A Friend in Death--A Short Read

by K. J. Emrick

  “From who, Kyle?” Miranda said, quietly. She knew the answer. Kyle had told her so yesterday. She needed Dixon to see it for himself, however.

  Kyle picked up the pencil again, and shook his head in a comically mocking way as he looked at Dixon. “Can’t see a damn thing, can he?”

  Even in death, Kyle was funny, and Miranda had to stifle a laugh. He wrote, “Someone from The Coffee Ambience. I think they were fired.”

  “Okay, Kyle, what’s your password?” Miranda said, her crime writer head fully screwed on.

  “I can’t remember. Wow, that’s really weird. It’s kind of fuzzy,” Kyle said, screwing his face up as he spoke.

  Oh no, Miranda said to herself. Not now, not now!

  “Well?” Dixon pressed.

  “Um,” she had to admit, “he can’t remember. He says it’s fuzzy. Listen, sometimes when people cross over they forget things—”

  “How convenient,” Dixon drawled. “You almost had me, Miss Wylder. I gotta admit, you almost had me. Fine. Show’s over, I’m going.”

  “No, listen,” Miranda said, a little waspishly. “Kyle wrote a bad review for The Coffee Ambience not that long ago, and I believe the waitress, Debra Thomas, was fired on account of it.”

  “I’m not sure a bad review is motive for murder, but it wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard today, would it?” he said, staring right at Miranda. As he did, he swept his hand out and knocked the candles out of the air.

  Miranda flinched when he did. With her connection to the other side flowing through those objects, she felt like he’d struck her.

  “I don’t care for how you showed me this information,” Dixon went on. “You could’ve just told me without this sideshow nonsense. I’m a good police officer, Miss Wylder, no matter what you want to think, and I run down all the leads in a case before coming to a decision. I’ll check this out. Just don’t be surprised if it’s you I end up slapping handcuffs on in the end.”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.” She drew in a slow breath. The séance was starting to wear her down. “Erm, I would be very grateful if you didn’t mention any of this to anybody. The sideshow, as you put it. I don’t talk about being psychic. I’m a writer, and that’s all I want to be known as. I don’t want to be the neighborhood weirdo, if you know I mean.”

  He actually laughed in her face. “Like I’m going to tell anyone I stood here while you made a pencil dance and talked to the air. Don’t worry about your little weirdo secret, Miss Wylder. I’m not telling anyone.”

  “Gee,” Kyle remarked as he began to fade away, “he’s a barrel of laughs, isn’t he?”

  “I’ll see you again,” Miranda promised Kyle, talking to the space where he had stood only a moment ago. “I promise.”

  Dixon cleared his throat. “Look, we’ve wasted enough time already. I don’t know what happened here and I don’t want to know. But, if what you or… whatever… said is true, then we need to go back to that café.”

  “So you believe me then?”

  “I didn’t say that. But like I said, I follow every lead. Now are you coming or not?”

  It was late afternoon by the time Miranda and Dixon arrived back at The Coffee Ambience. Dixon had insisted that she follow him back in her own car. Despite his denial, the events in the hotel seemed to have shaken him up a little. Miranda guessed he wanted to spend the drive alone to think.

  Miranda didn’t actually mind coming back. It gave her the opportunity to keep an eye on how the investigation was unfolding. She wanted to make sure that Dixon was doing everything possible to find the real murderer and not just marking time until he could ‘slap the handcuffs on her’ as he’d said.

  The place was packed, and it was clear that news about the murder had spread far and wide. There were little groups of people drinking coffee and gossiping about the whole thing, and Miranda let her eyes stray to the table where she had been signing books just hours before.

  There weren’t any books left. Murder was apparently good for business when you were a crime novelist. What a sad statement, she thought to herself.

  As Miranda and Joe Dixon walked into the shop, the crowd seemed to go quiet almost as one, and turned to look at her as if they were all looking through the same eyes. Miranda had never felt so scrutinized in all her life, and wondered just how many of them thought she had killed her friend.

