A Song of Redemption

by Lillian I Wolfe

  Funeral Singer: A SONG OF REDEMPTION

  Published By

  Pynhavyn Press

  Copyright © 2018 Lillian I Wolfe

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Quotations and short excerpts may be used for review; otherwise no part of this work may be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without written permission from the publisher or the author.

  First eBook Edition: October 2018

  Copyright © 2018 Lillian I. Wolfe

  All rights reserved.

  Front and Back Cover Art by

  Barb Hoeter of Coverinked – www.coverinked.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilog

  Chapter 1

  A FEW SCRATCHES ON the dark blue and gray surface indicated the vehicle might have scraped a few trees or rocks in its journeys, but nothing I could see suggested a serious accident. Overall, the snowmobile appeared relatively undamaged except for the front left ski and support that had been bent and twisted. The side I inspected had been buried under the snow when my boyfriend, Ferris, and I had found it a few weeks earlier on a ski trip in the Sierras.

  “Did he hit a rock?” I asked the man who stood beside me in the impound lot.

  Egan Moss, a detective from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, raised a hand above his eyes to block the morning sun and ducked his head a little as he peered at the damage. “That’s the conclusion from our investigation. It’s easy enough to hit one when they’re covered with snow. It probably caused the snowmobile to veer and flip over. But it had to have traveled about twenty-five feet from the boulder that likely did it. We didn’t find anything conclusive on the stone that indicated the ski or the body hit it, so the stone won.”

  I quirked my lips into a sideways smirk at the bit of humor in his statement.

  “May I touch it?” I asked, confident of the response since I had requested the opportunity to check it out a couple of weeks ago.

  “Sure. Knock yourself out, Foster,” he answered taking a step back.

  Sliding the plastic glove off my right hand, I squatted beside the damaged metal and reached out, pressing my fingers on the cold surface. To be honest, I figured this was a long shot, and the metal wouldn’t be likely to hold any memories or emotions from Roger Mitchell, my now-deceased stalker.

  For over a year, Roger had followed my band from gig to gig around Reno because he had a crush on me. I’d actually joked that he was a stalker until he asked my group to play for his engagement party and I got a look at the Gillian Foster lookalike he planned to marry. That had sealed it. Relatively harmless but creepy. Still, I would never have wished his death.

  Now, with my fingers pressed against the machine’s runners, I felt the sensation of speed, fast speed, along with turning and twisting as if on a slalom course, from the metal. Had Roger taken it out several times on an obstacle course of some sort? Surely, he wasn’t doing that through the forest? The turns between trees would be too sharp and much too dangerous to make.

  But I didn’t get anything from the accident itself. Maybe the body of it could offer more. At least, here, he would have gripped the handlebars and touched the interior.

  I pushed up to stand, then leaned over it and pressed my fingers to the bar, about where he would have gripped it. A hazy image formed in my mind, the late afternoon shadows across the snow and the trees looming up before me. The sharp swerve as he guided the vehicle around a tree, then another tree, and another. They came quickly, too quickly, and the speed didn’t diminish. In my view, they began to blur and became difficult to maneuver around. It veered to the left, just missing a tree, then the abrupt shock of the runner hitting something, continuing at an angle...

  Feeling off-balance, I grabbed the edge of the snowmobile with my other hand to steady myself as the vision continued. The vehicle flipped, spinning and landing in a bank of snow near the edge of the meadow, right where Ferris and I had found it.

  At the very end, as it had flipped, I’d glimpsed another person on a different snowmobile, following along behind Roger’s, a man about the same build and going at a slower pace. I couldn’t see much of his face under the helmet and snow goggles, but Roger hadn’t been out there alone. Roger had to have glanced back as I saw the man’s mouth lift into a one-sided sneer to his right.

  Blinking, I tilted my head and straightened up. “That was revealing,” I said, then told Detective Moss everything I’d seen in that vision.

  I’d worked with Moss several times since I’d first encountered him when I was a suspect in a murder case relating to my first spirit client. He’d been, and, to some degree, still was a skeptic, not quite believing my clairvoyant abilities nor my talent to see dead people. I couldn’t blame him. I scarcely believed it myself. Except I was the one witnessing it all.

  Ever since I’d taken a fall on the ice and hit my head, I’d been able to see the recently departed. At first, it was only during their funerals while I was extemporaneously reciting their qualities and facts of their lives in songs that I transported to a transitional cemetery and could speak to them in person, so to speak. That talent led to a few others.

  A mission to assist a young murder victim turned sour, and I’d been pulled in as a suspect in Egan Moss’s investigation. While Hernandez, Moss’s partner, believed me, it took a bit to convince Moss.

  “You don’t know who the other person was?” he asked after I’d related the information.

