by Teresa Trent
“Well, if you put it that way. You can call him Scout if you want to. I don’t mind.”
Libby put her arm around Zach’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you, dear, and I hope I have made another friend,” she said. She released Zach and scratched behind the puppy’s ear, bracelets clinking. I looked up at the front of the line and saw Clay and Lina Bonnet with their giant Rottweiler, Outlaw. I know that if I asked, Dr. Springer would tell me that not all Rottweilers are vicious dogs, but the Bonnets’ dog just looked mean. People would walk by him and he would snarl his lip up on one side and begin to growl.
Pastor Green, Ruby’s brother from the Pecan Bayou Community Church, smiled and attempted to approach the Bonnets. Their dog growled, and the pastor dropped his hand and hurried away. Just like the Bonnets, this dog was nothing to be trifled with. The more I watched them, the more I was sure they had lied about my dad. Clay Bonnet jerked the dog back into line while Lina fanned herself with a paper fan.
“Checking out your plaintiffs?” I was not aware that Adam Cole was once again standing right behind me. The scent of aftershave drifted my way as he spoke over my shoulder.
“Huh? No – well, maybe. I was just noticing how mean their dog was.”
“Not all dogs reflect their owners, you know.”
“That’s good, because I would never nickname you Sunshine.”
Elena Morris came running up, leading a brown and white border collie on a leash. “Am I late?” she asked. Elena looked different out of uniform with jean shorts and a red halter top on. She actually looked like a normal person, not the pushy photographer I had met last week.
“Not yet,” I answered.
“Nice to meet you,” Adam Cole extended his hand. “I’m Adam.”
“Elena.”
“Adam, this is the crime scene photographer and the newest member of the Pecan Bayou police force.”
“Oh, then we have some things to talk about. I’m the district attorney and one of the people who was shot.” He reached up and touched his arm. I could see the edge of a bandage sticking out from the sleeve of his shirt.
“You can get in line behind me and Sunshine,” he told her. Watching them walk to the back of the line, I felt a little less guilty about tricking him into dinner.
An eardrum-piercing squeal came from the flag-strewn platform.
“Ladies and gentlemen ... and dogs.” The mayor of Pecan Bayou stood up front, the mic towering over him. Our mayor was a giant of a man, figuratively speaking. Elmer Obermeyer fancied himself a baseball superfan, and many of his campaign speeches were riddled with baseball metaphors. “Let’s hit it out of the park! Vote for me, and it’s a home run!” Elmer went to high school with Nolan Ryan years back and made sure everyone knew they still stayed in touch.
“We’re about to start our parade down Main Street. Now, Benny’s Barbecue has agreed to close their doors for the duration of the parade so we don’t get any stragglers. Is everybody ready to parade?”
The crowd murmured in agreement. “Then let’s play ball!” he shouted. He pushed a button on a CD player that was hooked up to the speakers in the park, and we started walking to “Stars and Stripes Forever,” heading to a crowd of people now standing on the street or relaxing in lawn chairs. The Bonnets led the way with Clay holding on to Outlaw and Lina holding a sign that said “Bonnet Farms.” I had never thought of this as a way to advertise.
I could see my dad and George Beckman standing near the end of the parade route, ready to direct us around the corner. Even though my dad was on “limited duty” as the paper put it, over the tourist-packed holiday, there seemed to be no such thing. As we entered the official parade route, I noticed that all of the old downtown buildings were open for business. Maybe they hoped for a freak “middle of the summer even though it’s hot as heck” sale. Aunt Maggie sat in her white folding lawn chair in front of Earl’s. When she saw us in the parade she waved and cheered us on.
The heat bore down on us, and the sun was almost blinding our view. The dogs panted in unison, leaving trails of drool on the ground. Some of the old buildings had large upstairs windows and balconies to let in fresh air, a feature left over from the pre-air conditioning days. I couldn’t imagine living in Texas before the advent of air conditioning and didn’t know how people survived. It would have meant night after night of no sleep, tossing and turning in the muggy heat. No wonder they kept shouting “Remember the Alamo!” The people back then were so exhausted they had to remind each other.
