Dead for the Money

by Peg Herring

  In the process, Mike had learned to enjoy eating food, especially anything fried. He played a mean game of pool and could even be caught taking a nap on deck from time to time.

  Seamus watched Mike scan the crowd for signs of discontent. “I’m probably not a good choice to be somebody’s guide,” he said. “I do things my own way.”

  Mike shrugged. “Gabe knows that. But we think you’re the guy who can handle Mildred.”

  “What is it about this woman?”

  “She’s very...sure of herself,” Mike said. “We paired her with Drake, but the two of them disagreed from the very first.”

  “Drake and Tellson both turned her down?”

  “Gabe thinks you’re the right type. And he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  “What makes it important?”

  Mike paused, and Seamus hoped their long association meant that he would be honest. Of course, he reminded himself, a long time for a dead guy probably wasn’t that long to an angel. Still, he thought Mike respected him and knew he could handle the truth.

  “The goal here is for everyone to find peace, you know that,” Mike began. “Free will allows that peace to come when and how a person wants it.”

  Seamus glanced over Mike’s shoulder at the dining room, where the overhead lights had been turned down and pale colors glowed from recessed panels in the walls. A clarinetist stood and began a reedy solo. Most of these people, now dancing, chatting, and relaxing, would soon finish The Process, accepting gratefully what the afterlife offered. Perhaps one in ten would hang back, nervous about what they found hard to understand. Some felt they were not worthy of reward. Others liked the creature comforts and wanted to enjoy them for a while. Still others, like Dunbar, had unsettled questions that caused them to cling to their earthly connections. And guys like me, Seamus thought, miss the feeling of being real.

  “What’s this woman’s reason for wanting to cross-back?”

  “That’s part of it. We’re not sure. She has a good heart, but—” Mike stopped.

  Unwilling to speak ill of the dead? Seamus almost chuckled at the thought. “She’s not crazy, is she?”

  “Nobody brings disease, mental or physical, when they cross over, Seamus. You know that.”

  He hadn’t really thought about it much, but he’d never seen anyone who acted crazy.

  “She has the right to do this. We’ve given her all the warnings and she still wants to go. But she’s a bit of a bulldozer who will need someone strong to keep her in line. And,” Mike searched for the right words, “someone who can resist her. She’s a charming bulldozer.”

  What a mess, Seamus thought. All he wanted was to do the job he was good at. Now they wanted him to babysit! Still, Mike and Gabe had been good to him, appreciative of his talents and his willingness to bear the discomforts of crossing back.

  “I guess I’d better meet this Mildred,” Seamus said with a sigh. “Then I’ll make my decision.”

  Mike turned toward the room, searching the dance floor. “She’s on the dance floor right now. I can put you at her table.”

  “The table next to it would be better.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  Mike led Seamus to a table where several chairs sat empty, vacated by dancers. Pulling up a chair from a nearby table, he made introductions to the two people sitting there. “This is Seamus. He wants to listen to the band for a while.”

  The two women smiled politely and returned their gaze to the dance floor. Seamus ignored their talk of clothing and instead watched the dancers and tried to guess which one was Mildred. He counted the chairs at her table: nine, three of them occupied. Table numbers were always between four and nine. People function best in groups of that size, he’d heard.

  As he waited, people came and went. The table’s company included three women who were likely possibilities for Mildred. One was large enough to “hunt bear with a switch,” as his father would have phrased it. One was young and cute in a twenty-something way. The third was a diminutive blond of about forty with sparkling blue eyes and a dazzling smile. One of those women who attract attention effortlessly, she was a popular dancing partner. Seamus found himself hoping she was Mildred.

  She was. Looking around, Seamus saw Mike watching him. He nodded, brows quirked in a “see what you think” expression. Rubbing a hand along the back of his neck, Seamus wriggled his brows and turned back to the dance floor.

  For once Seamus enjoyed a half hour in the company of his fellow passengers. He watched Mildred as she danced with different partners, moving gracefully, adapting easily to whatever tune was played. The dress she wore had classic lines and a filmy drape that seemed to caress her shoulders as she moved to the music. Her hair was swept back with two combs whose tiny jewels caught the light when she turned.

  The evening’s entertainment ended and he waited as she took leave of her companions. An elderly man told one more story that involved much hand-waving and eyebrow movement. Mildred smiled up at him as if fascinated. At the doorway, she patted his arm, said something that seemed vaguely promising, and left him behind.

  Watching her, Seamus had to admit he wouldn’t mind having those blue eyes fasten on him, listening as he taught her what he knew about crossing back. Despite his reluctance to have any company at all, a woman of his own age, and a pretty one at that, wouldn’t be too bad. If Mildred was interested in becoming a detective for the dead, he could help.

  She made her way along the deck, almost to the exact spot where Dunbar had waited an hour earlier. There she stopped, leaning her weight against the rail and apparently losing herself in the scene before her. After a minute Seamus realized she was waiting for him, but he felt an unaccustomed shyness about approaching her. Not that he cared what she thought of him, but still.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” he said, stopping some distance away to avoid startling her.

