by Sharon Pape
“We don’t,” Travis said, although he’d been a world-class skeptic not so long ago. “Strange things have been happening for as long as there have been humans to document them.” And my ancestors were no doubt responsible for any number of them.
“Thank you for that.” She took a long shaky breath before continuing. “The second time I saw Scott, I was coming back from class about ten at night. My folks park in the garage, and I usually leave my car at the curb to be out of their way. After that first sighting, I was so spooked, I ran from the car to the front door every night. I had it down to ten seconds flat. He came out of the bushes a few feet from the door. He was so close I was sure he was going to grab me. I screamed and ran past him into the house. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
I wished I could ease her fears and tell her that a real ghost couldn’t grab her. Spirits aren’t dense enough to do that. They vibrate at a much higher speed than we solids do. If the Scott-ghost had grabbed her, he wasn’t a spirit at all, just a well made-up impersonator. But if I tried to explain it all to her, she’d wind up more frightened than she already was.
“Did these sightings happen around the time of the reunion?” I asked.
“Yes, and now that the weekend is over, I’m praying that will be the end of them.”
I wanted to give her something to hold onto, something that would prove she wasn’t crazy. “Trudy,” I said, “you’re not the only one who’s seen Scott.” Her eyes widened. Travis sent me a what-the-hell-are-you-doing frown. I understood his concern, in fact I shared it. I was gambling that Trudy would be grateful enough to keep the information to herself. “You’re not the only one and you’re not going crazy. That’s all I can say without compromising the investigation. I need your promise not to tell anyone, not even your parents.” If we broadcast the fact that the Scott-ghost had been seen by a number of people, in no time we’d be inundated with phony copycat sightings. In the age of social media and instant trends, people wanted to be part of the action.
“I promise, I swear. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much knowing that means to me.” She was crying again, tears of relief. Travis and I stood up to leave. Trudy hugged us both. “I won’t betray your trust,” she said with a hiccup.
Chapter 12
“Kailyn, dear.” Bronwen’s voice was startling in the still of the early morning. I jumped in my chair, knocking over my cereal bowl. Cheerios, milk and banana splashed across the table and dribbled onto the floor. My grandmother popped into view, her energy cloud tinged with apologetic blue. “Sorry, I was aiming for a quiet entrance.”
“That’s okay, grandma.” I grabbed a wad of paper towels from the dispenser on the counter and began cleaning up the mess. One of my early riser cats was already on the job, lapping up the milk. “How’s my mom?” I asked from where I was squatting on the floor. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been whisked off for almost revealing why they hadn’t been around as much.
“She’s doing fine. It’s not like she’s in a Russian Gulag you know. In fact I’m checking on you at her request. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t have come to see you of my own volition.”
“I don’t doubt that.” I tossed the sodden paper towels in the garbage and washed down the tacky table and floor. “Will she be done with her grounding soon?” I asked, having no idea what her present state should be called.
“If there’s something you’d like to tell her, I can be your go-between,” Bronwen said, being properly circumspect. I wanted to kick myself. If she’d answered me, she might have been whisked off like my mother.
“I do have a question either one of you could answer, but now that I think of it, I’m afraid it might make matters worse for her or get you in trouble.”
“There’s never a problem with asking a question. It’s the answering where we may run into a problem. Go ahead and let me decide if I can answer it.” That sounded like a reasonable solution, assuming Bronwen had a good handle on the rules. I spent a moment trying to word my question in the safest possible manner, before I laughed at my idiocy. Was I seriously thinking I could slip one by the powers on high?
“Spit it out dear,” Bronwen said. “I don’t have all day.”
“Okay, here it is, I’ve been under the impression that spirits can only appear to the living in the form of energy clouds, the way you and my mother do. But recent events have made me wonder if there are other options.”
“Hmm, that does tickle the edges of forbidden knowledge. I’ll have to find out if I can answer that question. I’ll tell Morgana you send your love.”
I sat in the kitchen lost in thought, until a brigade of cats, under Sashkatu’s leadership, demanded breakfast with a barrage of meows. Where would we be without the animals to keep us on a schedule? I fed them and promised myself an egg sandwich on a buttery croissant at the Breakfast Bar near my shop. There were enough calories and fat in it to carry me until dinner, or there should be. In the back of my sinful mind, a little voice was reminding me that Lolly’s chocolate shop could provide any additional calories I might need.
At the top of the day’s to-do list was a call to Charlie Desmond to set up a meeting. If an opportunity presented itself, I also intended to let him know his mother missed him and her granddaughter. It wasn’t the usual stuff of an interview, but I’d known the family long enough to take some liberties.
I had a steady stream of customers all morning, locals, day-trippers, and an engaged couple from Ohio who’d come to check out the Waverly’s wedding package, and spend the night previewing the bridal suite. I could almost hear my grandmother bemoaning how much things had changed since her time.
When the clock reached noon and Abracadabra was finally empty, I closed for the lunch hour and called Charlie. He remembered me right off the bat, which was probably because his mother had mentioned my recent visit. His greeting was tepid, which I expected. I wasn’t the police, but I was still investigating a homicide that had potential links to his family. No one jumps at the chance to be questioned in connection to a murder. I had to make it sound like Charlie could reap some benefit by cooperating with me.
