by Eryn Scott
I’d just sat next to him, when Lois appeared on my other side, arms crossed.
“What?” she asked, her voice as clipped as her short kitten heels would’ve been on the concrete if she were alive.
“How about a trade?” I picked at a nail.
She studied me out of the corner of her eye. “For what?”
“You tell me what the fight was about between my grandma Helen and the doctor, and I’ll tell you how you can find a man who will finally treat you the way you deserve.”
The tendons in her neck tensed as she swallowed. “My husband was—”
“A jerk,” I said, holding her gaze. “And most likely the reason you’re dead.”
Jaw tensing, she looked down at her lap, telling me she knew he’d killed her. Even though Asher said ghosts didn’t remember the events that happened right around their death, Lois had been putting up with her husband for years, maybe even decades. She had to realize deep down that he’d done this to her.
Her unfinished business wasn’t bringing him to justice; he’d done that himself. Lois needed to prove to herself she was worth being treated like a person. And as much as she seemed to love and admire him, Doc Gallagher would never be that for her.
Lois gave a clipped nod. “And where do you suppose I find a man like the one you’re talking about?”
Meow jumped down off the bench to chase a fly. I leaned back and shoved my hands into my coat pockets, thinking about Max and how he’d smiled when he’d mentioned Lois. “He already exists. Well”—I tipped my head to one side—“exists in the same way you do. He’s a ghost. He’ll talk to you, listen, be a true companion.”
I had more to say, but listing out those attributes reminded me too much of Asher and his friendship, what he’d become to me over a matter of days. Missing him had grown into a palpable ache in my chest.
The way she wrung her hands in her lap made me sure I’d gotten her attention, so I pushed a little further.
“What did they fight about, Lois?” I asked. “I get that they butted heads back when Doc Gallagher practiced medicine, but he’d been retired for over a year. What did they have to fight about now?”
I waited for her to talk. As I did, my mind spun, considering all the possibilities. Was it something to do with the mayoral election? Maybe Doc and Sam worked together.
Lois squeezed her eyes shut. I thought she’d lost interest when she finally spoke. “Your grandma came to him because she suspected there was a drug ring in Pebble Cove.”
I coughed, flabbergasted. “What?”
Meow, done chasing the fly, rubbed up against my leg and meowed. Lois sat back and crossed her arms.
“Why the heck would she come to Gallagher about that?”
The way Lois’s features tightened told me this was the part that didn’t make him look so good. “He used to be an addict. Decades ago. Helen and I were the only two people who knew. She asked him to look into it, said he was the only one who would recognize the signs for sure. He wouldn’t even hear more. He got so mad and kicked her out, telling her she was out of line for bringing that up, that she would be sorry she did.”
“He said she’d be sorry?” I asked, shooing Meow away from my legs. I couldn’t be distracted from the one clue I needed. Gallagher must’ve assumed she would tell someone and silenced her before she could.
Lois sat forward. “He was home that whole night. I promise you on my grave. He might’ve been mad at Helen, but he would never hurt her. Never.”
The sincerity in her eyes made me want to believe her, but this woman also had professed her after-dying love for the man. She’d told me she would do anything to keep me from hurting him, so what would stop her from lying now?
Meow’s pleas became low and throaty. I studied him but saw nothing that might explain what he was so upset about.
“He paced for hours,” Lois said, and at first, I thought she was referring to the cat. When that didn’t make sense, it quickly registered that she was still talking about Doc Gallagher. “I could tell he regretted how he reacted, that he was even thinking of going to talk to her, maybe apologize. But he did not leave the house.” She left long pauses in between her last few words for emphasis.
We sat there in a heavy silence for a while. Well, except Meow. He kept howling and circling my ankles.
“Meow, knock it off. What’s gotten into you?” I pulled my feet under the bench and crossed my ankles as I thought about my end of this deal. “His name is Max,” I said facing her.
“The cat?” she asked, gesturing toward the feline.
Meow sniffed as if unable to accept anyone wouldn’t know of him. Obviously he’d become mayor after she died and being a stay-at-home ghost wife apparently hadn’t afforded her the luxury of staying up to date on town happenings.
“No, the guy I told you about.” Turning away from her as a couple walked by me. My neck felt warm as they stared at the crazy woman talking to herself.
I didn’t know if I believed her story, but I could tell I wasn’t going to get any more information out of her. We were done. It made sense to give her the information she wanted.
“He hangs out at the abandoned cannery.” I checked to make sure the couple was out of earshot before turning to face her again. “Can you go there?”
She nodded.
“Don’t tell me, you worked there when you were younger too?” Even with the foreboding doubt sitting on my chest after what I’d learned, I had to chuckle at the question.
“My first job.” Her eyes sparkled. “Max, huh? I think I’ve met him.”
“You have. And you made an impressio—” I clammed up as I noticed another person approaching my bench, hoping they hadn’t heard me talking to myself.
When I recognized the person as the Rickster and heard him talking to himself, my shoulders dropped in relief. The Rickster gave me a salute as he passed and then continued to chatter away.
Chuckling, I turned my attention back to Lois. The light that had started in her eyes spread to the rest of her face.
