Puzzle (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  I’m here until we finish,” Audrey said. “My calendar is clear.”

  Mike smiled. “I’m glad. You’re a tremendous asset to the team. I hope you know that.”

  “I know my worth, and I’m pleased to be of help. Plus it’s exciting!”

  “Were you always so G Damn enthusiastic?” he complained.

  “My whole life.”

  “You know there are drugs for this condition,” Mike joked.

  Mia came running back. She had a new PEEPs pack on her back that was pulling her shoulders back alarmingly.

  “What the hell is in there? It’s too heavy,” Mike said as he eased the pack off her back.

  “Ted’s emergency supplies. I couldn’t leave without it. A satellite linkup, Tiny Tina video camera, rock salt shells for my shotgun, a box of Little Debbie’s cake rolls, and a thermos of coffee,” she listed. “Come on, I’m driving. The rest of the stuff we’ll need is in the back of the truck.” Mia started off and stopped. “Audrey, Ted says to bring your laptop, and stop at the store for some garlic.”

  “Very funny,” Audrey said.

  “Don’t kill the messenger,” Mia insisted as she all but danced to the truck.

  “I think your enthusiasm virus is airborne,” Mike warned.

  “Come on, a few days in the hospital with a few nurses, and you’ll be your old lecherous self,” she said grabbing his hand.

  “Promises, promises.” Mike took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled along.

  Burt stood looking at the spectacle of the trio leaving and commented, “That’s not something you see every day.”

  “What?” Cid asked, sticking his head out of the truck.

  “Mike Dupree holding hands, skipping with a little redhead girl,” he said glumly.

  “Come on, Charlie Brown, she’s safe. Mia’s along to keep Mike in gentleman mode.” Cid put a hand on Burt’s back. “She’ll tear his nuts off before she’ll let Mike make a move on Audrey.”

  Burt nodded. He still didn’t like it, but he really didn’t have a choice.

  CRACK!

  Burt jumped two feet. “Ted, Murphy’s talking. What does he want?”

  Ted didn’t bother to look up from the console and answered, “Says you’re an eejit for not corralling that filly when you had the chance.”

  “You got that all from one crack?” Cid asked.

  “It was all in the inflection of the crack,” Ted said and continued typing.

  ~

  Aside from the yard being overgrown, the little house looked quite harmless. Mia pulled the truck around so it headed out of the gravel drive before she parked it. Mike was used to Mia’s exit strategy. Audrey was about to ask the question when Mia answered it for her. “Always park your vehicle for an easy getaway. If something happens to me, there is a spare ignition key duct-taped under the steering column.”

  “But surely you don’t expect…”

  “Expect the worse and plan for it,” Mia instructed. “This procedure has saved my butt a number of times.”

  “Okay, fellow investigators, let’s venture forth. I kind of expect Aunt Bee to open that door at any moment,” Mike said.

  “Or the ghost of Aunt Bee,” Mia said.

  “Cut it out, you’re scaring our recruit,” Mike ordered.

  Mia laughed, hopped out of the truck and strode to the house. Mike got out and assisted Audrey down before following her.

  Audrey felt the tug of war between the two of them. She knew on both sides there was regard, but yet neither of them wanted to lose control of a situation, no matter who it was agreed upon was in charge.

  Mike opened the door of the house, and the aroma of dried herbs filled the air. He reached in and found a light switch and turned it on. A barren parlor greeted them. It had a clean but shabby Turkish rug on the wood floor and one chair tucked in the corner. But that was all.

  “I guess all the man needed was a chair,” Audrey commented.

  Mia headed into the kitchen and began opening the white cupboard doors. Inside were dozens of cup hooks, and hanging from them were small bundles of dried vegetation. “Monkshood, sage, hemlock, pot, peyote,” Mia listed as she examined the bundles.

  “Whoa, go back one,” Mike said. “The gym teacher was growing pot?”

  “Don’t know, but he collected it. And what do we have here?” Mia said as she opened the next cupboard. “Batwing, dead man’s ash, ew, it’s some kind of eyeball.” Mia tsk tsked. “The man was into some traditional spell casting.”

