As we finished arranging the cupcakes so they looked nice next to some pitchers of water and a jar of peppermints, I looked up to see Cliff, now out of his uniform, walk past the large front pane-glass window. He was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved nice blue shirt. He also held on to the hand of a very small, very adorable little girl.
My heart did two things at once; it thought the child might be one of the cutest it had ever seen so it kind of soared. But mostly, it sank. There it was, that thing I was dreading: seeing Cliff with his family. I and my heart didn’t like that part at all.
“What is it, Betts?” Gram asked.
“Huh?”
“You squeaked or something.”
“Nothing. Sorry about that.” I pulled my glance away from Cliff and the little girl with the head full of short unruly brown hair. But, as though a string was attached to my head and someone tugged on it relentlessly, I turned to watch them again. They were making their way to an area where someone was dressed in a costume from a Dr. Seuss book. Broken Rope was good at anything that required a costume.
“Oh, I see.” Gram’s eyes followed mine. “Go say hi to him, Betts. It might be better for the two of you to have a conversation that wasn’t centered around your grandmother’s guilt or innocence. You won’t be able to avoid him forever,” she said quietly enough so that Sarabeth wouldn’t hear.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Gram laughed. “Whatever you say, dear.”
“Miz, someone dropped off some old cookbooks. I thought about putting them on the shelves to lend out, but I’d really like for you to take a look at them and let me know if you think they’re any good. I need to get outside, but do you have a minute to look at them before you leave? They’re just in the back in my office.”
“Sure,” Gram said after she surveyed Cliff’s location again and lifted her eyebrows at me. “I don’t have to be anywhere for a while.”
I rolled my eyes, but that only made her smile bigger.
“You need to get used to him being back, Betts. The sooner, the better,” she said, quietly again.
As she turned to follow Sarabeth, I debated escaping out the back door and hiding in Gram’s car. It was the chicken way out, but that didn’t bother me so much. I realized, though, that Gram was right. Broken Rope was too small to continue to hide whenever I saw Cliff with one of his family members. Besides, it would be easier to start with a daughter than a wife.
I ventured away from the food tables and outside into the throng. I wouldn’t force the issue, but if I ran into them, I’d be polite.
The read-a-thon was more a celebration of the end of the school year than a place for kids to sit quietly and read. Mostly, parents and younger children attended to see what Sarabeth recommended for good summer reading—the time away from swimming pools and baseball games that produced the dreaded phrase “I’m bored.” Besides the Dr. Seuss character whose name I still couldn’t remember, there were tables with all sorts of puzzles, a rubber duck pond, a puppet show, and other various activities that appealed to children of all ages.
It only took a minute or two to run into Cliff and his daughter. His look of surprise seemed genuine.
“Betts, hi! What’re you doing here?”
“Catering.” I nodded toward the building.
“Great. We’ll have to go in and check it out, won’t we, Ashley?”
The little girl with unruly hair nodded. She was definitely adorable but didn’t look a bit like Cliff. That meant his wife was adorable, too.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
“Betts, this is my niece, Ashley; she’s Cora’s daughter. Ashley, this is my friend Isabelle Winston.” Cora was Cliff’s younger sister. I knew she’d gotten married, but I didn’t realize she’d had a child—more proof that my family was slipping when it came to keeping me up-to-date regarding Cliff’s or his family’s life.
My insides imploded a little and relief washed over me. I giggled and said, “Oh, I thought she was your daughter.”
“No, I don’t have any kids,” he said casually.
Now I felt ridiculous. I bit my cheeks to keep from more giddy laughter and just nodded.
“Nice to meet you,” Ashley said, proving her manners were rungs above mine.
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“Can we go to the duck pond, Uncle Cliff?”
“Sure, kiddo. Talk to you later, Betts?”
I nodded again.
As I watched them walk away, I had a sudden urge to kick my heels in the air and give a woot of glee. And how unbelievably immature would that have been? I imagined what Jake would say if he were here.
You are out of control, Betts.
He would have been right. But Cliff’s telling me he didn’t have kids was an unexpected bit of good news.
My momentary happiness was interrupted by the high-pitched wail of a siren. Everyone turned toward the open gates. Jim steered his police car, under control at a slow speed but with the lights and siren on full power.
“What the…?” I muttered as I maneuvered my way through the crowd of small people. Was this some sort of event? Part of the party? Maybe so the kids could get a look at a police car? Was the fire truck close behind? Not that I could see.
Jim parked his car, turned off the siren but not the lights, and stepped out. His face was serious and told me he wasn’t there for fun. Cliff and Ashley hurried toward him. Jim said something to Cliff as he searched the crowd and then pointed at me.
Suddenly there was a voice in my ear.
“Your gram would never have killed that man,” the voice said.
I turned to see the cowboy, still in the same getup and still smelling of wood smoke.
“I know…Who are you and how do you know Gram?”
“Don’t let them arrest her. She’s the only one who can help me and can help them figure out who killed Everett.”
“No one’s going to arrest anyone,” I said.
Jim walked directly to me. Cliff followed behind him as he held on to Ashley’s hand.
