"Here I am. Living to a ripe old age." She tilted her head. "Does that surprise you?"
"It does. Normally when a girl vanishes for months, you find her dead in a ditch or floating in a river." I tipped my hat. "No disrespect."
"None taken. I know if I was facing what my mother had, I wouldn't want to think it, but deep in my heart I would believe my daughter had been murdered." Stephanie tugged the ends of a shawl over her shoulders.
"I bet in a way she wasn't too happy when she found out that you were alive and well the whole time."
Stephanie leaned her head back and let out a laugh. "She wasn't at that. I do believe the thought of doing me in crossed her mind. But she is my mother, and they're so good about forgiving."
"So do you want to tell Callous," I pointed at my chest, "what went down?"
"Trying to hide shame."
"Hiding shame made you take some pretty drastic steps. It had to be a pretty big one."
"Not quite that big. Six pounds, eleven ounces."
That information took me a minute or so to decipher and grasp the intended meaning. So, Stephanie had hidden until the birth of her child, and later reconnected with her family. With or without the child was the million—or possibly the quarter of a million—dollar question. "Did your parents know about the baby?"
"No."
"How did you explain your disappearance? Nine months is a long time for a road trip without a call home." I picked up the silver frame and shook it at her. "Surprised big brother here didn't come looking for you."
"Six months." Frowning, she pulled the frame from me and placed it on her lap.
Big mistake. Someone might have noticed a photo dancing around in mid-air. "Sorry about that."
"It's all right."
"So about your family," I put the conversation back on track.
She sighed. "I never really explained and they stopped asking questions. They probably thought I ran off with some young man and lived a life of sin for awhile and had come to my senses."
"And they wouldn't want to know the truth."
"Sometimes a lie is easier to live with." Tears filled her eyes. She clasped her hands and placed them on her lap.
"Did you run because you thought they'd have disowned you?"
"They wouldn't have been happy about it, but they'd have helped me." She paused a long time and appeared to be searching for the correct words to tell me the truth… without telling me the truth. "It was a complicated situation. My reputation wasn't the only one that would be ruined."
"Your parents never knew…"
She wiped the tears dripping down her chin. "That I had a little boy? No. I allowed myself to be hidden away until the baby was born, then I gave him up for adoption. I couldn't let anyone know that I'd been pregnant. Including my parents."
I leaned forward in the chair, hoping the motion didn't set it rocking. "Why? Who decided that?"
"It wasn't just for my lover's sake." Her eyes sought mine. "Or his wife's sake, but also for mine and the child. Being an unmarried, pregnant woman during that time wasn't an understandable thing. I wouldn't have been able to give him a good life. I wouldn't even have been able to give myself a good life. So I did what was best. Or at least what I thought was best." A sad smile played across her lips.
I didn't have to ask her what the best was. I read it in her eyes, her expression, and her posture. She had handed the baby over to his biological father and the father's wife—and she regretted the decision from that day to this, what a tough road to walk alone every day.
"The father passed the baby off as his and his wife's?"
"Yes." Her gaze roamed away from me when she answered.
"Can you tell me who?" I favored her with an encouraging smile.
"Someone at the college."
"Who?"
Her lips were starting to clamp shut. I decided to navigate around a direct answer. There was still more I needed to know.
"How were you able to afford to stay away for so long?"
Her cheeks reddened and tears spilled from her eyes. She lowered her gaze to the floor. "His wife gave me one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars before my son was born. And more afterward." She sobbed into the rough yarn of her shawl.
I faded away and headed to the college, knowing I could ask Stephanie any other questions later. Her soul still ached from selling her baby. I'd see her in Limbo one day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Abby
I floated through the glass and steel doors of the First National Continental Bank, right past the roving eyes of the four well-armed security guards. The people involved in Willow's case were used to the best, wanted the best, or needed the very secure and tight-lipped offerings of the best bank in the county. And this was it. I glided into the lobby, moving around customers, suit-wearing male and female managers, and right into the teller area without one person noting my presence. There were some benefits to the afterlife. Of course, I'd rather be alive but, if I had to be dead, at least it allowed me the opportunity to try out the career choice of my dreams.
I glanced at the equipment in the teller area and realized that other than getting money—something I had no use for—there wasn't anything to gain in that area. The available computers were located next to tellers, no way to commandeer one for my use.
Plan two required me to rummage through desk drawers in offices until I found an employee who had written their passwords on a slip of paper. I breezed into an office. I had started to slide a drawer open when I heard a voice down the hall announcing a situation out front involving a search warrant. Two women rushed past me, heels tapping out a frenzied cadence on the white and gray marble floor.
Whisking down the hall, I retraced the sounds of the stilettos. A fast getaway usually resulted in forgetting procedures. Right on the money. A computer was left logged on. Now I needed to get the information before the woman who owned the office returned, or someone discovered a breech in the system. In this economy, a job was hard to come by, and I'd hate for anyone to get fired because of my investigation.
