by Terri Reid
He sighed softly and nodded. “Okay, what’s next?”
“Well, let’s head over to the classroom and hope Miss Banks will show up and tell us who her killer was,” Mary said. “That would make things so much easier.”
Footsteps echoed in the empty school as they made their way past gray, metal lockers and bulletin boards with decade old notices on them. The doors to most of the classrooms were open, and Mary could see row after row of abandoned, wooden desks. The counters adjacent to the large windows were mostly empty, with an occasional book or discarded lunchbox on them.
Andrew led her to the fourth classroom. “Here we are,” he said, entering the room first.
Mary walked through the doorway into the room and looked around at the small desks lined up in six rows. She walked slowly between the desks to the back of the class and imagined the woman she’d seen on the stairs moving between her students, peering over their shoulders and checking on their progress. When she reached the back of the room, she turned and inhaled sharply. Standing next to Andrew in the front of the room was Miss Banks, her face bloodied and her body bruised.
“Are you Miss Banks?” Mary asked.
Andrew’s eyes widened and he jumped to the side, looking at the empty space where Mary was directing her questions. “She’s here?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m Kristen Banks,” the ghost replied, her voice softly modulated and kind. “Are you here for one of my students?”
Mary glanced at Andrew. “She’s here,” she said to Andrew and then turned back to the ghost. “Actually, I’m a private investigator, and I’m here because one of your former students hired me.”
Kristen smiled. “Well, I don’t know how that would be possible,” she said. “I’ve only been teaching for a few years, and I don’t know many ten or eleven year olds who hire private investigators.”
Mary slowly walked forward and stopped at the first desk in the row. She leaned against the desk that had been affixed to the floor and smiled at the ghost. “You made a great impression on him, you know,” Mary said. “Your words on his spelling test made him finally believe in himself.”
“Words on a spelling test?” Kristen said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Andrew Tyler,” Mary said. “Do you remember grading his spelling test?”
“Well, I do remember Andrew Tyler,” she said. “But I just graded his test last night, so unless I’m Rip Van Winkle, I don’t think you were hired by Andrew.”
“Do you remember going home last night?” Mary asked.
Kristen stared at Mary. “Well, of course…” she began, pausing almost immediately. She looked up at Mary, her eyes wide and her face filled with concern. “I can’t seem to remember…”
“Tell me what you do remember about last night,” Mary urged.
“I was grading papers,” she said slowly. “I’d just finished Andrew’s paper, and then I took a moment to read Danny’s letter.” She looked up with an embarrassed smile. “Danny’s my fiancé.”
“Congratulations,” Mary said. “Then what happened?”
Kristen paused for a moment while she searched her memory. “Then I heard a sound in the hall,” she said slowly. “I got up and looked, but no one was there.” She looked up at Mary again and shrugged. “It kind of spooked me, so I decided to pack up and do the rest of the grading at home. I’m not very brave when it comes to those kinds of things.”
“I guess you would have packed up your briefcase and your purse,” Mary said, “and locked your classroom door?”
Kristen nodded. “Yes, I did,” she said easily, but then her face fell and she looked down at the floor, studying it for a few minutes. When she looked up, her eyes were wide with horror. “He was there,” she whispered, her voice shaky.
“Who?” Mary asked. “Who was there?”
“I don’t know,” she stammered. “He grabbed me from behind.” She shuddered. “He touched me.” Closing her eyes tightly, she wrapped her arms around herself. “He was…he was disgusting.”
“What did you do?” Mary asked.
“He grabbed me,” she said slowly, translucent tears sliding down her cheeks. “And he forced me to the stairs. He said he was going to take me.” She looked up at Mary’s eyes. “I had to get away.”
“Yes. Yes, you did,” Mary agreed.
“I kicked him,” Kristen said, her voice breaking into sobs. “I kicked him, and he pushed me. He pushed me.”
Wracked with sobs, tears flowing freely, she could barely speak. She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked at Mary, heart-breaking anguish in her eyes. “I fell,” she whispered. “I fell, and I died.”
Chapter Ten
“What happened?” Andrew asked, his eyes wide with curiosity and apprehension as he glanced around the room. “Is she still here?”
Mary shook her head, still staring at the empty space where Kristen had just stood. “No, she’s gone now,” she replied with a sigh.
“Why? Why did she leave?” he asked.
Taking a deep breath, Mary wiped the sadness from her eyes and turned to Andrew. “She just remembered what happened that night and comprehended that she was dead,” she explained. “That’s a fairly traumatic realization.”
“What?” he asked. “She’s been dead for over forty years. Why didn’t she figure it out sooner?”
“Well, I don’t have this all figured out perfectly yet,” she said. “But it seems to me that often when death happens quickly, the spirits don’t always understand they’ve passed on. They wake up in their spirit form and just keep repeating the actions from the life they lived.”
“But forty years,” he insisted. “Wouldn’t she see that the faces in the classroom had changed? Wouldn’t she notice that no one has been inside this school for a decade?”