Noodles and family who were now in front of us started moving. I nudged Butch, Zach and Danny to start moving. Zach and Danny had been practicing their princess waves just for the parade. They were politely holding up two fingers and waving them in the air to their adoring subjects. The music on the CD switched to the 1812 Overture, complete with cannon fire. The heat of the sun was relentless, and I was beginning to visualize a really nice tall glass of iced tea. A sparkle caught my eye as I squinted into the sun, and then I saw a cowboy standing up on the balcony above Simmons Hardware Store. He raised his gun, and I knew immediately that this was a repeat of my dinner date.
“Look, Mom, there’s a cowboy up there,” Zach said. Many of the other paraders looked up and pointed.
“Free ice cream at Earl’s Java!” I yelled, and the paraders and crowd all rose and crowded into sleepy Earl’s establishment. Children and dogs headed for the door with the coffee bean nested in a big E. I heard a shot and then a dog yelp but continued to push the boys out of the street.
The figure on the balcony was gone and then instantly reappeared across the street in another window. I waited for him to shoot, but he didn’t raise his hands from his sides. The cowboy just stood there looking out at us.
“Betsy, can we get ice cream?” Danny asked. I looked up into the window again, but now there was nobody there.
Out in the street I could see Noodles lying on the pavement, blood running from him. George Beckman walked into the street, speaking into his shoulder walkie, “Poodle down, please advise.”
Then I heard my dad crackling through the static on the other end, “Dammit George, forget the dog and try to find the shooter.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I’m tryin’ to tell you folks, I don’t serve ice cream here. This is a coffee shop,” Earl said, wiping his hands on his apron.
“But they said free ice cream.”
“Who said it?”
I pulled the boys back toward the doorway.
“Where’s Mama?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I have to find Mama,” Danny said.
“No, we need to stay here until Uncle Judd tells us it’s safe.”
“Is he with Mama?”
“Probably.” I had no idea where my father was or if Maggie was with him. Having Danny walking around out there was not an option. He outweighed me by about 60 pounds, and stopping him would have been difficult. After losing his father, Danny’s greatest fear was losing his mom.
“Oh! My Noodles!” Mellie Nicholson cried from behind me. “Why did he have to go and shoot Noodles?” Much to Earl’s relief, the assembled crowd turned their attention to her and her granddaughter. They were still unaware of anything other than free ice cream. Had the shooter wanted to kill the dog? I was beginning to become leery of duded-up cowboys. I wondered if I hadn’t been the object of the shooter, who just happened to be a lousy shot.
“It was the ghost of Charlie Loper,” one old man said in the crowd. “I recognized his six gun. He’s back to right the wrong perpetrated against his daughter by this town.”
People all around him whispered in agreement. “He’ll not rest until he searches out the wrongdoers.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, raising my hand before the man procured a posse and a hanging rope. “If he is after the wrongdoers, wouldn’t that have been Hunter Grayson, the butler who was stealing from her? Why would he randomly target a poodle in the parade?”
�
�Don’t know, but he was shooting at Ben’s Bayou Restaurant just a few days ago.”
“Betsy was there, she knows about that,” Danny volunteered. The crowd’s eyes now turned toward me.
The old man’s bony finger extended across the room to me. “It’s you! You’re the one the ghost wants. What have you done to his daughter? Were you in cahoots with the butler?”
I could feel the crowd moving in on me even though no one had taken a step. My grasp on Zach tightened.
“First of all, there’s no such thing as a ghost who shoots live bullets. Second, I didn’t even know that woman lived in that house until our dog crawled under her gate.”
“That’s it. Charlie Loper thinks you stole her dog.”
Zach squared off with his hands on his hips. “We never stole that dog. She stole him from us.”
“Yeah,” Danny said, duplicating Zach’s pose.
