Nearly Departed (Spring Cleaning Mysteries)

by J. B. Lynn

  "You know what they say about friends and enemies…" His tone was deliberately cryptic.

  "I don't follow."

  He made a dismissive movement with his hand. "It doesn't matter."

  "I said something wrong?" A wave of guilt rolled over me. "You think that if you hadn't been keeping an eye on me, you could have protected her." I buried my face in my hands. "She was right. It is my fault she's dead."

  "Melodramatic much?" Smoke muttered.

  I barely heard him as I jumped up and stumbled toward the door, in the grips of a familiar panic I hadn't felt for years. I had to get away before the accusations started.

  "Hey! Where are you going?"

  I fumbled with the lock, tears blurring my vision, shock making my fingers tremble. "I…I have to go."

  "Stop." Coming up behind me and grabbing my shoulders, Smoke pulled me away from the door. "What are you doing?"

  "I have to go." I twisted, struggling to pull away, not wanting to face him.

  He shook me. "What's gotten into you?"

  "Please…I'm sorry…" I couldn't form a complete thought.

  He spun me around so that he could look into my eyes. I stared down at the ground, not wanting to see the blame in his gaze. This wasn't the first time I'd inadvertently done something that had resulted in horrible consequences. I didn't want to face that kind of blistering condemnation again. I couldn't.

  "Look at me, Tori." His tone was deceptively gentle.

  I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. Part of me knew I was overreacting, but the other part of me was in full-blown panic mode.

  I sensed him take a step back.

  "You've got to be exhausted, and it's been a really stressful couple days," he said softly. "You just need some sleep, and you'll see things clearer in the morning. Does that make sense?"

  I nodded slowly.

  "I can't let you go home, not with a murderer on the loose. You can sleep in Halley's room."

  His tone was reasonable, and I felt some of my panic subside. I risked a quick look at him. He was watching me with undisguised concern, but I saw no animosity in his gaze.

  He offered a weak smile. "I didn't mean to upset you. To be honest I don't know what just happened, but I'm sorry."

  "You're not mad?" I whispered.

  He rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. "Mad? No. I have no doubt that Lacey Halperin was responsible for what happened to her. I wasn't blaming you. I'm just frustrated with this whole…mess."

  "Oh."

  "Oh." He repeated.

  "I overreacted," I began slowly.

  "Ya think?"

  I winced.

  "Sorry. You were saying?"

  "I overreacted. I—"

  "I'm back!" Angel cried exuberantly, popping up between us.

  Startled by her reappearance, I clasped my hand to my chest.

  "Are you okay?" Smoke asked worriedly.

  "She's back," I said.

  "Lacey?"

  "Angel."

  He closed his eyes. "Is she haunting me?"

  "Of course not, silly-dilly," Angel said.

  "No, she's not," I assured him.

  "Then what does she want from me?" His voice cracked with anguish.

  I looked to Angel for an answer. She stared at him solemnly.

  Smoke opened his eyes and watched me warily, waiting for an answer.

  "I don't want you to be alone," the little girl told him.

  But he couldn't hear her.

  "She doesn't want you to be alone." My voice cracked as I delivered the message.

  "Like she was?"

  The little girl looked to me. "What's he talking about?"

  "She doesn't understand what you're saying," I told Smoke.

  He stared at me blankly.

  "Sometimes…if a death is…traumatic, they don't remember it," I explained.

  He nodded slowly.

  A sudden knock at the door startled all three of us.

  Angel disappeared.

  "She's gone again," I told Smoke.

  Smoke's middle-of-the-night visitor knocked again. Louder. More aggressively.

  "Now what?" Smoke wondered aloud, reaching for the door handle.

  "I know you're in there, Smoke!" a familiar male voice shouted.

  "Keep your pants on, Bernie!" Smoke yelled back. "Why don't you try to catch some sleep in Halley's room?" he suggested to me.

  "Okay." Bone-tired, I trudged to his sister's bedroom, barely registering the conversation drifting in my direction.

