by Cate Lawley
Death Retires
A Death Retired Mystery
Cate Lawley
Copyright © 2017 Catherine G. Cobb
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Also by Cate Lawley
About the Author
1
Sunday morning, late August
“Hello!” The feminine voice was attached to an even more womanly figure approaching from across the street.
My new four-foot, rose-draped fence seemed woefully inadequate as I crouched behind it.
“Mr. Todd!”
I lowered my head and busied myself removing the dried petals of the dead flower. Pinching away, I tried to remember the name as my curvy neighbor approached. Red cascade. The realtor had said when I’d viewed the house.
The previous owners had trained the stems upward and the bloom-filled vines now flowed down the square-mesh fencing. But they didn’t flow quite enough, because she, the woman of the curves, kept calling.
“Yoo-hoo! Mr. Todd!”
A flash of bright pink peeked through the vines. My thorny wall had too many holes.
“Mr. Todd?” she called again, closer now.
A weedy patch caught my eye, and I turned my attention to yanking the stubborn intruders out by the root. As I worked at the soil, I considered my fencing predicament. Perhaps a ten-foot, solid-metal fence sent the wrong message to the neighbors. Perhaps I didn’t care.
“Hi!” the woman called from much, much too close. I could even smell her over the scent of freshly-turned earth. She had a baked-cookie scent that made my mouth water.
Looking up, I found my neighbor peering down at me from across the fence. With her pink sundress and her dark hair all twisted up, I couldn’t tell if she’d spent five minutes on her toilette or an hour. Naturally gorgeous or made up to look it, I didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.
That’s her. She’s the one. Hey, buddy, that’s her!
The voice in my head I could ignore, but with the woman looking right at me, it would be more difficult.
“Morning.” Against all my inclinations, I didn’t stand, clinging to some hope that my rudeness would shorten the interaction. People were difficult, and I needed a little more practice before I jumped fully into the world of small talk and social repartee.
“I’m Sylvie Baker, your neighbor.” She gave me an expectant smile. When I remained silent, she pointed to a house kitty-corner to mine. “Just there. That’s me.”
Of course it was. I already knew that, because the persistent voice in my head had told me as much.
The neighborhood was gentrifying—short-term renters were giving way to owners—and some of my new neighbors were interested in building a “community.” I’d known that when I bought the house—and I’d bought it anyway.
If I’d known about the house kitty-corner and it’s occupant, I might have reconsidered.
“Geoff Todd. Just moved in.” I remained firmly crouched behind my fence.
She didn’t take the hint. Worse, she smiled brightly. “I know. It’s a small, chatty neighborhood, and we like to keep each other up-to-date. It’s nice to meet you, Geoff.”
And like that, we were on a first-name basis.
Geoffy. Geoffy-Geoffy-Geoff.
I ignored the singsong voice and turned back to my stubborn weed. With a vicious yank, it came loose and I chucked it over my shoulder.
Unfortunately, my behavior didn’t dissuade Sylvie Baker one iota. She just leaned on the fence rail, mindful of the thorns, and asked, “What brings you to the neighborhood, Geoff? Are you new to Austin?”
“No, I retired recently. Wanted to downsize.”
“Well, aren’t you the lucky one.” She flashed another smile, this time revealing a fetching dimple. “And young enough to enjoy it.”
Since I was starting to ache from all the avoidance weeding, I stood up. My right knee caught for a split second and then let out a loud pop. That was something I’d have to get used to.
The few remaining weeds beckoned. I considered them, then my knees, then glanced up to see if she’d taken the hint and left.
No, still here.
Eye contact was a mistake, because Sylvie immediately let loose with her next volley. “What was your profession? Before you retired, I mean. I do hair.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’d be happy to give you a discount. You could do with a trim.”
My eyebrows climbed. “Could I?”
“Unless you’re going for that disheveled, absent-minded professor look.” Her brown eyes assessed my stubbly cheeks, faded jeans, and dark T-shirt in one sweeping glance. “You’ve got that down.”
Since I didn’t know that was a look or whether it was a desirable one, I refrained from comment.
“What was it you said you did before you retired?”
I hadn’t said. When filling out my retirement packet, I’d gone with what I’d deemed an innocuous profession. Within days, I’d acquired a new past, manufactured to spec. One I’d spent a good amount of time learning. “Teacher. I was a teacher.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I ignored the voice.
“A retired teacher.” She flashed me that dimpled smile again, like I’d said something both amusing and worthy. “I’m so glad that you’ve joined the neighborhood, Geoff. Welcome.”
