“Maybe, I didn’t see you either. Why were you here last night?”
“My brother called me to come down here.”
“Oh, why did he call you to come down here?” she asked.
“That’s not important. What’s important is what happened to you. What do you remember?”
“Well, like I said, I was here with Vaughny last night. We drove in from Connecticut to see my parents. But it was late, so we decided to get a room here. Then we went downstairs to have a few drinks. And this guy came in and he was really hot and he started flirting with me and then Vaughn got all mad and he threatened the guy and they went outside and the next thing I know, I’m in this room and I’m super sleepy and then everything just goes black. Needless to say, I never woke up.”
“So, you have no idea how you died?” I asked her.
She sucked in a distraught breath as she visibly reconciled the fact that she was dead. “No,” she managed to squeak out.
“Do you think Vaughn would hurt you?” I asked her gently.
I could tell her eyes wanted to well up with tears again, but they just wouldn’t. After making an ugly cry face for a few seconds she stomped her foot down on the hardwood floor, but it didn’t so much as make a creak. “UGH!! Why can’t I cry? It’s like having to yawn, but not being able to! It’s so frustrating!”
I sighed, slumping forward on the bed. “I’m sorry Harper. I really want to help.”
“Helping won’t bring me back to life again, though. You can’t do that, right?” she asked me.
I chuckled lightly. “Haha, if only that was a power that I had.”
“Tell me the truth, Mercy. Why can you see me?”
I bit my lip nervously. “You really don’t want to know,” I assured her.
She hastily sat down next to me on the bed. “No, I DO want to know. I’m dead and we’re talking to each other. Nothing would shock me at this point.”
“Ok, fine. I’m a witch.” I said it plainly without any fanfare. I hoped that she wouldn’t turn and run. I needed Harper for this investigation.
Harper blinked several times in quick succession. “Ok. I can handle that. See, I’m not even scared of you,” she announced proudly.
My head snapped back. “Why would you be scared of me? I’m not like an evil witch or anything. I was just born with supernatural powers. Technically, that means I’m a witch. My mother is a witch, my granny’s a witch, my brother’s a…” I stopped myself. What was this? I was already including my brother in my diatribe to ghosts?
“Your brother’s a what?”
“Nothing,” I snapped, more angrily than I had intended.
“Sorry,” she whispered back. I could hear it in her voice, she wanted to cry again. Gosh, cry baby ghosts were so difficult.
“No, I’m sorry,” I relented. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s been a tough couple of weeks. We need to get down to business, Harper. I need to figure out who killed you. You never said. Is it possible that Vaughn did this to you?”
She shook her head firmly. “I don’t believe Vaughn would do this to me.”
“But you were flirting with Reign. Maybe Vaughn got jealous and maybe he would do this to you if he was jealous enough,” I suggested.
“I guess we can’t rule it out, but Vaughn loved me. It freaks me out to think I could have been living with a killer!”
“What about Reign? Is it possible that he did this to you?” I asked as my stomach performed cartwheels.
Harper bit at her fingernails as if she were really doing so. “It’s possible. I really didn’t know him well. We just flirted around all night. And then Vaughn wanted to lay him out, but apparently he laid one on Vaughn. I didn’t go outside for that. They made me stay in.”
“So you really have no idea who it could have been?” I sighed.
“No. I really don’t.”
“So, who knew you were in Aspen Falls yesterday?”
She paused thoughtfully and tried to dredge through old memories. “Gosh, remembering anything feels like I’m pulling a heavy block out of a river. It’s really hard to do. You know, like when you’re having a dream and someone is chasing you and you want to run, but you can’t because your feet feel like they are anchored down by weights and you can barely move? That’s what it feels like to have to remember specific details.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard ghosts describe that similarly before,” I assured her.
“Yeah, so, I’m really not sure who I told that I was coming. Oh! Wait! I told my sister, Elena. I just remembered telling her that I was coming home because she told me that we would go hang out.”
“Are you close to your sister?”
She scrunched up one side of her face as she thought. “I wouldn’t say close. We got along, but we weren’t like besties or anything. I’ve been gone for a long time. I wanted her to move out to Connecticut with me, but she always turned me down. We used to be really close when we were teenagers.”
I hated to do this, but I had to ask her. “Do you think she would have anything to do with this?”
Harper looked astounded that I would even dare to ask. “Oh, heavens no! Elena wouldn’t have it in her to hurt me. We were always on the same side. Even when we didn’t get along, we were a team.”
“What do you mean on the same side?”
“You know, against our parents. No matter what our parents threw at us, we always knew we had to stick together. What was good for one of us was good for both of us, you’ve got a brother, I’m sure you know?”
I felt a tinge of regret surge through my body. I didn’t know what it felt like to grow up with a sibling. “I didn’t grow up with my brother, so I really don’t.”
She looked down at the floor. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I hollered.
Jax peeked her head, hat and all, inside the room. “Hey, I hate to rush you, Mercy, but the bartender is getting really annoyed with us and Reign’s sort of getting mad at him. I’m afraid there’s going to be a scuffle if we don’t get Reign out of here.”