  "You are going to blow everything," was the last thing I heard Bernie say before I clicked the bedroom door closed and drifted off to sleep beside Miss Kitty.

  * * *

  The smell of coffee brewing woke me. It took me a second to remember where I was and what had transpired the night before. When I did, I was tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep, but ignoring a problem never solves it, so I got up and dragged myself into the kitchen.

  Seated at the table, staring into space, Smoke looked even worse than I felt. Dark shadows lurked beneath his eyes. His skull, covered with stubble since he hadn't shaved yet, gave him a disheveled appearance.

  "Morning," I croaked.

  He jumped, startled. "I was a million miles away," he said with a rueful smile.

  "I could tell."

  He waved for me to sit down and pushed a box of breakfast bars in my direction. "Coffee's almost ready. Did you get any sleep?"

  I nodded. "Did you?"

  He shrugged.

  "I know it's none of my business," I started slowly.

  "But you're going to ask anyway." Smoke got up and poured two mugs of coffee.

  "Well, you know my secrets," I said lightly. "Only fair that I get to know yours…or if you prefer, I can just ask her."

  He put the coffee down with a thud. "Angel is…was…my sister."

  I covered his hand with mine. "I'm sorry."

  "Me too."

  "Do you want to talk about what happened to her?"

  He looked down at where my hand rested on his. "Do you want to tell me why you freaked out last night? I'm guessing it had very little to do with Lacey."

  I pulled away as though burned. "Fair enough."

  Smoke settled back into his seat and sipped his coffee. Each of us, preoccupied with our individual secrets, stayed silent.

  Finally, Smoke put down his mug. "You could have DiNunzio finish the job."

  "I thought of that."

  "But you're not going to do it?"

  I shook my head. "I promised Martin I'd find out who killed him."

  "You promised...? Wait, are you telling me you've been talking to a murdered ghost this whole time?" He sounded skeptical, as though in the light of day he couldn't bring himself to believe the things he'd accepted the night before.

  I nodded. "I promised him I'd figure it out."

  "It's dangerous," Smoke warned.

  I shrugged. "I don't see that I have a choice."

  He stared into his coffee like it was a crystal ball. "You know I'm not going to let you do this alone, right?"

  "You don't have to help—"

  He held up a hand to silence me. "I don't see that I have a choice."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Juliet was hovering in the foyer when Smoke and I entered the frat boy house.

  "Is Lacey here?" I asked.

  "No. She gave the boys the slip and disappeared," Juliet replied.

  "Is she?" Smoke asked, looking around nervously.

  "No. She's not." I told him.

  "Why's it always so cold in this place?" He went off to turn up the thermostat.

  "It's the ghosts!" I called after him.

  "I so didn't need to know that," he muttered.

  I turned my attention back to Juliet and squinted at her. "You look different."

  She smiled coyly. "You think so?"

  "Who are you talking to?" Smoke whispered as he returned.

  "Juliet Rota."

/>   "What's she doing here?"

  "I'm not quite sure," I told him. I looked back at Juliet. "What are you doing here?"

  "I've been following you," she said.

  "Why?"

  "Because you could see me. Because you could help me. You can't be mad at me for following you. If I hadn't been, the crazy bitch cop would have killed you."

  "I'm not mad," I said carefully. "I just didn't know you could go anywhere you wanted."

  "Oh sure. All you have to do is think about a place or a person hard enough, and there you are."

  So why hadn't Jerry come to see me?

  "What's she saying?" Smoke asked.

  I held a finger to my lips to shush him before giving Juliet my full attention. "I do want to help you. I think the first thing we should do is find your body. Do you happen to know where it is?"

  "I wish I'd had you around when I investigated murders for a living," Smoke muttered. "It would have made my job much easier."

  I ignored him.

  "It's…I'm in the woods just outside of town," Juliet replied.

  "Can you take us there?" I asked.

  "Take us where?" Smoke asked.

  "To find Juliet's body," I said.

