Crimes of Passion

by Toni Anderson

  Bradley sat down with a thump. ”You mean to tell me that you actually believe that you can talk to ghosts?”

  Mary leaned over his desk. “Not only do I believe it, Chief Alden, I actually do talk with ghosts.”

  NINE

  Damn, she wasn’t a nut.

  Bradley hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. Who would have guessed that Mary O’Reilly had really been a top-notch Chicago police officer? Not him.

  Her commanding officer had nothing but good things to say about his former employee. She really had been on the fast track to becoming a detective and she deserved it. Smart, intuitive and dedicated. Who would have guessed?

  So what was all this crazy talk about seeing ghosts? No one sees ghosts because there are no such things as ghosts.

  He had even asked her C.O. about the ghost thing, but the guy had enough Irish in him to believe in that kind of crap. But even he admitted that at first they sent Mary in to speak with the department shrink. But she turned the shrink into a believer, especially when she had delivered a message from her dead mother.

  He remembered the seething anger in Mary’s eyes when he clipped those handcuffs on her. Her C.O. wasn’t the only one with a lot of Irish. He was glad she wasn’t packing.

  Okay, that wasn’t fair. It had been pretty underhanded of him to trick her like that. He could only barely justify it because he didn’t know how she would react to being arrested. And he had to give her points, she had been honest with him. At least she was honest within her own strange little fantasy world.

  Planting bombs. No, she wasn’t planting bombs. He’d stake his job on that one. Besides, the forensic guys pulled the whole bomb apart and couldn’t find anything linking Mary to it. She was set up. But why?

  Someone playing a gag? Someone giving out a little payback?

  He needed more information to figure out this puzzle. He sighed deeply, knowing there was only one way he was going to get it.

  TEN

  Mary had a splitting headache. She sat at the desk in her office, cradling her head in her hands and wishing the world would go away.

  She would always remember the look Bradley gave her as he solicitously escorted her out of his office and asked one of his deputies to see her safely home. He even patted her arm and told her she needn’t worry; he would make sure everything was taken care of.

  “He patted my arm, like I was a nut,” she growled. “He patted my freakin’ arm.”

  She dropped her head on the desk and laid there. She heard the door open and close, but she just didn’t care.

  “Hmmm, hard at work I see,” Rosie said casually.

  “Nothing like putting your head into it,” Stanley added.

  “Go away,” Mary groaned. “Can’t you see I’m trying to be depressed?”

  Mary could hear chairs being pulled toward her desk, so she closed her eyes.

  “I can’t see you, so you’re not there,” she said.

  “Funny, people say that a lot about ghosts too,” Rosie said.

  “That’s not funny,” Mary sulked.

  “I heard the police chief hauled your butt to the hoosegow,” Stanley said. “What did you do, call him more names?”

  Mary covered her head with her arms. “What did I do to deserve this?” she cried.

  “Now, Mary, it’s time to put on your big girl pants and get back to work,” Rosie chided. “Don’t you have a case to work on?”

  Mary nodded from under her arms.

  “Never thought of you as a quitter,” Stanley added.

  Mary sighed. “I’m usually not.”

  “We brought you some cinnamon rolls from Coles Bakery,” Rosie added.

  Mary immediately raised her head. “I love you guys.”

  “And a large diet cola,” Stanley added. “That should take care of your headache.”

  Mary felt like crying. “I don’t deserve you two.”

  Rosie grinned. “Yeah, we know. But don’t worry, you’ll make it up to us.”

  They all laughed.

  Mary took a big bite of the cinnamon roll and sighed, “This tastes like heaven.”

  “You’d know,” Stanley quipped.

  Mary chuckled. “You know he thinks I’m nuts? He patted my arm and had a deputy escort me home.”

  Rosie snorted. “Well, at least you’re not in jail.”

  “What did he bust you for anyway?” Stanley asked.

  “Trying to blow up the Freeport Republic building,” Mary answered.

  “Well, I agree the editorials have been a little off lately, but blowing the place up seems a little extreme,” Rosie said.

  “I didn’t try to blow it up,” Mary explained. “I met with Anna Paxton to ask her some questions about a case I’m working on. I left the dock and there were no explosives in sight. Suddenly there’s a warrant out for my arrest and they are accusing me of trying to blow up the building. And besides that, the bomb looks like an amateur put it together.”

  “Well, if you were going to bomb something, you’d be sure to get it done right,” Stanley said.

  “That’s what Bradley said,” Mary agreed, biting into the cinnamon roll again.

  “Bradley?” Rosie asked. “Who’s Bradley?”

  Crap. Busted again, Mary thought.

  “That’s the police chief’s name, Bradley Alden,” she told them. “He told me his name just before he slapped the handcuffs on me.”

  “That seems a little rude,” Rosie said.

  “Yeah, and a little tricky,” Mary added. “It was a fairly impressive maneuver.”

  “Seems to me someone doesn’t want you investigating the case you’re on,” Stanley interjected.

  Mary froze halfway into her next bite of cinnamon roll. “Well, duh,” she said, shaking her head. “Of course, that’s the reason. Stanley, you’re brilliant.”