  “I suppose one would say that words can’t describe it,” she replied. “But how could they? Words are our invention. This is quite something else.”

  They both stood for a few moments, looking at the view beyond the ship. The passage to the next world was more sensed than anything else. All the senses were engaged, but in a way they had never been in life: colors beyond what had been seen, sounds unlike any other, scents and feelings that were stimulating and calming at once, and even a taste in the air that was almost like a person’s favorite but better somehow. The total effect was, Seamus thought, whatever the opposite of sensory deprivation was. Sensory overload, but in the best possible way.

  “You’re the detective?” she asked, turning toward him.

  “Yeah.”

  Her gaze flickered from his two-tone wing-tips to his wide-lapelled brown-striped suit, ending at the fedora set low on his forehead. “Do they make you wear that outfit to meet new clients?”

  “People wear what they want here,” Seamus said defensively.

  Mildred realized her mistake. “Of course.” She reached out and straightened his coat collar, tugging it into place and then stepping back to judge her work. “You’d look nice in something a little lighter, though. It would brighten your complexion.”

  He felt his nostrils flare. “I don’t need anybody to fix me, lady.”

  She was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to sound critical.” She smiled brightly. “Let’s start over. You are—”

  “Seamus.” He waited for her to comment, but she did not.

  “Mildred.” She made a little curtsey. He noticed that she was almost exactly his height. And that her eyes crinkled nicely at the corners.

  “Good to meet you, Millie.”

  “Mildred.” Her smile took the sting away, and she tilted her head slightly to one side. “I prefer Mildred. But I promise to stop correcting you when I’m your partner.”

  He tried to suppress a sniff of opposition. “I might take you on a cross-back and show you the ropes. I am not in the market for a partner.”

  Her li
ps tightened briefly, but she pressed on. “I promise you, I’m an excellent pupil. I know how to listen, how to follow orders, and how to keep quiet.”

  “Good, ’cause that’s important.”

  “I understand.”

  “Have they told you what it’s like to go back?”

  Her brow furrowed briefly. “I know that it hurts.”

  “Like nothing you’ve ever experienced.” He rolled his shoulders. “I can show you some things that will help, though.”

  There was that smile again. “That would be good of you.”

  “You know how we operate when we get there?”

  “Yes. We find a host.” Her voice turned recitative. “We move around with them, but they don’t know we’re there. They feel tired or think they’re getting sick.” She punched herself lightly in the stomach. “Tummy upset, like the flu.”

  “Two will make it harder on them.”

  “Really? I never heard that.”

  “I took someone with me a while back. We split up to make things easier on the hosts.”

  “I see. So we will separate when we get there?”

  “Probably.” Recalling what Gabe had said about Mildred needing guidance, he added, “If I can trust you to do as you’re told.”

  “How will I know what to do if we’re in different hosts?”

  “We talk while they’re asleep. They kinda hear us, but they think they’re dreaming. We don’t talk when they’re awake.”

  “Unless it’s really important.”

  “I guess if your host was on fire, you should tell me, but otherwise, keep quiet.”

  “You’re the expert.”

  He thought about what she needed to know. “You can’t make them do stuff.”

  “Yes, Angelo said that.”

  “Angelo?”

  Mildred licked her lips. “I was paired with a detective before. It didn’t work out.”

  “Uh huh.” That made three rejections. Seamus felt rising doubt but told himself maybe Mildred had rejected Angelo. Both sides had to agree on these things. “What didn’t work out, exactly?”

  “It was a mutual decision.” She folded her hands on the railing. “I haven’t been told exactly how we get from here to there and back. Is that part difficult?”

  “When we’re ready to leave, the power will be there. The return trip requires a host’s energy, so we need a live, healthy host. If you have to host with someone who’s sick or whatever, make it quick.”

  “I see.”

  “We only get one try, so we don’t want to come back too soon. You’ll keep in contact with me so we can decide when we know all we can.” He raised a cautionary finger. “But not when the hosts are awake.”

  “I will do exactly as you say, Seamus. I’m not one to jabber, anyway.”

  “Good. Our voices sound like noise inside their heads. It disrupts their thoughts and makes them antsy. And if we interfere too much with their thoughts, they think they’re going crazy.”

  “We can’t let that happen.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “Unless you say so.”

  Seamus scratched his jaw. “Right. What else have they told you?”

  “That it’s difficult to return once you’ve been here. Harder.”

  “True.” The first time, he’d been shocked at the noise, the dirt, the heavy bodies that humans drag around with them, even the pain of physicality. Once a person was dead, those things became unbelievably troublesome. Yet Seamus found he missed them, so much so that in order to experience them again, he had become, and remained, a cross-back. He knew his efforts on behalf of the dead didn’t change things on earth, but he helped his clients get over whatever held them back. Once things were explained, most people forgot earthly concerns and moved to the next level with eager anticipation.

  That thought brought him to Dunbar and his fear that he had been murdered, perhaps by his beloved grandson.

