“Seems like everyone hated the guy.”
“Except Martha. I don’t ever understand her life choices.”
“What possible tie could a man like that have to the occult?”
“Probably nothing, I’d say. Who’s to say the two murders are even connected?”
“They’ve just gotta be,” Sonja insisted. “If only we knew more about him.”
Emmy paused a moment and then snapped her fingers. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. I’m good friends with the coroner. He’s an older gentleman, comes in here some nights to take a load off after staring at dead bodies all day.”
“Makes sense.”
“I can try talking to him, see what he’ll tell me about Larry, maybe even get the time of death.”
“That would be terrific,” Sonja whispered. “That could help us rule out anyone with an alibi for the time.”
A bell rang in the back cutting into the conversation. “That’ll be your brunch. Let me grab it.”
“Sure thing,” Sonja said with a smile. Watching Emmy walk off, Sonja couldn’t help but feel as if she’d met a kindred spirit.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
It turned out Frank’s grandmother was in relatively good spirits. She claimed she had just forgotten her phone when she went out to grab some food. Frank’s assumption was that his grandmother was willing to bury any hurt feelings that may have come from the sudden death in order to remain, at least outwardly, in good spirits. However, her seemingly calculated actions to ignore contact with family spoke otherwise.
He had offered to give her a ride out to the ranch so she could be with the rest of the family. When she had refused, he instructed her to call Hannah as soon as possible when she got back to the hotel.
Somehow, Sonja felt bad for the old woman, despite the strange behavior she had in brushing off the murder like it was nothing. Of course, it wasn’t like Larry and Martha had been together a long time (less than a year in fact) but Sonja could hardly see how you couldn’t at least feel something when a significant other passed on—whether you had real deep rooted feelings for them or not.
After Frank had explained the situation thus far, they climbed into the sports car again. As Frank and Sonja drove back toward the ranch, she filled him in on all that had happened with her discussion with Emmy.
“Excellent, I hope she really can get us some hard facts about the murder.”
“I think having her on our side will help immensely.”
Looking over at her, Frank rose one eyebrow scoldingly. “Emmy’s a nice woman, Sonja, but she can be sort of a gossip and a busybody. I’d take anything she says with a grain of salt.”
Sonja resented that comment but let it slide. Emmy seemed awfully kind and sincere, and Sonja could hardly blame her for sharing potentially dangerous rumors with the local sheriff when they came up. That seemed like good citizenship, not gossip.
“They don’t call her Sinful Emmy for nothing,” he tacked on, trying to drive his point home.
“I thought you said that it was because she was a direct descendent of Sinful himself.”
“That’s true, but she also has a habit of getting involved where she shouldn’t.”
“Sounds like someone else you know,” Sonja jabbed, folding her arms and leaning back in her seat.
“Hey, that’s not the same thing, Sonj’.”
“Isn’t it?” she protested.
* * *
Upon arriving back at the ranch, Sonja got out of the car and informed Frank that she wanted to take a walk around the property to clear her head. This was partially true since she wanted to mull over all the facts she had so far in the murder, but she also needed to take a moment to cool off and realize that Frank wasn’t trying to be mean when he said things like “gossip” and “busy-body.”
When she had first moved to Haunted Falls, and gotten inadvertently involved in a murder case, Frank had treated her like she was, in fact, a gossip and a busybody. Listening to him talk about Emmy that way sort of hurt and reminded her of how harsh he had been at times.
She had later learned that his harshness was because he had a crush on her and was simply trying to keep her out of harm’s way, not that it ever did a lot of good.
Walking among the trees that bordered the ranch, Sonja noticed the air had taken on a sudden chill. Frosted leaves fell from the trees around her like a snow of auburn and red, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her body.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they might get some snow showers that night. If so, she was glad the Thompson’s had such a cozy wood burning stove that heated the house. She could even build her own little private fire in her bedroom if she wanted, to help her sleep.
Slowly, her thoughts drifted back to the murder. Something about the whole situation still bothered her, something about the way Larry had died, and something else about the murder weapon itself seemed to be weighing in on her mind, something she couldn’t quite grasp yet.
She decided to let it go until she at least heard more from Emmy. If she could get at least a few details about the body, time of death, and cause of death, then she might just be able to figure something out.
Passing a tree, she felt something scrape her coat and she stopped in her tracks. “Ouch,” she muttered. Glancing back at the tree she noticed the bark was all torn up and jagged, sticking out of the side of the tree like thorns on a rose bush.
“What the heck is this?” she muttered, examining the marks. It looked as if someone had taken an axe or large knife to the tree and hacked it to pieces. Some portions of the wood bled green, as if freshly cut, while others were a solid brown color, indicating age.
Taking a step back she had a sudden realization, the marks weren’t made haphazardly. They were specifically made in a strange symbol. She instantly thought of Baker and his investigation of the occult elements involved in the cow theft.
