Nearly Departed (Spring Cleaning Mysteries)

by J. B. Lynn

  "I'll look for it myself." Sal Hopkins straight-armed me and pushed me aside. I stumbled backward, twisting my ankle and teetering precariously against the railing.

  "Bad idea, pal." Smoke grabbed my arm to ensure I wouldn't topple over. His grip was hard and strong, and I suspected it would leave a bruise. "Apologize to the lady."

  "Screw you." Sal's nostril's flared and he stamped his foot like an angry bull.

  He scared me.

  Smoke though, wasn't the slightest bit intimidated. Making sure to keep me behind him, he stepped right into the other man's personal space to stare him down. I didn't think Hopkins would yield, and I was pretty sure Smoke wouldn't either. I swallowed hard remembering that he'd left the police force after being accused of using excessive force. I held my breath, unsure of what to do. The seconds were endless. I wasn't sure whether I should try to get out of the way of swinging fists or try to save the business. I was pretty sure that the two men glaring at one another had forgotten I was even there.

  I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry Detective Reed misinformed you, Mr. Hopkins, but we can't allow you inside. It would be considered trespassing. As I said, I'd be happy to look for—"

  Sal Hopkins muttered something under his breath in a language I didn't understand before turning around and stalking away without another word to us.

  Once he was out of earshot, I said, "That went well."

  "Reed is an ass." Smoke turned around and went back inside to work.

  I would have gone back inside too, but suddenly Donald "Donny" McGrath, the third ghost, appeared beside me. Blind Buck had been shot through the head from front to back. Donny had been shot side to side, which meant he could see me and talk, but couldn't hear me.

  "Buck is trying to find the lady who talks to him. Are you her?" he shouted, reminding me of my neighbor Mr. Frazier, who refused to put in his hearing aids, despite the desperate pleading of his wife.

  Raising a finger to lips to shush him, I glanced in the direction Smoke had disappeared. I couldn't very well have him see me talking to a ghost. I motioned for Donny to follow me to the van.

  I opened the door and climbed into the driver's seat. In order to hover above the passenger seat, Donny climbed right through me, which caused me to shiver, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when Martin had done it.

  "You guys have got to stop doing that," I muttered.

  Reaching right through Donny's knees to open the glove box, I pulled out a notebook, a pen, and my emergency stash of black licorice jelly beans. Thankfully the fall days were cool which meant they weren't all stuck together like a giant lump of candy coal. With the day I was having, I needed to fortify myself with sugar. I shoved a handful of candy into my mouth before starting to scribble on the pad.

  You're Donny, right? I wrote.

  He nodded.

  Do you know where Buck is?

  "He keeps wandering off," Donny boomed.

  I winced, but didn't bother trying to tell him to be quieter, I just wrote another question. Do you know where Martin is?

  "The last I saw him he was pacing in the dining room. He seems pissed," Donny yelled.

  That's my fault, I wrote. I told Buck that Martin killed him…killed both of you and—

  "No he didn't," Donny shouted.

  "He didn't?" I asked aloud.

  The deaf kid stared at me blankly.

  He didn't? I scribbled.

  "No."

  You're sure? I scrawled.

  "Positive."

  But he got mad, and he knocked me over, I wrote hastily.

  "I'm sure he didn't mean it." Donny's voice echoed off the van's windows. "Wouldn't you be mad if someone accused you of being a murderer?"

  The kid had a point. "Do you know who killed you?" Like an idiot, I forgot to write it down, so he just held out his hands, palms up, and shrugged.

  I wrote the question down.

  "Nope!"

  I sighed, a niggling suspicion taking hold that helping these three ghosts move on might be too much for me. This necessitated another mouthful of jelly bean.

  "Who'd want to kill us?" Donny wailed. "We have our whole future ahead of us…had our whole future." His eyes filled with ghostly tears. He buried his head in his hands.

  I wanted to pat his shoulder to offer him some comfort, but obviously that wouldn't work, so I just said, "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Donny."

