A Literary Scandal

by Libby Howard

  Chapter 2

  “Knock over the wine and you’re finished,” I hissed at the shadow.

  I didn’t usually try to communicate with the spirits I saw in my peripheral vision, but Holt was proving to be a pain in the butt. From the first time he’d shown up in my kitchen after his death, he’d been knocking potatoes off my counter, pushing silverware off tables, and even overturning Taco’s food bowl.

  That last one he’d only done once. My cat normally avoided the ghosts, but no one messed with his food and lived to tell the tale. There had been a lot of hissing, upraised fur, and swatting at the shadow that night. Afterward, I noticed Holt’s ghost gave my cat a wide berth.

  I only wished he’d do the same to me—as in go haunt some other house and some other person. Poltergeist aside, I didn’t want him around. Eli’s spirit was a comforting presence. Holt’s constantly reminded me of how a young life could be cut short, and about the girl who was waiting in juvenile court while her lawyer struggled to cut a plea deal. I felt sorry for her. I felt sorry for Holt. And watching a glass wobble on the table, I felt sorry for me.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” The glass toppled on its side and I caught it before it rolled off the table. “Leave the breakables alone, if you please, or I’ll be forced to bring Taco out of the house and sic him on you.”

  I shot a sideways glare at the ghost and moved over to where Daisy and Will were arguing over the chances of the local high school varsity football team making it to state this year. Hopefully Holt would follow me. Hopefully he’d dig the conversation about his favorite sport and follow Will home.

  The dancing fairy statue at the bottom of my stairs teetered, then fell into the dirt. Seconds later, my mailbox door opened then shut with a snap. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten, but when I opened them, I saw Holt’s spirit kicking pebbles against the tires of Judge Beck’s SUV.

  I left Daisy and Will to their discussion and sidled up to Olive. “Can I ask your professional opinion on something?”

  She grinned. “Accounting? Or the other profession?”

  Olive was a friend of Daisy’s, an accounting director at a local land developer, and a medium. She’d helped me contact Mabel Stevens’ ghost back when the woman had been haunting my antique sideboard. Our interactions since then had been only social, but once again, I needed her help.

  “You know I see ghosts, right? Not just the one who’d attached herself to my sideboard, but other ones. Murder victims. They tend to go away once their body is discovered or someone is arrested for killing them. Well, most of them anyway.”

  She nodded. “But you have a few who are sticking around? Not all spirits remain among the living for closure. Some have other motivations.”

  I grimaced. “I don’t mind Mr. Peter across the street. He keeps to himself and I really don’t see him all that often. When I do, he’s usually puttering around in the yard or hanging out on his front porch.”

  “He’s attached to his home, it seems.” Olive took a sip of her wine. “Those sorts of ghosts are here for the long haul. They do eventually move on, but it could be after hundreds of years.”

  My jaw dropped open. “Hundreds? I mean, I’m sure there are ghosts from Civil War battles still around, but do many stay for hundreds of years?”

  She nodded. “Not so many around here, but in Europe there are some ghosts that have stuck it out for seven, eight hundred years. It depends on what they’ve attached themselves to and the circumstances of their death. Ones that haunt a house or castle can still be milling about even when it’s in ruins. Usually if the building is completely demolished, they leave, though. Others that died on a battlefield can be there for a very long time. They’re attached to the spot they died. Those are usually the ones who had a traumatic death. The house-haunting ones usually tend to be protecting their home, or just unwilling to leave their lives.”

  “I don’t know why this one attached itself to me,” I grumbled. “He’s driving me crazy.”

  “Which one?” Olive patted me on the shoulder. “You’ve got two spirits here, you know.”

  The one I’d come to think of as Eli could stay. Holt needed to go.

  “The young one,” I told her. “He’s knocking stuff over and making a pest of himself. I’m positive it’s Holt Dupree’s ghost, and I don’t understand why he’s bothering me like this. I didn’t know him personally, and someone’s already confessed to his murder and is in juvie.”

