Jon's Spooky Corpse Conundrum

by A J Sherwood

  It was a good question, especially for him. He was still catching up on psychic history. I tilted my head to whisper back, “Psychics being used in an investigation didn’t really start until the 1960s, but even then they were considered to be an unnecessary expense half the time. And the other half, the detectives didn’t want to include them, seeing them as an intrusion. A ‘we can do our jobs without you, thank you very much’ kind of attitude. The metropolitan areas started using them first, and it was a slow movement up through the ’80s. It wasn’t until the ’90s that using psychics was widespread enough even small towns would occasionally call for help. Usually in kidnapping cases. Sevierville likely didn’t start using psychics until late ’90s. By that point, Jenny Cartwright’s case was long cold, and without something to spark an interest, no one would have thought to go back in and revive the investigation.”

  “Like now,” he murmured thoughtfully.

  I shrugged in agreement. We tackled cold cases as we came across them, but really, most cases turned cold because there was a lack of evidence and trail to begin with. And we struggled to keep track of the fresh crimes happening on a daily basis. We didn’t really have the time to investigate every cold case on record. It was the sad truth.

  Carol let out a hiss of triumph, her hands gravitating toward the second map on the table, the rough blueprint of the grounds of Wheatlands.

  “Distillery. Northern section, past the doors. She’s…up? Not in the ground, that much is clear.”

  Caleb came in through the front door at that moment and I half-turned to tell him over my shoulder, “Carol’s got a location. Vic is in the distillery barn, aboveground some place.”

  My father immediately turned on his heel and went right back out. “Chop, chop!”

  We were all on his heels. Partially out of curiosity, partially because we wanted answers and couldn’t get them until we had that body out in the open. I could see Donovan tense, though, as we moved. The atmosphere was likely to blame for his nerves. It was dark and chilly, and the wind rustled through the trees in a mournful sigh. It really was the perfect ambience for a spookem to leap out of the bushes. The fact Halloween was around the corner didn’t really help.

  The distillery sat towards the back of the house, some hundred yards away. Caleb deviated for the ERV to pull a bag of tools free before hurrying to catch up with us. Garrett beat us all there, snapping on gloves as he went in. “Whoa, it’s dark. There a working switch in here somewhere?”

  “Doesn’t look that way,” Sharon denied, hunting for a light switch near the doors. “Sho, you got any—”

  He handed over a miniature flashlight the size of her finger with a sardonic look on his face.

  “How come you’re always prepared like this?” Sharon asked, amused, as she accepted the flashlight.

  “An 1800s barn in the country. Why would you expect electricity in here is my question,” he sassed back. “Anyone else need one? I’ve got three.”

  Hands shot up and Sho passed them out, lights immediately snapping on. Since I couldn’t handle one, I hovered at Donovan’s elbow, using his light as we squeezed inside. If I’d planned ahead, I’ve have one of those snap lights on hand. But I was currently out, damn the luck.

  The distillery was cramped and dusty, with spiderwebs so large they could swallow small children. The corners were insanely dark, inky black—like portals to another world. Ladders reached up to a loft hanging over our heads, and the floorboards creaked alarmingly under our weight as we walked over them. Giant metal cisterns lined the back walls, large enough that even Donovan could have fit inside and have wiggle room. They were probably copper, but under all the neglect and dust it was hard to tell. What with the half-rotten barrels on racks and the cisterns, it left us with very narrow walkways. Donovan’s shoulder brushed one of the cisterns’ rounded center sections and it slid a good three inches, upsetting the narrow pipe jutting out of the top. He carefully slid it back before it could topple the whole thing like a bad Jenga block tower.

  Nothing about this place suggested use since the late 1800s, and my confusion mounted. “I thought this place was renovated in 1976?”

  “It was supposed to be,” Sho answered from somewhere over…there. “It was part of the contention, I understand. The plan of the owner was to get this place up and running, use it as a distillery and an attraction. But the city shut him down. Said it would violate health codes unless he chose to gut the place and start from scratch. It proved to be too expensive so they left it alone.”