“Thanks, Rosemary. I hope you find out what happened to your grandmother even if I didn’t care too much for her when she was alive.” She shot me an impish grin and disappeared.
“Okay. What is it, Meow?” I finally gave him my attention.
He glowered at me, and I swear a growl rumbled in his ghostly throat. Tail flicking twice, he gestured for me to follow him just as he had the other day.
“What is it now?” I asked, standing.
He took off down the street, and I had to jog to keep up with him. About to call out to stop him, I clamped my mouth shut as I realized where he was leading me.
Town hall.
Apart from the lighthouse and the old community church they kept as a historical landmark, the town hall building was Pebble Cove’s pride and joy. And even though the exterior architecture and large columns matched the Victorian style of the town, the interior was modern and sleek.
Meow slipped in through the glass doors. I opened them, entering behind him, finding myself in an empty foyer with lists of the different offices inside. Meow trotted down a hallway, and I followed, wishing I’d worn less squeaky shoes as I tread across the polished tile floors.
The hallway we crept down forked, and Meow took a sharp left. I kept up, checking over my shoulder to make sure no one saw me. But when I glanced forward again, Meow was gone. I screeched to a stop. The noise from my sneakers bounced off the hallway walls in a deafening cacophony.
Wincing, I scanned the hallway for the cat I’d lost. He was behind me, having stopped at a doorway. “Mayor Sam Hoff” was printed in frosted lettering on the glass door. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears in anticipation.
Meow shot me a measured glare, waving his tail in two long arcs. Unsure what that meant, but positive the movement differed from his earlier “follow me” tail flicks, I waited. The cat took a tentative step forward, so the front half of his body stuck through the door. Backing up, he gave me those two
“follow me” tail flicks again before disappearing inside. I opened the door. The office lobby was empty, and I slipped down another smaller hallway after Meow.
The sharp, spiced scent of the mayor’s cologne pricked at my nostrils as I followed Meow to an office. The smell reminded me of my first day in town when he’d come to see me. The cat stopped in front of the open door. Unlike the bright reception area and hallway, the office lights were off, and the large room gave off an ominous air. I hoped that meant the mayor had left for the day.
Inside, a gargantuan desk loomed in the corner, looking suspiciously new. A vision of Sam yelling at a secretary to order him a real man’s desk played all too easily in my mind. But maybe there hadn’t been a desk in here before, I thought, trying to be fair. A cat mayor would’ve had no use for a desk, after all.
Nothing jumped out at me as to what was so important or wrong that would explain what Meow was losing his whiskers over. The cat’s ghostly form skittered over to the bottom shelf of the bookcase in the back corner of the room. He scratched at the thick spine of a book. Gilt vertical lettering told me it was a collection of Charles Dickens’s most famous works.
“A book?” I whispered to the cat, exasperated.
Pulling my sleeves forward so they covered my hands, I slid the book from its place on the shelf. I didn’t want my prints to show up all over it if it was evidence.
Being a Dickens fan, I softened toward the mayor as I held it. Maybe I’d gotten him all wrong. I shot a pointed glare at the cat.
“Meow, inside this better be something good, like a note about how he killed my grandma being used as a bookmark.”
Flipping open the front cover, I gasped.
23
The book didn’t contain a written confession, but it might as well have. The large tome had been hollowed out, the remaining borders of the pages glued together so they created a hidden space.
The opening contained a plastic baggy full of white powder. As if this book knew everything I needed, it also held a single business card. I could read the name from where it was nestled inside:
Frank Mastronardi - LMH Property Development Inc.
I gasped as I surveyed the clues I’d been searching for.
“Meow, this is huge.”
The large tabby moved in a serpentine pattern around me, jumping up and trying to rub his head against my hands that held the book.
“Thanks, former mayor.” I wished I could pet the cat for real, but instead he continued to slink around me.
Grandma had not only been an obstacle in Sam Hoff’s mayoral aspirations, but she must’ve also discovered he used drugs. When she’d tried to tell Doc Gallagher, to make sure she was right, the man had kicked her out before she could explain what she’d found. He must’ve been too blinded by his paranoia that she might use his past against him to listen.
It looked as if Lois told the truth when she’d said Doc Gallagher hadn’t hurt my grandma. Sam Hoff was the killer, and I held proof he’d also known Frank. My thoughts flashed back to the day Asher and I had found Frank’s body, to the mayor’s odd visit. He’d said he wanted to welcome me to town, but in actuality he’d been worried that I’d talked to Frank, and I might connect the two of them. Why else would he care about that unless he knew he’d be implicated in his death?
Standing up, I froze. I needed Chief Clemenson to find this, but how could I convince him to search a random book on the mayor’s shelf without explaining how I knew what would be inside. I couldn’t very well put it back and leave though. I’d already lost evidence on the mayor before by doing that very thing, and this was too significant to lose.
“Meow, I so wish you could go grab the police chief for me so he could see this.” I twisted, searching for the ghost, but he had disappeared. “Meow?” I called into the dark room.
