Ghostly Apparitions (A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book 1)

by Aubrey Harper

  “Tell me what he’s saying,” I said to Rebecca.

  She went on her mission with a smile on her face. Apparently, me getting arrested was more amusing than I thought.

  Bart stood next to me.

  “This is boring,” he said. “We should be looking through the books right now.”

  “Well excuse me for getting arrested.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I should have expected it, though. Crane has always said one thing and done another.”

  “You don’t sound like you liked him very much,” I whispered. I had already gotten a few strange looks so I tried to be as careful as possible. I didn’t want them sending me in for observation.

  “You can say that again.”

  “Then why did you work for the guy?”

  “He’s the biggest fish in town, or in the world in his case. If you want to get ahead, you have to do things you probably won’t be proud of.”

  “Are you married? Have any kids?”

  Bart shook his head. “I’ve got two ex-wives and no kids. Maybe it’s for the best now. I always thought I had more time but you can see how that turned out.” I looked through his see-through form. It was clear that Bart Samuel had some regrets. Maybe if we worked through some of them he’d be ready to move on and maybe he’d remember something significant about the night he was killed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry? Unless you were the one who killed me...”

  “Thankfully, I’m the only person in town that you can take off the suspect list. I wasn’t even in town when your murder took place.”

  “My murder. I never thought I’d hear myself say those words. It was always something that happened to other people, you know?”

  “So you didn’t feel any real threat from the death threats you got?”

  Bart shrugged his shoulders. “They unnerved me a bit but I always got those any town I came to. Some people just can’t handle change. But there was one particular note that made me hire Mr. Xavier.”

  “What was it? What did it say?”

  “It wasn’t about what it said, it was how it got delivered.” Bart looked thoughtful. “It said ‘Stop what you’re doing, or else!’ in cut-out letters. The message itself wasn’t dissimilar to ones I usually get but I remember this one because it didn’t come in the mail. I found it under the door one day I came to work. It creeped me out that they were that close, you know?”

  I nodded in understanding. It was giving me the creeps just hearing about it, especially now that that threat was actually fulfilled. “That’s awful. I don’t blame you for being freaked out.”

  Bart laughed. It was a joyless, more sarcastic kind of laugh. “Maybe if I’d taken it a bit more seriously, maybe I’d be alive right now and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

  It was then that one of the officers came over and told me they were ready for me. It all felt so official and so serious, I tried hard to keep a serious expression on my face.

  The officer actually led me to an interrogation room. I passed Kane on the way there and he actually winked at me.

  I looked around and whispered Rebecca’s name, trying to get her attention. I was relieved to see her waiting for me in the interrogation room.

  She gave me a quick overview of everything Kane had said.

  Jonathan looked smug behind his side of the desk.

  He opened a file and asked his questions.

  “Why were you at Mr. Crane’s property?”

  “I told you. He felt some things and he needed my ghostly expertise. Thankfully, I calmed down Mr. Samuel and told him to leave Mr. Crane alone. I left not soon after that.”

  “And was Mr. Xavier present? Does he purport to have psychic abilities as well?”

  “I was already working on Bart’s case with the private investigator when I got a message from Mr. Crane. We both agreed it would be better if we went up there together. I didn’t feel comfortable going up there all by myself.”

  “Did Mr. Crane call you?”

  I shook my head. “No. He sent one of his men.”

  “How convenient,” Jonathan said under his breath. Rebecca smiled wide at that. It seemed Kane and my stories were matching up perfectly.

  “What were you doing at Bart Samuel’s office?” Jonathan asked.

  “Kane told me that that’s where Mr. Samuel used to work. I thought it would be a good idea to talk to some of his employees. I wasn’t aware that it was closed.”

  Jonathan wrote some notes down in the file. “I’m giving you a warning this time. Please refrain from going to Mr. Samuel’s office and please don’t contact Mr. Crane again. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly. But Mr. Crane owes me five hundred dollars. My services aren’t free.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” Jonathan said. “I’ll drive you guys back to your car and I don’t want to see you snooping around again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said and saluted him.

  “This isn’t a joke,” Jonathan said seriously.

  “C’mon, you have to admit that it’s a little funny. Did you lose your sense of humor as soon as you started wearing that uniform?”

  “I lost my sense of humor when it came to crime way before that,” he said.

  The drive back to the car was just as awkward as the ride to the police station.

  “Stay out of trouble, you two,” Jonathan said when we exited his vehicle.

  Kane waved as the police cruiser drove away.

  “That was fun,” he said. “It’s always good to meet the local law enforcement, don’t you think? It’s kind of like a rite of passage when you come to a new town.”

  “Or it’s super awkward if you used to date,” I said under my breath.

  “Oh no,” I heard Rebecca say. She was standing by my car.

  “I can’t believe it!” I heard Bart say and then a string of obscenities after that.

  “What is it?” Kane asked when he saw the look on my face.