Reaching out to touch the gashes again, a horse’s neigh broke her concentration. Spinning around she found herself staring at a tall man astride his dark horse. Sonja was prepared to scream out for help, to run, to get as far away from the looming specter as fast as possible, until she realized there was something different about this horseman. The man on horseback didn’t have the solidity of Tar Face. Instead, she could look straight through the horse, and the man, to the other side of the pasture. Glancing up, she saw the pale face of a man above her—not a skull.
“Are you Sinful?” she whispered.
The specter nodded.
“What do you want?” she asked, aware that most ghosts wanted her to complete some task.
Sinful motioned with his head toward the far side of the trees, near the back of the pasture, indicating he wanted her to follow him.
“You want me to follow?”
He nodded in reply.
“O-okay,” she whispered reluctantly. “Lead the way.”
Turning his horse, he began to trot through the trees at a pace she could keep up with, but before she took her first step, her phone began to ring. Pulling it quickly out of her pocket, she saw it was a number she didn’t recognize and tried to silence it, but instead accidentally answered.
Looking back up, she realized that Sinful was gone.
CHAPTER18
* * *
“Hello?” Sonja whispered into her cell phone, almost as if she knew Sinful were still lurking somewhere nearby.
“Sonja?”
“This is her.”
“It’s Emmy.”
The young woman sighed, remembering she had given the saloon owner her phone number before she left.
“Emmy, how are you?”
“I just talked to the coroner.”
“And?” Sonja pressed.
“I’m not sure if it’s just that he’s getting lax about his job, or if he really liked the trail cookies I gave him, but he spilled.”
“What did he say?”
“Turns out Larry did die from the tomahawk wound, but not r
ight away. Looks like the actual cause of death was from blood loss. The weapon wasn’t deep enough to do any significant internal damage to his organs, but it did go deep enough to cause blood loss.”
“I see,” Sonja replied, mulling over the new facts.
“He said that whoever hit him from behind, either wasn’t trying very hard or just didn’t put enough oomph behind his swing.”
“Or hers,” Sonja interjected. “This could easily have been someone with a weaker arm, a woman who doesn’t work on a ranch or do much heavy lifting, or even someone who is older and just doesn’t have the same capacity as a younger assailant might have.”
“That doesn’t sound like Hank, then.”
“No, it doesn’t. I assume you have to be pretty strong to be a ranch hand.”
“Then who could it be?”
That was just it, Sonja had no new leads based on this information, at least nothing solid.
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh, he did mention something about the angle of the attack.”
“The angle?”
“Yeah, seems that the attacker was either taller than the victim, or was somehow standing on elevated ground.”
Sonja instantly thought of Tar Face, riding on horseback. Could that ghost have thrown the tomahawk himself? In her dream, he had just used a gun. Could a demon even wield a normal weapon?
“Did he tell you the time of death?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Sometime early last night, maybe around five or six.”
That made sense. At five or six it was already dark during the late autumn months. This new fact also meant that Hank definitely didn’t have an alibi for the time of death. At that time, he should have been at the Sinful Saloon and wasn’t.
“Did the coroner say anything else?”
“Yes, the victim had a lot of dirt caked under his fingernails, as if he were clawing his way out of a hole or something.”
Suddenly, a light when on in Sonja’s head. “No, he wasn’t trying to get out of somewhere, not a hole or anything like that.”
“Then what do you think it is?”
“When I first saw the body, I thought it had been dragged through the dirt and hid in the ditch,” she admitted. “I thought maybe he had struggled while being dragged, but that wasn’t it.”
“What then?” Emmy asked eagerly.
“He crawled through the dirt. Crawled until he finally passed out from blood loss in the ditch.”
* * *
Sonja returned to the ranch house where she refrained from telling Frank, or anyone else, the new information she had discovered. If the murder was committed by someone with a slightly weaker arm, it could easily have been Hannah or Martha—both who might have had the opportunity. Hannah had been at the ranch house cooking dinner for everyone while Sonja, Frank, and Frank Senior were finding the first body. No one was there to verify she was actually in the kitchen the whole time. Martha had driven off, but could easily have come back, parked somewhere secluded, and then killed him. Martha didn’t have any apparent motive, but Hannah had certainly hated the man.
The main issue with both Martha or Hannah being the murderer was that they were both short. Unless Paulson was already standing in the ditch with the assailant up above, then it just didn’t add up that it could be either of the women.
Of course, either one of them could have taken a horse and rode out to commit the crime.
In any case, a family member being the murderer was a thought that Sonja didn’t even want to consider, for Frank’s sake as well as her own, but she decided she had to be careful nonetheless.
That evening they ate a simple meal of beans and toast before all heading solemnly to bed. Sonja took a moment to apologize to Frank in the upstairs hallway for running off earlier without asking him to come along or telling him that he had hurt her feelings.
Frank, as always, said he completely understood. He knew that she probably needed some time alone, and he was okay with that, making Sonja wonder what she did to be lucky enough to date him.
He kissed her on the cheek and she went into her room. For the first time since she’d begun dating him, she wished he would actually kiss her.
