by Tonya Kappes
“Kenni.” Camille stood in the doorway leading back to her exam rooms with a smile. “Come on back.”
“Oh, I can wait.” I glanced around the room at the other patients who were staring at me like I had just cut in line.
“Don’t be silly. Come on back,” Camille encouraged me.
Her girl-next-door looks and good manners made it hard for anyone in Cottonwood not to find Camille endearing. Her hands were tucked in the pockets of her white coat. Her black hair was parted on the side and neatly hung past her collarbone. Her black eyes popped against her creamy white skin.
I fought my way out of the puffy cushions of the loveseat and found myself taking a seat in Camille’s office.
“I’m going to finish up with a patient and I’ll be right with you.” She pointed to the coffee maker on the credenza behind her desk. “Grab a fresh cup,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away, leaving me alone.
“Thanks.” I took her up on her offer and poured myself a hot cup of coffee.
Being a doctor must be good. The can of Starbucks next to the coffee maker was a rare sight around Cottonwood. I was used to Ben’s strong, stiff black cup of joe.
“I can’t believe this.” The familiar voice of Polly Parker came through the heating vent next to the credenza.
I put my steaming cup down and put my ear up to the metal slots of the vent.
“Is this forever?” Polly sobbed.
Camille was talking so low, I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I could make out Polly agreeing with her.
“I know it’s not a death sentence.” Polly sniffed, sucking in some mucus. “But this wasn’t planned for my life. I mean, I want to be a mom. A wife.” She sobbed again.
My eyes widened. What did she mean not a death sentence? She said she wanted to be a mom. What did that mean? Had I just become privy to some really good Cottonwood gossip I could never tell? No wonder Polly was so emotional at the jewelry store. She was hiding a big secret and it was up to me to find out what it was and if it had to do with Doc’s death.
There were a few more hushed whispers coming from the vent and then a door shut. I jumped away from the wall and grabbed the cup of coffee.
“I hate what happened to Doctor Walton,” Camille said as she walked back in the room. “And if you think I had anything to do with it because of the other day, I don’t. I have proof of where I have been.”
I kept a close eye on her body language. She fumbled with the file in her hand. The file folder and papers tumbled to the ground.
At the same time, we both bent down to pick them up, but I grabbed the most important information. The file was definitely Polly Parker’s.
“Too much coffee.” She brushed off her uneasiness. “Why are you here?” She shoved the papers back in the folder and stuck it on her desk.
I turned around and looked at her. She was prettier than a glob of butter on a mound of grits. That was a sight everyone in Cottonwood loved.
“I’m here about your confrontation with Doc Walton the day before yesterday at Ben’s.”
I was glad she brought up the subject first, though it made me awfully suspicious. It might even turn out to be small-town gossip, but I had to check out every clue.
“What?” A puzzled look crossed her face. “I just told you I have an alibi.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind my questions. It’s all part of the job. Besides,” I said as if it was no big deal, “I never said you had anything to do with his murder.” Her fidgeting fingers caught my attention. “Why don’t you tell me what the little heated discussion the two of you had was about?”
“Heated?” There was a certain undertone in her voice. She stuck her hands in the white lab coat. The blue stitching on the right side above her breast boasted her title, Dr. C. Shively. “Nothing. Forget I even said anything. Will I see you tomorrow night at Euchre?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t forget that.” I tapped my noggin. “Sorta why I got all this stress. I can’t seem to forget anything dealing with Doc Walton.” My brows lifted. “What happened?”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality keeps me from being able to say anything.” She crossed her arms in front of her with a file tight to her torso, her body stiff. “We were discussing a patient we have in common. Had,” she corrected herself.
“You can’t give me any more? Not even a bitty bit?” I held my fingers up and parted them an inch apart, giving her another chance.
“Not even a bitty bit, Kenni.” Her voice was flat.
“I can get a subpoena if that would be better.” I loved throwing around the subpoena thing. For some reason that word made people vomit all sorts of information.
Poppa appeared behind her and bobbed his head back and forth trying to get a look at the file Camille was holding. My jaw dropped. I gasped for air.
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” Camille put the file on her desk facedown.
“Dagnabbit.” Poppa snapped his fingers in an “aw shucks” way and disappeared into thin air. I blinked a few times. Was I really seeing Poppa or was the stress getting to me?
“I’m just a little stressed about this whole thing. Plus, I hate to have to subpoena my friends.” Calling Camille a friend was stretching it. Granted, we’d never mixed words, but we’d never gone shopping together either. Though there was Euchre.
Though it felt a little strange telling her, one of my peers, my issues, I wanted to talk about it. But it was hard to concentrate on me when I really wanted to see what was in that file and was wondering if my imagination Poppa could do ghost things like float in and between walls and windows. Who needed a warrant when I had Poppa? “With all the things,” I emphasized the word things, meaning the murder and the break-in, “I think the stress is getting to me.”
“Really?” She pushed a strand of her long black hair behind her ear, focusing her light black eyes on me. She seemed to relax as our conversation turned to my issues. “How so?”