  “So much for you not being the neighborhood freak,” Dixon muttered under his breath.

  Miranda felt her cheeks turn red.

  “Look,” he said to her, a little more gently, “I’m going to question a few people in here. Stick around okay? Don’t go adding a disappearing act to your show.”

  She waited for him to turn his back, and then stuck out her tongue at him. Dixon obviously thought himself to be funny. She had to disagree.

  Knowing that she would do herself no good by simply standing there while everyone stared at her, Miranda decided to do a little investigating of her own. Several people had known her apartment would be empty this morning and someone had taken advantage of that fact. She thought about who that person might be and made a mental list. Everyone at the Coffee Ambience had known so surely there could be no harm in her tracking down the manager, Stewart Carter. After all, she could just tell him she needed to talk about the aborted book signing while carefully determining whether he knew anything at all about what had happened.

  Miranda made her way toward the back, as if heading for the restrooms. However, once she reached the restroom door, she just kept moving, further down the private hallway where she knew Stewart Carter’s office was. As she got closer she could see the door was ajar, and could hear voices from within.

  On instinct, Miranda hovered just a few feet away, and listened.

  “And why was Debra Thomas even here? I fired her, Johnny.” Miranda instantly recognized Stewart Carter’s voice.

  “You might have fired her, boss, but you didn’t ban her from coming in. I guess she’s just a customer now.” Although she did not know him too well, Miranda thought that Johnny was surely Johnny Fletcher, the head cook at The Coffee Ambience.

  “I don’t suppose it matters now,” Stewart said, gruffly. “Especially now that my reason for firing her is dead.”

  “That’s kind of cold, boss,” Johnny said, although he laughed like he thought it was funny.

  “Well, I meant it. I’m glad I never have to read one of Kyle Hunter’s reviews or to ever set eyes on him again.”

  “Wow, what a nice guy he is,” Miranda almost jumped out of her skin when she realized that Kyle was back with her.

  “Don’t do that!” she hissed. “You’re a ghost now. I can’t hear you coming!” She sounded more upset than she really was. In truth, she was glad to see him again. She admitted, if only to herself, that she’d been worried that he passed onto the next plane already. She’d wondered if he had been okay with dying and was gone for good. That’s how it worked. If the person had made peace with this life and was ready to move on, they immediately passed into the light. But if they had unfinished business they would hang around on the earthly plane until that business, whatever it is, was settled. Miranda was glad that Kyle was sticking around until his murderer was caught.

  “Oh. Oh, right. Sorry.” He apologized.

  There was another annoying aspect about being a psychic. The ghosts she called upon developed an attachment to her and they would just randomly pop up in her life from time to time, no effort on her part required. No say in the matter, either. But in this case, she didn’t mind so much. Kyle was a great friend and she was grateful to have this little bit of extra time with him to prepare herself for life without him around. She would be sad when it was time for him to move on. But there would be time for that later, right now she had more pressing matters.

  “Just be quiet,” she told Kyle. “We need to hear this.”

  “But,” Johnny was saying, “somebody killed Kyle Hunter, boss. You saying things like that will just draw attention to
you. The wrong sort of attention.”

  “I’m not too worried about it,” was Stewart’s response. “One of the officers said the body was found in Miranda Wylder’s backyard. You know, the author we had signing books today. I think it’s pretty obvious that she did it.”

  Miranda ground her teeth together.

  “Wow, her backyard, huh?” Johnny said, seemingly surprised. “Well, I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m always right. Now, just give me a while in here, will you? I’m not to be disturbed.”

  “You’ve got it, boss.”

  Miranda began to retreat backwards down the corridor, but simply wasn’t fast enough. As Johnny came out of Stewart’s office and shut the door behind him, he caught sight of her. She could see in his eyes that he knew she had heard every word of what had passed between him and his boss.

  “What are you doing here?” Johnny demanded.

  “Wow, he seems antsy,” Kyle said, floating beside her. “Want me to tickle him for you?”