“How could you?” Mellie Nicholson said. “How could you endanger all of us with your petty squabble with a ... ghost?”
“We need to get away from this woman. She’s raised the ire of the ghost,” the old man said, pointing that bony finger my way. In silent agreement, the people rose from the floor and started leaving the store, glancing back at us.
“I don’t think it’s safe to leave yet,” I said.
“It’s a hell of a lot safer than being around you,” said the old man. He picked up his dachshund, decorated like a hot dog, and hugged it to his chest.
As the people started toward the doorway, it became filled with my father and George, standing there blocking their way.
“Sorry, folks. I’m going to have to ask you to stay for just a few more minutes,” my father said.
“It’s not safe here. That woman is going to get us all killed!” one woman shrieked. “We have to get the children out.”
“What woman?” my father asked. They all turned and pointed to me. My father smiled and nodded.
“I think you’re safe, but why would being around her make you targets?”
“Because,” Nora Nicholson said, “obviously if you had been paying attention, Officer, you would have put together the clues that this lady is the person the cowboy was trying to hit. He tried to kill her at the restaurant and now in the parade. It’s her fault that the cowboy ghost shot my grandma’s dog.”
“Ya know, you got a point there,” Judd drawled. “Still, I need to ask you-all some questions.” With that the crowd collectively groaned, and I started to feel a little less like I was about to be lynched.
“I saw the ghost of Charlie Loper up on the balcony over at Simmons Hardware,” a man in the crowd said.
“No,” said another woman, “he was in the window over the locksmith shop. It was clear as day.”
“No, no, he’s right,” said Nora. “I saw him too, and it was over Simmons Hardware where Santa Claus stands every year at Christmas.”
“Dad,” I said, “not to complicate things any more than I have already, but I saw him in both places – first over the hardware store and then over the locksmith shop.”
“How long in between those two sightings?”
“That’s the weird part. I saw him over the hardware store. Then, only seconds later, he was over the locksmith store.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“I saw one when he was over the hardware store,” I said. “When he was in the upper window of the locksmith shop, he just stood there with his arms to his side, and the next time I looked he was gone.”
“Ghosts can’t hold their earthly orbs for too long, you know,” my Aunt Maggie said, pushing her way through the door.
“Mama!” shouted Danny, who jumped up and hugged her small form.
“You knew I’d find you bubby,” she said. “Besides, I knew you were safe and sound with Betsy and Zach.”
“And Butch. Don’t forget Butch,” Danny said, smiling.
Maggie turned to face the crowd. “I am a member of the Pecan Bayou Paranormal Society, and I can tell you that Charlie Loper probably expended all of his energy just shootin’ at that poor unfortunate dog.”
The crowd nodded, respecting the expert in the room. Too bad I didn’t quite agree with her theory. Where does a ghost get a gun? The haunted pawn shop?
“Maggie,” my father said. “Did you see this cowboy?”
“Yes, I did. He appeared to me as a full apparition over Simmons Hardware.”
“Did you see him on the other side?”
“No, sorry to say, that was all I experienced.”
“What about Noodles?” Mellie Nicholson said.
George cut in. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re finding Dr. Springer to see to your dog. Someone said she ran back to the clinic to get something right before the parade.”
I hadn’t seen Dr. Springer since the beginning of the parade when she was lining us up. I would have thought she would have stayed to see the parade she worked so hard to organize. Hopefully she would get to Noodles soon, but from the looks of the dog, the bullet had ended its life. A few inches more and it might have been me laying out that street. I shivered at the thought of it. Had the shooter been trying to get me? And if so, what for? I had never done anything but discover Hunter Grayson. Maybe it was really the ghost of Hunter Grayson back to get me for climbing his stupid fence.
Now that the crowd had settled down and begun to disperse, I gathered Zach and Butch to leave. Maggie and Danny followed behind us. How could the shooter be on both sides of the street at the same time? Was there really a pistol-packing ghost out there? It almost made me want to believe it. That was the easiest theory.