  "I thought we were going to work on the frat boys' murders." He sat down at the base of the stairs in silent protest of the new plan.

  "We will, but Juliet needs help. She'll take us out to the woods, we'll stumble upon her body, we'll call the cops, and her murder will be solved." I told him cheerily. "Easy peasy!"

  "Easy peasy? How the hell are we going to explain happening across a two-year-old corpse?"

  "I don't need to take you there," Juliet said. "It's easy to find."

  "She says her body is easy to find," I told Smoke.

  "Still not easy to explain," he countered.

  "I'm behind the Welcome to the Adams' Farm sign," Juliet said.

  Feeling like I was stuck in a twisted game of Operator, I parroted, "She's behind the Welcome to the Adams' Farm sign."

  Smoke cocked his head to the side. "Really?"

  I nodded.

  "Not so difficult to explain now," he said slowly.

  "Really?" Juliet and I said simultaneously.

  "Halley's group home is going on a trip to the farm next week. If I go along as a chaperone and stumble upon the body…it would be believable."

  Juliet clapped her hands excitedly. "Finally!"

  "See?" I told Smoke with a big grin, "Easy peasy! Now we can get to work on helping the boys move on."

  Smoke didn't smile back. In fact, he frowned. "And figuring out who's going around killing people connected with the case."

  "Look out!" I grabbed Smoke's hand and pulled him off the stairs as a ghost floated down.

  "There's my girl!" Donny boomed in his unmodulated voice.

  Smoke whirled around, but didn't see anything. "What?"

  "Donny almost plowed through…" I didn't finish my sentence. Instead my mouth dropped open. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the image of what I'd just seen was already burned in my memory.

  "What?" Smoke whispered.

  "Donny and Juliet are…uh…making out…I think…" I kept my eyes closed. It had been like some sort of cosmic fireworks show full of glittering explosions. I wasn't sure it was the sort of thing a mere mortal should be witnessing.

  "So?"

  "I've never seen that before."

  "What the hell kind of sheltered life have you led?" Smoke asked incredulously.

  My eyes snapped open so that I could glare at him. "It's not like two living people kissing…it's more…an exchange of energy. It looks very…intimate."

  "Oh," Smoke said as though he understood.

  "I told you I was on my way to a date the night I was killed, didn't I?" Juliet said.

  I turned back to look at her and Donny who were standing with their arms wrapped around/through one another. "Yes."

  Donny flashed me a thumbs-up with his free hand.

  "Well, it was Donald I was on my way to meet," Juliet explained with a dreamy smile. "So my running into you, it was like fate."

  "Like fate?" I asked weakly.

  "If I hadn't followed you, I might never have found him again. Now thanks to you, we can be together forever!"

  "Forever?"

  "I know that once you find my body, you'll make sure Cusak pays."

  "We'll do our best," I promised.

  "What will we do?" Smoke asked.

  I looked up at him. "We'll see that Cusak is punished for killing her."

  "Cusak?" Smoke asked incredulously. "Are you telling me Cusak killed Juliet Rota?"

  I nodded. "Sorry. Meant to mention that to you." I turned back to Juliet and Donny, but they were gone.

  "Juliet?" I called. I got no response. "Damn!" I muttered.

  "What?" Smoke asked.

  "They never say thank you. They just move on."

  "They're gone?"

  "For good, I'd imagine."

  "That's a good thing, right?"

  I nodded grudgingly. "Now we just have to find Martin and see what he can tell us. He must be hanging around here somewhere."

  I started climbing the stairs, Smoke following closely behind.

  "It must be weird for you," he said. "The whole ghost thing."

  "That's putting it mildly."

  We both stopped in our tracks when we heard, "Smokey Bear! Are you there?"

  "I'm going to kill that woman," Smoke growled.

  "Please don't. She'd probably haunt you forever."

  Smoke chuckled. "Okay, I'll just go chase her away."

  "I brought you breakfast!" Shirley DiNunzio trilled from the stoop.