  Interesting.

  Carol went ahead of us and pointed to an area directly ahead, right between two of the cisterns. “Somewhere around here. Not below the cisterns’ level.”

  “Up in the loft area, maybe?” Neil reached for the wooden ladder, pulling it down from the pulley system, where it rested with a protesting groan.

  Garrett appeared out of nowhere, stilling his hand. “Uh, Detective? Maybe someone light should go up? Just in case.”

  Neil eyed him sideways. His lines sparked, partly in amusement, but insult as well. “Just what are you trying to say?”

  “That your husband is a good cook, sir,” Garrett deadpanned.

  Caleb snickered in the background. “Stop it, Garrett, he’s not fat.”

  Garrett grinned irrepressibly. “I’m messing with you. But I’m shorter and smaller. Let’s put as little weight on those boards as possible.”

  Neil’s expression promised retribution later, but he stepped aside with an elegant wave of the hand. Garrett did so without hesitation, although I noted he moved carefully, testing each rung of the ladder before ascending. When he reached the top and started venturing inwards, we all held our breath as the floorboards of the loft groaned and bowed under the strain of his weight. It really did sound like he was going to fall through at any second.

  As if my thoughts made it happen, his foot punched through the rotten wood, the splinter loud and heart-stopping. My heart leapt into my throat.

  “Whoops!” Garrett said, as if not at all alarmed. “Okay, that’s obviously a no-go zone.”

  Sho was halfway up the ladder before anyone could think to stop him. “Dammit, Wilson. It’s clearly not safe up there.”

  “No, really, it’s mostly safe. Just that one spot,” Garrett called back.

  I could see the fear in Sho, beating like it had its own drum. The affection rising so fast he nearly choked on it. The need for Garrett to be safely back on the ground. I watched Sho’s lines and his body language and felt my own eyebrows raise in surprise. Oh-hoo. Really, now.

  Our IT wizard didn’t like that answer and his voice went flat. “Garrett….”

  Garrett grumbled, but we could hear his footsteps retreat to the ladder. “You are such a worry-wart. Worse than a mother cat with her first litter of kittens. I was safe enough.”

  “You’re giving me grey hairs,” Sho shot back. “Boots on the ground, Wilson.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Donovan gave a soft ‘huh’ of surprise. I knew why. Garrett was a risk-taker. He rarely ever backed down from anything. That he would so easily heed Sho’s words was very telling in and of itself. And that didn’t even include what I could read from them.

  Yes, this was all very, very interesting.

  Also distracting. I was supposed to be looking for a body. “Garrett, did you see anything up there?”

  “It was surprisingly clean,” he answered, as he hopped off the ladder with a light thud. “The tops of the cisterns poke up there. Bet that’s what the loft space was for—to access the tops.”

  “But the middle section slides over,” Donovan said in confusion.

  “I wouldn’t think so; it’s riveted in place,” Dad observed, pointing to the nearest one.

  True, the cisterns were in three pieces, each section neatly riveted to the next. But Donovan really had moved the middle section accidentally not two minutes ago…. I think the implications all hit us at the same time. Everyone turned to Donova
n hopefully.

  He immediately backtracked four steps to the one he’d brushed up against and shifted it again, this time more than two inches, although carefully to avoid the top stack toppling. It would hurt like hell if it landed on one of us. He shined his flashlight inside it and grunted in satisfaction. “Yeah, that’s a corpse alright. Hard to tell male or female in that condition, though.”

  “She’s been there for forty-something years,” Caleb pointed out. “You’d be in rough shape too. Alright, gents, let’s carefully lever these top parts off. Wear gloves, please. Long shot, but maybe we’ll get lucky with fingerprints. It’s going to be some work getting her free, but let’s capture the situation as best we can.”

  Sho immediately volunteered, “I’ll get some more lights in here and the camera. Sharon, Carol, help me?”

  “Sure,” Carol agreed, heading for the door.