  Of course he didn't hear me so it was even less effective than I'd hoped. "It's not fair," he sobbed.

  I wrote a quick note and shoved it in front of his face. I'm so sorry.

  "Thanks," he sniffled.

  Is there something I can do for you? I wrote.

  "Like what?"

  I want to help you move on. Do you have any unfinished business you want me to help you with? My hand was getting tired.

  He thought about that for a second. "Well, there is one thing…"

  I nodded my encouragement.

  "I—"

  Two quick raps on the window beside my head startled us both. I practically jumped out of my seat, and Donny disappeared. I turned to find Smoke standing beside the van. He was eyeing me suspiciously. Of course if I'd walked up on someone nodding for no apparent reason, I'd probably be a bit cautious about approaching them too.

  "Are you okay?" His voice was muffled by the glass.

  I opened the door.

  "I'm fine." It came out a garbled mess because my mouth was still full of sticky black candies.

  "You don't look fine. I figured I should check on you after your fall."

  I chewed and swallowed. "You startled me, that's all."

  "Is there a reason you're hiding out in the van?"

  "I'm not hiding. I'm taking a break. Assuming that's okay with you?"

  He held up his hands defensively. "It's fine with me. It's just that you got spooked by a spider, and then that jerk pushed you, so I wanted to make sure you weren't hurt, or scared, or something."

  I felt bad for being short with him. It wasn't his fault that he'd interrupted my conversation with a ghost. I held out my bag of licorice toward him. "Jelly bean?"

  He wrinkled his nose. "They're black."

  "They're my favorite."

  "No one likes the black jelly beans."

  "I do. I love them. Want some?" I shook the bag like it was maraca.

  "No thanks."

  "Which are your favorite?"

  He gave me a look that told me that a grown man was above having a favorite Easter Bunny treat. He looked over at the notebook propped against the steering wheel. "What were you writing?"

  I snapped the notebook shut. "Notes. I find it easier to remember things if I write them down."

  "Looked like you had a lot of questions there."

  "I'm a curious person," I snapped. I wondered how much he'd seen. No doubt my side of the conversation with Donny could be misconstrued if taken out of context.

  "I'm going to get back to work. Give a yell if you need anything." He turned away.

  I crammed more candy into my mouth. It didn't help me feel any better.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Donny didn't return, so after I was done with my sugar break, I went to go back to work in the house. Before I went upstairs, I checked in on Smoke who was making an unholy racket in the living room. At least I hoped it was Smoke and not one of the ghosts having a temper tantrum. Reaching the doorway I saw him shove a sofa halfway across the room.

  "Everything okay?" Something was obviously bothering him.

  He stopped moving but didn't turn to look at me. "Everything's just peachy."

  The annoyance in his tone had me straightening and stiffening my spine. "Glad to hear it since throwing the furniture through the walls isn't part of the Spring Cleaning contract."

  I braced myself for whatever he would launch as he turned slowly to face me. Friend of Mike's or not, I could fire someone I was constantly at odds with. This was job was stressful enough without having someone looking over my shoul
der and second-guessing my every move.

  "Sorry."

  Here I was prepared for a fight and he apologized. "What?"

  "I said I'm sorry. That run-in with the kid's brother put me in a bad mood. I shouldn't have taken it out on the furniture."

  Or me, I thought.

  "I didn't damage anything if that's what you're worried about."

  "That kind of thing happens all the time. You shouldn't let it get to you."

  "You get shoved around on a regular basis?"

  I shrugged. "Once or twice. Doing this job you see people at their worst. They behave in ways they'd never normally do. You've got to give them some latitude…some understanding."

  "But you don't have to put your safety on the line," he argued.

  "Nothing happened. Why are you so upset?"

  He covered the space between us with three quick, long strides. "And what about when the guy punched you? Was that nothing too?"

  "I…I've been thinking about that."

  His mouth hardened into a straight line as he eyed me suspiciously.

  "I mean, if Martin had killed his friends and then himself, why would someone else be here, digging through their belongings?"

  Smoke crossed his arms over his chest but didn't say anything.