Slipping onto the vacant seat, I moved my hands over the keys. The letters showed through the opaqueness of my new form of existence as I pulled up Braswell's records. No unusual withdrawals of cash, except for the thousand-dollar pet store purchases each week.
One odd factor for Braswell and Gannon accounts was that the monthly deposit was transferred straight from Willow's account. No other source of income for either man. With a few clicks, I snooped into our client's affairs. It was not that unusual for the breadwinner in the household to give some fun money to their spouse but what about Gannon? Gannon's account had no withdrawals, only that weekly deposit made by Willow. What had the man been saving for? A murder?
Every other person Willow employed, including a chauffeur, received a payroll check. Was she trying to cheat the government for one of her employees… or did she like controlling these particular men?
I had hoped that Diane also kept her money at the best and most secured bank in town but no such luck. Did she pick a different place to keep her financial affairs private? Afraid of Willow controlling her?
It was hard for me to believe any person was worth enough to kill another in order to gain their love and devotion. Normally, money was the big motivator in a murder, but that didn't seem to be the case for Willow's death. Not like with mine, where money had been the root of the evil—evil that had corrupted for over half a century.
My fingers paused over the keyboard. Should I click on a few keys and see if Dean Harding banked here? See if any money had transferred to or from his account. Right now, he was the only link between Uncle Callous and me. He had been a new professor at the school when Uncle Callous was investigating, and the dean of the college when I started my paper.
I focused my energy and started to press down on the keyboard, when I heard voices coming down the hall.
"I have a warrant," a gruff male voice said.
"I still don't like this.
He's a very good and decent man." A woman's sharp words accompanied angry clicks of high heels.
"Not to mention that he has a lot of money here." A familiar voice filled my head.
Tim. What was he doing here? He knew I was coming to the bank to check the records. I wanted to confront him, but this wasn't the best time. I returned the screen to the record it had been on. I behaved and didn't peek at that account. None of my business.
I floated into a corner of the room and hid behind a large rubber palm tree. Tim scanned the room and caught my eye, moving his chin down an inch before giving his attention to the women and man who had entered with him.
One woman sat down at her keyboard and cleared the current screen. "Detective Trip, I assure you that Dean Harding is a very upstanding person."
"Then this shouldn't take too long." Detective Trip placed his hands on his belt, one right near the handcuffs, and stared at the woman. She let out a deep sigh and started typing.
"I do not like this one bit." She slammed her fingers on the keys, striking each a few seconds after the last, delaying the inevitable. "Not one bit."
"I have a signed warrant. I don't care if you like it or not."
The woman shot him a quick glare and pulled up Dean Harding's account. I whisked myself across the room and glanced over her shoulder. She shivered and tugged on a sweater that had been draped over the back of her chair.
A few days ago, not too long before my death, two transfers of ten thousand dollars had left the Dean's account. I heard the woman's voice shake as she read this to Detective Trip. He asked for a printout.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop the moan that wanted to course through my body and shake the windows of the room. A concerned and frightened look crossed Tim's face.
"Detective, that money was transferred to his son, Peter Harding, and the other to his wife—"
I vanished before the anger and anguish escaped from my being.
Professor Harding wanted me dead. Why? And who had he paid to kill me?
* * *
The college held the answers to my death. The missing coed and the missing money had to have left together, and the Harding family played a role in those scenarios. I didn't believe in coincidences anymore; events that appeared linked together were. One was the cause, the other the effect.
"My paper led them to me." I stood in the middle of the campus quad. Pain tugged in my middle as I gazed at the young college coeds trampling the grass, rushing across the sidewalk in an effort to make it to their classes on time. How many of them suspected a murderer taught them? How many knew that someone they trusted, believed in, and maybe even had a crush on had forced a fellow student into the realm of the dead?
I didn't want to believe my professor had paid someone to kill me, hired a man, a fellow student maybe, to slam a book onto my head until I died. But, it made sense. Who else knew about my paper? Who else knew where my investigation was going and would be affected by the truth coming out, even all these decades later? Who else received ten thousand dollars from their father, and then spent it just as quickly?
"He doesn't seem like a murderer," I whispered, not wanting my presence noticed by anyone around me. There was too much I needed to uncover and reveal; fading away because I'd become a freak show and the cause of a screaming hysteria hampered my plan.
I didn't want the local news stations arriving to do a story about a ghost on campus. I wanted them to come and do a story about the arrest of the murderer of Abigail Harris, a pretty, young coed violently murdered because she had uncovered the truth about the murder of her Great-Uncle Callous Demar, a private detective hired a little over a half-century ago to locate a pretty, young coed who had vanished.
"Looking to become a martyr or a hero?"
I swiveled my head and glared at Denver. "Go away," I muttered between clenched teeth.
"Don't reckon I should."
"Go. Away. Now."
He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Not in the plan, doll face."
"I'm not a doll."
He looked me up and down. "I have to argue with that statement."
