As soon as I took the artifact, Beau reverted to ghost form, but he was even more solid than Howie. For the first time since I met him, Beau stood before us in full, albeit faded, color.
“Oh. Not good,” Tori said. “Not good at all.”
“Not necessarily,” Beau said. “I would still stand a far greater chance of passing casual human inspection than Howard.”
That’s when I put my foot down.
“No,” I said. “You’re not giving him the amulet, and that’s final.”
My stubborn stance confused Beau, but Tori realized where I was coming from immediately. If I couldn’t have Myrtle in my life, I would have Beau, and I would not risk his corporeal existence for the likes of Howard McAlpin.
As a ghost, Howie rated somewhere on the scale between bumbling idiot and outright moron, but in the world of the living? He elevated corrupt, small-town politics to an art form.
“Beau,” Tori said softly, “put the amulet back on. Jinksy can’t take you being all self-sacrificing.”
When he took the amulet from me and returned to what we now considered “normal,” Beau put his hand on my shoulder. I covered it with my own.
“Sorry,” I said. “Your idea probably would have worked, but you’re just too important to me, Beau. We have to find another way.”
“I understand,” Beau said, “and I am deeply touched.”
During this whole conversation, Howard had been ignoring us completely. He’s never shown much of an attention span for any topic but himself. As we watched, he flipped through the pages of the living mayor’s notebook.
“This guy is a weakling,” Howie grumped. “I would never have let the city council get away with trying to tell me what to do.”
“Isn’t it the city council’s job to tell the mayor what to do?” I asked.
“Not in my administration, it wasn’t,” Howie declared. “As soon as the so-called mayor gets here tomorrow, I’m having a talk with him.”
“Don’t get used to being like this, Howie,” I warned. “We’re going to find a way to put you back.”
“Oh, right,” the mayor snapped. “Mr. I-Fought-in-the-Civil-War gets to be solid, but I’m supposed to wander around like half a mannequin for the rest of my afterlife? I don’t think so. And stop calling me ‘Howie.’”
“I’ll call you anything I want, Howie,” I snapped. “And if you keep giving me lip, I’ll see to it you don’t have an afterlife.”
“You can’t do that,” he blustered, but I heard the note of doubt in his voice and used it.
“Do you really want to find out?” I asked, raising my hands to give him the impression I was about to zap him with some kind of super witch magic.
You’d be surprised how fast a politician can issue a retraction when he’s faced with potential oblivion.
“Now, now,” Howie said, pushing the desk chair back until it hit the wall. “There’s no need to overreact. We’re merely exploring options here.”
“You haven’t seen me overreact,” I said. “Now shut up while we figure out what to do with you.”
Since I had firmly ruled out using the amulet, a disguise seemed like the best option. Tori went off scavenging and came back with a jumpsuit and cap she found in a custodian’s closet.
“I am not putting that filthy thing on,” Howard said.
“Yes, you are,” I shot back, raising my hands again. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”
Even though I heard him mutter something about witches waking up on the wrong side of the broom, Howie took the jumpsuit and put it on. To our great relief, it stayed on.
“I don’t get it,” Tori said. “How can he still walk through walls, but manage to wear clothes?”
Neither Beau nor I had an answer, and we didn’t have time to worry about it.
“Put the hat on,” I said, “and let’s get out of here.”
Howie jammed the purloined cap on his head. “Do I look as ridiculous as I feel?” he groused.
“Turn your collar up,” I said. “We need to hide as much of your face as possible.”
Even when he did as he was told, Howie still glowed in the dark.
“Keep your hands in your pockets,” I ordered. “And keep your head down.”
We took the stairs at the end of the building opposite the Confederate monument. Linda and the tour participants — at least the ones we could see — were still gathered there.
Once outside the door, we stood in the shadows long enough to surveil that side of the square and then we made a break for it, sprinting across the lawn and diving behind the dumpster left over from the dance.
“Did anybody see us?” I whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Tori said, “but I vote for taking the alleys around to the back of the shop.”
That route took longer, but we managed to get behind our building undetected. Unfortunately, when I peeked in the back door, the espresso bar was full of hyper-excited ghost hunters.
Good for business. Bad for stealth.
“Now what?” I asked.
Tori pointed up. The lights were on in Chase’s apartment. Going through his place to get to the lair was the only answer.
I took out my cell phone and dialed Chase’s number. He answered with a cautious, “Hi.”
As briefly as I could, I outlined what we were dealing with.
“I’ll be right down to let you in,” he said.
In seconds the back door opened and we all filed into the cobbler shop.
Howie instantly tossed the cap to one side and peeled off the jumpsuit, making a show of brushing himself off like he’d been exposed to some deadly contagion.
“Wow,” Chase said, “you weren’t kidding. He’s actually knocking dust off his sleeves.”
“Yeah,” I said. “His Honor is way too solid for my tastes. Where’s Festus?”
“The Dirty Claw,” Chase said. “He’s meeting with Merle, Earl, and Furl.”
“Red Dot?” I asked.
