by Ann Charles
A grin leaked out, spilling onto his lips. “So you think a hands-on approach is the best solution?”
“When it comes to your hands, definitely.”
“Should I administer wine therapy during the session, or will it be peanut butter fudge ice cream in the recovery room again?”
Wine … something was trying to surface from my memory. Oh, tonight with Cornelius and his wispy chatterbugs! “That reminds me, Cornelius called.”
“Practicing my bedside manner reminds you of Cornelius Curion?”
“Well, you are both tall and like to play with ghosts,” I joked and then continued with the other reason I’d needed to meet Doc in the parking lot. “Anyway, Cornelius wants us to come over to listen to his ghost buddies. He taped their voices on his fancy EV-something doohickey.”
“Why am I not at all surprised that he has an Electronic Voice Phenomena recorder?”
I decided to skip Cornelius’s cryptic message about one of the ghosts wanting to talk to me. Knowing Cornelius, he was just dangling a lure to make sure I showed up tonight.
“So,” I caught Doc’s hand, lacing his fingers with mine. “What are you doing tonight, Mr. Nyce?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“What my girlfriend is doing tonight.”
“She’s going to listen to some spooky recordings …” I switched to my Rod Serling voice, “in the Twilight Zone.”
“Then the Twilight Zone is where I’ll be.”
“Thanks.” I kissed the back of his hand. “I’ll make up for it later.”
“You still owe me a massage.” His gaze raked down over me. “I like this outfit. You have sort of a velvety gypsy look going. You raided your aunt’s closet again, didn’t you?”
“She’s got the coolest clothes.”
Jerry’s Hummer pulled into the lot. I could see Dickie sitting in the front seat next to him.
“Crud.” I let go of his hand. “There’s Jerry. I gotta go.”
“Who’s with him?”
“The people from the television show.”
Doc tipped my chin up, inspecting one side of my face and then the other. “Gorgeous. Go get ‘em, superstar.”
“Thanks. I’ll call you later.”
I made it to the door just as Jerry and the others were exiting his Hummer. I was back at my desk with a busy look on my face by the time they all strolled inside.
Dickie and Honey had brought a friend this time. He was in charge of the film crew. After introductions, which included much hoopla and fanfare, Jerry and the TV people headed to his office. Ben and I would be called into the game later and were instructed to get warmed up, per Coach Jerry.
“Oh, Violet, one more thing.” Jerry waved the others inside his office and came back to my desk.
“You want me to go get coffee and doughnuts?”
“No. You’re not my secretary.” He leaned closer. “Ray mentioned that the Galena House was rumored to be haunted. That’s one of your properties, right?”
I nodded, not liking the way the wind was blowing on this already.
“We’re going to need a release from the owner if we’re going to film there.”
I was already working on three releases, what was a fourth? However, there was a small snag with the Galena House. “You do realize that the police still have that one apartment blocked off with crime scene tape, right?”
As in the late Ms. Wolff’s place, where Harvey and I had found her shriveled head lying next to her shriveled body.
“That will make it even more interesting for viewers because of the potential for danger.”
I sighed at the way his brain always found the marketing angle in all situations, good or bad. “Okay, I’ll run over this morning and see if I can get Ms. Tender to sign the release.”
“Great teamwork, Violet.” He clapped me on the back, probably leaving a bruise.
Mona handed me a copy of the release form as I headed out the door a half hour later, sending me off with a bitter sounding, “Good luck, Vi.”
The frown on her lips said plenty about her feelings on all of this.
When I parked in front of the Galena House, two things gave me pause. One was Freesia, who was standing on the porch while cloaked in a long black wool coat that looked a lot like the one Cornelius sported when he was playing Abe Lincoln Jr.
She waved at me after the Picklemobile announced our presence with its usual backfire. Freesia’s smile warmed me up even though the day was still in the mid-forties.
The other bit that had me scratching my head was the man who was standing next to her, his notepad and pen at the ready.
What was Detective Cooper doing here? And what had I done to earn that squinty eyed stare he aimed at me?
There was only one way to find out. I made my way up the sidewalk to the front porch, noting that my Calamity Jane Realty FOR SALE sign had a kink in one of the chain links thanks to last night’s gusts. The sign at Cooper’s had been kinked, too. Danged chains. I’d have to straighten it before I left.
“Everything okay?” I asked, focusing on Freesia.
“No, Parker,” Cooper butted in. “It’s not, and the fact that you’re here makes it even more interesting.”
“What did I do now?”
“I’m missing some clocks.”
“So you automatically assume I’m some kind of time bandit? I haven’t even been to your house in a week.”
“Not my clocks, Ace.” He stuffed his notebook in his coat pocket. “Ms. Wolff’s clocks.”
“What makes you think I have anything to do with it?”
“Because only three people in this town have a master key to get into any of the apartments in the Galena House.” He pointed at Freesia. “She’s been here all along, so there’s no need for her to remove the clocks. I know for a fact that I haven’t touched them. So that leaves the last key holder—you.”
* * *
“I have no idea where those damned clocks are,” I told Doc when he showed up at Aunt Zoe’s door after work carrying two large pizzas.
