Don't Wake the Dead

by C. C. Wood

  “Yep. Now, the bitch is gonna make you breakfast. How do you want your eggs?”

  “In the trash,” I replied, lowering my head back to the table.

  Half an hour later, Jonelle had bullied me into eating some scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast and drinking another small glass of tomato juice. I was beginning to feel much better.

  Sipping my hot tea, I asked, “Thanks for taking care of me this morning. And listening to my drunken ramblings last night.” Now that the fog around my mind was clearing, the things I’d said and done last night were much clearer.

  While I hadn’t done anything humiliating, I had been in tears at some point.

  “You’re welcome,” Jonelle said. “God knows you’ve done it enough for me in the past.”

  She studied me for a few seconds and I could tell she was gearing up to say something.

  Finally, she spoke. “You were talking a lot about your mom last night. Not just that she’s upset with you for taking the job with the YouTube show, but that she used to see spirits the same way you do.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, my dad told me about it, but I still don’t understand. She knows what it’s like to see and hear things no one else does, yet she insisted that I was making it all up.”

  “Abuse changes people, Zoe,” Jonelle replied, touching my arm. “It sounds like your grandma was a piece of work, physically and mentally abusing your mom. I mean, what sort of mother tells their child that they’re possessed by evil or Satan or whatever when they’re six years old?”

  I nodded. “I know, Jonelle. It’s just difficult for me to reconcile all that information in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “I understand.”

  We drank our tea in silence for a while before Jonelle said, “You also mentioned something about working for Mal permanently, and how that could be bad because he has a really nice ass and you want to kiss him.”

  “I don’t remember that,” I accused.

  Jonelle grinned. “This was a conversation we had right around the time you passed out. I didn’t think you would. So I take it you have the hots for your new boss, huh? Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “Because I knew you would tell me to go for it,” I answered. She opened her mouth to reply but stopped when I lifted a hand. “It’s a bad idea and you know it, Jonelle. He signs my paychecks. I refuse to be financially dependent on a man I’m dating.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, that’s a good point. Are you sure you really want this job? I mean, you can find a job anywhere, but handsome, sweet, and funny men who can pay their own bills are harder to come by.”

  “I love this job, Jonelle,” I responded with a laugh. “For the first time, I feel like I fit in somewhere.”

  “But that’s also why Mal is perfect for you,” she argued. “He knows about your talents and he accepts you for who you are!”

  “Not happening, Jonelle,” I stated. “I like Mal a lot, but this job is special.”

  “Maybe Mal is too.”

  My head was beginning to throb again. “Jonelle, I’ve made up my mind.”

  She huffed. “I don’t understand why you seem so determined to be alone. Commitment isn’t a disease you know.”

  I didn’t point it out, but her tendency to go through men was just a different way of ensuring she wasn’t committed either. Jonelle had her reasons, just like I had mine. Arguing with her about it would only serve to create strife between us.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I asked.

  Jonelle smiled at me. “Sure.”

  I got up to clear the table, carrying the dishes to the sink.

  “And thanks for not pointing out that I can’t commit either, Zoe.”

  I glanced back at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She smiled at me, but still looked sad. “We’re quite a pair, huh?”

  “Two of a kind, which is almost too much awesome for this little town to handle.”

  She grinned at me, the sorrow fading from her expression. “True. Speaking of awesome, I need to get to work. My first appointment is in twenty minutes and I still have to drop you off at home.”

  “I can walk.”

  Jonelle scoffed. “Looking like something the cat dragged in? No way. Someone would alert the sheriff to let him know that a wild woman was wandering around town. This way the only people to witness your walk of shame will be Preston and that invisible demon you call a resident ghost.”

  “Fine. Let me get my purse.”

  Chapter

  Two days after my wild night with Jonelle, I got a call from Mal.

  “They found the report,” he stated as soon as I answered. “Wanna go up to the sheriff’s office with me to pick it up?”

  I hesitated. I tried to avoid the sheriff as much as possible because the dislike that rolled off him in gigantic waves was extremely off-putting. Though he had a damn good poker face, the man’s emotions could fill a room. I could never tell what he was thinking due to his expression but rather by the atmosphere that surrounded him.

  “C’mon. We’ll be in and out.”

  “All right. Pick me up in half an hour.”

  When he rang the doorbell thirty minutes later, I almost stuck my head out and told him I’d changed my mind. Then I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. The longer I worked with Mal and the guys, the greater my certainty that this was a job I wanted to keep. If I did, I would have to get used to dealing with people who might not like me because they thought I was a kook or crazy.

  On the ride to the station, Mal kept up a steady stream of conversation as though he sensed my nerves. Knowing how observant he was, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he noticed.

  After building it up in my head, our visit to the sheriff’s department was a bit anti-climactic. We walked inside to the front desk and Mal stated his name and that he needed to pick up a copy of an accident report from 1996.

  Within five minutes, we were back in his car and on our way to my house.

  “That was easier than I expected,” I commented.

  “Yeah, well it is an election year,” he responded cryptically.