  Audrey’s arms flushed with goosepimples. “Guys, it’s getting cold in here,” she warned.

  Mia turned around and saw a black mass trying to form behind Audrey. It was wavering. Mia pulled out a mini cube of batteries and lit it and set it on the floor in the path of the twirling smoke. She waved Mike and Audrey behind her with one hand, the other cocked the sawed-off shotgun. “Touch the light,” she instructed the mass. “It will help you to form. You must be starved,” Mia said in a gentle voice.

  The mass moved forward and hovered over the cube. Slowly the smoke changed form, and as it morphed, a withered old woman stepped forth.

  Mike and Audrey’s intake of breath told Mia they could see the ghost too. She lowered the shotgun and asked, “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Gladys King,” the ghost answered in a voice more akin to a raspy whisper than anything else. “Where’s Stewart?”

  “Gladys, your grand… great grandchild has died. His widow, Susan, gave us permission to come here. If you want us to leave, we will,” Mia offered.

  “NO!” Gladys cried, putting her hands to her face. “Died? You mean murdered!”

  “He was found hanging by his neck in the school’s gymnasium. Looks like he climbed a rope, tied a noose with another rope and hung himself,” Mia said coldly.

  “Deville!”

  “I’m sorry?” Mia said. “Deville?”

  Gladys moved to the living room and pointed to a portrait on the wall.

  Mike moved past Mia and walked boldly by Gladys. He picked up the portrait and turned it so Mia and Audrey could see it. There dressed in a Union officer’s uniform was Trevor Deville. Mike looked at the back of the portrait and read, “Property of the Hansenville Historical Society.”

  “How did Deville get a hold of your great grandson?” Mia asked boldly.

  “Damn fool was messing around with Emma Peat’s book,” Gladys said, pointing to the bookshelf.

  Audrey pulled herself together and walked over to the shelf. She lifted a plastic-encased volume. She also grabbed a diary while she had the chance.

  “Emma Peat, was she a witch?” Mia inquired.

  “She claimed her daddy was one. Her daughter sold my poor Stewart the book for ten dollars at a garage sale. See the orange sticker on the back?”

  Audrey turned the heavy volume over and nodded.

  “Why are you here, old woman?” Mia asked.

  “Stuck, stuck, stuck. The ground was frozen when I passed. They buried me in the cellar. I’m there still. No Christian burial for old granny, no siree. They plumb forgot about me.”

  “Did Stewart know you were here?”

  She shook her head sadly. “I had no energy. I could only watch the foolish boy. Deville saw me and wouldn’t tell Stewart of my plight, no matter how I begged. His name should have been Devil.”

  “Would you like to leave here? Be buried in a graveyard, in consecrated ground?”

  “Let me think on it a while, child.” With that said, the ghost that was Granny King dissipated.

  Mia bent down and began to roll up the carpet. She exposed markings chalked into the wood of the floor. She scratched at some puddles of dried wax with her penknife, bringing the wax to her nose. She winced. “I don’t know what all this is. Wouldn’t hurt to bring a Wiccan in. Maybe some of the symbols would be familiar to them. I wouldn’t expect much. I get the feeling like all this is somehow made up. I see Egyptian markings, Sumerian and Haitian.” Mia looked up at Audrey’
s puzzled face. “My mother wrote a lot of papers, I read a few,” she explained. “Look for as much evidence as you can, books, papers and blood. There had to have been a sacrifice.”

  Mike and Audrey examined every book, fanning the pages looking for proof. They had moved into what was a bedroom at one time and searched the furniture inside. Mia meanwhile took pictures of the floor. She had just rolled the carpet back when she heard a footfall on the porch. She raised her gun and backed into the corner, watching as the knob turned on the door. “Heads up, we have company.”

  Mike walked out of the bedroom as the door flew inward. There standing in the door was a very real shotgun held by a pissed-off elderly man.

  “What in the name of all that is holy is going on in here?” he demanded.

  “Hello, sir, my name is Mike Dupree, and your daughter-in-law gave me permission to be here.” He held out the keys as proof.