Doc frowned through the screen door. “What clocks?”
“The ones in Ms. Wolff’s apartment. Didn’t Cooper call you? Ask you to verify that you were my alibi last night?”
“No. Should he have?”
I growled. “It was all hot air and threats then; I should have figured.”
“That’s probably Cooper’s version of smoke and mirrors.” Doc held up the boxes. “I’ll trade you two pizzas for a ticket inside.”
“Oh, sorry.” I held the screen door open for him, taking the boxes from him. The cardboard alone smelled good enough to gnaw on. “Thanks for bringing supper. This will go over much better than the gruel I’d planned on serving.”
“Dang. I love your gruel.”
I left him to close the door behind him, grumbling under my breath all of the way to the kitchen about Detective Cooper and his stupid threats about search warrants and orange jumpsuits.
Fortunately for me, Dickie and Honey had kept me pretty distracted for much of my day. Or maybe it was more fortunate for Cooper, since I’d searched the internet during what little down time I had to find out how to make an authentic voodoo doll. If memory served me right, Cornelius had a good grasp of that particular religion.
I set the pizza on the table while Doc got out plates. “Tell me what happened,” he said as he pulled glasses from the cupboard.
I told him about how Cooper had stopped by to look around the crime scene again at Ms. Wolff’s place and had found several clocks missing from the living and dining room walls. How Freesia claimed she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone around the place. How Coop had said I was the only other one with a master key, then had made disparaging remarks about my “wild hairs” and threatened to throw me in jail if I were lying about the clocks like I had about the bottle of mead.
I huffed, grinding my molars all over again. I should have known that damned slip of the tong
ue about the mead would snowball into an avalanche of trouble.
Doc gave me a hug, stroking my hair. “Coop’s just upset. Things at work have been getting a lot more intense lately, and he’s under the gun for answers that he doesn’t have.”
I leaned my forehead against his chest. “How do you know about this?”
“He mentioned it during the poker game when Reid asked how things were going at work.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’s probably Natalie.” I headed out of the kitchen, yelling up the stairs for the kids to come get some pizza before opening the front door.
“Mmmm, pizza,” Natalie said as she slipped off her coat. “Where’s Harvey’s pickup?”
“He had to leave as soon as I got home from work. Something about a hot date and having to stop by the place he’s sharing with his bunghole of a nephew to grab his love potion.”
She grinned. “Bunghole of a nephew?”
“The low-down, dirty rotten …”
“Sheepherder,” she finished for me. “Did you and Detective Cooper have words today, Vi?”
“He spit words at me while I tried to defend myself.”
“Spill it.”
“Pizza first.” I led her to the kitchen.
Layne chowed down three slices in no time, which made me wonder if Addy had been on to something this morning when questioning his stomach ache claim.
Addy finished two pieces minus the crust.
“May I be excused so I can feed my crust to Elvis?” She kept her focus on her plate, her expression stony, poised for battle. She knew my feelings on feeding that chicken table scraps.
Not in the mood to clash swords tonight after the day I’d had, I caved. “Sure.”
She raced down the basement steps while Layne trudged back up to his room. Both kids had been polite to Doc throughout the meal, thankfully, but their continued silence toward me said plenty.
While Doc put away the remaining pizza and cleaned up, I told Natalie the whole story about Cooper and the missing clocks. Venting cooled my head a little, and Nat’s firm agreement that Cooper was indeed being a thick-headed baboon made me feel even better.
Her ease at toasting to my snarling opinions about the damned detective had me pretty certain Cooper hadn’t been serenading Natalie last night when he was supposed to be home in bed with AK-47s dancing in his head. That left me wondering even more if it had been Tiffany’s voice I’d heard in the background when I’d called earlier this week.
“I’ll be right back, Violet,” Doc said, tossing the towel on the counter. “I need to go home and grab something.” He gave me a quick kiss before heading out the door.
Natalie shooed me up the stairs to change out of Aunt Zoe’s skirt before I ruined it. She knew me and my clumsiness all too well. I’d ripped or stained many, many pieces of her clothing over the years.
Doc returned shortly.
“Thanks for watching them,” I told Natalie. “I’ll text you after we leave the hotel.”
Natalie knew where we were going tonight, but I’d skimmed on the why part, keeping it to a matter of getting a release form signed. “You better! In the meantime, I’ll spoil your little blessings rotten.”
“They’re already spoiled.”
“Then I’ll make them even rottener.” She waved at us from the porch. “Watch out for her, Doc. Cornelius has a history of adding to her nightmares.”
She didn’t know the half of it, mostly because I hadn’t told her anything yet about the paranormal world in which I’d stuck my toe. Or more like jumped in up to my waist.
Doc saluted her as he held the car door for me.
Several minutes and a few blocks later, we parked in the public garage located behind The Old Prospector Hotel.
Doc turned to me. “I brought you something.” He took my hand and dropped a couple of tiny white packages sealed at both ends into it.
I held one up, trying to read it in the orange light from the parking garage. “Crush once. Use and discard.” I looked at Doc. “What are these?”
“Smelling salts. I’d like to make it through tonight without another black eye, if possible.”