  “No!” she snapped, and then realized how it would look to Johnny to think she was talking to no one. “I mean, no, I wasn’t listening Johnny. Just, um, looking for the bathroom.”

  “Uh-huh,” the bulky chef said in a monotone. “I’m not buying it. How’s about we go talk to Stewart about this?”

  “Look, Johnny, I’m actually helping the police with the investigation into Kyle’s death,” Miranda said, and attempted a smile. “It wasn’t me, so I want to find out—”

  “Do the police normally get suspects to help them?” Johnny asked over her, a little roughly.

  “Um. That’s a bit hard to explain, actually. What did you know about Kyle? I mean, there was this whole thing between him and Stewart Carter, right?”

  He cast a look over his shoulder, back at Carter’s office, before shrugging as if to say, why not? Taking her by the elbow he walked them back up the hallway.

  Kyle followed.

  “I only know what I heard,” Johnny told them. “I mean, I didn’t even see Kyle Hunter the night he came to judge the restaurant. I was out in the back, cooking.”

  “How did you feel about the review?” Miranda was fairly sure that the review didn’t have anything to do with Kyle’s murder. Dixon thought that Kyle had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But she didn’t think that she could rule it out completely. There was some kind of connection here that she just couldn’t work out yet.

  “Well, he didn’t complain about the food, did he? It was the hosting and the decor, which has nothing to do with me. I had no problem with the guy,” Johnny said, and shrugged again.

  Kyle’s hazy blue spirit floated in between them. “That’s true, Miranda. I think I told you before that the food was actually pretty good.”

  Miranda fought the urge to swat him away like an insect. It was not easy having a three-way conversation, when one of the people you were speaking to was a ghost, and the other was entirely unaware of it.

  “Look,” Johnny said, obviously stressing over how long this was taking. “I’m not throwing suspicion on anybody, but you know Debra Thomas, right? Waitress here? Well, she got fired on the strength of Kyle Hunter’s review.”

  That was true. “Yeah, I had heard that,” Miranda said, thoughtfully. “Okay, well thanks for your time, Johnny. I appreciate it.” None of the pieces of this puzzle fit together. It just didn’t add up.

  Miranda smiled and turned, making her way back out to the front of the store. Before she had even reached the end of the corridor, there came the sound of someone shouting, and glasses smashing. On instinct, Miranda hurried out, following the noise.

  Chapter 4

  Miranda raced along the corridor and into the store to see Markus Stidham, Kyle’s ex-boyfriend, standing ready for a fight as he held a glass in one hand and a thick sheath of papers in the other. He was nearly as tall as Kyle, but built with muscles on muscles. Tan and dark, he was an imposing man on the best of days.

  For him, this was obviously not the best of days.

  Kyle put his ghostly hands up over his heart. “Oh, Markus. What are you doing…”

  Markus looked stricken and angry all at once, and Miranda could see the wreckage of at least one glass that he’d thrown on the floor already. There was silence from the customers gathered around to watch, obviously wanting every bit of gossip before they ran for their lives.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t send these!” he was yelling. “I’ve printed off every single one!”

  At first, Miranda wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Joe Dixon was there, trying to calm Markus down with hand gestures and strong words. Johnny flew out from behind Miranda but stopped within ten paces of the angry bull that was threatening to destroy the café.

  Then Miranda saw Debra Thomas. She was shrinking back from Markus and his accusations. Ah, Miranda realized. Markus held the emails that had been sent to Kyle.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Debra was in tears. “Those aren’t my emails!”

  “Oh, give me a break! Each and every one of these is from you! It was you who lost your job here after Kyle’s review! You killed my boyfriend!”

  “I swear I never sent Kyle any emails. Just leave me alone!” Debra shrieked with distress.

  “Okay, break it up.” Joe Dixon stood in front of Markus, just a little too late for Miranda’s liking. She couldn’t help but think Dixon gave the drama a little longer than necessary, to maybe see if he could shake any evidence out of it.