An uneasy feeling grabbed me right in the gut. The house had felt right, and the quiet neighborhood had felt welcoming on a level I hadn’t understood nor bothered to plumb. But now, with an inescapable voice in my head and my persistent, mouthwatering neighbor standing so near, I couldn’t help questioning whether settling into this particular corner of Austin had been the best choice.
Teacher? You? Liar, liar. Shame.
Perhaps questioning the choice was too mild. I was doubting my sanity, both in making this choice and in choosing to stay.
“Ah, thanks.” I paused, then added, “Sylvie.”
The voice howled victoriously in my ear.
2
Geoff. Geoffy-Geoff. You have ears. You hear me.
“You need to get rid of that guy. He’s seriously cramping my style.” The bobcat’s mouth didn’t move, but the voice was his.
Unlike the ghosts that whispered in my ear—including the one in my living room right now who was taunting me—anyone could hear Clarence. A problem, because he wasn’t the most discreet of creatures, and he happened to be my responsibility.
“What style is our visiting ghost cramping?” I asked.
He stretched, his huge paws pushed straight out in front of him and his bobtailed bottom high in the air. Then he flopped over on his side, diving cheek first. Once he was comfortably situated, he lifted his back leg in the air and—
“Stop. You know the rules: no cleaning your business in mixed company.”
Clarence grumbled.
“What were you saying about style?” I redirected him to his previous rant in hopes of avoiding the you’d-do-it-if-you-could-reach-it speech.
Sprawling, but more circumspectly now, he said, “That ghost has to go.” Except he didn’t sound that concerned, and he certainly didn’t answer my question.
Boo!
I ignored the voice. That strategy hadn’t proven successful thus far, but until I had other alternatives I was sticking to it.
“You do recognize that you’re a shade away from being a ghost yourself, Clarence. I’m surprised you don’t have more sympathy.”
He sneezed.
When he was done spreading cat snot all over my stained concrete floor, he said, “A shade, that’s cute. But let me ask you this: am I corporeal?” He didn’t wait for a response. His whiskers twitched, then he said, “If I have a body, I’m not a ghost. Simple math, bozo.”
I crossed my arms. “Your ghostly self stole that body and, if I had to guess, got stuck.”
Not that I knew. No one knew how Clarence had ended as he had, a human ghost in the physical body of a wildcat. Or no one was sharing that information with me.
He rolled around on my bobcat-snot-covered floors, trying to scratch his back.
He seemed happy enough, so I was hardly certain he’d been stuck. Maybe he stayed by choice.
“Quit it.” I snatched a tuft of hair floating through the air. “You’re getting hair everywhere and stinking up the place.”
He purred. “You know you love it.”
He smelled not unpleasantly of the outdoors, a pine-forested version, and not like a nasty, musky wildcat, so he wasn’t entirely wrong. But it was disturbing to see him wallow on my floor in feline ecstasy. Maybe if I didn’t know he was human . . . No, it was unsettling either way.
“You’ve got to stop that.”
He flopped over on his side again and let loose another sneeze. “Man, these allergies are killing me. Can you find out if I can take Zyrtec in this body? I don’t know if it’s the mold or the pollen or the—”
“You don’t need allergy medication. You need to stop rolling in every stray weed patch you come across.”
“Just a quick pharmacy run. I can check online if cats can take—” His eyes widened, eyeing the newspaper I’d retrieved from the coffee table.
I started to roll it. “You were saying?”
A nasty feline growl emerged from deep in his chest. “Nothing.” With a sniff, he added, “Forget the drugs.”
The idea of corporal punishment made me squirm, but if Clarence thought the threat was real, I’d use it—the threat, not the newspaper. I tossed the paper back onto the coffee table.
After a few seconds of much too short, blissful silence, he said, “It’s past time to get rid of the ghost. You know, he might go away if you did what he wanted.”
I choked out a negative response. Clarence would think that.
Kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty.
My left eye started to twitch.
Maybe Clarence could hear our ghostly visitor because he was still technically a ghost himself—a ghost permanently possessing a twenty-five-pound bobcat, perhaps, but still a ghost. He could hear and see ghosts better than I could, and he didn’t get twitchy or headachy from their presence. Unlike Clarence, I could only see them when they wanted to be seen.
Kitty, kitty.
Or hear them when they wanted to be heard.
The constant interruptions from this particular disembodied voice had begun to make my left eye twitch.
Ghosts were a pestilence upon the planet. It was a good thing most of them didn’t have much shelf life.
Unfortunately, the one that kept hassling Clarence and me seemed to be fresh. He was also grounded close by—kitty-corner to my home, to be exact—so he could recharge and return to hassle us multiple times a day.
He was becoming a nuisance. No. He’d been a nuisance when I discovered him lurking the second day after I moved in. What he’d become in the intervening week was an eye-twitching headache. And if he stayed much longer, I suspected he’d be a deep, throbbing, icepick-to-my-eye migraine.