  “Don’t care. She oughtn’t have done that. Hand me those keys and get out!”

  Mia heard the window in the bedroom open and close. She covered the noise by coughing. She quickly tucked her sawed-off shotgun in the back of her pants.

  The old man swung his gun towards the sound. Mia walked out of the darkness with her hands up. “Don’t shoot me, old man, I’ve just come here about Gladys.”

  “Grandma? What do you want with her?”

  Mia nodded for Mike to move towards the door. “I hear you have her bones in the cellar. Shame on you!”

  “I didn’t do that, my kin did. The ground was frozen when she went.”

  “Is the ground frozen now?” Mia challenged, watching as Mike cleared the doorway and was out of the house. “Seems to me you have a churchyard not two miles from here, but yet you keep granny in the basement, shameful!” Mia condemned.

  The man lowered his gun. “You’re right, young lady. I’ll call the pastor and see what can be done.”

  “See that you do that. I’ll be back to check on it,” she warned as she walked past him. She turned around and backed out the door. “Goodbye, sir, and have a good day.” Mia shut the door and took off running. Mike had the truck started, and Mia hopped in the truck bed as he tore off down the drive. He didn’t stop until he had passed the churchyard.

  Mia climbed into the cab, and he pulled back onto the road. “Please tell me we have Emma’s book and the diary,” Mia asked.

  “That and more. While you two were entertaining in the parlor, I was stripping the bedding, and I found this under the bed.” Audrey pointed to the floor of the passenger side where a small chest, a miniature of the one they found buried in the woods by the school, sat.

  Mia whistled. “What an investigator, not only smart but larcenous. Stay away from the Callens, you’ll send them a mixed message.”

  “Why, Mia Cooper, who are you, calling the kettle black, shameful!” Mike said, imitating her condemnation of the gun-toting King.

  Mia started laughing. “I thought that booger was going to blow your head off, Dupree.”

  “Me too. Thanks for speaking up.”

  “I didn’t have a choice, Audrey was making so much noise in the bedroom,” Mia claimed, shutting her eyes, waiting for Audrey’s rebuttal.

  “I was not noisy!” she argued and looked over at Mia and smacked her hard on the thigh. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?”

  “Shameful!” both Audrey and Mike crowed.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ira sat in companionable silence with Shelby and his men around a blue flame that burned cold, in the middle of the stage of the little theater. Ira heard the hum of the floor buffer in the distance. The janitor was working endlessly cleaning his floors.

  “When I first saw that contraption,” Sergeant Vane said in reference to the whirl of the machine, “I thought the devil had come to take me to hell.”

  “You should have seen him, boy. He climbed nearly up into my arms,” Shelby teased.

  Vane glared at him before continuing, “We flattened ourselves against the wall. He passed us as if we weren’t there. I thought he couldn’t see us, but as he moved by he pointed down the hall. There standing, watching us was that monster with the broken neck. We gave chase, but he knows this building better than us, and he escaped.”

  “I had a similar experience. It’s like the cleaner is unaware and aware at the same time. If he is for us or against us, I have yet to figure out,” Ira mused.

  “I’d steer clear of him, Inky. I think the man’s just doing his job. Maybe it’s part of his purgatory,” Shelby advised.

  “Are we serving ours, Cap’n?” one of the brothers asked. “I didn’t do anything that wasn’t asked of me. Ma said, ‘Ernest, you are the best well-behaved son I have.’ Although, I think she favored you, Edwin,” he quickly added.

  Edwin pulled his hat down over his face in embarrassment.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Shelby admitted.

  “Am I?” Ira said.

  “You can’t, you ain’t dead,” a gruff voice said behind him.

  Ira spun around to see a specter so vital, he swore he could see a glint of light coming off the sharp edge of his axe. He scooted back.

  “Careful the fire, son,” the axe man warned.

  “Wah,” is all that would come out of Ira’s mouth.

  “You have to excuse Inky. He’s not used to you yet, Murphy,” Shelby apologized. “Boy, Murphy is one of the good guys.”

  “Is he the axe man Morgan told me about?”

  “Depends on what that liar told you,” Vane spat.