  “No, he was too bundled up. He wore a dark blue snowsuit and had a black helmet on his head. Not much help.”

  He pursed his lips and thought for several seconds. “Too bad. Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Roger seemed to be traveling way too fast, and the trees looked blurry, kind of smeared across the vision. I don’t know if he was seeing them that way, but since it was his view, I’m guessing they were distorted some.”

  “That ties in with the drugs in his system. Something isn’t quite right about this. But I can’t connect to what seems off. Let me do some research. At least, you’ve given me some indication that someone may know more than they’ve admitted or there’s another party that was involved. If he was a friend, why did he leave Mitchell in the snow, allow him to wander off, and not call for help?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said, wondering if Roger’s spirit could have told me who he was with that day. And why hadn’t he? Perhaps he couldn’t remember. I wasn’t sure I would be able to reach his soul again.

  Rubbing his hands together to warm them, Moss turned and motioned for to me to follow. “F
irst, I need to find the person before we can even begin to figure out the rest of it. But if what you saw is right, then we could have a murder case.”

  I wasn’t sure if Moss considered that good news, but for me, it made a lot more sense than the accidental death or possible suicide ruling they’d initially rendered.

  Following along behind as we left the lot, I thought about the victim of that crash. Roger had been presumed to be out by himself riding across the meadows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when his snowmobile had flipped. It appeared he’d managed to get out of it, but had been in the forested area—which was just plain stupid when driving one of these—had gotten disoriented, and died of exposure.

  Except the autopsy showed a high concentration of narcotics in his blood, suggesting that he was high. This, in turn, led the investigators to conclude it was an accidental death, or he deliberately chose suicide. They tended to believe the latter, but this might change that.

  I had last seen Roger on the wrong side of the ethereal cemetery, the section beyond the gate that belonged to demons. He’d begged for my help and my forgiveness. I couldn’t do anything about the first part, but I had granted the last request. However, in that encounter and in the vision I’d had prior to it, he’d said nothing about being with anyone that day.

  If I could reach him, I might get a name, but it was dangerous to try. Although I hadn’t been physically damaged, my left ankle had been sore for three days after the last excursion to the ethereal cemetery. It proved, once again, that even in the spirit form, I could be hurt by the yiaiwa, the evil spirit creatures my colleagues and I were battling.

  Following Moss out the gate, I trailed him all the way to his car and paused to ask him about a different matter.

  “What’s happening with Nick Sarkis? I had a visit from Zoe last night. She’s getting impatient.”

  He cocked his head, and a goofy smile hit his mouth. My ghost connections amused him no end. “I thought spirits had all the time in the world. Why is she getting so antsy about this? We’re working on it.”

  I tipped my head from side to side. “Well, you know she’s not going to give up until he’s convicted. Wouldn’t it bother you if the person who killed you was still walking free and living the high life without being captured?”

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, leaned back against the car, and squinted at me. “Yeah, maybe it would. I can only do so much, and it’s not our case. But I’m working on the lead you gave me. If it turns up something, then it could throw it back our way for a while.”

  “Jeez, you guys are so leery of stepping on the Federal toes,” I complained in a teasing voice. “Gibbs wouldn’t let them stand in the way.” I invoked the NCIS series’ lead character’s name like he was an investigations god.

  “Yeah, well, Gibbs isn’t real. Even if it was reasonable, I’m not in a position to do it. A state sheriff’s detective isn’t exactly Fed level.”

  “We could always try my plan.”

  “Holy shit, don’t you have enough on your psychic platter already?” He frowned at me. Clearly, I’d told him too much about what was happening in my life, although I was happy to see him accepting my peculiar abilities more readily than he did at first.

  “Meanwhile, let me see what I can do about the case I can work on,” he added. “I’ll to try to shake a few trees and see if anyone falls out.”

  “Right. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” I sighed, pulled my hands out of my coat, and turned toward my Jeep parked four spaces further down the row.

  “I’ll do that,” Moss called to me.

  “Right,” I mumbled to myself. I realized that he had to keep details about everything quiet, and while I was not one of the privileged few he shared the information with, I was trying to help him. Something he had might trigger something with me. So far, touching the snowmobile had been the closest I’d come to actually working this case with him.

  As I got behind the wheel, I checked my phone, seeing my daily text from Orielle. I opened it expecting the usual and caught my breath as I read the longer than normal message.

  ::Plan almost done to move Gavin back to US. One more set of papers to complete and final arrangements with airlines. Stanford Neuro will take him. More as I know it.::

  Good news to some extent. Although we both knew that what kept Gavin in a coma was not a physical injury. I doubted Stanford would be able to wake him either. Whatever held him, I suspected the solution awaited me on either the next plane or the one below this reality.