“You may have heard that an alum from Scott’s graduating class was murdered at the reunion this past weekend,” I said.
“Yeah, so what does it have to do with me?” He wasn’t wasting any time pulling up the drawbridge. But I don’t give up easily.
“It presents us with a unique opportunity to revisit your brother’s death and possibly find out more about what transpired that night. A buffer of ten years can often loosen lips.”
“It won’t change a damn thing.” His words were clipped and bitter.
“The ME’s report labeled Scott’s death an accidental drowning. What if it wasn’t accidental? If someone was responsible for his death, shouldn’t they be held accountable?” Or are you busy settling that score on your own?
“Ten years ago I was desperate to know,” Charlie replied. “It was all I could think about. But now it would just dredge up painful emotions for me and my mother. I didn’t have any choice about talking to detective Gillespie, and now that Duggan’s back from vacation, I have to give him equal time, but I’m drawing the line there. If you continue to harass me, I’ll file charges with the police!” He was stocking the moat with alligators as fast as he could.
“Charlie, you’ve known me all your life,” I said, hoping to reset the tone of the conversation. “I would never want to hurt you or your mom. But she told me the other day that she’s haunted by the feeling there’s a missing piece to Scott’s death.”
“I can’t say it any plainer than this, Kailyn, don’t make the trip here, because I won’t talk to you.” He slammed down the receiver. He still had a landline, maybe for the sole purpose of hanging up on annoying solicitors and amateur detectives.
I sat there wondering if I should storm the Desmond family fortress or find a back wa
y in to get what I needed. I went with plan B. Even if I made the trip to visit Charlie in Pennsylvania, and even if he agreed to talk to me, the odds weren’t good that he’d tell me what I needed to know—where he was the Friday evening Genna was killed and on the Sunday morning when Tony was mowed down. There were other, more circuitous ways to get at that information, but first I had to call Charlie back. As expected, he let the call go to voice mail, which served my purpose just fine. “Your mother misses you and her granddaughter,” I said after the beep. “You’re all she has left, Charlie—man up.”
Chapter 13
The most logical place to find Charlie Desmond’s alibis was on detective Duggan’s computer. While filling in for the vacationing Duggan, Gillespie had probably worked from his computer in the Watkins Glen Police Station. But there was another computer in the New Camel substation, from which the cop on duty could access files from the Glen. The latter had the added benefit of being manned by a single officer. If he happened to be out on an emergency call, the building was protected by a security system and a lock on the door. From what I’d observed, cops on duty in New Camel rarely bothered arming the system. And locks posed no problem for me.
I worked it out with Tilly. She would call the substation at a preplanned time, hysterical because Merlin was missing. It wouldn’t be the first time. She would do whatever it took to keep the officer on duty from returning to the substation, until she received my all clear signal.
The hard part would be getting past Gillespie’s password. Merlin had offered me a spell to circumvent it. He claimed to have used it successfully himself, but he refused to say whose computer he’d hacked into that way. The obvious contenders were mine and Tilly’s and the answer was probably both.
“I don’t know, this is pretty dark,” I’d said after reading his spell.
“You want a snow white solution to a dark problem. Such a thing is not possible.” After he left, I reworded the spell into one I could live with. If the watered down version didn’t work, I’d have to try to create an entirely new spell.
I practiced teleporting back and forth between my house and Tilly’s to be sure my skills were at the ready. All systems were go. Paul Curtis was the cop on duty. My family had a nice rapport with him. He’d do all he could to help my aunt. Plus he loved her baked goods, which made stalling him easier.
After feeding Sashkatu and the five other would-be familiars, I returned to my shop. At six sharp, Tilly would call the stationhouse. Although I couldn’t see it from there, I would see Paul as he drove by on his way to Tilly’s.
At three minutes after six he passed my shop. I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, hooked into the mitochondrial power of my cells and recited my teleportation spell three times:
From here and now to there and then,
Attract not change nor harm allow.
Safe passage guarantee to souls
As well as lesser, mindless things.
I opened my eyes in the main room of the substation, just steps away from the desk. The computer was always on. Crime and emergencies don’t stick to a nine-to-five schedule. I plunked myself down in the padded desk chair and found Gillespie’s file without a problem. Time to see if the watered down spell worked. I thought of the TV shows where brilliant psychologists could figure out a person’s password based on the color of their eyes or the make and model of the car they drove. It was crazy that the same viewers who bought into that premise, refused to believe in magick. Focus, I scolded myself. Make or break time.
With best intentions do I seek
The information that you keep,
So that justice we may reap.
Not to harm and not for gain,
Only to relieve the pain.
The computer screen didn’t change. The white rectangle still demanded a password. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, centering myself. Before I could repeat the spell for the fourth time, my cell rang with Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs”—the ring tone I’d set for Tilly. It was way too soon for her to be calling. I grabbed it out of my purse.