“Oh, geez,” I said and rushed to my feet. I looked back at Harper. “You should come with me, in case you remember something I’d like to be able to know right where to find you.”
She smiled sweetly but shook her head. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m honestly scared to go anywhere. I’m a ghost, I’m not real. I don’t know that I’m ready to leave this room yet.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile and nodded. “Some ghosts like to move around and some don’t. You’ll be fine here. I promise to come back and visit you when I have more information. Ok?”
“Bring Elena with you when you come next time?”
Her request surprised me. “Oh, I can try.”
“Good, thanks, Mercy. Good luck.”
I gave her a reassuring smile before following Jax downstairs where Reign and Jimmy were having a heated exchange.
“I told you, pack up this crazy train and move it down the line,” Jimmy hollered at him.
“And I told you, let’s take those threats outside and settle this like men,” Reign hollered back.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I asserted as I came running down the stairs. “There will be no settling threats outside, Reign. The two of you need to relax.” I pointed specifically at Reign, the one I had any chance in controlling. When I caught his eyes in my glare, he visibly cooled off a few degrees. Not many, but enough for me to feel comfortable in pointing towards the front door. Reign growled at Jimmy, but spun on the heel of his army boots and left.
“There, now, we’re leaving. Alright. Relax,” I said to Jimmy.
“Took you long enough,” Jimmy snapped back.
The girls and I followed Reign outside where we found him pacing back and forth on the edge of the curb. He ground a fist into his hand as he walked.
Jax held a hand up next to her mouth. “Someone’s upset,”
she said as an aside, pointing towards Reign.
“Yeah, we’ve got to get him out of here,” I told the girls. “But I still want to go talk to Detective Whitman and see what new information he’s got. How about Alba and I run down to the police station and you three take Reign back to the dorms. We can’t take him into the police station with that chip on his shoulder.”
Holly’s eyes widened excitedly. “Yeah, whatever you need, Mercy. You know we’re here for you.”
“Yeah,” Jax agreed. “No problem. We’ll take good care of your brother.”
I turned and looked at Sweets. “Alba and I would need to drive your car and you will all have to ride with Reign.”
Jax, Holly, and Sweets looked across the street at the shiny black sports car that Reign had ridden in on.
Sweets nodded emphatically as she handed me the keys. “Yeah, absolutely, Mercy. Like Holly said, whatever you need.”
I rolled my eyes at my friends. “Gee, I hate to put the three of you out,” I snarked.
Alba puffed out the breath she’d been holding.
“No problem at all,” Holly said. She obviously hadn’t caught my blatant sarcasm. “Reign, come on, we’re catching a ride with you!”
Sweets raised a hand as Alba and I walked away with her keys, “Shotgun!”
{ Chapter Eight}
“Ugh, I thought we’d never get rid of them all. I’m sorry, Red, but your brother has got some serious anger problems,” Alba said as I got behind the wheel of Sweets’ car.
“Oh, Reign has an anger problem,” I snorted at Alba.
She ignored my retort and looked out the passenger window. “Tell me the truth, do you think he did this?”
Suddenly my palms felt clammy and the back of my neck felt sweaty. “I don’t know,” I lamented.
“You think he could have though?”
“Do I have a choice? He was found in bed with her. And the list of suspects is so low. It’s pretty much either the boyfriend or my brother. I mean, I doubt the bartender did it – why would he? And no one else knew she was in town. So Reign’s got a 50/50 chance of being guilty.”
Alba squinted into the sun as we turned into the police station parking lot. “We’re going to need to find the boyfriend.”
“Yeah, I agree. He’s one of our key witnesses.” I put the car in park and Alba and I sat looking at each other.
“So before we go in, I need to know what Harper told you in there.”
“Honestly she didn’t know much. She didn’t finger anyone. She told me exactly what Reign told me. Reign and Harper flirted. Vaughn got upset, he and Reign took it outside. They had a little scuffle, Reign got a punch in and Vaughn vanished. Reign came inside, offered to take Harper back to his room and that’s what they did. She doesn’t remember anything after that and neither does Reign. Next thing she knew, she was waking up as a ghost.”
Alba leaned her head back against the headrest. “Wow, that’s harsh.”
“Yeah it is,” I agreed. We sat together silently for a few minutes, lost in our thoughts. “So what’s the plan in there?”
“We’ve got to question Detective Whitman,” Alba stated plainly.
“Duh, I mean do we tell him that I saw Harper?”
“Not much to tell.”
“Ok, then let’s see what he shares with us and if he isn’t being forthcoming with us then we’ll use Harper as leverage.”
Alba grinned at me. “I like how you think, Red.”
The two of us exited the car and entered the police station. We were stopped at the front desk by Officer Vargas. His bushy eyebrows looked like two furry black cats sitting atop an open window. I’d recognize the man anywhere thanks to those eyebrows.
“Is Detective Whitman here?” I asked him.
He peered out from underneath his furry black cats at Alba and I. “Aren’t the two of you the ones that provided misinformation in the Morgan Hartford murder investigation?”
I winced. “Yeah, well, maybe at first.”
“But we fixed it, in the end,” Alba added.