“I’m not sure how cognizant they are of life around them,” Mary said. “Sometimes it seems like their life is just a playback recording of what they did just before they died. So, perhaps in their mind, they see the things around them as if it were that day.”
She shrugged. “It’s not a perfect science,” she admitted. “And I’m only putting together my own theories from the limited time I’ve spent with ghosts. Some of them are really aware they are dead and are trapped here until something gets resolved, but some are totally unaware of their situation. For them, the knowledge of their death generally comes as a big surprise. They keep living their life and going on with whatever was important to them when they died.”
“So, does that mean she’s gone? For good?” he asked.
“No,” Mary replied, shaking her head and standing up. “It just means she needs a little time to deal with the reality of her situation. I’m sure now that she and I have met, she’ll contact me. But until then, we just wait.”
They both walked back to the hallway and stared at the staircase. “Did she know who did it?” he asked. “Did she remember who killed her?”
Turning to him, she met his eyes and sighed. “She never saw him,” she explained. “Someone came up to her as she was leaving, grabbed her from behind and started forcing her towards the stairs. It sounded like it was supposed to have been an abduction or rape, but she fought back and he pushed her down the stairs.”
“Rape?” he asked, incredulous. “This is Polo. People didn’t get raped in Polo when I was a little kid. That just didn’t happen.”
Mary smiled sadly. “Oh, it happened,” she said. “But victims didn’t talk about it because they were ashamed or thought in some perverse way that it was their fault. So many rapists got away with it.”
They started to walk towards the stairs. “Yeah, I understand how they wouldn’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Especially back then.”
Mary stopped at the top of the staircase and turned to Andrew. “The problem with that secret is the darkness. Just like a drop of ink in water, it spreads throughout the rest of your life and darkens everything else,” Mary replied. “Unless it’s
revealed, unless light is shone upon it, it doesn’t go away.”
They stood in silence for a moment, staring down at the steps. “So, how are we going to help Miss Banks?” he asked. “If she didn’t see the man who did it, how can we possibly solve her murder?”
“Well, I guess we take it a step at a time,” she said, and then she grimaced. “Excuse the horrible pun. I really didn’t mean it.”
Andrew actually smiled. “No problem,” he said.
“Besides, we are closer to solving her murder,” Mary said. “Because we finally know that it was a murder. And we wouldn’t have known that if you hadn’t saved the building.”
They climbed down the stairs in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Thank you, Mary, for coming out tonight,” Andrew said when they reached the first floor and were walking towards the entrance, “even if we never see her again.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “But don’t give up; I’m sure we’ll see her again. In the meantime, perhaps you could think of some people we could speak with who knew her and might know if she had an admirer.”
“That’s a great idea,” he said. “Her parents are gone, but I can ask around and see if anyone remembers her and would be willing to talk. I have to admit, though, lately people in town aren’t talking to me. I think some of them think I should leave the past in the past.”
“They might be afraid,” Mary warned. “Even though it was forty years ago, there’s probably still a killer out there who doesn’t want his secret revealed, and he might be willing to kill again just to be sure.”
Andrew stopped in his tracks and looked at her. “You’re right,” he said. “I was so busy thinking about her, I really never thought that someone in our community is a cold-blooded killer.”
Chapter Eleven
“The steps got closer, and the smell of blood was everywhere,” Bradley said softly.
“You’re doing better, but you have to say it like you’re still there and you’re really scared,” Clarissa coached. Then she paused and looked at Bradley. “You were scared, weren’t you?”
Bradley momentarily debated whether or not to protect his ego and lie or tell the truth. The truth won. “I was totally freaked out,” he said with a smile. “I kept hearing footsteps, but I couldn’t see anyone. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”
Clarissa clapped her hands together. “That’s perfect, Daddy,” she said. “You need to tell your story like that. You need to show how scared you were, and that will scare everyone else.”
“You think?” he asked.
She shook her head eagerly. “Oh, yes, you actually even scared me that time,” she said, holding out her arm. “See, I even have goosebumps.”
Laughing, he leaned forward from his chair and ran his hand up her bare arm. “I see goosebumps,” he confirmed. “But how about all those other times when you said you were frightened?”
She shrugged and slipped off the couch. “Oh, that was to help give you confidence,” she replied with a smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a hug. “Now that you’re actually good, you don’t need it.”
He gave her a hug and kissed her on the top of her head. “Thanks, coach,” he said. “I feel better already.”
“Did you ever actually see Earl?” she asked him.
“No, I never did,” he said. “I heard him, and I smelled him.” He scrunched up his nose. “And he smelled disgusting. But I never saw a ghost until Mary held my hand. Only then could I see them.”
“That’s good to know,” she said. She leaned back in her father’s arms and then slowly looked around the room. “Daddy, has anyone ever died in this house?” she asked.
Taken aback for a moment, Bradley shook his head and wondered why Clarissa would be asking a question like that. “No, sweetheart,” he said, “Not that I know of. Why?”
“Just wondering,” she said, squinting her eyes and slowly examining the room.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She opened her eyes and nodded. “I’m great,” she said. “Just checking.”