  “So we’ll just leave you to your investigating,” Rosie said.

  “Go get ‘em, girlie,” Stanley said, winking at Mary.

  “Thanks, thanks a lot,” she replied and immediately began searching the notes she had taken the day before.

  Several hours later, Mary knew she had to make another trip into Galena and meet with both the senator and Susan Ryerson. She needed to find out if either of them knew about Renee’s pregnancy.

  After a quick phone call confirming they would both be home, Mary grabbed her notebook, headed out the office door and nearly collided with Police Chief Bradley Alden.

  “Sorry, I have an appointment,” Mary said, neatly walking around him.

  “Mary, wait,” he said, catching her arm.

  Mary looked pointedly at his hand on her arm and then up at him. “Are you arresting me again?”

  “No, I’m not,” he replied, releasing her hand. “I would like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

  “Really? Without handcuffs? What a novel idea.”

  “Listen, I had no choice, I…”

  “Your questions, Chief…? I’m really running late,” she interrupted.

  He pressed his lips together for a moment, biting back his anger and then nodded.

  “Was there anyone else present on the dock when you were there?” he asked. “Let me qualify that, anyone who would leave fingerprints?”

  “No, there was no one on the dock with me who would leave fingerprints.”

  “Why did you choose the dock to conduct this interview?”

  “Because my contact stays close to the editorial offices of the paper, but often travels to the dock for an occasional cigarette break.”

  “Ghosts smoke?” he asked incredulously.

  Mary rolled her eyes. ”Ghosts are merely the spirits of people who have died,” she explained. “If you had a habit while you were alive, why do you think you would change it after you’re dead?”

  Bradley shrugged. “I guess you wouldn’t.”

  “Anna Paxton couldn’t go more than two hours without a smoke break—so I knew that she would head out to the dock
sooner or later.”

  “Why did you wait until one in the morning to speak with Ms. Paxton?”

  “Well, hmmm, maybe because I didn’t want any of the reporters to see me talking to myself,” she answered.

  “So you admit you were talking to yourself,” he countered.

  “No, I was talking to a ghost who cannot be seen or heard by most people,” she said. “So when I talk to ghosts, it strongly resembles me talking to myself. Any other questions?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to meet with a client who lives out of town. I plan on being back in town by this evening,” she replied. “Now can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Who initiated the warrant for my arrest?”

  Bradley was surprised and suspicious. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m working on a case that might have ramifications for some people in high places in this town,” she replied. “Knowing who did it might make my job easier.”

  Bradley nodded, that seemed like a fairly straightforward request. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he promised.

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate it,” she replied, opening her car door. “Any more questions?”

  “Um, just one,” he said. “When did you discover you could talk with ghosts?”

  Mary climbed in her car, closed the door, turned the key and then rolled down the window. She leaned out and called to Bradley, “Just after I died.”

  Then she put the car in gear and drove away from the speechless police chief.

  ELEVEN

  Driving down Highway 20, all Mary could think about was her encounter with Bradley. It left her feeling angry and a little vulnerable. Did everyone in town consider her a kook?

  She thought about her small circle of friends in town. It boiled down to Stanley and Rosie. “How sad is that?” she murmured. “I’ve only got two friends.”

  She started to feel a pity party coming on and shook herself out of it. There were lots of people who would have been her friend if she had just taken some time to get to know them. But being the only person in Illinois, and perhaps the Midwest, who could actually see ghosts and talk to them gave her very little time for socializing.

  She didn’t know how it worked, but somehow ghosts in need were drawn to her. That was the main reason she left Chicago and moved to Freeport. There were too many ghosts for Mary to handle in Chicago, especially since she was just beginning to figure out the whole ghost thing. Freeport was the right size for a fledgling ghost hunter.

  Mary realized she had passed through Stockton and was only twenty minutes away from Galena. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear her mind so she could concentrate on the case before her. The officers she worked with used to call it her “zone.” The zone was a state of mind where she was able to mentally slow everything down and take in all of the details. Inconsequential, random events would suddenly have logical patterns. Pieces of information would fit together. The case would open up to her and finally make sense.

  She had used it a lot when she was a cop in Chicago. She always felt she was allowing her intuition take over. It was a way to let the things percolating in the back of her mind come forward.

  Now when she used it her new abilities combined with her intuition and she received a better connection with the ghost she was trying to help.

  Mary concentrated on Renee Peterson. How had Renee felt that day, discovering her pregnancy, wanting to tell her lover, but knowing her news had to take second place to the election?

  Wondering if he would reject her, reject the baby? Wondering if she would keep the baby or get an abortion?

  She must have had a lot on her mind that night and the world on her shoulders.

  Mary slowed to thirty miles per hour as she entered Elizabeth. The road curved around a large bluff and went downhill into the town.

  As she entered the town, she thought one of the houses looked familiar. After a moment, she realized it was the house from the photo in the paper. The story about the little girl, Jessica Whittaker, who had disappeared on the same night Renee had died. That was the house her parents stood in front of, holding her photo. She had lived there.

  Suddenly Mary could see Jessica, riding her bike carefully down the street. The town was no longer the Elizabeth she had driven through earlier that week. Now the town appeared as it had been in 1984. Mary pulled her car to the curb, jumped out and ran down the sidewalk to follow the little girl on the bike.