  I couldn’t really help much during this process. Turning to Neil, who stood nearby, I asked, “Since we found her, can we re-open the case as a murder investigation?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call the Cap and explain what’s going on.” Neil rubbed a tired hand across the nape of his neck. “And if memory serves, she’s got a brother and a mother still alive. I’ll need to go in and notify them. Not looking forward to that.”

  Ouch. Yeah. Even forty-three years later, I’m sure the family wouldn’t take the news well. They must have known their daughter couldn’t be alive after all this time, but…still. Telling someone a loved one was dead never went over well. “Neil, it’s a bit of a stretch, but there’s a possibility her family knew something and just didn’t say. Do you want me to go with you? Maybe ask a few questions?”

  “Can’t hurt. We’ll need to go easy this visit anyway.” Neil’s eyes sharpened on my face, penetrating. “Still think Stephenson had nothing to do with Witherspoon’s murder?”

  “Verdict’s still out on that one.”

  14

  It was unpleasant, drawing a dead girl’s corpse out of a rusty cistern. With grim determination I helped Caleb do it. The angle was too awkward for any single person to manage it. Carol and Sharon both ran for the hills when we got to that part. I was surprised they’d stuck around as long as they had, really. Once the body was out, Sho and Garrett packed away the camera and left as well, leaving just the two of us to load the body into the car.

  As Caleb zipped up the black body bag, he shot me a questioning look. “I’d have thought you’d have gone with Neil and Jon to do that death notification.”

  “I figured they needed some one-on-one time,” I answered half-truthfully. Jon was still finding his footing with both of his fathers, so giving them some space without being a third wheel was a good idea. It was also a test for me, to see how well I handled it when Jon worked alongside someone else. If his safety was up to someone else, someone I could more or less trust to keep him safe, how did I react? The answer? Not well. Damn my hyperactive protective instincts.

  Something of that showed on my face as Caleb propped his hands against the gurney’s side rail and assured me in gentle, amused tones, “They’ll be fine, Don. It’s an eighty-year-old woman and her sixty-year-old son. I think Neil can take ’em, if it comes down to it.”

  “I know.” I did know. In my head. It was the rest of me protesting.

  “You know, but you still feel like ants are crawling under your skin?”

  That was a little too accurate. I grunted and tried to shelve this question by pulling the gurney toward the ERV.

  Caleb, of course, wouldn’t let it go. He levered the other side of the gurney into the vehicle and closed the doors. “I think it’s natural for an anchor to be uneasy when their psychic is on the job without them.”

  Did I want to admit this? I eyed him sideways and found myself disclosing something I hadn’t wanted to examine too closely, even in my head. “It’s only partly that. It’s mostly me. I have a very hard time letting Jon out of my sight. Your son, if you haven’t noticed, has a strong independent streak. He’s…stubborn about certain things. I try not to smother him or make him feel useless, but it’s a constant war between my instincts and his pride.”

  Unlike the others who teased me for being overprotective, Caleb didn’t just laugh this off. He looked up at me steadily. “From your account, Jon’s routinely attacked. I’m sure that puts you on edge, makes it hard for you to relax. It only makes sense to me you would find it difficult for him to be out of sight.”

  Yes. Yes, that was it exactly. I felt my tension relax a notch at his understanding. “That’s it. But it’s hard for me to explain this to him. For Jon, he knows the instant there’s danger. He can read it, the potential for violence, before it actually starts. Well, most of the time. Sometimes he’s ambushed. But you get what I’m saying, right?”

  “He gets a head’s up.” Caleb filled in the missing blanks smoothly. “But you don’t. You don’t know if you’re in a combat situation until something happens.”

  I shrugged. That pretty much summed it up. “We’ve got hand signals he uses, and that helps. Which is why I don’t complain to him about this, because it really won’t do any good. I need to adjust.”

  Caleb’s expression didn’t give any hint of how he felt about this. “But he surely read from you that you weren’t entirely comfortable with it.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he did. But he doesn’t call me out on everything, especially when we both know I’m being unreasonable.” I felt the distinct need to change the subject. “You’re going straight to your morgue, I take it?”