  “The ghosts seem to be upset about something,” I said. Then I made my way to where they were standing and I saw exactly why they were so upset.

  My car had been broken into. Just the trunk actually. It was slightly open.

  I lifted the trunk and saw exactly what I expected to see: the binder we had gotten from Bart’s office was gone.

  “How could it be gone?” Kane asked. “We weren’t gone for that long.” He took a good look around the neighborhood. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of place where stuff like this happens.”

  “You think?” I asked sarcastically.

  “That means…someone has been tailing us? I checked a couple of times and I didn’t notice anyone so they must be good. But the question is why they would be so interested in that binder?”

  “It must be someone connected to the project,” Bart said. “Who else would care about the books?”

  I relayed the info to Kane and he nodded in agreement. “It makes sense,” he said. “At least now we know where to focus our investigation. On anyone connected to this project, which includes Warwick Crane.”

  “Jonathan told me to stay away from him,” I said.

  Kane nodded. “Me too. Do you think the cops have already been bought off?”

  I scoffed at that. “Not a chance. Jonathan may be many things, but he’s always been honest and trustworthy.”

  “He’s probably getting orders from high on up. You know how that works.”

  “In a town this size?”

  “I’ll grant you it’s more a big city kind of thing, but you never know. Warwick Crane seems determined to turn this town into just another stop on the corporate America tour.”

  “So you do care,” I teased him.

  “What? What can I say, I like passing through towns like this. They’re charming.”

  “You’re more sentimental than you let on, Kane Xavier.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Bart said.

  �
�Doing what?” I asked him.

  “Being annoying and not solving my murder.”

  Bart Samuel was starting to get on my nerves. “Can you tell us where your secretary is staying? What about the contractor?”

  “They’re both staying at the Silver Bells Inn. That’s where I’m staying, too. Or was,” Bart added when he remembered his condition.

  I relayed the thought to Kane who nodded in agreement. “Beats standing around here talking about how charming small towns are.”

  We all piled into the car, two living and two dead.

  Kane told me the approximate location of the inn and I did my best to get us there. Jonathan had said no more snooping but he needed to realize that this was my job now. And in a way, it was Kane’s as well. He did the mundane grunt work while I worked more on the spiritual side of things. Either way, we were both determined to get to the bottom of this.

  The contractor and the secretary must know something. Otherwise, the whole day might as well have been a waste.

  Fourteen

  Bart Samuel’s secretary was a good-looking woman in her mid thirties. I gave him a look that said as much. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not a crime to appreciate beauty, is it?” was all he would say to that.

  Donna Smith, his secretary, was actually crying her eyes out.

  “He was a good man. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

  We were sitting at a local coffee shop. Donna had had enough of the inn and needed a change of scenery. “I don’t know what I’ll do now. This job was my whole life.”

  “Tell her not to worry,” Bart said. “I left a little something for her in my will.”

  I relayed the message.

  Donna looked confused and then a hint of a sad smile played across her face. “He always said he would. I’ve been working for the man for almost a decade. I just wish it didn’t have to happen at all. Who would do such a thing? If you can talk to him, can’t you just ask him?”

  I shook my head. “They came up behind him. He didn’t see who it was.”

  Donna cried even harder now.

  Kane put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “There, there, it’s going to be all right. We’re working on catching whoever did this as we speak. That’s why we need your help.”

  Donna’s face hardened as she moved out of Kane’s grasp. “You should have prevented this,” she spat in his direction.

  “No one could have predicted this,” Kane said carefully. “Besides, it looks like the Keep Silver Bells Green crowd wasn’t involved after all.”

  “What do you mean?” Donna asked him. “Those people hated him and what he did. He was just trying to bring this town to the present.”

  I had a few choice words about that, but I decided to hold them back. There was no need for me to berate a grieving woman.

  “It appears the killer must have been a lot closer to him than we thought,” I said. “They stole the binder with all the numbers in it. Do you have any copies by any chance?”

  Donna’s face went from confusion to resolution. “I always kept copies of everything,” she said. “Even though Mr. Samuel explicitly told me not to, but I just wanted to have things in case something happened to the original. I keep the files on my personal computer. It’s password protected to the hilt.”

  “Where’s your computer right now?”

  “It’s in my room, at the inn.”

  We left our coffees half drunk and quickly walked back to the inn. The beauty of a small town like Silver Bells was that you could walk pretty much anywhere.

  Thankfully, the laptop was exactly where it was supposed to be. For the minutes it took us to walk to the inn I had all kinds of fears running through my head that it would have been stolen too.

  Donna punched in her password while Rebecca and Bart watched. Kane and I stood back and gave her space.

  “Here it is,” she finally said. “It’s all here. I updated it a couple of days ago. I usually do it once a week.”

  “Can you e-mail it to me?” I asked. “It’s probably safer than printing it out.”

  “I don’t know,” Donna looked uncertain. “What if you get hacked or something?”