“Isabelle, where’s your gram?” Jim asked as he stopped and put his thumb in his belt buckle next to his gun.
“Why?”
“Where is Miz?” he demanded. He didn’t pull his gun out of the holster, but even in the midst of the panic that was spreading through my limbs, I had the sense to be offended at the mere hint that he could if he wanted to.
“She’s in Sarabeth’s office. Looking at some cookbooks.”
Jim made a move to walk past me, but I grabbed his arm. He looked at my grip and then back at my eyes with something that didn’t need words attached. I was to let go of him immediately. I did.
But I also followed closely at his heels, with Cliff, Ashley, and the cowboy close on mine.
“Jim, what’s going on? Should I call Verna?”
He didn’t answer, so I turned and said the same thing to Cliff. He gave me a stern look and shook his head with two quick moves. I was suddenly angry at both of them. What was going on that they couldn’t be civil to me? This was not the way things were done in Broken Rope.
“She couldn’t kill him, Isabelle. Somehow you need to convince them,” the cowboy said.
“How do you propose I do that?” I asked as I tried to keep up with Jim. Cliff shot me another look that got further under my skin. How dare he reprimand, even though it was with just his eyes.
“I don’t know, but we need her to help find the real killer,” the cowboy said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“I’m not talking,” Cliff said, his eyes now more questioning than punitive.
“Not you. Him.”
Cliff’s eyebrows came together before he blew by me and walked next to Jim. Ashley was hanging on to Cliff’s hand and her short legs lifted high and quick with the two men’s pace.
Jim pulled open one of the big swinging front doors and continued to march toward Gram. Children and parents moved out of our way
; the cowboy was following me, bringing the smoky scent with him.
I needed to track down Verna as quickly as possible, but I couldn’t manage a call until I knew what Jim would do with Gram.
Jim yanked open the office door. Gram was sitting behind Sarabeth’s messy desk, a thick cookbook open in front of her. She looked up casually at each of us.
“Jim, Cliff, Betts,” she said, and then her eyes landed on the cowboy. “Uh-oh.”
“Missouri Anna Winston, could you please stand up,” Jim said. I could hear both anger and pain in his voice.
“What’s this about?” Gram said as she stood.
“Missouri, you’re under arrest for the murder of Everett Morningside…” Jim recited the Miranda warnings as I watched, but I couldn’t digest the words. Gram was really being formally arrested for Everett’s murder? What had they found?
“Isabelle, do not let them arrest her,” the cowboy said again.
“What exactly would you like me to do?” I said loudly.
I didn’t know if it was the volume or the tone of my voice, but suddenly everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
“I just want you to stay out of the way,” Jim said.
Cliff looked at me with his eyebrows tight together.
Gram said, “Just call Verna, dear. She’ll get this taken care of quickly.”
“I’m not talking to any of you,” I said. “This…this guy keeps telling me not to let you arrest Gram. I have no idea how to prevent that.”
“What guy?” Jim said.
“What are you talking about?” Cliff said.
“Uh-oh,” Gram added.
“This guy whose name I still don’t know.” I pointed at the cowboy who stood next to me and rubbed his chin as he looked at Gram.
“Threw me for a loop, too, Missouri. I thought you were the only one,” the cowboy said.
“The only one what?” I said.
“There’s nobody there, Betts,” Cliff said.
“Very funny, Betts,” Jim said as he took Gram gently by the arm and began to lead her out of the office. “You pick this moment to act foolish?”
“Stop talking, dear,” Gram said as she walked by. “And you”—she nodded at the cowboy—“better explain yourself to her. It looks like I’m not going to be able to.”
I watched Jim escort Gram out of the library. Cliff, still holding Ashley’s hand, followed behind them. Ashley, who had observed the entire scene from her short stance and seemed to be entertained by the adults, smiled and waved at me as they walked away.
I turned to the cowboy and said, “Who the hell are you and what was all that about?”
The cowboy took off his hat and said, “I’m Jerome Cowbender. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream.
CHAPTER 7
“You’re playing the part of Jerome Cowbender this tourist season?” I said as we sat across from each other in Sarabeth’s office.
Before I could focus on the cowboy, I called Verna and my parents and asked them to get to the jail as soon as possible. I told them I’d join them eventually. I let Sarabeth know that I was pretty shaken up and needed some time to gather myself. I asked if I could sit in her office. She’d said that was fine, and because she didn’t seem to see the cowboy sitting in the chair across from me, I didn’t mention him to her.
I wasn’t lying; I was shaken up. I was literally shaking with fear and nervousness. My throat was tight and my stomach was turning painfully. I was trying to keep myself together because I needed answers. If Gram wasn’t going to give me any, maybe the man sitting across from me would.
“No, ma’am, I’m Jerome, or I guess I’m his ghost. At least that’s what Missouri tells me.”
“She tells you?” Obviously, something strange was going on, but I wasn’t ready to believe it was something as weird as the ghost of Jerome Cowbender.