  Mildred seemed to read his mind. “They told me you have a case. I’d be very grateful if you’d let me come along and observe how you handle it.”

  “It might be a good one for a first timer,” he said, weighing the options. He could make Gabe and Mike happy by acceding to their request, and the case seemed likely to be open and shut. Either the grandson did it, or Dunbar had fallen due to age and infirmity.

  “Is it a murder?” she asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “What exactly would I be doing?”

  “Exactly what I tell you.” Fingering a pack of cigarettes in his inside coat pocket, Seamus summarized what Dunbar had told him.

  “And you’re willing to let me come along?”

  “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  She reached out as if to touch his arm and then apparently thought better of it. “I’d like to help you solve this case, Seamus.”

  “We don’t have to solve it. Dunbar wants to know if his grandson killed him, that’s all.” Seamus glanced out into the distance, adding, “I would guess he did, though.”

  She looked surprised. “Should detectives form an opinion before even beginning?”

  “Millie, fifty million dollars is a lot of incentive.”

  “Mildred,” she corrected. “But it does sound intriguing.” She leaned close, allowing Seamus a hint of a haunting perfume. “Please let me come along.” With that she left him, her retreating figure swaying in a most feminine manner until she disappeared from sight.

  THE SOUND OF A MOTOR alerted Brodie to the approach of intruders. She jumped to her feet, scraped the sand around her with her cap to smooth out her footprints, and headed into the trees. She did not leave, but instead crouched in the foliage to eavesdrop. Brodie had cultivated the skills of observation without detection, which was how she knew that most of her family wished they’d never heard of her. Brodie the spy, she thought of herself, although Arlis phrased it differently. “I wish you wouldn’t act so sneaky, Brodie,” she had said more than once with a disapproving sniff. Sneak or spy, Brodie knew that Arlis drank more than she admitted, that Arnold told more than he should about his employer’s family to friends on the phone, and that Briggs kept a stash of nudie magazines in a crate at the back of the garage. It made her feel a little less abnormal to know that others had secrets too.

  The vehicle she heard was Gramps’ golf cart, but two people she had never seen before rode in it. One was a youngish man in the uniform of the local sheriff’s department. The other was a woman in a dark green pantsuit, a no-nonsense type, judging from her flat shoes, short hair, and focused expression.

  They parked the cart a short way from where Brodie lay in the dense brush. She followed quietly as they walked the crooked path to the viewing spot. Once there, they both took in the view for a few seconds. It would have been hard not to pause and appreciate it. Then they looked over the edge, around the fencing, and into the trees on either side. Neither spoke for a long time, but finally, the woman said, “Vertigo.”

  The deputy’s response came a beat too slowly. “Possible.”

  She picked up on it. “You think something else?”

  He smirked a little, and Brodie decided she did not like him. “Lots of money to be had if the old guy died.”

  “Yeah. But the grandson pretty much had control of it. He could have anything he wanted.”

  “Except total control.” The deputy tapped his chin lightly with a closed fist, letting that sink in. “Rumor is they’d disagreed about things lately.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Office Reiner, if you’ve got something more than suspicion, I’d like to hear about it.” The woman’s tone was mild. One of Brodie’s tutors had always spoken to her in that tone, which signaled, “I have to deal with you, but I don’t like you.”

  “Sergeant Schell, don’t you think we should investigate a little more? Mr. Dunbar was a respected member of this community—”

  “Who had a dizzy spell and fell off this bluff. He had no business being up her
e, old as he was. If the grandson did anything wrong, it was leaving him alone for even a few minutes.”

  “That’s the other thing. This animal crying in the woods. Don’t that sound fishy to you?”

  “Not really. If I heard it, I would probably go see what it was too.” She made an impatient move. “There are a dozen things I should be doing, and I don’t see anything here to convince me Dunbar’s death was anything but an accident. You can’t prove young Dunbar pushed his grandfather over the edge.”

  “But you can’t prove he didn’t.”

  “Reiner, the grand jury, the district attorney, and the voters of this state don’t ask me to spend my time proving that a murder did not happen. They’re only interested if I can prove that it did.” With that, chell took a final glance at the lake and turned to go. She disappeared from Brodie’s sight almost immediately, but Reiner hung back.

  “There has to be a way to prove he did it,” Reiner said to Lake Michigan before he too, left the scene.

  When they were gone, Brodie climbed out of hiding and started for the house. Their exchange had ruined even the tiny bit of peace Gramps’ favorite spot had brought her.

  Chapter Four

  “OKAY,” SEAMUS TOLD MILDRED the next morning when he found her leaving the breakfast buffet. She wore pink. Everything. “I’d like to leave as soon as possible.”

  Her face lit like a candle. “Oh, I’m so grateful, Seamus. Thank you.” She moved forward, almost certainly intending a hug.

  He held up a hand. “You should meet our client. Let’s see if Dunbar is around somewhere.”

  They found him reading in a deck chair, his feet propped on a low table. When he saw Mildred, he rose politely.