"Listen, just because you didn't mean to kill Callous doesn't mean I'm now going to trust you." I floated across the quad.
"Good, because I'm not asking you to," Denver called out.
I watched the confusion bloom on some of the faces of the students. Stopping, I spun around and put my finger to my lips. A student passed through me and dropped her books onto the grass. I had to get out of there. People sensed my presence.
"You're going to give me away." I whisked through the air, desperate to leave Denver behind and find Professor Harding.
Denver kept up my pace. "No, I'm not. I came to help."
"I don't need help." The auditorium. Spinning, I altered direction and headed to the opposite side of the campus.
"Sure you do." Denver arched into the sky, and then nosedived to pull up beside me.
"Do all men who came from the fifties believe women can't manage anything without a man's help?"
"Don't matter if you're a man or women. Nobody just entering Limbo can be aware of the many rules of our existence. But if you ain't worried about making a misstep and going to Hell..." His pale eyes told me he wasn't going to finish his sentence. He didn't need to. The threat hung between us was huge.
I let out a defeated sigh. It was hard to argue with certain logic and truths. He had been a ghost longer then I had, and Denver did have a stake in this investigation. It wasn't likely hampering benefited him.
Hovering over the roof of the auditorium, I narrowed my eyes on him. Or would it?
"What?" he asked.
"Just thinking."
"Come on, Abby, let's find the scum who did this."
"I know the scum who did this. He's teaching right below." I started to pass through the building.
"No." Denver grabbed my arm and stopped my progress.
"Excuse me." I wiggled around, hoping to break his hold. "Who died and put you in charge?"
He grimaced at my bad choice of words. "There's someone who's alive who played a major role in the last case Callous investigated while he was alive."
"Who?"
Keeping a grip on my arm, Denver stretched out over the roof, reaching his free arm through the roof to wrap around my waist. "Dean Harding. Fifty-five years ago, he was a twenty-five-year-old student-teacher."
"You've got to have more evidence than that to implicate someone in a crime." I allowed Denver to haul me out of the ceiling. "And Peter is his nephew."
"And you think the nephew is more likely to want to silence the sins of the uncle than the uncle?" Denver kept an arm circled around my waist.
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, sweetheart, answers rely more on common sense than conspiracies."
"Just spit it out!" What was it with this man and the word games?
"I would if you'd shut up long enough to hear."
I wanted to be insulted, but he was right. I was so intent in proving myself strong and independent, even in death, that I had already labeled his conclusion wrong.
"May I continue?"
"Yes, you may."
"Dean Harding was one of Stephanie Johan's professors, and his older brother, Professor Peter Harding's father, was a member of the finance committee." He relaxed his hold on my body.
Disappointment wiggled through me. I slapped it away. "That does increase his suspect potential."
"Suspect potential?" Denver grinned. "Haven't heard that term before."
"And since Professor Harding is only connected by family ties to these crimes, the sins of the family scenario, it makes sense to start with the uncle. Dean Harding had a key role in the Johan case. He was the one who received the letter saying Stephanie was still alive."
"Brilliant reasoning."
"Let's go."
I appeared in the large office a few moments before Denver. I had just finished taking eye inventor
y of the place when Denver showed up.
Nice office. A large mahogany desk took center stage. A faux-Tiffany-style floor lamp was placed in the corner. Large mammoth bookcases filled to overflowing with leather bound editions of the classics, dominated a wall. Did the Dean actually have time to read them all or were they standard decoration for a person in his position?
"Instead of admiring the office setup, let's search through the treasures for the truth." Denver opened a desk drawer and ruffled through the papers.
"Shouldn't you be careful about disturbing his things?"
Denver paused for a moment. "Why?"
"So he doesn't know we were here."
"Doll, we don't exist anymore, so there's no way he'll know we were here." Denver started to search through another drawer. "But him thinking someone else was here could shake him up, which would be to our benefit."
"Maybe that will get him to confess if he thinks the police are finally onto him. Or that someone he works with is suspicious of him."
"It's easier to trip when you're looking over your shoulder." Denver offered me a slice of his of wisdom.
Touché. And I wanted my murderer to fall hard and not get back up.
I started pulling out books to see if they were filled with pages, or a false book used to hide valuables. The best hiding place was usually right out in the open. Most people overlooked the obvious.
"Nice family." Denver spun a circular gilded picture frame situated near the corner of the desk.
I watched different Harding family events whirl past. They were a close family. Smiling. Always laughing, parents' arms around their son, or linked through his. A few photos of uncle and son standing on a pier in Florida spun into view. Next was a picture of my professor's college graduation picture with his dad, mom, aunt and uncle in front of the college where he now taught.
"Hold up." I placed my hand on top of Denver's to stop the frame from rotating again. I turned the frame one click. Professor Harding stood between his dad and mom, huge smiles on all three faces but his mom's eyes were focused away from the camera. In the background was Dean Harding.
Dying For Redemption Page 19