  “That’s the plan. I’ll need a good hour to put her away. It’ll take a close examination to figure out how she died. Nothing popped out at me while we were moving her, which likely means the death blow involved soft tissue. We’ll see what I come up with. I’ve got steaks thawing in the fridge, if you want to start the grill for me when you get back to the house?”

  “Sure, I can do that.” I’d stop by the store first and pick up a few ingredients. I felt a hankering for some dessert.

  He waved me off and I headed for Neil’s truck, which he’d left behind so they could take Jon’s Humvee for the death notification. As I did so, I caught a movement from the corner of my eye. I turned sharply, hand settling on the gun on my belt. In this pitch darkness, I couldn’t determine exactly what I’d seen. My adrenaline spiked, my senses reaching for any hint of another person in this vicinity. I heard the rustling of some bushes, but that could just as easily have been a cat or a racoon.

  Dammit, I really hated this house. Knowing my luck, it was a ghost, and here I sat without my ghost detector. Swallowing hard, I deliberately stood there with my flashlight still in hand. There was no streetlight nearby to illuminate the area, and the house, of course, was dark. It just gave me the willies.

  Nothing else moved that I could tell, and finally I’d had enough of being out in the open. I opened the door with my eyes still on the woods. Sliding behind the wheel, I had to lever the seat back as far as it would go to accommodate my longer legs. I started to put it in reverse when my mother called. I absolutely didn’t want to sit here any longer, so I put a Bluetooth earpiece in so I could speak with her and drive. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Don, you have a minute?”

  “Sure, what’s up?” Something clearly was.

  “I’m worried about Lauren. Skylar’s texted me several times, asking for recipes. Her grandmother doesn’t really want to eat.”

  Oh hell. Granted, it’d only been less than two days, but still. Not a good sign. “Depression or…?”

  “I think it’s a mix of things. She’s depressed about everything that’s happened, but she’s also struggling, I think. After so many years of having an anchor, it must be difficult to go solo again. I remember what it was like for Jon, when we first met him, and how he reacted to things. Her family’s clearly worried about her. What can I do to help?”

  “Getting her to eat is a good first step.” I was so glad she’d called me about this. “She’s bo
und to go through a period of depression. The divorce alone will guarantee that.”

  “Wait, she’s divorcing him too?”

  “Yeah. She’s cutting him out of her life entirely.”

  “Oh dear. Even though it was entirely her choice, I can see how all of this would impact her spirits.”

  I could hear it in my mother’s voice. It was easy to recognize after a lifetime of knowing her. She had decided Something Should Be Done. When Mom got into this mode, come hell or highwater, she was going to find and apply a solution. Mountains moved when she decided on her course. Frankly, I couldn’t think of a better thing in the world than to sic my mother on Lauren.

  “Mom, here’s my take on things. Lauren is a good person who’s been badly manipulated for over forty years. She’s reeling from that and could really use a friend, someone who will support and listen to her without making judgements.”

  “A friend who will make sure she eats. It can’t be helping, trying to untangle everything with low blood sugar. Don’t you worry, Don. I’ll step in and help with this situation. You give me her phone number and address.”

  Operation Fix Things would now commence. “She’s staying with Natalie, her daughter, last I heard. But sure, I can give you the phone number and address. I’ll text it to you.”

  “Good. How are things going over there?”

  “Well, things have taken a bit of a strange turn.” I paused at the stop sign to punch my destination into my phone. It meant propping my cellphone into the cup holder so I could also use the GPS to find the nearest grocery store.

  She listened attentively and only asked questions when I finished. “And you don’t know how that poor girl was killed?”

  “Caleb wasn’t sure. Said it would take a closer examination than the cursory one he could do on scene.”

  “And how is Jon with his father? Both fathers, I should say.”

  “They’re still finding their footing with each other, but it’s going pretty well. He hasn’t even hinted that he wants to move over to the hotel, and whenever my back is turned, he’s cozied up in conversation with one of them. I think he’s happy. Honestly, I’m relieved. A huge hole in him was filled when he finally reconnected with Caleb. As hard as this has been on Lauren, the rest of the family’s been ecstatic.”