stories about Moon, recounted her amazing abilities and comforted each other with the knowledge that she was still around. She was included in every conversation as if she were a part of each circle of friends.
Stan had evicted the news crews from the hall, as best he could. There were so many former students, clients and friends, it was impossible to know for sure that no reporter was hidden in the crowd.
Ricky sat with Beth Ann, George, Stan, Chester and David, while she picked at a lentil hot dish and nibbled on the edge of a sourdough roll. The urn with Moon’s ashes sat on the table next to her. The gunman and Moon’s warning afterwards had scared away any appetite she might have had.
“I still don’t get why Moon wanted you to hang on to her ashes,” Beth Ann said, as she finished her second piece of cherry cobbler. “She used to say she wanted her dust sprinkled in Lake Superior if anything happened to her.”
“Yeah,” Chester agreed, “I remember her saying that, but the note we found in the meditation room is pretty clear as to what she wanted.”
“That’s the strange part for me,” George interjected. “Why didn’t she say something in the documents with her living will? Everything about her memorial was there, including the cremation instructions and the urn. You’d think she’d have mentioned it then.”
“I agree,” Beth Ann said, as she blotted up the last of the cherry juice from her plate with the sweet cobbler crust. “The confusing part is all of that was written a year ago, but the note was dated from two weeks ago. But she had her reasons, Moon always had a reason.” She looked over at Ricky. “Any ideas Ricky?”
Ricky slowly shook her head no, not wanting to ask her sister in front of Chester. “I have no idea. We never had a conversation on the subject.”
Just then, David’s cell phone rang, and he turned in his chair to talk. In a few moments, he reported back to the group.
“That was the sergeant at the third precinct. Charles Fell, the would-be-assassin, has been transferred to a locked ward at Minneapolis General. He was so hostile they had to get a court order to sedate and transport him.” David looked toward Ricky.
“Mark Cummings of the MPD is on his way over. Now that the service is over, he wants to interview us to see if he can sort anything out. Fell isn’t making any sense, so they need any details we might have for the report to hold him for observation. If he goes back to jail, someone might post bail. They don’t want him on the streets.”
“Could I speak with you in the hall for a moment?” Ricky asked David, in a quiet voice, hoping no one else heard.
“We have to be careful of what we talk about before the interview,” David said with a smile. “If we discuss the attack, your story and mine might get scrambled together. That’s one of the reasons police interview witnesses separately. We’ll talk after you’ve spoken to Mark.”
“Please David. This is important. I know you can’t compromise an investigation, but I have to ask you something.”
Stan heard their discussion since he was sitting closest to David. “Ricky, you can talk to your attorney before you’re interviewed. Can I help you at all?”
David nodded. “That’s a good idea. Talk to Stan then we’ll touch base after the interviews. My role in this is confusing. I’m still part of the Patrol for another week, and I was the investigating officer for your sister’s accident. Until I’m out of the Patrol, I have to be careful about my level of involvement.”
“Okay, Stan,” Ricky said, pushing away from the table. “We need to find a private place.”
Stan followed Ricky out of the room, pushing through groups of people who attempted to draw them into conversations. Ricky nodded and smiled but firmly continued past them until she and Stan found an empty classroom on the floor down from the meeting hall.
Ricky gazed out of the window at the chaos outside the building. There were news vans and police doing crowd control. She didn’t look forward to leaving and facing the inquisition.
“Stan, you know how powerful Moon is?”
He nodded, fuzzy eyebrows rose in an expectant frame for his questioning eyes.
“Would you be surprised to hear that Moon’s been talking to me?”
“Not really,” he said, a look of wonder mixed with confusion on his face. “She said she had a special project for you. I figured she’d find someway to tell you about it.”
“It took a while for me to start hearing her, but I probably talk to her more often then I talk to the living people around me. She let me know this will be an ongoing thing.”
Stan nodded encouragingly.
“So, the thing is, the reason I called out to David to stop Charlie Fell was that Moon warned me. She told me to get down, that Fell had a gun. What do I do about that when the police interview me? They’ll think I’m nuts, and it’s bound to get into the papers that I’m communicating with Moon. The press will never leave me alone. I don’t need the distraction and every crazy person in the Twin Cities area will be coming after me with a gun.”
Stan sat down on a chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. He let out his belt a notch and sighed. “Too many dessert choices. Have to start going to the gym again.” He looked out the window and watched the reporters trying to weigh-lay people that had attended the memorial.
“I have an excellent memory, Ricky, and what I recall you said was ‘Detective Clark, go to the man at the door.’ You didn’t say he has a gun, or he’s going to hurt someone. David figured it out for himself and took the appropriate action. All you have to say is that Charlie Fell looked out of place or strange to you. Maybe that you had this gut instinct that he was going to cause a problem. The cops around here have depended on Moon for years for her psychic impressions about difficult cases. It won’t be too big a leap for them to think her sister might have some of the same skills.”
“You’re right. That’s all I said out loud. I had this whole other conversation going on with Moon in my head, so it’s hard for me to sort out what actually came out of my mouth. That makes me feel better about the interview. I won’t be lying to them. Fell looked scary to me even before Moon warned me.”
“Do you want me with you when they talk to you?” Stan asked as he stood up and straightened out his wrinkled suit.
“No, I probably shouldn’t. It will look like I’m feeling guilty about something if I have my attorney there. But Stan, there is one more thing. This whole mess is more serious than I thought. I think it’s even taken Moon by surprise. I don’t think she expected the crazies to come out of the woodwork this soon and be quite this hostile.”
“What do you mean? Is s
he telling you you’re in trouble? Does she think it’s not an isolated case?”
“I can’t go into detail yet, but she indicated I might need a body guard while I’m investigating for her. She’ll be directing the show, but today’s attack indicates she won’t always know what’s around the next corner.”
Ricky and Stan rejoined the others to find David deep in conversation with a truculent Chester whose face had gotten purple around the edges. The look of disdain that he aimed at Ricky made her doubt Moon’s decision to keep this malcontent as part of the team.
David pulled his attention away from Chester and smiled reassuringly at Ricky.
“Just mentioning to Chester that because of this attempted assault, I think it best your group puts a hold on public activities until we find out if Charlie Fell acted alone. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” David explained.
“Listen to the man, Chester” Ricky said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “This is what he does for a living. He’s worked with these situations before. Why not let this get sorted out before we jump back into the work? People, who knew Moon or knew of her, won’t think it strange that we take time off for mourning.”
Chester leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretched out under the table, barely missing Beth Ann’s legs on the side opposite him. “That’s just it Ricky. You didn’t know Moon or her work. What right do you have to make that decision? I think I’m the authority here.”
Beth Ann looked up from the dessert she was finishing and glared at Chester. “Obviously Moon did not agree with you, otherwise she wouldn’t have given the running of the organization over to Ricky and me. She gave you the Spirit Communication classes to continue and that was all. Those classes are under the control of the steering committee which includes, Ricky and me along with George and Stan. All of us are here, so let’s vote.”