  “Just that he ‘walked out with her,’ whatever that means,” Ira answered.

  “It means they are courting,” Vane explained. “Are you, Murphy, are you courting Mia?”

  “She ain’t dead,” was the only explanation Murphy would give. “You ain’t dead, boy, just like she ain’t dead.”

  “I’m confused.”

  Murphy set his axe down, pushed his hat back and thought a bit before speaking, “Mia can travel out of her body and walk around like a spirit, but not.”

  “Bilocate? I read that some gurus can do that. You’re telling me that I’m not dead but out of my body?” Ira asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How did this happen, and how do I get back in?”

  “Don’t know. Mia knows. She can’t get in here to help you. You can’t get out there to be helped. Stuck.”

  “What’s sticking me?” Ira asked.

  “Hex.”

  “Deville!” Vane hissed. “I hear tell that man was rolling in the blood of that N’awlins family when they found him.”

  “But how did he know I was here? He knows now, but I didn’t even know I was here until…”

  “Friday,” Murphy filled in. “Don’t know much, but I know that he did something to the building to keep us out and maybe the coach’s spirit in. I think you were what they call on the television ‘collateral damage,’” Murphy explained. He looked at the boy and saw that Ira understood. The veterans were lost, but that would be expected as they didn’t know what television was yet. He didn’t know if this was a good thing or not. He felt a bit dependent on TV lately, as if it were hooch.

  “I can tell you that I’m relieved that I’m not dead. No offence, sirs,” Ira added.

  “She’ll figure it out and come for you. She says to tell you that you can change yourself if you have to. To hide. You need to hide from…”

  “Deville,” Shelby reminded the farmer.

  “Deville, he is an evil spirit. Powerful. Morgan, too, is evil but not powerful.”

  “Why is Deville in Coach’s body?” Ira asked.

  “Hex,” was all Murphy would say.

  “Mr. Murphy, I overheard Morgan and Deville talking. He wants to take control of the tall smart guy. He mentioned there is a younger guy for Morgan, maybe one of the kids. Warn them that they are in danger.”

  “Already tried to take Cid, we stopped him. Didn’t know about Ted.”

  “We’ll protect the boy
,” Shelby promised. “You go back and tell Mia, he’s alright. We know about Morgan, and he won’t be welcome at our fire. And warn this Ted to watch his back.”

  Murphy got up, put his axe over his shoulder, tipped his hat, and faded away.

  ~

  I haven’t been feeling myself lately. I don’t know if it is the pressure at work or something else. Ague, do people get ague anymore?

  Audrey looked up from the diary. Mike and Mia were inside the diner procuring food for the PEEPs team. She chose to stay in the truck and start skimming Stewart King’s diary, looking for anything that would help them in the investigation.

  I’m easily angered and find myself worried more and more. The GP says that he can’t find anything wrong with me. Suggested I cut down on coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I’m going to look through some of Granny’s books. Maybe there is an herbal remedy for this listless feeling.

  Today was a good day. I joined Susan on her garage sale visits since her friend Mavis cancelled. I found an extra pull cord for the mower and some interesting books stuffed in a cardboard box underneath a cast-iron pan Susan was interested in. I took the whole box, sight unseen, for thirty dollars. I’ve already found a Stephen King first edition! EBay here I come!

  Audrey took out a sticky note and wrote, beginning of the end, on it. She looked up and saw Mia and Mike stumbling to the car under the weight of a massive amount of food bags. Audrey opened the door and offered her assistance.

  Once they were settled in and driving, Mia asked, “Find anything of interest?”

  “Yes, I think the diary is going to be a wealth of information. I have confirmation that the coach picked up a box of books from a garage sale. This confirms Granny King’s story about Emma Peat’s book.” Audrey thought a moment. “I think I’ll read this through before starting on Miss Peat’s book. Frankly, it scares me, messing with magic, especially black magic,” Audrey confessed.

  “I could look at the book. I’ll be careful not to hex anyone accidentally,” Mia promised.

  “Not even Mike?” Audrey teased.

  “Well, I can’t promise that…”