“Bernie.”
“I can see why you don’t like it,” Greg said.
“It is not Bernie.” Billy said, but only I heard him. “He doesn’t look like a Bernie.”
“Uh, I think we’re ready to order,” I said, trying to ignore Billy’s comments.
Greg gave me a questioning look, but my glance told him that we needed to get rid of the waiter ASAP.
“Sure,” Matherson held out his notepad.
“I mean, does he come across to you as a Bernie?” Billy continued.
“We’ll both have waffles, with bacon,” I told our waiter, “but I’d like mine with your peach sauce.”
“Peach sauce?” exclaimed Billy. “That stuff will ruin your waffles.”
I cringed, wishing that Billy would disappear. “Go away!” I hissed at him from the side of my mouth.
“What?” asked Matherson.
“Nothing,” I said. “Can we get some cream with our coffee, too?”
“Sure,” said our waiter.
“Fine,” snapped Billy. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He left.
“He was here again?” Greg asked after our waiter had gone.
“Yes,” I replied, “but I think he left again.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“We need to find out if Chad really did kill Billy,” I said. “Maybe, when we’re finished here, you can learn a little more about Chad, and I’ll see about getting Billy to stop trying to exact revenge.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Our food arrived and we ate, not bothering to take our time as we both had things to do. Once done, we paid our check and left, running into Aimie and Patrick on the way out.
“Hey, you two,” greeted Aimie. “Getting a bite to eat?”
“We just finished,” I said, “but maybe later?”
“It’s a date!” said Patrick.
“Oh, you guys”—Matherson, our waiter, ran up to us with the money we had used to pay out check—“because of last night’s events, Emily has said that your meals here are free of charge. Sorry, I should have…”
He stopped speaking the moment he noticed Aimie and Patrick.
“Thanks,” said Greg, taking the bills from Matherson’s hand. “We really don’t mind…”
“It’s policy,” said Matherson, with a robotic note to his voice, his eyes still focused on Aimie and Patrick. I thought I had seen recognition in them, but before I could say anything, Matherson left with a quick, “Have a nice day.”
“What was that all about?” demanded Greg, confused. “He acted like he’d seen a ghost.” He looked at me and I gave a quick shake of the head, answering his unspoken question. Billy was nowhere to be found.
“Probably nothing,” said Patrick.
“We’ll definitely catch up with you later,” said Aimie, pushing Patrick along to a table.
We said our good-byes and left, walking out into the crisp air as it mingled with the warmth from a heating lamp.
“Okay, so we’re agreed,” I said. “You go find Chad and make sure Billy doesn’t try something, and I’ll see what I can find out around here.”
“Just be careful,” said Greg.
“You too.”
Chapter 5
With a little bit of nosing around, I learned where Billy’s apartment was. He lived on the resort in a small, one-bedroom place in the basement of the main building. Being the janitor, Emily had decided that it was best if he lived there so that if his services were needed, he would be available.
I glanced around as I approached the warped door of his apartment, making certain that no one saw me go in there. Thanks to all of the time I had spent with Tiny and his friends, I managed to jimmy the lock, which wasn’t very secure to begin with, and slip inside, unnoticed. Darkness greeted me, except for a sliver of light that poked through the two foot, rectangular window. I felt for a light switch. The moment I had found it, I flipped it on.
I almost shrieked when I got a good look at Billy’s apartment. What a mess! Empty bags of chips and cereal boxes lay strewn all over the floor. No matter where I stepped, my foot crunched candy wrappers and dried, hard candies that had melted into the stained carpet. My foot caught on a wire that had tangled on the thin fibers of the carpet, tripping me. I reached out, grabbing the sides of a chair, the smooth and gritty material making me cringe. I looked at the chair. Gum, burrowed into the threads of the fabric, dotted it in a multicolored coat of spit and stickiness. I lifted my hands off the chair, wiping them on my pants in a poor attempt to clean them.
Plastic cups rattled against one another as I crept through the room. Where would I start? I didn’t know what I was searching for; I just knew that I had to find something that would tell me why Billy had been murdered. My hand brushed a pile of magazines, knocking them off of a nearby table, exposing a phone and answering machine. The number 4 flashed in red on the machine, indicating that there were messages.
I pressed the play button and listened to the four messages.
Message 1:
Hey, Billy! Where are you? I’ve been waiting here for 20 minutes.
Message 2:
Yes, Billy Randall, this is Tonia from the Heweitt Creditors. I am calling to inform you that you are past due on the payments of your account. Please call me at 800-693-9100, extension 301. If you fail to contact me by the 5th of March, legal action will be taken.
Message 3:
Billy, I’ve been waiting here for over an hour for you to show up. If you’re not here in five minutes, we’re through!
Message 4:
Uh… wrong number.
I frowned. Nothing there for me to go on. I turned and meandered further into the room, knocking over a table in the process. It crashed to the floor and I cringed, hoping that no one had heard that. Something small and red caught my eye and I reached down and picked it up.
“Look at what you’ve done!” Billy yelled, popping into the room. “I had this place organized.”
“Organized?” I replied. “You call this organized?”