I laughed and crammed the two packages into my pocket. “I thought you liked it when I played rough.”
“Well, I do like it when you kiss the bruises better.” He opened his car door. “Let’s go hear what has Cornelius’s ghosts all excited.”
Alarms rang as soon as we stepped inside the lobby. Not the hotel alarms, but the ones in my head.
Sitting in front of a row of Triple Cherry slot machines near old Socrates, the long-dead, bald-nosed stuffed mule, sat two people with whom I’d spent the afternoon in Jerry’s office: Honey and the camera guy.
I stepped back onto Doc’s foot. Good thing I was wearing tennis shoes and not my cowboy boots. “Sorry.” I dragged him off to the side out of Honey’s line of sight.
“What’s wrong?”
“Two people from the television show are in here gaming.” I peeked around a slot machine, double-checking that they hadn’t moved. Nope, still there. “I don’t want them to see me here tonight.”
Especially since I didn’t know how this would all end.
“Isn’t there a side door by the stairwell?”
“Yeah.” Unfortunately, Honey was between us and it.
I had a gut clenching thought. “You don’t think they’re staying here, do you?”
“It’s possible.”
“I wouldn’t think this place is posh enough for Dickie’s sort.” I peeked again. Honey sat in the same place, but the camera guy had moved a slot machine down.
Doc pulled me back. “You sneak outside through the lobby doors and go around to the side; I’ll slip by them and make sure it’s not locked.”
As far as I could remember, Honey had no idea who Doc was, so that should work. “Okay. See you shortly.”
Doc’s plan worked like a charm.
We stole up the same back stairwell where Doc had first come across a young prostitute ghost almost a month ago. But there were no spooks lingering around to freak me out tonight. No talk of Doc’s aversion to marriage, either, which was another misadventure we’d shared in the stairwell.
Cornelius’s suite was located on the third floor. For the first time, Doc had no qualms, no queasiness, nothing on the way up to it, not even in the hallway outside the suite’s door.
“Last time you were here,” I whispered, “thirteen ghosts came at you all at once. Where are they now?”
“I don’t think I want to know.”
We reached Cornelius’s door. I gave the signal knock as instructed by his text this afternoon. Three loud knocks, two quiet ones, and then three more loud ones.
“Is there a secret password, too?” Doc asked.
“I hope not or we’ll be out here all night.”
The door creaked open, but nobody peeked through the crack. I pushed it further open. The foyer was empty. Doc and I stepped inside, letting the door click closed behind us.
The suite was semi-dark, lit by computer screens. An old black and white version of The Thing played on the television screen, adding a flickering effect to the walls. If I hadn’t had Doc’s hand on my lower back propelling me forward, I might have turned and fled back out the door.
“Cornelius?” I whispered loudly, afraid someone or something else might reply in his place. Something black and covered in pustules with glowing orange eyes.
“Violet,” he popped up from a chair behind the row of computer screens, making me squawk in surprise.
Doc chuckled, squeezing my shoulder. “You’ve been hanging around Addy’s chicken too long.”
“Did you bring the wine?” Cornelius asked, waving us to join him behind the monitors.
The whole setup looked like a command center. I wondered if he could watch the space shuttle land from this setup.
I held out the wine bottle. “It’s not a Merlot.”
He took it. “This is white?�
�
“You didn’t say it had to be red.”
“I know. I was making sure it was white.”
“It’s a Riesling.”
“Perfect.” He put it on the round table in the dining area. “They’re going to love it.”
“The ghosts?”
“No, my collection of Venus flytraps.”
I let that one roll off and caught Doc’s hand, pulling him closer. “I also brought my tall friend along.”
Cornelius looked up at him. “Hello, Medium.”
“Good evening, Ghost Whisperer,” Doc shot back without hesitation, sliding me a glance.
I swallowed a chuckle.
“I’m glad you could join us.” Cornelius gave Doc one of those crooked smiles of his that tended to make me think the world was tipping sideways. “Violet tells me you have a romantic interest in her.”
Even more so when he followed with something as odd and embarrassing as that. I coughed out a gasp, glad for the shadows that hid my red cheeks.
“Did she now?” Doc winked at me. “Violet tells me you’re having trouble with some talkative ghosts.”
“They’re incessant.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since the last séance when Violet channeled Big Lips Lolly.”
Oh, dear Lord, I’d forgotten about my award-winning acting that night when I’d pretended to get in contact with the long-dead prostitute Doc had run into in the stairwell.
Doc smirked. “I remember that night very well.” He touched his cheek where I’d elbowed him hard enough to knock him off his chair and leave him with a helluva shiner.
I wrinkled my nose at him.
Cornelius indicated the table. “Pull up those chairs, and I’ll let you both hear the clamor going on in my walls.”
We each took a spot on either side of Cornelius. He unplugged a pair of headphones from what looked like a very expensive stereo with all sorts of lights and knobs and then turned up the volume.
“Now listen closely.” He hit the Play button.
A bunch of hissing and static followed.
I looked at Doc. He held up a “wait” finger.
What sounded like whispering started, mixing in with the white noise.
“Are those …” I started, leaning closer to the speaker next to me.