“No,” Chase replied. “He’s trying to find out if the Registry has any information on Seraphina and Ioana . . . ”
He paused, a look of panic coming into his eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you asked Ironweed to put a GNATS unit on the lumberyard. Thank you. If Greer hadn’t gotten there, I don’t know what would have happened to Tori’s father.”
Still looking guarded, Chase asked, “You’re not mad at me?”
“No,” I said. “I’m grateful. Truly.”
Chase let out the breath he’d been holding. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I’m glad Scrap is okay. Just as soon as Dad gets back, we’ll let you know what he found out.”
His cautious manner melted away the lingering traces of my anger. I’d made my point. It was time to let Chase in out of the cold.
“Why don’t you just come hang out in the lair?” I suggested. “It’s easier when you’re in the middle of things with the rest of us.”
The poor man looked so relieved, I felt genuinely sorry for what he’d been through over the last couple of days, no matter how well deserved.
“I’d like that,” Chase said. “I’ve missed . . . being in the middle of things.”
When he smiled at me, I answered him with one of my own. Behind Chase’s back, Tori gave me the thumbs up. As we followed Chase down to the basement, she leaned toward me and said, “Looking better on that Miss Congeniality thing there, Jinksy.”
“Zip it,” I ordered, but I was grinning when I said it.
As I descended the first few steps, the familiar sense of passing into the In Between came over me. We found ourselves in a long corridor, which opened into the stacks in our basement just a few feet away from the lair.
“Sit down, Mr. Mayor,” I said as we walked into the room, “and don’t get into any trouble.”
Beau went immediately to the shelves and started pulling down volumes. “I will endeavor to find an explanation for Howard’s new found solidity,” he said, “but
Barnaby and Moira may have to be consulted.”
“Let’s put that off until we can talk to Greer and Lucas,” I said. “Barnaby and Moira have their hands full with the merfolk migration. We can keep Howie stashed down here out of sight.”
That elicited more protest from the mayor. “What am I supposed to do to entertain myself while you people play with magic?” he asked.
“How do you entertain yourself at the courthouse?” I asked.
“I spend the days collecting data,” he said haughtily.
“Meaning?”
“Attending meetings, listening to private conversations, reading correspondence. . .”
“Snooping,” I said. “We’ll put a soap opera on for you to watch. Now hush.”
Chase, who had been quiet the whole time, said, “I’ll watch him. You play cards, Howie?”
The mayor’s eyes lit up. “For money?”
Apparently, Howie never heard “shrouds have no pockets” or even “you can’t take it with you.”
“Sure,” Chase said. “Do you have any money?”
“Uh, no,” Howie said, “but if you’ll spot me, I’m good for it.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “No problem. Five card stud, penny ante.”
Howie made a face. “Can’t we take the stakes a little higher?”
“We cannot,” Chase said, opening one of the desk drawers and taking out a deck of cards. He pitched them at Howie who caught the box in mid-air. “But I’ll let you deal.”
I caught Chase’s eye and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he mouthed back.
Tori and I left Chase and Beau in charge of our reluctant guest and went upstairs. The moms hid their surprise when we came through the basement door. Even though it was almost midnight, the espresso bar was full of patrons engaged in lively discussion.
“How’d you get in the basement?” Mom asked when Tori and I stepped behind the bar.
“Through the cobbler shop,” I answered. “We have a visitor we need to keep incognito.”
“Who?” Mom asked.
“The late mayor all these people just saw over at the courthouse,” I said. “He’s having a little trouble controlling his manifestation.”
“How much trouble?” Gemma asked.
“He’s sitting downstairs dealing cards with Chase right now,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “He can touch the cards?”
“Oh,” Tori said, “it’s better than that. He touched one of the people on the ghost tour.”
Before we could explain more, the front door of the shop burst open, and the two guys from the Bigfoot hunting group who bought the t-shirts from me came charging in.
“We’ve got ghosts on video,” one of them yelled. “They’re playing baseball! We’ve already uploaded it to YouTube. Y’all have got to see this.”
A dozen people whipped out iPhones while others crowded around the laptop the second guy opened and put down on one of the tables. The four of us pushed through the crowd to get a better view of the screen.
The clip was about 90 seconds in duration. It showed the baseball diamond at Briar Hollow High. Both teams from the cemetery were engaged in a game, with Hiram on the mound and one of the gingham grannies at bat.
Every single one of the spirits was fully formed and clearly visible. Hiram let loose with a fastball. The granny’s bat connected. She hitched up her skirts and ran for first base. One of the infielders sent the ball sailing to the third baseman, who launched it toward Duke in hopes of tagging the hairdresser out as she trotted toward home.
As we watched, she looked up, realized they were being filmed, and let out with a scream. Duke whirled, spotted the cameraman, bared his teeth and charged. The image started to wobble. One of the boys screamed, “Run, run!” Then everything went black.
The espresso bar fell completely silent, then a lone voice said, “Why’d you stop filming?”
“Wouldn’t you?” the guy gasped. “That hellhound charged right at us! He was like the freaking Hound of the Baskervilles or something.”
At that, the shop erupted.