“Well, what do you call it?” asked Billy.
“A disaster area.” I kicked an empty beer can across the room to further illustrate my point.
“It is not! What are you doing here anyway?”
“Trying to figure out who murdered you and why.”
“I already told you who did it.” Billy’s semi-transparent form turned red.
“But you said yourself that you never saw the person who struck you on the head,” I said, trying to reason with him.
“But I know it was Chad!”
“How? Why?”
“Because.. because… I don’t like him.”
“Okay,” I said.
“He has everything and…”
“That doesn’t mean that he killed you,” I interrupted him. “We need proof. Where were you when you died?”
“I was on the hiking trail that goes into town,” said Billy.
“What were you doing there?”
“Does it matter?”
“Please, just answer the question.”
“I was picking up garbage,” said Billy. “People are such slobs sometimes!”
I glanced around the biohazard area I stood in, known as Billy’s apartment. “Did you see anything?”
“It was dark. All I remember before I blacked out was seeing a pair of men’s boots and Chad keeps a pair of boots in his locker.”
“Only circumstantial evidence,” I said. “I’m just saying,” I added before Billy had a chance to lose his temper, “that it isn’t enough to convict him.”
I remembered the thumb-sized item I had picked up moments before and looked at it. The red object stared back at me; its brilliant exterior reflected the light above my head. Was this a jewel? It looked like a ruby, but was it real?
“Billy,” I said, “what is this?”
“Just a paperweight,” replied Billy as he scratched his partially exposed belly button.
&
nbsp; “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I studied the red object more closely. It could have been made of glass, or a material that gave it its sheen, and be a paperweight, like Billy insisted, but there was the possibility that it was more than that. “It looks like an actual gem,” I said. “A ruby.”
“Nah, can’t be,” said Billy. “I found that while… um… while…”
“Yes?” I urged him.
“Well…”
“Where did you find it?”
“Chad’s locker.”
“What?” I almost dropped the item in my hand.
“That’s how I know he’s the one that murdered me!”
“Hold on,” I said, trying to put the pieces together. “What were you doing going through Chad’s locker?”
“Uh… I have this problem?”
“Are you a kleptomaniac?” I asked as I looked around at the radios, cell phones, gloves, scarves, shoes, purses, expensive looking pens, and e-readers.
“People just leave things lying around and I pick them up.”
“You stole this.”
“So?” said Billy.
“Look,” I said, “is there a jeweler in town?”
“Yeah. Only one.”
“I am going to get this looked at to make sure that it’s not a fake. Until then, I need you to promise me that you won’t go after Chad?”
“No!” Billy disappeared.
I sighed in frustration and prayed that Greg would be able to protect Chad from Billy’s antics. The last thing I needed was another murder happening at the hands of a vengeful ghost.
Chapter 6
I slipped out of the apartment, making certain to shut the light off and lock the door so that no one would know that someone had been in there. The empty hallway gave me an eerie feeling as I hurried down it amidst the dreary carpet and poor lighting. Emily must have poured most of her money into making the cabins and rooms luxurious, though I didn’t understand why she couldn’t have made the place where Billy lived a bit nicer, not that it would have mattered with his sloppiness.
Once outside, I hurried over to the trail that led into town, not wanting to waste any time in getting the red gem appraised. The bare trees and the gray snow made me think that I had entered a haunted forest. The frozen ground crunched beneath my boots. The trail had been cleared of snow, but pockets of ice still lined it, giving a loud—Crack!—with each step I took.
“What did you leave it in the room for?” demanded an irate voice, blocked by a few trees.
I stopped. Glancing around for the source, I soon realized that it wasn’t talking to me, but came from the other side of a tree barrier. Ignoring it, I continued walking.
“Because you told me to, you ignoramus!” responded another voice.
I stopped again. Letting my curiosity get the better of me, I crept to the trees, and peeked through the split between them. On the other side were Morgan and Burt, arguing again.
“And you listened to me?”
“Oh, so I wasn’t supposed to?” demanded Morgan, placing her pudgy hands on her hips.
Not wanting to get involved, I stepped away, but just as I moved my foot, a twig snapped; its sound echoed around me as I cringed, wishing I were invisible.
“Great,” huffed Burt, “so now we have company.”
“I’m sorry,” I began, “I’ll just go.”
“No. No. Stay and watch the show,” Burt said. “I’m sure you’ve heard most of it anyway. Morgan’s voice is quite the spectacle.”
“My voice?” snapped Morgan. “Have you listened to yourself lately? Your voice is so loud that it carries from here to Texas!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I bet that the people of California are sick of hearing your nasally tone.”
I started to walk away.
“Hey, where you going?” demanded Burt.
“Away from here,” I said.
“See?” said Morgan, flipping her permed hair. “You scared her away.”
“Well, she shouldn’t be nosing around, spying on people.”
“I wasn’t…”
“Yeah, because she has nothing better to do than to listen to us.”
“HEY!” I shouted, surprised by the forcefulness of my own voice. “Will you two shut up? All you do is argue!”
“Got a set of lungs on her, that one,” commented Burt.