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but I swear I keep hearing someone whisper to me.” I could see she thought I was nuts. It was right there in her eyes. “I even had a dream about it.” I left out the part about my ghost and how I thought it was Poppa.
When Poppa died, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to carry on with my life. He meant that much to me. And the only way I’d felt a connection with him after his death was by becoming sheriff. Somehow it made me feel close to him.
“Kenni.” Camille reached out and took my hands into hers. “Stress does funny things to our minds and bodies. It’s only natural for you to react in such ways. And I’m writing you a prescription to get a massage down at Tiny Tina’s.” She let go of my hands and walked around her desk. She grabbed the fancy long silver pen out of a penholder with a tiny plaque boasting her credentials. The pen made a slight scribbling sound as she wrote something on a piece of paper. “You need to make sure during this investigation that you take time out for yourself.”
“I don’t think a massage is going to do it.” I laughed, wondering who was really the crazy one, her or me.
“I’m serious, Kenni.” She held her pointer finger and middle finger toward me, the piece of paper stuck between the two. “Stress plays with our minds and if you don’t get a handle on it naturally, you won’t be able to solve the murder or the theft.” She walked around to the front of the desk and leaned her butt up against it. She looked down her nose at me. “You are up for re-election in a couple of years. You and I both know that the way you conduct this investigation and how it’s solved could be your legacy.”
She was right. Small-town politics could get ugly, and if I wanted to be re-elected, now was not the time to act nuts.
Reluctantly, I took the paper from her and opened it. She had written: “Take care of yourself. Get an aromatherapy massage.”
“And if this doesn’t work,” she walked over to the door and opened it, my cue to leave, “then we will look at alternative means. Got it?”
“Yes.” I stood up and walked out into the hallway. “But Tiny Tina’s idea of a spa is a vanilla extract rub down. And a pedicure.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Don’t get me started on how she thinks olive oil over a few of the rocks she dug out of the town branch was worth thirty dollars. Though this will make my mama happy if she hears I stepped inside of Tiny Tina’s.”
That was no joke. Someone would see me go inside the shop and call Mama immediately. Mama would nearly break her arm patting her own self on the back thinking she talked me into going to beauty school after all.
“Kenni, it was great seeing you.”
Camille pushed me out into the waiting room.
“If you do decide to cooperate without a subpoena, you know where to find me.” I had to throw in one last try. “Because I will get the warrant.”
“I’ll be looking for it.” Camille smiled sweetly and shut the door.
There was really nothing I could do right now if she didn’t want to tell me her little secret. It might take some time to get a warrant. But it wasn’t like I couldn’t get one, and Ronald Walton wasn’t going anywhere.
Camille Shively just went on my short list of suspects.
Chapter Thirteen
“I don’t know what is going on with me, but Tiny Tina’s is not going to do it.” I sighed, driving down South Main and heading out of town back toward Bone Creek Road.
“That’s right. Tiny Tina’s, huh.” Poppa harrumphed next to me on the passenger side. “There ain’t nothing wrong with you.”
The tires skidded when I veered off the road, bringing the Wagoneer to an abrupt stop.
Tears filled my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was scared, I was going crazy, or how much I wished he were really there. “Listen, mister. I’m not sure who you are or if you are even real or if I’ve gone crazy.” I took a deep breath. An unrecognizable laugh escaped my body. I beat the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. “I’m crazy!” I screamed while flailing my arms about. “I’ll be damned. Mama and Daddy were right. This job has made me crazy.”
I took a deep breath and grabbed the wheel. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing that when I opened them and turned around, imaginary Poppa was going to be gone.
I opened my eyes. “Oh no.” My plan had failed. I felt crazy. “You are not here. You are not here,” I repeated and shook the wheel as hard as I could without it coming off the column.
“I know it goes against everything you have ever known about the afterlife.” Poppa rested his elbow on the passenger door and drummed his fingers. “But I’m here. I’m real and you are the only one besides Duke who can see me.”
“No, no, no,” I repeated. Seething, I turned toward him. “You are not here and I’m not crazy.”
“I am here and you are not crazy, Kenni-bug.” He scooted a little closer. “You are the one who asked me to come help you.”
“I did no such thing,” I denied his words.
“Yes, you did. At my grave.” He reminded me about my little visit to the cemetery. “And I’m here to help you with your first murder investigation.” He ran his thick fingers over the three strands of brown hair he combed over to the side. “I tried. I did.”
“Tried what?” I asked, deciding to give into the idea I was crazy and seeing things.
“It’s been hell scaring off every single thief or criminal around here for the past two years.” He sucked in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds like he always did before he released a long steady stream of air.
All the times Betty Murphy had called break-ins over dispatch only to find out they were false calls rolled around in my head.
“You have got to stop holding your breath.” The words escaped my mouth just like they used to when he was alive and did this. “Scaring off criminals?”
“Yes. Since you were elected sheriff.” He rubbed his hands together. “How do you explain a zero crime rate in Cottonwood since you took over?”