* * *
Sonja woke up to the cold. The little fire she had made in her fireplace had long gone out, leaving nothing but a few smoldering ashes on the bricks. Stepping out of bed and padding across the wooden floor in her stockinged feet, she knelt at the fireplace to try and reignite the flames.
The cold air brushed her skin, and she wished her fire building skills were as good as Frank’s.
Grabbing fresh bundles of wood from the metal basket nearby, she placed them in the grate. Just then, she was interrupted by a familiar sound, a sound that sent chills all along her spine more than any brush of cold air could.
A horse’s neigh came from just outside her window. Standing up, she peeked out and, praying that it wasn’t the skull headed demon known as Tar Face. Sighing in relief, she saw Sinful astride his translucent horse outside. In the silver, moonlit night, bits of snow had begun to gently fall all around him, some of them even gliding through his figure. Raising a single black-gloved hand, he beckoned to her to come down to him.
This time she didn’t hesitate, throwing on her jacket and boots as quickly as possible. She’d ignored Sinful once now, and didn’t want to regret what might happen if she continued in the same manner. This was the most forward ghost she’d ever met. The fact that he appeared in full form right before her eyes was something different than other ghosts. Her other experience with supernatural beings was usually in glimpses, brief moments, and in poltergeist activity, where things moved around or items broke.
Slipping on her knit cap, she tiptoed down the creaky stairs and out the back door. Upon stepping out into the snowy cold weather, she noticed that Sinful had already ridden part way across the pasture and she hurried to catch up to him.
Again, as he had earlier that day, he paced his horse to a speed Sonja was able to keep up with. Snowflakes bit into her cheeks as she hurried along after him, across the pasture, through the field, and into the tree line that bordered the land.
Weaving back and forth among the natural grove, she kept Sinful in her sights until finally, he stopped dead. She walked up to him and shrugged her shoulders. “What? Why did I follow you out here?”
Pointing up, he directed her gaze to the tree.
As she focused her vision she realized she was staring at a wooden platform built around the tree about seven feet above the ground, a rope ladder rolled up at the top.
“What is that?” she asked.
Looking back, she noticed that Sinful had vanished once again.
CHAPTER 19
* * *
“Sonja? What the heck are you doing out here?”
The cautious sleuth jumped out of her own skin at the sound of Frank’s voice. “Sheesh. Did you have to sneak up on me?” she complained.
“Sorry, I just heard someone moving around then looked out to see you walking across the pasture.”
“You saw me?” she inquired, immediately wondering if he had seen Sinful as well.
“Yes,” he insisted. “It’s nearly five a.m.”
“Did you see anyone else?” she asked. “Someone on horseback?”
Frank shrugged. “No, no one. Why?”
“I thought I saw someone and followed them out here.”
“You followed someone?” he asked.
“Check this out.” Wandering a minute, she found a long branch that had fallen from one of the trees.
“What are you doing?” He rubbed his hands against his arms, trying to keep out the cold. “It’s snowing for heaven sakes.”
Reaching up with the branch she knocked the rope ladder so it came tumbling down, hanging just in reach. Frank’s eyes grew wide. “What is that?”
“A tree house of some sort,” she replied, coming up with the only name she knew for such a structure.
Moving under
the tree with her, he looked up at the little platform. “That’s not a tree house,” he commented, grabbing the ladder and beginning to climb.
“What is it then?”
In just a few short seconds he reached the top where he looked out. “It’s a platform some ranchers and farmers use to prune and pick fruit from trees. But this is an aspen, not an apple tree.”
Sonja grabbed the rope and hurriedly followed him up until she was standing there on the platform. “Would your dad need to prune this tree?”
“I doubt it,” he muttered. “This is just too weird.”
Looking around from atop the platform, Sonja could see out pretty far across the ranch, even all the way back to the ranch house.
“It’s cold,” Frank complained. “Come on, let’s head back. We can ask my dad about it when we get back to the house.” He crouched down to get on the ladder.
Glancing down, Sonja’s heart leapt in her chest. “Frank, stop.”
“What is it?”
“Look, look at this.” She pointed out toward the tree line.
Standing up he followed her finger to where she was pointing at. About thirty feet away was the ditch where Sonja had found the body.
“You can see the spot where the body fell from here,” Frank exclaimed. “Wait,” he puzzled over that thought for a moment. “What does that mean for our murderer?”
“I have a hunch, but I’ll need to do a little fact checking first.” She nodded to him. “Okay, let’s head back.”
“Wait,” he replied, this time spotting something himself. “Someone’s near the barn.”
Glancing out, she noticed a little bobbing light next to the barn, but it wasn’t a flashlight or lantern—it looked like a little floating fire. At the distance where they stood, it was difficult to see anything except the little flame. Sonja guessed it must be a torch. “Who the heck would use a torch instead of a lantern?”
Turkey and Terror: Book 6 in The Diner of the Dead Series Page 8
