Dying For Redemption

by C. A. Freeburn

  I ambled over and flashed my best dame-swooning smile. "Hello there, gorgeous."

  She flicked the magazine and stared at it. The problem with that maneuver was that I already knew she wasn't deaf. I pulled out a chair and sat down to join her.

  "You weren't invited," Willow grumbled, addressing me, but still seeming captivated by the magazine she gripped.

  "Wasn't uninvited, either. I thought maybe your ears couldn't work here, so you needed to read my lips."

  "I'm not getting out of this, am I?" She laid the magazine on the table and propped her chin in her hands, her elbows resting in defeat on the table.

  "Nope. Unless you want to stay in Limbo with me for eternity."

  "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."

  "And who would that be?" I leaned forward to catch her reply.

  "From what I've discovered by examining my life, the list is long."

  "Death does become the great soul search."

  "And what soul searching am I going to be doing right now that I don't want to do?"

  This was one smart dame. She would have to be in order to run a successful business, though I'm sure it was easier to run a successful brothel than other businesses. I mean, how many hamburger joints did one city need?

  "This is a rather delicate matter."

  Willow snorted. "Please, I don't believe there's ever anything that is too delicate for you."

  "This isn't something one normally wants to ask a lady."

  Willow moaned. "You called me a lady. What do you need to ask? Hurry, put me out of my misery." She raised her hands in the air as if I was committing an old-fashioned bank robbery, complete with a bandana tied over my nose and mouth. My, the dame could get melodramatic.

  "Braswell. I need to know what you know about him."

  "Well, gee, he's my husband, the brother of my friend and employee. He's forty-three, in great shape, loves children and cats. Good with fashion and great in the sack." She grinned and wiggled her eyebrows.

  "With who? Gannon?"

  Her face reddened, and her cheeks puffed out.

  The woman was going to explode. I pushed my chair back, hoping to put enough distance between the incredible detonating female and myself.

  "How dare you?" Willow shook. She grabbed the edge of the table, and the furniture shivered and quivered along with the movement of her arms.

  "Braswell is gay. It seems the only person that didn't know it was some gal named Janey."

  Willow rolled her eyes.

  "And you. Or at least, that's what some people believe." I pushed my fedora off my forehead. "I don't. You knew."

  "Of course I did. Since sixth grade."

  "Then, why marry him? Braswell mentioned something to Gannon about an adoption."

  Tears filled Willow's eyes. "We both wanted children. Braswell did. I did. We both tried separately to adopt but were told we weren't the right candidates."

  "The one thing money couldn't buy you." I left my notebooks in my pocket. Instead, I reached for Willow's hand.

  With a grateful smile, she accepted the small offer of comfort, entwining her fingers with mine. "If I wanted to go an illegal route, money would speak. But I didn't."

  "You both figured hitched up, you stood a better chance."

  "Yes. Me, the working mother, and Braswell, the dedicated stay-at-home dad."

  "How did Gannon fit in?"

  She pressed her lips together, her eyes telling me she refused to answer.

  "Decided it best to keep the object of Braswell's affections close to monitor them, or was it for Braswell to prove his love?"

  She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms under her ample bosom. Lips still sealed.

  I continued to press. "Or did you need the daily reaffirmation that Braswell picked you by having him do it every day, every afternoon, every night?"

  "Braswell didn't have to prove anything to me."

  "Then, what did Gannon have on you?"

  She blanched as much as a possible for a ghost. "What?"

  "Either you were toying with Braswell by moving in his lover, or Gannon blackmailed you to hire him as the butler."

  "I'm done with this conversation." Willow pushed back her chair, fumbling with the hem of her skirt which caught on the swirl of the metal armrest.

  "Gannon was blackmailing you. It doesn't make any sense. His presence could've hurt your chances of adopting."

