by K. J. Emrick
“Geez!” she exclaimed, wiping away spiritual residue from her clothes. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry,” he said to her with a smile. “Guess I don’t have this ghost thing down yet.”
“Come outside and stand by the cop car with me,” she hissed, looking around to make sure no one had seen her talking to herself and acting like an idiot. “No one will see us over there.”
“Okay, cool,” he said in that same boyish way he’d had while he was still alive. He floated beside her as Miranda walked back over to Dixon’s car and turned her back to it, arms crossed under her breasts. “I was waiting for you out here because I went and eavesdropped on Dixon’s conversation with my ex-boyfriend. You will not believe what I heard!”
“I thought we decided you weren’t going to do that,” she scolded.
“Would you rather not hear it?” he shrugged. “Fine. See ya.”
As he started to disappear Miranda rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that. Just tell me what you heard, already.”
“That’s more like it. Firstly, Markus is claiming he and I were still together.” Kyle rolled his eyes, seemingly annoyed by his ex. “That man does not know how to take a hint. Or a flat out brush off, either!”
“Sounds possessive,” Miranda said, thoughtfully. Markus was looking more and more a likely stalker by the minute.
“And secondly, when Dixon asked him why he was accessing my emails to print off, he said that he had been keeping an eye on them to protect me. He said he was worried that Stewart Carter might be stalking me, and he was monitoring the situation. I’m not too sure Dixon was buying it. He looked skeptical, at any rate.”
“Wow, Markus is blaming everyone. First Debra, and you, and now Stewart.” Miranda chewed thoughtfully at her bottom lip. Something Johnny had said inside was sticking with her. “You know, Kyle, I can’t help but think this bad review business is all a little bit too convenient. It’s a great cover for someone, isn’t it?”
“That makes sense, Miranda. I just can’t think what else it could be. Do I… do I actually think anymore? I mean, I don’t really have a brain, right?”
“You never had a brain before,” she joked. It was nice to have her friend back with her, even if it was only her who could see him, and even if it wasn’t going to be forever.
As she stood there, a side door of The Coffee Ambience opened. Into the alley an arm extended, and dropped a black plastic bag into the big trash can. She couldn’t see the rest of the person and they were gone as fast as they’d come.
“Did you see that?” she asked. “Come on!”
“Miranda, it’s garbage. People toss their refuse.”
Miranda had a gut feeling about this and she’d learned never to ignore her gut feelings. “Nothing is coincidence,” she told him, throwing out one of her favorite phrases.
Miranda hurried over to the trash can and opened it. She gagged as the most horrible of odors wafted out. She stepped back waving a hand in front of her face trying to disperse the awful smell.
“You do it,” she told Kyle.
“What? Me? Miranda, I’m a ghost!”
“Sure, but you can move things. Need I remind you of the pencil? Plus, you can’t smell anything anymore!”
“You want someone to see a floating garbage bag?”
He had her there. Wincing as she reached in to retrieve the bag she came up with the plastic tie handles pinched between her fingers. It wasn’t too bad, she thought to herself. No messy liquid oozing out of the bottom and no greasy stains on the sides. Just a garbage bag.
She took the bag over to her own car as it was farther away from the shop than Dixon’s cop car. She stood on the side opposite The Coffee Ambience so she could search through it out of sight.
“What’s in it?” Kyle asked, his voice excited.
Miranda was delicately picking through the items inside and placing them on the ground. “Oh, that’s odd! There’s a copy of my first novel, The Mob’s Calling.”
“It was a good book, Miranda. I can’t imagine anyone throwing it in the trash.”
“Ha, ha.”
“What else?” Kyle was peering over her shoulder.
“A broken cassette tape. Looks like surveillance video tape.”
“Oh… that’s so last century.” Kyle screwed up his face in disgust. “Haven’t they heard of digital technology?”
Miranda smiled at him as she poked deeper into the bag. “Huh… There’s a half-burned photograph of you and me walking along together somewhere. I can’t make out the location anymore, but we’re smiling.”