  “Then e-mail it to me,” Kane said. He wrote his e-mail address on one of the notepads provided by the hotel. He handed it to Donna. “My computer is protected to the wazoo, too. It has to be in my line of work.”

  Donna nodded. She felt more comfortable now. She asked Kane to confirm the e-mail she typed in and when he did, she sent him the file.

  “Thank you,” Kane said. “You’ve been more help than you realize.”

  “I just wish I could do more, you know?” Donna seemed genuinely heartbroken over her boss’s death.

  She held her head down then she looked up at me. “Is he here right now?”

  Bart was in the corner watching her.

  “Yes, he’s here.”

  “Can you tell him…” she paused then found the strength to continue. “Can you tell him I’m sorry?”

  “She has nothing to be sorry for,” Bart said. “She was the best secretary a man could ask for.”

  I relayed the message.

  Donna smiled. “That’s not what I’m sorry for. I’m sorry that I never gave him a chance. He would always ask me out jokingly but I always said no because I wanted to keep things professional. I always thought maybe sometime in the future, when I wasn’t working for him, maybe something could change…”

  Bart looked thoughtful. “Tell her it was better this way,” he finally said. “Tell her I understand and that she did nothing wrong.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Donna said with tears in her eyes, after I told her what Bart had said. There was a lot of relief in her voice. “Please catch whoever is responsible, okay?”

  “I promise,” I said, and meant it. I had always thought Bart Samuel was a chauvinistic jerk, so it was nice to see a different side of him. The fact that this side of him came through because of what his secretary was saying made it all the more surreal.

  “She really cared about the guy,” Kane said when we left Donna’s room.

  “Yeah, she really did,” I agreed.

  “We’re looking for 301,” Kane reminded me.

  “And here it is,” I said when we arrived at our destination.

  Derek Powers wasn’t in his room or he wasn’t answering. “Maybe we should check the local pub?” Kane offered.

  “You just want a drink, don’t you?”

  “It’s been a long day,” he said.

  “Fine, fine,” I relented.

  Bart flew in front of me. “I think I’ll stay here to make sure Donna’s okay. You can handle things without me for a bit, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, it’s no problem. Just try not to freak her out, okay?”

  Bart smiled. “I reserve that for people I don’t like, Ms. Good.”

  Derek Powers was nowhere to be found so we just had a couple of drinks at the local pub. Since I was driving, my drinks were of the non-alcoholic variety. Either way, it felt good to sit down for a bit.

  Rebecca, for her part, was flying all over the pub, checking out the patrons. She liked crowded places for some reason. I think she said it was because of the energy or something. I myself preferred places where most people didn’t go.

  “So you can really talk to the dead?” Kane asked after finishing another drink. “Don’t worry, I can handle my liquor,” he said when he saw the look on my face.

  “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “Since I was a little kid. Probably since I was born, but I can’t remember that far back, now can I? At first, I thought everyone saw them but it became clear I was a freak as soon as I started talking about them. I saw an old lady in my classroom when I was in first or second grade. It turned out she was a teacher who had died recently. Everyone in the school, including the adults, treated me like a freak after I told them about her. A few even called me a devil child. Thankfully my grandma put a stop to tha
t kind of behavior. She couldn’t stop the whispers, but at least she could stop the loud mouths.”

  “Where were your parents during all of this?”

  “They thought I had psychological issues and wanted to send me to a child psychologist. I had a few sessions until Gran put a stop to it. As for where they were? They were mostly traveling for their work. Troy and I spent most of our time with Gran while we were growing up.”

  “What does your brother do?”

  “He’s opened a surfing board business in California. Apparently, it’s super successful. I keep meaning to visit him but it’s just never happened.”

  “That’s really sad. I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t close to my folks. I still talk to my mom daily.”

  “I knew you were a momma’s boy,” I joked.

  “And proud of it,” Kane said and smiled wide. There was something about his smile that lit up his whole face and made him seem inviting instead of intimidating. I guess it was a good skill to have in his line of work. Charming and dangerous, all rolled into one.

  “Are we ready to go?” I asked. “Or do you need some time to sober up?”

  Kane had gotten the bright idea that the contractor might be at one of the building sites. The billionaire had said that he didn’t plan on putting a stop to what was happening, as much as some residents of Silver Bells wished it was otherwise.

  We checked out the hotel site first, but of course, that was still considered a crime scene so there wasn’t going to be any work done there anytime soon. Then we checked out the few properties in town that the billionaire was known to have purchased.

  Finally, after more driving than I cared for, Kane got the bright idea to ask Donna about it.

  Kane called her up while I kept driving. “She says he’s at the local fishing pond,” Kane said when he hung up.

  “That’s a strange place for a contractor to be. Did Crane buy that place as well?”

  “Not that I know of but I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe the man just likes to fish?”

  “Maybe,” I said, though I definitely didn’t like the sound of any of this.

  I parked in front of the fishing spot. There were a few cars already there but not as many as I thought there would be. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time to fish.