As we entered Main Street I saw several others straggling out of the stores and folding up chairs. Mayor Obermeyer was straightening his toupee as Rocky Whitson was attempting to get a “man on the street” interview from him for the paper. Benny’s Barbecue had reopened its doors, no longer worrying about dogs straying in. Several people were now rocking in the rocking chairs usually filled by tourists, drinking sweet tea and fanning themselves in the heat.
Noodles was still in a sad heap in the street. From behind me, Mellie Nicholson and her granddaughter ran out to their dog. A mournful wail came from Mellie as she approached the dog.
“Betsy. Will the white dog be all right?” Danny asked.
“I don’t think so, Danny.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Don’t worry about him,” Aunt Maggie said. “Dr. Springer will do all she can for the dog, but sometimes...”
I looked up to the balcony where the cowboy shooter had stood. It couldn’t have really been the ghost of Charlie Loper. Whoever it was had to have entered through Simmons Hardware and then taken the stairs in the back behind the windshield wiper display.
“We were lucky,” Zach said. “It could have been Butch. Just what did Charlie Loper have against dogs anyway?”
I didn’t stop to correct him and to acknowledge what was going on in my head. Charlie Loper – or whoever it was – hadn’t been aiming for the dog. He had been aiming for me.
“Are you okay?” Adam Cole came from around the corner holding the leashes of both Sunshine and Elena Morris’s border collie.
“Yes, we’re fine,” I said, “but the dog in front of us was shot. Where is Elena? Is she all right?” Adam glanced out into the street where Noodles was awaiting veterinary assistance.
“Elena is fine. She had to work the scene, so she handed me her dog. You know, Betsy, nothing personal, but I’m really glad I got bumped in line. Being next to you seems to be a dangerous thing.”
“Yes, I need to put that on my dating profile – ‘draws sniper fire.’”
“Well, look, the two of you are together again and there’s a shooting!” Rocky snapped a picture, leaving a flash trailing across my eyeballs.
“Rocky, I hate to disappoint you, but Adam and I were not standing together this time.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “The town will want to know what local celebrities were vict
ims to the specter of Charlie Loper.”
“Really? That’s the headline you’re going with, Rocky?”
“Ghosts sell papers, sweetheart.”
“Ghosts don’t shoot guns,” I said.
“Nope, but that’s not my problem.” Rocky started walking away with his camera.
I shouted after him. “Rocky, I don’t give you my permission to use that picture! The last one got me in trouble with...” I stopped cold. Did I really want to announce my relationship status across Main Street?
“With whom?” Adam asked.
“With ... oh ... It’s none of your business.”
I turned and discovered that Maggie had taken Danny, Zach and the puppy into the ice cream parlor, which was now having the biggest rush in its history of doing business. I knew Maggie was probably trying to get her son and nephew away from the now-dead corpse of Noodles. I turned back to Adam.
“I need to go,” I said and started walking across the street to Simmons Hardware.
“You know, Betsy, now that I’ve been here a while, I’ve started hearing stories about you,” he said.
“Not all bad, I hope.”
“No, but you do seem to run across an inordinate amount of crime scenes. I don’t know whether to arrest you or put you on the payroll.”
“Money’s always nice,” I said and ducked into Simmons. I made my way to the back of the store and tried the door to the stairs. I had never really been up the stairs before, although I had seen the door open from time to time. I shot up the stairs and found a storeroom with boxes stacked high containing various auto repair manuals. I squirmed through them and found Pecan Bayou crime scene tape stretched across the doors that led to the balcony. Here we were in small-town Texas with our very own book depository crime scene. I didn’t need to see so much where the shooter stood but needed to know how he could have gotten from one side of the street to the other so quickly. I glanced at the second hand on my watch and started down the stairs and took the back alley behind the store. From there I ran around the other store. The only way I could get across the street in a hurry would be to actually cross the street. The ghost of Charlie Loper would have stuck out in full cowboy garb. There was no way a shooter could get from one side to the other in that amount of time.