  I twisted my head to gape at him. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “I realize you don’t care for the illustrious sheriff, but it seems most of his deputies think he’s great. When I contributed a nice sized chunk to his campaign fund, well, it took a lot less time to find the report than they initially thought it would.”

  “Are you saying you bribed them?” I asked incredulously.

  “Not bribed,” Mal replied defensively. “More like provided incentive.”

  I shook my head. “Great. Now the sheriff will have a reason to lock me up if he finds out.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he knows what happened. Don’t worry so much.”

  I didn’t say anything else, but Mal didn’t know Sheriff Lamar Daughtry like I did.

  Back at my place, Mal carried the file into the kitchen while I poured each of us a glass of sweet tea. I winced when I saw the pictures he took out of the folder first.

  “Wow, they gave you the entire file, didn’t they?” I asked.

  Mal flipped through the paperwork, skimming the information. “It appears so. I guess they didn’t think they would need it any longer.”

  I sat down and gingerly picked up one of the pictures from the scene of the accident.

  “God, poor Hank,” I murmured.

  Mal nodded. “Poor Hank indeed.”

  I forced myself not to stare at the pictures of Hank’s body, but instead focused on the other details of the photo. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but instinct told me that the clue we needed would be in the photos.

  “Hmmm, it seems that Deputy Lamar Daughtry was first on scene. Is this the same man as Sheriff Daughtry?”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “I wonder if he’d let me interview him,” Mal mused.

  I sincerely doubted it, but then again, Mal
was good at convincing people to do the things he wanted. If anyone could get through to the brusque sheriff, it would be him.

  A small detail caught my attention in one of the photos, but I couldn’t make it out clearly. I pushed back from the table and searched through the junk drawer until I found my magnifying glass.

  When I looked at it through the glass, I realized why it was bothering me. Lying about a foot from Hank’s head was a large rock. In the pictures it appeared to be covered in a black liquid, but I had a feeling it was blood. Hank Murphy’s blood.

  “Hey, will you look at this?” I asked Mal. “I want to be sure I’m not imagining things.”

  Mal took the magnifying glass and leaned down over the photo. “What am I looking for?”

  “There’s a rock to the left of Hank’s head. Do you think that’s blood?”

  He studied the picture for a few minutes. “It might be. Hang on.”

  Mal sifted through the other photos until he found another shot of the scene from a slightly different angle. He scrutinized it closely.

  “I think it is. Take a look.”

  This shot had been taken at a different angle, the scene lit up by headlights or floodlights, I wasn’t sure which. The substance on the rock was clearly dark reddish brown. I was almost certain it was blood after seeing the second picture.

  I lifted my head and looked at Mal. “Do you think it means anything?”

  Mal shrugged. “It could just be blood spatter from the accident. Or it could be the murder weapon.”

  “Hank said that the man was carrying a rock. That’s a big one. It would do a lot of damage.”

  Nodding, Mal looked at the picture again. “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that they didn’t keep it as evidence,” he muttered.

  “Probably not, but maybe the sheriff will remember it.”

  Mal sighed. “We can hope, but I doubt it. This was twenty years ago.”

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “What?” Mal asked.

  “Think that campaign contribution will buy you thirty minutes of the sheriff’s time?”

  “Only one way to find out,” he replied with a grin.

  Chapter

  “This is a bad idea, Mal,” I repeated for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes. When I suggested he go see the sheriff, I’d meant alone, not with me in tow.

  He sighed. “You’re worrying over nothing.”

  “Uh, remember the cemetery and the zombie, Mal?” I pointed out.

  His eyes narrowed as he turned to me. “Why would you bring that up?”

  “Because you said I was worrying over nothing then too,” I pointed out.

  When the receptionist’s head lifted at my words, I realized my voice had risen.

  Leaning closer to Mal’s ear, I hissed, “He’ll take one look at me and tell us both to get lost.”

  “At least we’ll have tried, right?”

  It was my turn to sigh, because he was correct. I’d made a promise to Hank. I needed to stop looking for excuses to give up and focus on following through.

  “All right, but you’re buying me ice cream after this is over,” I insisted. “I’m gonna need it.”

  Mal chuckled. “I’ll buy you an entire gallon. Whatever flavor you want.”

  “Good.”

  The receptionist picked up the phone when it buzzed, her eyes moving to us.

  After she replaced the handset, she called out, “The sheriff can see you now.”

  We followed her back to Sheriff Daughtry’s office. I felt the same trepidation I did when I was called to the principal’s office in elementary school. I tried to ignore the sensation, but it wasn’t working.

  The last time I’d had a run in with Lamar Daughtry was the night of the cemetery incident in high school, when my so-called friends had abandoned me miles from town.

  When he found me, I’d been standing in the middle of the graveyard, shaking and nearly incoherent, surrounded by zombies. The following ten minutes were fraught with tension. At the time, Daughtry was still a deputy, working under his father. His dad, Jeremiah Daughtry was the first African American sheriff in our county, and he was a damn good man. At least that’s what my father always said. I was only seventeen so I didn’t pay attention to county politics because they didn’t matter a whit to me.