  Peony. Yes, she was a minor. No, nobody was supposed to know the name of a minor being charged with a crime, but Locust Point was a small town and gossip spread like wildfire. Everyone knew exactly who was responsible for our local celebrity’s death.

  “Maybe there’s other folks that contributed to his death that need to be brought to light?”

  I shook my head. “They arrested Buck Stanford for the car tampering. Does Holt need everyone who double-parked in his space to pay for their crimes before he leaves or something? Because that’s not really my responsibility, you know.”

  She chuckled. “That, or he’s staying around because he just doesn’t want to leave.”

  “But why me?” I pressed. “Why not haunt the spot in the road where he went into the ditch? Or his mother’s house? Or Violet Smith?”

  Not that I really wanted poor Violet to have a poltergeist hanging around, but it would make more sense for Holt to be attached to the love of his life rather than some sixty-year-old, widowed, skip tracer who he’d probably only met once in passing.

  “Maybe he thinks you’re interesting.” Olive shrugged. “You did find out all the details of his murder, including that his car was tampered with. You did get that girl to confess.”

  “So he’s now a ghostly amateur sleuth?” I took a gulp of my wine, not pleased at the idea of his shadowy form dogging my heels as I went about my work. “Is there any way I can get rid of him, Olive? Can I bury garlic around the perimeter of my house or something?”

  She laughed. “He’s not a vampire.”

  “Seriously. Is there some way to convince him to head toward the light? Or at the very least, head toward some other section of town—preferably one I don’t frequent?”

  “I can’t force a spirit to leave this plane of existence and I’m not the right sort of medium to ward against ghosts. You’d need someone who could smudge your house or make you an amulet of protection. Something like that.”

  I wrinkled my nose, not really liking those ideas. Daisy did the smudging thing, but I think that was more to align the energies or something. Plus, I didn’t want Eli’s ghost to leave, just Holt’s, so that ruled out the smudge-against-ghosts idea. And an amulet…that was a bit too woo-woo for me.

  “I can talk to him for you,” Olive offered. “Most people I deal with want to connect with the spirits of their lost loved ones, but I occasionally help someone with a poltergeist case. Sometimes a ghost can be reasoned with.”

  “And convinced to leave?” I asked hopefully.

  She grinned. “Or at least convinced to confine their activities to the shed out back, or to leave the breakables alone. Sometimes you can make a deal. Lots of times the ghosts just want to have their story heard or be recognized as present.”

  I thought about Mabel, and how she’d wanted her story known. She’d stayed around to make sure someone found that letter and knew what happened to her lover and her sister, that someone knew the horrible bargain she’d made to keep her daughter safe.

  “Thanks, Olive. Anything you could do would be very much appreciated.”

  She clinked her wine glass with mine. “Tomorrow night then?”

  I had to pick up Luanne Trainor from the airport and get her settled in to the little bed and breakfast in downtown Milford where she was staying, but after that I wouldn’t have anything else on my schedule until the following day.

  Oh, no. Judge Beck and the movie. I’d feel terrible canceling on him when I’d just got him to agree to set the work aside for one night. But Olive was
doing me a favor here, and I really had to work around her schedule. The judge and I would have to push our movie night back to Sunday. Or maybe if we made it late on Friday, after Olive had left, we could have popcorn and bean dip and little sausage rolls. Sort of a late-night party.

  “Friday night is perfect,” I told Olive. “Nine o’clock?” Olive preferred to connect with the spirit world after dark, although she said she sometimes could communicate during daylight hours if a ghost was particularly motivated and cooperative.

  “Let’s make it ten, just to make sure the sun is down all the way.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “It’s a date.” Now I just had to think about how I was going to keep Judge Beck out of the house, or safely confined in his bedroom. It would be horribly awkward if I had to explain a séance to my roommate.