The light flicked on. For a stupid moment, I wondered if the ghost cat had turned it on. That was when I caught sight of Sam Hoff standing in the doorway, wearing a suit and a frown. His eyes were wild, scary in a way that made a shiver dance down my spine.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice rougher than the sandy beach. But that was before he recognized the book in my hands. His nostrils flared, and his bloodshot eyes narrowed into a glare as they settled on the evidence I held. “Put that down!” His voice rose as his anger got the best of him. The mayor glanced over his shoulder.
Of course, he wouldn’t want anyone to hear. If anyone else saw this book and its contents, it would ruin him. A darkness came over his features that made my flight response kick in. I backed up a few steps but ran into the wall. The small office suddenly felt like a prison, one I was locked inside with a murderer.
“Give that to me.” He edged forward, jaw clenching.
“I know what you’ve done, and it’s only a matter of time before the whole town finds out,” I said, steady and even as I retreated to keep myself out of his reach.
Placing the large desk in between us, I moved opposite of the mayor and eyed the open door behind me. He spotted my attention shift and reacted, moving in that direction so I had to back away from my exit.
I couldn’t keep him at bay forever. The realization clawed at my neck in hot waves. Formulating a plan, I realized that if I threw the book at him, while holding on to the drugs, I might distract him enough to run toward the exit.
Before I could, footsteps pounded into the room. We both jumped.
“Mayor! Are you okay? I heard you yell, so I got Chief Clemenson.”
A wide-eyed teen that had intern written all over his youthful face preceded a tight-jawed Police Chief Clemenson. I froze. The way the chief glared at me made me realize I might not be much better off with him than Sam.
“Oh, good. Arrest her, please, Raymond. I found her in here stealing things from my office.” Sam Hoff pointed at me, teeth bared as he glared between me and the chief.
Pulling in a fortifying deep breath, I turned to address the chief. “I wasn’t stealing. But I found something you’ll want to see.”
I expected Sam to lunge across the room as I opened the book and revealed its secret compartment, so it surprised me when he simply crossed his arms and smirked.
Chief Clemenson’s face paled as he saw the bag. The intern stepped back out of the room.
“She planted that,” Sam scoffed. “I’ve never seen that before.”
The chief glanced back at him but stepped forward, not supplying him with a response. Grabbing a tissue from the desk, he picked up the bag and peered inside the hollowed-out book at the card. His graying eyebrows jumped as he recognized the name.
“You knew Frank Mastronardi, Sam?” The chief turned to face the mayor.
He screwed up his face. “No. I already told you that. She must’ve planted that too.” Sam ran the back of his hand across his nostrils.
The chief looked back at me, his brown eyes meeting mine before scanning my face as if he had mind-reading powers and was trying to take in every clue.
Standing straight, I squared my shoulders. “I didn’t plant any of this,” I hissed, just to him. “I found it here in his office.”
At that last statement, the policeman’s face tensed. “And how did you find your way in here?” he asked. “How did you know where to look?”
I gulped. I couldn’t tell him the former cat mayor is now a ghost and led me to it. But without that information, there was no plausible explanation of how I got here.
“An anonymous tip?” Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead as my face burned with the lie.
The chief ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair and scowled at me like I might be the murderer. “I can’t use evidence you found while breaking and entering,” he said. The frustration that had been on the edge of his tone now leaked into every word.
I narrowed my eyes at the mayor who swiped at his nose again. Then I realized what was wrong with his eyes. They’d looked wild and scary to me before, but that was because they were almost red, they were s
o bloodshot. Sam’s pupils were tiny, his eyes shifty. Was he currently high on whatever that little baggy held?
The chief followed my gaze and his shoulders slumped. I was certain he noticed the same signs I had. “Sam,” he said, taking a step toward the mayor, “are you taking this stuff?” The pain in his voice made my chest ache.
Sam’s face grew almost as red as his bloodshot eyes. “You can’t prove anything.” He spat out the words.
Chief Clemenson flinched as if Sam had spit more than just words in his face. He shook his head, pulling his handcuffs off his belt. “You’re going to have to come over to the station.” He glowered back at me. “You too.”
My momentary celebration was cut short by his addition. Me too?
“Raymond, you can’t be serious.” Sam Hoff glared at the police chief. “You’ve known me my whole life. Believe me, this woman is crazy. She was in here meowing when I found her. She’s unstable,” he pleaded, red eyes wild as he studied the chief’s expression.
“Sam”—Chief Clemenson cocked an eyebrow at the mayor—“you have the right to remain silent, and I think you should use it.”
Two and a half hours later, Police Chief Clemenson walked into the room he left me in after he’d questioned me, rubbing a large hand over his weary face.
“So?” I asked. “Did you look into whether or not Sam has any ties to Frank’s property development company?”
He nodded.
“And?”
He sighed. “And you’re free to go.” He held the door open and motioned for me to leave.
“Leave?” I let out a bark of incredulous laughter. “But what about Sam? Was he on drugs? Did he confess to trying to push the outlet mall on the town despite the knowledge that it would be bad for everyone except him? Did you find proof that he killed my grandmother and Frank Mastronardi because they found out about the drug ring he’s running in town?”