  Jessica wove slowly down the sidewalk and turned at the corner. Mary jogged behind her, keeping her in view. She wore her hair in two blonde ponytails and had pink Strawberry Shortcake ribbons streaming from it. She was dressed in pink pedal-pushers and a matching t-shirt.

  The street was steep and Mary had to angle her movements to keep from falling, but Jessica seemed to know every bump and curve and directed her bike like a pro. Jessica drove off the sidewalk and onto a path that led into a wooded glen.

  Mary paused for a moment, watching the girl maneuver down the dirt path. While she was still in view, Mary saw her stop her bike and look into the woods. Mary started forward, watching the little girl hold a hand to her ear, as if she was trying to hear something being said. Although she understood she was only watching a shadow of the past, Mary couldn’t stop herself from running and trying to stop her.

  She could see Jessica looking up and talking with someone. Someone taller, certainly an adult, and then she climbed off the bike and walked into the woods.

  “No! No!” Mary cried to herself, jogging as quickly as she could down the steep hill. Mary picked up speed when she saw Jessica being lifted up in the air. Jessica was screaming, pounding her little fists against her unknown captor.

  “No!” Mary cried aloud breaking into a run. Pain exploded in Mary’s head and she fell backward into darkness.

  She could hear voices. She could smell grass. Her head was pounding. What the hell happened?

  Mary slowly opened her eyes.

  “I saw it, I saw it all,” said a drawling masculine voice. “She just ran right into the side of the fort. Darndest thing I’d ever seen—it was like she couldn’t see it.”

  “I think she’s waking up,” a feminine voice uttered.

  Then Mary remembered Jessica. She sat up quickly and immediately regretted it, the whole world tilted to the side.

  “Take it easy,” a deep masculine voice commanded. “You’ve got a pretty nasty bump on your head. You might have a concussion.”

  “Ran right straight into the fort, darndest thing,” the voice from earlier repeated.

  This time, Mary slowly turned her head and found herself looking at the paramedic who was kneeling at her side. “Can you remember anything?” he asked.

  I suppose telling him that I was chasing a ghost isn’t going to work, she thought.

  “I was jogging down the hill and I must have tripped because suddenly I was hurtling down the hill out of control,” she lied, reminding herself silently that sometimes honesty wasn’t always the best policy. “I must have hit my head.”

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Like someone hit me with a fort,” she answered with a small smile.

  He chuckled as he shone his flashlight in each of her eyes. “Well, looks like you don’t have a concussion. But you aren’t going to look as pretty as usual tomorrow morning.”

  “You can take some OTC pills for pain, so you can sleep tonight—but if you start having any headaches or blurry vision, I want you to get to your doctor right away. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mary answered, trying to stop a groan as he helped her on her feet. “How’s the fort?”

  This time he laughed aloud. “No permanent damage was done. If you had had a harder head, well, we’d be asking you for your insurance card.”

  Mary chuckled. “That’s a relief.”

  He helped her over to his truck. “How about if I give you a lift back to your car? Tha
t way you won’t have to try this hill again.”

  “I would really appreciate it,” Mary replied earnestly, not sure she could make the climb up the hill and back down the street to the car.

  “Cool fort,” she said to the paramedic. “Well, not so cool up close—but it looks like it’s been around for a long time.”

  “Naw,” the paramedic responded. “It was just built in the early nineties. Some local guy got the idea that it should be reconstructed. They brought in an architect and everything. Then they built it with tools that they would have used back when the fort was initially built—to be historically correct.”

  “Wow, that’s great,” she replied. “So what was there before the fort was built?”

  “A meadow and some woods,” he said. “Oh, and an old shed that had been empty for decades. When I was a kid we would swear that it was haunted.”

  “Really?” she said, knowing that children were often more perceptive to paranormal activity than they realized. “Who did you think haunted it?”

  He laughed nervously. “I don’t know, it was just kid stuff,” he said. “You know, too much imagination and not enough sense.”

  “I’ve had experiences like that too,” Mary said. “Sometimes it’s not just your imagination.”

  The paramedic pulled his truck to the curb behind Mary’s Roadster. He turned in his seat, facing her. “Do you honestly think it could be real?”

  “I know it can be real,” she said. “What did you see?”

  He hesitated.

  “It could be important,” she added.

  “Well, when I was just a kid—maybe ten years old—we were playing ‘catch one—catch all’ one summer night,” he said. “They had just started the excavation on the fort and there were all kinds of cool hiding places down there.”

  “Even though all the kids thought it was a creepy place, I knew if I hid down there, no one would find me,” he said with a grin. “I love to win.”

  Mary chuckled.

  “So anyway, I’m down there hiding behind some of the big logs they had brought in when I hear someone crying,” he paused for a moment. “It sounded like my little sister and I think she’s in trouble, so I follow the sound. I see this little girl sitting on the ground and she’s crying her eyes out. I get maybe ten feet away from her and she looks up and sees me. I stop in my tracks because even though she’s there I can see right through her. I mean, she’s a ghost.”