“I’ll say,” Morgan added in a complementary tone. “She got you to shut up.”
“Not good enough. You’re still talking.”
“Stop it!” I shouted at them. “First off, I was not spying on you two; I was on my way to town, but your voices can be heard over a mile away. So, I decided to check it out, make sure nothing happened. You guys can stay here and fight all you want. I’m going to town.”
“Now, hold on there,” said Burt, “I didn’t mean anything by what I said earlier, about you spying. We seem to attract attention everywhere we go.”
I wonder why, I thought to myself.
“Stick around,” said Morgan.
“Why do you two argue so much?” I asked, allowing my curiosity to lead me, once again.
“For fun,” replied Morgan.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Well, we’ve been married for a while now and sometimes you got to do something to liven things up,” replied Burt. “About two years ago, Morgan and I were out and were having a real argument, and got kind of loud, but some people dubbed us the ‘fighting couple’ and I guess—”
“—it stuck,” finished Morgan. “In the end, we couldn’t remember what had started the fight, but we had so much fun arguing that we continue to do it.”
“Seems like a strange pastime to me,” I said.
“It does to most people,” replied Morgan.
“We only argue in public,” said Burt, “but when we’re alone, we hardly fight at all. Besides, all this fake fighting gets off our chest whatever might have been bothering us all day.”
“And we always make up in the end,” added Morgan.
I just stared at them, still not believing that they argued on purpose for entertainment.
“Where were you headed, anyway?” asked Burt.
“To town,” I said. “I was on my way to the local jeweler.”
“Oh,” said Morgan, “is that man of yours going to propose?”
“I…”
“Oh, we both noticed you two,” Morgan interrupted me. “He’s a keeper, that one.”
My cheeks grew hot as I blushed, despite my best efforts not to. “He has been a bit secretive lately.”
Morgan got one of those all-knowing smiles on her face, which made me blush even more.
“Yeah,” said Burt, “in a few years, you’ll look like us.”
I must have gotten a panicked look on my face because Morgan swatted him, adding, “Now you’re scaring her!”
“Going to the jeweler, you said?” asked Burt, checking his wristwatch.
“Yes, why?” I replied.
“Better hurry. He closes at five and it’s nearly five now.”
What! In talking to them, I had forgotten about the ruby in my pocket, which I had found in Billy’s apartment. I said good-bye to Burt and Morgan, still perplexed about their idea of entertainment, and raced back to the cleared trail. My lungs burned as I ran, having not sprinted like this in a few years, while my fast breathing formed clouds of white vapor.
I made it to the small town with its locally owned shops lining the street and spotted the jewelry store right away. I dashed across the street and tugged at the door handle. Locked. I checked the hours posted on the glass door. Yep, the store closed at five and my watch said it was ten after.
Dismayed, I stared at the red paperweight, wishing that I had not stopped to talk to Burt and Morgan. How could I have allowed myself to get so distracted?
“Hey, Mel!”
I looked up. Approaching me from the other side of the street were Aimie and Patrick. I stuffed the ruby into my s
weater pocket, hoping they didn’t notice my quick movements, but they did.
“What’s that?” asked Patrick, pointing at my pocket.
“Nothing,” I replied, “just something I wanted to get looked at, but I was a little late in getting here.”
“Well, maybe tomorrow then,” said Patrick. “I’m told that this guy closes at five o’clock on the dot, not a minute sooner, or later.”
“What are you two up to?” I asked.
“Just exploring the town,” said Aimie. “I love visiting all of these little shops.”
“And buying stuff,” joked Patrick.
Aimie smacked him in response.
I smiled at their playfulness.
“Hey,” said Aimie, “you owe us a lunch, or dinner, considering the time. Where’s Greg?”
“Back at the resort. He doesn’t like shopping much.”
“That’s a man thing,” said Aimie, “but you should join us. We were just about to grab a bite at this place down the street here.”
Not wanting to be rude and the fact, that my stomach growled just then, I agreed to join them.
We went to this Indian restaurant that Emily had told Greg and me about when we had first checked in. The owner, a jovial man who welcomed all who walked through the door with a smile and handshake, had emigrated from India about 30 years ago and established his restaurant as a way to introduce Americans to real, as he called it, Indian food. I felt a little odd being here by myself with Aimie and Patrick; the restaurant had been set up to accommodate couples, since it wasn’t far from the resort.
“Three?” asked the owner as he greeted us, wearing an orange tuxedo, his coattails swaying with each movement.
“Yes,” said Patrick.
Even though we were the only three person group there, he never said anything, but grabbed three menus and led us to a table. We took our seats and looked at the menu, more interested in what this place had to offer in the way of food, instead of talking. When the waiter arrived, we placed our orders. That was when the conversation started.
“They really decorated this place nice,” said Patrick.
Aimie laughed. “Yeah, for couples.”
She must have noticed me squirm because she added, “Oh, don’t worry. We don’t mind having you along. Besides, you did agree earlier to joining us sometime for a meal.”
Roses Are Red; He's Dead (A Mellow Summers Paranormal Mystery Book 9) Page 5