  "I think maybe it wasn't a murder-suicide. Maybe all three of the college kids were murdered."

  "And what makes you think that?"

  I couldn't very well tell him that two of the victims had told me they didn't think their friend was capable of killing them. "I dunno. I—"

  The doorbell rang.

  Saved by the bell, I thought.

  "This place is busier than Starbucks in the morning," Smoke groused, stepping toward the foyer.

  I grabbed his arm. "Wait! What if it's your stalker chick?"

  "She's not my stalker chick. She's a stalker chick." He did however stop in his tracks.

  "I'll answer the door."

  "It could just as easily be Big Brother trying to push his way in again."

  "Then we should go together," I decided, thinking it was ridiculous that I was more worried about who was on the doorstep than the ghosts who drifted through doors.

  Together we crept to the foyer. I looked out the peephole. "It's an older couple," I whispered.

  Smoke threw up his hands. "Let me guess, more family."

  I opened the door with my best professional smile plastered on my face. "Hello."

  "Hello. I'm Bob Nottoway, and this is my wife, Joann."

  They weren't nearly as old as I'd imagined. They were probably younger than my parents, but the way they stood, huddled together, leaning on one another like they could never survive on their own, gave the impression they were elderly.

  "We're Martin's parents," Bob said.

  "I'm Vicky Spring of Spring Cleaning. This is my associate Mr. Barclay. Mr. Ribisi, the landlord, hired my company to…do some clean-up here."

  Joann Nottoway sagged even harder against her husband. I half-expected them both to crumple to the ground before my eyes.

  "I can only imagine how difficult of a time this must be for you. Is there something I can help you with?"

  "We…we were hoping that we could have Art's lucky tie. That's what he liked to be called, Art. We'd like…we'd like to bury him in it." Mr. Nottoway kept his gaze glued to the ground as he spoke as though making eye contact with someone while saying something so terrible would make this whole awful ordeal more real for him.

  "Let me see if we can find it for you," I said as gently as I could, hoping that it hadn't been ruined and discarded. "What does it look like?"

  Mrs. Nottoway finally spoke. "It's black, with a red and white bulls-eye on it."

  I winced. Considering their son was suspected of using a gun to kill himself and his friends, I wasn't sure a bulls-eye tie was the best of choices.

  "I'll look for it." Smoke bounded away up the stairs leaving me alone with the grieving parents.

  "Why don't we sit on the steps?" I suggested, afraid that if Smoke couldn't find the neckwear, Bob or Joann might collapse.

  Stepping outside, I pulled the door firmly shut behind me.

  "It was his lucky tie because he wore it for all his Debate Team competitions," Joann confided. "His opponents couldn't see the bulls-eye because it's low on the tie and was hidden by his jacket, but he liked knowing he had them in his sights."

  I almost missed the last part of what she said because Martin drifted into my line of sight, wrapping his arms around his mom to hug her. I held my breath, but she didn't seem to sense anything.

  She just went on talking about her beloved son, not knowing he stood right there. "Art loved to argue things, and he always believed his way was right, but he talked things out. He never resorted to violence. Even when he was a little boy he was more likely to discuss something to death than get into a schoolyard brawl." Twin tears trickled down Joann's face.

  Martin tried to wipe them away to no avail. I felt my own eyes filling with tears.

  "That's why we don't believe he'd…he'd do this thing the police think of him. He was not a violent person." A note of righteous anger threaded through Bob Nottoway's tone.

  Thinking of what Donny had told me, I nodded. "Maybe they'll decide someone else is responsible."

  "They're not looking for anyone else!" Bob bellowed.

  "Robert, please," Joann chastised, looking up and down the street to see if anyone had noticed his outburst.

  Bob lowered his voice but continued with blistering intensity. "They can't explain how Martin came in to possession of a gun or why he'd kill his friends or himself, but they're not looking for answers."

  Martin reached out to rub his dad's back.

  The child trying to make the parent feel better was too much for me. I had to look away. I stared at the Spring Cleaning van hoping that Smoke would magically appear with the lucky tie.