“Sure you did.” He leaned back in his chair, unconvinced.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, we did,” I said cocking my head to the side.
“What do you need with Detective Whitman today?” he asked with a sigh. I could tell we hadn’t impressed him.
“We need to talk to him,” Alba muttered.
“He’s busy.”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “He’s not busy.”
Officer Vargas grimaced. “Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. You’ll need an appointment.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. Quickly I dialed and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Detective Whitman,” I heard a deep male voice say.
“Hello Detective, this is Mercy Habernackle,” I said.
“Mercy, I’m glad you called. I need to talk to you. Can you possibly come down to the station?”
I smirked into the phone. “I’m down here right now, but your Officer Vargas is hassling me and my friend.”
“Oh, I’ll be out in a second,” he said and the line went dead.
I snapped my phone shut and held the phone up to the bulletproof window separating Officer Vargas and Alba and I. “Looks like I’ve got an appointment,” I said smugly.
“Vargas, let Ms. Habernackle and her friend in please,” we heard coming from an office in the back.
Officer Vargas pulled himself upright in his chair and pushed a button under his desk. A buzzer buzzed and we pushed our way through the door. “He’s back there,” he grunted at us.
I shot Officer Vargas a sweet as pie smile. “Thanks sweetheart,” I cooed at him as we brushed past his desk.
“In here,” Detective Whitman hollered.
We followed the voice and found his desk back behind the copy machine. His office had the pungent aroma of strong coffee and stale cigarettes.
“Ugh, are you a smoker?” I asked, holding my breath as I walked into his office.
Alba waved her hands in front of her to shoo the awful smell out the door.
“I’m trying to quit, why?” he said gruffly as he finger-pecked the keyboard in front of him, looking up and down between the paper file in front of him and the computer screen.
“Because your office reeks,” Alba said harshly.
Detective Whitman looked up at us finally. “Well I’m sorry, the maid’s on vacation.”
“It’s called Febreeze, you should try it,” Alba retorted.
Detective Whitman’s response made me suddenly curious about his personal life. “Are you married?” I asked him bluntly.
“I’m sorry, did I miss National Rag on a Detective day on the calendar?” he said, crossing his arms and leaning backwards in his chair.
I shrugged as I sat down on one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “We aren’t ragging on you. I just asked if you’re married.”
“No,” he barked. “Divorced.”
“Ah, she didn’t like your smoking, huh?” Alba said knowingly.
Detective Whitman narrowed his eyes as he leaned forward in his chair. “How did you know that?”
Alba lifted her eyebrows as she shrugged her shoulders. “I’m a witch.”
I had to laugh. While Alba did have the ability to read someone’s mind on occasion, it came and went, it wasn’t much of a stretch to guess that his ex-wife didn’t like her house or her husband smelling like a dirty old ashtray.
“Ok, yeah, so back to the fact that you’re witches. What do you have for me on the Harper Bradshaw case?” he asked. His gruff manner suggested we’d annoyed him with our questioning.
Alba waved a finger at him. “Oh no, you first.”
He looked at both of us. I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind. Share with us or don’t share with us. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. The initial toxicology report is back. She was poisoned. Now you.”
I looked at Alba uneas
ily. I wasn’t sure if I should share. She gave me a tiny nod. “We found Harper’s ghost.”
He leaned forward in his chair excitedly. “Re-eeeally.”
“Yes. Now your turn,” Alba said smarmily.
Detective Whitman looked down at the file on his desk and then he looked up at me. I could tell he had news I didn’t want to hear. My belly began to churn anxiously. “Reign’s got a record.”
“Ugh,” I said, exhaling the breath that I didn’t even know that I’d been holding. I let my head fall into my hands as I slumped down into my chair.
Alba touched my arm and gave it a little squeeze. “What kind of record?” Alba asked the officer for me.
“I can’t disclose his record. But he’s got quite the past. Murder wouldn’t be too out of character at this point.” Detective Whitman looked at me sadly. “I’m sorry Mercy.”
Hot tears stung at the backs of my eyes. I closed my eyes until the feeling began to recede. How in the world would I tell my mother that Reign had a criminal record and that murder wouldn’t be out of character for him? What if we were trying to prove Reign’s innocence and he wasn’t innocent? The thought made my mouth go dry.
“I need a drink, do you have any water?” I asked him.
Alba stood up. “We passed a water cooler when we came in. I’ll go get you a drink.”
“Thanks,” I whispered as my mind continued to reel.
After she’d gone, Detective Whitman leaned across the desk. “I’m sorry Mercy. Reign’s record doesn’t prove that he did this, but I don’t want you getting hurt. You need to be careful around him. He’s got some violent charges on his record.”
The word violent hung like a dark rain cloud over my head. I forced myself to nod. “Ok,” I whispered.
“Did Harper know who killed her?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “No, she only told me what we already knew. Vaughn and Reign fought over her. Reign offered her a place to spend the night and she went with him. She said she doesn’t remember anything else until she woke up as a ghost.”
“Did she tell anyone that she was going to be in town?” he asked.
“She said she remembers telling her sister Elena that she was going to be in town.”
Son of a Witch: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #2 Page 8