  Everyone finished their glass of wine and slowly headed back home until it was just me, a ghost, a tray full of dirty wine glasses, and an empty bottle on my porch. On Fridays the party tended to run a little longer, but today was Thursday, and everyone had to be at work in the morning. I waved the last few neighbors goodbye and turned to pick up the tray of glasses.

  The empty wine bottle tilted over and rolled off the table onto the wooden deck of my porch. Luckily the glass was thick and it didn’t break. I stooped down to pick it up and tucked it under my arm as I grabbed the tray and headed for the front door.

  “Stay outside,” I told the ghost. “I’ve had enough of you tonight.”

  The shadow edged in beside me, and I knew that no matter how quickly I shut the door, he’d just pass through it and into my house. If only he were a vampire that had to be invited inside instead of a ghost.

  Balancing the tray of glasses on one hand, I edged through the narrow door. Taco raced from the kitchen toward me. Sadly, the cat wasn’t rushing to jump into my arms in a loving expression of joy at my appearance but trying to get between my legs and out the door before I managed to shut it.

  I’d gotten quite good at closing the door before the cat escaped, but I knew it was just a matter of time before he squeezed through the opening. My cat was no longer confined inside, although no one would know it from his plaintive meows and the sad way he’d paw at the door. I’d taken to letting him outdoors in the enclosed cat run when I was doing yoga with Daisy, then bringing him back inside for his breakfast. I was considering doing the same thing in the evenings, giving the cat a few hours to get some fresh air. I felt guilty about not letting him roam the neighborhood, but I knew I’d still be worried sick the whole time he was out. At least with the cat run I didn’t feel like I was keeping the poor thing prisoner inside my house.

  Taco skidded to a halt in front of me, giving me the stink eye before turning his attention to something just behind my left shoulder. I felt a chill run through me. My cat hissed and arched his back. The chill vanished.

  “Good boy,” I told my cat, thrilled that he’d managed to scare Holt’s ghost off, at least for now. For his reward, I led him into the kitchen and gave him a couple of the fishy-smelling treats I’d picked up on my last grocery shopping trip. Yes, Taco was fat. Yes, I was enabling him. I liked to consider it a training measure. Scare off Holt’s ghost, get a fish treat.

  Yanking two plates from the cupboard, I took the lid off the Crock-Pot, my mouth watering as the smell of chicken with the creamy mushroom sauce. Spooning rice onto the plates from the warmer, I ladled the chicken and sauce on top, grabbed two sets of silverware, and headed into the dining room. Judge Beck was there, as usual, papers spread everywhere.

  “Dinner,” I announced, carefully moving some of the papers then sliding a plate over toward him. “You can’t set legal precedents on an empty stomach.”

  “It’s less about setting it and more about finding it,” he complained. With a huff of exasperation, he moved a stack of papers safely away from the plate and dug in. I sat down opposite him and did the same. For the next five minutes the only sounds were the scrapes of forks on plates and the occasional sigh of contentment. I eyed some of the papers upside-down and got an eye full of legalese.

  “The kids come a week from Sunday,” I broke the silence. “We should do something fun. Family movie night and pizza? A neighborhood party, or something that’s just us? I can make a welcome-back cake and we can just chill.”

  “Chill and listen to them tell us all about the amazing cruise to the Bahamas they were on with their mom. Then they’ll accidently let slip that Tyler was with them, and there will be a horrible awkward silence.”

  I wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so I just shoved more chicken and rice into my mouth.

  “I’m jealous.” Judge Beck looked over at me with a wry smile. “Heather’s living in our home while I’m renting a room in a house. She’s taking the kids on a cruise while I barely have enough money to take them out for ice cream—not that I can take the time off work to go on vacation anyway. It’s bad enough that Tyler has taken my place with my wife. Now he’s stepped into my shoes with my kids.”

  It was the last that bothered him the most, I knew. “Madison and Henry love you. No one can ever take your place in their hearts. And, honestly, they’re probably feeling a bit angry at their mother for all this. In their minds, she’s ousted you from their home and is trying to replace you with some other guy. They’re not going to fall for that.”