  As though the non-existent contact with his dead son mollified him, Mr. Nottoway dropped his head. "I'm sorry, Miss…?"

  "Spring. It's perfectly alright. I understand the incredible stress you're under." Hell, they hadn't sworn at, spit at, or shoved me. This outburst of emotion was the least of what I'd had to deal with in the course of working for Spring Cleaning.

  "It's the not knowing that's so hard," he whispered.

  "Not knowing why he died…how this happened," his wife said.

  I made the mistake of looking back at them at that moment. I recognized the look in their eyes. I saw it in my parents' eyes all the time. I knew first-hand how not knowing could eat away at a person.

  I knew then that helping the boys' ghosts move on wasn't going to be enough. I had to help the grieving parents too.

  Smoke emerged from the house holding out the tie like he'd caught a twenty-pound bass.

  "Thank you!" Joann gasped, snatching it from him and holding it to her cheek.

  Martin reached out to touch it too, but his fingers slipped right through the silk.

  "Let's go, sweetheart." Bob Nottoway draped his arm around his wife's shoulders and led her away.

  Smoke and I stood on the stoop watching them go.

  "I'm glad you were able to find the tie for them," I said.

  "Me too. It's the people who are left behind who suffer the most, don't you think?"

  I nodded, unable to speak. My throat was clogged with unshed tears as I watched Martin chase after his parents, weeping.

  I cleared my throat. "They don't think their son was a murderer."

  "Most parents don't."

  I knew then I'd have to figure out who'd killed the frat boys and why all by myself. Then I'd have to prove it.

  * * *

  At the end of the day Smoke followed me back to the house, helped me unload the day's debris, and restock the van. We worked in silence, each of us caught up in our own thoughts. We were just finishing up when an electric blue Corvette squealed into the driveway.

  "More house hunters?" Smoke asked.

/>   "Nope. She's at the right address." What I didn't say was that my friend, Venus, while not a house hunter was definitely a man hunter. She was damn good at it too. It didn't hurt that she was a willowy six feet with café au lait skin and exotic emerald eyes. But really her appeal was in the way she gave her full attention to whomever she was talking to.

  When we'd first met, her laser-like focus had unnerved me a bit, but now it was one of the things I liked most about her. I hurried to give her a hug hello.

  "Mon ami!" she trilled as she slid out of her car.

  "How was France?" I asked.

  She didn't answer me. Instead she looked over my shoulder at Smoke. "Oooh la la," she whispered as she pressed a kiss to my cheek. "Who's that fine looking man?"

  I chuckled. "My newest employee."

  "He doesn't look like one of yours. He looks like one of mine." Venus, having spent her time in front of the camera learning the business, now ran a modeling agency, which was why she was always jet-setting off to places like France. "I could totally use him in a print ad. Introduce us."

  I fought to keep my smile in place, caught off guard by how much I didn't want to introduce them.

  "Unless you two…?" Venus asked curiously.

  I shook my head. "No. He's just an employee."

  "So you're dating drought continues," Venus groused. "Vicky, I…"

  "I know. I know. I'm withering on the vine." Sighing, I turned back toward Smoke who was watching our interaction with mild curiosity. I couldn't blame him. To outsiders Venus and I made for strange friends, the exotic beauty and the frumpy best friend who cleans up other people's messes. We'd been like that since we'd first met in fifth grade. Even back then Venus had been special, a minor celebrity because she'd starred in a series of cereal commercials at the ripe old age of ten.

  "Smoke, this is my best friend, Venus. Venus, this is Smoke Barclay."

  "Ma'am." He dipped his chin in greeting but made no move to step forward to shake her hand.

  "Nice to meet you, Mr. Barclay." Venus gave me a sideways glance. She was accustomed to men falling all over her. Smoke's reticence was a bit of a novel experience. "I didn't mean to barge right in and interrupt. I'll call you tomorrow."

  "You're not interrupting anything," I assured her. "Smoke was about to head home."