“Why would someone have that?” Kyle said, surprised.
“Why would someone throw it out? Here’s one of your business cards, Kyle.” Miranda felt nauseous. “Oh my goodness!”
“What? What is it? What have you found?”
“It’s a… gun!” Miranda dropped the bag as if it had burned her and stepped back.
“A gun!?” Kyle threw his hands up to cup either side of his ghostly face.
“Yes, a gun.” She stood for a moment thinking about what to do. Of course, Joe Dixon needed to see this, in a moment. She picked up the bag and opened it again to take another look at the gun. “I’m not a gun expert but this weapon looks like it could fit the caliber of gun that was used to kill you.”
She heard Kyle gulp. “You think we’ve found the murder weapon?” Miranda nodded. “We need to show Dixon this now!”
“I agree but…”
“Miranda…”
“Just a moment Kyle. I need to think. Something is tugging my memory.”
“What?”
Miranda rubbed at her temples. “Dixon thinks that my apartment may have been tossed and I am inclined to agree with him. You obviously interrupted whoever was there and it wasn’t just a regular robbery you walked in on. The place was a mess. It looked like someone had torn it apart looking for something. But what?”
“That sounds like a reasonable scenario but I don’t know what they would have been looking for.”
“You know. When I was researching for The Mob’s Calling, well, I learned a lot about the mob, some of it from old gangsters.” Miranda felt that she was onto something she just wasn’t sure what. Something was nagging at her, some detail she just couldn’t quite pinpoint.
Miranda picked up the copy of her novel again, this time leafing though it with trembling hands.
“Miranda?”
“Look at the dog-eared pages. They are all about dead-drops and hidden warehouses. This stuff was really well researched. I mean, I got a lot of information that was accurate, you know?”
“So, what’s that got to do with my murder?” Kyle asked.
“I’m not sure. It may have nothing to do with it. But my place was searched for some reason. When I was doing research for the book I took reams and reams of notes. There was a lot of information in those pages. What if…” Miranda stopped and tilted her head to one side thinking hard.
“What if? What?” Kyle was floating from one side to the other in excitement.
“What if I’d uncovered some incriminating information about the mob but didn’t know I had it? What if that was what they were looking for?” Miranda turned to look at him as something else occurred to her.
“What?” Kyle’s eyes were wide.
“And all because I wanted to write a realistic book.” She began to cry. “I got you killed.”
Chapter 5
“I wish you’d left the trash digging to me, Miss Wylder, but I must say, well spotted.” Joe Dixon carefully picked through the contents of the bag with his gloved hands. “I’ve got the gun on the way to the lab and a rush order on it. I agree with your assessment that it is likely the murder weapon. I’ve also got a forensics team coming down and some uniformed back-up. There’s a connection here with the murder of your friend and it has nothing to do with that bad review Mister Hunter wrote. I think we need to take a closer look at this place.”
“It’s not y
our fault, Miranda.” Kyle was still with her, his translucent face a picture of concern.
“It is my fault,” she said, not caring that Joe Dixon could hear her talking to a ghost. He seemed to squint into thin air, as if he too might be able to see Kyle if he tried hard enough.
“Miss Wylder,” he said, “I think this evidence pretty much suggests that this is mob related. You say you did extensive research about the mob for your book. What sort of research exactly? Did you talk to anyone who had ties with the mob?”
“Yes, I have a contact who has, or actually had, mob ties. He wanted his name kept out of things because he’s now retired from that life and didn’t want to bring any heat down on himself or his family.”
“This contact have a name?”
Miranda hesitated to give Dixon her contact’s name. She had promised the man and didn’t want to get him into trouble. But if this was all really related to the mob and her book and it had gotten Kyle killed she didn’t think that she could keep this information to herself any longer.
“Fat Vinny… his name is Fat Vinny Esposito.” Miranda saw Dixon’s face change slightly. “You know him?”