  He sighed. “A Bahamas cruise may change their mind. And as much as I’d like to shove pins in a voodoo doll of Tyler, he’s a nice guy. He’s fun and easygoing and, unlike me, doesn’t have a job where his workload eats up fourteen hours a day.”

  “He’s not their father. And he never will be,” I countered.

  He shook his head. “I’ll never get used to this. Not seeing my kids half the month, having them off on vacation without me. Having to celebrate their birthdays a week late because Heather has them that week and having me over for their actual birthday would be too ‘awkward,’ according to her.”

  Madison’s birthday had fallen during this week, and the judge hadn’t even been able to call her because they were out in the middle of the ocean. I felt for him. Really, I did.

  “Could be worse, I guess.” He pushed the empty plate aside. “Violet Smith called me last week wanting to see if I could exert some influence and get the folks at juvie to bend the rules so she could bring a cake and presents in for Peony’s birthday.”

  I winced, remembering the girl was spending her sixteenth birthday in jail. If things didn’t go well with her sentencing, she’d be spending a whole lot more than just the one birthday in jail, too.

  “Did you? I hate the thought of her not at least having a cake.”

  “Me too. I doubt that girl’s first fifteen birthdays were all that special, but to be in jail…” He sighed. “Rules are rules. No outside food. No gifts. Not even any outside reading material. Violet visits her regularly, so that was the girl’s birthday present. Me moaning over having to wait an extra week to give Madison her gift seems petty in comparison.”

  Judge Beck wasn’t overly fond of Peony, and he definitely wasn’t thrilled about his daughter’s friendship with a girl who he’d thought to be a bad influence even before she’d confessed to manslaughter, but in the last few weeks, I’d seen that he had a soft spot for all kids, even the ones who were paying for their crimes.

  “How is her case going?” I asked with a quick glance around to make sure Holt’s ghost hadn’t returned with this topic of conversation. “Are they any closer to a plea deal? Seems like it’s taking forever.”

  “It is taking forever. Holt’s mother is pushing for a maximum sentence.” Judge Beck slipped on his readers and pulled a stack of papers closer. “He was a high-profile figure locally, in the prime of his life with the promise of an illustrious career and future ahead of him. It doesn’t look good, Kay. There’s pressure to have her tried as an adult. There’s pressure to prosecute this as a second-degree, or even first-degree murder instead of manslaughter. This is a case where Manifest Injust
ice Sentencing might apply even if her attorney gets the manslaughter deal.”

  My breath lodged in my throat, solid like a boulder. “But you…you get to decide that, right? The judge decides the sentencing, right?”

  He looked up from his papers, peering over the reading glasses he’d finally become comfortable wearing around me. “It’s not my case, Kay. Judge Stevens is presiding. And I’m glad of that because I’m not sure I even could. I know her. She’s a friend of my daughter’s. And you were the one who brought her in to confess. I’m too involved to judge this case.”

  I nodded, all the light-hearted fun of the happy hour vanishing. Judge Beck was down because of his kids and the divorce, and now I was down because of a young girl I hardly knew. Yes, she’d done wrong, but wasn’t the goal of the justice system to rehabilitate and turn felons into contributing, law-abiding citizens? It was too disheartening to think that Peony might spend the rest of her childhood and most of her adult life in jail when killing someone wasn’t her intent, when there were other contributing factors. It just wasn’t fair.

  I hated when life wasn’t fair. And I was tired of having that fact rubbed in my face, from Eli’s accident, to the judge’s contentious divorce, to a young girl in jail.

  “I’ve got the dishes,” I said as I reached over to collect Judge Beck’s plate. “You work, and I’ll clean up here.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, already engrossed in his papers.

  I put away the leftovers and managed to get the plates into the dishwasher before Taco took the opportunity to do a little pre-cleaning of his own. That done, I headed upstairs, cat in my arms, figuring I’d call it an early night. Maybe I’d do a little knitting in bed.