Tori leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Status revision, Jinksy.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered back.”
“Houston,” she said, “we have a big problem.”
22
Although I didn’t stick around for the whole thing, Tori later described the Monday morning follow-up committee meeting as “tripping.” George and Irma pounded on the front door before 7 a.m. and started babbling excitedly the instant I let them in.
“Can you believe how many people we had this weekend?” Irma enthused. “And what happened at the courthouse last night?! How did we get so lucky? I never thought Howard McAlpin was much of a mayor, but he certainly came through for us this time. And now the YouTube video! I swear, the deceased citizens of this town are showing exceptional civic pride. I just know they’ve come back from the other side to help us.”
Before I could answer, Linda charged through the door. “We’ve had so many viewers, the festival website just crashed,” she announced enthusiastically. “Isn’t that fantastic?!”
“Uh, Linda,” Tori said, “‘crashed’ is a bad thing.”
“Not when the ghost baseball video has had more than a million views on YouTube,” she said proudly. “We’re a virus.”
Smothering a grin, Tori said, “I think you mean ‘gone viral.’”
“Viral. Bacterial. Who cares?” Linda said. “The point is, everyone is talking about Briar Hollow!”
So much for damage control.
“There’s not a hotel room to be had in town,” Linda went on. “All the ones in Cotterville are booked, too. Ghost hunters are pouring in from all over the state. Maybe the country! I think we need to revise the festival agenda and have a gathering every night on the courthouse square between now and Halloween.”
“That’s a wonderful idea!” Irma said, opening her bulging portfolio. “Let’s see what we can pull together.”
As other committee members came in and joined the planning, Tori and I quietly retreated to the back of the shop. “We have to get control of this situation,” I said, “and make sure no more videos go up on YouTube.”
Tori took out her iPhone and found the incriminating footage. She scrolled through the comments with her thumb. “It may not be quite as bad as we think,” she said. “The skeptics are betting even money the whole thing is a fraud.”
From somewhere near my knee, a quiet voice said, “Mistress, the Red Headed Woman has returned.”
I almost jumped out of my skin. While I appreciated Darby using his powers of invisibility, the lack of an early warning system was going to result in me having a heart attack one of these days.
“Thank you, Darby,” I whispered. “Tell her I’ll be right down.”
Tori looked out at the committee. “Sooner or later Irma will notice if we’re both gone,” she said, “especially since Chase and Beau aren’t here either.”
“Good point,” I said. “Why don’t you wade back in there? I’ll go down and send Chase up while I talk to Greer.”
“Oh joy,” Tori sighed. “I’ll try not to let them get too carried away.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I said, quietly easing the door to the basement open and slipping through.
Downstairs, I found Howard stretched out snoring on one of the sofas. Greer, Chase, Beau, and Festus were all sitting around the table, and Glory was literally jumping back and forth between two books on the desk.
“How are things upstairs?” Chase asked as I pulled out a chair for myself.
“Today is your lucky day,” I said, “because you get to find out for yourself. We can’t all ditch the meeting. Time for you to get up there.”
He groaned. “What have I missed so far?”
“They’re talking about having a gathering on the courthouse every night between now and Halloween,” I replied.
“You know,” he said though
tfully, “that could actually be a good thing for us. If the crowd is concentrated on the square, they’ll be easier to watch.”
“True,” I agreed, “but what do we do about stragglers like those two guys who shot the video? They were supposed to be going on the courthouse tour and decided to wander off on their own.”
“Actually,” Festus said, “that’s what we’ve been talking about. What would you think about asking Ironweed to put more GNATS units in town? He can pipe the video feed into our tablets so we can keep an eye on people. We should have enough manpower for that.”
From the desk, Glory shouted through her megaphone. “Rodney and I can help with that,” she said. “Just put the picture on our drive-in movie screen.”
“Okay,” I said. “Surveillance is covered. No more excuses, Chase. Run along to the committee meeting now.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Run along?”
I made a shooing gesture with my hand. “Have fun.”
His footsteps on the stairs struck the cadence of a condemned man climbing the gallows.
After we heard the door open and close, I caught Festus looking at me as he lazily wagged his tail back and forth.”
“What?” I asked.
“Just glad you lightened up on the boy,” he said. “I’m tired of having to listen to him. Disrupted my nap time.”
“All 23.5 hours of it?” I asked.
Festus raised one paw and gave it a disdainful lick. “I’ll have you know I was awake a full 22 hours yesterday.”
“How grueling for you,” I said with mock sympathy. “Beau, have you made any progress on figuring out why the spirits are suddenly so much stronger?”
Just then, a gurgling snore emanated from the sofa.
“No,” he said, “nor have I been able to divine why Mayor McAlpin seems to be able to sleep — if you will pardon the pun — like the dead. I have spent most of my time on this earth in non-corporeal form and never experienced sleep. I believe I should pay a visit to my compatriots in the cemetery and ascertain the facts of the last 36 hours from their perspective.”
That confused me. The baseball game captured on the video happened right around midnight, now roughly 7.5 hours ago.
Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels) Page 17