  "I'll be right back," Smoke promised, running back down the stairs to deal with his stalker.

  I went to Martin's room to look for him. "Are you here?" I called softly as I swung the door open.

  Someone was there waiting, but it wasn't Martin.

  The world went black.

  * * *

  I couldn't figure out what was going on as I came to. It was dark, and noxious fumes made me want to cover my mouth and nose, but when I tried, I realized I couldn't move my arms. My entire body bounced up and down, causing my cheek to scrape against an unforgiving surface. I blinked rapidly, trying to discern shapes among the shadows bathed in the faint glow of red light.

  The distinctive rumble beneath signaled movement. I sat up quickly, rapping my head against cold metal and slumped against rough fabric that smelled of rubber and stale groceries. After a moment I figured out I was in a trunk of a car, bound, if my inability to move was any indication. I fought to control the panic roiling in my gut and tried to understand what was happening.

  The last thing I remembered was walking into Martin's room, and then I was trussed up, like a turkey, in the trunk of a moving car. From the jostling that was going on, I guessed that I was traveling on a back road of some sort. I had no idea who had taken me. I had no idea what they wanted. I had no idea whether I was going to live or die,

  Remembering that Angel had said Halley had called for her, I started yelling for help. "Martin! Juliet! Angel!"

  No one appeared alongside me in the inky darkness. I was all alone.

  Panicked, I screamed for the person whose ghost I never hoped to see. "Jerry! Jerry!"

  He didn't materialize. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or dismayed. I didn't want my brother to be dead…but I didn't want to die alone.

  The car pulled to a stop, and I held my breath.

  Two doors slammed shut.

  "For da' record, I think this is a dumb idea," a man said.

  I agreed…if he was talking about killing me.

  "Not my call," another man, with the hint of an accent, declared. "I'm just following orders."

  The trunk lid flipped open, and bright sunlight flooded in. Squinting against it, I could make out the shadows of two men, but couldn't see their faces. I tried to fight as they dragged me out of the car and dropped me in a heap
on the ground. I struggled into a kneeling position, no easy feat with hands and feet secured.

  As my eyes became I accustomed to the light, I realized I was in a sloping field at the end of a long dirt road. There were no buildings in sight, just trees and land.

  "She's a fighter," the one with the accent said with a touch of admiration.

  "She's a pain in the ass," the other said.

  I recognized both men. One was the one who'd threatened me at my home. The other was Sal, Buck's imaginary brother. "What do you want from me?" I asked.

  "Super Bowl tickets," Sal replied. "Ya got any?"

  The one who'd broken into Dad's car chuckled at his cohort's joke. Then he grew serious. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket. "We need to know what the blonde bitch said to Barclay."

  "L-lacey?" I flinched at the hiss of the blade opening.

  He strolled over to me, rolling the weapon in the palm of his hand. The sunlight glinted off the metal. "What did she tell him?"

  I took a deep breath and composed my thoughts. I didn't want to say anything that could put Smoke in further danger. It was bad enough that I had to die, but who would care for Halley if he was gone? "She said there was pressure to close the frat boy case."

  "Did she tell him who?"

  I shook my head.

  "You don't think so, or he told you she didn't say who."

  "He told me." The lie slipped easily off my tongue.

  He seemed to believe me, because he snapped the knife closed before turning to Sal. "Big man wants to do the job himself."

  "I don't like this, Felipe," Sal said. "It's a bad idea."

  "So you've said, my friend," Felipe replied. "Good news for you though, muchacha." He bestowed a sinisterly benevolent smile on me. "It means you get to live for a few more hours. It's a good chance to make your peace with God."

  It was Sal's turn to laugh. "Not how I'd want to spend my last couple of hours."

  They got back in the car and drove away, leaving me kneeling on the ground. I watched them disappear from view, kicking up dust in their wake. Once they were gone, I began crawling away. With my feet bound, I could only move half an inch at a time, but that was better than nothing.

  Just because I was all alone, was no reason to make killing me easy for them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE