She spoke quickly. “David, you do know that you’re only the one who can see me?”
“I’ve noticed. Why is that?” he inquired genially.
She liked the way his gaze rested on her, affectionately, almost caressingly. The realization left her tongue-tied, unable to think fast enough to say what she needed to say before they were interrupted.
Too late. The room suddenly warmed and the delicate scent of the head librarian’s sweet fragrance surrounded them. Roses. The scent of roses. Lately she’d come to identify people by the way they smelled almost more than the way they looked. Scent and sound. Mrs. Kaye had a mellow, kindly tone.
“David,” she said. “It’s good to see you out and about again.”
“And free.” His mouth quirked into what could only be called a grin as he turned to the woman who had once been his high school teacher. “Much better than being in jail.”
“I heard,” she returned quietly and without embarrassment. “None of us ever believed those charges were rightfully placed.”
He lifted cynical eyebrows into a forceful line. “I’m afraid you might have been standing alone there, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “Hardly. And I hope you’re feeling quite yourself again.”
Susan wished she could take part in the conversation. She’d like to thank Mrs. Kaye for her loyalty.
She listened to the casual conversation, fully realizing the librarian was showing her support for her former student by publicly befriending him, and at the same time wishing she would go away so they could be alone together. Well, as alone as you could be in a busy public library.
It didn’t happen. The police chief came in seeking his attention, and with a nod in her direction, David left with him.
Jon had come to him for help. Grandpa was down at the police department politely demanding that the dispatchers who manned the glass fronted front control desk allow him to talk to the Bureau of Investigation officers who had been so short-sighted as to arrest his grandson.
“Harry’s being a nuisance and interfering with my officers’ ability to do their jobs,” Jon said plaintively. “Nobody wants to upset the old guy, but we can’t talk him into letting it go. You know how stubborn he can be.”
David, grinning, acknowledged that his grandfather could be a man of great determination and, reluctantly nodded goodbye to Susan and went with him to his car to make the short drive across town to the police station.
Grandpa was rarely rude and being a western gentleman of the old school was always polite to ladies. The two dispatchers on duty today, both of them daughters of old family friends, were looking patient and somewhat amused as they firmly resisted his request to be admitted to the offices in back where police detectives worked.
“I know it wasn’t any of our boys,” Harry Johnson was saying, “they wouldn’t make a mistake like that. But these state fellows, they’ve got to understand. The idea that my David would harm me or anybody else is beyond notional. Ask anybody.” He turned to see Jon and David in the entrance. “Ask your police chief. He’s known my grandson most of his life,” he added with mild sarcasm.
Jon stepped forward to slip his arm around Harry’s sloping shoulders. “I’ll see to this, Marcia,” he told the dispatcher.
Grandpa shook off Jon’s grasp and turned to David. “Just trying to get things straightened out, son.”
“I appreciate that, Grandpa, but it’s been taken care of already. The charges have been withdrawn.
Grandpa sputtered out words as though almost too angry to talk rationally. “Just like that, it’s all over. No public apology, nothing in the newspaper saying they’d been damn fools. Jon, you know this’ll be hanging over my grandson from now on.”
“Now, Harry,” Jon protested. “You know I did my best for David.”
“I’m not so sure. I think maybe you wanted him to look bad. You’re still blaming him for your brother’s death over there in Iraq.”
David felt as though he’d taken a punch to the gut. For all his loyalty, Jon deserved better than this. “That’s not fair, Grandpa. Jon did his best and he had no choice but to turn the investigation over to the state.”
Grandpa’s wrinkled face went stony. “When I see I’m wrong, I’ll apologize. But Jon’s not his brother, David. He’s not your friend.”
Before David could respond, his grandfather was on his way out the door, stumbling slightly over the stepdown outside.
Jon touched his shoulder. “Go after him, Dave. He’s an old man and he’s upset.”
David gave a nod of apology and obeyed, catching up with Grandpa and following him out to his car. They jostled over who would drive and David was forced to give in as the older man climbed behind the wheel.
Grandpa started the car with something of a roar, but eased carefully from the parking place, his control of the car as good as it had ever been. His grandfather might be eighty three, but he still drove better than most people, David acknowledged inwardly, as they traveled the few blocks back to his house.
It wasn’t until they’d pulled into the garage that Harry said, “Sorry this had to happen to you, son.”
David managed a short laugh in an attempt to defuse the situation. “I’m just happy the charges were dropped.”
“There will be people who ‘til their dying day will insist you were guilty. What’s wrong with you, David? The boy I remember would have fought back.”
A lot had happened to that boy. But no need reminding Grandpa. No doubt he remembered it every time he looked at his grandson’s changed face and form. “I’ve grownup, Gramps.”
Grandpa responded with a snort and climbed, somewhat slowly, from the car. David felt just about as old as his grandfather as he creaked his way to the ground, conscious of every aching joint and muscle.
“By the way, I’ve told June to start cooking for us again. I’m getting kind of tired of the limited menu you produce. Anyway, son, cooking is woman’s work.”
It had been a long day already and it wasn’t even noon.
Chapter Eighteen
Susan waited until nightfall to continue her personal research. It wasn’t that hard. Local cemetery records told her that Gertrude Andrews Messner had died at the age of eighty nine and been buried at the little Cowboy Creek Cemetery about nine miles out of town. The obituary that she was then able to look up said she had been survived by her son, James Messner, and by three granddaughters.
Her husband, parents and all of her five siblings had predeceased her.
Described as a pioneer homemaker and a loving mother and grandmother, she had lived her entire adult life on the farm south of town.
It was a strange feeling to be reading what had to be her own death notice. Gertrude Andrews Messner. She had so many of that woman’s memories; she could have little doubt about her identity.
So when she died, instead of going to the mysterious hereafter, she’d come here to the library. She’d always liked books, but was being sent to haunt a small town library a punishment or a reward? She’d meant the thought to be one of amusement, but instead she felt like crying.
She was Gertrude, not Susan. It was not an attractive name, she decided. She didn’t feel like a Gertrude.
And why had she been so long in remembering. Apparently she’d been here for over thirty years and then, reminded of David who was always so close to her thoughts, she wondered how she appeared to him. He said she was beautiful, surely he wasn’t seeing her at the end of her life. Eighty nine could be beautiful in its own way, but it was hardly a way that would attract a young man like David.
Feeling she couldn’t take in any more information tonight, she shut down the computer and wandered idly through the racks of books until a soft rapping at the big front door caught her attention. Nobody came to the library at this hour, certainly nobody who knocked at the door for admittance.
Quickly she moved out into the open center of the floor, lighted tonight by the moon as well as the closest streetligh
t. She peered out the glass panel of one of the windows that hung on either side of the door and was able to see the rather forlorn figure of the man who raised his hand to rap again.
“David.”
She unlocked the door and opened it to allow him to enter.
“Susan,” he whispered. “I was asleep and when I woke up, I knew I had to see you. So I walked down here.”
The appeal in his voice struck a chord within her. She pressed herself against him, feeling the warmth of his body, wishing to kiss him. Then she pulled abruptly away, knowing what she felt, but not what he perceived. Maybe her touch was that of a woman older than his grandfather.
He tried to stop her, grabbing at her hand, but slipping through as though nothing real was there to touch. “I’m glad you’ve come.” She closed the door behind him and led the way to the back where the combined moon and street light reached more dimly. “We need to talk.”
He looked as though he’d dressed hastily in his jeans and a t-shirt, his feet in shoes but not socks. His hair was tousled and his chin unshaven. He needed looking after, she thought with a sudden concern, at least until he was well again. “What happened to you over there?” she asked.
“In Iraq? A bomb. My best friend and a lot of other people were killed. I was a little further away and so survived. Nobody else did.”
“That must be so hard.”
He shrugged. “Most say I was lucky. I lived when others died.”
“You must feel that you must make the most of your life to when you think of those others who were cut short.”
His light blue eyes seemed to glow. “I have to confess I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
They were seated, as had become their custom, across from each other. He leaned slightly forward as though to see her more clearly. “Enough about me, tell me about you.”
It was a rather abrupt command rather than a request, given she suspected because he didn’t want the spotlight on his own memories. “I don’t know a lot more than you do. I’ve been here, like this with nobody able to see or hear me, for what seems a long time now. I can hear them, see them, the people who come here. I can move things, read books, turn pages . . .” She paused as she reached the list of her accomplishments. “I’ve finally decided I’m a ghost sent for some reason to haunt this library.”
“A ghost. But I can see you, real as anybody, and I can hear your voice. . . most of the time anyway. And I can feel your touch.”
“But you can’t touch me. When you try, your hand seems to slide right through me. For you I have no substance.”
He opened his mouth to start to protest, but she spoke first. “What do you see when you look at me, David.” She, too, leaned forward, pleading for truth. “I’m not asking for compliments. I really need to know.”
His forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “Surely you know how lovely you are.”
“David, I have no idea what I look like. There is no image when I look into the mirror. When I look down, I glimpse occasionally a dim version of my feet and legs. I’m wearing a denim skirt, I think, and chunky comfortable shoes like women wear who work on their feet, but that’s not exactly clear. Oh, and I can see my hands and they don’t look like old hands. And there’s my ring. It’s gold with a green stone.”
“A birthstone,” he said. “A green peridot for August. My friend from across the street was born in August and she wore a similar ring.”
“No,” she shook her head. “Gertrude was born in July and she said her birthstone was a ruby.”
“Who’s Gertrude?”
“Gertrude is me. My name is Gertrude Andrews Messner and I died when I was eighty nine.”
“You look awful young for your age.”
“I’m not joking, David. I remember Gertrude’s life. I remember being her.”
He shook his head. “I used to be smarter than this, but I cracked my skull when that bomb hit. I can’t seem to follow you, Susan.”
“It’s not funny. Here I am desperate and you’re making jokes. Look at me, David, and tell me what you see.”
His glance lasted long and was both amused and loving. “About five five or six, I’d say. Slim, but not too slim, kind of curvy, Fair curls hanging down your back. Eyes green like your ring, a few freckles on the nose, a wide mouth, all go together to give a real pretty look.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “How old would you guess me to be?”
“Quite a lot short of the eighties,” he said musingly. “Mid-twenties, I’d guess.”
She closed her supposedly green eyes. “I guess when you die you go back to an earlier age. It would seem hardly fair that you’d go around heaven wrinkled and old, even if that was the way you were at the end of your life.”
“Come on now, Susan, you don’t look anything like any ghost I’ve ever heard about, even if I did believe in such things.”
“You mean I’m not all shimmery white and transparent,” she said with some bitterness. “I never saw a ghost so I don’t know how they’d look outside story books. And my name is Gertrude.”
“Somehow,” he said. “You don’t look like a Gertrude to me. Nor like a ghost either,” he insisted stubbornly. “There’s got to be another explanation.”
“Well, I’m no angel either.” Deliberately she got up and went over to plant a kiss full on his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it almost as much as she did. “Angels aren’t into this kind of thing.”
“No,” he agreed, breathing hard. “I don’t suppose you’re an angel either.”
“Then what am I?”
He reached for her, his arms attempting to close around her, but collapsing with nothing to hold. This was another funny thing. She could touch him, but he couldn’t touch her.
“Should be a rule book for this kind of thing,” he protested, looking hungrily at her. “Whatever it is.”
“Whatever,” she agreed softly.
“I’m falling in love with you,” he said.
“I know. Me too.”
“You don’t talk like a hundred-year-old woman.”
“Eighty nine,” she said with a sniff, feeling she was holding tears back.
He grinned. “Eighty nine going on twenty five,” he agreed. “Look, love, there’s nobody else in my life and I find it hard to be jealous of a husband gone so long ago.”
“Funny. I don’t seem to remember him at all.”
“As long as you’re here in my life, I’m not by myself. I’ve felt so alone since what happened in Iraq.”
She sniffed again. “It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. You’re a flesh and blood person; you deserve a real live woman in your life.”
“But I want you.”
Chapter Nineteen
They didn’t get around to talking about the murders until nearly morning. “Grandpa’s back home,” he remembered aloud, “and stirring things up. He’s shut down the security alarm and insisted on June coming back as housekeeper and cook.”
“Oh, David!” she exclaimed in dismay. “I’m sure, nearly sure, that’s she’s the one . . .”
“I’m not so certain, Susan. She’s a cantankerous woman for sure, but that doesn’t make her a poisoner. I figure she’d go for something more direct like hitting him over the head with a baseball bat. Anyway, she seems to be fond of the old guy in her admittedly reserved way.”
“But she was looking up poisons and she’s the only suspect we’ve got. It can’t go on this way with both you and your grandfather in danger.”
“Looking them up after something had happened to Grandpa,” he reminded her. “Doesn’t that seem kind of odd?”
She frowned, nodding reluctantly. “But who else?”
“There was bad blood between the Lawrences and my family,” he pointed out. “They blamed us for losing their land and in those early days it was all about land.”
She blinked at him, then remembered how Gertrude—her—had felt about the farm her family had settled. They’d invested hard-fought years in obtaining land of their
own and it had represented every bit of security they had. And Red’s family had lost that security. “All those years ago,” she suggested, “surely they still didn’t feel that way.”
“Don’t know. There was something strange about Red. And Grandpa felt it too. It was almost as though he felt he had to make up to his old friend for what had happened.”
She shook her head, finding that hard to believe. “What about the rest of the Allies. They live right there next to your house.”
“Simpson keeps up the yard for Grandpa and his son helps. The girl seems all right though.”
“That’s true, though I heard her talking to the children’s librarian. They seem to be friends and I got the feeling that she knew about something that she felt disloyal about discussing. Maybe she knows some member of her family is involved.”
“I wouldn’t count Simp out,” he admitted grimly, touching the bruise on his face. “That’s what Jon and Captain Tyler suspect anyway, but there’s not much in the way of proof that he’s anything but a hothead who likes to punch people from behind.”
“And, of course, there was the woman who died. She might have had enemies too.”
“Hard to imagine. Everybody loved my auntie. Besides, Grandpa was the first poisoned. Seems likely he was the intended target.”
“Hard to visualize anybody hating anyone enough, especially right here in Wolf Creek, to deliberately try to kill them. And yet it happens.”
“Probably more than we suppose. The way I see it, poison is meant to be a secret weapon. Grandpa was given a dose of a heart medicine he’s never taken, but at his age, who would think he died of anything but a heart attack.”
“Or a stroke. Elderly deaths are taken for granted,” said Susan, who found herself these days most sympathetic to senior citizens.
“But Dr. Heck was on the ball. He suspected something was not quite right.”
Those Who Mourn: A Wolf Creek Mystery (Wolf Creek Mysteries Book 1) Page 13