  Gavin had been injured and had fallen into a deep coma while the three of us were trying to seal Belphegor, a high-level fallen angel, inside a cave in India. With our plan backfiring in a stupendous explosion, I’d been thrown out of the cave while Gavin had been half-buried. Orielle, Gavin’s anthropologist associate with benefits, had been outside the cave when it happened and wasn’t injured. I got off lucky with minor scrapes and a mild concussion.

  I sent a quick message back thanking her and asking that she keep me in the loop. I needed to meet with the Orielle when she got back even if it meant a trip to Stanford. Without Gavin’s input, she was the best guide to the next step for me to take.

  Right now, I had to get to work. I’d already taken almost two hours off to do this reading, so it meant I would be at the grooming parlor late tonight getting through my quota of dogs. I was definitely not living the life I’d planned when I was in college. In fact, I felt further away from that musical career than ever. Humming to dogs while I clipped their fur didn’t count.

  In the good news, Janna had lined up a private party at a new casino her company had just opened the prior month, and she’d hired me to play piano, sing a few tunes, and schmooze with the guests. She’d mentioned the name of the bigwig who’d rented the room, but it hadn’t meant anything to me. The only thing I really caught was the five hundred dollars she was going to pay me for the Sunday afternoon gig. That perked me up a little, so I was in a decent mood by the time I started in on my first furry customer, Mr. Barksir.

  Heeni, my boss, looked relieved that I’d made it back to the shop. I think she was beginning to worry that I would disappear on some errand or something. Technically, I was my own boss. I rented the space from Heeni as a private contractor, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t boot me out if I didn’t deliver. In fact, she was pretty lenient, and I picked up a fair share of the dogs we groomed.

  I had to admit that I hadn’t been up to par for the past few days since the trip to India and my return. While I worried about Gavin’s condition and if he would ever pull out of it, my fears were centered on the yiaiwa. How the hell would Orielle and my little band of spirit fighters be able to stop who knew how many of the powerful creatures? When my thoughts lingered there too long, I felt defeated before the battle had begun.

  I moved on from one dog to the next, getting them bathed, clipped, and dried in good time. One difficult client, a nervous collie, who was on her first visit to the beauty parlor, gave me a little trouble as she bounced around in excitement. I went a little slower with her, humming as I worked to calm her down. Even that didn’t quite do it, and I had to be really patient with the knots in her fur.

  “You’re being quiet today,” Heeni commented as she combed out a poodle-mix at the front station. “What’s up?”

  I looked up and managed a small smile. “Just got a lot on my mind. Things didn’t go so well on that trip I made last weekend and a friend got hurt.”

  She shot a piercing glance at me. “What kind of craziness are you involved in now? Is it more of that nonsense with the funeral business? I told you that wouldn’t be good.”

  “No, it wasn’t that...exactly. I mean, it was related but not actually about the singing. I was trying to resolve a problem with it.” I skirted around the details as much as possible. I didn’t want to involve Heeni, or her business, in my problems. Besides, how would I explain that I’d gone to another country to try to trap a demon and failed? She’
d call for the loony-cart to take me away.

  “You stay away from it. That will take care of it,” Heeni said in her matter-of-fact tone. “After that brawl last month at your gig, you need to steer clear of all of it. People are nuts. Thank goodness they don’t know you work here.”

  She had a legitimate concern there. So far, I’d managed to keep my day job a secret from Gayle Trumbull, an independent reporter who had become the bane of my life. But I didn’t know how long that might last. If it got out to the lunatics, who thought I was crazy or demonic, who knows what they might do? Worse, if I lost my slot here, what would I do? Right now, without the singing gigs, my dog income and the few jobs Janna could get me were barely paying the bills.

  I finished with the collie and gave her a treat for being a good girl, then returned her to the cage to wait for her owner. Before I started the next pup, I took a quick break and ran a couple of doors down to pick up iced coffees for Heeni and me. I checked my phone messages and opened one from Janna.

  It read: Hey, gf, just reminding you re: Friday night’s party for my bro. Mom’s expecting u. Be there.

  Party? I frowned, then it clicked. Oh, yeah. Her younger brother, Andrew, had recently graduated from law school and had accepted a job in Los Angeles. Her mom wanted to send him off with a great going-away party and, of course, I had to be there.

  As I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t seen Janna’s parents in over a year. When we were in high school, I’d been over there several times a week to study, join them for dinner, and even gone on family picnics and excursions now and then. Since my accident, I’d been so caught up in my own world and subsequent problems that I hadn’t even seen them at Christmas.

  I sent a response telling her I’d be there and not to worry. I made a note to myself and added one to pick up a gift for Andy. I wished that Ferris would go with me, but he’d declined. He didn’t know Janna’s family that well. Besides, he told me he had some work to do on the music score he’d been working on. Sounded like an excuse to me.