Dixon looked at her intently. “Yes… I’m afraid I do.” There was something in Dixon’s voice that set Miranda on alert. “Miss Wylder I have bad news. Fat Vinny Esposito was found floating in the Yarra river two weeks ago with a bullet hole in his head. We suspect he’d been executed by the mob.”
Miranda felt faint and slumped down into the nearest chair. “He’s dead?” Dixon didn’t answer as he was already on his cell phone she assumed calling the station with this latest development.
“Wow, the mob? What have you stirred up Miranda?” Kyle was floating beside her.
“I’m so sorry Kyle.”
Dixon finished his call and turned to her. “Okay Miss Wylder. It seems that you may have inadvertently uncovered something about the mob and their activities in the course of your book research that has them very worried. We are going to need all of your notes and anything else related.”
“Yes, sure. You have people searching my apartment right now, don’t you? Just tell them to take all of my papers in my desk and whatever they need. But what if the person who killed Kyle has already found what he was looking for?”
“That seems very unlikely Miss Wylder.”
“Why?”
“The perp kept the gun that he used to kill your friend. That isn’t the usual mob MO. The usual MO is to leave the gun behind so they don’t get caught with it fleeing from the scene of the crime. The only thing I can come up with is that the perp was interrupted and got spooked. He didn’t expect anyone to be at your apartment at that time and was surprised by Mister Hunter’s appearance and panicked.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Also, I think I should point out that it looks like whoever did this has probably been stalking you for weeks, maybe even months, if the photo and book are anything to go by. It looks like you were their intended target.” Miranda felt an involuntary shiver down the length of her spine at that thought. Dixon looked at her squarely, and she was surprised to see an apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry I doubted you, and I know it’s not easy, but try not to blame yourself. You could never have foreseen something so extreme.”
“It doesn’t change things,” she said, miserably. “Whatever research I did, whatever it was I inadvertently uncovered, obviously hit too close to home, and a good friend was killed because of it.”
“Miss Wylder, the Victoria Police knew that a small splinter cell of the mob were moving in on this area, but we chose to keep it quiet. It’s a risk when you worry the public too much. But ultimately, it’s the mob to blame. They settle scores in an evil way. It’s an evil that most of us can’t even imagine, so we wouldn’t see it coming. You’ve been lucky that you’ve so far eluded them. Your friend not so much. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We have to assume that you are still in danger.”
Another involuntary shiver raced down Miranda’s spine. “Thank you for your kind words, but I think this is going to haunt me longer than Kyle is. As for me being in danger, what am I supposed to do about that?”
“Don’t worry. You will be in protective custody until the murderer is caught.” Dixon smiled at her. The first genuine smile she’d seen from him today. “So he’s still here then?” Dixon looked all around him.
“Yes.”
There it was, the frown was back in place. “Uh-huh. Look, I have to ask,” he said, under his breath. “That thing with the pencil. Did you rig that up?”
“No,” Miranda said, tired of defending herself for the curse of being psychic. “You were with me the whole time, when would I have had the opportunity to set it up. Just let it go, Detective. If you don’t want to believe I’m psychic, that’s fine. You can’t deny that whatever I am has gotten us this far in the investigation though.”
“I’ve got to tell you, until this new evidence came to light, I was still leaning toward you as my number one suspect.”
“And didn’t I know it? Look Detective Dixon, I have no reason to lie about my off-the-wall abilities. In fact, I have every reason to hide them. I resent the implication that I set you up in a fake séance. Especially when you know that it wasn’t possible for me to have done so.”
“Calm down, Miranda.” That was Kyle talking to her, putting a ghostly hand on her shoulder. “You still need to keep this guy on our side.”
“Stop defending everyone, Kyle! You were too good to die.”
Dixon looked around her, his face maybe a little paler. “Look, Miss Wylder, I’ll accept the craziness up to a point, because you’re right about it leading us this far. All of this proves your innocence. But please drop the act. I don’t need it. Drop the ghost conversations, and the little asides, and… all of that.”