  Tears flowed down her face, and a deep love softened her features. "We planned to name her Magnolia. Her dark eyes drew us in. Such long lashes. Beautiful black hair framed her small delicate face. Braswell and I fell in love the minute we saw her picture. We were so close to finalizing the adoption. Had the passports ready. Bought her a coming home outfit."

  Only one thing would cause Willow to risk losing her new daughter, the threat of losing her daughter.

  "Gannon wanted back in Braswell's life or else…" I started the reveal for her.

  Willow nodded. "He'd turn over pictures of him and Braswell to the paparazzi. Along with records proving I ran an escort business."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Abby

  I rushed out of the office, determined to track down Denver. Ann called after me, but I ignored her, knowing the warning she wanted to speak. Confronting a murderer, even in Limbo, fell under the stupid decision category. But I had to find out for Uncle Callous why his partner, a man he believed a friend, had shot him in the back.

  Standing on the sidewalk outside of the office, I scanned the area. Other spirits waltzed up to me. A woman wearing a fox stole nodded as she slinked by, the head of the stole bumping against the slit in her tight, black sequined dress. Two men, one wearing a Confederate and the other a Union soldier uniform crossed to the other side of the street. With hands gesturing in the air, they carried on a conversation.

  I shivered. Uncle Callous wasn't the oldest resident in Limbo. Many souls remained here in the space between. Did I want to become like them?

  "Hey there, baby doll." A man wearing bell-bottomed pants sidled up to me. He fluffed out his blond curls, then waggled his eyebrows at me. "What do you say we find ourselves a party?"

  "No." I shaded my eyes and focused on the other souls strolling through the streets of Limbo. Where was Denver?

  "Come on, hotcakes, just a little fun." Dead and annoying placed an arm around my shoulder and twirled his fingers through my hair.

  I swatted his hand and stepped away.

  He grinned. "I love to play hard to get."

  "Then play harder. Because you're pretty obvious." Even in death, some men refused to understand 'not interested.'

  He jogged his fingertips up and down my arm. "Hard to do with a lovely blossom like you sprouting up."

  Enough. I made a cutting motion through the air. "It's not going to happen. Forget it. You and I are never going to be an item. Hook up. Party together. However you want to phrase it."

  "Never is a long time here, baby." He tried to school his features into a sexy look, but it came across as constipated.

  "Trust me. It still wouldn't be long enough." I planted my hands on my hips, and keeping one eye on wannabe lover boy, I searched the crowd. Gone. Disappeared.

  "Looking for someone because…" The words oozed from Mr. Never Going to Give Up.

  "You could be him." I huffed out a breath. "Heard it before. Same lines still being used in some variation in my time. The only man I'm interested in finding is Denver McKay."

  "Whoa!" The man held up his hands and jumped away. "Tell Denver I meant no harm. Didn't know you were his gal."

  "I'm not—" I stopped my explanation.

  The overconfident Don Juan crumbled before my eyes. His shoulders slumped forward, and his scared gaze roved between the people entering and exiting the buildings.

  Tugging up the collar of his shirt, he tried to scrunch down into the fabric. "I'm out of here."

  "You'll see me around."

  "No." The man rushed off without a par
ting leer or a suggestive phrase.

  Denver terrified the dead. Something evil about a man that even the dead wanted nothing to do with. Yet, I still wanted to find him and wrangle the truth from his deceitful lips. As Ann said, everyone had a place they returned to in order to sort out their minds or plot misdeeds.

  I racked my brain trying to remember the details connected to Denver. Nothing. Blank slate. A small idea formed, and then flittered away before I could grab it and reel it in. Darn. I knew there was something in one of the newspapers about a popular hangout spot. I needed to find my notes or re-gather the evidence I had accumulated for my research paper.

  Ann's warning played in my head. I hesitated. Was I hurting Rich by allowing him to see me? I could do this without involving Rich. It wasn't like I needed a library card to check out materials… or even to abide by the library's hours.