“He found Merlin,” she said grimly. “Or to be more precise, Merlin forgot why he was supposed to be hiding in the basement and came upstairs to ask me. Curtis and I were standing in the foyer at the time. Not only did he foil our plans, he made me look like an utter fool.” I understood she needed to vent, but personal grievances would have to wait for a later date. I needed more time.
“Has Paul left?” I asked, poised to race out of the building.
“No, he’s in the bathroom, probably trying to decide if I need to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital or a nursing home for patients with dementia.”
“Aunt Tilly, you have to find a way to stall him. Bake him something.”
“I’ve got that covered. I’m heating a coffee cake as we speak. Oh, I heard the toilet flush. I’ve got to go.”
I repeated the spell with all the pathos in my being and this time it worked. Wow!—I ought to experiment to find out how big a part emotion played in the success of a spell. But that would also have to wait. I opened Gillespie’s file on Genna’s murder and scanned it quickly. On the next to last page I found what I was looking for—her interview with Charlie Desmond.
“Silly Love Songs” rang out again. Since I subscribe to the saying that no news is good news, I dreaded answering the phone.
“I must be losing my charm,” Tilly lamented, “because he asked if he could take a piece of cake to go. You’ve never seen a person cut and wrap a piece of cake as slowly as I did.”
“He’s headed back here?”
“Sorry, I tried everything short of tying him to a chair.” Knowing Tilly, I was sure she’d given that some thought before admitting defeat.
I said a quick goodbye, sent Gillespie’s file to my home computer, and cleared the screen. I had to get out of there before Paul caught me. I tried to settle my mind. One minute became two. Stop thinking about the time! I heard a car drive into the station’s parking lot, but the engine didn’t shut off. Judging by the sound of the tires, the car made a U-turn and drove away. I finally quieted enough to begin the spell. I recited it once, twice—another car pulled in, tugging at my attention. The engine shut off. I finished the third recitation as the door of the little station house opened and Paul walked in. If I hadn’t made a last second move into the storage area, he would have witnessed my vanishing act.
Back in my shop, I locked up, set the alarm and walked home. I didn’t need Morgana or Bronwen to tell me I should never have cut it that close. Instead of being relieved I’d gotten away, I started to worry. In my hasty retreat, had I left evidence of my visit? At the very least, my fingerprints had to be all over the computer keyboard. I hoped the purloined file was worth what I might have to pay for it.
Gillespie’s interview with Charlie turned out to be thorough and boring. He answered the detective’s questions in as few words as possible, as if an attorney friend or relative had advised him not to say more than was absolutely necessary. His alibis seemed reasonable. At the time Genna was poisoned, he was at home with his wife and daughter. When Tony was run down by the SUV, he was paying his respects at the wake of a coworker. Gillespie noted the date and time that she confirmed the alibis with the appropriate parties. I would have liked to speak to them myself. Words on paper couldn’t give me the tone of voice, the look in the eye, the little tells that came with lying. I didn’t know the detective well enough to judge how insightful her findings were.
Of course even if Charlie’s alibis were true, he could have hired someone else to mete out justice in his stead. But that option usually came with a hefty price tag, and a man with a young family wasn’t likely to have lots of extra cash at his disposal.
I brought Travis up to date, when he called after signing off from the evening news. “A wife can refuse to testify against her husband,” he said, “so I wouldn’t waste t
ime trying to press her about his alibis at this point. Have you gotten any more leads from that first email blast you sent out after Genna was killed?”
“Mostly repetitions of what we already know or wild speculations about who the killer might be, based on absolutely nothing. Wait—I almost forgot. There was one response I’ve been meaning to tell you about. It was from this guy Conrad—a loner who never seemed to fit in with the nerds, the jocks or any other group.”
“What did his email say?”
“That Genna wasn’t the girl I thought she was. Like he knew one of my closest friends better than I did. Maybe he had a secret crush on her back then and couldn’t stand seeing her flirting and hanging out with other guys. But ten years after graduation?”
“Loners—they blend into the background until you don’t see them. But they tend to be keen observers. I’ve had informants like that. You’d be surprised by what they can tell you. It might not be a bad idea to find out what Conrad’s deal is.” Travis was right. I’d been ready to dismiss the guy too easily.
Chapter 14
I replied to Conrad, thanking him for his email and asking where he called home these days. He got right back to me, his excitement vibrating through the computer screen. I’m not always sensitive to remote feelings, but I read his loud and clear. He said he lived on the outskirts of Burdett. It was a town with a population of less than four hundred. It came as no surprise that he’d chosen to live where people wouldn’t chafe against him.
When I asked if I could talk to him in person with regard to his comment about Genna, he didn’t immediately reply. I’d scared him off. I sat down in the living room and found reruns of Modern Family and the Big Bang Theory to help me relax. By nine o’clock the sun had finally set and my eyes were closing. I dragged myself through the nighttime ritual of pulling down shades, closing blinds and turning off lights. I left the kitchen for last so I could take a glass of water. I reached for the wide shade over the bay window in the dinette and jumped back with a shriek. The shade flew out of my hand and rolled all the way up with a loud thackity-thack. My heart tripped and thudded in accompaniment. Scott was framed in the window, looking back at me.