“Checking for what?” he asked.
She sighed and shrugged. “Just checking,” she said. “Where was Earl when he came into the house?”
Bradley pointed across the room to the basement door. “He was over there,” he said.
“Cool,” Clarissa said, wriggling out of Bradley’s hold. She looked sideways, staring at the basement door from the corner of her eye and walked forward in the living room. Bradley grabbed her before she came into contact with the fireplace. “Sweetheart, you nearly bumped your head,” he said. “Didn’t you see the fireplace?”
She smiled up at him. “Oh, no, I didn’t,” she said. “Thanks for catching me, Dad.”
He looked into her eyes. “Are your eyes okay?” he asked. “Is anything blurry?”
“No,” she sighed. “Nothing’s blurry. Everything looks just normal.”
His brow furrowed in concern. He studied her for a few moments more and then placed another kiss on her head. “Okay, it’s time for you to wash up and get ready for bed,” he said. “Up you go.”
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Okay, Dad,” she said. She turned and walked toward the staircase, her sideways gaze still locked on the area in front of the basement door. Suddenly she stumbled and fell forward on the staircase, but she was able to catch herself before she fell. Bradley was immediately at her side.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure,” she replied carelessly. “I guess I just didn’t see that step. Goodnight, Dad.”
“Goodnight,” he replied, concern in his voice.
He stood at the bottom of the stairway and watched her walk up, ready to catch her if she stumbled. What was going on with her? Was she having vision issues? Could she have cataracts, a detached retina or …a tumor? His throat went dry, and his heart pounded in his chest. Could Clarissa be terminally ill?
He took a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair and leaned up against the bannister. Good grief, he needed to pull himself together. She stumbled and that was all. She was probably fine.
He stepped away from the staircase, then paused and looked up the stairs one more time. Well, just in case, he’d ask Mary what she thought.
Chapter Twelve
With a sincere feeling of gratitude, Mary parked her car close to the front of the superstore in a parking space saved for pregnant women. She knew the exercise of walking from the farther parts of the parking lot was good for her, but if she didn’t hurry and get to the bathroom in the front of the store, she might embarrass herself. She hurried to the front of the store. She should have stopped at the gas station in Polo, she chided herself. When would she remember that her bladder currently had the capacity of less than a tablespoon?
A few minutes later, feeling much better about life, Mary took a cart from the cart corral and pushed it towards the seasonal section. As she approached, passing by the cards and gift-wrap section, she heard a familiar laugh. Turning her cart, she was surprised to see Kate and Rosie laughing together in the middle of the gift-wrap aisle. She glanced over at the cart and saw that the child’s seat held two purses. They weren’t just laughing together, they were shopping together.
“Hi,” she said as she approached them, keeping her voice light. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Mary,” Kate exclaimed, looking more surprised than she should. “What are you doing here?”
“Just picking up some Halloween candy for the school party,” she replied. “Are you two shopping together?”
Rosie looked guiltier than Mary had ever seen. Were they embarrassed that they were out on the town without her? They always called her when they needed to go shopping, and they always shopped in a threesome.
Were they uncomfortable that they’d gone out shopping and hadn’t called her? How many times had they done it? Had they even gone into Rockford without her? What? She wasn’t a close enough friend
anymore?
“We just ran into each other,” Kate said.
But Mary knew it was a lie. You don’t put your purse into a cart’s child seat unless you are actually shopping together. That was the rule.
“Oh really?” Mary asked, keeping her tone friendly. “What a coincidence.”
Rosie laughed nervously. “Yes. Yes it is quite a coincidence,” she stammered. “First I run into Kate. Right, Kate? And then we both run into you.” She waved her hand in front of her face nervously. “It probably looks like we are shopping together, but we’re not. It’s just as you said, a coincidence.”
“Right, Rosie,” Kate added and forced a quick laugh. “A coincidence, isn’t that funny?”
“Yeah, hysterical,” Mary replied, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. “But Rosie, I didn’t see your car parked outside.”
Rosie blanched. “Oh, I didn’t drive here. Ka—, I mean, Stanley dropped me off. Yes, that’s right. Stanley dropped me off and….” She looked confused for a moment and then turned to Mary with a wide smile on her face. “And he went over to the hardware store next door,” she continued triumphantly. “He should be back soon, and then, of course, he’ll drive me back home. Because I didn’t come shopping with Kate. We just met here, er, coincidentally.”
Mary’s heart dropped. Her two best friends in the world on a shopping trip without her. It didn’t matter if she already had made plans for the evening, they could have at least called and offered. Then she could have turned them down, and she would have known they weren’t sneaking around being friends behind her back.
She slowly nodded at them, feeling at once betrayed and decidedly de trop. “Well, I’d better get that candy before it all sells out,” she said. “Have fun shopping.”
“We will,” Kate replied. “By ourselves. I mean alone. I mean, each of us, not together, alone.”
Mary nodded and smiled. “Right,” she said.
Once Mary and her cart had traveled around the corner, Rosie breathed a sigh of relief. “I think that went well, don’t you?” she asked Kate.