  I closed my eyes and pictured the microfiche room at the college. A large room with blinds over the windows housed the machines and rolls of film that stored the news of the past. The high metal cushioned cubicle walls allowed students to work on projects in private. A small writing area offered a large enough space to hold a notepad and a pen. Not a very comfortable situation, but it fulfilled its purpose.

  I opened my eyes and found myself in a corner of the room. A small group of students shared one of the machines. The librarian eyed them all critically to ensure no one damaged the microfiche or the film.

  Now came the hard part of the mission, retrieving the film and loading the machine without alerting the students and the librarian to my presence… and freaking them out in the process. The odds were against me that anyone needed the exact film I wanted. I had a better chance of coming back to life.

  My report! Two weeks before my murder, I had turned in my preliminary findings, the index of the evidence I gathered, and the outline for my paper. It should be in the professor's office with the other papers waiting for a grade. I doubt anyone felt it was something to turn over to the police.

  I checked the clock on the wall. Professor Harding taught his last class at this time, a perfect opportunity to breeze into his office and ruffle through some papers. I envisioned his office and, in an instant, the feeling of being sucked into a whirlpool overtook my body. I was transported to his small office. I stood still for a moment to regain my sense of place and time. This method of traveling was still disconcerting to me.

  "Where would he put the papers?" As I looked around the room, I realized the problem would be figuring out which of the large stacks of papers and reports was the one that contained my project.

  I started with the stack on his desk. If Professor Harding returned to his office before I found the paper, I could discretely browse through the piles by the file cabinet without getting caught. I lifted the cover on the first report, a test for one of the other classes the professor taught. All the folders were the same color and texture, so I concluded that entire pile consisted of the same test.

  One pile down, I took note of the number of other stacks, only five more to go. I settled on flipping through the stack of papers behind the desk. It would be hard to look at those if he sat in his chair, and the rustle of the papers might garner his attention.

  I scanned through a couple of the reports, theses for another class. I glanced around and spotted two large report towers by a chair near the only window in the room. I breezed over there and, on my sixth try, discovered my pot of gold. "The Cover-Up of the 1955 Murder of Callous Demar, Private Detective." I opened the report and skipped ahead to the end of the project where I had outlined the major points and questions needing resolution.

  Callous had been working on a case to help locate a missing coed, Stephanie Johan, who had disappeared sometime between leaving home and returning to campus, at the college I now—had—attended, after Christmas break. The media and the former dean, now deceased, had written off her disappearance as a girl who had decided college life wasn't meant for her and chosen to run off with her boyfriend, a boyfriend no one had ever met.

  There was no description of any young man Stephanie had been spotted strolling around the campus with arm-in-arm or kissing. The only concrete evidence of that theory was her roommate mentioning that Stephanie had spent nights elsewhere and returned to the room early every morning, and that Stephanie no longer borrowed "monthly personal items."

  Leaving college because of a pregnancy, no longer having the finances for school and a baby, made sense. Dropping out of school and her parent's life fit, as her parents came from a staunch, upper-class, religious family. An unwed mother added a shame and stigma not suitable for their lifestyle.

  The school showed the detectives Stephanie's near failing grades and also informed them of the fact that her last semester's fees were unpaid. A week after her disappearance, a letter from Stephanie arrived at the Dean's office stating that she wanted no contact with her disapproving parents or anyone she had known.

  The parents swore they had never disowned their daughter. No one, except Uncle Callous, listened to and believed the grief-stricken mother and father. Uncle Callous and his partner, Denver McKay, had promised to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  A missing coed case had progressed into a murder, a self-defense claim, and a man driving off a cliff two days after his trial for murder ended in an acquittal. That was in the good old days when cops were never wrong and didn't even think twice about tampering with evidence or covering up crimes, the days when the uniforms informed the world of who the good guys and bad guys were.

  I reread my findings and frowned, still unable to grasp the piece of information that tied all the pieces together. What had I been on the way to discovering that revealed who had paid Denver to kill Callous?