“Yes. I don’t feel dead, but I died some time ago. Tragically. Someone shot me in the back. I don’t remember it, though. Not yet at least. Every time I visit, it takes me a little time for some bits and pieces of my memory to tie back together. Sometimes I’m not around long enough to get much back.”
“I have no idea what to say to that except that you must be an actor playing Jerome Cowbender this summer. There’s no other reasonable explanation.”
“No, I’m the real one; what’s left of him at least. Here touch me.” He extended one of his heavily calloused hands over the desk. “It’s going to be strange, mind you, but it’ll probably convince you.”
I hesitated but only because I knew that if he didn’t feel like a normal human being I’d have to accept that his story might have some truth to it. I knew that since no one else, except maybe Gram, could see him it probably meant he wasn’t human, but I was more willing to think I was losing my marbles than believe he was a real ghost.
“Go on, I can’t hurt you. I can’t really hurt anyone. Not anymore.”
I took a deep breath and then reached to his hand, and hesitantly put my finger to one of his. And my finger went right through him. I did it again, and again.
“Holy sh—” I could feel my heart pound in my chest. “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Could you start from the beginning?”
“The beginning of what?”
“How do you know Gram?”
“Oh, that. Missouri says that when she was a newborn I saved her from a fire. Well, my ghost did. It was the first time I came back. She says I’ve been ‘haunting’ her on and off since I died.”
“You saved her from the fire when you first came back? You mean you were a ghost?”
“Yep…well, understand that right now I don’t remember the fire; I just remember her telling me about it. The longer I’m here, the more I remember from when I was alive and from my visits as a ghost, but there’re no guarantees.”
No guarantees? Apparently not. Ghosts weren’t really supposed to exist, were they? Wasn’t there some sort of rule that ghosts only belonged in scary stories and big imaginations? The fact that I just might be talking to one tilted everything I thought was real. Something suddenly becoming real that wasn’t supposed to be irrevocably changed my perspective about everything. I just wasn’t sure what my new perspective was. Confusion only scratched the surface of what I was feeling and thinking.
“She says that she was only a day old when the fire broke out in her family’s home. They lived outside town in a two-room shack that got hit by lightning. I was…it’s hard to explain, but I was ‘pulled’ back, a part of me was anyway, and I somehow got her and her momma out of the fire. That was the first time and the only time as a ghost, according to Missouri, that I’ve been able to physically move things.”
“You don’t remember that?” I asked.
“I remember Missouri telling me about it. At the moment I don’t remember doing it.”
I’d heard the story of the lightning and the fire, but no one had mentioned that the ghost of Jerome Cowbender, the infamous bank robber, had been the hero who saved two of my family members. “You’ve been a part of Gram’s life since then?”
“Yes. I come and go. It’s unpredictable but sometimes I come back when something bad has happened.”
I thought. “The fire? Did the fire—pardon the pun—spark you to come back this time?”
“I don’t rightly know, but Missouri and I will figure it out eventually. I know she was in the jail last night. When I realized why, I thought maybe I was supposed to help clear her name.”
“Last night was less serious than today. Now Gram’s been officially arrested for the murder of Everett Morningside,” I said. “If you have any information that would clear her, you should probably tell me.”
“I don’t have much right now, but maybe I’ll come upon something.”
“How?”
“Again, I don’t rightly know just yet, but
give me a little time. Missouri couldn’t kill anyone, at least not if they weren’t threatening her or her family. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
We?
“Who, besides me and Gram, can see you?” I asked
“I don’t know of anyone. I didn’t know you could until this morning at the school when you scared the spit out of me.”
“I saw you last night. Were you outside the theater?”
“Yes, I was looking for Missouri. I knew where she was, but I couldn’t get into the jail.”
“Couldn’t?”
“Yes, I tried pretty hard last night. I just can’t. I remember trying other times before but never made it in. Must have something to do with having been an outlaw.”
I laughed, but it was uncomfortable. I was having a conversation with a ghost, a ghost of an outlaw who seemed pretty harmless at the moment and pretty matter-of-fact about his days of criminal behavior.
It was the fact that I’d seen Gram look at him and talk to him that made me think I probably hadn’t lost my mind. If I’d been the only one to see him, I would have been more concerned about my mental stability.
Even though I didn’t feel that I was one hundred percent aboard the notion that a ghost existed, I was ready to almost-all-the-way believe that this one did. And, if I really thought about it, a ghost residing in Broken Rope, Missouri, a place with a strange and deadly history, might not be too much of a stretch anyway.
There was a good reason Jerome seemed so authentic; he was the real deal, sort of. He was as real as the ghost of someone could be at least. However, there was always a chance that I was rationalizing my confusion and the ghost was just a figment of my imagination. If that was the case, I would need some mental health help. The irony of recognizing my potential craziness in an old insane asylum wasn’t lost on me, which made me think I wasn’t crazy. Crazy people probably didn’t recognize irony.
“In my explorin’, I came upon a little something, though. It might be important and it was about me.”
“I guess you should tell me what it was, Jerome. Unless you can make yourself appear to Jim, I’m going to have to be your voice.” I gulped. Believing that the ghost was real was one thing, but speaking for said ghost would be a whole different challenge.
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