Miranda was utterly floored by his callousness. In her heart, she felt sure that Dixon knew she was for real. But, like most people, he was so keen to stick his head in the sand and deny it. It was all a painful reminder of why Miranda kept that side of herself a secret.
“So, what’s next?” Miranda was determined not to let Dixon see how hurt she truly was by his remarks.
“I need to wait for back-up. Which means you get to wait, too. Under no circumstances are you to leave here alone or poke around any further. You’ve done well, but that’s the end of it now. Just sit at a table and wait until I can interview you properly and get a statement about how you found the evidence in the trash.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll leave it alone now.” Miranda promised. She was just too tired to argue.
The public excitement seemed to have died off, with most of the gossiping hangers-on having gone, leaving the book store at the front pretty deserted.
As Miranda looked about, she could see Markus talking to Johnny Fletcher back in the café side of the store. Markus shook his finger at Johnny, and both men fell silent, as if they hadn’t wanted to keep talking in front of her.
Interesting.
Motioning with a little nod of her head for Kyle to follow her, she went down the hallway that led to the bathrooms. As soon as she was out of earshot, though, she stopped. Kyle floated through her, sending chills up her spine and making her feel like she was two people at once for just a moment.
“Sorry, sorry,” Kyle said. “Haven’t quite got the hang of stopping yet when my feet don’t really touch the floor.”
“Whatever. Just, forget that right now. I want you to go listen in on Markus and Johnny.”
“I thought we promised Detective Dum-dum that we would stay out of it?”
“No way. We’re not leaving this to chance. Those two are acting cagey and I need to know why.”
“Good enough,” he said with a mischievous grin, disappearing back into the café.
As Miranda carried on along the corridor, she saw Debra Thomas tapping at the office door of Stewart Carter. How odd. Surely she hadn’t been outside the door all that time? It had been a good while since she h
ad set off to speak to her old boss. Miranda wondered about that as she ducked into the restroom, then peeked out around the door.
After a minute or two, she saw Debra speaking through the closed door. Straining hard to hear what was said, Miranda listened in.
“Stewart? Look, if you can hear me, I’m sorry. I know I let you down and I know the bad review had a lot to do with me. But if you give me a second chance, I promise to put things right. If people can see I’ve changed they’ll know you’ve done a good job of straightening things out.”
Something about the pleading in Debra’s voice really tugged at Miranda’s heart. She wished the pompous little man would just open the door and talk things out with Debra like an adult.
Kyle popped up in front of her, making her gasp. “Quick, get back in there!”
Miranda pulled her head back inside and closed the door. “You startled me!”
“You want me to shout boo?” Kyle said with a grin.
“Shut up,” she told him, but she couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve obviously found something out.”
“I sure did. They were talking about you. Apparently Johnny’s been waiting for you to come back. Odd, right?”
“Well, I did tell him in the beginning that I was helping the police to investigate. Maybe he thinks I’m trouble.”
“You are trouble, but not that kind.” Kyle blew her a kiss, and Miranda stuck her tongue out at him. “Cheeky girl. Anyway, I really don’t think either of them killed me. I’m still betting it was Stewart Carter, because…” Kyle was about to elaborate when an ear-splitting scream rang out.
Miranda dashed out of the restroom to find Debra Thomas on the floor, as white as a bed sheet and clutching her chest. As Miranda tried to help Debra to her feet, she caught a glimpse through Stewart Carter’s open office door. He lay on the floor, motionless.
Once she’d gotten Debra to her feet, Miranda yelled down the corridor for Joe Dixon.
Debra was all right. Just shaken. Miranda left her there in the hallway and went inside the office for a closer look. Her fears were confirmed when she knelt over Stewart Carter. The man was as dead as he looked. There was no blood anywhere, so Miranda peered at him a little closer and saw deep red welts around his neck. It seemed likely to her that he’d been strangled.