  "It's none of your damn business!" The harsh tone assaulted me.

  I jerked and dropped the report. Denver hovered in the doorway, his cold, lifeless eyes fixed on me. Rage boiled inside of him. I flinched.

  "Stop following me." I tried to sound brave.

  From his stance and the directness of his gaze, my attempt failed. He whisked over to me. "Meddling is unbecoming."

  I floated a few feet back, almost merging through the brick wall to stand in the sky. "Aren't you being a little hypocritical, since you keep following me?"

  "Mind your own life."

  "I am." I focused my energy and kicked my report under the chair.

  "You really don't want the answers you seek."

  "You don't know what I want."

  He closed the distance between us. "Yes, I do. Trust me. Some things are better left unknown."

  "I make it a point not to trust murderous, back-shooting cowards!" I shoved him backward. "The only people who don't want to know the truth are ones who make it up."

  He kept his balance. "Or the ones who don't want to face it. It's much better to blame a stranger than your own family."

  I closed my eyes and returned to Limbo.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  "I'm not holy, and I'm not hell."

  The butler couldn't have done it.

  Willow entered Limbo for a reason and being firm on her whodunit belief, there had to be another question she needed answered. But what? Was it the need for revenge, like Ann? If so, who was the target for Willow's revenge? Or on whose behalf did Willow seek vengeance?

  Karen.

  "Did you ever get a chance to have your little chat with Karen's husband?"

  "No." She tilted her head to the side and nibbled at her bottom lip. "Are you thinking that's why I showed up in Limbo?"

  "Revenge churns a lot of people's guts." I pushed the fedora back on my head to fasten my gaze more firmly onto Willow. I loved the delightful way she worried her lip.

  "So, this could all be Rob's fault?"

  Fault. Interesting word choice to describe her stopover in Limbo. "Maybe a little chat can help him see the error of his ways."

  "You think that will work?"

  "One way to find out." I grinned. "Read
y to have some fun?"

  A malicious smile highlighted her face to perfection. "I'll lead the way."

  I tipped my hat, portraying the gentlemanly qualities we both knew I had buried inside me.

  She rolled her eyes and took my hand, squeezing it. I wiggled my eyebrows at her. She groaned and looked toward the sky with a 'heaven help me' attitude. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. I watched her face take on a look of concentration as she recalled the house where Karen and Rob lived.

  I floated in the air, the movement jerky and hesitant, as Willow tried to latch onto a firmer picture of our intended destination. I looked down and saw houses forming beneath us, rows of small and well-maintained houses in a suburban neighborhood. Mowed lawns, no flamingos or trolls implanted into the ground, fresh paint on the houses, and all cars had four tires.

  "This is it." Willow said, as we touched down in front of a tan house with green trim and shutters.

  "Positive?"

  She went over to the mailbox and looked at the side. She returned her gaze to me, a triumphant smile lacing her face. "This is it."

  "First rule of thumb for haunting is observation."

  "Observe? What does watching them accomplish?" Willow stuck out a hip and tapped an impatient foot. "That's not going to scare him."

  "You don't want to frighten Karen, do you? Shouldn't we make sure she isn't home?"

  "You're right," she said on the end of a long sigh.

  "Ladies first." I made a sweeping gesture toward the house.

  With a twist of her hips, Willow floated into the house, and I followed, watching every sassy move of her body.

  Tattered chairs and a leather reclining beast decorated the house. A table just big enough to hold a Thanksgiving turkey was pushed into a corner of the room. A humongous flatscreen television set attached to the wall acted as the focal point of the small room. The screen on that boob tube was as tall as a four-year-old child.

  "I'm going to be leaving for work in a few minutes." Karen entered the living room, fastening a chain around her swanlike neck, and talked to the boob reclining in the leather seat. She walked around the room picking up scattered pages of newspaper and retrieved a plate of eaten chicken wings shoved under the couch.