  Lamar, his son, was a shoo-in as sheriff when his dad retired at the end of the year. I’d seen him around town, but never spoken to him. He’d always been polite, but distant. At the time, I didn’t think I’d ever been so relieved to see another human being in my life.

  When he approached, the zombies had stepped in front of me, jostling with each other.

  At the time it scared the hell out of me, but after what happened with Mal at the cemetery recently, I realized they were protecting me from a perceived threat.

  “What in the hell is going on here, Zoe Thorne?” he’d asked quietly.

  I was so terrified that my brain struggled to comprehend his question.

  “Zoe?”

  It never occurred to me to wonder how he knew my name, even though we’d never met before.

  “I-I don’t know,” I stammered. “I was out here with some f-f-friends and these things,” I gestured around me, “Just appeared out of the ground.”

  “Where are you friends now?” His voice was still calm and soft, but I could feel the weight of his emotions pressing against me.

  The zombies shuffled forward again, moving toward him, and I heard him draw his sidearm.

  “Okay, Zoe, I know you’re scared, but I need to you to calm down. Can you do that for me?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand.”

  “Zoe, you have to calm down. I think that your fear is affecting whatever in the hell these things are.”

  Somehow his deep, accented voice pierced through the veil of terror that had fallen over me and I blinked.

  “It is?” I asked.

  At my question, the zombies stopped moving forward. They remained still even as Lamar moved around them and walked toward me. His gun was still in his hand, but resting at his side.

  “I know you’re upset, Zoe, but I need you to focus for me.”

  I nodded my agreement, my gaze locked on his dark brown eyes. He was younger than I thought based on his voice, maybe in his early thirties.

  “I want you to look at those…things and tell them to go back to where they came from. Can you do that?”

  I took a shaky breath. “I think so.”

  “Give it a try,” he commanded gently.

  I turned toward the corpses standing peacefully in front of me. “Go back to where you belong,” I stated.

  They shifted, but didn’t move.

  “Say it like you mean it, Zoe,” he encouraged.

  “Go back to where you belong!” I repeated. This time I felt a snap of power behind my words, as if their effectiveness was increased by my intention.

  Slowly, the three zombies had trudged back to their graves and climbed inside. Lamar stood with me as the dirt began to refill the holes by itself.

  Once the sound of rushing earth died away, the calm, cool exterior he’d presented earlier disappeared.

  He grabbed my elbow and dragged me out of the cemetery. “I don’t know what in the hell you were thinking, Zoe Thorne, but I can promise you that if you ever pull a stunt like this again, I will find a way to have you thrown into an institution for the rest of your natural life.”

  There was something about his tone, about the way he said those words that made me believe down to my bones that he meant them. Since that night, I’d avoided Lamar Daughtry like the plague. I didn’t want to give him even the smallest reason to follow through on his threat.

  Now, I was about to walk right into the lion’s den and give him all the ammunition he needed.

  Sheriff Daughtry got to his feet as we entered. He smiled at Mal and shook
his hand. Then his eyes landed on me. His smile didn’t fade, but I sensed a distinct brittleness to his expression and I knew he was forcing himself to maintain it.

  “Please have a seat,” he requested, indicating the chairs in front of his desk. After we settled in, he folded his hands across the blotter on his desktop. “What can I do for you two today?”

  His eyes were directed toward Mal, but I got the impression his words were meant for me.

  Mal removed Hank Murphy’s file from his laptop bag. “Thank you for agreeing to see us, Sheriff. We’re working on a documentary about…”

  Sheriff Daughtry lifted a hand. “Son, I know who you are and what you’re really doing in Kenna, so please don’t insult me by trying to lie. You’re some kind of ghost hunter.” His hard brown eyes flicked to me. “And for some reason you’ve decided to investigate the death of Hank Murphy. I have no idea why.”

  I struggled not to fidget beneath Sheriff Daughtry’s piercing stare. He knew exactly what we’d been up to in regards to finding Hank Murphy’s killer. I kept my gaze steady on Sheriff Daughtry’s, refusing to look away first even though I really wanted to hide beneath the chair in which I sat.

  Mal seemed unaffected by the sheriff’s cold reception. “You see, sir, we have reason to believe that Hank Murphy’s death may not have been an accident.”

  Finally, those hard brown eyes moved away from me and landed on Mal. “Excuse me?”

  Mal removed the pictures from the file and the magnifying glass he’d borrowed from his bag. Placing them on the desk, he pointed to the rock in the photo. “If you look, Sheriff, there is blood on that rock, yet it’s at least a foot from Hank Murphy’s body.”

  To my surprise, Sheriff Daughtry humored him and studied the rock in the photo. “That could be spatter from where he landed. Or maybe he rolled over after he was expelled from the car. There are several reasons that his blood could have ended up on that rock.”

  “Perhaps,” Mal responded, “But we have reason to believe that foul play was involved. For example, did you know that Trisha Murphy was having an affair with her husband’s best friend, Steve Dwyer?”

  Sheriff Daughtry didn’t bat an eye. “That’s unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean that this was anything but a tragic accident.”