“I have Wyatt now.” I decided to play with my crazy imagination. “So you can go back to the great beyond and give me my sanity back.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Poppa stopped rubbing his hands together and planted them on his thighs. “I’m here to help you, Kenni-bug. Besides, Wyatt is the jailer.”
“I don’t need your help.” I stuck my hand out to touch my imaginary Poppa.
“You can’t touch me. I’m a ghost.”
“A ghost?” I busted out laughing. My imagination had never been this good before. “I thought I might be going crazy. But now I know I’m crazy.” I picked up the prescription from Camille and laughed. “I need Tiny Tina’s more than I realized.” I took out my phone and began to type in the number.
The phone flew from my fingertips and landed in the floorboard.
“You are not crazy.” Poppa’s chin lifted; his eyes held an icy gaze. The gaze he had when he meant business. I’d seen this look so many times when he went to court to make sure the criminals stayed behind bars. I spent many days in my youth going to the courthouse, watching Poppa do his job. I was fascinated.
“I forgot all about that face.” I pointed and smiled at the fond memory, letting my guard down. “How exactly are you going to help me? Are you going to tell me who killed Doc Walton? That would help me.”
If my mind was going to play games on me, I was going to ask my brain hard questions. I was not convinced imaginary Poppa was a ghost. A real ghost.
“I wasn’t there,” Poppa said.
“So you’re telling me the one time there was truly a crime, Ghost Poppa decided not to show up?” I was beating my imagination.
“Something like that.” Poppa was vague. “I can tell you about when Betty Murphy called you about a movie stolen from Luke Jones’s theatre.”
“But it wasn’t.” I vividly remembered going over to Luke’s to make the report, but he’d found it somewhere in his closet. Though he said he didn’t put it there, he obviously had. “It was in the closet.”
“I put it there, because Polly Parker was the one who stole it.”
“Polly Parker?” I questioned.
Poppa nodded his head.
“Fine.” I picked up my pen and wrote Polly’s name on my list of people to go see. “I need to see her about the jewelry break-in, so I’ll ask her about it.”
“Okay.” Poppa crossed his arms. “And also ask her about Chance.”
“Mayor Ryland?” I questioned. “Everyone in town knows it’s just a rumor.” My imagination wasn’t going to fool me.
“Ask her about the cabin out on Chagrin Road.” Poppa continued to spit out facts about things I had no clue about.
There was nothing on Chagrin Road but acres and acres of farmland.
“Fine.” I turned the key of the ignition and started the car. I pulled back on to Bone Creek Road and headed straight toward Chagrin Road. It was now or never; time to put this imaginary ghost behind me so I could solve these crimes and get on with my life. “I don’t need to ask her. I can drive there and see for myself.”
Poppa didn’t protest when I swerved the car around and headed out of town. He smiled. He was as happy as a newborn in a topless bar.
Chapter Fourteen
Poppa looked out the window. “Everything looks the same.”
“It’s not.” I swung the wheel right on Holiday Road and grabbed the police light. “Nothing is the same.” I was referring to myself. “I’m going to free my brain once and for all,” I grumbled under my breath and rolled down the window. “I’m going to prove to you that there is not a cabin this side of Chagrin Road.”
I licked the suction cup and slappe
d the light on top of the Wagoneer, flipping the switch on. I was on a mission to prove this ghost wrong.
“You know it’s illegal to pretend there is an emergency,” Poppa quipped from the back. I jerked around because I could’ve sworn he was just in the front seat next to me. He was always a stickler for rules and so was I…until now.
“My sanity is an emergency.” I pressed the gas pedal as far down as it would go, knowing my engine would have its own little heart attack, but the sound helped drown out the loud unwarranted sighs of imaginary Poppa.
I turned on the gravel road. Chagrin Road.
“And you are here to check out my story about Ryland and Polly Parker, aren’t you?”
“You are in my head, making me feel crazy, and I cannot carry on with a murder investigation without knowing what’s real and what isn’t.” I was talking to him like he was really there. I pinched my leg. “Ouch,” I gasped, rubbing my hand over my thigh to get the sting out. “I’m not going crazy. I’m not going crazy.”
“There! Turn there!” Poppa pointed out the passenger window when I nearly missed the road.
I slowed the Wagoneer down and looked between the two trees imaginary Poppa was pointing to. The weeds were overgrown, taller than my tire wheelbase.
“I’ll be damned.” My stomach dropped when I saw tire tracks. My mouth open, my eyes slid back to smiling imaginary Poppa.
His cheeks balled from the big grin planted across his lips. “I told you. I’m here to help you, Kenni-bug.”
I gulped. Was the ghost of my Poppa really here? I’d never believed in ghosts. Was he really the reason crime hadn’t happened around Cottonwood since I was elected? Had he been looking out for me since?
Everything he had said about Luke Jones was right.
“See.” Poppa pointed from behind the big oak tree we were hiding behind. I’d parked the car and got out so we wouldn’t make noise going through the wooded land. I followed the batted-down weeds from the tire tracks until we got close enough. “Right through there is the mayor’s love nest.”