  “Don’t you want to see these?” Markus demanded.

  “I’ll take them,” Dixon said, holding out his hand for the paperwork. “And you can put that glass down or find yourself in handcuffs.”

  “I knew I should have changed my password,” Kyle said into Miranda’s ear.

  “Seriously?” she whispered to him, holding her hand up over her mouth so no one would see her talking to the ghost. “You couldn’t even remember your password an hour ago! We wanted the police to see those emails. This is a good thing.”

  “Well, sure,” the ghost said in a loud voice that only Miranda could hear. “I just mean Markus has been sneaking through my computer again. I knew it!”

  Miranda had to wonder, if Markus had been creeping Kyle’s emails, could he have maybe been stalking Kyle in real life? “Kyle, do you think maybe Markus was following you?”

  Kyle’s eyes went comically wide. “Oh, I never thought of that. Maybe. He’s the type, you know?”

  “You mean, jealous enough to kill you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Miranda looked over to where Dixon was talking to Markus. She studied Kyle’s ex as he sank down into a chair looking defeated. Did Markus have it in him to kill someone he loved. And why would he follow Kyle to her house and kill him there? Once again there were more questions than answers.

  “I suppose,” Kyle said, “I could just float on over there and steal the emails for you to look at. I could be out the door and gone before anyone realized it was more than just the wind!”

  “Seriously, Kyle? You’re a ghost for five minutes and already you’re abusing your power.”

  “Too right. And anyway, I can’t help thinking that if I solve this case, I’ll get to move on to Heaven.” With that, he was gone.

  Seeing Debra Thomas sitting alone and distraught at another table, her head in her hands, Miranda made her way over. She ignored the stares of the other customers.

  “Are you all right, Debra?” she asked, sitting down with her.

  “I can’t believe it.” When Debra lifted her head, Miranda could see the steady stream of tears. “I never sent Kyle Hunter any emails.”

  “But the emails were sent from someone who was fired because of Kyle,” Miranda pointed out as gently as she could.

  “Oh, Miranda, please believe me. Someone must be trying to pin the whole thing on me. I didn’t kill Kyle Hunter.”

  Miranda knew what that felt like. Who would kill Kyle on her patio? Who would send
emails pretending to be Debra?

  As if she could read Miranda’s mind, Debra said, “I know I was the one who was fired, but it’s a low paid job and not worth killing for. Stewart Carter was angrier than me about the review. He was raging about it.”

  Miranda knew that was true, but she wasn’t sure the review was relevant to the murder and also with what she had just heard from Stewart’s office she didn’t think it was him, either.

  With a final sigh, Debra got up from the table. “Will you excuse me? I want to go and speak to Stewart.”

  That caught Miranda by surprise. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I need to arrange for my final check. Wish me luck?”

  “Er, sure. Luck.”

  Once Debra was gone Miranda sat in the chair, brooding at the table, trying to figure things out. Fat lot of good being a psychic was if she couldn’t get a straight answer when it would do her the most good.

  “Why is that cop here?”

  Miranda spun around to see Johnny Fletcher right behind her, hands on his hips, glaring at Detective Dixon still talking to Markus.

  “He’s investigating things, Johnny. It’s what the police do when there’s a murder.”

  “Well, it’s not like Kyle Hunter was killed at The Coffee Ambience, now is it?”

  “Sure, but think about it. The police think that it’s possible the murder was linked to the bad review.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s possible. What do you think?” He looked at her intently. “The body was in your yard. I mean, there could be something else going on. I think you know more than you’re letting on.”

  No, Miranda didn’t know for sure about any of it. She did think there was more to all of this but she didn’t know what yet and she wasn’t about to tell Johnny that. This was how it was going to be around town now. Suspicion was going to land square on her head no matter what she did or said. Pressing her lips firmly together, not rising to Johnny’s bait, Miranda got up from the table and marched outside The Coffee Ambience.

  Right through the waiting spirit of Kyle Hunter.