“You know, Clarence, you’re right.”
“Huh?” He lifted his chin from the floor and gave me a suspicious look.
“We’re going to do something about our uninvited houseguest.”
Suspicion turned to discontent, and he gave me his best bobcat kitty glare. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We are? You’re the one who should be doing something. You’re the big D, so he’s your problem. But, uh, maybe hold off on the scary death stare till you know what he really wants.”
Now that was intriguing. Clarence had thus far been lukewarm against the ghost. The shift had me questioning his motives.
“I’m not the ‘big D.’ I’m retired.” I settled into my favorite armchair. “And there’s no such thing as a death stare. Although if there were, I’d love to use it on whoever botched this ghost’s collection.”
When souls were separated cleanly, collected, and moved on to wherever they were going, ghosts didn’t happen. That was my theory, anyway. And since I’d been death—more accurately, one of the deaths—for several decades, I probably had a better handle on what made ghosts than most people.
“Uh-huh. Sure, big D. There’s no death stare, just like retired soul collectors can’t hear ghosts.”
The second part was true, until me. Or none of the other retirees were fessing up to the ability because they wanted to lounge in peaceful obscurity, hidden away from needy specters.
As death, seeing ghosts came in handy. As a retired “teacher,” it was not convenient.
Geooooof. Oh, Geoffy-boy. Pretty lady, across the street. So preeeetty.
Damned inconvenient, in fact. Time to start searching for exorcism rituals.
If there were ghosts, then there must be ways to get rid of ghosts.
It was only logical.
3
Sunday afternoon
“Ghost removal? I can’t help you.” Lilac, a medium I’d discovered in the yellow pages, wasn’t quite living up to my expectations. Younger, prettier, greener, and more pierced than I’d expected—but also not nearly as cooperative as I’d hoped.
Then again, the yellow pages weren’t cutting-edge advertising any longer, per Clarence. I’d had my suspicions. I had been living in and around people the last few decades—just not as a person—but old habits liked to cling. In the world I’d known, there’d been phone books and people had used them.
Lilac’s gaze shifted to Clarence. “What exactly does an emotional support cat do?”
“Ah . . .” I glared at Clarence. He’d told me to say that. Had sworn it would get him in the door, no questions asked, and since he’d threatened to spray my bed if I didn’t take him along, I’d conceded.
Lilac waved a heavily ringed hand. “Never mind.” Her words might have been dismissive, but she wouldn’t stop looking at me as if I had something in between my teeth. “You’re sure your place is haunted? I can come out and do a preliminary screening for a modest fee. Just to double-check it’s not, you know, something else. Something not otherworldly.”
Ah. The medium thought I was nuts.
When the woman with the fluorescent, green hair, bright blue nail polish, and five competing spiritual philosophies plastered on her walls thought I was delusional, I might need to consider how I was presenting myself to the public.
Or stop taking Clarence’s advice. I turned a critical eye on my four-legged companion.
The leash pulled tight as Clarence tried to run for the hills, or at least for the safety of the small space under Lilac’s couch.
Twenty-five pounds of cat was a lot of feline, but a long way from being able to yank me around. I planted my feet and let him struggle. We’d already had one harness-slipping incident, so I’d made darn sure the thing was snug this time.
“I think something’s upset your cat.” Lilac’s eyebrows, than
kfully not green, rose as she watched Clarence’s paws slip and slide on her laminate flooring.
“He’s fine.” Though I did grip the leash tighter. “Thanks for your offer, but the voices I’m hearing are very real. I had a colleague verify the ghost’s presence.”
Clarence must have been mollified by my “colleague” reference, because he stopped pulling. A split second later, he was flopped on the ground and had assumed the pose of a serenely relaxed cat. That lasted just long enough for him to shoot me a taunting glance, then he kicked a back leg high in the air and started to clean all his parts.
Gritting my teeth, I turned back to the lovely and less-than-helpful Lilac. “There has to be a way to get rid of a ghost. Every pest has a weakness.”
Lilac narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t exactly call a spirit visiting from another plane of existence a pest.”
“And that tells me you’re not living with one.” I closed my eyes and did a quick mental reset. When I opened them, I smiled with as much warmth as I could muster. That used to work well with women—several decades ago, when I’d been human. “I’m sorry. I’m frustrated, and that’s not your fault. Do you have any recommendations for me?”
Her eyes went wide, and she stared for a few seconds. When she did finally blink, it looked like she was fighting her way through a dust storm.
Looked like I might have lost the knack for charming women. That or modern women found a little focused attention terrifying. I waited for her to get her bearings again.
